Hey yall!!!

I’m super stoked to dive back into talking about our trip to the Dirty Dancing Festival today!!! I was originally planning to post the second day’s events coughcough last week BUT my week got away from me for many reasons (more on that later) so I decided to combine two posts into one since Sunday was just the day that we headed back home. If you missed the first two installments of this little shindig, just check the links at the bottom and you can get caught up ;)

So! We’ve already covered the basics about the festival and the events of Friday, the first day of the festival. Today I want to share mainly about our busiest day, Saturday.

The festival program

Saturday was the day of the main event. This was the day where the vendors would be out, the performances would be happening and the dance classes would occur. Everything was beginning at 9am. Breakfast at the lodge was from 8am to 9:30am. After feeling the comfort of the bed in our room (no seriously, most comfortable bed ever), we decided we would sleep in, get breakfast, lounge on that comfy bed, then get up and get ready to go. Breakfast was SO good and the view was lovely. It was a little chilly, but with a sweater, it was near perfect.

A quick photo I snapped of Andre at breakfast

After some lounge time in our room, we got ready to head back out to the park to check out the festivities!

We made time for a little selfie action outside our room sign

I had to get an independent selfie because the lighting on that side of the deck was perfection

Then I had to get a car selfie because I just got these sunglasses at some store for $5 and I’m kinda obessed with them

Upon arriving at the beginning of places where you could park to walk to the festival (after a good bit of traffic that we didn’t mind at all because the drive/view was kinda soothing), my husband decided that he had found a space that may or may not be a space, but he was going to park there anyway.

Possible motorcycle parking space?

He said we fit just enough. So after juuust a minute of questioning if this was ok, I decided to roll with it because a ton of people started parking a couple spaces down from us in what clearly was not designated parking space. At least we had lines. Kinda. We were going to have to walk about 1/2 a mile (warning: I have no concept for milage) to the park but it wasn’t a bad walk as there was a boardwalk that was shaded by trees on either side and a beautiful view of the lake that began with the view of this little lake beach!

We could have gone and enjoyed it but we weren’t prepared to do so. It wasn’t expensive at all at $8 per person. Across the street is the Bed and Breakfast where Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey stayed while filming in Lake Lure. We definitely are planning to hit this spot up next time we come!

Of course now that I’m drafting this, I am realizing we didn’t take any photos at the actual festival. I really wanted to get a photo of us in front of the festival sign but it wasn’t up when we were there. I’m not sure if they had it up then took it down but I was bummed. You might already know this as I haven’t been able to stop mentioning it. ha!

We were going to take one of the dance classes being offered but one of the down sides of the festival was that there wasn’t enough water and the line for the one vendor that still had water was SO long (being a fairly new festival, I expected this would probably  happen so I wasn’t ill about it or anything but I do wish I would have brought my own water bottle).

After walking around the festival for a bit and watching a couple of the performances, we decided to walk back down the boardwalk and grab lunch at a restaurant that had an amazing view of the lake. It was so hot walking back though that we totally decided to skip sitting outside and sit in the bar. Surprise, surprise! Turns out, that area had huge windows with an awesome view too.

our view at lunch

We did eat at the festival so at the restaurant we just had a drink (water too! ha!) and a small appetizer. Afterwards we went back to the car and headed back to the lodge to rest up before going back to the park to watch the lake lift competition later that evening. Having the lodge so close to the park was amazing. We went into the bar area and got ourselves a glass of wine and went out to enjoy the breeze on the lakeside deck. Silly selfies happened of course.

We went back to the park only to find that the lake lift competition had been cancelled due to thunder and lightening. SAD TIMES! I was so excited to watch that but public safety is of course the priority. We went back to the lodge to shower, relax, mingle and get dinner at the in house restaurant before the after party later that night.

My handsome date!

Dinner was wonderful, the service was great as well and the view was gorgeous!

Plz excuse my husband’s finger in this photo!

Then it was off to the after party!!

The party was held at a little tiki bar not too far up the road from where the festival events were held. It was a lot of fun just sitting and watching everyone up and dancing to all the old school music they were playing, but we did get out on the dance floor ourselves a couple times!

I really was having a fun time, but sleepyheadedness got the best of me so we decided to turn in early. The next day, Sunday, we had one last breakfast out by the lake and packed up to start our journey home. And even though we weren’t able to get a photo with the dirty dancing sign, we got a photo with our lodge sign!

the casual/comfy/crazy apparel for the drive home…

  So there you have it! Those are the last details of our trip to the Dirty Dancing festival! We really did have a wonderful time. Yes, there were some things about it that needed tweaking (people were very vocal about it on facebook….) but I thought it was great. For a festival that has only been up and running for 6 years to see the growth that it has is great and I know it will continue to get better as the years progress and more options are available to the organizers.

