a blog about budget travel and making the most of every vacation
January 10, 2024
Our stay at Lost Pines was in early June of 2023. Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Spa and Resort is a sprawling resort just outside Austin, Texas. Our stay was booked on points and our room was a standard room. The resort is beautiful and well maintained.
September 11, 2022
We recently stayed at the Mohican Lodge at Mohican State Park. The layout is very similar to other state park lodges built around the same time. It is often much easier to get around by going outside the lodge going to and from your room. This lodge has and outdoor pool with a kiddy pool and and indoor pool.
August 5, 2022
The tour we signed up for was called Beyond the Bars. We had a fabulous guide whose true enthusiasm for this historical site shone through. It was so interesting to learn that before the reformatory was there, it was a Civil War training site and how the Reformatory came to be built, the early guiding principles that formed the early success of the Reformatory’s mission and how history unfolded that led to the dark later years of the Reformatory’s history.
February 23, 2022
This past January, we did our second SWDAS cruise. I have to admit that I was nervous that one of us would test positive at port and we would not be able to do our cruise. That by far was Read more…
January 2, 2022
We are getting ready to go on our Disney cruise on the Fantasy at the end of the month and recently completed our online check-in. You may begin check-in at midnight on day 29 before your cruise. If you want Read more…
September 3, 2021
Enjoy the photo slide show below of our visit. Today we visited The Wilds in Ohio again to do the open air safari tour. We had a great time and got to see the new greater one-horned Asian rhino 2 Read more…
July 7, 2021
If you have watched “Secrets of the Zoo” on Disney+, then you may be familiar with The Wilds, a conservation center in Southeast Ohio. This really is an amazing place to visit and I am so lucky to actually live not far from The Wilds. I have done the open air safari tour several times and enjoy that tour immensely, however as part of a recent stay-cation, I did the Wildside Tour. As amazing as the open air safari tour is, I had no idea what I was missing with the Wildside Tour!
April 21, 2021
After leaving Key West and on the way back to stay in Key Largo, we stopped at Bahia Honda State Park at mile marker 37 for an afternoon beach break. At the entrance, there is a fee to pay at the gate
March 28, 2021
This is definitely a must do in Key West for families. It has the fort for the educational aspect and a pretty nice beach by Florida Key standards. You can also launch your kayak, picnic, fish and snorkel here. We only visited the fort and beach on the day we were here. When you arrive, you pay an entrance fee at the gate.
February 28, 2021
On our recent trip though the Florida Keys, we stayed one night each at Playa Largo Resort and Baker’s Cay Resort. I booked both nights through the Chase Travel portal using Ultimate Rewards points to pay for our booking. When researching for this trip, it seemed to me that both resorts were kind of competing for the same type of travelers and thought it would be interesting to stay at each to compare them.
February 8, 2020
Our first cruise with Disney was in February of 2019 and we actually booked this cruise when the cruise dates opened in October of 2018! Doing your research ahead of time and booking when the cruise dates open is a Read more…