What to Do in Interlaken

For some of the most beautiful views in the region, holiday-makers and hikers alike have visited the striking mountains of Bern Canton for years. The quaint and lively town nestled within the mountainsis often a main port of call.

JungfrauMountain, Switzerland Photo Credit

On the edge of Jungfrau Mountain,Interlaken isn’t increasingly becoming popular among tourists who want something more from their skiing holiday.

As experts in the travel field who know this area inside out, Inghams travel reps Liz and Mike Cakebread know everything holidays need to know about thiscosmopolitan town.

The basics

As it’s not too far from the Swiss capital,it’s really not that difficult to get here.  Situated between the two lakes of Brienz and Thun, it’s got plenty of life and offers plenty of mountain and boat excursions.

In fact, the name Interlaken comes from the Latin word interlacus – meaning land between two lakes. Liz and Mike Cakebread are happy to dish out some suggestions regarding what to do while staying at one of the area’s hotels.

Boatingwonders

 One recommendation is to enjoy the nearby lakes by boat. Lake Brienz’s crystalline emerald green waters are best enjoyed ona lazy cruise, and can take you to see the Giessback Waterfalls.

It’s also recommended to see the woodcarving village of Brienz, where the woodcarving museum is full of delights and wonder. Continuing on beyond Brienz will lead you to Ballenberg, an open-air museum which showcases the best of architecture in the country.

Revolutions

For a bite to eat with a difference, you can’t get much quirkier than the revolving restaurant Schilthorn. Most famous for featuring in the James Bond flick OnHer Majesty’s Secret Service, it even offers a ‘James Bond Brekkie Buffet’in homage to the film.

                                            007was Partially shot in Switzerland Photo Credit 

Before returning to Interlaken, take a stroll in the village of Murren and enjoy the charming Swiss chalets and mountain huts.

Jungfraujoch

Standing at 11,333ft above sea level, the Jungfraujoch is the highest railway station in Europe. Once you’re up at the highest point, you can enjoy skiing and husky rides atop the Aletschgletcher,the longest glacier in Europe.

Whether you choose to follow all of the Cakebreads’advice or not, a stay at Interlaken promises to be full of beautiful views,great views and some truly unique experiences.

Liz & Mike Cakebread – Zermatt & Interlaken Liz & Mike are very knowledgeable Inghams resort reps, having travelled and worked in number of resorts around the world. Their favourite resorts include Zermatt & Interlaken where they have worked for 2 decades. In winter their favourite place to be is Whistler Canada, where they have enjoyed the ski lifestyle for the past 15 years.

Snow Days VS. Hurricane Days

When I was growing up in central Indiana, snow days were a common thing in the winter. It was always exciting when my school was on the bottom of the screen saying closed. I learned about a snow dance in Jr. High that I still swear it works in a cold climate in winter. I remember doing it on mostly Gold days because all my favorite classes were on blue days. Always on blue days.  I am not sure how that worked out. I also had SRT on gold days which was very boring. When I was younger my favorite snow day activities were watching TV, making bread from scratch, playing outside in the snow and playing games and just relaxing. The bad thing about snow days is making them up. 

Noah doesn't have snow days, since we live in Florida. He has hurricane days.  Basically when the weather is really bad with a hurricane in our path or a tropical storm, he doesn't go to school. We had one in August. I am hoping and knocking on wood that we never have a hurricane or a tropical storm. Thankfully he doesn't have to make it up.

The Rainforest Room at Senses Spa On Board The Disney Dream

As some of you might know I turned 30 on August 29^th and never had been to a spa. I have never had a professional massage, maybe someday.  I felt like I was really missing out, because even little kids go to spas. Every time I thought I would get to go, something happened to where it just didn’t work out. Being a single mom, alone time is very important so I thought it was something I wanted to experience.  Recently, when we were on our Disney Cruise, I had the chance to have a spa day. It only took me thirty years to get one. I was offered a day pass to The Rainforest Room at the Senses Spa on the Disney Dream. I was really looking forward to it. I had to work while on the cruise. I had to relax.  I might not have done it, if I wasn’t doing it for my blog.  I took Noah down to the Oceaneer Lab and off I went.  The cool thing about the Navigator was you know what time things are going on.  So, I knew that  Super Sloppy Science was not during the time that Noah was going to be there.  I was armed with my wave phone and a prayer that he wouldn’t want me to pick him up for a while. He knew that it was a blog thing and he had to stay for a bit, while I worked.  Yes, I worked on my cruise, they made me relax, not the typical work task.

