joshbeall wrote
We're planning on installing it in the kitchen and being as careful as
possible with spills and so forth. Have you had a bad experience with
this?

Yes, a double bad experience.
I'll try to make this short.
Moved into our new home 3 years ago, it is on a well with a water softener.
My wife put a bottle of JetDry in the GE dishwasher, and did a load of
dishes.
The JetDry combined with the soft water caused the DW to fill up with an
over abundence of suds which were forced out around the door seal onto the
laminate floor. 3 hours later (we went somewhere) we noticed this and it was
too late, the damage was done.
The planks in front of the DW swelled and buckled.
Fortunately this areas was toward the *end of the run* in the flooring so
all I had to do was pull up about 8' worth of flooring, replace the swollen
planks with new ones and then relay all the old ones back down. (Thats why I
said previously to have several extra boxes on hand for future repairs) This
took the better part of a saturday to do.
If something similar had happened in the center of my living room, for
example, it would have been a major pain as you have to cut the culprit out
and then *glue* new panels back in.
In our next house I will not put laminate in the kitchen.

All in all we're very pleased with the laminate I installed and will do it
in the next house.
Our dogs fly all over the house and have left nary a scratch.
The surface on this stuff is very hard.

I understand the necessity to keep it dry and all; I'm wondering
just what bad stuff will happen if we do have the ocassional spill.
I'm hoping as long as we get things wiped up that it will be ok?

We have small spills all the time and as long as you wipe it up pretty quick
its no problem.
If the water goes into the seam between the planks it will be quickly
absorbed by the material of the planks.
Take a look at the stuff, it is like a compressed paper product.
A sponge just waiting to happen.

We're still at a decision point. We could put down vinyl instead
(although that is something I know abosolutely nothing about). We have
to put something down, as we have only subflooring in right now.

Consider tile. It is usually more favorable than vinyl and not prone to the
problems inherent to vinyl.
Many people complain how *hard* tile feels when standing on it.
Doesn't bother me, as I keep moving and don't stand still too much. g