Reports and advice on stays at hotels, resorts – any form of lodging
If you are staying at the resort, you can arrange to have Santa come to your condo or cottage—gift in hand (he presented me with a soft stuffed lamb complete with a tag that reads “To Eileen from Santa”) and read a holiday story to the kids
Welcome to Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Destin, FL on the Gulf Coast about halfway between Pensacola and Panama City. You’re just a little more than four hours from Atlanta or Birmingham; five from New Orleans and eight from Dallas.
We’ve driven to the end of Kuhio Highway on the North Shore of Kauai to Ke’e beach — past some of the most luxuriant plants I’ve ever seen. Spectacular beaches abound here on Kauai, including Lumahai beach where Mitzi Gaynor “washed that man right out of her hair” for the filming of “South Pacific.” There’s also the town of Hanalei of “Puff the Magic Dragon” fame
The story goes that in the early 1800s a French trapper heard a noisy hot spring that reminded him of a steamboat. When the railroad was built in 1908, the formations around the spring were changed and the chugging sound was lost. Still, the name stuck.
“You do something and the next day you want to do It again because it was so fun,” says Zach. With other friends, they made a human pyramid while moms played tennis, headed out in kayaks and to water-ski, hunt for frogs, and watch a movie while their parents linger guilt-free over dinner. “We eat and then run off,” Zach says.
I didn’t have to shop, cook or do the dishes or even crack the lobsters. Welcome to Migis Lodge. In a local Native American language Migis means “Place to Steal Away and Rest,” says Tim Porta, who is the second generation to run the place—his 29-year-old son Jed the third generation.
The resort—built on 700 acres—includes 77 cabins that were built before the 1940s. The same families have been coming for generations for the same illusive qualities that first brought families here more than a century ago—the lake front, the chance to be together whether reading a book, playing croquet on the lawn or going out in a sail boat or kayak
We are just off the leeward coast of Oahu, a world away from bustling Waikiki near the Ko Olina Resort & Marina and the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort and Spa (http://www.ihilani.com/) where we are staying. Here, we’re snorkeling with marine biologist Tori Cullins and her crew at Wilde Side Specialty Tours (www.sailhawaii.com) at a spot where sea turtles return again and again to have fish clean them of sand and algae
We swam with wild spinner dolphins—two pods, maybe 30 of them racing around our boat; there are very few places in the world to do that, I learn. The Hawaiian spinner dolphins feed at night, we learn, and return to this area close to Hawaii’s western coast to play and rest.
This is Disney’s first foray into Hawaii and is designed so that families vacation here in a new way, promises Djuan Rivers, Vice President of the new resort as he leads me on a hard hat tour.