vacationing from Orlando to North Georgia 3/31 - 4/7/12

[chainedwraith]

North Point Mall, which has an American Girl store and American Girl Bistro restaurant, if your five-year-old daughter has begun to catch that bug.

You hit the nail on the head there! Thats really the ONLY thing my wife insists that she do while we are in Atlanta. My daughter has the doll and wants to take it to lunch at the Bistro. Personally, I'd rather be playing DG when they go to do that.

I'm working out the drive-time schedules and looking up hotel pricing to see what I can do on the way up versus on the way back.

thanks again for all the great info guys!

 

[chainedwraith]

If the family likes Country Music, then hit Magnolia DGC, and spend the night at The Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, I played there about a month ago.

The course is right on the campgrounds and they have country karaoke... I'm not even a fan of country music, and I had a fun time watching & listening. Other activities for kids... seems very family friendly. Hit their web site and give'em a call to see what activities they have planned for when you'll be in the area.

I can't stand pop country or mainstream country, but some bluegrass pickin' is a whole other story! We go to a local bluegrass festival in Christmas, FL every year and it's a lot of fun.

Magnolia is on the list for on the way home, possibly camping in the park the last night of our trip. Most of my friends have been to multiple music festivals @ Suwanee and have been telling me all about it for years. I just never made it up there yet. Can't wait!

 

[12StonesScott]

You hit the nail on the head there! Thats really the ONLY thing my wife insists that she do while we are in Atlanta. My daughter has the doll and wants to take it to lunch at the Bistro. Personally, I'd rather be playing DG when they go to do that.

Well, like I said, either Wills or ERP would work for that. Wills is about 3 miles away from the mall, about 10 minutes drive time, and ERP is about 6 miles by car (about 15 minutes).

There are several hotels around the Mall, including a LaQuinta that gets surprisingly good reviews on TripAdvisor, a Residence Inn (large rooms with separate living room from the bedroom and a full kitchen), Hilton Garden Inn, Embassy Suites, and a Hyatt Place. Those are all walkable from the mall, even for a five year old. Slightly farther away, but still within a mile, are a Homewood Suites (much like Residence Inn), Ramada Limited, Holiday Inn Express, Comfort Inn, Hampton Inn, and a Wingate by Wyndham (all of those along Mansell Road), and across GA 400 just off Haynes Bridge Road there's a Fairfield Inn and Suites and a TownePlace Suites. If you're a PDGA member, keep in mind that you get a discount at Wyndham properties, which might push the Wingate or Ramada Limited up the list of possibilities, but Ramadas always scare me. There's also a ton of hotels around the Windward Parkway exit, just a couple of exits up from the mall area and still relatively close (~4 miles) to Wills Park.

The Alpharetta/Big Creek Greenway, a mostly paved multi-use trail through the wetlands along Big Creek, runs from just south of Mansell across it and behind the strip shopping centers across from the mall -- good walking/hiking/biking/skating route.

 

[Connor Jones]

Flyboy @ Whitesburg,GA

Flat Rock Park @ Columbus,GA

Do them both, the two best courses you will play on that trip.

 

[MrFixIt]

Hit me up w/ a PM when you are close to Athens... I'm literally just down the road from Sandy Creek!

 

[keith johnson]

If you listen to GT Chris and play Meeks instead of NGCT, then I willl have to hunt him down and hurt him when I see him.:doh:

 

[GT Chris]

If you listen to GT Chris and play Meeks instead of NGCT, then I willl have to hunt him down and hurt him when I see him.:doh:

Read that through one more time, Keith. I recommended McCurry and Perkerson over Alexander. Feel free to hunt me down at the Perkerson Ice Bowl though.

 

[keith johnson]

Read that through one more time, Keith. I recommended McCurry and Perkerson over Alexander. Feel free to hunt me down at the Perkerson Ice Bowl though.

Read what YOU wrote one more time - highlighted in red below and made larger for your college aged eyes to see.

Speaking of reading comprehension, I've already stated on "theP" thread on the ADGO website, that I would be in VEGAS during the Event in question.:doh:

Maybe consider this alternate itinerary:

4/1 Sat - play Freedom Park in Valdosta early morning and stop at Claystone in Macon. Drive up to Atlanta and stop at a hotel in Fayetteville.
OR
play Freedom Park in Valdosta early morning and then head up to Atlanta area to goof around with wife'n kid as much as time allows. Get a hotel somewhere near downtown or Fayetteville. This option would include ~35 minutes of backtracking on Sunday morning.

