Trip Report Devoting Full Time to Floating: A July 2013 Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort Trip Report!

Hellooooooo humans!

That's me (Shannon, 29) and my husband Will (28). Last week we returned home from a much-needed vacation that included three destinations, five racing presidents, one try at paddle boarding (verdict: LOVE), two cupcakes, one favorite new movie, at least ten (!) bug bites (on only one of us...guess who the lucky one was? ) and one beyooooootiful golden retriever.

The main feature of this trip, though, was relaxation. Our last vacation was traveling to Disney for Marathon Weekend in January, but let's be honest: as much as I love them, those race weekends are hardly vacations. They are WORK. And speaking of work, my job has been pretty demanding lately. It's good because I like being busy and challenging myself, but before this trip I'd been coming off of one of those periods where things are just a little TOO busy and a little TOO challenging. Know what I mean?

Will had his own stress to deal with early in the summer. He's a teacher, meaning that he's on glorious summer vacation right now. However, this summer was also his first semester of graduate school. We're talking a semester's worth of two upper-level math classes crammed into one 5-week session. So in addition to the classes themselves he had hours of homework/projects/papers each evening. To say he needed a break - and a reward - after surviving that is an understatement.

We started talking about this trip in April, and initially Hilton Head wasn't a part of it. Will's two aunts had been asking us to visit for years (seriously, YEARS...I'm embarrassed it took us so long ) so we finally decided to make that happen. After roughly mapping the days out we ended up adding on the Hilton Head portion at the end since we'd already be in SC visiting aunt #2 anyway. I'd read a report on Disney's DVC resort in Hilton Head on another board just a few weeks prior, so that's where we ended up.

Here's how the schedule shook out:

July 22: Drop the monster-pup off at doggy camp

(obligatory monster photo that has nothing to do with anything I just like him.)

July 22-24: Visit aunt #1 in the DC area
July 24-26: Visit aunt #2 in South Carolina (Columbia-ish area)
July 26-30: Head to Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort!

My favorite part of this itinerary was how little planning I needed to do. I mean, we worked stuff out with flights (my biggest triumph was scoring $59 tickets from Baltimore to Charleston...Southwest rocks!) and a rental car, and I made a few reservations for the Hilton Head portion of the trip...but compared to my normal OCD trip planning tendencies this was nothing. The aunts had stuff planned out for us and for once I was more than happy to just go where I was told, minimal thinking required. That's sort of what inspired the title of this report...in the days leading up to the trip I just sort of imagined us floating along effortlessly, completely relaxed, not a care in the world. AHHHHH......

 

[Ariel484]

Liking report so far. Unfortunately Hilton Head tends to be treated like a step child, so that's why they don't have resort-specific keys or buttons. Also because they simply don't get enough traffic to warrant it. There's only 100 or so rooms on property. Glad you had fun, though.

I spent a good bit of time on that recumbent bike in the workout room last December.

Thank you! Yeah, I was surprised to see Disney Parks stuff everywhere. It was weird. I think what you're saying about getting enough traffic is totally right - I bet that is why they don't have a table service place or any kind of place on-property to get dinner.

Good for you for getting the exercise in over vacation! I need to work on that next time.

 

[Ariel484]

So we got back to the resort before 2 and Will had the unfortunate realization that he was now the one with a sunburn. Part of his shoulders were fried (areas where the life jacket didn't cover and he'd missed with the sunblock) as well as right above his knees. Ouch!

We re-sun screened up, grabbed our beach towels (you get 4 per room...they have green and white stripes) and hopped on the bikes. Beach time!

The front desk CM had given us instructions on how to get to Disney's beach house, but we were both pretty unsure of ourselves. We left the resort and saw a small sign with a picture of a bike on it pointing us toward the bike path. Success!

The path actually goes under the main road outside of the resort, which is good because that road (rt. 278 I think?) is BUSY. After crossing under 278 we came out to the entrance to Palmetto Dunes, which is a HUGE group of rentals/resorts/etc. We just rode through there for awhile, took a wrong turn, and just when we were convinced that we were going the wrong way we started seeing signs for Disney's beach house. Whew.

We made it!

The beach house is open from 8-8. You gain access with your Key to the World card.

Beach house pool:

We didn't explore too much because we were STARVING! Time for lunch.

Signals is the quick service location at the beach house. It's open from 11-4.

