Month: August 2018

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co – Miami, FL

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After our first and only night at Disney’s Vero Beach we had decided I would take our two daughters down to the beach while my wife had some spa time.  This was a huge hit with our kids and after a good couple hours down there in the sand and surf as is always the case we had to drag them away.  But there were promises of more beach days as our vacation continued that week.  We got cleaned up and checked out of Vero Beach so we could get on road for the second half of our journey.

The highway took us straight down south and eventually over to South Beach Miami to our hotel for the next few days.

The hotel was nice, room was very modern and appeared to be recently renovated.  The only issue we encountered was no bath tub.  Now for my wife and I that’s not a big deal but our two daughters who were 5 and 2 years old made for an interesting bath time each evening.

We had a nice view from our balcony of the harbor and if you looked closely between some of the towering skyline you could see the beach only a block away.  Once we were settled into our room and unpacked it was about time to start thinking about dinner.  I found online a place called the Bayside Marketplace that wasn’t too far away and seemed like it would have a nice selection of places to eat.  We hopped in the car and headed over.

It was starting to get a bit late and we were all pretty hungry so we picked one of the first places we found which was Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

As luck would have it there was a pressed penny machine right near the entrance.  Well full disclosure here, I knew about this machine and had planned to visit here just to use the machine later in our trip, but since we were hungry I figured we may as well drop in and eat as well.  I’m pretty sure my wife knew what I was up to.

The machine was a four design hand crank model.  It was mounted to a platform with wheels so it could be moved around easily.  I would guess it’s just to store it inside when the restaurant is not open, but just be aware its location may change.

The designs were of a Bucket of Shrimp, Forrest playing Ping Pong, Run Forest Run, and Forest on the Bus bench.  All of the designs say Miami, Florida which makes for fun memento of each location you visit.  I do have a few other sets from different locations around the country and they are designed very similarly.

The restaurant is filled with nods to the movie Forest Gump, and lots of memorabilia up on the walls.

Screen worn clothing and props are in all the corners of the restaurant and gift shop.  We spent quite a bit of time after our meal just wandering around looking at the items.

Even the table had some motivational quotes from the movie while you waited for your food.  This restaurant can get loud as the night-time crowd arrives, but the food was good with as you can guess plenty of Shrimp dishes to choose from.  After dinner we did walk around a bit, but I could tell everyone was getting tired.  We headed back towards our hotel but took a quick pit stop over to the beach.

The sun set was beautiful and always seems more special with the crashing waves rolling up onto the beach sand.  After we had enjoyed some fresh ocean air it was time to head back into our hotel for some sleep as we had a big day ahead of us, and plenty more pressed penny machines to find.

Disney’s Vero Beach Resort – Vero Beach, FL

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It was finally time for a vacation.  In years past our default vacation destination was Florida, but now that we lived near Orlando where should we go?  We had discussed visiting Georgia or Louisiana that would have been within a reasonable drive.  Then after some further discussions we actually decided that Florida still had plenty of places we could visit and eventually chose Miami as our destination.

However with our two young daughters we wanted to try and minimize how much time we spent in the car, so we decided to make a stop about half way.  When I was checking out where we could stop I recognized Vero Beach and remembered that Disney had a Resort there.  I booked a room and we were all set for our week-long trip to Southern Florida.

The drive from Orlando to Vero Beach was pretty straight forward and thankfully our daughters both napped most of the way.  Once we arrive security welcomed us home in standard Disney fashion.

At check-in we received our First time visitor pins, and were shown to our room.

After dropping out luggage in the room we decided it was time to wonder around the resort a bit and get our bearings.  There is a Spa on site which my wife took advantage of.  I took our girls outside for some fresh ocean air.

There is a large Mickey shaped pool with a pretty big water slide.  As we walked by they were actually having water slide races which seemed to be popular with the kids.

There are some tall bushes in between the resort property and beach.  At first I thought it was a little strange but as you find out more about the Sea Turtles that uses these beaches for nesting the bushes service an important purpose.  More on that later.  There was an access path through the bushes that takes you out to the beach.  The Atlantic ocean was beautiful and something we hadn’t seen in a while since leaving Jersey.  This is where we spent most of our time on the beach and in the ocean, our girls just loved it.

Eventually we headed back into the resort and found the quick service dining area and grabbed some dinner.  As you can see from the sign above I was also pleasantly surprised to find they offered Dole Whip which we enjoyed a few times during our short stay.

