Lubrication

When we last left our hero, she was trudging across acres of marble tiling looking for a corner in which to have a nice cup of tea and sit down. And maybe a biscuit.

Come 2014 I'll be trading in that cup of tea for a Kungaloosh!

Disney's eponymous cocktail (source: sasakitime.com)

So when the business is done down in the Marriott World Centre Convention Centre, it is time to head up to the pointy bit for the relaxation.

So you could go to the Mangrove Emporium food court .....

premade sandwiches, burgers and hotdogs, pizza and soft drinks, coffee and muffins

..... but I am not sure why you would.

So let's go upstairs and check out the High Velocity Sports Bar

(source: marriott world centre. Unfortunately, the "in" crowd was not there the same day as I)

Filled with 28 large screen TVs at full volume, it is a place where too much sport is barely enough!

Every booth has a little personal TV. In case you want to watch the PBS Newshour. HA HA  - no just joking - MORE SPORT ONLY!

I have no beef with sports broadcasting.  I feel very sorry for televised sports fans as they all must be profoundly deaf.

Moving around the corner, is the main game (to not quite abandon sporting metaphors) - Solaris Cafe

I can see this place getting a work-out. Open for three meals a day, casual seating, large enough bookings aren't a problem. Here there will be little groups of Zontians breakfasting, lunching, coffeeing and everything else that Zontians do.

Traditional and extensive breakfast buffet up the back. Those doors on the left are to a private dining area for your large parties.

And one of those things that Zontians do, is enjoy a preprandial libation. And Solaris can help out there with the Solaris Bar

Up there in the back - where I haven't used my zoom.

If you prefer to lounge about, you could go to the Lobby Lounge bar:

Hawks Landing Golf Club Bar:

If you like the volcano heat, you could go out on The Veranda:

(Source: marriott world centre - I do not move in the circles with the beautiful peoples)

And if that isn't enough, they are currently constructing new pool surrounds which will include a pool side cafe and bar

will be re-opened in time for your morning 25 laps.

 And so the next morning, when you are nursing your hang-over and need a kick start: their own in-house Starbucks

You'll have to work really hard to go thirsty.

So gentle reader, with whom will be having your first chat and a drink?

Whereever I lay my Zonta logo'd baseball cap, that's my home - for Convention at least

The ladies from the Zonta Club of Melbourne, Florida wanted me to be prepared for the scorching sun. (Modelled by Cheyenne the cougar, Snorfy's special friend)

Convention is a time where we all come together from across the globe and conduct our Zonta business, catch up with beloved friends and make merry with the gossip and the wine all night long!

So we need a venue that can stand up to all we demand of it. Besides the main business room, the number 1 demand is: places to chat with friends. From 6am until about 3am there are groups of ladies clustering around a beverage supply enjoying a good ol' chinwag.

District 24 ladies in pre-chat preparation at Torino

If there is one thing I can promise you about the Marriott World Centre, there are more places to chat than you can ever possibly use. Let's take a gander at where Convention will be held - both the business end and the party end

Firstly, I have already given you the official glimpse of the Marriott Conference Centre, now I have seen it for myself. It's HUGE! It is easily bigger than anything I've seen before.

When playing the board game "Risk" always best to start with pink and work your way outwards. (source: Marriott)

That main beige "Cyprus Ballroom" has the ability to sit 16,000 theatre style. It is the nation's largest pillar free ball room - ummm... WOW!

Invite all your friends! Let's fill this baby! otherwise it will be a sad with only 2000 of us jammed in a corner. (source: Marriott)

The 3 other main areas can hold roughly 5,000 each! Every where is moveable walls and all spaces are flat, with freely placed chairs.

On the day I visited a 3000 person conference was underway and that seemed to make the place busy enough. although the Grand Ballroom was empty

One quarter of the Grand Ballroom - the smallest ball room

A different quarter - but they are all the same - and there are a lot of them!

In the plan above, all those little dark blue rooms are little meeting rooms. They were set up with small round tables, so each room held about 30 people each. Here you can also see the chairs they use - those standard, lighweight, padded type.

This is still bigger than the room where my club has it's meetings!

These rooms also have sliding panels so spaces can be very flexible. The plan above shows the smaller ballrooms can have slidey walls and small rooms created too. The Marriott staff all seemed to nice young slips of girlies - I have no idea whom is shoving all these giant sliding wall panels around!

Bring me more small meeting rooms! And doors! I want lots and lots of doors!

Conference centre main foyer. Meeting rooms behind, Palm Ballroom (green) immediately to left, Cyprus Room straight ahead.

The conference centre is bolted onto the side of the hotel. So hotel guests enter from the bottom left hand side of the plan - walk past all the meeting rooms and land in this main open space.