Phone panorama!

Very similar to Tide Me Over's lunch menu.

We put our order in and grabbed a table overlooking the beach. Just like that morning at Tide Me Over we had a short wait while they prepared our food.

Beach!

And food! We both got chicken strips and fries.

These were good. Especially the fries. Like...really good. I hate soggy fries and these were nice and crispy. Which meant that for the rest of the trip I was never "good" by ordering the fruit cup or something instead as my side.

After lunch we walked down to the beach but never actually stepped into the ocean. Isn't that terrible? We definitely realized on this trip that we just aren't beach people. This is as close as we got:

A big part of it was that the check-in CM had told us we could rent umbrellas but it would be cheaper to buy one. We never did find out how much it cost to rent an umbrella. There was no way we were going out on the beach without one (what with Will having a fresh sunburn and my still recovering from my original one). I wish we'd planned better and bought an umbrella. Also, we both hate getting tons of sand everywhere, so it just didn't happen. Oh well.

 

[Ariel484]

We biked back to the room (the return trip was much quicker since we knew where we were going...15-20 minutes maybe), got cleaned up and relaxed for a bit. Time to head out for dinner!

Oh boy, we're getting food now!

Our destination this evening was One Hot Mama's, which is a barbecue place.

I forget how long it took us to get there, but it was not on that list of places where our KTTW card would get us a discount.

One Hot Mama's is located very close to some other businesses. As we walked to the entrance to check in a guy welcomed us and told us to have a good meal. We assumed he was an owner and thought that was nice.

This place doesn't take reservations either and we had a short wait.

All the other businesses near One Hot Mama's. Apparently it's a big joke on the island that everyone that comes to Hilton Head is from Ohio...so whenever we said we were from Ohio we'd get laughed at. That was kind of jarring.

We ended up at the bar since it was still happy hour. I forget what wine I got...it was okay, not great.

We got seated next to a family with a super adorable baby that kept us entertained while we waited for our food.

I was pretty excited about this place. The owner was on a season of "The Next Food Network Star" and the restaurant got excellent reviews online.

Will ordered a dozen wings with some kind of Jack Daniels sauce.

They came with veggies.

(sorry these pics are so blurry! )

I got the fried chicken and chose the baked potato and the caesar salad as my sides.

I almost never get fried chicken, but I had some at a restaurant in Ohio a few months back that was AMAZING, so I think I was expecting the same here. This chicken was...not amazing. It was BLAND. It was like they made it and forgot to add any seasoning whatsoever. It just had zero flavor. The salad was good - hard to mess that up - and so was the baked potato. The chicken bummed me out. Will said his wings were good, not great. Big disappointment here. The server definitely noticed that we didn't eat much, so that was awkward.

After settling the bill we headed out and ran into the same guy that had welcomed us to One Hot Mama's. And he talked...and talked...and kept us there for 15-20 minutes. Eventually we realized he was in fact, NOT the owner and was trying to sell us something - a tour, a timeshare, whatever. It was weird.

We finally broke free and hopped in the car. I'd asked the hostess for a shopping center recommendation and she gave us directions to Coligny Plaza, a few minutes away. I was not impressed - tons of tacky touristy stuff here. I'm not sure what I was expecting.

I got excited when I saw this though...not the same as in DtD but still!

And then we turned the corner and found Sweet Carolina Cupcakes! What luck! I had a short list of places I wanted to check out on our trip and this was one of them!

Nom!

After getting the cupcakes we headed back. They went in the fridge for the next day because when we got back to the room I suddenly was not feeling so great. I'm not quite sure what happened - at first I assumed the worst and thought it was food poisoning - but my stomach was in knots and I actually fell asleep before 9PM. Bizarre. Needless to say this was probably the worst night of our trip.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I think you just tipped the scales towards making the final decision to book Tracey & I on the kayak tour on Castaway Cay next month. I've never kayaked but always wanted to.

"Little buttholes!" That's hilarious!

Ohio. Don't know if you remember or read from previous mention in a trip report or something, when I was a kid growing up in Orlando we used to see the real *obvious* tourists at WDW and joke that they were all from Cleveland. I'm totaly cracking up over the fact that these people in SC joke about tourists from Ohio. LOL! I have no idea why our joke labeled the tourists as being from Cleveland. It started when I was a kid and just sorta lasted all these years. So funny!

