Disney Technology: The Fails and the Fantastic

As I think back over our mid June Disney trip: there was some frustration caused by technology I was excited about, when it didn't work as I expected.

The Fails?

Breakfast Reservations

    We had made reservations for breakfast at Be Our Guest in the Magic Kingdom. Which, by the way I highly recommend. Breakfast reservations at any park restaurant gets you in early and there's nothing quite like being in the park with so few people.

I had even ordered the food in advance so that we didn't have to wait in that long line to order at the kiosks.

 

When we arrived we were told there was no food order associated with our reservation. It had been lost. I let myself get frustrated over this. Looking back, Disney Cast Members were great. Seeing my frustration and watching me try to open the, My Disney Experience, website they allowed us to skip the line and walk right up to the reservation check in where they asked if we remembered what we ordered and ordered it for us.





Mobil Order

   Several times we attempted to use mobile order at quick service dining locations. At least twice when we arrived and I clicked the pickup option the app just spun and never submitted the order. Again the cast members were great in these situations. Upon showing them the app and explaining the situation they found the order in the system and pushed it through. I think I just let my expectations over-ride the reality of the situation and get frustrated with these things. Calling tech support was surprisingly a good experience too. They suggested that I re-install the MyDisneyExperience App, in order to get the newest version and gave the family free fast passes to use anywhere in the park to apologize for the problems. The reinstall of the app did seem to fix the problems

The Fantastic!

   With the frustration of the times technology didn't work, I had a tendency to forget all the great things it did for us.

Early Check in: 

We drove from St Louis to Disney and we knew that we would be there early. I did two things on the My Disney Experience Website.

1. I opted for online check-in. Answered some questions, gave my credit card info, put in any special requests, a month in advance. This promised I would not have to stop by the front desk and we would get a text when the room was ready. 
2. I clicked on the checkbox for  "early check-in if available." This didn't promise early check in and most of what I had read said that you probably wouldn't get it, but if there was an early room available you might get it. 

We pulled onto the Disney property at around 12:30pm. We expected to have to wait for a room and planned to stop by the front desk and ask if we could change into swimsuits and hang by the pool, or walk around the resort until the room was ready. As we were pulling into a parking space my phone buzzed. The text was from Disney Resorts and said our room was ready. It gave us the the building and the room number and wished us a magical day. 

We all looked at one another in disbelief, I pulled up a map of the resort to find our building and We left the car parked in the check-in lot while we walked to our building to see if this was true. Sure enough we put our Magic Band on the door lock, it turned green and we were in. No stopping by the desk, 2 and a half hours early and with absolutely no hassle we had a room. 

Fast Passes: 

We love the fast pass system at Disney.  It can be a challenge to work with and there is some planning involved but it allowed us to get on every ride we wanted to see and always worked just the way it was supposed to. My only caution when booking rides is not to overbook or over extend yourself. We make the mistake once or twice of having those fastpass reservations be a long way apart. Remember that you have an hour to make it, you don't have to be there right at the beginning of your time and there is usually a 5-10 minute grace period allowed. 

Even with some of the glitches the Disney Tech worked well, made the trip easier and when it didn't work, Disney Cast Members were great. 

Let's talk about our Disney Trip and Expectations

It has been a while since I have posted anything on this Blog about Vacations and Disney. I actually needed some time to decompress because after our latest trip to Disney World I felt like it was kind of a failure. With the time of a few months though, I think I can speak to some of the great things that happened on the trip and some of the places I made mistakes that allowed me to feel like it wasn't good.

First of all let's talk about expectations. We need to be careful with expectations. I spent so much time planning the trip and learning how things worked that when it didn't go the way I had planned I let that part bother me rather than enjoying all the great parts of what Disney did.

I figure I'll do a few posts talking about the disappointments and the way I should not have let it bother me so much.

First off: Rain!

