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.  

Disney Dining - The real planning begins.

Last year, as we were planning our one day excursion to Animal Kingdom, my oldest daughter asked me, "Is there anything to eat there besides burgers and hotdogs?" A lot of people believe that going to a theme park you are going to be stuck with theme park food, that couldn't be further from the truth. There are so many great restaurants to choose from at Disney World you're only limited by your imagination, how much you want to spend and getting a reservation. Advanced Dining reservations come available 6 months from the date of the visit. there are several restaurants that you will want to make your reservation that far out. Things like Cinderella's Royal Table, Ohana and Be Our Guest all fill up fast. I list those because they are among our favorites. Chef Mickeys and other signature restaurants will need to be looked at early too. 

Before we talk about Advanced Dining Reservations though lets discuss another thing you need to consider when making your Disney plans: The Disney Dining Plan!
the Disney Dining Plan at Disney World is Disney's way of trying to make your trip more "all inclusive" There are three levels to choose from

1. Quick Service Dining Plan: Includes two quick service and two snacks a day. This plan runs $52.50 a night for adults and $23.50 a night for kids. 
2. Regular Dining plan: One quick Service meal, One table service meal and two snacks a day. Same rules apply, meals include the entree and sides but not dessert. dessert would be considered a snack. $75.49 for adults, $27.98 for kids. 
3. Deluxe Dining Plan: 3 meals a day, any combination. $116.25 a night for adults and $43.49 for kids. 

A couple of other quick notes about the dining plan's. Only Disney Resort guests can use the Disney Dining plan. If you are staying off property it is not available. Your party's reservation is assigned a number of credits for your dining plan. Your dining plan is based on the number of nights of your stay not the number of days. A party of 4 on a 4 night stay using the quick service plan would get 32 quick service meal credits and 32 snack credits. Your credits can be divided and used however and whenever you want. Meals include Entree (combo plate in quick service) and a drink. Desserts would use a snack credit. Starting in 2019 all Dining plans allowed a specialty drink, like a shake or smoothie or an alcoholic drink as your beverage with a meal.  Each Dining Plan also comes with a refillable drink mug that can be used for your entire stay at any resort. (This are not refillable inside the parks). Table service meal credits do not include tip. If you purchase a regular or deluxe dining plan make sure you budget for tipping on those table service meals. 

I don't believe the Dining Plan saves any money and I am sure there are ways to do food at Disney cheaper than any of these Dining plans. For me though, it is convenience. The food is already paid for and I don't have to freak out about the price of each meal as we are eating, because I will.  I also look for the most expensive thing on each menu, to make sure I'm getting the most money for my Dining Plan Dollars.  

Two Tips:

• Don't use snack credits for drinks or water. Every quick service location will give you free water. You get a beverage with your meal. Stay Hydrated this way not by wasting a snack credit on a bottle of water. 
• Use all your snack credits. On our last trip I was so worried about wasting or running out of snack credits that on our second to last day we had 20 snack credits left or something like that. We wasted snack credits on candy and boxed mickey mouse animal crackers to bring home. Use these up. 

Deciding whether or not to use a Dining Plan may affect your Decisions on Advanced Dining reservations. If you choose a Regular Dining Plan you are choosing at least one Table Service meal a day. You will need to make reservations for those. meals We have always done the Quick Service Plan; it is cheaper and we aren't tied to as many dining reservations. 

As a last note about Disney Dining I wanted to tell you about two of our favorites.

Be Our Guest, is the, Beauty and the Beast, Themed restaurant where you get to eat in Beast's Castle. Not only is the theming fantastic, the food is great. This is the only restaurant that is Table Service, Signature Dining for Dinner but Quick Service for breakfast and lunch. You have to make reservations though and they are tough to get. Make sure you are making them six months in advance.