I've totally learned my lesson about tv show nods for cooks and restaurants. We've been to 2 different places that were featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives. Neither were all that fabulous, really. Each had like 1 dish that was pretty good but everything overall was average at best. Strange. So, we don't necessarily buy into the tv show nods anymore when it comes to food. That hasn't panned-out so good for us either.

Sunscreen! I know you'll think I'm crazy but I've found (with my ultra-pale redheaded family) that investing in higher-priced mineral/barrier blocks is totally worth it. Yeah, a tube in a size that costs $7 at Target costs closer to $30 but we use so much less of it. ThinkSport makes a pretty good one. We've used Coola, too. We've applied the paste-y stuff (no fun but worth it in the end) in the morning, done Atlantis for 5 hours, never reapplied, and still had to scrub twice in the shower to get it off. Is it a PITA? Yeah. But for zero burn and no reapplying it's worthwhile. The stuff works!

Totally can't wait to hear about your dolphin interaction! Loving this report, girl!

 

[Ariel484]

I think you just tipped the scales towards making the final decision to book Tracey & I on the kayak tour on Castaway Cay next month. I've never kayaked but always wanted to.

"Little buttholes!" That's hilarious!

You guys should totally do it! Not sure if you've kayaked before, but it's super easy to pick it. It was really relaxing and a decent workout. I bet you'd see lots of lovely stuff at CC. Maybe even your own little .

Ohio. Don't know if you remember or read from previous mention in a trip report or something, when I was a kid growing up in Orlando we used to see the real *obvious* tourists at WDW and joke that they were all from Cleveland. I'm totaly cracking up over the fact that these people in SC joke about tourists from Ohio. LOL! I have no idea why our joke labeled the tourists as being from Cleveland. It started when I was a kid and just sorta lasted all these years. So funny!

I'm a born-and-raised Clevelander and somehow I didn't realize that everyone from here goes to HH. I said something to my mom about it and she was like "um yeah...everyone from here goes there!" Somehow I missed the memo. I know what you mean though, Cleveland is always used that way. It's okay, we're used to it!

I've totally learned my lesson about tv show nods for cooks and restaurants. We've been to 2 different places that were featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives. Neither were all that fabulous, really. Each had like 1 dish that was pretty good but everything overall was average at best. Strange. So, we don't necessarily buy into the tv show nods anymore when it comes to food. That hasn't panned-out so good for us either.

There was a Cleveland episode of Diner, Drive-Ins and Dives and of the 3 places he went to I can definitely vouch for 2 of them as being pretty excellent. The 3rd was a head scratcher so I'm definitely with you on not completely trusting the TV show chefs. Although Michael Symon (fellow Cleveland and Iron Chef - woot!) has a few places around here and the 2 we've been to are really good. Of course being a contestant on "The Next Food Network Star" vs. an Iron Chef winner is probably not the same thing so maybe I was expecting too much from One Hot Mama's...

Sunscreen! I know you'll think I'm crazy but I've found (with my ultra-pale redheaded family) that investing in higher-priced mineral/barrier blocks is totally worth it. Yeah, a tube in a size that costs $7 at Target costs closer to $30 but we use so much less of it. ThinkSport makes a pretty good one. We've used Coola, too. We've applied the paste-y stuff (no fun but worth it in the end) in the morning, done Atlantis for 5 hours, never reapplied, and still had to scrub twice in the shower to get it off. Is it a PITA? Yeah. But for zero burn and no reapplying it's worthwhile. The stuff works!

Totally can't wait to hear about your dolphin interaction! Loving this report, girl!

As an ultra-pale redhead no, I don't think you're crazy. I'm starting to think that it may be worth it for me to upgrade the sunscreen, especially with the cruise coming up. I can get a small discount on La Roche-Posay stuff at work - it's pricey but it's supposed to be pretty good (mineral stuff like you mentioned) and I don't want to get fried - talk about an easy way to totally screw up the cruise!! Neutrogena has worked well for me in the past but on this trip I think underestimated how much more, I don't know, intense the sun is down south. I'm definitely going to do some research over the next couple of weeks and look into the brands you mentioned - thanks!

 

[Ariel484]

Day 3: Sunday, July 28, 2013

I didn't take super great notes on this trip so I can't say for certain what we did this morning, but I know I woke up feeling totally better after crashing the night before. Also, we made our way to the lobby for coffee and a new weekly schedule.

