Grooms Club

After all the planning and anticipation, the day will finally come when you arrive for your Walt Disney World vacation! What you do on that very first day can set the tone for your entire trip. How about some fun, undeniably magical, and yes, even relaxing suggestions for your very important arrival day?

If you’ve got a longer trip planned, lucky you! Why not spend your first day outside of the parks? Often, guests are so tempted to get in every last ride in at the parks that the special qualities of the resorts are often overlooked.

Take a dip in the pool, or explore your resort. Many of the Walt Disney World Resorts have won awards for their spectacular design and you can have a fun day just exploring your resort grounds. There are opportunities to shop and participate in activities on your first, restful day in Disney.

Now, if you are short on time or just can’t imagine resting when there are theme parks to play in, then head straight for the parks. Keep in mind, though, that the Disney theme parks are a marathon, not a sprint. Pick a major attraction, and grab a FASTPASS for the ride. The FASTPASS will allow you to come back at a later time and enjoy the attraction with little to no wait.

Now, with a shortened wait in line, you’ll be able to slowly take in all the magic around you. At the Magic Kingdom, spend some time reveling in the smells, sights and sounds of Main Street, U.S.A. At Epcot, take in a fountain show with dazzling water effects set to music. At Disney’s Hollywood Studios, enjoy one of the crazy performances by the many “Streetmosphere” characters. Or, at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park, walk down some of the lesser known animal trails and see what you can find.

However you spend your first day, be sure to end with a bang! Try making it to one of Disney’s nighttime spectaculars or maybe have a character dinner. Chef Mickey’s at Disney’s Contemporary Resort is a perfect way to celebrate being in Disney World.

Whatever you decide, know that your magical vacation has just begun and you’re going to have a fabulous time!

The end of another year is upon us, and the only thing sadder than not being able to come out to the cottage every weekend, is the thought that I have to pack up my seadoos for the winter. These last few weeks of the summer lake season are spent doing all the closing up tasks, and cleaning and fixing that the cottage and all the lake toys require after another fun summer. It’s not all that bad though, because the cleanup and fixing that is done in the fall just means an easy job of opening the cottage in the spring.

Once the days become too chilly to enjoy our personal water crafts, I start to take them out. I take out the least popular or least used first. As I take each out of the water, I take the time to give it a good cleaning and make any minor repairs. Sometimes I need to sand and re-varnish paddles while other times the canoe or peddle boat might need a small fiberglass patch.

After everything is all shined up and fixed, now is the time to get out the seadoo covers and get them ready for storage. I store my pwcs inside for the winter so I can keep them like new as long as possible. My favorite part of coming to the cottage is riding our pwcs, so I take extra special care of storing them so they won’t age prematurely. We have a few other boats, like a canoe and peddle boat, that don’t get such special treatment – they are both washed off and stored upside down under the cottage so they get a little protection from the ice and snow.

Once the pwcs are all safely packed away under their seadoo covers, there is still lots to do before we leave the cottage for the summer. Since we have a nice treed lot, we spend a fair amount of time keeping the woods clear of fallen trees and branches, so it doesn’t get too overgrown. Gathering up any deadwood in the fall keeps the lot clear, and it gives us free firewood for our woodstove and campfires. Stacking wood in the fall under an overhang at the end of the cottage gives it a chance to dry out, ready for the fire to warm up the cottage in the spring.

We also spend a lot of time working on our naturalized landscaping. There are no manicured flower beds or anything like that, but we have planted a lot of bulbs and hostas and creeping ground cover that give our cottage a wonderful natural landscape. At the edges of the lawn and driveway are some banks of wildflowers that self seed and give the lot beautiful color through the season. I like to cut back any plants and bulb leaves that are starting to die back, so there is less cleanup to do in the spring. I add the clippings to our compost pile, and then take a bit of the ready compost and amend any beds that I think need it. Cutting the lawn one last time lets us enjoy the tiny spring bulbs that we’ve planted, without getting lost in long dead grass.

There are lots of chores to be done in the fall. I find the major jobs are getting the boats and seadoos packed up, and getting the yardwork all cleaned up and done. Aside from that, the only thing left for the final weekend is to pack up all the towels and linens, drain the pipes and turn all the appliances off for the winter. The more effort that goes into the fall packup, the less work there is in the spring when we bring out the pwcs, put away the seadoo covers and get out on the lake again!