I don't want to give you the impression that we stop for a drink while we're delivering or picking up Lockers...but we do like to hang around the resorts after hours...and doesn't this place make you want to order a pina colada?

This is Petals, the pool bar at Disney's Pop Century Resort. If you walk out of the rear of the check in lobby (Classic Hall), you're on the pool deck and Petals is just to your right. And it's as inviting as it looks. It gets its name from those flower power petals that seemed to be everywhere in the late 1960's.

Make that a margarita for me...on the rocks, with salt.
john

It's not Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach.

Fooled you! It's not a water park at all. It's the kiddie pool at Disney's new Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani Village.

Kidani Village, a Disney Vacation Club resort, has several flashes of brilliance and the pool area is one of them, In fact, I think folks wil want to stay at Kidani just for the pool--the way people like to stay at Beach/Yacht for Stormalong Bay.
john

Disney's Grand Floridian Resort is impressive from any angle but I think it is particularly attractive from the rear

This shot was taken from the pool looking towards the main lobby building. Unlike the later resorts--Wilderness Lodge, Boardwalk and Animal Kingdom Lodge Jambo House--The Grand Floridian is all at ground level.  And the landscaping  takes a back seat to the Victorian elegance of the building itself.

Love this resort!

john

I think this boat has some kind of kid magnet in it.  No matter how many times our family has been to Disney's Yacht Club, our daughters have always gone to the shop to see this boat with Mickey in it.  I personally think that it's the neat way the have created a wake for the boat.  The flashing red light on the bouy is also cool  To me, this is Disney at its best.  Something extremely well done that just enhances your experience.

 Yachtsman Mickey (if that's what he's called) is located in the shop called "Fittings And Fairings Clothes and Notions" in Disney's Yacht Club Resort.  The shop is to the right of the main lobby.  Walk by it with your kids and let me know if they make a detour.

john

I wonder how many family photos have been taken here? Don't you wish there were some sort of counter to let you know how many kids had sat in those ears? How many parents had stood in the middle in the back? How many couples had held hands across Mickey?

I jokingly call it the Mickey Pose-O-Matic and it's behind the Contemporary Resort near the marina. It's made of stainless steel and the ears are seats with plexiglass behind them to keep you from falling backward. It's been there for as long as I can remember. My kids would insist on a picture there every time we came to the Contemporary.

There are lots of photo spots where the scenery or background is stunning. But this one is just for people. I wonder if this is the only photo taken here with no one in it?
john

It was hard to miss the drums in Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge Jambo House this morning as I was delivering Lockers. The huge lobby is a bit of an echo chamber anyway and the sound of these drums really carried.

It didn't take long to find the source. Down the stairs outside of the restaurant Boma, these South African drummers (and their able little helper) were entertaining folks who were enjoying their breakfast.

What a treat. And I guess that it's obvious that the sound of the drums fit right into the decor!
john

All resorts have a shop and this is the General Store at Disney's Old Key West Resort.

It looks pretty simple and I guess it is. They carry papers, magazines, beer, wine and liquor as well as grocery items and resort-related clothes.
The General Store has lots of special memories for me and my family. We've been staying at Old Key West since 1992 and in many ways, my kids grew up there. The kids had to have donuts from the General Store for breakfast and I've bought many a newspaper and Diet Coke there over the years.

john

You know you're at WDW when you see the Hollywood Studios Tower of Terror sign in the median of World Drive. The 3-D elevator shakes violently with broken cables dangling, there are strobe lights tracing its fall from the top and there's a flashing red "4" indicating the number of drops on the attraction.

There are lots of landmarks that let you know you're back in Disney but this is one of my favorites.

john

Savvy visitors to Orlando have been enjoying the convenience of a service called Owner's Locker that allows them to store their personal items on site between visits rather than hauling them back and forth.

Recent moves by the airlines, including the announcement by American Airlines that it will begin charging for all checked bags, means that using the Owner's Locker service is not just a convenient way to have personal items on hand when visiting Orlando. 

Owner's Locker has become an extremely effective way to avoid the hassle and cost of dealing with luggage on airplanes.

Owner's Locker Members purchase a Locker for their vacation items; it's picked up from their resort when they leave and stored in a climate controlled warehouse until their next trip when it is waiting at the front desk when the Member checks back in to any one of over 200 resorts in Orlando.  There's a one-time fee of $75 for the Locker and the initial delivery and pickup and then it's $99 per year for storage and one free delivery/pickup per year.  And, best of all, there's no weight limit on what you can store in your Locker.

