Enjoy your afternoon off and best of luck finding fun costumes. Our family loves to coordinate fun event costumes also. Last year we were all Star Wars characters. The boys are trying to decide what I will be working on this year.
I may be in for a lot of sleepless nights. We shall see.
We definitely found that being in costume for last year's Halloween parties increased the fun factor
. It is especially awesome if we can co-ordinate costumes so that we match to some degree
.
I have a huge amount of admiration for those that are creative and talented enough to make their own costumes. I am woefully inadequate on both counts....so for us its either rent or buy, or bust!
What about Fred and Wilma Flintstone?!
LOL, that's an awesome idea! But not exactly what Steve had in mind
.
I will make a prediction on that one. We've owned Sheraton (and Silver Lake) for several years now and trade around quite a bit. We have yet to find anywhere that feels as "home" as Vistana Resort. We've stayed at other Wyndham, Marriott, Vacation Village, Bluegreen and Vidanta properties as well as a few smaller ones and none have matched up, although the Vidanta (sic? - better known as Grand Mayan) properties in Mexico can come close. We have yet to try a Hilton timeshare but have high expectations if we do. The neat thing about Sheraton is that "coming home" feels about the same everywhere. Broadway Plantation and Vistana Villages felt just like Vistana Resort to us.
If you do go for the Fallsview room, I would suggest the Sheraton Fallsview. We've stayed there and at the Marriott and the Sheraton has a much better viewing angle for the falls. Keep an eye out for "couples getaway" packages for the fall shoulder season. We seem to get a raft of offers late summer every year. Good room price plus a few dining perks - the dinner won't work, but it often includes a great breakfast. Possibly in the same price range as your current selection. If any land in my inbox, I'll forward the deal along. About the only negative for the Sheraton is that the parking structure is about a block away (at the indoor waterpark) so a short walk back, or use the valet.
ETA: and reading that over, I seem to really sound like an ad for Sheraton. Honestly we "sleep around" a lot, but always seem to come back to the same spot. DDS - I'm talking about the hotels here...
I almost spit out my lemonade at the sleeping around comment
. These threads do take on a life of their own sometimes
.
I, too, suspect that the Wyndham will be nice but the Vistana will still emerge the unwavering favourite. In fact, that's why we reserved Cypress Palms for the first week and SVR for the second: we wanted to end on a high note
. But hopefully, the Wyndham will be perfectly acceptable for the initial half of the vacation and earn a good review in the process.
As for the Niagara stay, I'm still wiffle-waffling......the affordable option versus a Fallsview splurge. I asked Steve for his input and he (sweetly) told me to pick whichever one I wanted, that he would be happy with either. A lovely sentiment but not the help I was hoping for. Sigh.
Hey Gina! We'll be at Niagara Falls tomorrow! Thanks again for your planning help!
How AWESOME!
I hope you have an fantastic time, and look forward to hearing about your northern adventures once you make your way back to the sunny south! Safe travels to you and the fam.
Details? Well I think the hubs is feeling a little left out or something. He asked for a vacation which is sooooo not him. If I didn't tell him we were taking a trip he would never go any place. Normally, he doesn't care if he takes any time off work. Last year he only took the two days off for our long weekend in WDW in December. A couple of weeks ago he asked if we were taking a summer vacay and I said probably not. He then said he wanted to take a trip so I should figure something out. Grumpy Cat then throws her hat in the ring and wants to go to Cuba. I checked out Florida first and then on a whim I looked at Cuba. Turns out that Cuba comes in at about $1600 less and when you weren't panning a trip and the vacay account is a little low...
.
So I found the most gorgeous brand new resort that gets rave reviews and it's a very reasonable (actually cheap) price.
Have a look...
https://www.westjet.com/vacations/en/hotels/hotel-overview.page?hotelID=SNUOCM
Funny thing is I've never had any interest in going to Cuba. I guess after finding this resort I'm kind of excited. I'm also thinking that once the doors open up to American tourists things will change, probably for the better, but I want to see it in it's Cuban simplicity. It will be very interesting being in a country where something as everyday as Coke or Pepsi do not exist. I've travelled to many countries all over the world and they have all had the things that are so common to us.
LOL....haven't told GC that the WiFi is extremely unreliable. As in hardly works. If we manage to get a little WiFi I'll try to check in with you.
Anyone want to join us August 13th?
That sounds like a blast! An all inclusive is definitely a change from all the planning required for a Disney trip. What are you going to do with all of your time between now and the middle of next month?
No not really. I will post a resort review on Tripadvisor though.
There probably won't be much to do a trip report on other than mass quantities of mojitos and some salsa dancing with hot Cubans. The place we are going doesn't offer much in the way of excursions. It's an island attached to Cuba by a causeway. There are no locals that live on the island and only one tiny little pueblo. It will be very much a lounge at the pool kind of a week.
We will be waiting for the link to the youtube videos.