4/2 Sun - Sunday morning doubles at McCurry park. Then sightsee around Atlanta for the rest of the day OR drive out to Athens and play Sandy Creek in the afternoon. It'd be about a 2 hour drive between the two courses and both courses are somewhat long, so make this call based on your own stamina.

4/3 Mon - Depending on where we stay the night Sunday night, I'll either play Sandy Creek in the morning, or Lake Russell and then get on road toward Helen, or we may drive up and hit North Georgia canopy on Monday and I'll just have the family tag along. This means my mid-week solo excursion can be used for Meeks instead of NGCT.

 

[GT Chris]

So I now understand that you only read the last line of a post and not its entirety. :wall:

OP, ff you get the chance, I'd recommend playing both courses. Keith recommends playing NCGT twice.

 

[Lewis]

I agree with pretty much everything 12StonesScott says about East Roswell, Wills, Central, and Redan. If you're sending your wife and daughter to North Point Mall for the day, you should be able to play East Roswell and Wills in the same day. Somebody on the north side of town should be able to meet you and show you around one or more of those courses if you let us know what your final itinerary is. I work about 2 miles from Wills, so even though it's the best course around, I play there about as much as anywhere because I can play it in about an hour on my lunch break.

Adding to what Scott told you, Wills is only about a 4500' course, and it's on flat land, so the challenge there is staying out of trouble (creeks, trees, shule, etc.) rather than having to throw for distance. Central and East Roswell are much more flexible with their multiple tee pads, but you'll find them both more of a workout to hike around than Wills. East Roswell is definitely the most difficult course, but Central, at 27 holes, will take the most time and take the most out of you. If you're worried about the wife and kids getting bored with your dg round and wanting something else to do, you should probably avoid Central -- there's not much to do for tourists around there. For simple dg entertainment, though, Central is my preferred of the three.

 

[keith johnson]

So I now understand that you only read the last line of a post and not its entirety. :wall:

OP, ff you get the chance, I'd recommend playing both courses. Keith recommends playing NCGT twice.

Keith recommends he sticks with HIS initial thoughts which allows him to experience all of the courses and family tag alongs he wants to do - as he is travelling during daylight savings time he will have more daylight hours to allow for everything he wants to do for the most part.

And you are right Chris - I didn't process you mentioning NGCT twice in the same paragraph and in a quick during commercials read and post I missed your first sentence of your alternate reality where he plays NGCT on MON and Meeks later in the week - which is pretty much what the guy said he was going to do - which is why it made no sense to be in an alternate version as usually alternate versions mean a CHANGE to original plans, not rehashing it in a different way.

We're even now I guess Chris - see you on the course somewhere soon I hope.

Keith

 

[chainedwraith]

Thanks for all the responses and suggestions. Plans are already changing slightly, as my wife wants to be in Helen, GA on Sunday now instead of Monday so I lose a day of goofing around on the way up.

Saturday morning - Freedom Park, Valdosta.
Not sure if I'll get to play another course Saturday or not.

Depending on whether we stop Saturday night near Alexander Park or Athens will dictate my Sunday morning course stop.

While staying near Helen, I will take a solo trip down to North Canopy on my own and will try convincing them to tag-along to Meeks for a nice hike maybe on a seperate day.

On the way back down I will shoot for East Roswell while wife 'n kid are at the mall.

I may have to sacrifice the opportunity to play all the courses I originally wanted to but at least I'll get a taste of some decent GA courses.

 

[12StonesScott]

On the way back down I will shoot for East Roswell while wife 'n kid are at the mall.

Meant to reply a while back but got sidetracked. I travel a lot for for work and can't ever guarantee that I'll be in town on any given weekday, or that I won't have work stuff going on even if I'm in town, but if you give us a heads-up a few days ahead of time I can try to scare up someone to join you if you want. I typically have a conf call from noon to 1 pm on Fridays but after that, if I'm in town, I can usually get free for a while in the afternoon (the later the better), and I live less than 1000 feet from the fourth tee, so I can be there literally in seconds. I suspect you'll be wanting to start earlier than mid-afternoon, though, so it might be easier for one of the other locals. Just PM me or post here if you're interested.