Ohana, 

is located at the Polynesian resort and is our favorite. It is all you can eat, family style. Hawaiian bread is served, then Salad and a plate of appetizers: wings, noodles, vegetables, dumplings. You can ask for more of any of this. After the apps are finished servers will begin to bring by skewers of meat: Grilled Shrimp, Chicken and Beef. They will keep bringing it by and sliding it off the skewers onto you plate until you tell them to stop. Finally a huge Bread Pudding with a Spiced Rum Banana's Foster sauce and Ice Cream on top will be brought out. This, in my opinion, is a cannot be missed experience and you will need to make those reservations 180 days out.

There are so many other places to choose from. You can use Disney's site to explore all the restaurant choices and filter searches by food type, cost, park. Then you can make your reservations there too.  https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/ 

Hope that helps with any questions you may have about Disney Dining. If I can answer any more or you have any thoughts, feel free to comment. 

Myrtle Beach Food

For Kristy and I, one of our favorite things to do on Vacation is eat. We try to find restaurants and food we can't get at home. When we travel to a coastal town a lot of our time is spent looking for seafood.  On this trip we ate lunch at the condo a lot but went out looking for places that had Happy Hour food specials for dinner. My Goal in this post is to remember and tell you about some of the places we visited in Myrtle Beach.

First a quick look at the places we visited within the areas we found them followed by a quick review of each in order from least Favorite to Favorite.

Barefoot Boardwalk in North Myrtle Beach

• Flying Fish
• Lulu's 

Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach

• Paula Deen's Family Kitchen
• Key West Grill
• Margaritaville

Other

• Captain Jacks - North Myrtle Beach
• Filets - North Myrtle Beach. 

I've included a link to each of the restaurants web pages if you want to find out any more about them. 

7) Captain Jacks: In trips to Virginia the family has visited Captain Georges Seafood Buffet several times. On this trip we wanted to try someplace local. It was an OK meal but I would've been much happier at Captain Georges. I will give Jack's credit, we were there in the off season and it was very slow. The Buffet was still completely full and kept up. I've been places where slow times mean some stuff is missing on the buffet. The problem was that the Crab, the Shrimp even the Prime Rib just wasn't that good. both the crab and the shrimp were soggy and old. The CrabCakes tasted fishy Maybe it would have been better if busier and fresher but we weren't impressed. 

6) Paula Deen's Family Kitchen: located in the, Broadway At The Beach, Shopping and entertainment area in Myrtle Beach. We decided to go here for lunch one afternoon just so we could say we had eaten at Paula Deen's. Honestly I really liked the food and it was an OK place but it wasn't among my favorites. The restaurant is upstairs above the Paula Deen Store. Floor to Ceiling Windows give you great views of, Broadway At The Beach. The Food is served Family Style. Our server was wonderful.  At lunch we choose the two entrée meal. $17.99 per person and you choose, two entree's and four sides. They will bring you all you want and each person gets to choose a dessert. Our Choices: Chicken and Dumplings, Meat Loaf, Mashed Potatoes, Mac and Cheese, Green Beans and Black Eyed Peas. I loved the Meat Loaf and the Black Eyed Peas. The Chicken and Dumplings were OK, I honestly like Kristy's better. Green Beans were good with lots of Bacon in them and I didn't taste the Mac&Cheese. For Dessert we had Ooey Gooey Butter Cake and Peach Cobbler. Both very good.

5) Key West Grill: Another location at Broadway At The Beach. We stopped by here for some food after doing the tour at Myrtle Beach's local brewery, New South Brewing, which I'll do another post about. The idea was to sit at the bar and get some Happy Hour Food. The restaurant looked like it would be great and a lot of fun, themed well and a nice menu during the season for us at around 6pm we were about the only ones in there. We ordered, Beef Tacos, Fried Pickles and Jalapenos, and a plate of Nachos from the Happy Hour Menu. I have to admit that I was surprised a place called Key West Grill had so little seafood and so much Mexican style food on the HH menu. It was all really good and I was surprised by home much I liked the Fried Jalapenos.

