One of the biggest questions facing us when we decided to make the move was where we wanted to live. We had narrowed down the city, but needed to decide between renting a house and an apartment. We selected the apartment, and this post will talk about where we are with that.
One of our readers had commented that it doesn’t matter where you live, as long as you are near Walt Disney World. Well, not quite. There are a lot of areas we would never move to, even if it meant being close to the Mouse. We wanted to live in a similar community setting as we had in Wisconsin, and while Clermont doesn’t quite fit the bill with that, it is a very nice area to live in.
Overall we have been satisfied with our apartment: the office and maintenance staff are wonderful to work with, and it is nice to live in a place where we don’t need to worry about lawn care, or pool care or pest preventative treatments. Over the past few months, however, we have been contemplating moving into a rental home due to a few different reasons. We are hesitant, however, because we have heard horror stories regarding a few rentals here, and we don’t want to move from a good situation into a bad one. It would also need to make financial sense; ie, we might pay lower rent, but we may have other expenses that we don’t here that would mean an increase in monies paid out.
So right now we’re kind of on the fence about it. We currently have bad neighbor issues, but we’ve also had that experience when living in a house in Wisconsin, so moving doesn’t necessarily erase that issue. We also would love more living space, as we lost approximately 700 square feet when we moved here. We would love to find a four bedroom home here to rent, with the extra bedroom being designated as a guest bedroom/den area/craft room. We don’t believe the electricity bill would rise significantly with more living space, as we need to run the air conditioner here more often than normal, as all our windows face only one direction, and unless its a fairly cool day, it doesn’t cool off the house significantly with no cross ventilation.
We have no regrets for moving into the apartments, as it provided security for us knowing that we had a relatively nice place to live. Once we left our house in Wisconsin, we were technically homeless until we arrived in Florida, and that is an unsettling feeling to have, even though we knew it to be temporary. Even if we do not make the move in 2014, we both feel that it be a change that will eventually occur, as we don’t anticipate apartment living for the rest of our lives in Florida.
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This is a continuation of our post from yesterday: another 50 items that made it to our bucket list before our move, and what we have accomplished so far. Our comments are in blue following the line item.
51. Enjoying the streetmosphere entertainment. We love Mulch, Sweat & Shears at the Studios. If you haven’t been able to catch their act yet, you must. Go do it. 🙂
52. Festival of the Masters Not yet. The weather didn’t cooperate last year.
53. Going to the Night of Joy We have not yet attended but definitely want to. This is another example of the noise level being way too loud for Ben.
54. Flower and Garden Festival Neither of us is into gardening a lot, but we enjoy walking through Epcot during Flower & Garden and taking it all in.
55. Holidays Around the World at Epcot We have not purposefully stopped and listened, but we have heard bits and pieces as we’ve walked through World Showcase. We’ve especially heard the Norway rendition quite a bit, as we passed it on the way to Candlelight Processional.
56. Sounds Like Summer at Epcot We have not attended yet.
57. The Candlelight Processional Last year Catie was part of an honor choir with Candlelight Processional and performed at Disney four separate days. We also attended one time after Christmas so that Catie could see it from a non-performer point of view. The narrators we’ve heard have been Neal Patrick Harris, Geena Davis, Amy Grant, Andy Garcia, and Jodi Benson. This year she will be performing once, again with narrator Neal Patrick Harris. I’m sure we will see it a few more times beside. We consider this a new tradition for us at Christmas time. It is absolutely beautiful and brings forth the true spirit of the season.
58. Finding a good Friday fish fry! No, we’ve found a place that may have potential, Wolfy’s in Leesburg, but we haven’t checked it out yet. Friday fish frys are just not the thing down here.
59. Visiting the Kennedy Space Center We went for the first time this March, and plan to go back in December when Nick and Jess visit. It really is a place where you want to be there early in the morning and stay until close, and then you still don’t see everything. We are looking forward to seeing the new Atlantis and Angry Birds exhibits.