I went up to deck 11 and in to The Senses Spa, where I redeemed my certificate for The Rainforest Room.  They handed me a comfortable robe, and pointed me to the changing room and told me to leave my belongings in a locker.  Well, I left my wave phone in the bag in my locker. I didn’t want it to get ruined and I just didn’t really want to be bothered.  I was having a selfish moment I guess.  I knew Noah was in good hands, he knew I was at the spa. If they really needed me they could find me. During one of the sessions they had spa bingo and Matt the entertainment host was talking about the ceramic heated chairs.  I thought that sounded amazing, so that is where I went first. I could have sat there for forever.  You have the ocean view that just makes you relax. The heat felt so good. I felt like I was butter melting in to the chair. It wasn’t too hot, it was just right. I actually sat in the chairs twice.  I also went to the hot tub, it was perfect, the water was pretty hot, which is the way I like it.  Everything was inside the boat, with huge windows. I really didn’t want to be outside because I was burnt and I didn’t want to burn worse. 

There were some things in The Rainforest that I didn’t really care for. It is probably just a personal preference, but the idea is cool. They have these showers and each one is a different rainforest experience.  Each experience has three different settings.  I didn’t like that most of the experiences were freezing cold. Thankfully there were other guests saying this one is cold, this one is hot, which was extremely helpful after a few cold showers. Maybe I should have stood right under the shower. It wasn’t that big of a deal, just not my favorite.  I also went in to a steam room.  I am not sure if it was just me but I walked in and walked back out. It was too steamy for me. Maybe I am not used to it, but I had trouble breathing and at this point, I knew that the lab was texting to come pick up Noah. I checked the wave phone and called them to make sure it wasn’t an emergency or that he wasn’t really upset.  I talked to him and I talked to the crew and told them I was at the spa and that I would pick him up at 2 pm.  I was really able to relax and have some alone time with beautiful views and quiet places to do so.

I highly recommend you spend some time in a spa, just to rejuvenate and relax.   Check out Senses Spa aboard the Disney Dream.

For more information, check out Sense Spa & Salon and be sure to book a special spa treatment on your Disney Cruise.

Thank you to Disney Cruise Lines for providing me with a complimentary Rainforest Pass for me to try out the Rainforest Room. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Counting Down The Days Til Spring!

I really don’t like winter and I can’t wait until spring when it starts getting warmer. I don’t like being cooped up in my house all the time. I guess I get cabin fever. Every year around this time I start thinking about how I need a vacation. Now, that I am a mom I would love to go somewhere warm with some of my friends and just have some girl time. We all work really hard as moms and I think that we all need interaction with our friends. I think it would be fun to go somewhere exotic like Bali with some friends. That would require serious planning and passports of course so it wouldn’t be something we could decide spontaneously. I am going to get my passport soon though, so maybe someday I can stay in a Bali villas rental with my girl friends.

I am really close to my mom’s side of the family. I love how close knit we all are. I hear about family problems and I am so glad that we don’t have those kinds of problems and that we have never taken each other to court over silly things. I think it would be really fun to take a family vacation with all my cousins and kids, aunts, uncle and sister, Noah and mom. That way we could have more than an afternoon to hang out together. We are a fairly big family and I don’t get near as much time with them as I would like. Everyone is pretty spread out over the US. So getting us all together has not happened since my Grandma Rose passed away in 2005 and even then I don’t think it was everyone because my cousin’s wife was in labor during the viewing and had just had her daughter during the funeral. I would love for us to get a section of Bali villa rentals and just spend some quality time together.

If you could go on an exotic vacation where would you go and who would you take with you? Are you close to your extended family?

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My ultimate family vacation would be in Hawaii. Noah and I would invite all of my family, including my aunts and my uncle, all of my cousins and their families, my sister and brother in and my mom. We have always been a close knit family but with us all living in different parts of the country we don’t get to see each other as often as we would like. Growing up my cousins and I spent a lot of time together at my grandparents. I can’t remember when everyone was all together. There has always been someone unable to make it. It would just be an amazing family reunion on the beach.

We would go swimming in the ocean, dine on delicious foods, and just have some long needed family time. We would catch up with our lives and reminisce about when we were young. I think it would be great to have us all together again and not have a sad reason for us reuniting. I would try and convince all of the females to take hula lessons. I would love to see all the cousins’ kids playing together and building sand castles on the beach. I am sure we would fill the island with our laughter and love.

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Come Fly With Me........

