A Legal Basis for Corkage Fees

Having recently negotiated a formal dinner event with a local hotel I recognized a legal reason as to why an establishment would charge a corkage fee. Corkage fees have pros and cons and some of my wine drinking friends object to corkage fees and will not make reservations with restaurants that do not provide a corkage fee. Electing to bring your own wine and paying a corkage fee does carry with it certain standards of etiquette, though unwritten, that go along with the practice. For example, it is polite to bring a bottle not on the establishment's wine list, a wine that is a rare wine or something like a first-growth Bordeaux, and if the wine is expensive and rare it is polite to offer a taste to the sommelier to further help them develop their tasting palate. But truthfully there is an underlining legal principle here. The owner of an establishment has certain legal obligations and moral obligations in the conduct of his business. In the case of any owner in every state in the Nation, the owner must have a license from the State to serve any alcohol and that license extensively lists dos and don't s regarding serving wine chief of which is not serving minors or individuals who appear intoxicated. If an intoxicated patron leaves and drives a car and has an accident resulting in death the owner bears a certain level of legal liability. I am fairly certain most of us would agree that we want restaurant owners to carefully monitor how alcohol is consumed so that their patrons don’t leave intoxicated and kill someone, including us. There are many common law concepts that would apply here, one I can think of is the “Captain of the Ship” doctrine that basically says the Captain is responsible for what happens on his ship that harms people that he either should or could have controlled. So when I signed a contract for a formal dinner where I will provide the wine the contract clearly stated that the restaurant employees would serve the wine and would be prohibited from serving to minors or intoxicated people. The bottom line is that restaurants have a cost involved in order to serve you your own wine and so I can fully understand where the corkage fee would cover those additional costs the owner has(license fees, insurance, etc.)that allow him/her to serve you your wine.

Orlando Caterer Recommended

Because of Covid, there is an increasing trend to use private chefs for a variety of reasons. I have had the opportunity to use a few in the past year and have been generally pleased with what a private chef can offer. It is basically a one-stop shopping experience where you establish the menu with the chef and on the day of the event they show up with everything they need and prepare for you and your family a wonderful meal. In my experience at least the cost is not that much more than what you would pay at an upscale restaurant. But the main reason I have done it more over the years is to free up family and friends so that they can socialize and be together as opposed to being in the kitchen working. I get it in the old days' Mama or Grandmama cooked all day a great home-cooked meal but you never got to see them as they were busy in the kitchen if not preparing the food they were spending hours cleaning the kitchen. To me, the greatest gift I have been able to provide my family is a great meal with all present and no one having to worry about cleaning up. Once you do it and at the end, everything is put up and the kitchen is sparkling clean the price is well worth it. On a recent week trip to Orlando and Disney World, we had a multi-course family dinner catered by Wine and Dine US of Orlando Florida. I spent about a month reviewing private chefs and caterers in the Orlando area comparing prices and menus and selected Wine and Dine US and was extremely pleased that I did. They offered a great menu and communicated and coordinated well and the night of the dinner showed up with everything they needed and they provided a chef as well as a server who waited on us all evening. The food preparation was outstanding and very tasty and plenty of food for all. We had 3 small children under 6 and they worked with them very well serving them first with a separate kiddie menu and entertaining them as best they could. The adults were able to sit and enjoy adult conversation and enjoy an exceptional meal. The Chef-owner Julian Anthony is a graduate of UCF and is self-trained over many years of experience and has held a variety of positions in the hospitality world. As a bonus, she came by a couple of days after just to check on how the dinner went and if there was anything more they could have done or do in the future. Again overall the dinner went off without a hitch and I highly recommend Wine and Dine US in Orlando. I should mention they did prepare the meal on-site fresh so make sure you have an adequate kitchen for food preparation. If not I suggest discussing with the owner alternatives such as food preparation off-site and delivery and set up where you are staying.

