Tonight I confirmed our first timeshare vacation. After discussing it with Denis and my sister, we will be going to North Carolina in November for my college’s 100th year Homecoming. Hopefully because of the 100-year anniversary a lot of our friends will be there. I certainly have plenty of time to warn everyone that I’m coming.
We will be staying at Fairway Forest at Sapphire Valley which got good reviews at the RCI website. We’ll be taking the kids, so hopefully they’ll have some kids stuff available despite it being late Fall. They do have a playground area, a lake, an indoor pool and horseback riding, so I have a feeling CootieGirl will really enjoy it (she’ll be 2 1/2 at that point).
The plan right now is to drive to my parents’ place on Wednesday, my grandmother’s on Thursday and then arrive at the resort on Friday. Homecoming is Saturday. We’ll probably spend Sunday at the resort doing stuff with the kids. Then on Monday we can begin exploring the area – Asheville is a short 45 miles away, Biltmore Plantation, Knoxville, TN is just under 3 hours away. We will also go to Fort Mill, South Carolina, which is a town that we have on our list of “potential places to move”.
So we’ll stay the week at the resort, using it as homebase to visit the area, and then check out on Friday. I’m thinking that maybe we can drive to Hickory and crash at my friend Kirby’s place (if he lets us). Then drive to my mom’s on Saturday, then return to NJ on Sunday. It’s a nice long vacation – and we’d drive in order to save some money and visit with people at the same time.
My sister is going to Homecoming as well, and will decide later if she wants to stay at the resort with us. We had to book the 1-bedroom because that’s all that was available, so she’d be in a sleeper sofa, but it’s still cheaper than a hotel.
Go Dawgs – I’m looking forward to Homecoming this year!
That is so awesome that you got something you wanted for this year. Keep working the system ~ if you check back from time to time they might be able to give you a 2 bedroom.
No, this place in NC specifically says that they will not upgrade rooms once something has been confirmed. But that’s okay. Apparently the two-bedroom condos are huge, so the 1-bed condos are probably also decent.