A lot, and I mean a lot of rain again this trip. I watched a morning newscast on Thursday and the meteorologists said that there had been more rain in Orlando in the past 5 days than they had gotten the rest of the entire month. We were wet a lot, but thinking back now what did it affect?
Except for our planned Epcot World Showcase day the rain mainly happened from noon or 1 till around 4 or 5. A lot longer than you normally expect for those Florida afternoon showers but it was during the time we had slotted for rest. The disappointing part was that because it usually was accompanied with a thunderstorm we could not spend time by the pool. Most afternoons the family slept and rested. Some days I hung out down in the quick service restaurant and read.
The rain actually caused one really good evening. On Monday we had planned to claim a seat in front of the Castle early and wait for the fireworks. With the rain coming in, Mallory decided it wasn't worth sitting and waiting and we should try doing some indoor rides, skipping the fireworks. We went and rode The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, then put our ponchos on and hiked over to Tommorowland. In Tomorrowland, with the rain coming down we rode Buzz Lightyear,s Space Ranger Spin, then Space Mountain. After Space Mountain with a bit of drizzle falling (the downpour had stopped) We were trying to decide what to do next when we heard an announcement that Happily Ever After, the nighttime Castle and Fireworks show, would start in 15 minutes. We looked around and realized the park was practically empty, the rain had chased most people away. We walked to the Castle and found it very thinly crowded and ended up watching the fireworks, with our ponchos on, in a light drizzle, closer that we could ever imagine we would see them.  It really was great.

Honestly the rain presented different issues throughout the week but this moment was one we should remember, and with the right mindset could make up for them all. 

Modifying Your Disney Package

It's been a while since I've posted anything about trip planning. The Thomson family has reached that phase where we've run out of things to do. In a couple of weeks we'll be able to do advanced ordering for our, Be Out Guests, Lunch and Breakfast reservations, which I suggest doing. We'll receive our Magic Bands soon, which will be an exciting day, but for now we are in a holding pattern, except for one thing. 

I want to make sure you understand that even after your reservation is made you can pick up new discounts that occur. 

I follow several Disney News sites on Facebook and YouTube. Part of the reason is because I just enjoy seeing people having fun at Disney but this is also so that I am best prepared for our trips. Those sites keep us up to date on construction that might be happening; rides that might be temporarily closed, menu changes and new menu items that might be available. In short I think they make sure I don't miss anything when we go.  They also get you information on new discounts and pricing as Disney institutes it. 

Recently I saw an article on one of the sites I follow about new Summer Discounts for 2019. I looked through the discounts and found one that actually applied to my trip. Some were outside of when we would travel. Some only applied to Deluxe resort stays. Some didn't make sense for us. One though matched dates, and made good sense. We were able to contact Disney and Modify our package to include the discount. This particular discount included a room discount and a Disney gift card at check in based on your resort level and length of stay. It wasn't a whole lot for us, in a value resort, but hey $70 bucks will be helpful on the trip. 

There was a little glitch but Disney handled it well. 

After making the modification to the package, which didn't actually change anything; Same dates, same resort, same tickets, I got an email saying modifications had been made and needed to be fixed or we could lose our FastPassses.  I immediately opened the MyDisneyExperience Website and noticed that everything there was exactly the same except there were no resort tickets attached to our reservations. The wonderful thing is that Disney has a "chat" option on the website. I clicked and was almost immediately connected with a cast member. When I explained the issue, I was told this was a problem they were seeing with some modifications to reservations recently and I'd need to call web support to report the problem. I called the 800 number and the first person I talked to told me that when they looked at my package and reservations they saw park passes attached. I told them that they didn't show up on mydisneyexperience and I was told it was a known issue. She transferred me to Web Support. There was a long wait. I'm guessing a lot of people were modifying their reservations and experiencing the same problem. When I got on the phone with Web Support, He took my information told me he saw the problem and that since I had reported it the programming specialists team would fix it within a day or so. Late in the day the next day I got an email from Disney saying that they had applied the park passes and reserved my Fastpasses, They also suggested I open MyDisneyExperience to check and make sure. I did, it was fixed. 

We are all ready to go now. Just waiting for our Magicbands to show up and begin our drive to Orlando. 

Fast Pass Follow - How it worked.

My Daughter Mallory and I took a lot of time planning our days for the Disney Trip. I went so far as to create a spreadsheet so that we could look at Dining Reservations and Extra Magic Hours to plan what parks we would visit each day then plan our FastPasses around that. Looking at the picture above, Blue is Hollywood Studios, Purple is Magic Kingdom, Green is Animal Kingdom and Yellow is Epcot. Many people who looked at our plans thought we had gone over the edge but these plans came in really handy this morning when FastPass request time came and everything fell apart. Let me tell the story.

