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Hi guys. I have been on vacation and went on  tech break while on vacation as well but I've missed you all. As you all know if you read the blog that it's a bit therapeutic for me to chat with you. Plus I love bringing you all back the information and new stuff I see and learn. This vacation, I went with the family to Orlando. We've been together 5 times and while there we decided to invest in the Disney Vacation Club because as you know I still have a young 5 year old and I foresee a few more visits to Orlando. Plus with the Disney Vacation Club we still get travel around the world as well without the kids. Sometime you need grown up vacation too! Anyway as for the DVC (Disney Vacation Club) I don't think it's a bad idea to invest in vacation especially with children but I don't particularly love Disney. I prefer Universal Studio's which is where we spent the bulk of our time but we did do a Disney park. My older kids don't really like Disney either outside of the Hollywood Studio park because it has rides for older kids but the villas on the property at Disney are all beautiful. They really do offer top notch rooms and it beneficial for them to continue to upgrade and upkeep these rooms so I don't foresee the property going down or becoming outdated so the DVC was the best alternative for us. As for Orlando itself, I love Universal myself but it's more of a park to visit every 4-5 years because it remains the same. Since the last time we visited they added the Harry Potter section which doesn't honor the fast passes that we purchased which was really an inconvenience because it was very HOT there and the Harry Potter section was extremely crowded but overall a great experience. Since adding that section to the park their revenue as climbed so it's safe to say there are huge Harry Potter fans out there. They were also adding another section Skull Island Reign of Kong which will be King Kong upgraded rides and features.

The rides at all these parks seem to really utilize the virtual rides and screen simulators to make the rider feel like they're doing more than it actually is and to me it made me nauseous but I'm just getting old and a ton of shaking makes me sick. I really feel that it all was just extreme shaking with screens in front of you to trick the eyes into feeling like you're doing a lot but in actuality it's not that much and a lot of the rides are like that at both Universal and Disney. Disney is more for the shows and character interaction too so in my opinion it's more for kids to see their favorite characters. My older kids aren't interested in the dancing and shows so Universal is better for them. My 5 year old loved Universal too. When comparing Disney World to Disneyland, I personally like Disneyland because it compacts most of the favorite attractions from Disney World into two parks versus the five at Disney World and you pay for each park so why not get the best of 5 in 2. Again Florida in the summer is excruciatingly HOT and a bit unbearable. If you're going to Disney World, I would suggest November because it's still warm and it's less people.



Also I went to check out some auction homes because I have a co-worker who has 2 homes in Florida that she rents out to tourist and both are booked out for two years but the trick is to get the homes cheap so that you get the most return because if you're not a resident, you'll need to hire a management company to do all the work and contract out a cleaning company and that all eats into your profit. Didn't get much of that done though with the kids. They didn't want to hear any of that stuff. Also the top spot for tourist is NYC so my best option is to start looking for bargains here at home and I can take care of the upkeep and maintenance myself. BUT... these are all just thoughts. If any of you guys are into the tourist rental market, let me know what I should keep in mind before I try to venture into it with blinders.