Owner's Locker-the purple place for storing your vacation stuff.

www.ownerslocker.com

Judy Wiley, Fort Worth Texas Star-Telegram Travel Editor wrote an article about what people could do avoid luggage charges and had this to say about Owner's Locker:

- Owner's Locker would probably save money in the long run for frequent travelers to Orlando. The service lets you fill a locker with the items you need on every trip, delivers it to any of more than 200 hotels in Orlando, then picks it up after you leave. While it's wildly convenient, it won't save you money if you don't travel often to Orlando. The initial set-up fee is $75 for the locker and the first delivery and pickup. Then, the basic service starts at $99 a year -- that's for climate-controlled storage and one delivery/pickup a year.
See www.ownerslocker.com for details.

you can read the entire article here.

But really, his name is Rob and to say that he has been a good friend of Owner's Locker (and mine) is an understatement. I mentioned Rob's role in our Beta Trial in an earlier post. Not only was he instrumental in making our initial splash, he has also helped us develop an excellent partnership with The DIS. He's always been a phone call or an e-mail away whenever I've needed advice. And he has made himself available on many of his frequent trips to Orlando. Like the morning last week when he joined me in making the delivery rounds at several resorts. Here we are outside of Disney's Old Key West Resort about to head out.

And, boy did we have a great conversation. Rob doesn't own a part of Owner's Locker but I feel like he's one of our directors. Someone I can turn to for advice on where Owner's Locker should go. Rob and his wife Liz own a total of 29 weeks of vacation clubs, timeshares and fractionals. Is he an expert on this market or what? I love bouncing ideas off of Rob. And he's not shy in telling me what he thinks. And he even wears an Owner's Locker t-shirt when he rides shotgun in the purple van.

Brian and I have really been lucky to have so many people be generous with their ideas and support. It doesn't get any better than Rob.

Thanks, Doc!!

JDVM
www.ownerslocker.com

-part of Disney Vacation Club
-560 units
-available to DVC Members using points, renters and exchanges through RCI
-studios, one bedroom, two bedroom and three bedroom units
-1510 North Cove Road, Lake Buena Vista, Fl 32830

-407 827 7700
-fax 407 827 7710

-Lockers are delivered to and picked up from Bell Services' luggage storage room at the Hospitality House.

Descriptions of Disney's Old Key West Resort by:

Disney

The DIS

AllEars

Laughing Place

Reviews of Disney's Old Key West Resort by:

Dreams Unlimited

AllEars

Tripadvisor

Frommers

Did you see that United Airlines has decided to limit passengers to one piece of checked luggage? Today’s Wall Street Journal says that a second checked bag will cost travelers $25.00. The third checked piece of luggage will cost $100.00 beginning May 5. The article points out that it’s those pesky leisure travelers buying cheap tickets that are clogging the planes hauling all of their stuff with them on vacation. Read the entire WSJ article.

That’s funny; at Owner’s Locker, we encourage people to have as much of their stuff with them as they’d like. We don’t have a weight limit on our Lockers and you’re welcome to fill them any way you want. And if you have more than one Locker, we give you a discount instead of charging you extra. It sounds to me that one of us wants you to have your personal items with you while you're at your home away from home and one of us doesn’t.

Whether you fly or drive, we just think it’s easier to keep your stuff here if you’re travelling to Orlando. It’s always been more convenient and cheaper to let Owner’s Locker store your stuff and have it waiting for you at your resort when you arrive. And now United’s move has made us an even better bargain.

As you can imagine, this move has attracted a lot of attention and comment. Here's a sampling of what others are saying:

--Sean O'Neill of Budget Travel Blog says that we can expect other airlines such as Delta, Northwest and Continental to follow suit. Have a look.

--bigpaul of GFN suggests that first class passengers' luggage must weigh less since they can still check two bags for free! Have a look.

--Joe Brancatelli of Conde Nast Portfolio's business travel blog, Seat 2B, discusses alternatives to checking luggage but focuses on luggage shipping services. I thought he needed to hear about Owner's Locker!! Have a look

--Abhisek Garg of The Money Times says the initial public response to United's move hasn't been that bad. Have a look

--Sonja Weick in her live for adventure blog points out that this will hit people who bring bicycles with them on vacation as well. Have a look.

JDVM
www.ownerslocker.com

The short answer to both of those questions is “no.”

A lot of people ask us how far in advance they need to sign up. Maybe they assume that there is some sort of 30 day deadline or something like that. That if they leave it until the last minute, they won’t be able to sign up for Owner’s Locker. Not true.

It won’t surprise you to learn that we want to make it easy for people to become Members of Owner’s Locker. If someone is on vacation, sees our van or someone carrying a Locker and thinks, “Gee, I need one of those,” we don’t want them to have to wait until their next trip to WDW.