It looks fabulous Dancin! Strangely enough my dh had me pricing out Cuba a little while ago too after friends were raving about their trip. Sunwing had some seriously tempting packages. It's not in the plans just yet, but I am sure we will get there one day. Definitely let us know what you thought when you get back.
Gina, I hope you had a successful shopping trip. I LOVE the Fred and Wilma Flintstone idea someone posted! I think you are smart to start looking now. I really don't like last minute Halloween costume shopping for the kids either.
I'm little sad that ds won't get to trick or treat this year. He'll be in 7th grade and around here kids really stop after grade 8. So only one more year. It's not exactly a hardship for him to skip Halloween for a Universal trip though lol.
Hmmmmmm...You know how I said DH and DD are going to HHN when were are in Orlando? I am sorely tempted to take DS over to Disney for MNSSHP.
THAT is a Halloween activity that I would love. I bet we could Uber over. In fact I am planning to creep downstairs and pitch the idea to dh when I'm done typing. I'll let you know how it goes. I was thinking Blue Man Group too like you suggested. I'll have to see what ds thinks as I don't know which one he would enjoy more.
Steve is a difficult body to fit, so we usually have to shop early or else run the risk of going costume-less. The lady who owns the costume store here in town is ah-mazing but even she had nothing in stock that would fit my big fella. She took all of his measurements and vowed to make our vision happen if at all possible, so hopefully she'll be able to work her magic and get him fitted with exactly what we were looking for.
Which, I don't think I mentioned, is Gangster wear. Al Capone, roaring-20's style.
Since we have reservations for Capone's Dinner Show, we thought it would make the most sense to go with Gangster/Flapper costumes which we could wear twice on the trip, once to one of the MNSSHP's and once to the dinner show. Ditto, then, to the Pirate costumes: once to the other MNSSHP and the other to Pirates Dinner Adventure. We usually end up investing some serious resources into the costume purchases, so its nice to get them to do double-duty while we are there. It justifies the expense a little bit. Or, that's my story anyway
.
So, while we didn't get Steve's costume yesterday, I did find one that I liked (though its a tad more revealing than I would like....man, those Flappers don't incorporate much material into their dresses
) and Claire the Costume Goddess has vowed to fix us up in more than enough time to be ready for October. Progress has been made! .... I think
.
For sure will pass along some
info. I have a good friend who is a manager at Sunwing and she goes on trips to inspect the resorts they sell. She thinks Cuba is the bees knees. I don't put a ton of stock in her opinion though as she never travelled much prior to this job. I can get a pretty good discount through her but I've read too many articles about problems with Sunwing.
We flew Sunwing once, and our biggest complaint was the cramped seats. You and Grumpy Cat will be just fine, but if your DH is a big guy like my Steve, he might be rather uncomfortable as the seat width and leg room is definitely minimal.
Our friends took Sunwing for their Cuba trips and said it was fine, but some of the reviews are dreadful. I am such an awful flyer (like have to drug myself to get on the damn plane) that it makes me nervous to fly with a company with all those complaints. In fairness, they don't seem to be safety related complaints though. Our friends loved Memories Holguin, but weren't fans of Memories Varadero. They said the people are absolutely lovely and the island is beautifully unspoiled. In the end we decided to wait until we are desperate for a trip somewhere warm before we try an All Inclusive.
As for the decision for ds and I and what we will do when DH and DD go to HHN..... We're going to MNSSHP!!! We both debated a bit. We are big Disney fans and we worry that going over to Disney for such a short time might actually make us miss it or wish we were there. But we've decided to look at it as a fun bonus night and we know we'll be back to Disney soon. So my credit card is in hand, and I'm off to purchase MNSSHP tickets for October 30th
.
Wahoo for the decision to book MNSSHP!
That deserves a dance!
Disney puts on a great party, and I don't think you will be disappointed. What a fun thing for you and your DS to enjoy together. Have you decided if you are going to dress up? It truly makes it super fun. Oh, I am so excited for you two!
Let me know if you might be interested in a Memory Maker share for that night. Our group is still looking for two more participants. It works out to be about $25 US each which is less than the one-day MM that is sold by Disney for the parties (which last year was $39, if I remember correctly). Some of the magic shots are super cool and if you're in costume, you will definitely want some photos from your big night!
I will divide the shopping up over the next few weeks. I would be slightly painful to go out and have to spend $100+ on things like Immodium. I always pack a rather large medical kit. I much prefer to have all I might need on hand than have to try and find it onsite. I've been doing that for years though. Many of the things I have at home anyway so it's just a matter of packing it up. 
. I just wish I had snapped a picture of Batman on Super Hero Day.....that would have been a good memory to preserve!
. I had no idea about the Fallsview Casino players cards: that's an awesome deal not having to pay parking at the hotel (and one of the things that has been discouraging me from splurging on a Fallsview room). Any decent price on the room is negated by the horrible cost of parking. The Embassy Suites was actually one of the properties I had been eyeing, and the Hilton has been on my wish list FOREVER (their pool area looks so pretty).
). I am hoping its as cute and amusing as the Minions was!
