I was quite surprised to awake just before 7:00 as my normal body clock gets me up at 5:30. After a very comfortable night’s rest, I was excited to awaken at the cozy, Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort. We were all late to bed the night before as we had a fairly eventful travel day, so I quietly made my way to the family room area of our two bedroom villa to enjoy my morning Diet Coke. The calm morning provided the perfect opportunity to write the blog for our travel day to Hilton Head on the day prior.
The rest of the Hayes clan arose around 8:45 and were ready for some breakfast. Sawyer was happy eating his Cheerios and Eggos in the comfort of the corner dining table that he loves. I took the brisk morning walk over to Tide Me Over, to pick up breakfast for Emily, Hunter, and I. It was only a two minute walk to the location but the breeze off of the water made me glad I had put a sweatshirt on before my departure. Emily got the chicken biscuit, Hunter got the breakfast biscuit, and I got my normal low calorie breakfast platter. I captured a quick time lapse video off of the second floor deck while I waited for the food to be prepared. The resort was still fairly quiet as most guests were staying in the comfort of their rooms. I returned to the room with our breakfast goodies as we sat around the table and enjoyed the sounds of chewing (Emily’s favorite). After breakfast we took the opportunity to just relax before getting ready for our fun day around the resort.
We were rested and cleaned up and ready to explore Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort. Just outside of our room was a cornhole setup and a hammock within spitting distance. Hunter and I dueled in the first match while Emily and Sawyer played around on the hammock. I beat Hunter by 1 point after he missed landing his last toss on the board and I hit the board to win. We played a few more rounds and continued on with our resort tour.
Just down the way from our room was a new addition to the resort since our last visit to Hilton Head in 2017, a putting green. There was nobody playing at the time so we took a couple of swings. We were all a bit out of practice from our last mini golf outing but we had fun. I was surprised, however, that we managed to not break any windows with the cuts the boys were taking.
We continued on our resort tour which took us past the pool area where there was only one brave soul swimming. The lifeguard said that the pool temperature was 84 degrees but the outside air temperature made it a questionable day to swim, unless you were from Canada. One of our missions for today was to rent bikes. On our way to the bike rental window we met up with Michelle (Recreation Leader), who was hanging out with Shadow (infamous resort dog). In all of the times that we have been to Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort, we have only seen Shadow one other time. Here she was, right in front of us with her nametag and everything. We hung out with Shadow, giving her lots of love and missing our own buddy Peach. When we were done, Michelle took Shadow in and helped get us set up with bike rentals for the week. Sawyer got the perfect bike with training wheels, allowing us to each to be able to get our own bikes. Historically, Emily has gotten either a bike with a trailer or, during our last trip, she got a tandem bike that she rode with Sawyer. Yep, we were all on our own for the first time!
The first stop on our bike tour was the basketball court where Hunter, Sawyer, and I played around a bit. The hoop is setup where you can lower the height of the rim so we dropped it down to eight feet to give Sawyer a better shot. We played around a bit while Emily headed back to the room to drop off sweatshirts as the weather was turning a bit warmer. Being that it was almost 12:30 we were ready for lunch. Due to the limited days and hours that the Beach House was open, we thought today would be the perfect day for a bike ride out to the beach and some lunch at Signals.
We strapped on our helmets and started on our journey. Hunter and I took the lead as Emily hung back with Sawyer to make sure he knew where he was going. Hilton Head Island is a well thought out island for those on bicycles. The path leading out of the resort takes you on a wooden bridge that was built under the highway, allowing you to stay completely out of traffic. Once you get to the other side of the main street, it is about a 15 minute bike ride to get to Disney’s Beach House. The paths are wide and contain a few hills that Sawyer struggled to get up but had a blast going down the other side. We arrived at the Beach House, parked the bikes, and headed up to the pool area to get some lunch.
