Keepin' it on the downlow(country) at HHI - New TR link - pg 31

[Rozz]

Thanks for the notice of a new trip report!

I am intrigued about the “most dangerous night” and “walking out of restaurants”. Look forward to reading about your adventure. Happy Anniversary!

 

[Simba's Mom]

Despite the fact that a Studio would do for just the two of us...I booked a 1-bedroom suite. This was for three reasons:
1) in case we relented and decided to bring the kids, we'd have the room for them,
b) we like to cook, and especially over a whole week we could really use a kitchen, (and a washer/dryer for that matter), and
iii) no studios were available at the 7-month mark, so that basically settled it right there.

So now do you HAVE to have a 1 BR? HHI did that to me! About 8 years ago we decided to "treat" ourselves to a 1 BR and can't go back! A couple years ago, for some stupid reason we booked a studio, and I spent the entire week whining and moaning about how I missed my 1 BR. And I, too, am dying to know about this "walking out of restaurants".

 

[Reddog1134]

I'm here Commissioner.

Thanks for the notification. We loved HHI and I'm looking forward to your thoughts on it.

 

[MissLiz]

Glenn-yes, yes I did have a PTR last fall. I realize now that I don't have the patience to do a report. Lol! I am currently trying to write a blog post about our Aulani trip for a podcast that I guest on and it's proving it even more. I am okay on one or two posts, but I can't keep it up.

 

[shannon47142]

Yea a new report from you! I'm not a big comment person but have really enjoyed your past reports! Looking forward to this one

 

[glennbo123]

Well let's get up and get started on this trip report, we've got a long drive ahead of us. Which coincidentally is kind of how our trip started. But let me back up a little bit. When I first booked this trip we had plenty of cushion between the end of Judy's school year (she's a teacher ) and the start of the trip, so we weren't worried about snow-days extending the school year and spoiling the trip. Well, that was until the Polar Vortex missed the memo on Climate Change and we started piling up snow days like so many inches of fresh powder. With the crazy winter we had, Judy had to work right through to Friday June 20th and we were scheduled to check-in on Saturday the 21st. For a while there we were sweating it out, wondering if just one more weather-event would extend the school year to Monday the 23rd and really mess up our plans. Fortunately, that didn't happen. And even with her hectic end-of-school schedule, she was able to do some packing in the evenings and it was "all systems 'go'!" by Saturday morning.

Judy wasn't real crazy about my desired departure time of 6am, but I figured that it would take a good 12 hours of driving time to get us from our home in the Philadelphia area of Pennsylvania to Hilton Head, SC. And as it turned out, with last-minute packing and things, we didn't get on the road until 6:30 or maybe even a little later. Actually, the dog was the last obstacle to us getting out the door as he saw our bags and things making their way to the van. He correctly read the tea leaves that someone was going on a trip and he was determined not to be left behind. So, we had to wake our oldest daughter and have her sit with him so that we could get going.

The drive was uneventful until lunchtime. Driving through Virginia, we decided to break to get something to eat. Judy has to eat gluten-free these days, and wanted to find a Chick-Fil-A, but she looked at Google Maps on her phone and couldn't find one near us. The next exit we were approaching on I-95 South was for Emporia, VA, and had a Cracker Barrel listed as one of the exit restaurants. We debated it, not wanting to stop for too long, but decided to stop so that she could find something suitable for her since she has trouble with the menus at most burger places. And hey, I like Cracker Barrel every once in a while. We got seated pretty quickly. Checking with our server that we could get breakfast food all day, we both ordered a breakfast platter: scrambled eggs with bacon for me, and scrambled eggs with a sausage patty for Judy. Iced tea for both of us (mainly because I hadn't decided to get breakfast yet when I put in my drink order, or I'd have gotten coffee). Okay, I can see that I'm getting really wordy here, but you're still with me, right? Great! Okay, back to our story...We're waiting, we're talking. Our server re-fills our iced teas...once, maybe twice even, I can't remember. She swings by again to say that our meals should be out any minute. She swings by later to say that the manager will be coming over to talk to us since it's been such a long wait. Then the manager came by and apologized, acknowledging that we'd been waiting for our food for 30 to 40 minutes. I told him that we were traveling and even debated on whether to eat here since we didn't want to lose a lot of time. (I may or may not have been angling for a discount. Hey, why not?) He said, "I know, I know", and went to check on our orders. Probably another 10 minutes passed, and we noticed 2 or 3 tables that were seated after us enjoying their meals. I thought about leaving, but what if the food is just about to come out? We'll waste more time looking for another place to stop. Judy finally said, "should we leave?" I said, "what'll you eat?" She said that she had some cashews in the car that she could eat, and I was okay just eating some snacks until dinnertime, so we decided to do something we'd never done before: walk out of a restaurant. We found the manager near the kitchen and told him that we needed to get going but wanted to pay for the iced teas. He said, "Don't worry about that. Have a safe trip!" All told, we wasted about an hour. I guess what was so baffling about it was that we had only ordered breakfast food. My guess is that they cook the bacon and sausage in batches and have it sitting under warmers, not custom for each plate, so the only items they'd have to cook to fill our orders were scrambled eggs and toast! Just crazy.