I was up and waiting at 6am when the gates for everyone who had reservations at a Disney Resort in 60 days opened. I logged in and started looking for passes. I tried first for the Flight of Passage passes. On Monday there were none available. (yes gone already) We had a second day in, Animal Kingdom, on Thursday so I switched to Thursday and got them on Thursday. Next I tried going to our, Hollywood Studios, day to get the Slinky Dog Dash Fastpasses. There were none available. I chose Toy Story Midway Mania instead and decided I'd better try to get the Seven Dwarves Mine Train Fastpasses. I got one on the first day we wanted and was headed towards the second day in the Magic Kingdom when I noticed my phone buzzing multiple times. Glancing at it I saw a picture from work. I couldn't really make out what it was and while I was trying to figure it out I accidently backed out of the Fastpass selection screen and had to log back in. When I logged back in I forgot about the second Mine Train pass and went back to Sunday to finish selections for Animal Kingdom. The other passes we wanted were easy enough to get.
Texting with Scott about problems at the studio it became apparent I was going to need to go into the station. I told Scott I would need a few minutes to get dressed and wake someone up to move the car that was parked behind me. As I was doing this I was calling Mallory at College. I woke her up and told her I couldn't finish FastPass selection. She got logged on and asked me how far I had gotten. Honestly, by this point,  I was pretty confused. I told her I thought I got all the good ones except the Monday Flight of Passage, but I had to go.
Mallory was able to log on and with our plans, shared as a Google Sheet, finish the Fast Pass selections.

After all was said and done the only FastPass we couldn't get was Slinky Dog Dash. I'm pretty sure we could have if we would have been willing to go to Hollywood Studios with FastPasses later in the week. Our plan now is just to RopeDrop that ride and enjoy everything else.

Our planning may have seemed over the top and a little obsessive but I am glad we had it there.  Also shows that with all the planning and hope for FastPasses be ready to adjust on the fly.

Feel free to comment with any questions about how the morning worked.

Disney Fast Passes

Six years ago, in 2013, my family visited Disney World for the first time since 1998.  We were visiting Kristy's Dad for thanksgiving in Orlando and decided to buy two days worth of park tickets. We spent Thanksgiving Day at the Magic Kingdom and Black Friday at Hollywood studios. (Two of the busiest days of the year) As we wandered around the park, Mallory kept asking me why we didn't stop at one of those fast pass kiosks and get fast passes. I assumed the Disney Fast Pass worked like any other theme park and you had to pay a fee that would get you to the front of line. I kept saying, "No we're not doing that." I could not have been more wrong. Mallory still reminds me of my mistaken insistence not to use a fast pass to this day. 

Disney's FastPass+ service is complimentary to anyone with a park ticket but there are perks for guests who are staying at a Disney Resort.

Here's how it works. 

Through the MyDisneyExperience Website or on the MyDisneyExperience App you can choose up to 3 FastPasses per day. (note - all your advanced scheduled FastPasses have to be in the same park) Once you use those up you can add additional FastPasses one at a time, in any park for the rest of the day with the MyDisneyExperience App.  The FastPasses get you into a shorter line and are good for 1 hour. For example, you might book a FastPass that could be used for Haunted Mansion between 12pm and 1pm. (We found that Disney seems to add about 5 minutes of grace time. We showed up for one FP a few minutes late and decided to try to swipe our magic bands just to see.  It let us in.) 

Your FastPass reservations are assigned to the RFID chip in your Magicband, if you have one, or your, credit card style, theme park ticket. You simply hold those up to the Mickey FastPass entrance and as long as it turns green you get the shorter line. Remember FastPass doesn't mean, no wait, it means substantially shorter wait. 

If you have park tickets and link those tickets to your MyDisneyExperience account you can book FastPasses 30 days in advance of your trip. 

If you are staying on Disney Property you can book FastPasses sixty days ahead of your trip and you get to book for your whole trip on the first day they are available. For example our next trip begins on June 9 so we can book FastPasses on April 9 but on April 9 I can book all our FastPasses not just 60 days out but the 9th, 10th, 11th 12th 13th 14th and 15th. So really I get to book FastPasses 66 days ahead. 