I would honestly say I recommend hitting this event up for sure if you want a reason to steal away with your honey for the weekend. Andre and I were very relaxed with our approach and expectations and we came away knowing that we would definitely be visiting this event again in the future!

Hope everyone is having a fantastic week!

xx

Catch up on my previous Dirty Dancing Posts..

The Dirty Dancing Festival: Lake Lure, NC

The Dirty Dancing Festival: Friday- August 14, 2015

A Dirty Dancing re-cast!

Our “we made it!” photo

Happy Monday everyone!

I know, Monday is the worst for some of you but I’m super excited today because I’m spilling all the beans about my trip to the Dirty Dancing Festival! If you were here Friday, you got the basic details about the festival- when, where, accommodations- you can check that post out here to catch up. I highly recommend checking out the lodge where we stayed because if you’re ever in the area, it’s a cozy little spot to secure a stay with. We loved it. The walk along the deck to our room looked something like this:

I guess I took this photo on the ‘square’ setting! ha!

It felt hidden away and private, but still with gorgeous views. Our room was on the very end of the deck so even though we seemed to be the youngest guests there, it still felt nice to have that extra secluded feeling. We stayed in the Secret Garden room. There were so many things we loved about it (great tub, AMAZING bed) but we might try a different room next time just because they all seem so cool!

Upon arriving, we had just enough time to settle in and get ready to head to the movie screening. The park where the festivities were happening was actually super close to the lodge so we ended up having enough time to stop by the ‘mingling hour’ the lodge hosts every evening for the guests. It includes a complimentary glass of wine so you know that motived me to hurry up and get ready ;) We snapped a quick selfie or two before heading down to explore the deck.

The wonderful concierge (who was gracious enough to assist us with our luggage) told us about some renovations happening on the deck below. There wasn’t any disruption during our stay and guests were still able to take the path down to the seating area, although at the time it might not have looked like it. They seemed to be more than halfway through some renovations of the bottom deck. I think he said a bathroom was going down there, they had built some sort of stage (probably for weddings, etc.) and were staining brand new furniture. Hopefully we will get to see the finished product in the future!

Still working on that whole ‘posing while not feeling awkward’ thing

The view minus me

An awesome house across the lake (with a view of some of the new construction)

After taking a short walk around the grounds it was time to head to the park for the movie screening. This is when we ran into this cutie pie-

I never did get his name but Andre said he had heard about him. He wasn’t nervous around people but he definitely didn’t seem like he cared to be pet, a strange thing for us to comprehend seeing as our cats adore to be pet all the time. It was nice to see his face when coming and going though :)

We decided to get to the park an hour early in hopes of securing a good seat. We were glad we got there as early as we did, although if we were to go again, we would probably go even a little earlier. Fortunately, we still had seats with a good view of the screen.

I didn’t get a picture of the movie playing because my phone died!

That is a close up of the amazinngggggg house in the background of the photo of the projector screen. Look at it again, you’ll se the house waaay up in the distance in the top right hand corner of the photo. Crazzzyyyy. I wish my phone hadn’t of died I would have taken a picture of it at night with the gigantic lights that illuminate the whole front. I told Andre I thought it might just be a hotel. I think he’s still convinced it’s a house but if it is, it must get used to play the homes of cartel leaders in movies because that’s exactly what it looked like.

We decided to go ahead and begin our picnic as we were waiting for it to get dark so the movie could start!

Our picnic consisted of potato salad, cranberry chicken salad with a hoagie type roll to put it on and watermelon (of course!). To drink we had lemonade…which I promptly knocked everywhere not too long after I took this photo. Thank goodness we brought backups. ha!

What I found to be super exciting was that there was never a long line for the bathroom. That was great. The mountain views were amazing as well! It was a perfect backdrop for a wonderful evening. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a photo with the sign and they didn’t have it up the next day for some reason. That was definitely a bummer!

What was fortunate though was that it didn’t rain as the forecast had called for. We were laughing about the fact that I always have an umbrella and I didn’t that night. We decided to go ahead and make a plan for if it started raining and we decided that we would stick it out no matter what. We would finish the movie. and that we did! I loved how people were cheering for certain parts like, the first time Pat Sway came on screen, nobody puts baby in the corner and so on. It was a lot of fun!

Can’t wait to share more festival events with you all on Wednesday! Hope you’re having a great start to your week!!

xx