So as we drove out of there, I made my first trip report note to make sure that I bash the Cracker Barrel in Emporia Virginia. Don't dis a DISer, Cracker Barrel, they'll write bad things about you in trip reports.

Oh, and one more thing. We are not quite done walking out of restaurants on this trip.

Then we got back on I-95 South, and guess what we saw listed as one of the restaurants at the next exit? Yep, Chick-Fil-A. We found it, went through the drive-through and were in/out in no time.

The only other issues we had to deal with on the drive were some thunderstorms that we drove through in North and South Carolina. It was kind of strange since one minute we'd be driving through torrential downpours, then clear skies, then downpours again, and finally dark skies but no rain as we approached Hilton Head.

When we got within 20 or 30 minutes of arrival, we called Bullies Barbecue and placed a take-out order for our dinner and first meal in Hilton Head. I'd seen them in some other trip reports and they looked pretty good, had good reviews on Yelp, and we definitely weren't going to be cooking this evening. We arrived around 7:30pm, which was a little later than I'd hoped, but still okay. I'd hoped to get our grocery shopping done after we arrived so that the next day could be a full beach day, but no big deal, we'll just move it to tomorrow morning. We're on vacation! We found Bullies without any difficulty, and saw the Disney resort sign as we drove past it since Bullies is a little bit further down the road. I went in and got our food, we backtracking the short distance to the resort and soon we were crossing the bridge by the marina into the resort.

At the end of the bridge there's a gate to enter the resort which is activated by your Key to the Kingdom card, but since we hadn't checked-in yet, we waited there a moment and a voice came over the loudspeaker, welcoming us. I just said "glennbo123 (or something like that ) checking-in". Then the lovely voice said, "Please pull up to the Live Oak Lodge for check-in Mr. glennbo123 (or something like that ). Welcome home!" And the gate rose in front of us.

Check-in was pretty quick, and we received the usual maps and activity sheets (I'll share these later in the report) and an envelope from Mickey. You don't get envelopes from Mickey at just any hotel, you know. We learned that our suite was right there in the Live Oak Lodge, and I must admit that I was a little disappointed. I was hoping that we'd be in one of the buildings at the other end of the resort. I've since learned that most of the one-bedroom suites are in the Live Oak Lodge (buildings 11 and 12), and only 5 are in other buildings: 16, 18, 19, 28, and 30. And they're below Grand Villas, so the only way that the resort could have met my room requests of "high floor" and "marsh view" would be to put me in one of the Lodge suites, which is what they did. Now I know.

We went out to move our car from a check-in space to the underground parking and I quickly posted a picture of the Live Oak Lodge on Instagram, saying "Made it!".

Then we parked, I grabbed my camera, and we set off to check out our suite.

We were on the 3rd floor, room 1138. It was at the back, right side of the Live Oak Lodge. Here's the requisite door photo, even though it was taken later in the week. When else will I have an opportunity to post it?

All right, I know that you're probably almost as eager as I was to see the suite, so let's move on to some room pictures. Newly renovated room pictures!

