The wife and I decided to go away somewhere for a short getaway over the xmas holiday, given that she had 11 days off and while we should have visited family, we wanted to travel somewhere near. I thought of Sonora or somewhere else in Calaveras County, I wasn’t familiar enough with the towns and the reviews online were very mixed for any place I found at all intriguing.
I ran across a bunch of positive reviews of the hotels in the Yosemite National Park, and I thoroughly enjoyed staying in the Yellowstone National Park way back in ’01 so I thought, what the heck. While the Ahwahnee sounded interesting, and the lodge also sounded reasonable, I settled on the Wawona ’cause it lacked TV’s in the rooms and I thought it would be a bit more quiet and out of the way.
In reviewing options for our stay, I noticed the Bracebridge Dinner package option and was floored by the price, but thought there must be something to this dinner. I was afraid it would be some Victorian xmas affair with lots of Christmas Carol crap and jingle bells and all that. I was surprised and impressed with the often traditional and unique music, and the Elizabethan storytelling made it worth giving a college try.
Best part, I kept the whole affair a secret from my wife until the day we were driving out to the valley. Her work and other holiday stress were weighing on her mind much, and this provided a much-needed distraction as she tried to guess and prodded me regularly for hints. I kept them to a minimum, and even let her make incorrect assumptions to side-track her a bit; she really likes to research every aspect of travel and I wanted her to be surprised.
We were very surprised, the trip to the valley was easy-going (driving out on the 23rd, leaving first thing in the morning) and we lunched in the Yosemite Lodge cafe before heading to the Wawona. The hotel is basic, to say the least, and a bit worn around the edges, but it served our purposes and kept us away from crowds (the valley was quite crowded) and noise. The staff of the Wawona and it’s attached dining room were quite nice, the breakfasts filling but nothing outstanding, the lunch and dinner fare was very nice and worth every penny.
The xmas-eve Bracebridge Dinner was amazing, worth every penny. Music, food, decor, staff all top-notch. Only two minor complaints; too much drinking by many of the guests and a couple times the music players were a bit off time (I’m hyper-sensitive to timing in music.) We shared a table with a family of 7 that must have drank 8 bottles of wine throughout the evening, and one woman on the shuttle to/from the Wawona tossed cookies before our trip back.
The history of the dinner is as interesting as the event is enjoyable, definitely read up on it if you don’t know the history. My wife was ecstatic, and proclaimed it to be the best xmas she’d ever had. Doesn’t hurt that she got many compliments on her dress ($45 from JCPenny’s, $12 shoes to match.)
Xmas day we also took the bus tour of the valley, which was ok. Saw much of the same things as we saw on our own, and was a bit pricey for what we got, but it passed the time and kept us warm while we got even better views of the sights.
Xmas dinner was a special menu at the Wawona, which was quite nice. I had duck with cranberry sauce; very tasty. She had the salmon, which was a bit overdone and dry. But overall dining in the valley, even at the lodge (twice for lunch) was enjoyable and far exceeded our meager expectations.
Snow in the Wawona Valley was minimal, far less than the Yosemite Valley, but enough to make a walk around the ‘hood on the 24th a challenge. We did some exploring (mostly driving) of the Yosemite Valley but we mostly relaxed and spent time in the room reading and whatnot. It was good to get some serious, uninterrupted reading done; two more PKD books under my belt, “The World Jones Made” and “Clans of the Alphane Moon”, both quite excellent and quite different. I guess you could say that I had an all-Bay-Area xmas, Dick being a local for most of his life. I have to wonder how often Dick visited Yosemite and what he did there.