TinkTatoo
Has a Tink tattoo on her shoulder
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2004
- Messages
- 2,936
Tinks Tiki fest Tour – The Waffle before
Cast
Me – Keakulina - 45 Never tires of going to Florida
DH – Kiwini - 51 Designated Driver and Now Eligible for a Senior Discount
DS – Aikeni -10 Six Trips later and still hunting for Yu-Gi-Oh Cards
DD – Niamaha - 9 Wants to be a Pirate Princess
Saturday 7th July
So I guess the first question is – what’s with the weird names. Well we are going to Tiki fest at the Polynesian so these are our names in Hawaiian according to this web site.
Here we are again on our annual Tinks Summer Tour. If you like my trip reports (and I think there’s 3 of you that do
) then you’ve got another one to look forward to and as we are there for a month it will be a long one. If you don’t like my trip reports…. well, you wouldn’t be reading this so I don’t need to worry 
I can’t believe it’s DS and DD’s seventh trip and as you can see from the intro DS is still hunting for Yu-Gi-Oh cards and this year DD wants to be a Pirate Princess so we have her Jasmine outfit packed complete with gold shoes and a pirate bandanna. DH & I are just happy to be going and are looking forward to it all. We’ve got a few new things lined up again this year and one or two old favourites. So what’s the plan?
Flights and Accommodation
We decided to fly from Shannon for a change – it takes about 2 hours to get to which is slightly longer than getting to Dublin but it should be an easier airport to get through once we are there. At Shannon parking for the long term car park is right outside the terminal as opposed to a Dublin where the long term car park is a bit like parking at Magic Kingdom to visit MGM. Also when we land back at Shannon we hope to get our bags and be on our way within an hour. At Dublin last year we were still waiting for our cases an hour after landing and it was more like two by the time we drove away, we then had the joy of dealing with the M50 motorway.
When we land in Orlando we are heading north out of the airport onto the SR-528 then the I-95 which should take us all the way down the coast to Vero Beach. It should take about an hour and a half to get there and we plan to stop at Wal-Mart just before Vero for a McD’s and some supplies. We know we’ll be up early the next morning so we can have an early breakfast in the room before the resort stirs and be on the beach at sunrise (bugs permitting.)
After a few nights at Vero we are off to the villa in Sunset Lakes that we stayed in last year. We booked both trips at the same time and got a great rate. The owner has told us that they’ve made some improvements since we were there last year which include the addition of a slate bed pool table, granite worktops in the kitchen, tiles in the living room, instead of a carpet and a PS2 in one of the bedrooms. (not sure if I’m keen on this one)
We are only at Sunset Lakes for a few days when we make a side trip to the Polynesian for 2 nights to coincide with Tiki fest. We are staying in a Garden View Concierge room and are really looking forward to staying here. We don’t plan to go to any parks for those days (apart from our Tiki fest dinner in Epcot) and will just chill at the Poly, although the lure of MK might be too much.
When we leave the villa after 3 weeks we are off to HRH for two nights to take advantage of FOTL and thanks to Mazzy we’ve booked a poolside cabana for one of our days there. Then our last stay is 3 nights at BCV in a 1 bed with the DDP before flying home on 24th August
Things we are doing
The highlight of the trip has to be the Grand Gathering Illuminations International Desert Buffet we’ve got booked with Barry&Caron. It took a lot of phone calls to get it sorted but we are really looking forward to doing it (and of course meeting Caron, Barry & Josh again and Caron’s mum for the first time)
We’ve also got Tiki fest on 29th July, which has been put together by Steve Seifert (aka Tikiman) and Lisa at Magical Vacations. It’s at the Salon of the Living Seas, which is a private room inside the Seas with Nemo & Friends attraction and they a buffet dinner and lots of fun things planned.
We are also going to the Pirates and Princess Party on our last night where we will probably run in to Barry & Caron again.
Who we are meeting
We’ve got three mini meets planned. Barry & Caron again for our Grand Gathering and we’ll probably see them at the Pirates and Princess Party the next night. Halo and family at Seaworld and Mazzy and family when we share side by side cabana’s at the HRH pool.
We would have met Craig and family (Mkingdon) again but after meeting us last year they decided to play it safe and arrive the day before we leave
What Else
We have AP’s for Disney, Seaworld and Universal so we’ll do the usual parks plus shopping, cinema and chilling. A kind Disser sent me a link for a Yu-Gi-Oh event at Festival Bay (thanks Steve) so we will have to go to that.
We are doing Dine with Shamu again and have a couple of on site meals, which include Kona, Sci-fi Diner, Plaza Restaurant in MK and Concourse Steakhouse. We’ll eat in Sweet Tomatoes, Golden Corral, (for DS) plus Kobi, Bubba Gump and Mythos all after rave reviews by Margaret (Maggs),
We also signed up for Owners Locker which is a service that allows you to safely leave stuff in Orlando. It is ideal for us as we usually have at leaset a small suitcase worth of stuff that we only use in Florida (US chargers & adapters, water park mugs & shoes, bumbags, etc.,) I’ll let you know how this goes when I get back.
So there it is – another trip due to kick off in just over two weeks and I can’t wait. I’ve got a new camera so I’ll be taking photo’s of absolutely everything for Deb’s competitions.