Fast Pass selection opens for the day at 7am Orlando time so I will be at the computer 6am Central time trying to get FastPasses as fast as possible. This is why there almost has to be some planning for your trip to Disney World. You've already made dining reservations at the 180 day mark, now you are trying to get FastPasses. By this point you should have a good idea what park or parks you're going to be in each day. 

There are a few strategies I have seen in scheduling FastPasses. 

1. Schedule FastPasses Early in the day. When you do it this way you can use them up early and try to get more. As soon as you swipe your Magicband for that final FastPass you can be on your MyDisneyExperience App looking for more. You do not have to wait until you are finished with the ride you can be looking while you are in line. This is what we did last time were were at Disney and Mallory was our FastPass Wizard. She found so many good extra ones for us.
2. Go to the parks early (rope drop) and since the crowds are smaller you can get on a few rides quickly without FastPasses then Use your FastPasses later in the day when things are crowded and lines are longer. We plan to try this a little on our next trip. 
3. I've also heard that, since you cannot book two FastPasses within the same hour that once you check into your first FastPass ride you could try to change one of your later FastPasses to be within the hour of the ride you are in line for. This would allow you to push FastPasses closer together but I haven't been able to confirm this. 

Finally, My Fast Pass Suggestions for each Park

I am a roller coaster guy so my Fast Pass choices in the Magic Kingdom are always going to lean to the mountains: Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain and now the little mountain that the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is inside.  You only get three Fast Passes though so how do you do all of them. We found on Thanksgiving that if you are at the park for Rope drop and head straight back to Big Thunder Mountain you can get on fairly quickly. Save your FastPasses for the others. I would suggest making that Splash Mountain Fast Pass later in the day so you don't have to walk around wet all day. 

If you don't want to Fast Pass all the Roller Coasters other choices in the Magic Kingdom include: 

• Peter Pan, the line here is always long, 
• Haunted Mansion, It's a classic and again the line is long, 
• Jungle cruise, this is a favorite and the line can be intense. 

Do Not Fast Pass: 

• It's a Small world 
• Pirates of the Caribbean 

You can find time during the day with shorter lines for both of these rides. Plus most of Pirates line is inside, spend some time in the AC. 

Epcot is a little different story. Like Hollywood studios and Animal Kingdom Epcots FastPasses are tiered. You get to choose one FastPass from Tier 1 and two from Tier 2 

Tier 1 Attractions include 

• Frozen Ever After
• Test Track
• Soarin' 
• Illuminations Reflections of Earth, nighttime show and fireworks. 
• Epcot Character Greeting

Everything else at Epcot is a Tier 2 Attraction. Honestly We had trouble finding Tier 2 attractions we were interested in at Epcot. Nemo would be fun with kids. Journey into imagination isn't nearly as good as it originally was.  Mission space was not open when we went a few years ago so that holds promise if you like thrill rides. 

My Favorite of the Tier 1 rides is Soarin. We waited in line for Test Track and it wasn't too long and fairly fun. If you have a little one though you'd better get that Frozen Ever After Fast Pass. 

Animal Kingdom is also Tiered but the Tier is a little simpler: Pandora is Tier 1, Everything else is Tier 2 

Pandora's Rides include Flight of Passage and the Navi River Journey. In My Opinion. Flight of Passage is the best and most immersive ride I have ever been on but don't waste a fast pass on the Navi River Journey. 

In the rest of Animal Kingdom, if you are a coaster fan, you have to Fast Pass Expedition Everest. If you've never been on the Safari at Animal Kingdom, Fast Pass Kilimanjaro Safari, the wait can get a little long. Dinosaur is a fun ride but not sure it's worth the FastPass. 

Here is my suggestion for a Fast Pass strategy in Animal Kingdom. 

Be there extra early so that you are up near the front at Rope Drop. (There will actually be Disney Cast Members with a rope that will lead you back) At rope Drop head straight to Flight of Passage. If you get there early enough you can be on and off flight of passage by 9:30 if the park is open at 9. You might even be able to get to another ride or two before it gets too busy. Fast Pass Kilimanjaro Safari, Expedition Everest and Flight of Passage. (you'll want to ride it again) Wait in line for Dinosaur and Festival of the Lion King. 

