Monday, May 1, 2017
Our trip began on Saturday morning. Up at 3:30am, Marty and Mike (house/dog sitters) arrived at 4am, out the door by 4:30am for our 6am flight from Redmond. Bye, Marley, sniff! ...and, yes, we did make it with just two (slightly overweight) suitcases to be checked plus our relatively small carry-on items. We had picked up a rental car from the airport on Friday to make our trip easy on Saturday. We have found that to be the least expensive and least stressful way to get to the airport for long trips. No parking fees, cheaper than a taxi or shuttle, and we are not relying on someone else and waiting anxiously for our ride to appear. As our house is only 12 miles from the airport it works out well. We did the same thing when we lived in Mesquite, Nevada, even though it was a 180 mile round trip to the airport.
It was 32 degrees when we left home.
Our United flights from Redmond to SFO and on to Orlando were without incident...no one was dragged off or offered large sums of money to delay their flight (frankly, we would have been happy to take a $10,000 offer to delay our trip for a few hours...or even a day, but alas, we were "stuck" on our scheduled flights.)
Arrived at the airport in Orlando and were told by Budget they were all out of our reserved (compact) rental cars so we could make our choice from the midsize cars. We were a little slow in understanding the process and getting to the row of cars and by the time we got there all that was left was a sub-compact Mitsubishi . Oh well, as long as our luggage fit (and it did) we were fine. Lynn prefers driving small cars anyway.
It was around 85 degrees and humid when we arrived in Florida.
Oh, and they have toll roads here...forgot about that. Successfully navigated into the correct (cash) lane at two of the three toll booths we went through on our way from the airport. The third one switched from the right to the left lane and we went through the lane where we were supposed to have an electronic pass. Oh well, we later found out we can just do that and for a small fee the rental car company will be happy to add that to our credit card. No more fumbling for change or jockeying for the "cash only" lane.
Checked in to our timeshare condo at Vacation Villages in Kissimmee well before dark. This is a huge condo complex, not sure how many units there are, but we are on the 11th floor of a 14 story building! Nice one-bedroom condo with a screened-in balcony.
These are the roomiest accommodations we will have on this whole trip. As we unpacked and spread our stuff around we wondered how we will manage in the tiny accommodations on our upcoming cruises! After a trip to the nearby market for important supplies (wine, coffee, ice cream) Lynn was in bed by 10 and Dave stayed up reading until about midnight. (Realizing, of course that by west coast time we were turning in at 7 and 9.)
Sunday we slept in a bit, breakfasted on Cheerios and took a walk around the complex and to a couple of the nearby shopping areas that have many restaurants. We saw a sign for a restaurant called, "Holler and Dash Biscuit House". We were sure this would be a perfect place for Dave's continuing search for the best biscuits and gravy in the US, but, a review of their menu showed lots of biscuits, biscuit sandwiches, biscuits and jam, but not a drop of gravy to be had. How on earth do you have a restaurant specializing in biscuits and not offer at least one item with gravy? Our hopes were dashed and we returned to our condo un-biscuited.
After recuperating from our disappointment and reading the Sunday paper, we ventured out to Disney Springs. This is the "free" Disney area with shops and restaurants. Our favorite shop was the Lego shop, although the shop with crystal-encrusted items like Cinderella's carriage and the Disney castle was interesting. We decided we didn't need to invest in a sparkly tiara or $10,000 Disney character. Hot and grumpy, we stopped for adult beverages at Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar (decorated in Indiana Jones style), after which we were far less grumpy and followed the bartender's recommendation and had dinner at Raglan Road Irish Pub.
We had followed the lead of another tourist and took a photo of the parking sign that told us where the car was parked, so we had no trouble finding our little silver carriage and wending our way back to our condo. (So far, the location of our condo seems pretty convenient. Probably only 30-40 minutes from the airport and about 20 minutes to Disney Springs.)
Today was our first theme park experience for this trip. We spent the afternoon at Universal Studios where we were particularly impressed with the Wizarding World Harry Potter including an awesome roller coaster ride--Escape from Gringott's.
We got a late start, and have more to see at Universal, but we have a ticket that will allow us to return several times during the week. (Whenever we want to pay the outrageous $20 parking fee!!). We had dinner at NBC Sports Grill and Brew...for you golfers, you may recognize it as the place Feherty tapes his shows (but not right now).
Tomorrow we will visit a Disney Park.
You know you'll manage the smaller space just fine on the upcoming cruise. You two are experienced travelers/cruisers. We're glad to be home but going from 30 to 90 degree weather is not fun.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the Central Florida weather, where Connie grew up. And say hi to McCoy AFB where John was stationed. It is now Orlando International airport. Kissimmee was just a cow town then, way out in the boonies...but somebody was buying land, very secretively. Now we know who. We'd take the $10K also. All we got offered on our last flight was $300, an 8-hour delay, and re-route through LA. You'll do better. Keep us posted on the suitcases. An interesting dilemma.
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