So you can sign up for Owner’s Locker anytime---even if you’re already at your resort in Orlando and we’ll have your Locker to your resort the next day at the latest. We get a lot of calls from people while they are on vacation and I love signing people up over the phone from their room. My favorite story, though is the day I saw Brian flying out the door with an empty Locker saying he would explain later. He'd gotten a call from a Member who was in the parking lot of their resort about to head for the airport when they realized they needed another Locker pronto. Brian to the rescue.

It’s not just a quest for Members that’s involved here, though. The whole point behind Owner’s Locker is convenience and treating people the way WE would like to be treated.

When we were building our systems, Brian and I discussed the issue of deadlines and decided that we just wouldn’t have any. After all, we are dealing with people’s vacations. And we both hate that “gotcha” feeling you get when you wind up paying a penalty because a deadline was missed.

The issue really came up as we discussed what the cutoff time would be for scheduling and changing Visits. Should Members have to tell us ___ days in advance for us to have their Locker waiting for them? Well, we looked at each other and both said, “no.” That’s one of the reasons we use bar codes and have a highly sophisticated scheduling and tracking system. We think you should be able to tell us about a Visit any time—even if you’re already at your resort. And we feel that you should be able to modify your Visit at any time as well. Plans change, waitlists come through, people change resorts. And we didn’t think it was fair to charge people extra for last minute changes. We just pushed the developers to come up with a system to handle all of these possibilities.

And once we had this capability built for Visits, it was easy to use it for signing up as well. So sign up any time you want!

But are we sure that new Members don’t have to give us 30 days notice? Yes we are sure…..but I’ll tell you where that 30 days comes in…..and it will help me answer the second question about signing up. And that is that it is never too early to sign up.

While we want to be as convenient as possible to our Members, we also like to know as far in advance about when people are coming and, in particular, when people want to join. The first Visit is a lot of work for us as we have to build a new Locker and get it ready for the new Member’s first Visit. So we would prefer that new Members sign up as soon as they decide they want to use Owner’s Locker rather than waiting until the last minute.

But while we want to encourage people to sign up as early as possible, we don’t want to penalize you by making you pay for something months before you’ll see it. Again, we wanted to be fair. So, when you sign up, you will not be charged your Membership Fee until 30 days before you arrive for your first Visit. This way you can go ahead and sign up when you make your reservations or even before and not get charged. You can also use the site and use the online inventory function to list the things you are going to put in your Locker.

We think that’s a fair way to treat people. This is not a short term relationship we want to build! Just ask that family in the parking lot. Boy were they releived when Brian showed up with another Locker.

JDVM
www.ownerslocker.com

Here it is--our press release:

I know it's hard to read so here's a link to the real McCoy:

www.ownerslocker.com/news

So why am I saying, "Thanks, Mary?"

There are LOTS of things I love about this business but one of the fun things is getting to know the movers and the shakers. One of those big dogs is a lady named Mary Waring. You've probably come across her site, MouseSavers:

www.mouseSavers.com

And she's the one who suggested we put out the press release. So thanks again, Mary! It's gone out to over 375 magazines, newspapers and websites that focus on travel.

In my prior life as a corporate stiff, I worked in a VERY large business but I found that once you got to know the right people it was really like a club and there were lots of generous folks ready to advise, help and share their experience.

I'm finding the same thing is true in this business. Sure, Owner's Locker is a new idea so there are not exactly lots of other people out there doing what we do. But there ARE a lot of people whose businesses touch the 50 million or so people who come to Orlando every year.

And one of those is Mary from MouseSavers. She been able to create quite a successful business with her site. So much so that we wanted to be associated with her to help us get our name on the map. Mary, it turns out is not just a dynamite businesswoman and respected website operator, she's an absolute marketing whiz and a very nice person to boot.

Brian and I have been spending a lot of time researching the various websites and other media we can use to tell everyone about Owner's Locker. As a new business, we need to do more than just buy a space to put our logo. Ideally, we'd like to find people we can work with and can help us tell our story to potential Members. And Mary has been extremely open and helpful. I filled four pages with notes from our conversation where she was providing marketing suggestions.

And just like we're being very careful in choosing how and where we advertise, let me tell you, Mary doesn't let just anyone march into MouseSavers. Luckily we have lots of good reviews, feedback and discussion board posts or we wouldn't even have gotten our foot in the door. Right now, we have an ad in MouseSavers (which Mary wrote) that you can see here:

www.mousesavers.com/timeismoney

We hope that one day there will be a review of Owner's Locker that shows up in MouseSavers but that will only happen after Mary and her crew thoroughly test the service themselves. I like that. It's the way it should be.

So, the next time you're wandering around the MouseSavers site, just remember that's there's a really cool person back there cranking those great deals out.

