Leisure … more than a word, it’s a lifestyle

Earlier this week Disney Parks announced  that the company’s goal of recruiting 1 million people to donate their time and get a 1-day ticket to Disney in return had been reached, and that the “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” promotion is to end.

Those participating in the program signed up to volunteer through the nationwide HandsOn Network and even though  volunteer registration has ended, those who have completed their volunteer activity still have until Dec. 15 to use their free park ticket at Walt Disney World or DisneyLand.

In 2009, Disney distributed 1.2 million free tickets to anyone who went to one of their U.S. theme parks on his or her birthday. That worked out to be about 100,000 per month but the volunteer promotion was so successful that it was getting 100,000 participants per week this year.

At a media event last month at Walt Disney World, Disney officials admitted they were “overwhelmed” by this response.

No word yet on what will happen to the daily “pre-parade” in the Magic Kingdom that is designed to celebrate the promotion. It was the first new use of the Muppets at Walt Disney World in several years so it remains to be seen if  Miss Piggy returns back to her dressing room.

Meanwhile, here at Florida Leisure Vacation Homes, our “Give A Day, Get A Vacation Day” program continues… and will run all year regardless of how many people apply. Details at www.GiveADayGetAVacationDay.com

Actress Farrah Fawcett was not included in the Oscars In Memoriam segment because she was better known as a TV star, the Academy has now said.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences executive director Bruce Davis said he was not surprised some fans and family members were upset at the exclusion but he said the committee debated including Fawcett in the memorial segment, but “an unusual number of extremely distinguished screenwriters” died this year, and the academy tried to honour many of them in the short time allowed.

“In every category, you’re going to miss some wonderful people,” said Davis, who has helped assemble Oscar’s In Memoriam montage since it began in 1993.

When asked why Michael Jackson was included when other actors were left out, Davis said the singer had appeared in a popular theatrical film recently.

“There’s nothing you can say to people, particularly to family members, within a day or two of the show that helps at all,” Davis said.

“They tend to be surprised and hurt, and we understand that and we’re sorry for it.”

Fawcett’s family said on Tuesday they were “deeply saddened” and “bereft” over her omission from the ceremony.

Frankly this is nothing but a slight on the life and work of a person who was the face of Hollywood during the late 70’s. The academy said Farrah was known for her “remarkable television work” and it would be more appropriate to honour her at the Emmy Awards but they are simply wrong and out of touch.

At the time I wondered how or why they would work Michael Jackson (surely better known as a singer / musical artist) in and they managed that and not to show Farrah for just a few seconds goes beyond rhyme or reason. This so called defense of the decision doesn’t wash and all we are left to think is that the glove didn’t fit in Farrah’s case.

Wonder which actors and actresses will now be brave enough to say something about this debacle?

ORLANDO VACATION ON A REDUCED BUDGET

by Nigel G. Worrall

Do you want to take a vacation in Orlando but are worried about the cost? Well, an Orlando Vacation on a reduced budget is not such the unobtainable goal that you might think. Want to know why? Read on.

A vacation in Orlando always seems like a perfect dream come true. Unfortunately so many times in our lives our dreams do seem completely dependent on money which then makes the dream vacation not quite so perfect. Of course, a perfect dream would be an Orlando vacation where money wasn’t always an issue but even so, it is possible to have a great time in Orlando even if you are on a reduced budget. To have an Orlando vacation on a reduced budget takes a lot of planning and here are a few tips on how to get more for less.

Orlando Vacation on a Reduced Budget – Tip #1.

Walt Disney World is the major attraction in Orlando and the best time to visit happens twice a year, in May and September. The reason is simple; fewer folks travel in those two months and that means it is easier to get really good deals at those times of year.

Orlando vacation on a reduced budget – Tip #2.

Instead of staying in an expensive hotel room try a vacation home rental instead. You get far more for your money and you’ll enjoy the extra space. Vacation rental homes have nice sized living rooms, several bedrooms, a full sized kitchen, and a private swimming pool. You can save money by buying groceries from a local store rather than dining out every meal time and you’ll also save because you won’t feel the need to go out all the time like you do in a cramped hotel room. 

Orlando vacation on a reduced budget – Tip #3.

Go as a larger group. Yes, if you team up with your friends and family you can save big style. Large vacation homes and villas are available for rental at low costs. If you travel in a large group, with friends, relatives and family, costs definitely come down giving the phrase “the more the merrier” a very pertinent meaning.

Orlando vacation on a reduced budget – Tip #4.

One thing that hinders the concept of an Orlando vacation on a reduced budget is the expense incurred visiting the various attraction parks. The theme parks can prove to be very expensive and the savings you made in the accommodation will be spent here if you’re not careful. Orlando is not just about the Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and Sea World theme parks,  there are many other parks, lakes, camping and hiking spots to enjoy, completely free of cost. Of course, you should enjoy a great day at one of the major attractions but mix in a few of these low or no cost attractions and you’ll soon see how you can save on your budget.