Remember I mentioned the Sea Turtles and the tall bushes by the beach?  Once we were back in our room we noticed the above card on one of the tables.  It explained more about the nesting sea turtles and requests that guests keep their window curtains closed after certain hours at night.  The baby sea turtles use light reflecting off the water to navigate back to the ocean once hatched.  Any artificial light can cause confusion.  So that is why the request for the curtains, and also for the tall bushes which are part of the nesting groups and also help keep out any noise or stray light.

On our way back to our room we cut through the main lobby and found the two pressed coin machines I had heard were in the resort.

The first machine only had one design that pressed on a quarter.

The image on this coin is of the two famous Pixar Sea Turtles Crush and Squirt from Finding Nemo.

The second machine is the standard three design electric machine that pressed pennies.

The images on these coins were of the Disney Vero Beach Resort Logo, Classic Mickey, and Surfing Mickey.  It had been a long a day, with some fun on the beach and exploring this fantastic resort.  We made our way back to our room and all crashed (after making sure our curtains were closed).

Unfortunately during our trip we didn’t see any turtles, but this place was really a lot of fun.  The resort and staff did feel just like the Disney resorts we are used to but without having to worry about racing to a theme park it was really relaxing.

Day one of our vacation was in the books and we were looking forward to making out way to Miami.  Plus I promise there will be plenty more pressed pennies to find.

(Update) Flashback – 100 Years of Magic 2002 WDW

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There are a lot of unique pressed coin sets released by Disney over the years.  Some are easier to located by just checking on eBay or a yard sale, but some others are much harder to find.  One of these sets I’ve been working on for quite a few years.  I wrote about it previously here if you want to get some additional back story.

The 100 Years of Magic pressed quarter set is something I work on periodically.  Some times at night I go through eBay, or other coin selling communities just to see what’s out there.  But I don’t spend too much time on it as these coins don’t show up too often.  This all changed when I received an email one day, and almost seemed too good to be true.  This friendly stranger let me know he had come across a set of the 100 Years of Magic pressed quarters he had acquired when he was younger.  He didn’t have much need for them now but came across my initial post and thought I may be interested in them.  We traded numerous emails and he sent some pictures and he was right this was something I just couldn’t pass up.

Now it’s time to take a look as this wonderful additions to my collection with some really great designs.

I tried to separate these out in to smaller related groups.  The above includes designs from the Magic Kingdom: Cinderella’s Castle, Mickey on Main Street, Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland.

Next is over at Epcot.  These designs include Test Track, Body Wars, Living Seas, Innoventions, Imagination Institute, and Honey I Shrunk the Audience.

This set was found over at MGM Studios (before Hollywood Studios).  The images in this group were of the Sorcerer’s Hat, Director Mickey, Tower of Terror, Fantasmic, Rockin’ Roller Coaster, and Beauty & the Beast.

Last but not least was Animal Kingdom.  These had designs of It’s Tough to be a Bug, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Dinoland, Camp Minnie & Mickey, Festival of the Lion King, and Asia.

The icing on the cake was these coins had all been stored in this special release booklet created just for this Disney celebration.  Unfortunately the set is still incomplete, but the addition of these 25 quarters helped fill in quite a few missing pieces.  This was really a lucky find.  Keep your on the lookout as you just never know when you may come across your needle in a haystack.

Best Friends Forever (BFF) Pennies – Disneyland, CA

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West Coast Disney is certainly on a roll of late with releasing new pressed pennies designs and this past week added two new machines.  The first machine is in Disneyland in the Main Street Penny Arcade.

The unfortunate consequence of this new machine is that it replaced the Electric Light Parade penny set which was a really cool collection of designs.  But I will admit that these new pennies are not too shabby.

This first set has image of Miguel & Dante from Coco, Linguine & Remy, and Buzz & Woody from Toy Story.  Another interesting thing to notice about these coins is that they all have 2018 listed on them.  So you know this means that they have a limited shelf life.

The second machine released at roughly the same time is found over at the Bonanza Outfitters on the sidewalk.

The pennies at this new machine include Edna & Jack-Jack from The Incredibles 2, Russel & Doug from Up!, and Dory & Nemo from Finding Nemo / Dory.  The images also include BBF, Best Friends and Swim Buddies making for a fun set.  Just like the first set above these pennies also list 2018.

All six of these pennies have the same backstamp that says Pixar Fest which is going on throughout the West coast parks this summer.  These pennies are a cute set of designs and from what I’ve heard they are becoming very popular.  Make sure to get a set before they disappear.

