Archive for the ‘Florida’ Category

Next year will be the year of travel for me as I will be going on 2, maybe 3 different trips for ME!!  I wonder how I’ll do since only one of them will be with the family, the other one (or two) will be just me, no Paul or kids.  I know I’ll have a good time, but I also know I’m going to be missing the kids like crazy.  Especially at bed time as I love to snuggle with Kevin & Katie.  I swear that’s my favorite part of the day.

In January I’ll be heading out to Vegas with my friend who will be turning the big 4-0.   When we first started talking about going somewhere we thought about looking at what kind of mexico vacation deals there were out there, but ended up deciding on Vegas since there are usually some really cheap airline flights out there which was making us think more people would be more apt to go out there versus Mexico.

Then in February I’ll be heading south with Paul and the kids for a couple weeks.  The first week will be spent in the Orlando area where we ended up renting Scrub Jay Villa for a week!  Paul’s parents are planning on coming up and spending a couple nights with us so they can go to Disney with us for one of the days.  Then the following week we will be driving over to Orange Beach, Alabama where we will be spending that week with my parents.   We did the exact same thing last year and it actually worked out great because we played hard at Disney and then by the time we got to Orange Beach we were ready to kick back, relax and listen to those waves crash on the beach.

Then my finally trip of the year would be out to see my friend in Portland, OR.   The only reason why I can’t say for sure I’m going is because I don’t have the dates scheduled in yet, or the money saved up.  I know my friend had said spring would be the best time, but with me going away in Jan & Feb, I don’t know if it would be to much to also go away in March or April.  It would be kind of nice if I could go more in the fall, that way I also would have time to save up for it as I know the airline tickets out there can be quite expensive.

Oh how I wish it was 2010 already!

As you can see by my previous post we once again will be heading down to the Orlando area this upcoming year. I always assumed that we would just do Disney like he have the past couple years, but now Paul and I are rethinking things due to having some of our friends tell us that Sea World, Busch Gardens and Universal Studio’s are fun as well and we should really do those. So now I’m not sure where to go.

Yes, we have done Disney, but we honestly have never done it all yet and I’m sure we could go all 6/7 days there and not get bored, but by looking at the other websites they look like fun too.

So here is my question for my readers. If you were going to the orlando area with a 4 & 6 year old, where would you go? Is Busch Garden more for the bigger kids? (Katie is only 37″ right now)

Any advice on ANY of the parks would be greatly appreciated!

I know it’s a little early, but I’m already dreaming about our vacation to Florida and Alabama.   All four of us can’t wait to go to Disney again, but we have heard some good things regarding Busch Gardens.  One of Paul’s friends went to Busch Gardens and didn’t up liking it so much that they never did make it to Disney.

Have you ever gone to Busch Garden’s with little kids?  I went online and it seemed like most of the rides seen to be for older kids.  Kevin & Katie will be 4 & 6 (they are on the shorter size for their age) and I keep wondering if it would be worth our time to go there or not.  Do they have a lot of stuff for the little kids too?   Would you do 1/2 Disney, 1/2 Busch Gardens?  Or would you just do Disney?  Or maybe pretty much all Disney and 1 day of Busch Gardens?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

WOW! It’s been that long since I’ve blogged about anything! OOPS! I’m sure most of you (at least my family members that I haven’t called) are wondering how our vacation is going. Things are going pretty good!

Last Tuesday (Has it already been a week since we left!) we left after Kevin got out of school and drove down to Goshen to visit my Aunt Margo. Usually we take a different way, but this year I thought lets take this way so we could visit her. Now I know why as there was a big pile up on the expressway we usually take and we would of been stuck in that big mess.

After visiting with my Aunt for awhile we hit the LONG road for our next destination.. Macon Georgia so we could visit the Museum of Aviation. Kevin fought like crazy on going to sleep as he didn’t want to miss a thing. Katie did too, but thankfully they did sleep for a couple hours so I could get a little sleep. We finally arrived at the Museum, but Kevin wasn’t to interested. I think it was because he got spoiled at Kalamazoo’s Air Zoo. That too is a air museum, but it also has some rides for the kids to ride on and he was in the ride mode as our next destination was Disney!

We arrived in the Orlando area Wednesday night and spent the night in the hotel and then arrived at our villa rental on Thursday!   I was very surprised on how nice it was as the pictures did not do it any justice.  Since we did arrive before noon we decided day 1 of Disney was in order and off we went!