Straight ahead is the living room and kitchen.

Looking back toward the entrance.

And back toward the living room area.

The bathroom was to the left, after you entered the suite. The shower was just out of the frame of this picture, to the right. It took me a day or two to notice that we had a shower door, not a curtain. The pictures of the renovations at Hilton Head in DisneyFiles magazine showed a shower curtain with some hidden Mickey's in it. I wonder if they're used in a different sized suite?

Looking from the bathroom into the dressing area.

The bedroom.

continued in next post
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[glennbo123]

continued from previous post

The balcony. (And proof that the doorstop was already broken when we got there. No doubt I would've blamed that on James if he had been there.)

And looking back the other way.

The only thing I didn't like about it was the view of this other resort across the water.

But this view I liked.

I moved back inside. This space is just to the right of the suite entrance. The door opposite me is a lock-off to a studio, and the doors on the right of the picture hide the washer and dryer. I'm sorry, I don't think I ever took a picture of them if you were curious to see them.

I was a little surprised that the wicker fishing creel wasn't attached to the shelf. I'm always nervous that some sticky-fingered guest would take something like that and ruin it for the rest of us.

And here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. These are newly renovated rooms and already some dirty rat had carved graffiti into the bench!

By this point, Judy was getting antsy to see what was in our envelope from Mickey.

Anniversary pins!

We plated up our Bullies take-out and sat down to our little feast. I posted a picture similar to this one on Instagram and said, "I hope I made the right wine selection. Prob'ly not, but we'll go with it."

Yeah, it wasn't the right wine selection, but it didn't detract from the fact that this was some really good barbecue. We loved it! On my plate above, there was beef brisket in the upper left, then some ribs, pulled pork and pulled chicken, a piece of jalapeno cornbread on top of the pulled meat, then some macaroni salad and cole slaw. The meat was really good, with the exception of one rib that had almost no meat on it, despite appearances. The other rib was really meaty, so on average, I guess I was even. The cole slaw was awesome. Judy was already talking about getting this again later in the week, but spoiler alert, we never did. Too many other options. But I'd definitely get this again and it worked out great for a take-out arrival meal.

After eating, we finished unpacking and then decided to walk over to the store, the Mercantile. It was after dark, but the walk would do us good. It was a little tricky finding our way to the pool area, at night, and our first time exploring the resort. But we managed to see a sign or two directing us along the paths. The pool looked very inviting, but it'd have to wait for another day. We walked up the steps to the Mercantile and checked out what they had for sale. Judy eyed some Vera Bradley bags, but on this occasion we only bought our refillable mugs for the week. (I'll have some pictures of the Mercantile later in the report, so stay tuned.)

Anyway, we filled those bad boys with liquid refreshment from the mug-refill station right outside of the Mercantile. This was our first time using the "Rapid Fill" system, so the concept of placing our mug on the tray so that the RFID chip could be read was new to us, but we caught on quickly.

From there, we walked back to our suite, watched some "Finding Nemo" on the ABC Family channel, and hit the hay to recover from our day's journey and get rested up for whatever tomorrow had in store for us.


Up next: We don't get Naked at the grocery store
Link to next chapter

 

[ddstratton]

Aw, bummer about the Cracker Barrel messing with your lunch plans. We had supper at that Cracker Barrel, way back on our first Disney trip in 2008. Don't remember much about it, though. Wonder what the hold-up was? Especially since the manager knew about it.

That suite looks lovely! Beautiful view. And your dinner doesn't look bad, either!

 

[glennbo123]

Thank you for the bat signal, Glennbo.

Now I need to go back and read.

Thanks for signing up Camille!

Here

Hey there Scott!

Hello! Thanks for the heads up, I'm joining in!

You're most welcome Wendy! Glad to have you over.

I look forward to reading about the trip Glenn.

Andy!

And I liked your list of unused TR titles.

They're now in the public domain. Feel free to use them, or just work them into everyday conversation. If that's even possible.

Yay! Another Glennbo TR!

Rebecca!!

Thanks for the invite Glenn. I know I don't come out to play much anymore since I went back to teaching - but I do still like to lurk occasionally. And I miss hangin' out with all you guys. Or 'all y'all' as I should probably say, in the spirit of this low country report.