When I went to Orlando, I got a brilliant idea. I thought I would take a small video of our flight. I didn’t want a video of the clouds although that would be kind of cool. Clouds are unpredictable however and I wasn’t sure I would be able to get a good video. I took this video as we were towards the end of our flight in to Orlando. The reason I took this video is because my friend Brandy does not like to fly. I thought it would be cool if she could fly with me in the safety of her own home. She has never flown before and I wanted her to see the beauty that I saw from the air. So, Brandy, friends Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away. If you can use some exotic booze, there's a bar in far Bombay. Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.

Global Resort Homes Review

My family had the amazing opportunity to go on vacation to Orlando. I love Orlando because I love going to Disney. Well honestly I have a new favorite thing about Orlando. My new favorite thing was where we stayed. We had the pleasure of staying at a property by Global Resort Homes. We stayed in Windsor Hills. Global Resort Homes is an amazing rental company. The staff is very friendly and helpful to make your stay what you want it to be. All of the units are owned by people. They are not timeshares. There is no trading your weeks or having a set date you must go every year. I had a friend who owned a time share and she hated having to go the same week every year. You can pick when you go and you don’t have to buy anything extra. Think of it as the most amazing “hotel” you will ever stay in because you just book it like you would book any other place you would stay on vacation.



Disney with my almost 4 year old was very trying and hot and not the happiest place on Earth. During those trying times of waiting in line and listening to Noah scream and cry all I could do is think about going back to our amazing vacation home and jumping in the pool and relaxing. We had a gorgeous 3 bedroom town home to stay in. The vacation home became my own personal oasis away from the chaos of the other tourists at the parks. The armies of people from other countries that walked 10 people across around Disney, and SeaWorld were everywhere. The location was great too. I loved not having to ride in the car for a long time after being out with my family.



Noah who had been up since 4 am the morning we got there with no nap was glad to be out of the car, the plane and the shuttle bus. He was still cranky when we walked in. Noah saw our dip pool and did a complete 180 and was so excited and wanted to go swimming! I knew that all of the properties had some kind of pool but I was surprised how big the dip pool was. I guess I was thinking it was comparable to a baby pool. I was wrong it was awesome. It was private and didn’t require a walk or drive back to change. We had never stayed at a place where there was our very own pool. I am sure some of you know about how I like to relax and not really deal with 20 screaming kids throwing footballs from the pool to the hot tub.



The vacation home was beautiful. I loved all the decorations and it was very inviting. The first thing I did was remove the beautifully set table. I didn’t want to break anything and I thought that it would be a good idea to remove the dishes from being out. The kitchen had everything you could think of as far as dishes and utensils which was nice because we decided to have a frozen pizza on our first night cooked in our own oven. We stocked the fridge with lots of milk and juice and soda. Noah kept trying to get the milk out and pour himself a cup. Each of the bedrooms had their own bathroom and TV in each bedroom. There was also a nice flat screen TV in the family room. All of the beds were really comfortable too.



I slept in the master bedroom and the king size bed was so comfortable. I ended up falling asleep the day we arrived around 5 pm because I was so worn out. I didn’t intend to do so but I was lying in bed watching TV and the next thing I know I woke up and it was 8 pm. I loved having all the room to myself and the sheets and blankets were so soft. I had a ceiling fan that was controlled by a remote. The size of the town house was great because there was actually breathing room. Even with a suite at a hotel there is still never enough room. I consider myself a accommodations snob where I will only stay in really nice places.



When I found out that every unit has a washer and dryer, I was thinking that was cool but I probably wouldn’t do laundry on vacation. I was wrong, I did quite a bit of it during my week stay. The neighborhood also had an awesome playground that Noah loved to play on. They had a giant chess board and Noah built a city with it. When he was finished he said “Hey boys and girls, look at my city.” I really liked the sundry shop. I am such a sucker for gift shops and little stores. I had really bad sunburn on the back of my neck. It was really painful. I walked over to the Sundry shop and I found a bottle of Aloe, a really big bottle of aloe. I immediately bought it and got relief without leaving the gates of our community. I was extremely thankful that they had aloe among the many other items they sold.

I highly recommend staying at a Global Resort Homes property the next time you visit Orlando. They provide all the comforts of home with luxurious accommodations.

Thank you so much to Global Resort Homes for inviting my family to stay for a complimentary week at one of your awesome vacation homes.

I have returned!

Please pardon my absence. I took some family time over the holiday week combined with some computer problems. I have spent lots of time hanging out with my son and family and enjoying just relaxing. I have been playing Bananagrams with my mom too. I am back and I have so many exciting and wonderful things to share with you all. I hope you have enjoyed your family time as much as I have!