Here's the handout available at the front desk...a new one is published every Sunday:

(We had zero interest in the Pirate BBQ. I read some pretty terrible reviews that said for the price the food was not so great. Plus Tuesday was the day we were leaving so it wouldn't work with out schedule anyway. But I guess I should revise my earlier statement - THIS is the one opportunity to eat dinner on property. Worth it? Probably not.)

One thing I realize quickly is that it's impossible to have a trip here and have most of it totally paid off before arriving. There are lots of activities but almost everything costs extra.

Also, after watching Monsters Inc. outdoors and enjoying it so much we agreed we definitely wanted to watch the movie on Sunday too. We were disappointed to see that Phineas & Ferb was that night's selection - we'd never seen the show and assumed it was aimed at kids. I remember us both wishing that Tangled was that night instead.

We went to get breakfast a little after 9. I wised up this time and got the Mickey Waffles...the CM remembered me from the previous day and gave me extra powdered sugar.

I swear I'm not snorting pixie dust, but why are Mickey Waffles soooooo good?? Nom.

When it was time to leave our room for the dolphin tour we found we had an issue with our bike lock...it was stuck. We made our way back to Broad Creek Rentals on foot and spoke to a CM about it - he said he'd take care of it while we were on our dolphin tour.

We checked in for our tour and found out that we were not going to be alone on the boat as the CM had said the day before - there was a family of 4 joining us. $40 back in our pockets!

 

[Ariel484]

Our guide Scott led us over to the boat dock. It's dolphin time!

The 7 of us were on a small boat and we headed out past the fishing dock to Broad Creek.

We seriously had perfect weather for this. It wasn't too hot and and the sky was overcast. Thumbs up!

Camera talk time: I took my DSLR and put it in shutter priority mode (1/125) with continuous bursts. Will got decent pictures on his phone. When the tour was over I seriously had over 200 pictures that looked pretty similar. I think I got it down to about 50...obviously I won't post all of them here though.

Scott was super knowledgeable about the dolphins...knew exactly where to go to find them, could tell them apart, and was pretty familiar with their temperaments. He made it clear that he would not actually chase after the dolphins and would leave if he could sense that they were getting annoyed (they made a certain sound if they were unhappy...we did have to leave our first dolphin because he apparently didn't want us there).

Hiiiii!

Three buddies!

Scott said the jagged dorsal fin in the picture below was the result of this particular dolphin getting too close to a boat...

This was soooo relaxing. We pretty much slowly made our way around the water to areas where Scott knew the dolphins liked to hang out. You can see from this picture that we weren't quite at high tide just yet.

 

[Ariel484]

At one point we saw a dolphin get super close to a boat...like so close that it made me nervous. Scott said that the dolphins are so smart that they recognize certain kinds of boats and remember which ones have given them food in the past - so say I rent a boat, give a dolphin food, then you rent the boat the next week. The dolphin might assume that you too are going to give them food since they got food from that same boat at some point. Obviously not good since 1. We probably don't have food that is good for dolphins and 2. A dolphin vs. boat mishap doesn't always end well.

So while this is a cool picture, I was nervous we were about to see this little guy get hurt. Luckily we didn't.

Mom and baby!

Toward the end of our tour a large fishing boat passed us and Scott immediately decided to follow it - the captain was a buddy of his and Scott predicted that the mom and baby would definitely be interested in that boat.

Sure enough...

They even followed the boat to the dock!

This is probably the best shot from the entire tour:

Woohoo!

Overall we really enjoyed the dolphin tour. Scott was super knowledgable and we really liked how laid-back everything was. If I had to choose one or the other, this vs. the kayaking tour, I'm not sure I could. Both were really amazing experiences that we thought were totally worth what we paid for them.

 

[Ariel484]

This little guy was excited to welcome us back to the dock...or not.

Once we were off the boat we quickly headed back toward our room to see if the bike lock issue had been fixed.

No dice - The bikes were still stuck. We re-chatted with the CM at the rental place (I guess we didn't describe well enough where the bikes were) and headed to Tide Me Over for lunch.

Panorama of the lunch menu:

Pulled pork for Will, turkey sandwich for me.

VERY tasty. We were both very impressed with my sandwich in particular - everything was super fresh and the bread was nice and soft with sunflower seeds, oatmeal, etc.