60. Riding TTA during Wishes No, we haven’t done this since moving here.
61. Sit at each of the Parks and take time to “people watch” On occasion, especially when we’re at the Parks at close- it’s simply easier to let all the people pass before we head out.
62. MLB Spring Training No.
63. Pick a fresh Florida orange from a tree No, still would love to do this. We do pass orange groves on the way to Disney and love the smell!
64. Go swimming on a warm December day Ben & Catie have– two years ago they were swimming in the pool on Christmas Eve day
65. Enjoy a “work at home day” with Craig Petermann at Epcot No, the Internet connection is not reliable enough.
66. Take a family Christmas picture at WDW I don’t think we have a family picture, but we do have several shots of us separately. Something to make sure to do this year.
67. Earn all the Gowalla WDW stamps and pins Gowalla is no longer around.
68. Be one of “those people” checking in all over Lake Buena Vista with Foursquare Of course.
69. Move in to our new apartment in Clermont Yes!
70. Find the best pizza places in the area Stone Creek Pizza in Clermont, Napolis in Minneola are two of our faves.
71. Our first Saturday library visit to our new “home” library Yes, and we go every Saturday, though we still prefer our library back home in Wisconsin.
72. Stroll the Boardwalk Not yet.
73. Share a Kitchen Sink at Beaches & Cream with the family It’s definitely going to happen sometime!
74. Wild Africa Trek at AK No
75. Pirates and Pals Fireworks No not as of yet.
76. Backstage Magic Tour No.
77. Family Magic Tour No.
78. Get a haircut at The Harmony Barbershop on Main Street USA No, not yet.
79. The Pirates League with Ben No
80. Keys to the Kingdom Tour No
81. Walk through Fort Wilderness Campgrounds at Christmas to see the campers’ decorations This year, maybe!
82. See a University of Florida football game No
83. Stay in the Magic Kingdom until the wee hours of the morning to enjoy the peace No
84. Orange Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day No
85. Have a holiday sandwich at the Earl of Sandwich Believe it or not, we have not done this yet. We were going to last year, and then the place was absolutely mobbed. Poor timing on our part- but never went back later. Now they are available year round so there is just no excuse!
86. Have a diabetic friendly treat at Babycakes No not yet.
87. Go to Butterfly World No but I’m sure the kids would love it.
88. Swim with the manatees No but still think this would be awesome.
89. Explore Florida’s state parks We have not been in one yet 😦 Though we did find out recently that Lake Louisa rents out cabins to stay in, so this may be a possibility in the near future!
91. Hearing the word blizzard and knows it only refers to a waterpark or a DQ dessert! The nearest DQ to us is in Mount Dora, which is approximately a 30 minute drive from us. And no, we haven’t been to Blizzard Beach yet. But yes, it is wonderful not having to worry about snowy weather!
92. Go to Port Canaveral and watch the Disney ships leave port No but we want to do this. Actually we want to be on the Disney ship leaving the port……
93. Finding all of the local arts and crafts shows and fairs. We have not done this, but there is one coming up November 23-24 in Winter Garden that we may check out.
94. Getting to see the White Sox play in Tampa Bay. No
95. Being able to get more exercise by taking walks and biking the trails of Lake County year-round. No bikes yet, I’m not sure we will as Clermont is very hilly, but we do love taking walks around the area.
96. Enjoying the scenery of Florida, knowing that it will stay green year round, and not become brown and dead for six months out of the year. Yes, this is nice not seeing the deadness of winter, but we do miss the autumn colors.
97. Enjoy a hot dog at Casey’s whenever we want one BEST. HOT. DOGS. EVER.
98. Sit at Cosmic Ray’s and enjoy an entire Sunny Eclipse show You know, this was a must-do every vacation trip, but we have not been in there since we moved.
99. Take a yearly family picture in front of Cinderella Castle. We’re not consistent with this.
100. A family picture and mini-celebration immediately after we cross the Florida state line on our way to becoming Florida residents! We did not take a family pic, but there was great excitement in the car from the Florida state line all the way to Clermont!
So that’s our update to our bucket list. We could probably even make a new one, as we can think of additions to it that we didn’t include. What’s our your bucket list?