Honestly, I thought that you were probably no longer on the DIS, but pm's are relatively inexpensive so why not throw it out there. I'm so glad that you're still around occasionally and have subbed.

Yes, I'm quite familiar with the time demands placed on teachers so no problem. But I'm sure I speak for the whole gang (and they know who they are) when we say that we miss hangin' out with you as well. But it's good to see that you're still kicking!

Looking forward to hearing about HHI. We bought into DVC a couple years ago, and I've been pushing for a Hilton Head trip. Maybe next summer?

That's great! Congratulations! Hilton Head is a great destination. aaarcher86 has a good trip report going (in this forum) on Hilton Head with more of a perspective on kids activities than this one will have, since it's adults-only. Hers is called "Disney has a beach resort? Count me in!"

 

[mindygirl5238]

Following along here! We live in Myrtle Beach, so of course we are interested in the HHI resort. Gotta get WDW out of the first, of course. Plus, I'm originally from the Philly area myself...so hey, two wins!!

 

[glennbo123]

Thanks for the notice of a new trip report!

I just realized how unnecessary that was....since you're......always watching.

But

I am intrigued about the “most dangerous night” and “walking out of restaurants”. Look forward to reading about your adventure. Happy Anniversary!

One of those has just been partly-answered. More to come.

So now do you HAVE to have a 1 BR? HHI did that to me! About 8 years ago we decided to "treat" ourselves to a 1 BR and can't go back! A couple years ago, for some stupid reason we booked a studio, and I spent the entire week whining and moaning about how I missed my 1 BR. And I, too, am dying to know about this "walking out of restaurants".

Hi Simba's Mom (Nala right?) and

Since this is the fewest people we've ever traveled with on our DVC, we've never had smaller than a 1-bedroom. We're usually traveling with our whole gang of 5, and last trip we also threw in my Mom and Dad and got a 2-bedroom. (Well, figuratively threw in. They're getting too fragile for literally throwing in. How I miss those days, but I digress.) Anyway, I've yet to try out a DVC Studio. We got one for my sister-in-law back in '09 for one night at SSR, and we got to check it out and it looked really nice, but I'm sure we'd miss the kitchen and laundry.

I'm here Commissioner.

Thanks for the notification. We loved HHI and I'm looking forward to your thoughts on it.

That's awesome Brian! Thanks for that! And

Now I must not be up on my celebrity chins...who is that particular Batman?

Glenn-yes, yes I did have a PTR last fall. I realize now that I don't have the patience to do a report. Lol! I am currently trying to write a blog post about our Aulani trip for a podcast that I guest on and it's proving it even more. I am okay on one or two posts, but I can't keep it up.

I understand! It is a time commitment! Heck, just uploading the pictures is a time commitment. And getting them into the report, and so on and so on. It takes time!

Well, come back and give us a link to your blog post when you get a chance. I'd love to see it.

Yea a new report from you! I'm not a big comment person but have really enjoyed your past reports! Looking forward to this one

Hiya Shannon! It's okay not to comment...thanks for subscribing and letting me know you're following along!

 

[MEK]

I think getting there in 13 hours after wasting a stop at the Cracker Barrell was pretty good. I'm impressed. OUr last drive down was 10.5 hours but we just did drive through.

I like the renovated room. Very nice. Better than the old fishing theme, but they still left a touch of that. How was the living room couch? The old ones used to practically throw you on the floor.

I like your view. It's very pretty! I think it would be cool to stay in the actual lodge!

 

[MEK]

Now that was a good one! So glad that he was able to get that stent too! So was the hospital on the island itself, or did you have to go back to the mainland?

The hospital was, at most, 3 or 4 miles from the resort. Straight down that main road and off a side road. It was very close. I actually liked the hospital. It was very pretty and the views outside were lovely. Everyone that works there is basically a transplant. No one is from the island. Most of the staff are from all over the country and they end up living there for one reason or another. The cardiologist Denny had was excellent. I would not hesistate to recommend her.