 

[dandaman]

Dude-

Don't skip Moseley. The grass hasn't been any issue for at least 2.5 years. I should know since I play it at least once a week, live 3 miles away, and I designed it. It's 10 mins off I-75 (south of Atlanta) and its in a safe neighborhood. In addition the park also recently installed a $100,000+ playground so the kids should have plenty of things to keep them occupied while you play golf. It would be a shame for you to miss the highest rated disc golf course in Georgia that is free to play, because others (*cough, 12stonesscott, *cough) scared you away.

Redan is cool, I recommend that. It's not really that much like Barnett, except for the fact that is all par 3 golf. A classic old school disc golf course. So I guess it is like Barnett after all...no water though.

Athens, Lake Russell and NGCT are excellent as well. Lake Russell is really, really, out of the way from Helen but worth it. NGCT is a great course as KJ has put forth a lot of effort into a wonderful piece of land, and Athens is the great unsung disc golf course here in GA.-20+ holes of DG bliss.

 

[12StonesScott]

Dude-

Don't skip Moseley. The grass hasn't been any issue for at least 2.5 years. I should know since I play it at least once a week, live 3 miles away, and I designed it. It's 10 mins off I-75 (south of Atlanta) and its in a safe neighborhood. In addition the park also recently installed a $100,000+ playground so the kids should have plenty of things to keep them occupied while you play golf. It would be a shame for you to miss the highest rated disc golf course in Georgia that is free to play, because others (*cough, 12stonesscott, *cough) scared you away.

Hey Dan, I was all for him playing Moseley on the first pass through this. It's been a couple of years since I've been down there, unfortunately, so I'd definitely take your word over mine about the grass, and having the new playground (also new info to me) would give the wife and kid something to do. I definitely think it's worth playing -- the distance kicks my noodle-armed butt, but I absolutely think it's one of the best courses in the general vicinity of Atlanta. I was merely trying to give the man as much objective info as I could based on my experience, which in the case of Moseley was somewhat dated, and taking into account having the wife and kid along. You'll notice I didn't say a thing about any of the north Atlanta metro courses until he mentioned wanting to stop somewhere on his way back down from Helen, at which point it was a no-brainer to recommend the three I did as being quite along the most logical route and close enough to make stopping there after spending most of Thursday in North Georgia feasible.

He decided for himself to skip Moseley based mainly, as I understood it, on the exigencies of his travel schedule (i.e., having to be in Helen a day earlier than the original plan). Even you'd have to admit, I think, that fitting in a round at Moseley after playing a morning round in Valdosta and then driving four hours could be a challenge. That said, sunset isn't until right at 8 pm on April 1, so the limiting factors would be fatigue and the patience of the wife, not the length of the day, as long as he got an early start -- on the road from Valdosta northward before noon and he could park the family at a Stockbridge/McDonough hotel and head over to Moseley. Or play Moseley first thing the next day and then try to make Sandy Creek before heading on up to Helen. Or he definitely could skip ERP/Wills/Central and hit Moseley on the way home, but it's not exactly convenient to the American Girl store at North Point.

 

[Connor Jones]

It would be a shame for you to miss the highest rated disc golf course in Georgia that is free to play

Not anymore....

I do love Moseley though! One of my favorites for sure.

 

[chainedwraith]

How long does it take to play a round @ Moseley? Longer than most courses? I play solo at a pretty fast pace only slowing down if I lose a disc but I also don't mind linking up with locals that I find on the course, especially if navigation is tricky.

I would love to play Moseley, just depends on how the family feels when we get into the Atlanta area. We'll see.

 

[chainedwraith]

Whats this about meetup @ Flyboy around the time I'll be driving up?

 

[MrFixIt]

Whats this about meetup @ Flyboy around the time I'll be driving up?

March 30 - April 1.
Hit Connor Jones up for details...

 

[dandaman]

How long does it take to play a round @ Moseley? Longer than most courses? I play solo at a pretty fast pace only slowing down if I lose a disc but I also don't mind linking up with locals that I find on the course, especially if navigation is tricky.

I would love to play Moseley, just depends on how the family feels when we get into the Atlanta area. We'll see.

I can play it solo in a little bit over an hour. Navigation at the course is easy, and there's very few areas where the next tee is furter than 100ft to the next tee. The course begins at the utility shed between the football and baseball fields. The only place where you would really need to watch your disc is on holes 2-6 (because they play in the woods and there are leaves on the ground) and hole 17 (for some reason this is the hole where most discs are lost). I've personally have only lost one disc there and that's because I gave up on looking for it.