On April 13 2011, at our 100 day mark, we put out a list of 100 things that we wanted to do as Florida residents. See the original post here . We thought it would be interesting to see what we’ve done so far- our comments will be in blue. We’ll cover #1-50 today, and #51-100 tomorrow.
1. Resort hop. We have only ever stayed at POR-Riverside as a family, and we really want to experience each resort on property. So even though our current goal is to live 20 minutes away from Walt Disney World, we plan to do weekend stays at each resort, over the course of a year or two, and really take in the charm and uniqueness each resort has to offer. Nope not yet. This is something we still want to do.
2. Enjoy a Dole Whip 🙂 We’ve enjoyed them at Magic Kingdom but we still want to experience them at the Polynesian where you can disperse your own.
3. Attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Our first time next year
4. Attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party No, we haven’t, but between the two parties we’d prefer to do the Halloween party first, as you can experience most everything the Christmas party offers on the week leading up to Christmas on a regular day in the Magic Kingdom- well except for maybe the hot cocoa and cookies!
5. Go on a Disney Cruise! Right now with living in Wisconsin, the price of getting to the cruise has been a huge obstacle for us. We’re of the mindset that if we’re going to spend that much money, we’d rather spend it at WDW! Cruises are really very reasonable as long as you don’t have to travel over a thousand miles to get to one. Nope, not yet but still in the works!
6. Explore Animal Kingdom Park. There are so many areas of AK that we have not discovered simply due to the intense Florida heat, or lack of time available to us. We have done the basics, such as Expedition Everest, Kali River Rapids, Festival of the Lion King, Nemo & Friends and Kilimanjaro Safari, just to name a few. (There are more). But it seems that there is so much more to Animal Kingdom to take in, and we are looking forward to being able to do that in the cooler Florida months, when we have the time to dedicate to it. We have not explored all that Animal Kingdom has to offer, but we have done more. We find the cooler months are the best times to visit Animal Kingdom, and we tend not to even go in the hot, summer months. Jen will be touring the backstage areas on Thursday through a special promotion with Disney Parks Blog, so check back later in the week for a special post detailing that.
7. Go to Magic Kingdom in the evening just for the parades We have not done this, primarily because although we only live 25 miles from the Magic Kingdom, it takes us approximately 45 minutes to reach the parking lot, and another 15 minutes or so for monorail/bag check time. With the cost of gas prices, it is not cost efficient to travel two hours just to attend a parade.
8. Have brunch at Chef Mickey’s 🙂 One of Ben’s favorite spots to see his buddy Mickey!
9. Ride the monorails, just for the fun of it We do so once in awhile
10. Start a new tradition of celebrating birthdays at Walt Disney World This a wonderful perk of living so close to Walt Disney World.
11. Ride Splash Mountain at night during Wishes We haven’t since moving to Florida- used to be a favorite thing to do while on vacation
12. Ride Big Thunder at night during Wishes See #11
13. Listen to Lou Mongello’s audio guides while on Main Street/Adventureland/Fantasyland/Liberty Square and take the time to absorb all the details No we haven’t but we should 🙂
14. Have lunch at Le Cellier Yes, one of our favorite places to eat in Epcot.
15. Watch Illuminations on a winter’s night, enjoying the fact that it is warm & there is no snow on the ground Yes & we enjoy the no snow fact not just at Illuminations but every month from November to May 🙂
16. Go to Universal Catie has been to Universal on a school trip but the rest of the family has not made it yet
17. Go to Sea World A few times- we especially love the new Antarctica attraction.
18. Explore the beaches of Florida–kids have never been to the ocean before. We plan to go to both sides of Florida: The Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean Yes and yes. We’ve been to Anna Maria Island and Treasure Island on the Gulf side, and Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic side.
19. Dinner with Amy and Craig Petermann No, it never worked out.
20. Being able to meet Facebook friends who do not live in Florida but come to Walt Disney World on vacation. Shelley Urick Jones , we look forward to meeting you! This is another awesome benefit of living so close to Walt Disney World, the ability to meet up with our Facebook friends! There are too many to mention here, but we love meeting up with you all!
