With Halloween officially behind us the Holiday Decorations have already started showing up all over Disney Property. Some of my favorite decorations are over at the Yacht & Beach club resorts so just the other night I decided to go and get an early look at them. Along the way received word that a new pressed penny machine was also available there so it was going to be a very interesting evening.

I started my visit parking over at the Yacht Club resort. Now just to review the Yacht & Beach clubs are actually two separate resorts but they are right beside each other, and even have some connecting buildings. Due to this many guests consider them one big resort but in reality they are two different resorts. Walking up to the main building at night is always just really enjoyable, the cool air this time of year (not quite cold just not hot and humid) mixed with the holiday garland and lights adorning the lamp posts and buildings just give a wonderful ambiance here.

I have not stayed at the Yacht Club resort but my family did stay on the Beach Club side a few years ago and it really exceeded our expectations. Both are considered Deluxe resorts and they have quite a few amenities like a fitness club, spa, and various restaurants. But in my opinion there are really two great perks of staying here, first is your proximity to Epcot which is only a short walk along a nice water side pathway, or you can take a Friendship boat ride to Epcot or Hollywood Studios. Second is the opportunity to enjoy what I consider the best on property pool called Stormalong Bay. It’s part pool, part lazy river, it has a huge Pirate Ship themed water slide and also a sand bottom section of the pool that my kids absolutely loved.’

Unfortunately on this evening the lobby of the Yacht club did not have their famous Holiday Train display up and running so I’ll have to come back and check it out on another trip. But just a short walk over to the Beach club resort they already had their Holiday Carousel made out of chocolate and other edible items on full display. Each year the theme of the carousel changes, and for this year they opted to celebrate The Little Mermaid.

Each of the horses were themed for different characters from the movie, plus there are a ton of hidden mickey’s and other items to try and search for. The details on this display is truly amazing. I easily spent at least 30 minutes here just taking in all the little things the pastry chefs and artists created here.

They also include some fun details about the total amount of sugar, chocolate, honey, and all the other ingredients it took to create this masterpiece. Plus they even showed off Santa’s Naughty and Nice lists with everyone that helped bring this carousel to life.

Earlier I mentioned that these two resorts have quite a few unique dining options. The Yacht club has the Ale & Compass which is themed around a lighthouse, as well as the Yachtman’s Steakhouse which is a signature dining location but had some really great steaks and seafood. On the Beach club side there is the Cape May Cafe known for it’s Breakfast buffet and Seafood buffet for dinner, but I think the most popular restaurant is Beaches and Cream. This place is themed like a Classic Soda & Ice Cream Shop with plenty of your favorite comfort foods like burgers, reuben’s, tater tots and thick milkshakes plus the famous Kitchen Sink ice cream challenge. As you can see from the picture above as I walked past this restaurant I found the brand new pressed penny machine I had heard about.

Previously in this area there used to be three separate 3-design pressed penny machines. It always seemed like this was a dumping ground for awhile. Machines would disappear from one place and all of a sudden out of the blue it would show up here. Now however all of those previous machines are gone and retired, and replaced with this new 8-design model.

The designs available at this machine are some of the same we had seen at those old machines. There is a nice Yacht Club Resort logo, but it seems strange to not have the accompanying Beach Club logo. Also the Pocahontas and John Smith design seems a bit out of place, Pearl from Nemo I guess goes with the Ocean / Beach theme but still a little odd. The rest of them are fun beach themed designs with Mickey and Friends.

The Yacht & Beach Club resorts definitely have a lot going for them, and I really think they should be on your list of resorts to check out especially if you are a fan of the Epcot Festivals. They would make visiting the festival a lot easier when your resort is just a short walk away. Plus you are on vacation and should definitely indulge in a crazy ice cream concoction from Beaches and Cream and can get a set of these new pennies along the way. Thanks for taking a quick tour around these resorts with me today, I hope you enjoyed it and I’m so happy to see the Holiday decorations showing up. Take care and as always Keep on Pressing!

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If you are interested in seeing even more of our fist day on vacation in Daytona Beach, head on over and check out the full adventure on our YouTube video here.

