Happy Holidays from Hilton Head (Dec 18-26, 2016)

nzdisneymom

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 27, 2003
We love spending time at the seashore in December, and for the last few years we've rented a beach house at beautiful St. George Island, Florida. But this year, the house we wanted was already reserved, and with a recently retired DH and two boys in college, well, the cash isn't flowing toward vacation funds any more.

So we looked at using our DVC points to exchange to something through RCI but nothing seemed to jump out at us. And Vero Beach wasn't available for all the days we wanted. On a lark, I checked availability at Hilton Head and was not only surprised to find the 8 nights we wanted were available, but holy cow, how cheap the points are (especially after looking at Vero Beach). We have reserved a 2BR for 220 points. (We cashed priced it through Disney online and it's equivalent to $2,061.)

It's been several years since we were at Hilton Head - we've only stayed there twice and both times were in March - cooler weather, one year it rained almost the entire time - so we're curious to see how the weather is for December. We're not "beach" people in terms of wanting sun and playing in the water - we just like to be by the shore, long walks, sunrises and sunsets.

And most importantly for this year, it's a time and place for us to reconnect as one boy is away for college. The guys just really need separate beds for sleeping and high speed internet :)

Hilton Head is about 90 minutes away from where my parents and sister live, so we'll be able to make a day trip or two to visit with them, also. So it turns out it's a win for all of us.

This will be my planning and trip reporting thread as we figure out what's new at Hilton Head (resort and town), and what's happening for the holidays.

Also, if you're reading this thread, we are looking for information about restaurants with gluten-free options as I have celiac disease. While we'll be doing some cooking in the unit, we don't want to miss out on local cuisine.

Happy Holidays!
 
We've only been to HHI twice - our first visit was in 2009 over spring break (late March - early April) and I found our trip report from then:
http://disboards.com/threads/live-f...long-as-the-wi-fi-connection-is-good.2134094/

The pictures are gone, but it was a fun trip down memory lane. We were there the following spring break as well, so it's been 6 1/2 - nearly 7 years since we last visited.

It looks like there are holiday happenings at Shelter Cove Towne Center while we'll be there. I love holiday lights!
http://www.hiltonhead.com/dove-street-festival-lights-comes-back-life-shelter-cove/
 
We have a four-foot Christmas tree that we're going to take with us as we'll be at HHI on Christmas. We have various decorations from traveling and of course some Disney ornaments as well. I'll skip decorating at home and just decorate our home away from home!

Several years ago we stayed at Wilderness Lodge and participated in the Christmas Tree exchange that is organized by DISers - that was really fun.
 


Disney HHI is my favorite place on Earth. We've been 5 out of the last 6 years (stupid Hurricane Matthew ruined our trip this year)

The resort is only quick service and make sure to call ahead and let them know of your allergies. They don't always have stuff on hand (they say they do, but they've run out of bread on me more than once :) )

WiseGuys is my favorite HHI restaurant hands down. It's always our date night option. The owner's wife (I think) is a Celiac so they always have great opioins and everyone is super knowledgeable. I always get the scallops and mushroom risotto and creme brulee sampler. Always.

I've had good luck at Skullcreek, Mellow Mushroom, Stacks (gluten free pancakes, thank you) and Salty Dog. We went to Old Fort Pub last summer and it was beautiful but I ended up not feeling well at the end of the night so I don't trust them. I wish we would have stuck with WiseGuys. I've heard great things about LowCountry Backyard but it's always been too busy for us.
 


First of all, thank you @Chelley00 for the call-ahead tip and for the restaurant recommendations. We haven't been to HHI in several years and not since my celiac diagnosis.

In other news, when I was posting our plans yesterday, I just felt like we needed an extra day! I checked and there was a 2BR available for us to arrive a night early, so we booked it online and then I just got off the phone with member services who combined our reservation so it's just one. So yay - we'll arrive on Saturday, Dec 17th. DS finishes his first semester of college on the 15th and our other DS graduates with his AA on Dec. 8th, so they will be happy for some down time.
 
Disney HHI is my favorite place on Earth. We've been 5 out of the last 6 years (stupid Hurricane Matthew ruined our trip this year).

It's our favorite too! I hope you enjoyed yourself there. We go every Thanksgiving. Did you get to any of the restaurants you listed, and if so, how were they? We tried Poseidon this year, first time there, and we really enjoyed it.
 
It's our favorite too! I hope you enjoyed yourself there. We go every Thanksgiving. Did you get to any of the restaurants you listed, and if so, how were they? We tried Poseidon this year, first time there, and we really enjoyed it.

Gosh, I meant to come back and post an update, so thanks for asking!

We had a great week at HHI. So much has changed since we were last there. We went over to the beach house nearly every morning (DH would walk over, I would shuttle over) and take a long walk, then shuttle back in time to wake the college-boys up for lunch :) The weather was spotty during the week but we were able to get out every day.

We really enjoyed walking over to the other side of the marina where King Neptune is because they have rocking chairs around and they were playing holiday music. It wasn't busy so we just enjoyed relaxing over there as much as we did at the Disney resort. Also they had a few Pokemon Go stops and gyms so we would sit where we could play and relax. We had hoped there might be a pokestop on the Disney property, but there wasn't.

We love the new town center at Shelter Cove - the Kroger is nice and it's nice to have some shops and other restaurants within walking distance of the resort. We got pizza delivered from Giuesppes for the boys the first night while we ran out to Publix. And then we ate at Posiedon's one day for lunch, and the guys got pizza one other night from the New York pizza place. We had lunch one day from the restaurant on property but the rest of the time, we just cooked in the room (well, we did go two different days to visit my parents, so those are days we might've gone to a local restaurant to eat).

We enjoyed walking around the town center in the evening with the holiday lights (and bad karaoke).

The resort looked great - we could tell they have been working around the place. They do have a photo book that they can show you about when Hurricane Matthew went through. The whole island was still cleaning up when we were there.

We did not participate in any organized activities this time. The guys were happy with the wifi connection - they declared it the best they've ever had in a hotel setting. In fact, one could even do his online gaming with his friends which was a surprise :) Usually it's spotty or slow.

We stayed in building 14 and parked our car under the main building to keep it out of the weather and there was always plenty of parking there.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. I can't figure out how to post photos here any more, but let me say the decorations at the resort were beautiful. And it was so cool to see so many families that brought their own to decorate their balconies with.
 
Did you notice if King Neptune had his Santa hat on-



I always get a kick out of that for some reason. I agree, I love all the Christmas decorations. We usually get to see them all up at Thanksgiving, but this year the resort was a little behind, so we missed some. Hope you enjoyed some cranberry nut cookies!
 
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