12-Design Princesses / Heroines Penny Machine Available again

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This is going to be just a quick update post.  I’ve received a lot of message from reading (Thank you all by the way) about the whereabouts of the famed 12-Design Princesses / Heroines penny machine.  Here’s the history as I’ve written quite a bit about this machine.

You can read about my initial use of this machine back in 2015.  Then a few years later the machine was changed from using actual pennies to the penny sized tokens and I wrote a comparison about it here.  However the most recent post was just a few weeks ago when I discussed my first visit to the new Toy Story Land.  In that post I mentioned that the store where the 12-design machine “was” located was transformed into a Toy Story gift shop and this machine was removed so the Toy Story themed machine could be placed there instead.  At that time I didn’t know where the machine was moved to, and I did inquire with several Disney Cast Members about it and they didn’t know what was going to happen to it.  Then this all changed just a couple of days ago.

Word on the street was this machine had received a fresh coat of paint and was relocated over to Disney Springs which recently has become quite the place for pressed coins.

Over in one of the newer areas of Disney Springs called the Town Center (which is really just an outlet mall) is a newer store called The Disney Corner.

The store has multiple floors.  The first floor is primarily everything you can image Princess related.  This does continue up on the second floor but there are some other Disney characters available in certain areas.

There is an elevator is the stairs are too much (there are quite a few) but otherwise if you do attempt the stairs once you get to the second floor the missing penny machine is right in front of you.

As mentioned the machine does have a bit of a different paint job, but the 12 designs are all the same.

I pressed another set just to see if they were still dispensing the penny sized tokens instead of real pennies and that was still the case.  I’ve said it before and I hold to it this is a really nice set to be able to collect all in one place.  Usually in the past to get something like this you would have to visit various machines throughout the parks and resorts.  At $10 for this set it is a little pricy, but hopefully everyone that was inquiring about it can rest assured the machine is back and ready for some pressing.

2018 MLB All-Star Game – Washington, DC

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I’ve mentioned in many previous posts that I’m a casual baseball fan.  It’s a sport that I played as a youth, and jump at any chance to see a game live in person.  Unfortunately being a Toronto Blue Jays fan (I used to live in Canada when I was young) and now living in Florida I don’t get to see them play very often.  There is plenty of baseball in Florida but to be honest with the summer heat it’s hard to get up the energy to spent an afternoon in the blazing sun and humidity.

There is however one game that I never miss every year on TV which is the All-Star Game.  This year the game was to be played in Washington, DC at Nationals Parks.  Now I do have a bit of history with this team, as I mentioned above I used to live in Canada and saw quite a few Montreal Expos games.  In 2004 the Expos transitioned out of Montreal down to Washington, DC and were renamed the Nationals.

The All-Star game was played on July 17, 2018 and the American League eventually won the game 8-6 in 10 innings.  In years past it was quite a tradition for a special penny machine to be available at the All-Star weekend stadium with unique designs only available for a short time.  The last couple years no pennies were available, but they were back for this year.

I wish I could say that I was able to visit Washington for the game and get these coins in person.  But that was not the case.  The designs were made available through the pennycollector.com online store and may still be available if you act fast.  These are always a great mini-set that I used to look forward to each year and I’m glad they returned.

The All-Star Logo had the game date on the penny design.

A special design was also included for the host city and team also with the year listed.

One of my favorite events from the All-Star Weekend is the Home Run Derby and of course there is a penny for that as well.  In 2018 the Home Run Derby was won by Bryce Howard who plays for the Washington Nationals which brought the home town crowd a little something extra to celebrate.

Another item that seemed to have disappeared for a couple of years was the Baseball pressed coin booklet.  With my order for these All-Star coins I saw the 2018 booklet was available and picked one up as well.  I don’t actually use these booklets to store my coins, but I just can’t help myself and got one any ways to add to my penny booklet collection.

It seems like the relationship between Major League Baseball and pressed pennies has not been what it was just a few years ago.  I remember visited numerous stadiums around the Northeast and all of them had at least one penny machine.  Then recently these machines seemed to have been slowly removed with no replacements.  About a month ago I headed into Tampa Florida for a baseball game and visited every nook and cranny of the stadium with no penny machine to be found.  Hopefully with these new All-Star coins that is about to change and some new designs will be released to your favorite MLB team stadium.  Play Ball!!