I saved Hollywood Studios for last because in the Fall, all this will change. Right now all three of the Toy Story Land Rides are Tier 1 

• Slinky Dog Dash
• Space Ranger Spin
• Midway Mania

Feel like out of the three you have to Fast Pass Slinky Dog, if you like coasters. It's a family coaster and not a real thrill ride but just to experience it. Midway Mania is a lot of fun and was really hard to get a FastPass for before everything else opened. 

Among the Tier 2 Fast Pass Choices. 

• Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (I love this ride) 
• Rockin' Roller Coaster (The only Disney Coaster with loops) 
• Star Tours (Star Wars themed Ride) 

and shows 

• Beauty and Beast 
• Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular
• Frozen Sing along

On August 29th Star Wars Galaxy's Edge will open in Disney world. In addition to that Mickey and Minnies Runaway Railway will open. This is predicted to make Hollywood studios the busiest place in Orlando and throw Fast Pass choices into complete Disarray. My guess is that All of the newest Rides: Millennium Falcon, Smugglers Run - Rise of the Resistance and Mickey and Minnies Runaway Railway will be added to the Tier one list. Meaning you'll have 6 Tier one rides and only one FastPass for them. Maybe they'll move the Toy Story stuff to Tier 2, hoping to move some of the crowds out of Galaxies Edge. 

For now my plan for Hollywood studios. 

• Rope Drop to Rockin Roller Coaster
• Fastpass Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
• Fastpass SlinkyDog Dash
• Fastpass Beauty and the Beast (because the family loves it) 

I hope these thoughts and explanations about Fast Passes help you out. If you have any questions feel free to comment. 

As I type this it is almost April 5th. There are 4 more days until I have my chance to get FastPasses for our trip. I'll let you know how it goes after I finish. 

Disney Go

I just realized in talking about planning your Disney Trip, I never  covered investigating and picking out your Hotel. Disney has made this experience so easy and, in my opinion, fun. When thinking about a trip I've found everyone in my family checking out the Disney Go Website. At this site you can enter the dates of your trip, compare resorts, check out descriptions and pictures of resorts. Add theme Park Tickets, meal plans and other upgrades. to see what the total price of your trip would be. Then you can make your reservations directly from the website. Call a travel agent with the details you've picked out or call Disney. 

Let's run  through how it works.

The First thing you will do on the opening page, (above) is choose the dates, number in your party and type of resort you might be look at. Deluxe Resorts are the most expensive, Biggest Rooms, Biggest Beds and Close to the parks. They will have transportation that stops closest to the entrance and the best restaurants. Moderate Resorts are Nice but usually very expansive with a lot of rooms and many buildings. Room size is about that of a regular hotel room with Queen Beds. They normally have nice restaurants, plenty of amenities and nice pools. The Size of the resort usually means multiple bus stops for Disney Transportation but some will have other transportation options, boats and soon skyliner available. Value Resorts are the cheapest, rooms are smallest and most have Full size beds rather than Queens. (the Pop Century was just remodeled. Rooms have a queen size bed and a queen size murphy bed that can be pulled down from the wall). The bus stops for these resorts will be farthest from the resort entrance and several of these resorts share busses (Again the Pop Century is different, it is so big that it doesn't share it's bus with any other resort) Pools here are nice and large but no water slides or other theming you might find in other resorts. The Value resorts are some of the most "Disney" themed resorts.

Once you've put in all your information and clicked Find Resorts another screen will open with all the resort choices for you.

Notice that near the top of this screen you can filter your results. Any of these filters you change will change the results you've received so if you'd rather check out different resorts before moving forward just change the resort category. Initially you will see results listing the per night cost of the resort. We'll change that on the next screen. When you see a resort you think might work for you click the forward arrow for that resort.

Once you move forward here the only rooms that will show up on your offers are those that are available during your dates. Here I always switch to package view. With the package view you will see the full price for your stay. At this point it is the price for the room for the dates you have chosen. For the trip we are working through it is a 6 night (Saturday to Saturday) Stay. On this screen you can look at a picture gallery of the resort you have selected and look at more resort and room details. You can also select to change, if you don't like the room choices or what you are seeing and it will take you back to a place where you can resubmit your resort choices. Notice the bottom of the screen has some other suggestions based on what you are currently looking at. If you like one of these rooms click on select.

