I voted . What a great site. And thank you

I so want to come, just not sure yet. Jojoco, thank you! Robo, great voting website!

So jealous. Used to be my old stomping grounds. The gardens are so fab any time of year, but Christmas is one of the ultra fab times.

I would love to join. PA is a bit of a hike for me, and December is tricky, but I'll follow along and if I can, I will be adventurous and join you all!

I'll leave the poll up for a few more days, but based on the responses, we're going to meet on Friday, December 20th. We are at nine so far, but I know others are considering it. Please use the Doodle poll to let me know if you can join us. So looking forward to this!!

I would love to come and see the fabulous garden and have a personally guided tour. Wish I lived a bit closer or could rely on the weather. I would fly into Philly and just do it if I could predict the weather would favor travel.

Sounds great...looking forward to it. I think I'd want to overnight though as I'll be driving.

I've stayed here before and it was nice, though I'm open to alternates:

https://www.innatwhitewingfarm.com/

Annie,

Maybe we will do a road trip after all! I need to figure out my plans because ordinarily I would visit my family in the area, but we are having a get together there on Dec 22.. so IDK if i would go and come back or stay...

i am a "maybe" right now. its DH's birthday on the 20th and DS on the 19th.... ugh its so hectic right before Christmas for me. but i am adding to my calendar and will let you know when it gets closer, if that's ok....

jojoco, how many days in advance do you need the final head count??

The 20th just won't do for me, as I was afraid. Bah! And I am so close.

Oh darn, Sushi. I can’t believe you live like 20 minutes from me and we haven't met.

I might be able to join depending on the date. I have a weekend home near Longwood.

DD comes home from college on the 19th, I think, so I think I’ll have to skip this one. :-(

Well it's just sounding like we will need to do one in the spring or summer in addition to the winter. I have never been in the winter (relatively new to the area- less than 15 miles from there!!)) but I hear that is even more popular than the spring and summer which I thought was absolutely heaven.

Its a few hours away for me, but would be glad to make the drive in the Spring or Summer. Longwood Gardens and new friends, win win!!

For those thinking about Longwood in the Spring, circle your calendars for mid-April when our tulip season will be at peak. We plant about 200,000 tulip bulbs each year (over 120,000 in one 600 foot long path alone!) and the explosion of color is not to be missed. I would absolutely do another meet-up then.

Oh gosh. I will see if I can work this out. I would love to see you and the others again! How soon do you need a definite answer?

ETA: Is the noon time on the poll the meeting time?

Ruh roh, i think my kids come home on the 19th too. Am I supposed to be here? LOL

Online surveys are great: I would never have guessed that Dec 20 works for so many people, given proximity to the holiday.

A few logistical answers...I don't need a final count except to make sure everyone is present and not left in the parking lot. I thought 12 would be a good meeting time, but I am open to suggestions. One other caveat, if we do arrive at noon, it would be better to get our sight seeing in BEFORE lunch. (instead of eating first), as the cafe will be slammed at noon. (We could always eat at the onsite sit-down restaurant, 1906,-vs the cafeteria style cafe- food is great at both, 1906 is very pricey though.) Lunch at 1:30 would make more sense. I can bring in 8 people on my membership, and I have scads of passes as a benefit of my job. We'll be more than 8 and if people want to get there earlier, I can leave tickets in your names.

I'm not going to do another doodle poll, but does the 12-4 time frame suit most of you?

So looking forward to seeing my invisible friends. :)

I'm flexible on time and choice of dining,but the sit down might be quieter? Your schedule sounds great.

schedule sounds great to me!! thanks for thinking & planning this get-together!!

I'm flexible as well on timing. Just tell me what time to be there.

Whatever works for everyone else works for me. I don’t mind paying admission if there aren’t enough passes to go around. I do like the idea of a quieter lunch. I am so looking forward to this. Thanks, Jo.

The schedule works for me. I don't mind the pricier lunch option, but will go along with the group. Thank you for arranging this!

I should've checked with the sit-down restaurant before I posted. They only serve parties of 8 or fewer. So we will go to the cafe side which has basically the same food and we'll just have to commandeer a few tables to push together or spread out a bit. The Cafe is a great option because no one will rush us.

ETAnswer question: I can accommodate a large number of tickets. I've stockpiled my employee tickets and our membership level allows me to bring in 8 people daily. Additionally, both my employee tickets (completely transferrable), and my membership tickets do not require timed admissions or have blackout dates. We're all good to go. My. only caveat is that we do this as a group, or at least part of it. That's the whole point, imo.