JDVM
www.ownerslocker.com

A question we were being asked a LOT was "How big is an Owner's Locker?" And no matter how we answered the question, it just didn't seem to be enough. Brian and I spend a lot of our time talking to our Trial Members and well as our new Members asking them about their experiences. And I can't tell you how many times that details about the size of the Locker would come up. More than one person built a mock up of a Locker out of cardboard and one engineer actually constructed one from wood to our exact measurements. People wanted to get a feel for just what an Owner's Locker would hold. Several people wanted to know the exact volume of one of our Lockers and then bought a container with a similar size as a test.

One person in New York wanted me to ship an empty Locker to her. I assumed she'd be driving down and wanted to fill it up at her home. But no, she was flying and was going to ship the full Locker down to Orlando. I suggested that it might be easier to ship the stuff down in a box without shipping the Locker back and forth and that's when she told me she just needed to see how big a Locker was. That's also when we both discovered that it's just as expensive to ship a Locker full of air as it was to ship one full of bricks! Not a good idea.

Add to this the comments we received when our Members actually got their Locker at their resort for the first time. SO many people told us it was MUCH bigger than they thought.

If I can borrow a line from that old Paul Newman film, Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." And we did, we needed to explain to people in a better fashion just how big the Locker was. Well, if Brian and I can do anything, we can listen. And that's where that newish page on our site, Meet the Lockers came from (not the first time I've borrowed a line!). There are lots of photos and we've tried to demonstrate just how big a Locker is and what all one can hold.

We were brainstorming with Alex ,our web designer--who just happened to be shooting photos of a Locker full of stuff that we had shipped to him (that's how I know how much it costs to ship a FULL Locker). I was looking at the preliminary photos and they looked great but I thought we still needed to show people just HOW big the Locker was. As a sort of joke, I e-mailed Alex the photo below of yours truly clowning around for my kids in an aquarium I was installing in our house and said, "Alex, we need to put a kid or a dog in a Locker."

After Alex quit laughing, he arranged for his adorable nephew, Dylan, to come by the next day and that's you can see the results at the top of this piece. Dylan was great--much better than the dog photos. He's enjoying his new found "fame" and he's got a nice check in his college fund from his first modeling job.

I wonder if I should call the aquarium people and ask if they'd like to use me to show how big their aquariums are?
JDVM
www.ownerslocker.com

So, just what is a second home? That used to be a simple question with an easy answer. Second homes have been around for...well for as long as people have had homes, really. And, we tend to think of second homes as the expensive retreats of the very wealthy. The Pope has Castel Gandolfo. The President has Camp David (which used to be more aptly named Shangri-La), England's Queen has Windsor Castle (along with Balmoral and Sandringham) and Manhattan's elite have huge weekend getaways in The Hamptons.

Today, however, second homes come in quite a variety of flavors, shapes and forms. Some even have wheels---or keels. But, more on that at another time.

But what's the deal with second homes? Why bother? Isn't one home enough?
Do some of us really need a place of refuge? A place to escape to? Apparently so and in increasing numbers.

The idea of a second home is wrapped up in two concepts that seem diametrically opposed: it is someplace different....yet it is someplace familiar.

Just about all of us want to take a break from day to day affairs. That's easy. We like to get away. Sometimes it's no more than a trip to the movies, a picnic in the country or a boat ride on a nearby lake. Then there's the vacation, whether it's a two week, cram everyone in the car deal, or a romantic weekend retreat. Many people like to go someplace different each time they take a break. While for others the best break is to get away--but to a place that they've been to many times before.

There's a great feeling of instant relaxation when you unlock the door to your cottage in the countryside, build a fire in your fireplace, open a bottle of your wine and prop your feet up and chill out. It's also an exciting feeling to check into a hotel in a city you've never visited and have room service send up a bottle of champagne. Both of these activities are fun. Some folks like adventure while others like familiarity. The people who like familiarity will say the new hotel experience can be stressful. The people who like adventure may say that going back to the cottage in the country is a bit boring.

But we're talking second homes here so let's leave the adventurous couple to enjoy their champagne. With second homes, it's all about the known quantity. Familiar surroundings. Knowing instinctively what to do and where to go. Returning to a favorite restaurant where they recognize you. Going on a bicycle ride and not needing a map. And, not needing to rent a bicycle, by the way. To many folks these feelings are what a second home is all about.

Today there are many ways to enjoy the benefits of a second home without actually owning it. The marketplace has expanded to provide people with the second home experience through a variety of different products. People may not use the phrase "second home," but going to the same hotel time and time again is really a manifestation of the second home mentality. Buying a timeshare or vacation club interest is another way some people get that same enjoyment of getting away to a familiar place and Owner's Locker is a company that helps these owners get the second home feeling each time they visit. Does this sound like you? What are the things you like about coming back to the same place to get away? What are some things that would make your enjoyment of your vacation home even better? That's what we're all about at Owner's Locker. We would love to have your comments and suggestions.

John
www.ownerslocker.com