I scored 92 points to win the bowling game my kids and I played at Splitsville Luxury Lanes the other day. It’s not a spectacular score but I did get two strikes after getting off to a terrible start. You’ve seen the posts I’ve shared with you about our trip to Disney World. Splitsville is one of the stops we made during the preview and grand opening of the New Fantasyland.
Goofy stopped by to get things started in grand style, then we were invited into the Rock and Bowl party.
My kids and I were a part of the preview so we were able to sample the delicious food. Have you ever heard of a bowling center that had sushi on the menu? Yeah, we hadn’t either, but Splitsville has it and it was quite tasty. The ingredients were fresh and there was no imitation anything in sight. There was pizza, including the a very delicious barbeque chicken pizza. Yum!!!
The service was done in usual Disney style. The servers were attentive and made sure we had everything we needed. The music was loud and thumping just like it should be in a bowling lane.
There are two floors with a total of 30 bowling lanes, three pool tables, two sushi bars, and four bars for your favorite drink (including non-alcoholic beverages).
Here are 10 facts about Splitsville:
Opening: Early December, 2012 in Downtown Disney West Side at Walt Disney World Resort.
Square Footage: 50,000. Largest Splitsville ever built.
Number of lanes: 30. Nearly twice as many as any other Splitsville.
Lane configuration: 20 lanes second-level, 10 ground-level. First two-level Splitsville of its kind.
Number of bars: Five, featuring the famous Splitsville frozen schooner of beer, specialty cocktails and a wide selection of frozen specialty drinks.
Featured menu items: Hand-cut steaks, mahi mahi with Voodoo shrimp, fresh-rolled sushi, filet sliders, hand-tossed pizza and classic hamburgers made with Splitsville’s special blend of certified angus brisket, short rib and ground chuck.
Number of sushi bars: Two – one on each level where customers can watch chefs roll their hand-made creations and belly-up for a Volcano Roll, Super Tuna or any of the fresh selections.
Other unique features: Lane concierge responsible for delivering shoes and bowling balls to your lanes prior to your arrival; outdoor patio dining on both floors; billiards tables; live music seven nights a week; more than 60 flat screen TVs.
First location: Tampa, Fla. (opened December 2003)
Other Splitsville locations: Tampa; Miami; Fairview, Texas and Fredericksburg, Va.
Samantha A. Gregory is an author, consultant, and speaker. She’s a single-mom lifestyle, money, and parenting expert featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Essence Magazine, HuffPost, ABC News, and Mint.com.
Samantha founded the award-winning RichSingleMomma.com™, the first online magazine featuring personal finance, parenting, and personal development content and courses for single moms.
She aims to inspire women who are ready to thrive and not just survive in their single motherhood journey. Connect with her on Instagram @richsinglemomma.
I love fast cars and motorcycle rides. I bet you didn’t know that about me did you? This means the Chevrolet Test Track ride at Epcot Center was right up my alley. An exhilarating ride! That is how I describe Chevrolet Test Track at Disney.
I didn’t know how fast we would go at the beginning of the ride so it was a pleasant surprise at the end. I won’t give it all away, but I’ll start from the beginning and give you the highlights.
Start with designing your own car in one of two design centers. You can do a quick design or take your time and design the car of your dreams right down to the chrome wheels.
Next you get in the queue to test the design. The test station is a 6-car ride that takes you through several tests to determine if your design will hold up to slippery rides, bad weather, or unexpected road hazards in a simulation. The last leg of the test is where the exhilaration comes.
According to Disney:
“The sleek new “Chevrolet Design Center” invites guests to create their own virtual custom-concept vehicle.
“Car designer wannabes get to shape their own virtual car, truck or crossover and learn how their choices perform against four important performance attributes that guide Chevrolet designers:
Capability – design your car to handle the roughest roads or most extreme weather conditions
Efficiency – create a car that saves on fuel, reduces your environmental footprint, cuts down on emissions or even uses recycled parts
Responsiveness – choose elements that will give you easy maneuverability through the tightest of turns
Power – choose the gear you need to make your car a racer or a hauler
“At design kiosks, rows of touch screens become canvasses for guests to try their hand at automotive design. They can design alone or collaborate on their design with family and friends. Even choose from six different languages.”
If you love fast cars you will love this part! Your test car speeds up to 60+ miles an hour on an outdoor track that curves and dips then screeched to a halt at the end. Your design is rated at the end and you can see how it ranked against other designs.
If you love fast cars or just love going fast in general you will love this ride. At the end you get to check out the new Chevrolet cars. Taking pictures by them was not too good because of the lighting but you can see my kids were enjoying them anyway.
