Winter Holiday 2015/2016 - Omni Orlando Resort at Champions Gate

In my many trips to Walt Disney World, this was my first time staying in an off-site hotel. I was apprehensive. Would I be missing out on the Disney magic? Almost immediately, the Omni Orlando Resort at Champions Gate put my concerns at ease. This is an absolutely beautiful resort with top-notch service. Located just fifteen minutes from WDW, the Omni offers all of the amenities of a Deluxe Disney resort, at a fraction of the price.

Here are pictures of the lobby.

Although the hotel was at maximum capacity due to the holidays, the lobby was rarely crowded, and we never had problems finding a poolside chair, not even at midday.

Our room was done in warm yellow tones, was spacious, and comfortable. Were given plush hotel robes. I love hotel robes.

The Omni has two restaurants, a deli, and a poolside cafe. We ate at the poolside cafe once for a late lunch; great salads and strong cocktails. Several mornings, we grabbed lattes and granola parfaits for a quick breakfast at the Broadway Deli.

We didn't have an opportunity to try the Italian restaurant, Trevi's, but it came highly recommended. The problem with Orlando, is there are too many restaurants vying for our attention. It's a choice overload.

We did have a wonderful dinner at Zen, Omni's sushi restaurant. Fancy cocktails with orchids, specialty sushi rolls, and chocolate fondue dessert. It was decadent. I highly recommend dining at Zen.

Omni Orlando Resort at Champions Gate is known for its golf course. It looked gorgeous, but we're not golfers. We parked ourselves at the pool and more specifically, we spent hours floating around the lazy river. The water was warm and the weather was perfect. Heaven.

As I mentioned before, we never found the pool to be over crowded, however for adults wanting a quieter experience, there is an adult only pool with spas that overlook the golf course. For kids, the Omni offers, Camp Omni, a kids club. They also have poolside events and activities, like hair braiding and crafts. Truly, there is something for everyone.

The grounds are lush with gardens and nice outdoor areas to sit, including fire-pit with evening Smores roastings.

Our only negative, was the resort and parking fees. I know this is common with most hotels, in fact, we are always surprised when we happen upon a hotel that doesn't have the fees, but it was still a sticker shock, adding about fifty dollars a day to our bill. That said, it did include in-room wifi and the Omni does not charge for the floating rings in the lazy river. A lot of hotels have an extra charge for borrowing pool toys, which is so frustrating.

A very unexpected surprise came on the last night of our stay. We returned from WDW to discover that our room key did not work. On the way to reception, it hit us, we had made a mistake and we were supposed to have checked out earlier that morning. Panicked, we spoke with front desk manager, Alyssa Rivas. Alyssa was awesome. She calmed us down and got us booked for an additional evening, giving us new keys. Relieved, we went for our dinner at Zen.

When we returned our room, we found a sweet note and gift from Alyssa.

We were shocked. The check-out snafu had been completely our mistake, yet she not only fixed it, but sent us a lovely gift. This was such a happy surprise to end our stay. We would definitely return to the Omni Orlando Resort at Champions Gate. It's a beautiful property with excellent service, and a very easy drive to Orlando attractions.

Winter Holiday 2015/2016 - Cocoa Beach, Florida

Last minute holidays are the best. A few days before Christmas 2015, we learned that we had more days off for the winter holidays than we were expecting, so we quickly looked for cheap trips, and found that Florida had great deals happening. Great deals; as long as we were flexible and not too picky.

First, we flew at an undesirable time on Christmas morning. We got up before sunrise for a flight leaving in the early morning hours. As kids across America were waking up to see what Santa had left them, we were having coffee in the United Airlines Lounge in LAX. We were able to purchase first class tickets on the cheap. Admittedly, flying first class domestic on an older plane, isn't nearly as snazzy as flying first class international, but it was still a treat. We had champagne.

The other way we saved money? We were willing to fly into Miami and do a long drive to our destinations of Cocoa Beach and Orlando.

I was a little sad that we didn't decide to spend a few days in Miami. It's a city that I've always wanted to visit. We considered it, but the hotels were outrageously expensive, so it wasn't in the budget for this trip.

Dunkin' Donuts was in the budget.

Here we are In line for coffee and donuts after a long morning. What do we need? Coffee. When do we need it? NOW!

We were surprised to find a very long queue of fellow Christmas Day travelers. Everyone was grabbing coffee. This was the first of two, Dunkin' Donuts stops to keep us fueled on our drive to Cocoa Beach.

Warm chocolate chip cookies and a slightly lackluster Christmas tree were waiting for us in reception at the Double Tree by Hilton in Cocoa Beach. Yummy cookies.

Our room was clean and comfortable. The sun was already starting to set, so we couldn't see the real reason people book this hotel = the beach. It has direct beach access. The beaches are gorgeous.