 

[onelilspark]

That looks like a really nice suite! (It doesn't help that I'm currently suffering from acute Vacation Envy.)

I feel like I used "acute" wrong. I don't mean the size of an angle.

 

[glennbo123]

Aw, bummer about the Cracker Barrel messing with your lunch plans. We had supper at that Cracker Barrel, way back on our first Disney trip in 2008. Don't remember much about it, though. Wonder what the hold-up was? Especially since the manager knew about it.

I hate to give them a bad review because I really do like stopping at them as an alternative to burger joints, but sheesh! I didn't know what I had to do to actually get some food.

I know, the manager was back there in the area between the kitchen and the servers...he looked busy, but you'd figure at some point he'd say "I'm going to personally see that this order gets out." Apparently, that never happened.

That suite looks lovely! Beautiful view. And your dinner doesn't look bad, either!

At the time, I wasn't thrilled with the room location. I wanted to be more "in" the resort, or down toward the other end. Now I know that this is probably one of the best locations for a 1-bedroom. My bad.

Oh man, that dinner was gooood.

Following along here! We live in Myrtle Beach, so of course we are interested in the HHI resort. Gotta get WDW out of the first, of course. Plus, I'm originally from the Philly area myself...so hey, two wins!!

Hi mindygirl5238! to my little trip report!

Yes. Get thee to WDW! Then, cycle back for HHI.

HHI is way different than Myrtle Beach, so it will depend on what you're looking for. Myrtle Beach has so much activity....entertainment, shopping, restaurants, night life, water slides and mini golf, oh, and the beach. Hilton Head is more geared toward nature discovery, relaxing, some restaurants, and the beach. So, it depends. But if you're living in Myrtle Beach, maybe it'd be a nice get-away for you?

I think getting there in 13 hours after wasting a stop at the Cracker Barrell was pretty good. I'm impressed. OUr last drive down was 10.5 hours but we just did drive through.

Plus, I'm a little farther north than you. And you probably have a lead foot.

I like the renovated room. Very nice. Better than the old fishing theme, but they still left a touch of that. How was the living room couch? The old ones used to practically throw you on the floor.

Oh man, I'm going to comment on that couch. Not sure when I'll work it into the narrative, but yeah, those cushions just keep working their way forward until you're halfway hanging over the front. We were constantly reconfiguring the cushions.

I like your view. It's very pretty! I think it would be cool to stay in the actual lodge!

I just mentioned to Darla in an earlier comment....I wasn't happy at first, but I think it was probably one of the nicest 1-bedroom views that they have.

The hospital was, at most, 3 or 4 miles from the resort. Straight down that main road and off a side road. It was very close. I actually liked the hospital. It was very pretty and the views outside were lovely. Everyone that works there is basically a transplant. No one is from the island. Most of the staff are from all over the country and they end up living there for one reason or another. The cardiologist Denny had was excellent. I would not hesistate to recommend her.

I remember you saying how happy you were with the hospital. We lived in NC in the late '90's for a few years and similarly, there were soo many transplants. Had to hear a lot of "Yankee" jokes.

 

[glennbo123]

That looks like a really nice suite! (It doesn't help that I'm currently suffering from acute Vacation Envy.)

We loved it. We could downsize to that. That, and a massive storage unit.

I feel like I used "acute" wrong. I don't mean the size of an angle.

No, that's right, as long as you mean short-term and intense/severe. "Chronic" would be really bad....that'd mean you wouldn't be going on vacation for a long time!

 

[Poolrat]