At this point we split up. I read on my iPad by the pool (Harry Potter!) and Will went to browse the shops across from the Disney Resort in Shelter Cove. At the time I didn't think him wanting to browse the shops was weird...I'm not sure why because he hates to shop.

Maybe I was distracted by this bad boy!

My first-ever Mickey bar! And it was delicious.

After about an hour or so Will came to get me and we headed to the lobby to meet SHADOW! YAY! As I needlessly mentioned in the beginning of this report we have a little monster pup that can be a little at times (see what I did there? ), but we love him to pieces. At this point we'd been away from him for almost a week and were starting to get pretty sad about it...so we just needed to pet a dog, ya know?

Here's Shadow! (And B'Lou.) Apparently we'd caught her at nap time.

Isn't she pretty? I was freaking out because the dog I had growing up looked JUST like her.

Hi pretty girl!

We pet Shadow for a bit and then headed back to the room to relax a bit...and look what was waiting on the pillow for me!

My very own little Christmas ornament! The shopping mystery was solved...that Will's a keeper. I think I'm going to draw a little Mickey head on the other claw and it will be totally perfect.

 

[Ariel484]

After meeting Shadow we hung out in the room a bit and got ready for dinner. Tonight's destination was Wise Guys (which was on our list of places that would give us a KTTW discount).

Quick note about this place: They apparently have a good - and decently-sized - gluten-free menu and they also have a separate kids menu.

This place definitely had a super chic look. I think Will put it best when he said, "I am not cool enough to eat here."

Not that we felt uncomfortable at all...but the decor was very trendy. And there were some families with kids so it definitely wasn't an adults-only atmosphere.

We sat down at about 5:45 for our 6PM reservation (we were hungry!) and our server informed us that we fell under "early dining" - meaning that because we were there early we would automatically get a 20% discount! Nice surprise!

I ordered a yummy Riesling and I believe Will went with a Stella. This was his go-to beer all trip long because he wanted something light after those hot days.

Our server brought us some bread and we each ordered the Wise Guys salad - romaine, sun-dried cranberries, Gorgonzola, candied pecans (I pretty much never pass up a salad with candied pecans ), Fuji apples and creamy balsamic.

This salad was delicious! I feel like a silly wannabe-foodie saying this, but the strong cheese was perfectly balanced by the apple and cranberries. We both really enjoyed it. The bread was nice and hot with sort of a crunchy texture.

For our entrees, Will went with the Capellini Pasta - pasta, artichoke hearts, baby spinach, pine nuts, over roasted tomatoes and goat cheese. It came with chicken or shrimp, and he went with the chicken.

Our server cautioned him that he should only order this if he REALLY liked goat cheese, as it came with a goat cheese sauce. He really enjoyed this meal...in fact, I think it was his favorite out of our Hilton Head dinners. I had a taste and didn't like it quite as much - the goat cheese was a little over-powering for me, but then again, I'm just not a huge fan of goat cheese (I only like it in small amounts).

I got the filet (med-rare) with Yukon gold whipped potatoes, bearnaise butter and green beans.

Delicious! My favorite part of the meal was actually the green beans. They were perfectly cooked and really flavorful. The potatoes and steak were good, but were only REALLY good with the butter.

Against our better judgement we ordered dessert. I can't find their dessert menu online, but I know we got the bread pudding with ice cream and caramel/raspberry sauce.

DELICIOUS. OMG. NOM

Seriously excellent meal here. I'd rank it up there with our favorite Signature places at Disney. The only bad thing is that we ate so much we were both in pain afterward.

And like I said, we did get a 20% off discount for early dining, which beat out Disney's KTTW 10% discount. Huzzah!

 

[Ariel484]

After dinner we walked around the shopping center near Wise Guys a bit...seriously, we were hurting after that meal. Walking it off a bit was necessary. We didn't buy anything though...more tacky stuff.

Eventually we felt good enough to conquer the drive back to the resort. We hung out a big before heading out to the movie.

Zooooooomin in!

I also took a portrait of my very own little Shadow that I grabbed from Broad Creek Merchantile...she's currently hanging out with Pluto on a shelf in our dining room.

At about 8:30 we packed up the cupcakes from the previous day and headed to the movie area. We agreed that we'd sit in the back in case the movie sucked and we wanted to leave.