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I’ll be honest this vacation actually took place months ago and I’m only just now getting around to sharing it all with you. We just got so busy with all the new Disney pennies and other adventures that I got behind. My family did have an amazing time on this vacation and I’m happy to finally be able to share everything with you. We got up early and headed out towards Daytona Beach for a couple reasons. First I wanted to try and avoid as much traffic as possible, and probably more importantly I wanted to stop at Buc-ee’s for breakfast. My family hadn’t been to one yet, and after my previous visits I was anxious to get back for some amazing snacks. Since I already posted about the Buc-ee’s in Daytona Beach I’ll leave the link here if you want to read all about it. We did completely load up on breakfast items, snacks, slushees and even a few souvenirs before jumping back on the highway for our next stop.

We couldn’t check into our hotel until later in the afternoon so with a full morning ahead of us I thought we would take the opportunity to check out a museum. I’ve mentioned in the past that I am a sucker for a good museum, be it a history museum, science,e nature, art or whatever I’m all in. Just outside of Daytona Beach they have a Museum of Arts and Science so this was like a two for one. During the week when we visited there were not many other visitors which was nice, we almost had the place to ourselves.

As you enter the main entrance to the museum there are various wings that lead you to different areas. In my mind I’m always at a theme park and try to maneuver myself in a circular path to ensure I visit every available area. One of the first sections we can to was an incredible collection all about the classic soda Coca-Cola. There was a huge collection of coke bottles, delivery vehicles, factory machinery, a replica of a pharmacy that would have sold coke and so much more. It was really a unique exhibit.

When I was young I remember a science museum we had in Ottawa Canada that had a huge steam engine train on display and you can actually jump aboard and sit in the engineer’s seat. The sheer size of the vehicle was incredible especially as a child. In this museum they had something that immediately reminded me of that childhood memory. Unfortuatnely we couldn’t actually climb board any of these train cars, but you could look in the windows along the platform and see all the incredible furnishings inside. It’s always been on my bucket list to take a cross country train trip, maybe someday that will happen.

Around every corner of this museum we encounter more and more unique exhibits. As another example the above is a picture of a huge what I assumed was a doll house. It was probably around 15 feet tall, had three floors and various rooms inside that were filled not with dolls but with teddy bears. Some of the bears were cooking, some were caught in the shower, others were playing in their bedrooms. My kids and I found ourselves just calling out to each other as we found a bear doing something silly, and it was really a highlight of this visit.

We did come across this one little hallway that opened up into one large room with these two animal skeletons on display. The one of the right is a Giant Ground Sloth and is the largest complete skeleton of this creature in the world and was discovered just three miles south from the museum. The one on the left is a glyptodont which is another large mammal that was covered head to toe in armor made up of over 1000 bony plates. They were both impressive in person and I bring them up now just as a hint of something to come that I’ll reference back to shortly.

Now we came to my kids favorite part of the museum which was the Children’s section. We have visited in the past quite a few different Children’s museums which are always very hands on and a lot of fun. This was similar but instead of an entire museum it was just a smaller exhibit but it still had lots of interesting things we could try together.

There were some microscopes where we could look at different insects, rocks and gems, and my favorite some coins. Then we found a pitching cage were we could see how fast we could throw a baseball. We also found a race track with some radio controlled cars that we enjoyed, but I think one of our favorites was this Roller Coaster challenge. They were different lengths and styles of tubes that we could stick to the wall and try to get a ball from the top to the bottom. In so many museums the exhibits are hands off, but here it was all about experiencing the exhibits and experiments together.

I was aware that there was a pressed penny machine in the museum somewhere and usually they found in the gift shop or at the main entrance. This one however was hidden back in the Children’s museum section which I think goes great with this area. The cabinet had plenty of clear plexiglass so you could see all the gears and inner workings of the machine as your press you coins.

The designs on the pennies included one of the train cars we saw at the beginning of our visit, a few of the classic cards we found near the Coca-Cola exhibits, and that Giant Ground Sloth skeleton (see I told you I’d bring it up again). After pressing my pennies we headed into the last few sections of the museum which had various types of artwork on display. The museum had requested no photography so I complied, but we always really enjoy the talent of the artists and what they create be it a painting, a sculpture or something I may not be able to put into words.

