Our Vacation: Orlando

Orlando .... 

After a GREAT time in Destin we decided to head to Orlando for a few days. We figured since we were only 5.5 hours away, why not! 

Sean and I had been to Orlando years ago on a business trip and had said we hoped one day to bring our girls back to the Universal Parks and Sea World. We just knew they would love it! Now don't get me wrong they would love Magic kingdom as well, but since we are from California, and have grown up going to Disney we knew they would appreciate Universal more. We do love Mickey though, and were sorry we didn't get to see him this trip! 

Because we had already done a weeks vacation we knew we were going to have to do this part of the trip frugally to be able to pull it off. 

I looked on- line for "Orlando deals" there were many that came up offering a place to stay and park tickets if you sat through the time share presentation. Although Sean and I are ARE actually interested in buying into a time share at some point in our life we know now isn't that time. 

Having said that I started calling around. I found that everyone I talked to I wasn't comfortable giving my credit card information to which posed a problem with reserving a room to stay in! 

Every deal was for the same resort presentation so I thought, "What would happen if I just call them direct?" So I did! I called and told them what I found on-line and asked if they could offer me anything comparable.

Now let me make clear every deal I found was for a hotel room, NOT a room in the resort. Being me, I figured it wouldn't hurt to shoot for the stars and ask to stay on property! My assumption was correct, they had a room available on property! They were able to offer me a 2 bedroom condo with a full kitchen on their property for 4nights/5 days with 2 tickets to Island of Adventure if I listened to a 90 minute presentation for $375.00! This is a 5 star resort with 3 pools, arcade, movie theater, mini golf course, and backs up to Magic Kingdom. (They have a private entrance into Magic Kingdom for resort guests)

 I jumped on it! I explained to the girl that I had no intention of purchasing a time share at this point in my life and asked if that would affect in anyway our stay at the resort or the prices that were offered to us. She assured me it wouldn't. She said that they actually only count on 1 out of 10 people who sign up to do this to actually purchase a time share. When she was clear and ok with what I was doing, I was ok with it as well. I told her I was doing what i had to do to provide an Orlando family vacation for my family. She agreed that it was a great way to do it and assured me I would LOVE the resort! 

The resort: Oh.My.Word! The room was almost as big as my house! It overlooked a lake.Which was great until your trying to sleep and 900 frogs are singing outside your bedroom window! 

Anyway,  It had a HUGE kitchen, washer and dryer, 2 gorgeous bedrooms all of which were equipped with t.v., a huge living room and dining room, a very large flat screen t.v. and a jacuzzi in the master suite!! Wowza!! 

We didn't want to leave the resort when we got there! The property was gorgeous, the pools were fabulous! We wished we could've watched a movie but we were in Orlando and we had theme parks to go see! 

I scheduled the time share presentation for first thing the next morning on purpose. I wanted that part out of the way so we could enjoy the rest of our stay. I also thought it would give our girls time to rest up. I did it for first thing in the morning because I knew they would have more appointments behind me so they were not as likely to keep me as long. 

This part of it was exactly what you would expect. I was very honest with guy about what we were doing and he said almost everyone he meets with is doing the same thing. I enjoyed the information he gave us. It was helpful knowledge to store away for one day when were in the position to do something like that! 

The guy told me he was really impressed that I thought to call the resort and ask to stay on property. He said hardly anyone ever stays on property. They book them in hotels near the property. He said the marketing department is only allowed to call select potential clients to book on property but if you call the resort yourself they're generally able to accommodate you on property. I thought that was a great piece of information for all my readers to have! So file that away in your travel/vacation idea folder! 

The resort we stayed at was called Silver Lake Resort. I highly recommend it! 

Stay tuned for our trip to Sea World and Universal Island of Adventure ..............