Crappy phone shot of the movie set-up!

The movie started and I am not kidding - we were HOOKED within, like 30 seconds of the opening song. Seriously, new favorite movie. So much for sneaking out early.

Another crappy phone shot!

Sidenote: We were very sad to learn that Agent P is among the rarest of rare characters that comes out to meet at Disney. Booooo

We were still full from dinner and didn't end up eating the cupcakes that night. They went back in the fridge after the movie and we went to bed...big plans for the next day, our last full Hilton Head day!

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Since you admitted to liking the movie, I too will admit that I like Phineas and Ferb as well. That Agent P is so cute!!

So glad you enjoyed your two "excursions" (brushing up on my cruise lingo here! lol) Kayaking is so super fun. I used to teach kayaking when I was a counselor at a summer camp. And super cool you got to see some dolphins!! At Nassau we're going to do the dolphin swim. I can't tell you how excited I am about this! I've wanted to swim with dolphins FOREVER and now I'm finally going to!! YAY!!

Shadow is too cute and I'm glad you got your ornament I'm the same way... gotta get a Disney ornament every trip to WDW!

 

[TheMouseFan]

Loving this TR!! It's so nice to hear about a different Disney destination. I had to laugh about the Ohio thing. We just got back from a week on Norris Lake in Tennessee and almost everyone there is from Dayton or Cincinnati, so we all get made fun of a lot about being from Ohio! I am definitely with you on the Christmas ornament thing. Such a sweetie for him to go find one for you! I like Phineas and Ferb too! My kids watch all the time and it is kind of addicting!

 

[imagination30]

lol .. just got to say Shannon love your reports.. even if its not racing.... , but your pic of the lincon memorial , I had pics of night at the museum in my head.. , and the little comment made me chuckle... love it!, and yes Hilton head isn't cheap we looked at it , but the fam said no..

 

[Tiggerish]

I'm so glad to read this TR, Shannon! As a DVC member, I've tried twice to get into HHR and been shut out. If I ever manage to get a reservation there, I'll have your report to refer to.

Now that you've been to a Nats game, you've seen "my" work! LOL, my company did all the signage at Nats Park, including (especially) the big video screen. As you know, I'm HR, so it's not actually my work, but it's always fun to see photos of the work done by guys I work with! And if you have any other pictures from the game, please let me know; we are always looking for fresh, good shots of our work, so there may be some commission in it for you.

Nice one on Will's part with the Christmas ornament. He's super-considerate in addition to really cute

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Tracey spotted the pic of the boat you were worried was gonna get the cute dolphin and said, "Whose boat is that?! That's what I want!" Um, NO. He's got a freshwater boat and it's expensive enough. I'm not about to watch him cross over to salt water boats. No way!

I laughed at the ornament! That's awesome!!! Perfect!!!

I understand about missing your own fur baby and needing to spend some time lovin' on a pooch. I get the same way when I leave Riley behind.

Your dinner salad sounded heavenly! I love salads with fruit, nuts, and cheese crumbles. So yummy!

I've tried to get into Phineas & Ferb. Everyone raves about it so I've watched a few times. I just can't connect. I've tried. My boys hate the show with a passion, too. I don't know why. I feel like such an oddball knowing how others love it so much and all. Oh well.... LOL!

 

[Ariel484]

Since you admitted to liking the movie, I too will admit that I like Phineas and Ferb as well. That Agent P is so cute!!

So glad you enjoyed your two "excursions" (brushing up on my cruise lingo here! lol) Kayaking is so super fun. I used to teach kayaking when I was a counselor at a summer camp. And super cool you got to see some dolphins!! At Nassau we're going to do the dolphin swim. I can't tell you how excited I am about this! I've wanted to swim with dolphins FOREVER and now I'm finally going to!! YAY!!

Shadow is too cute and I'm glad you got your ornament I'm the same way... gotta get a Disney ornament every trip to WDW!

Agent P is adorable! He's my new fave.

We really did like kayaking a lot! It was very easy to pick up and pretty relaxing. Yay for your dolphin swim!! I bet you guys will have a blast.

AMEN on the ornaments! I was so sad that the gift shop didn't have any but the one Will picked out for me is, I'm sure, sooo much better than a Disney-made one!