We asked reception for recommendations for a nice Christmas dinner, and they ( of course) recommended the restaurant right in the hotel. It looked okay, nothing fancy or even offering a special holiday menu, but they had pizza and we were hungry. Doesn't pizza always seem to work? After about thirty minutes, we gave up. The restaurant was approximately 1/3 full, but nearly all of the tables were dirty. We had our drink order taken after fifteen minutes of waiting and the server never came back. They didn't appear to be understaffed, just not very quick with the customer service. We saw them standing around, chatting. The general vibe was bad.

Driving around, we saw that Cocoa Beach was a ghost town. We kept driving until we found Captain J's, glowing with an open sign.

Truthfully, Captain J's was a bit of a dive. But they had fried gatortail and wooden pelicans. Nothing says Christmas dinner like....

The decor inside didn't disappoint. Water features, more pelicans, and a billion Christmas tree lights.

Captain J's was awesome. We feasted on gator, calamari, crab, and lobster; washing it down with delicious tiki drinks. Sorry mom, I loved your turkey dinners that we ate every-single-Christmas...but my meal at Captain J's was honestly the best holiday meal ever. And our food came on metal platters shaped like shells. It's called "Cocoa Beach Classy". Loved it.

The next morning, we woke up at sunrise and walked to the beach. So beautiful and warm. Wearing shorts on December 26th made me ridiculously happy.

Dan had his first Waffle House meal for breakfast. It was a hit.

Here are a few more Cocoa Beach snaps that we took on our way out of town, heading towards Kennedy Space Center.

Our time in Cocoa Beach was brief, but it's definitely a town that I'd love to visit again. The beaches were clean with soft sand, perfect for a beach holiday.

Amsterdam- Arriving in Spuistraat

My first trip to Amsterdam was a week-long whirlwind of trying to cram in as many museums, tourist sights, and local food as possible. It was exhausting and I wouldn't have changed a thing.

The exhaustion hit before we even landed. We were bleary-eyed and achy from the 10 1/2 hour red-eye flight, direct from Los Angeles. Sleep could wait for a few hours, while the excitement of a new city pulled us to explore.

We were staying in the center of Spuistraat, a vibrant neighborhood in Amsterdam that's just a short walk to many of the tourist sites. I can't imagine a more ideal location for a sightseeing home base.

First stop? The Amsterdam Cheese Company! It's never too early in the trip to make your cheese plans. Unfortunately, suitcase space is limited. The thought of bringing an empty "cheese suitcase" was under serious consideration.

We were a two minute walk from the ABC- " The American Book Center". Why should an American tourist go to an American bookstore in a foreign country? First, it's a bookstore. I can't walk past a bookstore without going in. Second, they had an excellent selection of Dutch novels translated into English. Books that I likely would not encounter in an American bookstore state side. I purchased Craving by Esther Gerritsen, and although I've not had a chance to read it, I'm pleased every time I look at my bookshelf and see my Amsterdam souvenir. Much better than a tee-shirt or snow globe!

Any ideas regarding this sign?

We got lost in a series of narrow alleys and discovered a beautiful courtyard.

For lunch, we headed to the Cafe Hoppe. I'm a Southern California native, and the more I travel, the more I realize how lucky I am to live in a place with such amazing food; fresh produce, great meat, and a culturally diverse cuisine. It's the best, especially the Mexican food. I don't know what I was thinking when ordering nachos at Cafe Hoppe. Not good. It recalled my fajitas in England fiasco.

This was my first experience with the local dish, bitterballen. We ate bitterballen every single day of the trip. Bitterballen are little deep-fried balls filled with a mixture of minced meat and cheese. They are served with a mustard dipping sauce. Yummy! The internal mixture is molten, so it's important to puncture the ball to release the heat before taking a bite. This is a lesson that everyone needs to learn only once.

After lunch, we headed to our hotel for a much needed nap. I've been long warned about the small rooms in European hotels. Honestly, I've not found them to be abnormally small. We've stayed in many hotels in Europe and none of them have been too small for two people. Sure, they may be smaller than a comparably priced room in a US hotel, and certainly smaller than the enormous Las Vegas hotels that we frequently visit, but there are still big enough. I think the real difference is city vs country hotels. City hotels are smaller due to space and the expense of real-estate.

Here are some pictures of our hotel, the NH City Centre. The pictures were taken towards the end of our trip, so please excuse the airing of our dirty laundry.

We woke up in the early evening and walked around the neighborhood in search of a restaurant for dinner. The canals were stunning with the soft lights of the street lamps twinkling in the water. Amsterdam is beautiful.

Memories of India was our stop for dinner. Good food, nice atmosphere. We ordered our favorite dishes like Chicken Biriyani and Tikka Masala, enjoying a meal very much like we would get in England or even back home in California. Don't worry, we ate plenty local Dutch cuisine during our trip!