Orlando vacation on a reduced budget – Tip #5.

Travel is always a major cost so make sure you check out the major travel web sites to get the best flight prices. Check out the low fare airlines such as Jet Blue, Southwest, Air Tran, Spirit and Frontier to get the lowest prices. Renting a car is the cheapest way to get around and this makes it much easier to get to those great low or no cost places.

Orlando is the place to go for the most fun per square foot and if you follow these simple steps you will get the biggest bang for your buck. An Orlando vacation on a reduced budget is very attainable and you can have the time of your life while saving money. It can indeed be the vacation you always dreamed of.

About Nigel G. Worrall:

Nigel Worrall is President / CEO of Florida Leisure Vacation Homes & Total Real Estate Solutions. He is regularly sought by the media as a vacation home and real estate expert and has featured on NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS. He has also featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, Newsweek, Chicago Sun Times, Washington Post, Orlando Sentinel, Orlando Business Journal and several other publications. Nigel is also the best selling author of “Big Ideas For Your Business” (Advantage Media)

Nigel serves many clients around the world as a Realtor®, Real Estate Broker, Real Estate Investor, Mortgage Broker and Real Estate Trainer.

About Florida Leisure:

Florida Leisure Vacation Homes is the leading vacation home company in the Orlando, Fla. – Disney area, offering 3-7 bedroom private vacation homes near to all the Orlando area attractions. Each home has it’s own fully equipped kitchen, 3-7 bedrooms, lounge, dining room, laundry, 2 car garage and best of all, private swimming pool. http://www.FloridaLeisure.com

Yesterday morning I was invited to be a guest on the ESPN 1080 AM Orlando Weekend Morning Show with Richard Charman and Dennis Stelling.

Nigel Worrall and Richard Charman

It was a lot of fun as we talked about business and life in general. Of course, we talked about vacation rental homes and my best selling book “Big Ideas For Your Business” as well.

Here’s a short video clip:

And here’s the full radio interview:

Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker. History is made. Bigelow collects the award from Barbara Streisland…. and moments later Tom Hanks announces that the Best Motion Picture is “The Hurt Locker” …and Bigelow gets to stay on stage for another award. Fabulous stuff… and that completes 6 out of 6 for our picks at tonight’s ceremony!

So now we finally move to the main awards and Best Actor… and Michelle Pfeiffer looks stunning. Jeff Bridges is a shoe in on this…so Kate Winslet, also looking stunning, announces that the Best Actor Oscar goes to… Jeff Bridges.

Best Actress is announced by Sean Penn… and the winner is…. Sandra Bullock who wins her first Oscar from her first nomination. “Did I really win this…or did I just wear you all down”….

Well that was pretty disgusting… both Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur failed to make the memorial part of the Oscars as James Taylor played to a moving montage of those we lost in the last year. Someone’s got some explaining to do…because that simply isn’t acceptable to millions of her fans. Us included.

Well…as I write,  the Oscar’s have been predictable…

The Oscar for sound editing went to Paul N.J. Ottosson for “The Hurt Locker.” Ottosson had barely left the stage when he was called back to receive the sound mixing award for the war drama with Ray Beckett. “The Hurt Locker” has won the most statuettes, with three.

Another movie performing well: “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” Mo’Nique, considered the shoo-in for an Oscar for supporting actress as the vile, abusive mother of a pregnant teen in the harrowing drama took home the honor as expected. The comic talk-show host, who opted out of doing extensive campaigning this awards season, thanked the academy and said it proves that a win “can be about the performance and not the politics.” Mmmmmm…was she getting all political there?

Moments earlier, an emotional Geoffrey Fletcher won for adapted screenplay for “Precious.” Holding back the tears, Fletcher said: “I don’t know what to say. This is for everybody who works on a dream every day.” His win was a surprise: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner were the favorites for “Up in the Air.”

Until that moment, the 82nd annual Academy Awards felt like it was all going according to the odds makers.

The trophy for original song went to Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett for “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart).” The award for animated feature film went to “Up,” which is also nominated for best film. And as expected, Austrian actor Christoph Waltz danced away with supporting actor for playing a brutal Nazi Jew hunter in “Inglourious Basterds.” All three have dominated this awards season, winning practically every available honor.

Mark Boal won original screenplay for the war drama “The Hurt Locker.” It was followed by a tribute to the late, great teen-angst writer-director John Hughes, who died unexpectedly last year. Several of the Hughes veterans gathered on stage in his memory, including Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick and Judd Nelson.

Awards in the short-film categories were “Logorama” for animated, “Music by Prudence” for documentary and “The New Tenants” for live action. The honor for costume design went to Sandy Powell for “The Young Victoria.” Art direction went to Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg and set decorator Kim Sinclair for “Avatar,” which also won a cinematography trophy for Mauro Fiore.

