When we recently packed up and headed out to Disney for a week or so, we were on the fence about purchasing the Disney Photo Pass Memory Maker package. The idea is simple really, it’s an all you can eat buffet of downloaded photo goodness! Ok so that’s a bit dramatic, but while you in the parks, there are plenty of photographers who will gladly snap photos of you and your family then they scan your magic band or or ticket. When you get home you can download the photos or order prints. While there is no cost for them to snap the photos, the cost can rack up really quickly when you go to order a few prints.

So there is an all you can digitally eat option? That’s right, that’s the core concept of the Disney Photo Pass Memory Maker. You can download all the photos taken and then have them printed elsewhere like Shutterfly, or even your local Walgreens. The downloads are very high quality photos and are rather large file size wise. There are a few restrictions on the licensing of the photos. This shouldn’t be a big deal for home users, but you can’t resell the photos. For example, if your son is wearing a Nike shirt while hugging Mickey, Nike can’t use the photo. You can however have them printed at local photoshops without issue. There is no watermark or restrictions that would even indicate that the Disney Memory Maker Photo Pass pictures are even commercial shots. Continue reading →

OK, before you roll your eyes at me and tell me I sold out to the mouse, please understand that I have no intention of ever giving up our exciting frugal adventures. The wife and I decided that it was about time that we actually took a real family vacation together. So where does the family that practically goes on a frugal trip every weekend go for a vacation? Disney World of course! I can’t wait to tell everyone about our Frugal Disney Trip!

Over the past year we have scraped, pinched, and hoarded every single penny we could, knowing that we wanted to visit Mickey and Minnie Mouse in Orlando for a few days. Seeing as we have an almost three-year old, we figured the time itself would be a great way to save some money. Our oldest will be 3 in a few months, so we figured we would go now before we actually had to pay for him as well. We live about an hour and a half away, so we debated on wether or not to do a few day trips, over the course of a week, or actually stay somewhere locally. It turns out, we scraped together enough cash over the past year to not only pay for our week trip to Disney World, but to also pickup annual passes! Continue reading →

When we checkout an event, I like to write the review as soon as possible. here it is the last day of the Florida Strawberry Festival, and I’m having a difficult time putting the review into words. (Unfortunately that probably means I’ll be posting on this much later.) That is usually a bad thing, but in this case it’s that we got a chance to see so much it’s just difficult to know where to start! Well I guess I’ll try to start from the beginning..

In early 2013, I heard a radio advertisement for the Florida Strawberry Festival and thought it would be a fun weekend trip. We planned to go last year, but the timing just didn’t work out. This year we planned ahead and had it on the calendar. Nothing was going to keep us from checking out the festivities. Again we heard all sorts of advertisements, saw some news broadcasts, and have been hearing about all the fun and excitement for more than a week now. We decided to go on the second Saturday of the event, and we weren’t disappointed!

Our target time to get to the festival grounds as noon or so, and with about a 2 hour trip to get there, we left around 10am. It was a nice drive, and locally Bike Week is in full swing, so it was a welcomed change of pace. We decided to take the toll roads, instead of I-4, so we were able to steer clear of Daytona Beach, Universal’s Mardi Gras Event, and even traffic from The Central Florida Fair. It was well worth the $5 or so worth of quarters. We plugged in the address into our phone and Siri was kind enough to get us to where we needed to go. More often than not, the festivals and fairs we check out tend to be in the middle of no where, or small towns. We were surprised to find that the Florida Strawberry Festival was almost right in the middle of a bustling city. We have no idea if free parking was available at the Florida Strawberry Festival, but we saw tons of people offering paid parking on their lawns or places of business immediately surrounding the festival grounds. Rather than drive around in traffic with a toddler, we decided to do private parking for $10 right outside gate 5. It seemed somewhat legit, as they lady was wearing a bright yellow vest and flagging down traffic for parking off the main road. We generally park in public areas for the expense as well as the fear of being towed off private property, but seemed like a nice area so we decided to pull in. (Don’t worry, when we got back our car was still there, and so were the same people). These folks probably either lived in the home we parked in or was hired by the home owners to make some extra cash.

A few weeks ago, Frugal Florida Fun had the opportunity to visit the Lauderdale Live Music Festival! Being a three-day event right in the heart of Ft. Lauderdale, this music festival featured some great talent in one of the very best musical venues we have seen in quite a while! We’re curious to see if this will become an annual event or just a one time thing.

Located in Huizenga park, we couldn’t have asked for a more picturesque place to hang out for a few days and listen to some great music! As promised, there were food trucks, and places to get a few adult beverages! As far as pricing went, the food trucks were about what you would expect at an event. Our reviewers were prepared to drop at least $20 a person per meal, but it would up being a little less. They snacked all day, but not exclusively at the Lauderdale Live Music Festival. More on that in just a bit.

I was very excited when my family was chosen to review ICE at Gaylord Palms and it certainly did not disappoint. The Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center is located at 6000 West Osceola Parkway, Kissimmee, FL 34746. Even the outside looked like a fun place to go:

We were told to use the Convention Center entrance for Ice at Gaylord Palms which was easy to find as the signs pointed us in the direction we needed to go. We were surprised to see that Ice at Gaylord Palms charges $18 for parking. This is not something that is included in your ticket price. (This fee is on the website, we just did not notice until after the fact.)

Once inside Ice at the Gaylord Palms, the first thing on our agenda was the Luminescence Show, located in the Emerald Plaza. Most people get to the second floor via the escalator or staircase, but if you are with someone in a wheelchair or a child who is terrified of escalators, there is also an elevator nearby. Upstairs we found several stores, but did not have the time to look around. There is also a sports bar and grill called Wreckers that looked like fun. We could see the top half of the 37 foot television screen from the window outside. Right before going into the Emerald Plaza we found a little shop for taking pictures with DreamWorks characters such as Puss in Boots from Shrek. We did go back to check out the professional pictures they took, but some of the pictures on their memory card were damaged, which included ours. We were able though to get lots of pictures with our phones and camera! Continue reading →