Loving this TR!! It's so nice to hear about a different Disney destination. I had to laugh about the Ohio thing. We just got back from a week on Norris Lake in Tennessee and almost everyone there is from Dayton or Cincinnati, so we all get made fun of a lot about being from Ohio! I am definitely with you on the Christmas ornament thing. Such a sweetie for him to go find one for you! I like Phineas and Ferb too! My kids watch all the time and it is kind of addicting!

Thanks! Yes, all of the servers asked if we have a minivan too (we don't). Apparently Ohioans driving Honda Odysseys is the big stereotype in Hilton Head.

P&F really is addicting! I'll be on the lookout for Agent P gear during our next Disney trip!

lol .. just got to say Shannon love your reports.. even if its not racing.... , but your pic of the lincon memorial , I had pics of night at the museum in my head.. , and the little comment made me chuckle... love it!, and yes Hilton head isn't cheap we looked at it , but the fam said no..

The comment is gold! I was really surprised at how the stuff at Hilton Head just kept adding up...wasn't really expecting that for some reason. The trip did end up being a bit pricier than I'd hoped for.

I'm so glad to read this TR, Shannon! As a DVC member, I've tried twice to get into HHR and been shut out. If I ever manage to get a reservation there, I'll have your report to refer to.

Now that you've been to a Nats game, you've seen "my" work! LOL, my company did all the signage at Nats Park, including (especially) the big video screen. As you know, I'm HR, so it's not actually my work, but it's always fun to see photos of the work done by guys I work with! And if you have any other pictures from the game, please let me know; we are always looking for fresh, good shots of our work, so there may be some commission in it for you.

Nice one on Will's part with the Christmas ornament. He's super-considerate in addition to really cute

Wow, you got shut out?! That's crazy. The pools were crowded when we were there but it never seemed like the place was crawling with people. That's interesting.

That's so cool that your company did the signs! I actually do remember thinking that the video screen was very nice - seriously! The one in Cleveland has a few spots that don't quite work right (at least they didn't the last time I went) and it makes things look kind of pixelated, so I was thinking that the Nats one looked better. I do have other pictures from the game...I'm not sure how good they are but I'll PM you the link!

Thanks...Will's a catch! At least I think so. I'll have to tell him you said that.

Tracey spotted the pic of the boat you were worried was gonna get the cute dolphin and said, "Whose boat is that?! That's what I want!" Um, NO. He's got a freshwater boat and it's expensive enough. I'm not about to watch him cross over to salt water boats. No way!

I laughed at the ornament! That's awesome!!! Perfect!!!

I understand about missing your own fur baby and needing to spend some time lovin' on a pooch. I get the same way when I leave Riley behind.

Your dinner salad sounded heavenly! I love salads with fruit, nuts, and cheese crumbles. So yummy!

I've tried to get into Phineas & Ferb. Everyone raves about it so I've watched a few times. I just can't connect. I've tried. My boys hate the show with a passion, too. I don't know why. I feel like such an oddball knowing how others love it so much and all. Oh well.... LOL!

Oh yeah, the boats are pricey. Will's aunt has one like the one in the picture and her set-up at the lake was nuts. Really made me wonder about the maintenance costs.

The ornament is my favorite souvenir from the trip, hands-down!

We were so ridiculous about missing Archie...seriously. It's sad. Although you've seen my Instagram feed so you know how we are with that dog...the fact that my pictures are like 95% dog should be a clue.

The salad was awesome! Will spotted it first and I just had to copy him. I may need to try to re-create that one at home.

So P&F...now that we've watched a few episodes we definitely like the TV show but not as much as the movie. We both think the reason why is because the movie has tons of interaction between P&F AND Agent P, whereas in the show the P&F story line is almost always completely separate from the Agent P story line, except for "Where's Perry?" and "Oh, There You Are Perry." The show is cute but the movie was pretty hilarious, at least to us.

 

[Ariel484]

Day 4: Monday, July 29, 2013

"I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be."

The above quote from "Office Space" perfectly sums up our last full day in Hilton Head. It was full of a whole lotta nothing...so it doesn't really make a good story but it was my favorite day of the trip, without a doubt. I think it was exactly what we both needed.

After eating our Mickey Waffles we gathered up our beach towels and went to hop on our bikes...and mine had a flat. The Disney bike gods really were not smiling down on us during this trip.