Cast
Me – Keakulina - 45 Never tires of going to Florida
DH – Kiwini - 51 Designated Driver and Now Eligible for a Senior Discount
DS – Aikeni -10 Six Trips later and still hunting for Yu-Gi-Oh Cards
DD – Niamaha - 9 Wants to be a Pirate Princess
Saturday 7th July
So I guess the first question is – what’s with the weird names. Well we are going to Tiki fest at the Polynesian so these are our names in Hawaiian according to this web site.
Here we are again on our annual Tinks Summer Tour. If you like my trip reports (and I think there’s 3 of you that do
) then you’ve got another one to look forward to and as we are there for a month it will be a long one. If you don’t like my trip reports…. well, you wouldn’t be reading this so I don’t need to worry I can’t believe it’s DS and DD’s seventh trip and as you can see from the intro DS is still hunting for Yu-Gi-Oh cards and this year DD wants to be a Pirate Princess so we have her Jasmine outfit packed complete with gold shoes and a pirate bandanna. DH & I are just happy to be going and are looking forward to it all. We’ve got a few new things lined up again this year and one or two old favourites. So what’s the plan?
Flights and Accommodation
We decided to fly from Shannon for a change – it takes about 2 hours to get to which is slightly longer than getting to Dublin but it should be an easier airport to get through once we are there. At Shannon parking for the long term car park is right outside the terminal as opposed to a Dublin where the long term car park is a bit like parking at Magic Kingdom to visit MGM. Also when we land back at Shannon we hope to get our bags and be on our way within an hour. At Dublin last year we were still waiting for our cases an hour after landing and it was more like two by the time we drove away, we then had the joy of dealing with the M50 motorway.
When we land in Orlando we are heading north out of the airport onto the SR-528 then the I-95 which should take us all the way down the coast to Vero Beach. It should take about an hour and a half to get there and we plan to stop at Wal-Mart just before Vero for a McD’s and some supplies. We know we’ll be up early the next morning so we can have an early breakfast in the room before the resort stirs and be on the beach at sunrise (bugs permitting.)
After a few nights at Vero we are off to the villa in Sunset Lakes that we stayed in last year. We booked both trips at the same time and got a great rate. The owner has told us that they’ve made some improvements since we were there last year which include the addition of a slate bed pool table, granite worktops in the kitchen, tiles in the living room, instead of a carpet and a PS2 in one of the bedrooms. (not sure if I’m keen on this one)
We are only at Sunset Lakes for a few days when we make a side trip to the Polynesian for 2 nights to coincide with Tiki fest. We are staying in a Garden View Concierge room and are really looking forward to staying here. We don’t plan to go to any parks for those days (apart from our Tiki fest dinner in Epcot) and will just chill at the Poly, although the lure of MK might be too much.
When we leave the villa after 3 weeks we are off to HRH for two nights to take advantage of FOTL and thanks to Mazzy we’ve booked a poolside cabana for one of our days there. Then our last stay is 3 nights at BCV in a 1 bed with the DDP before flying home on 24th August
Things we are doing
The highlight of the trip has to be the Grand Gathering Illuminations International Desert Buffet we’ve got booked with Barry&Caron. It took a lot of phone calls to get it sorted but we are really looking forward to doing it (and of course meeting Caron, Barry & Josh again and Caron’s mum for the first time)
We’ve also got Tiki fest on 29th July, which has been put together by Steve Seifert (aka Tikiman) and Lisa at Magical Vacations. It’s at the Salon of the Living Seas, which is a private room inside the Seas with Nemo & Friends attraction and they a buffet dinner and lots of fun things planned.
We are also going to the Pirates and Princess Party on our last night where we will probably run in to Barry & Caron again.
Who we are meeting
We’ve got three mini meets planned. Barry & Caron again for our Grand Gathering and we’ll probably see them at the Pirates and Princess Party the next night. Halo and family at Seaworld and Mazzy and family when we share side by side cabana’s at the HRH pool.
We would have met Craig and family (Mkingdon) again but after meeting us last year they decided to play it safe and arrive the day before we leave
What Else
We have AP’s for Disney, Seaworld and Universal so we’ll do the usual parks plus shopping, cinema and chilling. A kind Disser sent me a link for a Yu-Gi-Oh event at Festival Bay (thanks Steve) so we will have to go to that.
We are doing Dine with Shamu again and have a couple of on site meals, which include Kona, Sci-fi Diner, Plaza Restaurant in MK and Concourse Steakhouse. We’ll eat in Sweet Tomatoes, Golden Corral, (for DS) plus Kobi, Bubba Gump and Mythos all after rave reviews by Margaret (Maggs),
We also signed up for Owners Locker which is a service that allows you to safely leave stuff in Orlando. It is ideal for us as we usually have at leaset a small suitcase worth of stuff that we only use in Florida (US chargers & adapters, water park mugs & shoes, bumbags, etc.,) I’ll let you know how this goes when I get back.
So there it is – another trip due to kick off in just over two weeks and I can’t wait. I’ve got a new camera so I’ll be taking photo’s of absolutely everything for Deb’s competitions.
I am very sad to be missing out on Tiki Fest but it slipped under my radar and by the time I found out about it other plans had been made. 
You guys will have a wonderful time, I'm sure. We stayed for 2 weeks last summer in the Hawaii longhouse and loved every minute... 
