Serenoa
12-20-2012, 12:47 PM
We returned home Tuesday from our four day LSV, and we had an absolute BLAST. I believe we saw & did most everything we had planned to on this, our first trip to TV…….but sure wish we could have stayed for a few more days. We didn’t bring our checkbook, since I’m still a few years away from retirement……but this short visit was all it took to convince us of where we really want to spend our golden years. TV, of course!
We drove down a day earlier than initially planned & spent the night at the Holiday Inn Express in Spanish Springs. Highly recommend this hotel for moderately priced lodging & will probably elect to stay there for any subsequent visits to TV. The staff was very friendly, the room was immaculate & nicely appointed & the complimentary hot/cold breakfast was quite good compared to other complimentary ones we’ve had.
The next morning we checked into our cabana at Creekside Landing and found it to be very nice, with everything we could possibly need for a comfortable stay. The only thing we did not like was the gas-powered golf cart. Extremely noisy with highly noxious fumes, something Alicia will not tolerate. We went back to the Sumter Landing sales center & spoke with a really great guy, Woody….who said he would try his best to get us an electric cart & have it delivered to our cabana. We left & continued on with our planned activities for the day, unsure if we would really get to enjoy traveling about TV in a golf cart. But sure enough when we later returned to our cabana the gas cart was gone & replaced with an electric. Woody came through!!! That was just one example of the top notch hospitality we experienced all during our stay.
I won’t go into great detail about what we did every day, but some of the highlights were: experienced the nightly entertainment at Spanish Springs & Lake Sumter, but never made it down to Brownwood in the evening. the “cruise in” with all the old cars at Spanish Springs saturday night was especially fun ; enjoyed the farmer’s market at Brownwood ; saw the Royal Lipizzaner Stallions show at the polo fields; had a wonderful evening at Savannah Center seeing “Christmas in Ireland” (free tickets compliments of our sales rep, Mike Weatherford); drove thru the neighborhood off of Odell Circle that has the synchronized Christmas lights; and of course we used our free passes to the movies, the boat ride on Lake Sumter, and the trolley bus ride. We dined for lunch or dinner at Lighthouse Bar & Grille, City Fire, Cody’s, Ay Jalisco, & Katie Belles…..and had wonderful breakfasts at Athens NY & Bonifay Country Club. Our sales rep, Mike picked us up at our cabana one morning & took us to see quite a few of the model homes, and we travelled ourselves to tour a few of the pre-owned homes open houses that were listed online each day. Not sure how we packed all of that into four short days, but it sure was a lot of fun.
Oh, & I must add: I could count on one hand the number of cigarette butts we saw on the ground, saw many happy pooches but absolutely no pooch poop anywhere, had no problems navigating the roundabouts, and 99.9% of the folks we encountered were as polite as can be & seemed to be as happy as we were, experiencing TV for the very first time. In all cases, just what we had expected!
Also, to those that haven't yet visited TV: Look at The Villages website, get the free DVD, look at the many videos on YouTube that others have posted and you'll get a good idea of what the town squares, the streets, country clubs, golf courses & the variety of homes look like. As impressive & beautiful as it may look, be prepared to be astounded when you see it all in person. The rolling terrain, the massive native live oaks draped with spanish moss, the thousands of palms & lush landscaping, the design & architectural detail of all the buildings, the interior decorating in the sales centers......I could go on & on. You MUST see it in person!
Finally, I want to thank all of you fine folks here on TOTV, since reading hundreds of threads & posts for the past several months taught us a lot about TV and certainly added so much to our first LSV in so many ways. This is truly a great forum with great people and I strongly encourage all potential TVers to use it as a learning tool prior to your first LSV.
The pic below is one of us posing amongst the huge oaks on Buena Vista, just south of Lake Sumter Landing. I was snapping a few pics of Alicia when some fun folks stopped their golf cart & offered to take one with both of us.
thanks for having us,
john & Alicia
Birmingham, AL
http://i445.photobucket.com/albums/qq177/jalaughead/DSCN1676_zpsd24b296e.jpg
We drove down a day earlier than initially planned & spent the night at the Holiday Inn Express in Spanish Springs. Highly recommend this hotel for moderately priced lodging & will probably elect to stay there for any subsequent visits to TV. The staff was very friendly, the room was immaculate & nicely appointed & the complimentary hot/cold breakfast was quite good compared to other complimentary ones we’ve had.
The next morning we checked into our cabana at Creekside Landing and found it to be very nice, with everything we could possibly need for a comfortable stay. The only thing we did not like was the gas-powered golf cart. Extremely noisy with highly noxious fumes, something Alicia will not tolerate. We went back to the Sumter Landing sales center & spoke with a really great guy, Woody….who said he would try his best to get us an electric cart & have it delivered to our cabana. We left & continued on with our planned activities for the day, unsure if we would really get to enjoy traveling about TV in a golf cart. But sure enough when we later returned to our cabana the gas cart was gone & replaced with an electric. Woody came through!!! That was just one example of the top notch hospitality we experienced all during our stay.
I won’t go into great detail about what we did every day, but some of the highlights were: experienced the nightly entertainment at Spanish Springs & Lake Sumter, but never made it down to Brownwood in the evening. the “cruise in” with all the old cars at Spanish Springs saturday night was especially fun ; enjoyed the farmer’s market at Brownwood ; saw the Royal Lipizzaner Stallions show at the polo fields; had a wonderful evening at Savannah Center seeing “Christmas in Ireland” (free tickets compliments of our sales rep, Mike Weatherford); drove thru the neighborhood off of Odell Circle that has the synchronized Christmas lights; and of course we used our free passes to the movies, the boat ride on Lake Sumter, and the trolley bus ride. We dined for lunch or dinner at Lighthouse Bar & Grille, City Fire, Cody’s, Ay Jalisco, & Katie Belles…..and had wonderful breakfasts at Athens NY & Bonifay Country Club. Our sales rep, Mike picked us up at our cabana one morning & took us to see quite a few of the model homes, and we travelled ourselves to tour a few of the pre-owned homes open houses that were listed online each day. Not sure how we packed all of that into four short days, but it sure was a lot of fun.
Oh, & I must add: I could count on one hand the number of cigarette butts we saw on the ground, saw many happy pooches but absolutely no pooch poop anywhere, had no problems navigating the roundabouts, and 99.9% of the folks we encountered were as polite as can be & seemed to be as happy as we were, experiencing TV for the very first time. In all cases, just what we had expected!
Also, to those that haven't yet visited TV: Look at The Villages website, get the free DVD, look at the many videos on YouTube that others have posted and you'll get a good idea of what the town squares, the streets, country clubs, golf courses & the variety of homes look like. As impressive & beautiful as it may look, be prepared to be astounded when you see it all in person. The rolling terrain, the massive native live oaks draped with spanish moss, the thousands of palms & lush landscaping, the design & architectural detail of all the buildings, the interior decorating in the sales centers......I could go on & on. You MUST see it in person!
Finally, I want to thank all of you fine folks here on TOTV, since reading hundreds of threads & posts for the past several months taught us a lot about TV and certainly added so much to our first LSV in so many ways. This is truly a great forum with great people and I strongly encourage all potential TVers to use it as a learning tool prior to your first LSV.
The pic below is one of us posing amongst the huge oaks on Buena Vista, just south of Lake Sumter Landing. I was snapping a few pics of Alicia when some fun folks stopped their golf cart & offered to take one with both of us.
thanks for having us,
john & Alicia
Birmingham, AL
http://i445.photobucket.com/albums/qq177/jalaughead/DSCN1676_zpsd24b296e.jpg