Here are the pics to go with my Blizzard Beach travelogue:
Rising From The Wave Pool At Blizzard Beach, Disneyworld
Splash! Water Fun At Blizzard Beach, Disneyworld
Getting A Bit Cold At Blizzard Beach, Disneyworld
We didn’t get many, but my daughter had a great time, as you can see. 
If you could spend an hour with a published author, what would you want to know?
Would you want to know about the inspiration, the process of writing and researching, the times when things go wrong, and why they would want to do this job anyway?
Or would you have other questions, about their writing history and pedigree, or about how they promote their books?
It’s nearly time for us to host Nikki Leigh on this blog – and it’s time for me to ask her some questions. So I’m passing the buck and asking you, what would you want to know?
Do you believe
There’s a woman or man above
Who controls the moon and the sun
Makes the planets go around?
Well, I do
Do you believe
In all things being equal
Every tree that grows in the ground
Every creature making a sound?
Well, I do
I believe
In respecting Mother Earth
In accepting your true worth
In passion, love and mirth
Yes, I do
Even though sometimes I doubt
Wonder what the world’s about
When I sit and think it out
I believe
Do you believe
That everybody wants to help you
If you can open up yourself to
All the love that’s coming to you?
Well, I do
Do you believe
That the world has a new thrust, it’s
Towards peace and love and justice
And all you have to do is trust it?
Well, I do
I believe
If you control it with your mind
What you seek is what you find
So take the blinders off your eyes
Even though sometimes I doubt
When I feel sure I wanna shout
This is what the world’s about
And I believe
I believe
In the spirit of goodness and Truth
Now tell me what about you?
I believe
If you’re nice you extend your life
Now isn’t that right?
If you stop and say hello
To some unfortunate fellow
You make the world more mellow
Yes, I believe
© LISA HURLEY DOWNER
A former Miss Barbados-Independence, Lisa Hurley Downer is a Jamaica-born, Barbados-bred writer and performing artist who combines her passion for writing, music and performing. She has a Masters in Music Business from New York University (NYU), and has written and ghostwritten articles and content for Cosmopolitan (U.K.), WeightWatchers.com, Prevention.com and Black Enterprise magazine. Lisa has performed her poetry to rave reviews for the Consul-General of Barbados in New York, at her annual invitation-only summer showcase “Evening with the Griots”. In addition, Lisa has co-written “Fly” with neo-soul artist Russell Taylor. The song appears on his debut album “Somewhere In Between”.
No disguise
No need to hide
And so I show my soul to you
And let you see inside
I hope you see the truth
That I love you
And that can never be denied
So I come to you
With no disguise
No disguise
No secrets, no lies
And so I speak the truth to you
And look into your eyes
I let you know the score
Yes, I’ve been hurt before
Sometimes I’ve lost my paradise
But I come to you
With no disguise
What you see is what you get with me
Someone who’s lived and laughed
And loved and lost
But still has hopes and dreams
Can we love each other faults and all?
Can we give it a try?
I promise you, my dear
There’s no disguise
© LISA HURLEY DOWNER
A former Miss Barbados-Independence, Lisa Hurley Downer is a Jamaica-born, Barbados-bred writer and performing artist who combines her passion for writing, music and performing. She has a Masters in Music Business from New York University (NYU), and has written and ghostwritten articles and content for Cosmopolitan (U.K.), WeightWatchers.com, Prevention.com and Black Enterprise magazine. Lisa has performed her poetry to rave reviews for the Consul-General of Barbados in New York, at her annual invitation-only summer showcase “Evening with the Griots”. In addition, Lisa has co-written “Fly” with neo-soul artist Russell Taylor. The song appears on his debut album “Somewhere In Between”.
If you enjoy creative writing, then you’ll enjoy the next couple of weeks. My sis is a poet who’s just getting together her first collection, culled from the 400+ poems she has written.
Last night, she read some of those poems. I’ll be publishing the ones from the reading on this blog over the next two weeks.
After that, there’s another treat, as I host Nikki Leigh’s blog book tour. More on that another time.
Gold bracelets make wonderful gifts. In fact, I love gold jewellery. I once had to write an article on gold for Metal Bulletin. It’s one of the pieces I most enjoyed researching. It turned out that there are cultural differences between the kind of gold that’s acceptable and what’s not. In some cultures 9 carat is fine, while in others anything less than 24 carat is an insult. One of my favourite pieces is a bracelet made out of tiny interlinked gold shells – what’s yours?