21. Lou Mongello’s WDW Radio Meets of the Month We have been to some!
22. Exploring the city of Clermont and getting to know our new home city Yes we know our way around fairly easily. We really like the area and enjoy living here.
23. Spending time in the Parks with Stephen and Judy Demeritt We always enjoy spending time in the Parks with our friends.
24. Meeting Marilyn Johnson in person! Marilyn and her husband Dan were extremely gracious and made us feel very welcome after we first moved to Florida. We’re blessed to have met them.
25. Go to Gatorland Still on the bucket list!
26. Enjoy the Osborne lights at the Studios as many times as possible These are incredibly awesome and guaranteed to instill the Christmas spirit in you! We do try to go as many times as possible during the season.
27. Enjoy making new friendships with all our Facebook friends who live in Florida Absolutely!
28. Walking through the World Showcase at Epcot while our kids are in school. We have not been able to explore all the countries because of the kids not wanting to spend time there. Exploring the countries is still on our bucket list. We pulled our children from the public schools and homeschool them. Can we say field trip! 🙂
29. The various shopping opportunities, not only at Walt Disney World, but at the many outlet malls in Orlando and the surrounding areas. Ikea! Yes, IKEA rocks, and we love being able to visit any store we want to within a short driving distance. We have discovered a few Disney Outlet Stores in the Orlando Area, which can be hit or miss on the merchandise available, but definitely worth checking into it.
30. Just enjoying the whole adventure of relocating to a new state! 🙂 🙂
31. Day trips to explore Florida: cities in particular that pop into our heads for no particular reason are Tampa, Naples, St. Augustine, and Jacksonville. We have not yet had any day trips, but two that may happen in the next year are St. Augustine for the historical aspect of it (another field trip!) and Naples…..can we say Culver’s! Ok, that is not the only reason to visit Naples, but it’s definitely an incentive!
32. Shelling at Sanibel Island We have not done this yet; we have heard it’s not as good as it was in years past, but we would still like to visit.
33. Chuckling to ourselves in February when the temperature is 80 and sunny, knowing that back in Wisconsin it is probably blowing and snowing and bitterly cold. Will we miss snow? No we will not! We apologize to all our Wisconsin friends, but yes we do chuckle 🙂
34. Taking in Bob Jackson’s show at the Port Orleans Riverside resort! We haven’t, but the main reason is the noise level is just too unbearable for Ben. He has noise sensitivities and he can’t tolerate it.
35. Staying at the Port Orleans Riverside resort for old times sake! Definitely on the want-to-do-list SOON! We have eaten in the food court a few times.
36. Christmas shopping at Downtown Disney Every year- we love the atmosphere at Downtown Disney!
37. Riding down the Sassagoula River from Port Orleans Riverside to Downtown Disney (and vice versa) No not yet.
38. Exploring the cities of Lake County Yes, we’ve visited Leesburg, Fruitland Park, The Villages, Mt Dora, Eustis, Astatula, Tavares, Lady Lake, Minneola, & Groveland
39. Visiting Celebration for leaf drop (to replace the Fall we will be missing in Wisconsin) No not yet
40. Being there for opening day of the new Fantasyland No, but we were for opening weekend 🙂
41. Resort hopping at Christmas to see all the different Christmas decorations This is in the plans for this year. We have been to the Grand Floridian, to view the Gingerbread House and the Christmas decorations, which are incredible.
42. Counting garbage cans to make sure the Demeritts caught them all 😉 No.
43. Trying on every hat that is sold on Disney property We’ve given up the practice of trying on hats, after a cast member friend of ours mentioned how everybody tries on hats and do you really want to put something on your head after hundreds of people have put it on their head? Um, no.
44. Food and Wine Festival 🙂
45. Enjoy a carrot cake cookie No, but we have enjoyed a Butterfinger cupcake. Actually it was too rich for our tastes, would not buy it again.