Judy has to eat gluten-free these days, and wanted to find a Chick-Fil-A, but she looked at Google Maps on her phone and couldn't find one near us. The next exit we were approaching on I-95 South was for Emporia, VA, and had a Cracker Barrel listed as one of the exit restaurants. We debated it, not wanting to stop for too long, but decided to stop so that she could find something suitable for her since she has trouble with the menus at most burger places. And hey, I like Cracker Barrel every once in a while. We got seated pretty quickly. Checking with our server that we could get breakfast food all day, we both ordered a breakfast platter: scrambled eggs with bacon for me, and scrambled eggs with a sausage patty for Judy. Iced tea for both of us (mainly because I hadn't decided to get breakfast yet when I put in my drink order, or I'd have gotten coffee). Okay, I can see that I'm getting really wordy here, but you're still with me, right? Great! Okay, back to our story...We're waiting, we're talking. Our server re-fills our iced teas...once, maybe twice even, I can't remember. She swings by again to say that our meals should be out any minute. She swings by later to say that the manager will be coming over to talk to us since it's been such a long wait. Then the manager came by and apologized, acknowledging that we'd been waiting for our food for 30 to 40 minutes. I told him that we were traveling and even debated on whether to eat here since we didn't want to lose a lot of time. (I may or may not have been angling for a discount. Hey, why not?) He said, "I know, I know", and went to check on our orders. Probably another 10 minutes passed, and we noticed 2 or 3 tables that were seated after us enjoying their meals. I thought about leaving, but what if the food is just about to come out? We'll waste more time looking for another place to stop. Judy finally said, "should we leave?" I said, "what'll you eat?" She said that she had some cashews in the car that she could eat, and I was okay just eating some snacks until dinnertime, so we decided to do something we'd never done before: walk out of a restaurant. We found the manager near the kitchen and told him that we needed to get going but wanted to pay for the iced teas. He said, "Don't worry about that. Have a safe trip!" All told, we wasted about an hour. I guess what was so baffling about it was that we had only ordered breakfast food. My guess is that they cook the bacon and sausage in batches and have it sitting under warmers, not custom for each plate, so the only items they'd have to cook to fill our orders were scrambled eggs and toast! Just crazy.

I was just near there on the drive to and from Williamsburg. Didn't stop at that particular one but CB is usually my go to travel stop since it usually is fast and easy.
Sorry this was so bad. I mean what gives a couple eggs and sausage, bacon and toast. Unless they ran out of eggs and were afraid to tell you so they made you wait until you left.

Oh, and one more thing. We are not quite done walking out of restaurants on this trip.

Then we got back on I-95 South, and guess what we saw listed as one of the restaurants at the next exit? Yep, Chick-Fil-A. We found it, went through the drive-through and were in/out in no time.

YAY for in and out quickly.

The only other issues we had to deal with on the drive were some thunderstorms that we drove through in North and South Carolina. It was kind of strange since one minute we'd be driving through torrential downpours, then clear skies, then downpours again, and finally dark skies but no rain as we approached Hilton Head.

Welcome to North and South Carolina raining one block sunny the next.

And they're below Grand Villas, so the only way that the resort could have met my room requests of "high floor" and "marsh view" would be to put me in one of the Lodge suites, which is what they did. Now I know.

And I know too. Thanks.

But this view I liked.

I like.

And here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. These are newly renovated rooms and already some dirty rat had carved graffiti into the bench!

AWWWWW

Up next: We don't get Naked at the grocery store

I guess that is a good thing.


Sounds like your first night ended wonderfully even though the stop in Emporia was less than nice.

 

[mindygirl5238]

Hi mindygirl5238! to my little trip report!

Yes. Get thee to WDW! Then, cycle back for HHI.

HHI is way different than Myrtle Beach, so it will depend on what you're looking for. Myrtle Beach has so much activity....entertainment, shopping, restaurants, night life, water slides and mini golf, oh, and the beach. Hilton Head is more geared toward nature discovery, relaxing, some restaurants, and the beach. So, it depends. But if you're living in Myrtle Beach, maybe it'd be a nice get-away for you?

Oh yes, I know. Trust me, we didn't move to MB for all that. We live two miles from the beach...but drive 20 minutes to go to a much quieter one. I'm sure we will hit the HHI resort for a mini-vacay someday.

 

[Simba's Mom]

Thanks for all the pictures. I hope you're not disappointed about being in Live Oak Lodge now-that's our most favorite 1 BR we've ever had. We requested it on the last two stays.

 

[orangecats2]

So glad for a chapter already.

Too bad about Cracker Barrel. We go to the one by us a couple times a year and have never had a problem. Of course we always go for dinner.

Nice room! I so want to own DVC some day. Got any extra points laying around that you want to transfer to me?