Disney Day 1 ~  The first thing we did was we took Katie over to the barber shop in the Magic Kingdom.  In case you don’t know.. there is a barber shop there and they will cut kids hair for $14 and adults for $17!  If it’s a childs first haircut (and it was Katie’s) then they give them Mickey Ears with the back that says First Haircut and also a certificate noting the first haircut as well (as well as wrapping the hair in tissue for you).  Then she ended up putting her hair up in a pony tail and added “pixie dust”!  (She even put some in Kevin’s hair too!)   The crowd level wasn’t bad at all as we didn’t have that many long waits.  The longest was Peter Pan and I think we waited about 40 minutes otherwise it was 10-20 minute waits if that even!

Disney Day 2 ~ We ended up going to Animal Kingdom this day as Paul’s parents were going to be coming up and staying with us for a couple nights and since the park closes at 5pm we thought that way we wouldn’t be missing anything.  We got there after the park opened and the crowds weren’t that bad either.  We didn’t have that long of a wait for the Safari ride or It’s a bugs life.  Other than that we really didn’t do many other rides.  We did see a lot of characters there and the kids got their pictures with them.   (Rafiki, Pocahontas, Jiminy Cricket, Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Bear from Brother Bear)  We did learn one thing… our kids both love riding rides so we decided from now on we will just be doing the Magic Kingdom.

Disney Day 3 ~ Paul’s folks were staying with us and went to Disney with us as well!  Since they were there, Paul and I took advantage of it and while they took the kids on the Putt Putt cars, Paul and I went on Space Mountain!  Since it was early morning we were able to ride it twice before the line started forming.  The 2nd time riding it Paul got to ride in the front car and he said that was amazing!  The crowds were a lot busier on this day as it was a Saturday and the weather finally was warmer!  We ended up staying the whole day and watched the spectromagic parade and fireworks.

We then took a day off to go back to Magic Kingdom yesterday!  We couldn’t of done things any better yesterday except of gotten there when the gates opened.  We still got there early where we were just about able to walk onto the rides.  Then around lunch time we headed home for the afternoon.  When we went back we got to ride in the front of the monorail with the driver!  It’s just so much fun to ride up front because you can see everything.  By the times we got to Magic Kingdom people were already leaving and we once again didn’t have to wait that long for the rides we were looking to ride.  Instead of watching the night time parade we ended up riding more rides and what was really cool was we had just got on the Astro Orbiter when the fireworks started so it was cool to be flying in the rockets watching the fireworks!

Today was another day to veg around the house, but then tonight we ended up goign to the Cinderella Gala Feast at the Grand Floridian.  Can I just say I can’t wait to get home to download my video I took of the kids dancing with Cinderella, Kevin getting a kiss from Cinderella and then Kevin dancing with Drizella.  At least you will have something to look forward to now right??

If you will be heading down to Florida and are looking for a place to rent, whatever you do, DO NOT rent from George (also will spell it Jorge at times) Gomez!!  When we had found him he was on VRBO.com, but then they found out the truth about him and kicked him off.  Then he informed me that he had a new website called Fineline Villas.   Just so you know, he will take your money and tell you everything is ok, but when you arrive down in the Orlando area (not sure where else he might have places) you more than likely won’t have a place to stay as he will rent out condo’s/Villa’s that aren’t his!    If you happen to find out that he is a scammer like we did and cancel before his deadline where he will give you your deposit back,  He will promise to mail it, but I can guarantee you won’t ever see it since it’s been 5 months now and we haven’t see a penny of ours!  Plus I just found out right now he has ANOTHER website besides finelinevillas.com it’s flvorlando.com, so STAY AWAY from there!! 

I really wish we would of had travel insurance before booking that trip as maybe they would of been able to help us get our deposit back since the State of Florida has been failing us.  We have contacted the authorities, attorney generals office, US Postal Service, and I don’t remember who else and no one has been able to help us.  Of course with them letting this guy get away with this (We know of at least 10 other people this has happened to) it looses my faith in the State of Florida!  You would think they (the state & Orlando) would be worrying about people not wanting to come back because of this kind of fraud.  

Paul is now looking into suing this guy to get our deposit back.  At this point he doesn’t care if it costs more than what we will get back, he just doesn’t want this guy to get away with this!  So wish me luck that this creep (that is what he is in my book) will come to his senses and finally start paying us people back what we deserve!!

