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On The Record Readers Offer Tips on Garden and Theater Tours FOLLOWING ARE ANSWERS from Leisure Group Travel readers who responded to the query: Tell us about your best garden or theater tours. What makes them special and what perks do you add in to make them different? There are many garden walks in Chicago and its suburbs. The most enjoyable for my group was initiated via The Garden Conservancy (www.gardenconservancy.org). When you contact them, you will pay a small fee for their catalog detailing garden walks throughout the U.S. After doing this, I selected the date and area we preferred. When you know how many you will have participating, you send a check for that number, and tickets will be issued. We visited two gardens in the morning and had lunch in a lovely restaurant located in close proximity of the two gardens we were visiting in the afternoon. One owner, located on a high hill above Lake Michigan, had a beautiful screened porch where he served us coffee/tea and cookies – absolutely beautiful! It is most interesting to learn how the owners became so interested in gardening and nature. Each garden was different with totally different atmospheres. One location had a mansion-like home with swimming pool, a lovely arbor, extensive patio, etc. The garden included the swimming pool in its layout of flowers, trees, bushes, etc. Awesome! I highly recommend garden walks – even the slow walkers have a good time. Esther M. Scott Assistant Vice President Hinsdale Bank & Trust Hinsdale, IL 62 April 2011
alissa Preston
MicHael lundquist
Some of the best gardens can be visited in the southeastern United States. At the Globus family of brands we have crafted several custom programs that visit these majestic gardens and famous estates. We start our 9-day “Gardens of the Old South” tour in Atlanta, with visits to Martin Luther King’s home and the Swan House, an elegant, classically styled mansion built in 1928. One visit to these lavish gardens will take your breath away. These gardens feature a pair of cloverleaf pools, cascading fountains, a terraced lawn and roses tumbling over a stone retaining wall. The Swan House garden is one of the most photographed sites in Atlanta. The next site visited is Biltmore Estate, near Asheville, N.C. If you love gardens, you will marvel at the 80 varieties of roses in the Rose Gardens, 50,000 tulip bulbs in the English Walled Garden, 1,000 poinsettias that decorate Biltmore House every Christmas and the most complete collection of wild azaleas in the United States. In Charleston, S.C., there are visits to Magnolia and Middleton Place plantations, where trails through the gardens will transport you to a forgotten era. The colorful azaleas, camellias,
Ginny Howell
roses, fragrant Carolina jasmines and wisteria mingle with the majestic oak trees. Spanish moss hangs from each tree to complete the magical Old South imagery. The tour ends in Savannah, where we enjoy the gardens in the city squares and famous private homes complete with their own gardens. A trip to the Southeast is a must for anybody who enjoys gardens and good times. Michael Lundquist National Group Sales Manager Globus family of brands Littleton, CO We have a fabulous new tour that combines the romance and ease of train travel on a deluxe “hotel on wheels” plus the exciting world of opera, ballet and choral music in Russia and Ukraine. Among the special touches: the artists will come on board to meet with the guests and demonstrate on board in addition to the performances. One special musical performance will be monks in a monastery singing. Eleanor Flagler Hardy President The Society of International Railway Travelers Louisville, KY LeisureGroupTravel.com
Both the Columbus Jazz Orchestra and BalletMet offer unique VIP experiences. Before a CJO concert, groups get a backstage tour of the gilded historic Southern Theatre before meeting the band’s personable artistic director, Byron Stripling, the former lead trumpeter and soloist for the Count Basie Orchestra. After the show, you can go on stage to meet the entire band and get your copy of the CJO’s “The Colors of Jazz” CD autographed. BalletMet also allows groups exclusive backstage access to meet their dancers and see their intricate sets and costumes up close. If your group isn’t visiting during a show, they can watch the dancers rehearse and get a hands-on look at the costume shop, before taking a low-impact dance/stretch class led by the BalletMet Academy faculty. Columbus’ hands-on garden experiences are unique, too. Franklin Park Conservatory lets you pick herbs from
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on the record ❖ their new community garden campus to create your own wood-fired pizza. You cook it yourself outside in their Live Fire Cooking Theater. One of Columbus’ suburbs, Gahanna, is known as the Herb Capital of Ohio. They offer all kinds of fun hands-on classes that let you do everything from making one-of-a-kind herbal blends to herb-infused vinegar. Alissa Preston Tourism Sales Manager Experience Columbus Columbus, OH I have done tours for garden clubs usually coming from Ohio to the Georgia and South Carolina coasts. We have planned stops at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens in Charlotte, where lunch has been arranged along with a speaker who will talk about any garden subject that the group is interested in. This was especially popular with Massillon, Ohio-area groups as the stained-glass roof in the entrance came Space to Work. from the Baptist Church Room to Relax. in Massillon. The people at Daniel Stowe are very easy to work with and the gardens are beautiful. Even on a morning when it was sleeting, the pansies didn’t care; they still Galveston is the place for family and military showed their beautiful reunions, educational field trips and seminars. faces. This particular The Victorian Condo Hotel Resort and Conference Center is a favorite destination for those planning reunions, church and garden group continued school events. on to Charleston, where Our staff has the expertise to meet your expectations for meeting we had a Master Garfacilities and to provide options for your groups’ outings to the Island’s world-class attractions. dener take them to a Over 10,000 square feet of of indoor and outdoor meetings areas, number of the private for groups of 12 to 300. gardens in Charleston. They then had lunch at Middleton Place Plantation, where another 6300 Seawall • Galveston • TX • victoriancondo.com garden expert talked to Director of Sales & Catering • Jennifer Kirk jkirk@viccondo.com • 800.231.6363 ext. 2231 them about the Middlewww.facebook.com/galvestonvictorian ton gardens, which date 64 April 2011
back to the 1800s . We hosted the Ohio Association of Garden Clubs on Jekyll Island. They brought two motorcoaches and while one toured the Jekyll Island Historic District, the other toured the district with the in-house horticulturist, Cliff Gowran. Cliff gives them a tour highlighting the historic plantings in the district. They had high tea at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel hosted by Ginny Howell Tours. Tea was served in Ginny’s private collection of tea cups, tea pots and assorted handmade doilies. One of the ladies from the local garden club came and talked with the group. They continued on to Savannah, where each group was treated to a tour of Hidden Gardens. They were then taken to Massy School to see the original layout of the city. This group ended in Charleston at Middleton Place for lunch. The Middleton horticulturist welcomed the group and talked about the upkeep of the garden and the flowers, which are planted for year-round beauty. Ginny Howell Ginny Howell Tours Jekyll Island GA
IN THE JUNE ISSUE of Leisure Group Travel, our On the Record column will look at online marketing. Please send us your response to this question: How are you using online tools— websites, email, social networking —to grow your business? Along with your comments, please include your name, company name and location. Also for publication, send a high-resolution photo of yourself. A selection of responses will be printed in the June 2011 issue. Thanks in advance for your valuable opinions. Send to: Randy Mink, randy@ptmgroups.com LeisureGroupTravel.com
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