Conf Centre front entrance, looking back up at hotel (source: Marriott)

Here is a shot of the conference centre taken from an upper floor of the adjoining hotel:
The blocked roofs delineate each ballroom - the far white roof is Cyprus (beige); skinny brown is Palm (green); striped is Crystal (pale blue).

The flat as a pancake Florida landscape.

Behind the centre is the multi-story carpark. If you are staying off site, you park here and a little shuttle bus brings you around to the front door. See the little bus? Bottom RHS?

So be prepared for a lot of walking.

Although the staff have taken to doing cartwheels down the long corridors (source: Marriott)

 "But I don't understand, Mrs. Banks! You promised lounge chattings and beverages of choice!"

So perhaps the hotel will put out some seating and lounges in the conference centre common spaces for us; otherwise it is back up that hallway to the hotel where they have a squillion little loungey spots inside and out, in which you can sit back and relax.

Check in for Part 2 - where I'll show all the places for the party side of convention

Photos either my own or used with the permission of the Marriott

Gingy Bells, Gingy Bells, Ginger bells rock ...

For Christmas The Ken Man and I travelled to Sydney to visit family and we stayed in a fairly reasonable hotel. When we checked in on Christmas day all the tinsel was still hanging, the tree was trimmed and in the centre of the foyer was a little gingerbread house.

Let me re-iterate: a LITTLE gingerbread house. Probably the size of a small doll house, displayed on a table.

"Borrowed" from the hotel's facebook page.

It is very pretty and expertly decorated with precision.

But it's not this:

16ft, lifesize gingerbread house in the Grand Floridian Resort foyer

Gingerbread appears to be the No.1 preferred construction material in Orlando. Excellent for luring entertaining small children.

You can go in the backdoor where all kinds of goodies are available at reasonable prices.

Disney released this little video showing construction in 30 seconds!

I bet my Sydney based hotel did not need a cherry picker to construct their house.

Have a look at the window and porch detail:

hmmm ...chocolate.....

Such beautiful work on those poinsettias

Kandy Sparkles from Mouse Chat captured a few things I missed. Go and look at her post - I'll wait here.

Hidden Mickey couch upholstery!

Real smoke coming out the chimney! On purpose - the house hadn't spontaneously combusted in a chemical reaction of bicarb, cleaning fluids and over-sugared children.

So whilst this is the only gingerbread construction large enough for an ensuite off the main, most resorts will construct a similar gingerbready offering to the tourism gods.

The Contemporary Resort had a 17ft tree with a "it's a small world" theme

Oh the irony - it was the smallest gingerbread construction after all.

The Boardwalk Inn has this sort of mixture of a pergola with a loungeroom - showing a fireplace with Santa Donald's feet slowly roasting ( ....hmmmm.... roast duck.....)

The Ritz Carlton had this little shop where they were holding kids house building classes. See the names of the families written in icing on the "bricks".

"Arrgghhh ... I be the classic Scottish Pirate bear of Christmas legend"

 and the World Centre Marriott had a little house tucked in a corner:

So why do I show you these? After all you will be visiting in June - not December.

I hope to demonstrate that the Orlando hotels can take those extra steps to create little magic moments for their guests. The competition leads the hotels to work hard for their money and they go WAY beyond what is typical for Australian hotels. No matter where you stay it will have a special something for a jolly holiday.

So what's your story about a fantastic hotel that sought to delight its guests?

Merry Christmas and Happy New 2013! (eek! only 18mths until convention!)

 

Silent Night .... not

By some bizarre curiosity it is the end of the year and I am once again driven to write about camping. When I was sub 10 yrs old, my family would have a 1 week annual holiday - usually at a small beach side town - the quintessential Aussie holiday.

As previously mentioned, the best real estate at Aussie beaches was usually occupied by the caravan park - so may be that's why during this holiday week I feel the deep primal urge to contemplate campgrounds. And once again I am drawn back to Disney's Fort Wilderness - where Christmas is very camp.

So from the Contemporary Resort I caught the little launch for 15 minutes across Bay Lake and headed up through the pine forest to the Trail's End Restaurant for dinner.

The beautiful, peaceful tranquility of  the short boat ride belied the trip that was before me. (Source: disney.com)

This place is one of those rootin' tootin' ol' wild west themes, where you drink out of mason jars and eat off tin plates. It's all wooden beams and log walls and iron skillets - and pork ribs. Miles and miles of juicy, smokey, meaty, fall-off-the-bone tender BBQ pork ribs ...... mmmmm....

(oh there was some other stuff - chicken, baked potatoes, corn, salad, etc I wasn't really paying attention)

yep - you read correctly - fried corn kernels with BACON! Even the veges are meaty!
(source: www.adisneymomsthoughts.com)

I said boy, I said boy, fetch me my rifle - we'z goin' huntin' (source: disney.com)

Then it was out for a gentle wander among the cyprus and the pine to look at the bunnies and the bambis Fort Fiends' Christmas Creations!