Updated part:  I am at my parents house and did a search on him and came across Ripoff Report and there are FOUR other people on there as well that got scammed by this guy!  If you know of a way we could take him down so he quits doing this, please let me know!!!   Plus I want to add his email address in case someone does a search by that.. I just don’t want anyone else to fall victim to this guy!  His email address is realmiami@aol.com

2nd update:  In case you don’t read the comment section, Mr. Gomez is now going by George Edwards!  So be aware of him as well!

So here are the names so far you have to be aware of…

Jorge Gomez
George Gomez
George Edwards

3rd update!

I found out Jorge/George Gomez has once again started ANOTHER website!   Vacation Villages 4 Rent  So stay far away from there as well!!!

4th update:   Looks like he is letting some of his websites go as they aren’t active anymore.  I wonder how I could find out if he opened up any new ones.  I’m sure he has.

5th Update:  WARNING!!!!   I found him last night trying to rent things out on Craigslist!!!   Even though I know we will never get our deposit back from him, as of July 11th 2008 we never did hear back from him nor saw our deposit like he had promised us!!  I just don’t understand how he can sleep at night when he hurts people the way he has.  (We know of at least 15 other families/owners that have been scammed by this person) 

6th update!!   As you can see from the last comment below, Mr. Gomez is now working at Home Florida Realty, Inc. and I also noticed that he once again has some ads on Miami’s Craigslist looking for owners so they can be  their managment company.  (That’s his other popular scam)

Update 7!!!   As you can see below, Mr. Gomez has actually found my blog.  I don’t know the whole story behind Allison & Jorge, but from what I have heard about Mr Gomez and the lies he wrote about paying kks & train lady back….  I would have to believe everything Allison said is true.

I find it funny that Mr. Gomez doesn’t even know what “train lady” or my name is. (which I assume that’s who he is talking about when he said kks).

I promise you everything I have written on here is the truth!  The last time I had spoke to Mr. Gomez was July 11th and he had said he would call me every week to let me know what was going on and when he would be able to pay the $200 back.   Needless to say I never heard from him again until today when he wrote on here.

We know of a lot of victims, but I can’t even imagine how many victims are out there that we don’t know since he has been doing this since at least 2004.

PLEASE be careful!

I can honestly say that after I went to Disney World for my first time (6 yrs ago) I never dreamed I would be so excited to go again.   Paul and I felt it was to expensive and didn’t see taking our kids until they were old enough to ride all the rides. 

Fast forward to this past February.  My parents weren’t able to go to Orange Beach this year so we decided to still go south to visit Paul’s parents and thought we might as well do Disney since we would be right there, plus Katie would be free!   WOW.. how my thoughts changed after that one trip.  All we did was 2 days of Magic Kingdom, but just seeing Disney through my kids eyes was something else.  Even though it was still expensive (we cut corners by not eating at the park or buying anything at the park for that matter) I’ve been anxious to take the kids again.

After talking to Paul this week we both agreed that if he can once again get a lay off for the month of February we will be going south for two weeks!  I’m nervous a little for taking Kevin out of school that long, but my plans are to do it during their mid winter break (it’s only 1 day off, but 1 day is 1 day) so he would only miss 4 days then.   Plus this will be the last year we will be able to go as I really don’t want to take Kevin out of school after this year. 

I’m thinking we will stop in Orange Beach and stay with my parents for a day or two, then go down to Disney and spend about 5 days down there (including seeing Paul’s parents) and then going back to spend the rest of the trip with my parents before we head home.  Granted things can change, but that’s the plan for now and I’m getting so excited.   The only bummer thing is I won’t be able to really make any plans until we know for sure Paul will be getting a lay off because otherwise we will only be going for 1 week and if that’s the case we will skip Disney and just spend it with my parents which will still be lots of fun as there is a lot of fun things to do in the Orange Beach area as well!!

Is it February yet?!? 

Just a little FYI regarding the Monorail at Disney World.

We stayed off site so of course had to park at Disney.. if you ride the Monorail ask the person working if you can sit in the front! If no one else is riding up there they will let you. It’s quite the view and you get to chat with the guy driving it. The only thing is only 4 people can ride up front and if you have strollers you have to close them up… which wasn’t a big deal for us.

So next time you go.. remember to ask if you can sit up front! You will be glad you did!!