Web page https://wineanddineus.com/

Phone: 407-547-3550

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WineandDineUS

Disney World Orlando Florida and Disney Transportation

This year marks Disney World’s 50th anniversary and my family has been going during that entire time. In the first few years, it was an exciting new experience and showcased technology and foreign travel ahead of its time. For many of us, it is now a little outdated, and even Disney recognizes that as there is a major construction redo especially at Epcot. We have taken our children, nieces, nephews, and now grandchildren multiple times, and today as we speak it has become an obligatory chore to do so. Don’t get me wrong we love our grandchildren and love to see the sparkle in their eye when they are there. But as we age we simply have trouble coping with the heat, the crowds, the distances involved, and the increasing costs. Our last trip was the first one we rented scooters as it is now difficult for us to get around. My first recommendation is not to rent the scooters onsite as they are not maintained and have speed governors that render the units unable to go up hills. My son-in-law had to push mine up every hill. I understand there are private companies that will meet you at the front gate and rent you one so I recommend you research that option and carefully question those companies on what you get, how fast it goes, how far it can go etc. To me a major problem with Disney World is the Disney Transportation System. Since opening Disney tells you an advantage of staying on property is you can go anywhere using the bus and monorail system. What they don’t tell you is outside the Contemporary Resort, the Polynesian Resort, and the Grand Floridian, which are on the monorail when it works,  is you have to walk a very long distance to catch the bus and in some cases, you have to transfer to another bus to get to where you want to go. For the most part, to get to a bus you have to walk a lot and once you arrive you have to walk a long way to your final point. We have found Uber/Lyft to be wonderful in Orlando and at Disney as well. Other than the Magic Kingdom you can get door-to-door service with Uber/Lyft. We never waited longer than 5 minutes for a driver and never paid more than $15 for a trip. For us, it was well worth it. During our trip, the monorail was suddenly discontinued and staff had no answers or explanations. After waiting close to 30 minutes with no answers we eventually had to walk, again a long distance, to the bus stop and catch a bus to go to our destination. When it was all said and done we spent over an hour just trying to get to where we were going and in my experience that is common at Disney World even when everything is working fine. While waiting I looked up problems with the monorail and found multiple articles outlining many issues. The monorail is also 50 years old and originally it was ahead of its time it is now old and outdated technology that needs fixing or repairing daily. So I highly recommend using rideshares as much as you can in order to save hours of time and aggravation. Another problem with Disney World since it has opened is heat. I do not recommend going in the summer when temperatures and humidity can go over 100. For years Disney has sold water bottle sprayers with cheap low-speed fans to spray your face and blow air but trust me they don’t work well. Today you can go online and purchase portable high-speed fans that can be recharged nightly and they will work much better than what Disney will sell you. The food at Disney World has always been pretty good, the problem is getting in. You always had to make reservations but as a rule, you could do it the same day on arrival with minimal issues. Partly because of Covid and staffing that is not really true today. We had problems making reservations the entire time we were there so I strongly recommend you review in detail Disney’s policies on reservations and make them as soon as you can. On one of our days we just got the fast foods available as it was much easier. Not great healthy food but minimal waiting at least. If you visited in the past be aware many of your favorite rides and experiences have either been changed or eliminated. We used to love the movie in France, today it is a Beauty and the Beast sing-along which did not appeal to us. At Epcot, there is a lot of construction that has closed many venues. In summary for us, Disney World is hot, humid, tiring, long exhausting walks, and expensive entertainment. But with grandchildren sooner or later you will want to go. Research all options and be up to date with what is going on so you can plan the best trip.