Ben Stiller, decked out in “Avatar” Navi blue, complete with tail and braid, presented the best makeup award to “Star Trek.”

The show kicked off with Neil Patrick Harris, who got rave reviews for hosting the Tonys and the Emmys last year, performing a musical number — “No One Wants to Do It Alone.” It was a reference to the hosts of the show, the wild and crazy Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, or, as Harris called them, “the biggest pair since Dolly Parton.”

And with that, the hosts came down from the heavens at the Kodak Theatre, holding hands.

Well tonight’s the night we celebrate some ground breaking technology, career capping performances and the biggest Best Picture race we’ve ever seen. Yes, it’s Oscar night and there’s quite no other night like it.

In our household we put on the pre-show with the Countdown to the Red Carpet and then we stay glued to all the evenings events…managing to cook and eat dinner with crepes suzette to round it all off.

So let’s take a look at this year’s super-sized Best Picture. In the past academy members were asked to simply mark off the movie they liked the most. This year, however, we break with tradition as 10 movies are nominated and academy members have to rank the contenders from 1 through 10.

What happens next is that when all first place voting forms are counted the film with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and those voters second choices will count instead. This process will then continue until one move gains more than 50% of the vote. It is therefore entirely possible that the film with the most No. 1s won’t necessarily win!

So who are the nominees:

Avatar, Inglorious Basterds and The Hurt Locker are the early favorites with Up In The Air, Precious, An Education and District 9 all following closely. It’s highly thought that A Serious Man and The Blind Side will be most likely to be eliminated first of all.  Our pick: The Hurt Locker

In the Best Actor category we see Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart, George Clooney -  Up In The Air,  Colin Firth – A Single Man,  Morgan Freeman – Invictus and Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker are the nominees. Our Pick: Jeff Bridges

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side, Gabourey Sidibe – Precious, Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia, Helen Mirren – The Last Station and Carey Mulligan – An Education all contend. This one will be a close race between Bullock and Streep. Our pick: Sandra Bullock

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds, Woody Harrelson – The Messenger, Stanley Tucci – Inglourious Basterds, Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones and Matt Damon – Invictus. No problem on this one… a clear cut Our Pick: Christoph Waltz.

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique – Precious, Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart, Anna Kendrick – Up In The Air, Penelope Cruz – Nine and Vera Farmiga – Up In The Air. Our Pick: Mo’Nique.

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker, James Cameron – Avatar, Lee Daniels – Precious, Jason Reitman – Up In The Air and Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds. Our Pick: Kathryn Bigelow.

So that’s all the awards we really care about isn’t it? Sure there’s another hundred categories such as Best Animated Feature (Our pick: Up), Best Foreign Language Film (who cares?), Best Documentary (The Cove), Best Make Up, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing / Mixing etc., but all we really care about are the top six categories… am I wrong?

Let me know what you think…who’s going to walk away with this year’s Oscar’s?

Enjoy you’re evening…

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is coming along nicely in readiness for it’s Spring opening. There’s no official announcement for an opening date as yet but Sarah Holt of Universal Orlando recently revealed a few more things in a presentation she made to Orlando area vacation home managers recently.

During her presentation, Holt made it clear that the Harry Potter park will definitely have a lot to offer Universal’s guests. That includes rides, dining and shopping options, and a replication of Hogwarts Castle, home to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a building that Holt promised would be “very authentic.”

The Dragon Challenge roller coaster ride will allow guests will feel like they’re being chased by a dragon. Less intense will be the Flight of the Hippogriff, modeled on the creature that’s half-horse and half-eagle.

“This is a family-friendly coaster,” Holt said.

The largest ride will be Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.

“You’ll go on this great journey specifically designed for this part of the park,” Holt said. “It’s ground-breaking, state of the art technology that will even surpass the Spiderman ride. If you’ve been on Spiderman, you know that’s pretty big.”

The theme park will host the Three Broomsticks restaurant and the Hog’s Head Pub, where Holt said guests can buy “very old liquor, and we’ll have animated hog’s heads on the wall that will interact with you while you drink your old beer. The Butter Beer is going to be non-alcholic..”

There will be shops as well, like Honeydukes, a candy store that will sell, among other things, chocolate frogs and Treacle Fudge. Dervish & Banges is a toy store that will sell, not surprisingly, broomsticks among the many selections.

“Ninety-five percent of them are completely unique products,” Holt said. “You will not be able to buy them anywhere else.”

There’s a Frog Choir that will perform five times d ay, Holt said, adding, “This is very top secret, so you’re the first one’s to hear about it.”

And there is some good news… ticket prices won’t be going up when the new theme park opens. Hurray… someone understands we’re in a depression!