4) Margaritaville: Again we stopped by here to see if there were any Happy Hour Specials. It is located in the Broadway at the Beach area. We were told they had tried Happy Hour for a while but it didn't seem to work so they stopped it. It was Margaritaville though so we sat at the bar for a bit talked with the bartender, who was a really great guy, and shared a Cuban Sandwich. What can you say about this, It's Margaritaville. The Theming was fantastic, the atmosphere was fun, The drinks were good and the sandwich was nice. 

3) LuLu's:  We ended up at LuLu's on our last Night in North Myrtle. I didn't realize that it was owned by Jimmy Buffets Sister. This place would be great during the summer. Located in North Myrtle Beach's, Barefoot Landing, shopping area. Wide Open with doors that open to the outside and a patio with plenty of tables. Kristy had, She Crab Soup and a Crab Melt. I had a cup of Gumbo and a LuLu's Burger. All was really good. We liked LuLu's and I'd love to see it during he season when it's all open and completely hopping. 

2) Filet's on the water: Gotta admit we almost missed this one and I'm so glad we didn't. It was a bit out of the way and difficult to find but worth it. We got there between 5 and 6 and it was already packed. The restaurant had a wait but there were a few tables open on the patio/deck bar area and that's where the Happy Hour specials were anyway. Nothing about the food here disappointed us. The list we tried included: Caribbean Tuna, Fish Bites, Crab Cakes and Clams Casino. The tuna was seared perfectly with a rare center and a nice blackened spice rub.  The Fish bites were our favorite and the spicy sauce they came with was great. I enjoyed the Crab Cakes and Kristy liked the Clams but was hoping for a bit more. Just a really nice place on the inland waterway with great outdoor seating. 

1) Flying Fish Public Market and Grill:  This was the first restaurant we visited in North Myrtle Beach it is in the Barefoot Landing shopping area and was GREAT! Again we stopped in for Happy Hour. We always figure this is a way to try great local food at a little lower price. We tried, Buffalo shrimp, Oysters on the half shell and all three of their HH sushi offerings: California Roll, Spicy Tuna Roll and Spicy Crab Roll. Happy Hour is only offered at the bar, and as we sat down the Bartender also offered us a plate of crackers with a sample of their Fish dip. We ate all of that too. We loved this place and would highly recommend checking it out. 

We also went to the oldest locally owned brewery in SC while we were in Myrtle Beach for a tour and to learn a little about brewing beer. I'll tell you all about New South Brewing in my Next Myrtle Beach post. 

Disney World: Trip Planning

I grew up with a Mom that loved Disney World. The first time I remember going we stayed at The Contemporary Resort. It was one of only two resorts in the area, The Contemporary and The Polynesian. I also remember trips with the whole extended family staying in condos near a golf course so the guys (My Dad, uncles and Grandpa) could go play golf. The ladies shopped and the kids went to the parks. Of course there were only two parks then. 

My family will now be taking our Fifth Trip to the Disney Parks this summer. 2 of the trips were just day trips to Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom while we were in Florida. This will be my 3rd, stay on property for a week trip with Kristy and the kids. (ok for one of the trips our oldest, Madison, was the only kid) 

I have come to love planning the trip and the anticipation that comes along with it as much as the trip itself.  

The first big decision is when to go. We have to go when the kids are out of school so it's always going to be summer which is busier. I try to make sure it's a trip that is mostly weekdays in the parks they will be a little slower than weekends. We usually go in early summer because school starts to early to go in late summer. So early June for our trip arriving and leaving on Saturday. 

The next big decision is where you are going to stay. There are so many choices. Staying on property is always going to be more expensive but I think the perks are worth it: Transportation, Extra Magic Hours, Disney amenities. When choosing where to stay the first thing to consider is price. The more expensive resorts are all closer to the Magic Kingdom. They have easier transportation, better pools and bigger rooms. The Value resorts are further away and they don't have all the theming and water slides at their pools. Most Value resorts have 2 full beds in the rooms. We found out this year though that the Pop Century Resort has replaced the full beds with Queens so we picked Pop Century as the place to stay. We found that we could add an extra day to our stay and still not spend as much as we would spend for a day less at a moderate resort. 