Just as well; it occurred to me that if we ate somewhere "quieter," it might not be once we descended on them.

Since I would be driving from Northern VA, noon would be great!

Only wrench for me is airfare is pretty expensive ($700) to fly in and out for the day, so I can see if there are FF miles I can redeem. How long from the airport to the garden?

gscience, you could always fly into DC the day before, stay with me, and we could drive up together! We do have a slightly rambunctious 2 year old lab mix, but he is pretty good after the initial "meet-and-greet-woohoo-company" minutes. ;-)

Seriously, would love to have you.

ETA: Not fancy, but comfortable!

Gscience, would you fly to Philadelphia orBaltimore? Would one be less expensive? BWI is about 1.5 hours from Longwood.

Ded, and cyn, I was aiming for PHL. Is there a train from Baltimore to Philadelphia.

Cyn, thank you, but i have my holiday hair color and cut that Thursday afternoon, so I have to be here!

Gscience, Wilmington is 12 miles from Longwood if you want to take Amtrak. A quick look at tickets, (there at least, didn't look at return prices) showed a 10:04 out of Baltimore that gets into Wilmington at 10:50. It was $61. I don't know what an uber to Longwood would cost, though.

Let me keep working on this. So I can maybe fly in to BWI and then take an amtrak from BWI it seems. Looks like they depart about every 30 min. Then I'd need to get a ride/cab from Amtrak. Last flight of the day out of BWI is 7 p.m. How does this sound? It has been a million years since I've been on an Amtrak!

Gscience, Check out new Castle Airport. It’s in Wilmington, Delaware

It's not coming up on my American airlines search. Maybe they don't fly there every day?

You're probably right. Looks like a small airport. Where are you flying from? Maybe we can collectively put our heads together to come up with a plan.

GS try the train. I used to take it all the time when I lived in DC and Philly. Visited friends on both ends and Baltimore too. Easy peasy and you can chill out and do something else while traveling, like work or reading or even take a nap!

Now with Uber and all those other cab services would be very easy to get to Longwood from the train station.

I don't know where you are coming from but I agree that Wilmington Delaware to Longwood sounds like a plan. I don't know because I have never done Amtrak there but plenty of people in my area have mentioned it. I would imagine Uber or a cab wouldn't be too bad. I just googled it and it says it is under 15 miles and would take about 1/2 hour ish.

Gscience, hope you can make it! I'd be great to get the band back together again, LOL.

Charlotte, NC. I am 20 min from the airport so I really don't want to drive to another airport.

Unlike the GTG in NYC, this isn't as direct of location after looking at it on the map. That was super easy. Fly in, get a cab, and get to lunch!

Just sayin'------since I "liked" Longwood on FB, I am getting their promos coming through- in addition to emails for being a member- and the few photos I have seen are really something. Now I am looking forward to this even more. Looks magnificent.

(also, btw Jojo- I will not need a pass from your stash:).

We saw a sneak peek on Thursday, the day before the Christmas season opened to guests. The place was still filled with gardeners and building crew, but it was spectacular! I'm not posting links,(although you could certainly find them yourselves,) because I love the element of surprise, at least for others, LOL. It really is something.

I've been a few times, but only in summer IIRC, so I am so looking forward to it. I promise not to peek.

Are we all set? Be there at noon on 12/20? Are there any other details we should know? Will there be an email list or anything set up in case we need to finalize anything...weather related or otherwise?

I need to decide if I want to do a real-life "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" to get there.

DH is so swamped over the holidays, we won't be able to go anywhere together, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, I'll have to pass this time. I did a reality check... I'm only back in Pennsylvania for 7 days before I host 25 people for Christmas eve. I have to decorate and shop for gifts and food.

I'm sure everyone will have a great time and I'm sorry to miss it!

Oh, too bad, Czarina. I was looking forward to seeing you again. Gscience it is a lot of travel for you but it would be fun to see you again, too.

We are all set for 12/20 at Longwood Gardens. We'll be meeting at 12 at the visitors' center. I will send my cell number to everyone via Houzz as I don't have a list of emails. I will post a list of attendees soon, but not today as we have a full house of visitors and I'm cooking!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Jo

Thanks, Jo. I am looking forward to this. Have a happy thanksgiving.

DH and I were talking last night after dinner, and I may just need to see what the weather outlook is for that day before I finalize travel. An east coast storm would be a nightmare, but if the weather is clear, that would be awesome. As you know, December in the Northeast/MidAtlantic can be a bit tricky. Not likely to be a problem here, but who knows.