Samantha A. Gregory is an author, consultant, and speaker. She’s a single-mom lifestyle, money, and parenting expert featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Essence Magazine, HuffPost, ABC News, and Mint.com.
Samantha founded the award-winning RichSingleMomma.com™, the first online magazine featuring personal finance, parenting, and personal development content and courses for single moms.
She aims to inspire women who are ready to thrive and not just survive in their single motherhood journey. Connect with her on Instagram @richsinglemomma.
The thing about blogging is my family and I get invited to really cool trips to cover events that families like yours will like. This time we were invited to Disney to cover the grand opening of the New Fantasyland. It’s an exciting time for us. I remember Fantasyland from when I was a little girl back in the 70s. What a wonderful place to be.
Fantasyland had been closed for a while undergoing renovations New attractions have been added to expand on the growing family of modern day Disney princesses. Now Ariel has her Grotto, Belle has her village, and in 2013 a new Hall of Princesses will be unveiled.
The kids and I got a preview of the Under the Sea attraction and Tales with Belle. I enjoyed both experiences. Here are a few pictures below:
Cinderella’s Castle turned into an ice castle with all the lights!
Samantha A. Gregory is an author, consultant, and speaker. She’s a single-mom lifestyle, money, and parenting expert featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Essence Magazine, HuffPost, ABC News, and Mint.com.
Samantha founded the award-winning RichSingleMomma.com™, the first online magazine featuring personal finance, parenting, and personal development content and courses for single moms.
She aims to inspire women who are ready to thrive and not just survive in their single motherhood journey. Connect with her on Instagram @richsinglemomma.
The kids and I have the pleasure of staying at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort. From the time we got there we have had so much fun seeing all the familiar characters from The Lion King, Finding Nemo, Cars, and The Little Mermaid.
We are here for the Grand Opening of The New Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom.
We are staying in a two bedroom suite in the Lion King hotel. You can see from the pictures below that it is very colorful and full of life-sized versions of the movie.
The Art of Animation Resort as we drove in.
Disney’s Art of Animation Lion King bed featuring Zazu
Picture of the second bathroom at our hotel room in the Lion King suite at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort
The Righteous Playground at the Finding Nemo swim and play area
Squirt from Finding Nemo on top of the Righteous Reef Playground
Samantha A. Gregory is an author, consultant, and speaker. She’s a single-mom lifestyle, money, and parenting expert featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Essence Magazine, HuffPost, ABC News, and Mint.com.
Samantha founded the award-winning RichSingleMomma.com™, the first online magazine featuring personal finance, parenting, and personal development content and courses for single moms.
She aims to inspire women who are ready to thrive and not just survive in their single motherhood journey. Connect with her on Instagram @richsinglemomma.
The kids and I went to check out Stone Mountain’s Snow Mountain here in Atlanta this weekend. It is part of the Stone Mountain Christmas that runs from November 10, 2012 to January 1, 2013. I heard about it last year and thought it would be cool to check it out but we didn’t make it. I got invited to go this year and am so glad I went. I haven’t had that much fun in a long time.
We got in and took a family picture in front of the Christmas scene then moved on to find Snow Mountain. We didn’t know what to expect as we walked through the village that was all decked out in Christmas lights. We saw signs for the shows for the little kids to The Polar Express Experience. I’ll get to that later.
Fun on Snow Mountain 6x’s
Then we spotted the entrance to Snow Mountain. We could not start the fun just yet because they didn’t allow extras like scarves, purses, video camera, etc. We had to turn around and put our stuff in the lockers. Fortunately it was only a dollar to store our things. Now we could ride. And boy did we ride. Six times in fact. Three times on the solo slide and three times on the family/group slide.
I was one tired lady after all that. When you are at the top of the slide they run through the rules like; hold the grey handles, don’t get out, stay in your lane, and if you lose something they will get it for you. Glad I remembered that last part because the second time we went down the family slide I lost my cell phone. I took it to take all the lovely pictures you see here.
Lost and Found Cell Phone, Whewwww!!!
I noticed it was missing when I wanted to take a picture of the kid’s Snow Zone. The phone was gone so we headed back up the hill to get ask if they found it. They sent up to the top of mountain to get it…I was really tired. We got there and they said they had it at the bottom of hill and we needed to go back down…GRRRRRR!!!! Fortunately they let us go to the front of the line and ride back down. So that made the third time on the family slide for us. I got my phone back once they verified it was mine and we were on our way to other adventures.
