Hello everyone -
I have a couple of questions for everyone! Long post, so questions are in bold.
We've never been to HH and were planning to go next summer (2010). June 13-18.
We have a June use year, however, and we have points that expire May 31,2010. As I understand it, that means we'd lose those points.. correct? I am sort of wondering if they wouldn't expire if they were committed to a reservation, but I am thinking they will.
So, we're thinking about adjusting to Spring Break, which is late March/early April. I'm wondering what we'll miss out on besides fireworks...since it is our first trip, I don't mind that we won't get to do everything on our first trip, it will give us something to look forward to on the next trip. Anything else significant we'll miss? We're from Minnesota, so I'm not worried about the weather, we're tough. It sounds like we'll get at least some time outside.
Since we are driving, I was thinking we'd do HH Sun-Thurs, but will this be enough time? If we have to, we can drive many hours as a trade off to stay at HH longer.
Will I have trouble getting spring break at 7 mths?
Finally, a word to those of you who drive. We did 34 hours each way to Phx this year in January with three kids and a very large standard poodle. We had an absolute blast. Two secrets - we didn't do fast food unless absolutely necessary. I had a few books that listed great local cafes and restaurants across the USA. We'd take turns looking through it and would choose where we wanted to eat and then make it our goal to be there for the meal we were hoping to eat. Rarely did we spend more than fast food (often less) and we had some really fun meals. Sometimes we were the only non-locals. The kids really had fun trying new things, and we didn't get the sluggish feeling that you can get from eating junk for three days each way.
The other secret - we bought the kids (DS 9&10 and DD 10) two used Nintendo DS games that they were able to play together. I didn't get the first one out until the second day of driving and they played it the rest of the trip. They had to work together and that gave them great incentive to cooperate and get along. They liked it so much that I never brought out the second game. I'd let them play Nintendo for awhile, then they'd have to read for awhile, etc. We made the whole trip (68hours) watching only 3 movies and we had a lot of fun.
Okay, that's a lot. Hope I didn't scare anyone away!