Emily thought our first stop should be a Captain’s Mai Tai to enjoy with our food, which I was happy to oblige. We placed our quick service order where Sawyer got the lunch snack pack, Hunter got a turkey and bacon wrap, Emily got a healthy kale salad and I went with the healthy steak and cheese sandwich with onion rings. We got a side order of hush puppies to share because, well, South Carolina! We secured a table overlooking the ocean and enjoyed the cool breeze coming off of the water. Lunch hit the spot and fueled us up to back across the island to the main resort area. The weather was beginning to cool a bit so our excitement to get back to the comfort of our hotel room made the trip back a bit faster than the trip out.
Back at the room we took a chill break where I got a chance to do some blogging, which was nice. Our chill break took us into the late afternoon when I rallied the troops the head to the gift shop with me. Just writing that made me realize what a monumental moment it was. Dad, encouraging Mom and the boys out of the room to go to a store? Looking at the paperwork in the room however, it indicated that the store would be closing at 5 and I wanted to check out a movie to watch that evening.
We walked over to the store and had a look around. When we were at Hilton Head in 2017 we checked out a bunch of the Marvel movies and really got into the franchise. It felt only right to look for any remaining Marvel movies that we had not yet seen. We located two of the Thor movies that looked like nice relaxing films to fall asleep to. After a look around the store we headed back out into the resort for more exploring.
Sawyer had been saying all day that he wanted to play pool. The resort has a pool table in Big Murggie’s Den, which is located just off of the check-in area, which happened to be on the other side of the resort from where we were. We enjoyed the walk and the cool afternoon air. The boys took the first game of pool while Emily and I sat in the comfortable chairs in the den area. The boys also spotted the afternoon lemonade and cookies so they put a dent in both of those. Unfortunately, the boys pool match didn’t make it to ESPN as I believe after 40 turns they might have made two shots??? Emily and I tagged in to help speed the game along. This gave Sawyer an opportunity to get his first photo booth picture of the trip. In the lobby they have a photo machine that allows you to capture pictures with fun effects and it prints you out a postcard sized photo to take with you. Like the photo booths we grew up with, except this one is free!
All this afternoon activity was making us hungry so we headed back to the room to order Giuseppi’s pizza for dinner. This has been a tradition for as long as we have been coming to Hilton Head. We got the boys a cheese and pepperoni pizza, while Em and I shared a calzone stuffed with goodies, and we shared garlic bites and some wings. The delivery time was an hour, giving us a little extra time to continue our exploration.
Hunter was in the mood for a little more cornhole action, but the one outside of our room was in use. This gave us the perfect excuse to hop on the bikes and locate another cornhole game across the resort. We ended up at the game that was located just outside of the store and pool area. We played tournament style with Dad ending up the winner in a hotly contested battle.
Emily and Sawyer returned to the room after cornhole and Hunter and I took some time to work on our putting skills. The green was in eyeshot of our room so Emily could watch our amazing skills from the comfort of our back porch. While we were putting, a boy came up to Hunter and asked it he attended Animal Kingdom camp. Turns out they went to camp together the previous year – small world! The pizza hadn’t yet arrived so Sawyer came down and he and Hunter played around on the hammock that was just outside of our room. Emily and I sat on the back porch enjoying the brief seconds of quiet in between the boys screaming at each other.
When the food arrived we got set up in the family room and popped in the first Thor movie. We enjoyed eating our food in the comfort of our resort family room (without a dog trying to steal from our plates). The food was good but not as legendary as I remember it. We took a break at the halfway point of the movie to get our pajamas on. The movie was good as we got another checkmark on our Marvel movie list.
Sawyer requested a sleepover with mom for the night so I slept in his bed and he and Em had their sleepover. We retired to our beds for a not-so-restful night’s sleep. The pollen in the air in both Florida and South Carolina has really done a number on the boys! Looking forward to tomorrow when Emily’s brother Glen and her parents Kee and Colonel arrive in Hilton Head!
Day Two – Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort Fun Video