The day we went to Blizzard Beach (there’s a map of the identical California version here), one of two Disney water parks, did not start well. We had bought our tickets in advance, had told the concierge that we needed to visit a water park and were confident that we had the tickets we needed to get in. We were wrong. We strode confidently up to the entrance, put in our tickets and nothing. When we checked, it turned out our tickets couldn’t get us in.
Since we were there already, we decided to stay. My sister went to the long queue, while I tried to find out how much it would cost us to upgrade our tickets. The greeter didn’t know and didn’t want to find out, but I persisted until I was given access to the information window. We quickly found out that the upgrade price, would set us back an extra $10 a ticket (!) than if we just paid admission, so we paid to get in, got our tickets, extracted my sis from the long queue and went in.
Next we needed a locker. You get these from the cash desks in the shop, which is a clever ploy to get you to buy stuff you probably don’t need. We managed to get out of there with just the key to a large locker, having paid the $10 deposit. Off we went to change and then cram our stuff into the locker. We should have gone for two, since the term ‘large’ was somewhat misleading. With a bit of pushing and shoving, we got everything in and set off to do something to salvage the day. (more…)
It’s a long time since I’ve tried my hand at a limerick. Here’s my latest flawed creation:
The rain on the window reminds
It’s about time I dusted the blinds
Or they’ll get quite dusty
And start smelling musty
It’s best to avoid that, I find
No matter what shape they fall into
I love blinds cause they let the air through
Whether venetian or roman
They let in the gloaming
To change them I never would want to.
As writers, we often need to look up information, but sometimes we may not use the best search engines to find the information we need. I’m a big fan of Google, but it’s not perfect. Here are two resources to point you towards the right search engine for you. Both are laid out so that you can choose the engine depending on the type of information, the timeliness of the information and other factors.
Phil Bradley has a plain but useful page, while Noodle Tools has a much more visually appealing version. There’s also an interactive version of the Noodle Tools page with check boxes so you can select your most important preferences.
‘Wow!’. Those were my first words when I saw where we would be staying for our week in Orlando. To say that the accommodation was fabulous doesn’t even do it justice. We parked opposite the entrance, took the speedy lift to the third floor and punched in the unique keycode. Had I known it would be so secure I would have travelled with my laptop. Then we opened the door and stepped into an immaculate, but family friendly world.
On the left were the laundry facilities, tastefully hidden behind a cupboard door, with a washing machine, tumble dryer, hanging space and an iron. There was even some laundry powder to get us started. On the right was a hall table with a floral decoration. Straight ahead was a compact but beautiful kitchen, with a tall stainless steel fridge with icemaker (for my UK friends, it was one of those big American ones – you could actually fit a person in there); a microwave, a dishwasher, a kettle and all the crockery you could ever need.
The living and dining room – furnished in stainless steel, glass and leather, were immaculate. The furniture was sturdy – no worries about an active four year old. There was a flat screen TV, comfortable couches and a lanai where you could sit and have a drink while looking at the view of the lake. It was very tranquil, even though we were only a stone’s throw from Universal Boulevard.
Then we looked at the bedrooms. Carpeted floors, flat screen TVs, a queen sized bed in the master and two twins in the other two. The ensuite bathroom was roomy, with enough fluffy white towels to last us the whole week and a starter set of toiletries – and the shower was great – you just never wanted to leave it. All of us felt at home straight away and loved coming back to the condo at the end of a hard day’s sightseeing. My daughter was happy because she had her own TV and her own room (so were we ).
To add to the luxury, there was a pool and jacuzzi for the building just across the car park. There was also another pool at the clubhouse for the complex, though since ours was effectively private ( no more than 3 other people there at any time during the week), we never used it. There was WiFi access both in the condo and at the Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse was great for booking tickets, though I had my issues with the Disney tickets, and it also had a games room. There was also a movie theatre where you could select one of about 30 movies to play at a chosen slot. We watched Happy Feet one afternoon and took our own snacks – great fun.
During the week, all of us kept saying ‘I want to live here’ and ‘So, same time next year?’ That shows how much we loved the place. We were close to Disney (15 mins or so to the outskirts), to Sea World (we watched the fireworks from the living room one night), to Universal, to all the stuff on International Drive, to Walmart, to BJs, to the Florida Mall – in fact, to everything you could possibly want to see in Orlando. Truthfully, I think staying anywhere else would be a comedown now. I can’t wait to go back.
Check it out on RKCondo.com. Pics available here.
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