Cypress Point Resort Orlando and Timeshares in General

There are hundreds of pros and cons to owning a timeshare, mostly con. They are expensive, they have high annual maintenance fee’s, and if you trade them there are trading fee’s and you are locked into a specific date, time, and place every year if you don’t trade. So you have to ask yourself are they really worth the costs. 30 years ago we had friends who owned a couple and loved them. For them the cost was much less than renting an equivalent sized unit elsewhere and with trading they felt the flexibility was great. So we initially bought one at Vistana in Orlando right outside Disney on the busiest week of the year July 4th. But we followed what I would call the first rule of timeshares only buy one in the after market, not new, as the price differential is huge. Basically you can buy one from an original owner for around 10% or less of the original cost. We bought our first one from a widow’s estate at a fraction of the original cost. Over the years we have felt we have gotten our money’s worth out of it. Our original unit sleeps 10 people so we have been able to trade for larger units every year and this month we stayed at a 3 BR 3Bath unit at Cypress Point Resort in Orlando and liked it better than our unit at Vistana. The unit was large, comfortable, well equipped, and quiet. We were able to host a family dinner for 12 with a private chef who was able to cook in our large full kitchen which was a big plus. One of our family members had a 1BR 2Bath suite at a Disney property that was quite small and paid 10X for the week what we eventually paid for our unit(annual maintenance fee, trading fee, local resort fee) and our experience elsewhere has been similar. You basically get a much larger unit that can accommodate comfortably 2 or 3 couples at a much lower cost and with a full kitchen you save money on meals. In another case we were on a ski trip having traded our unit for a condo in ski country and while there were told by staff that there were a few units available for sale as the owners had either died or were too old to come and in the end we were given one for free only paying the transfer of the title and assuming the annual maintenance fee again. I cannot guarantee you can get one for free but I do recommend you contact the local management team of any unit you are interested in and see what they know is available. In addition many of the timeshare resorts have websites that have lists of units for sale or rent. In some cases you can rent the week you need from that owner and occasionally the rental fee is quite low. Some owners will rent to you to cover the cost of the annual maintenance fee. When you start looking you will notice thousands of units available. The industry overbuilt to a fault and the main con to owning one is you get stuck with it and cannot sell it. At some point due to age or illness a timeshare outlives it’s usefulness and there are thousands of units to every potential buyer. In many cases you may end up abandoning the unit and having it foreclosed on you. In our case our two have met our needs and provided large comfortable units that have allowed us to take family and friends with us on trips at no additional costs. We currently recommend Cypress Point Resort in Orlando directly across from the Disney Lake Beaune Vista area as an outstanding place to stay.

Outstanding Dining at Salt, Ritz Carlton Amelia Island Florida

I do apologize for the long delay in keeping up the blog.  It has been a combination of Covid, medical issues, and no travel with anything to report.  As time goes on I am hopeful to provide you with some good recommendations going forward and I do have upcoming trips to provide you with good information on wine, travel, and fine dining.

Today I have a recommendation for all of you who might have a chance to travel to Northeast Florida in the coming days.  I am pleased to recommend Salt, the fine dining restaurant at the Ritz Carlton Amelia Island.  Salt has for many years been a Mobile 5-star place and I have dined there many times but over the years but as with anything the quality of the experience has been a sine wave.  This past year Salt brought in a new chef so my wife and I with a neighbor decided to test drive the new chef and have dined there now twice in the past couple of weeks.  I have to say that Salt is back to its 5 Diamond status.

Presentation, quality, and taste are all 5-star experiences.  The new chef is Okan Kizilbayir who comes to Amelia Island from La Bernadine from NYC.  My wife and I have dined at La Bernadine multiple times over the years and try to go every time we go to NYC.  For years it has been rated one of the top restaurants in the world and the executive chef there is Eric Riepert who is one of the most famous chefs in the world so Okan has been an apprentice and sous chef under Eric and has acquired Eric's fund of knowledge.  Chef Okan is now able to showcase those skills along with his own food knowledge to produce an outstanding dining experience.

For dinner this week Chef Okan prepared a shrimp tostada for our appetizer which was a special crispy tostada with his own special sauce.  The next course was octopus presented as florets in again a special sauce.  The main course was a prime ribeye tenderloin served with a potato pancake with shaved black truffles on top.  Dessert consisted of a passion fruit sorbet complemented by a crispy cake with a soft meringue topping.  All in all, it was a memorable meal.

I definitely plan to return soon with friends and I can verify today that Salt at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island Florida has become again the top #1 dining experience on the island.