We had spent a good portion of the morning taking in the entire museum and really enjoyed it. I think the low crowds helped us not feel rushed and were able to spend a good amount of time in each section. But we had places to be and other things to do on this trip. This was just day one and we hadn’t even got to our hotel yet, and as I’m sure you can guess plenty of new pressed pennies to track down and collection. Stay tuned for more posts about the rest of our vacation to Daytona Beach.

On this special day of remembrance for all the truly amazing people and their families that have served or are currently serving in our Country’s military, I wanted to showcase a set of wonderful new elongated coins.

Fellow collector and design Bob Frazier worked on this amazing design and made it available through The Elongated Collector’s Facebook group which I have linked here. You have the option of the design on a Copper US Cent, or in a couple different denomination sets. I went all out for this one and paid for the Elite Denomination set that includes the design pressed on the following coins a Lincoln Copper Penny, a Jefferson Nickel, a Roosevelt Dime, a Washington Quarter, a Kennedy Half Dollar, a Susan B Anthony Dollar, a Sacagawea Dollar and a Presidential Dollar. This set is truly breathtaking and I am so honored to have this as part of my collection.

With this set Bob included a really nice certificate with an image of the concept design, and some background information on Veterans Day. At the bottom is notated that I received the Elite set which is limited to only 20 sets and received set #3 which is really cool.

If you are a veteran please take my sincerest thank you for your service. Everyone please stay safe and have a wonderful rest of your week.

This past weekend I had some friends in town and of course you know I’m always looking for an excuse to get back into a Disney theme park. We ironed out our plans where we would spend the entire day together at EPCOT. In my excitement about getting there I neglected to remember that I was not staying at an on-site Disney resort so when I arrived at EPCOT I couldn’t get into the park right away. There was early entry available for anyone staying at a Disney resort, but since I was not I got stuck in the huge crowd out front.

It had been quite a long time since I rope dropped a theme park. For those of you that may not be familiar with that term, basically if you arrive at a Disney park too early the cast members hold up an actual rope to keep you from entering the park too early. Then once the opening time arrives they remove the rope and the crowd surges into the park usually towards their most anticipated attraction or ride.

If you don’t like large crowds this may not be the ideal situation for you, and in that case I would recommend just arriving a bit later on. One perk however is that the crowd quickly disperses especially at EPCOT just because of how big the park is. Plus as I mentioned above most people are headed to one of the popular rides or attractions to try and beat the longer lines that can form quickly. My friends were stuck in line for the Frozen Ever After ride at the Norway Pavilion so I had a bit of time on my hands to explore, but I knew exactly where I needed to go.

While I was on my way to the park I got some intel that a new pressed penny machine was released in the United Kingdom Pavilion. This pavilion is not very big, but has quite a few different shops. The info I had received didn’t specify where the new machine was so I just took some time going through each and everyone one.

Thankfully I didn’t have too far to go before I found it in The Queen’s Table store. It’s near the Twinings Tea store at the front of the Pavilion.

Inside they had quite a bit of Cherry Tree Lane and Mary Poppins merchandise. The new pressed penny machine was just inside the shop door.

As you can see from the above picture they released a new 8-design machine. The cabinet has a nice kind of classic wood finish that matches really well with the interior of this store.

The penny designs that were released in this new machine include a few we have seen before. Mickey in front of Big Ben, Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin & Pooh, Tigger, Alice, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts.

There used to be a 3 design penny machine in a near store called The Toy Soldier that has been removed and we assumed this new machine is the replacement. The Toy Soldier store has still not reopened so I’m not sure if this machine will be moved over there once it does reopen or if The Queen’s Table will be the permanent home. The designs do include a few we have seen before which I guess is nice to not have lost them, but I’m always anticipating completely new designs and am kind of surprised we didn’t see any Mary Poppins themed coins this time around. By this time my friends were checking in to see where I was so it was time to meet up and have a fantastic day. Thanks for taking a trip to the United Kingdom Pavilion with me today, it’s always fun to find new pressed penny machines. Stay safe and as always Keep on Pressing!

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