Funnel Cakes and Forever Christmas Show
We stopped for a Funnel Cake and something to drink after the Snow Mountain Adventure. I convinced my son to taste the cake that he looked at with his nose scrunched up. He tasted it and loved it. I think he is pretty much won over, LOL!
We checked the schedule and made our way to the Forever Christmas show. It was basically a Christmas music review. The website describes it this way:
“Come enjoy the sounds of the season, from Doo-Wop to current Pop! “Yule” love remembering the songs from yesterday and making new memories for today!”
It was better than I expected and the singers were really good. There was a surprise for the little kids in the show. My kids are older so they weren’t impressed, in fact my daughter didn’t like it at all. I suspect it’s just her personality though. But little kids will really like that part.
The Polar Express 4-D Experience
The next thing we did was go see The Polar Express Experience. It was a 4-D show that “engaged your senses”. Here is how the website describes it:
“When a doubting young boy takes an extraordinary train ride to the North Pole, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that shows him that the wonder of life never fades for those who believe.
THE POLAR EXPRESS 4-D EXPERIENCE is a 20-minute show based on the inspiring and beloved Caldecott Medal children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg.”
It was a fun experience though it seemed too short. It felt like we were a part of the excitement in the movie.
Christmas Parade and Friends
After the show we waited around for the Christmas parade. We ran into Amy from Atlanta with Kid and The Q Family Adventures, along with her husband and kids. We chatted with them for a bit until the parade started. Her husband Ron had his video camera all ready to capture the show, but it went by too fast for him to get anything, LOL! He has a video creation and production company if you ever need a great videographer.
Cookie Decorating for the Little (or not so little) Artists
My daughter wanted to decorate a cookie so we headed to Memorial Hall so she could express her artistic talents. My son declined because his growling stomach made it hard to have a good attitude. So he sat and waited although he was very grumpy :-p.
We ran into Raisa Lefe (Macaroni Kid Sandy Springs-Dunwoody) and her family on the way to eat dinner. It was fun watching her little boys talk about everything they did at the park that day. They are too cute.
Plenty of Exercise, Plenty of Fun at Stone Mountain
It was a fun afternoon and I definitely got my exercise. The steep hills of Stone Mountain are not to be taken lightly but the park is beautiful throughout the year. We left before the laser light show and fireworks but I’m sure it was great.
I hope you enjoyed reading about our snow day at Stone Mountain park. If you live in Atlanta go check it out before January 2. If you plan to visit Atlanta during the Holidays I hope you check it out as well.
Samantha A. Gregory is an author, consultant, and speaker. She’s a single-mom lifestyle, money, and parenting expert featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Essence Magazine, HuffPost, ABC News, and Mint.com.
Samantha founded the award-winning RichSingleMomma.com™, the first online magazine featuring personal finance, parenting, and personal development content and courses for single moms.
She aims to inspire women who are ready to thrive and not just survive in their single motherhood journey. Connect with her on Instagram @richsinglemomma.
We ate at a couple nice places on the beach and one place in town. We heard good things about the restaurant across the parking lot of our resort called The River City Cafe. It was packed everyday and we soon found out why. The food was phenomenal! My daughter had a burger that was absolutely crazy good. It was called the OMG Burger Platter.
This burger had two patties topped with two fried eggs, hickory smoked bacon (we got it without the bacon), swiss and cheddar, lots of mayo, lettuce, tomato and fried onion strings, stuffed between two grilled cheese sandwiches (The bun couldn’t handle it!), served with a pile of fries, two giant fried onion rings and slaw.
Here is a video of my daughter’s description and delight over this concoction.
We also ate at a Chinese Buffet in town. The food was good but the service was questionable.
We got smoothies and fries (don’t ask) at a little place on the beach. We sat on the deck and ate while enjoying the ocean view.
The little eating place across the street served breakfast so we ate there one morning. They were nice people and made us feel welcomed.
We couldn’t leave without picking up a couple of souvenir t-shirts for me and my daughter. My son found a toy he had to have and I found a necklace I liked. It was cheap and proved so because I broke after wearing it twice :-(.
We didn’t get to try Bubba’s Fish Shack but we couldn’t resist taking a picture.
Samantha A. Gregory is an author, consultant, and speaker. She’s a single-mom lifestyle, money, and parenting expert featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Essence Magazine, HuffPost, ABC News, and Mint.com.
Samantha founded the award-winning RichSingleMomma.com™, the first online magazine featuring personal finance, parenting, and personal development content and courses for single moms.
She aims to inspire women who are ready to thrive and not just survive in their single motherhood journey. Connect with her on Instagram @richsinglemomma.
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