So we walked my bike over to rentals to get a new one. The same CM that had brought us a new lock at some point the day before (I think I forgot to mention that) looked positively flabbergasted to see us again and apologized over and over for the trouble we were having. I said it was no problem and that apparently we just didn't have enough Disney Magic when it came to biking. He got me a new bike, wished us good bike vibes, and we headed back to the beach house.

We pulled a pair of loungers under the overhang so we could sit in the shade...still nursing those sunburns!

The ideal snack...a strawberry daiquiri with Chip & Dale's Mountain Mix (peanuts, almonds, raisins and M&M's...you know, just like you'd find in the mountains!):

Will had a pina colada.

That's basically the gist of our day. We sat side-by-side in our loungers chatting and reading (Harry Potter on the iPad for me, some book about Hank Aaron for Will). Every once in awhile we'd get up to move the loungers back as the sun moved or quickly jump in the pool if we got too hot.

Love this little detail on the event schedule sign:

My view of the H pool:

This big group of pelicans kept flying back and forth overhead...it was weird and funny.

We both had turkey sandwiches for lunch from Signals and dessert #1 of the day - Mickey Premium bars! This was Will's first, and he too gave it the thumbs up.

We sat by the pool for 4 hours...4 HOURS. For me, sitting this long and not really doing much of anything is unheard of, but it was so perfect. Mountain mix, a bit of day drinking, reading, a Mickey bar and the occasional pool dip with my love...can't get much better than that.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

That's part of what I didn't like about the show. It was 2 stories and it was confusing. It was hard to get what any of it was about. Both times I tried to watch I didn't make it far, lost interest, and tuned-out. The movie sounds more promising.

 

[Ariel484]

I think we got back to our room by 3:30ish...a good amount of time to clean up and get to our last dinner reservation.

Our other 3 dinners were all places I'd read about in other trip reports, but this one - Red Fish - was one I'd actually been to before...13 years ago! I'd come to Hilton Head with a high school friend and her parents, and 16-year-old me was so impressed by this place that I remembered it all these years later and made a reservation for this trip.

I really need to work on my indoor shots...

(They have a GF menu too.)

I was both excited and nervous for this one...yes I really liked it as a 16-year-old but would it still be good now?

It started off well, for sure...the atmosphere was a little less trendy and a little more comfortable than it was at Wise Guys.

Like the previous evening, we were there a bit before 6 for our 6PM reservation, and just like the previous evening there was an early dining deal. This time, however, it was a whole different menu: a choice of soup or salad + entree + a glass of wine...all for $14.95! Serious bargain right there. Of course we found stuff on the regular menu that appealed to us more so we didn't take advantage of that deal.

Riesling for me and a Palmetto Amber for Will...if I remember correctly he said this was a little too hoppy for his tastes.

Fun fact about this place...their wine shop has over 1,000 bottles of wine to choose from! I wish I'd thought to grab a picture.

The bread here was super tasty - fresh, hot, soft and very substantial. The green stuff was some herb dip - I forget exactly what was in it but I didn't really care for it.

No appetizers or salads for us this time...the bread was plenty. Entree time!

For Will: Brick Chicken...lemon herb brined Ashley Farms all natural chicken served over mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables with a toasted garlic jus.

He really liked this. The roasted garlic jus was sooo good with that chicken. Very happy with this selection.

As for me...look familiar??

Yep, it's pretty much exactly what I'd ordered the night before at Wise Guys. I'm so boring.

I guess the differences would be that this steak was bigger (9oz vs. 6oz at Wise Guys...there was an 8oz option at Wise Guys but I ordered the 6oz) and had the demi-glace instead of the butter. Also, this steak was better than the Wise Guys steak. It was while eating this steak that I realized that the butter was what had really made the Wise Guys steak and potatoes good...where here the steak and potatoes were good on their own. The green beans at Wise Guys were better though.

For dessert #2 of the day we split an order of the vanilla creme brulee...I also ordered the butterscotch coffee (the picture is before I added cream):

"Are you done with the picture? Great, time to stuff face"

MMM...super creamy and delicious.

So overall I think I liked my entree here at Red Fish better than what I had at Wise Guys. Will's weren't as direct a comparison, but I think he liked his Wise Guys dish better (but not by much). But we both agreed that as far as overall experience we really liked Red Fish the best out of the restaurants we ate at during this trip. The food was really delicious and it was a very comfortable atmosphere. 16-year-old me was right!