I also like the theming of the value resorts more than the moderate or deluxe resorts. The Value resorts are just more "Disney" 

You have to do this early though and plan months in advance. Advantages are the ability to make advanced dining reservations six months out and getting fast passes 60 days in advance of the trip. People not staying on Disney Property have to wait till 30 days to get Fast Passes. 

When you make your resort reservations you can link them to your MyDisneyExperience Page and pick out your magic bands, do early check in and room requests. I'll cover all of this in the next few weeks as we continue our planning for this June trip. 

Let me know if you have any questions about planning for Disney. 

Myrtle Beach

Sunrise at North Myrtle Beach

Decided it was time to start Blogging again. I will have two Blogs going. One that is about my life as a diabetic and the stuff we deal with there. The other is going to be about our travels as a family. I think it will contain reviews and discussions about our travels as well as some fun stuff about the way we plan the trips. 

Recently Kristy and I traveled to North Myrtle Beach for a week long stay at the PepperTree Ocean Club Resort. The picture above is from our little deck there. I'll tell you more about the resort in just a bit. First I'd like to tell you about the Myrtle Beach area in General and then about the resort. In later posts I explain, Broadway at the Beach, Barefoot Landing, and what we thought of the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk. I may also do some thoughts and reviews of the different restaurants we ate in. First though, Myrtle Beach. 

This was our first trip to the Myrtle Beach area and whenever we are going someplace I try to educate myself as much as possible before we go. Looking at maps, reading reviews, watching YouTube videos about the area. In one video I was watching Myrtle Beach was described as being a lot like the host would imagine Branson with an Ocean. I have to admit I found that to be a very apt description. If you like Branson you'll love Myrtle Beach. Kristy and I though were a left a little disappointed by it. Admittedly we did not have a great week weather wise and were not able to enjoy the beach at all, other than going for an occasional walk.  There have been other northern beach towns we've gone to in November though, and enjoyed ourselves a lot more. I think it has something to do with the Layout of the area. 

We stayed in North Myrtle Beach which is a lot more residential. There were really no restaurants along the beach, no Boardwalk and nothing to do unless you got in your car and drove out 17. Hwy 17 runs from Myrtle to North Myrtle and really is that Branson style road. All of your souvenir shops, restaurants and attractions are along 17.  Don't get me wrong there is plenty to do and plenty eat, Kristy and I just love the other beach towns we've been to where we can walk to places along the beach and not have to spend so much time in the car. 

If you like shelling you will love North Myrtle Beach. There were many people out looking for shells and plenty of shells to pick up and take with you. I even saw a sand dollar laying out on the beach on one of my walks. North Myrtle Beach also seemed to be very dog friendly. Many people walking on the beach with their pets and the local entertainment center, Barefoot Landing, had many dog friendly businesses. 

Here is a link to a FB video I did of one of my walks Walk to CherryGrove Pier.

As far as the PepperTree Ocean Club. It was, in my opinion, serviceable. It wasn't great but it wasn't terrible. The room was small but clean. It was an ocean view. The pool was great and I saw guys out there working on it and keeping it clean each morning, even while it was 40 degrees and the high was only expected to be 60. We stayed in a one bedroom unit that was tiny. The bed was low to the floor and a bit uncomfortable and we both believed the Kitchen should have been described as limited. When the resort got busier towards the weekend we realized very quickly how noisy the rooms could end up during the busy season. All in all a serviceable resort. Not one I would say, "Wow you gotta check this out!" but not one that I would say, "Don't go there," either. 

I did love the sunrises North Myrtle Beach Sunrise Video

At the end of the day I guess We left Myrtle Beach with the idea that if that was our one choice for a beach town we wouldn't complain but if there are others we would go there.