Now you remember from last year's post how these guys LOVE halloween. Well - Christmas - what can I say? These guys REALLY love Christmas.

Some of the sites where subtle and graceful and made a gentle impression:

Another lived up to the time honored tradition of feeding the reindeer - under a sort of odd shrine to Santa.

I suspect some of the real deer had paid a visit at 4am

And then other sites looked like Santa's balls had exploded

This campground site competes with Clark Griswold!

As a youngster, at Christmas I loved driving around the neighbourhood and looking at the house decorations. Someone would have icicles lights on their gutters, maybe a lit tree in the front window. The occasional house would have reindeer lights on the roof.

Fort Fiends have reindeer lights up trees, lining driveways, across the lawn, draped off their trailers. These guys go all out!

To give you a better sense of the whole show here are a couple of videos - this first one finds me caught in a 'sleigh' ride / golf cart traffic jam.

I'm still gotta learn about editing but you get the picture.

In this video someone has bought every Disney play set available and built a model of the Magic Kingdom area, including the Grand Floridian, Polynesian, Contemporary, Wilderness Lodge resorts, Fort Wilderness, and Spaceship Earth.

Hang on! There's no ferris wheel at WDW.

Here is the one site that I felt was the most magnificent - yes - this is one site

I am sure they have camp ground curfews. Wouldn't you like to end up next to this chap?

I have to admit that wandering around the campground is kinda intoxicating - i wonder what it would be like to stay out among all the lights and blow ups and soundtrack music. Also, it is a testament to the large size of each site. Then I remember perks like concierge, valet parking and mousekeeping and think I'm too addicted to my creature comforts.

If you want to try the campground you can stay in the Disney onsite cabins or you can rent a camper from a vast selection of private companies who will deliver, with everything ready to go. As most hotel rooms max out at 4 people, these are great for larger families.  For June, make sure you get one with air conditioning!

So are you the camping type? Enjoy communing with the great outdoors and your fellow campers?

Checking out the Winter Park real estate

You already know I love shopping in Winter Park.

Once again, I got into my hire car, set the talking Garmin woman to Park Ave and "followed the highlighted route".

You already know I love driving my hire car. Especially an Alamo hire car. 

Remember last year - I booked a Toyota and ended up driving a bright red VW Jetta

My noble steed - waiting patiently outside Disney's Old Key West Resort

So this year I did the same - booked a Toyota Corolla - and guess what I scored??

Valets all over Central Florida had their hopes dashed by the low tipping from the scruffy Australian who crawled out of this in their driveways

So now that we have determined that the ladies at Alamo Car Hire are worthy upholders of Alamo customer service ....

.... we are off to Winter Park to experience the Scenic Boat Tour

This photo of Scenic Boat Tour is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Yep a little pontoon holding a max 18 people leaves every hour, at $12 per head, and putters around the lake and canal system around which Winter Park's rich and famous live.

Not that they were particularly famous to me.

For over 50 years, the tour has followed this route

BUT - there are a couple of people worthy of a mention for their role in developing Winter Park.

One of the most famous and longest lasting families in Winter Park is the McKean family: Dr Hugh and his wife Jeanette. And Jeanette was the granddaughter of Charles Hosmer Morse. And this family is important to Winter Park as they are the family who established the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, which houses the world's largest collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany works. Phew - are you still with me?

Their house is on the shore of  Lake Osceola - named Wind Song after the sound of chimes carried on the breeze. Apparently.  I obviously have to think up a name for my house. Meow Storm? Sun Purr?

 

On the direct opposite side of the lake is the Brewer estate from 1899. Edward Brewer made his money in carriages up in New York and this was his "winter cottage" of only 23 rooms.

 

The tour continues pottering around the lakes and down the narrow connecting canals - so narrow only as wide as the pontoon.

People are boarded in the order they bought their tickets. I had to sit up the back

The canals get one up close to the cyprus trees with their hanging spanish moss. Which is neither 'spanish', nor 'moss'

Coming out into the open lakes , I discover that  many of the key sights of Winter Park back onto the lakes. .

I believe there is the Kraft Azalea garden in under those cyprus somewhere.

 

The Rollins Liberal Arts College

Although not advertised this way, at it's heart, this tour is about looking at the real estate - taking a peek at how some live.

I do know of one Zontian who would rock up into towns and pretend to be relocating to the city, "due to husband's work" and ask the local real estate agent to show her houses in the $million plus bracket. A fun afternoon's past-time if you can pull it off.

If memory serves, this house was next to the Polasek Sculpture Garden

There is a short video on the Scenic Boat Tour website, or even faster, here is their 30 sec commercial:

Note for some: you need to be able to navigate a flight of stairs to get to and from the dock.

So what's your style when sight seeing? Would you enjoy such a gentle boatride? Or do you like to get more "hands on" and call an estate agent?