Once you select your room you are taken to a screen to add your park tickets. Disney will always default to a ticket package that equals the number of days of your stay. For example, with this package the website defaulted to a 7 day base park ticket, 1 park per day. I never stick with that choice and  here is why. We know that we will not arrive at Disney until late after noon or early evening on that first day. Why waste a park ticket on a half or a quarter of a day. We can get dinner, explore the resort, do Disney Springs when we arrive. We'll try to rest up for the rest of the week. Also Check out time is 11am so we know that we won't be in the parks on our final day there. Our 7 day default pass becomes a 5 day pass in order to not waste park admission on days we won't go. There are two things you can add at the bottom of the page. 

The Park Hopper option allows you to visit multiple parks per day. I highly suggest this option. being able to bounce back and forth between parks makes things so much better than being stuck in one park each day. 

The Park Hopper plus option allows you to jump back and forth between parks and do the water parks. I've never been to a Disney Water Park. I figure that there are Water Parks I can go to at home I want to enjoy everything else Disney has to offer. If you or the family loves water parks though, this may be a great option. Your subtotal in the Top Right Corner of the page will change with any choices you make. When you finish picking your Park tickets, Click Continue. 

Food decision time now. Do you want to add a Dining plan? The Disney Dining Plan is Disney's way of trying to make your resort stay more all inclusive. A lot of people will ask, Is it worth it? I don't believe it really saves you any money but it may save you some stress and hassle. Instead of pulling out a credit card or cash for each meal your swipe your Disney Magic Band. I did a post here on the Dining plan, what it includes and what to expect. My family has done the Quick service plan because it is the least expensive and I didn't want to be tied to finding a table service reservation at least once a day. Once you choose what you want to do with the Dining plan click continue again. 

And there it is: For 2 adults at a value resort, Saturday to Saturday mid June. 5 Day park hopper passes and a quick service dining plan you have a price. There are some things you could add here. The Memory Maker allows you to purchase, in advance, all ride pictures and any pictures you have taken by Disney Photographers in the park. We'll talk about that in a later post. You could let Disney help you find a flight and add the complimentary ground transportation from the airport. You could also go back and start over with different dates and/or resorts to see how the pricing changes. Disney also offers a "comparison" tool here. The comparison tool will save up to 3 vacation offers and list them side by side so you can compare. 

Kristy and I have never actually purchased the trip here but you could click check out and reserve with Disney. You could save your details and call Disney. We have a friend who is a travel agent and have done all of our research with Disney's tools then called April and asked her to make the reservations for us. 

Hope that helps and if you have any questions please feel free to comment. 

Myrtle Beach's New South Brewing

One of the favorite things we did during our trip to the Myrtle Beach area was the tour at New South Brewing. Kristy and I have done the tours, here in St Louis of both Anheuser Busch and Schlafly. both of those tours are interesting and offer their own great bits of information. New South Brewing was a bit different though because the Brewery is so small but puts out such a great product.

We learned a lot about brewing and South Carolina at the tour. New South has been in business since 1988 because it was illegal to brew beer in S.C. before 1987. The owner of the company learned to brew in Colorado and when it became legal in his home state returned home to begin his brewery there. He still works daily in this small brewery. New South does not sell their product anywhere except the greater Myrtle Beach area. For a long time they only distributed Keg beer to local restaurants and bars but recently started canning some of their product. They do all the canning by hand That's actually the canner in the picture above. Most you can do is 4 at a time but with hard work they manage to can a lot of beer.

They actually only distribute 2 of their canned beers to local stores, their Nut Brown Ale and their White Ale. Other canning is limited and may be available for purchase at the brewery itself. The tour also taught about beer ingredients; types of yeast, types of hops, and how the roasting and milling of grain affects the sugar content and flavor.

Of course no brewery tour would be complete without being able to sample some of the product. New South Brewery allowed 5, 4oz pours of different styles of beer during the tour. tasting each style as the brewing process for that beer was being described. The other cool thing was they gave you your samples in these nice pilsner glasses then cleaned them and let you take your glass home at the end of the tour.

I'm fairly sure the nut brown ale is pictured above. My favorite was actually the "Java Nut" which is basically the Nut Brown Ale, allowed to age in a vat filled with coffee beans. It really was good. 

This place is a little off the beaten path but if you appreciate the art, science and flavor of good beer brewing I would suggest a stop by New South Brewery when you are in the Myrtle Beach Area.