46. Visit Star Wars weekend Yes
47. Dinner, lunch and/or breakfast with Lou Mongello Not yet, hoping to one day!
48. Movie at the Downtown Disney AMC theatre We saw Wreck It Ralph there before it was released, courtesy of a special meet-up with Disney Parks Blog.
49.Trying all 500 flavors in the Coke Freestyle Dispenser Not all the flavors- that would take gobs of money & tons of time.
50. DisneyQuest We love DisneyQuest. It was the main reason we renewed our premium passes this year.
Ever since the rumours started a few months back that Disney would soon be changing the Guest Assistance Card (GAC) program to a new system or doing away with it altogether, we’ve been waiting for the official word to come. A few weeks ago that word came and the GAC was set to change over to the new Disability Access Service (DAS) effective October 9th. You can find Disney’s official statement and FAQ on the program at this link. Our first visit to a Park under the new program was this past Saturday, October 12th. Here is our experience at the Magic Kingdom.
We started our day with a stop at Guest Services at City Hall. The line was shorter than we typically encounter and we were met at the door by a very nice CM, Vas, who brought us inside. He asked a few questions on Ben’s needs and began filling out a form on his iPad entering this info. He used the iPad to take Ben’s photo and then went behind the desk to pick up the printed DAS card. They are no longer hand-printed, they are printed out using the info supplied to the CM, the Guest’s photo, the issuing Park and the time frame the card will be good for. Vas explained that as Annual Passholders we could only get the card for 14 days. He told us this was due to the fact that Disney is still testing and refining the process and they want to be able to make changes as needed. He also went over the program in detail explaining how the card works. We take the card to the Fastpass entrance of any attraction where the CM will note the current time, the wait time and the return time on the back of the card. The return time is based on the current wait time minus 10 minutes. So if the current time is 3:00pm and the wait time is 30 minutes, the return time will be 3:20pm. We can return any time after that return time, there is no time limit as with a Fastpass. We also learned that if we are given a return time and decide to skip that attraction, we have to go back to that attraction and have the return time crossed out, even if we don’t ride, before we can get a new one at another attraction.
Next we had Re-Entry Passes (sometimes referred to as Re-admittance or Re-ad cards) explained. If a Guest has a cognitive disability that could cause melt-downs when waiting to board or re-ride a favourite attraction, Disney will issue Re-Entry Passes to allow for immediate use of the Fastpass queue to enter. These look like and are used just as Fastpass tickets (photo below). We were issued 1 pass apiece for 3 attractions, a total of 12 passes for the 4 of us.
We entered the Magic Kingdom and decided to first get a set of Fastpasses for one attraction to plan around. We got these for Winnie the Pooh and also received a set for Mickey’s Philharmagic. Our plan was to get a DAS return time, enjoy Mickey and then go forward from there. Jen went to get a DAS time at Under The Sea. The CM was confused at first, it seemed this was the first one she had done, but quickly had the card filled out. We were given a 30-minute return time and then went into Philharmagic using those Fastpasses. After enjoying the show we walked over to Under the Sea and arrived just at our return time. We entered through the Fastpass queue where the CM crossed out the entry and let us enter. We showed the DAS card again at the second CM and entered in.
After riding Under the Sea we still had some time before we could use our Pooh Fastpasses so we used the Re-entry Passes to ride Barnstormer. To use these passes we do need to show the DAS card as well, although the CM at Barnstormer didn’t ask to see it. We were asked to see it when using the passes at Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear however. Afterwards we used our ‘regular’ Fastpasses at Pooh and then moved to Tomorrowland where we used the Re-entry Passes at Space Mountain and Buzz and also rode TTA. At this point my energy was spent for the day and we headed home.
Overall our experience was very positive. The CMs were all helpful and everything worked smoothly for us Saturday. With good planning; by using Fastpasses (and Fastpass+ once available), the Re-entry Passes and the DAS card this program should work out well for our particular needs. We can see how this program might still need refinement for families coming on vacations and for those families with different needs. It does work differently for those needing extra accommodations, such as using strollers as wheelchairs, etc., as well.
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