I bailed out early last night and went to bed at 8 and slept through until 8 this morning. Nigel wouldn't allow me to sleep any later as he knew I'd regret it and needed to re-set my body clock.
Thankfully the hot dry weather has made the endless loads of washing a breeze. sadly it doesn't help the ironing.
I have spent most of today trying to re-organise and put away my new stash of supplies. I had a seriously seriously good trip from a shopping point of view and had some amazing bargains. More of that another day.
Apologies in advance if you get bored easily with holiday accounts and photos. There are a fair few days ahead you are not going to like.
Once I have done some scrapping there will be some to share but meanwhile today reverts to a holiday blog. I like to keep a record for my own purpose on my blog so I can refer back to it partly just for the sheer fun of remembering it and alaso as it helps with journalling for pages.
So be prepared ... might be boring for everyone but Nigel and I but there should be some pretty pictures to look at.
Tuesday 15th July 2014
I don’t think we had ever looked forward to a holiday more or feared more that we would not be going – yet it was finally here.
With all of the health issues I doubted I would be able to go, but Nigel was far more positive, insisting it WOULD happen. Even in the two days prior when I was literally crippled with toothache he insisted it was just a flare up of the TMJ and was stress related and would pass – and it did. So 7 am, we were collected by s friend and we were off.
Once again we had been lucky enough to accrue sufficient air miles to go Upper Class and the check in was a dream. We flew Heathrow Miami for two reasons. Orlando free tickets are like hens’ teeth plus the benefit of flying to Miami is you go from Heathrow which is not only a much nicer journey to and from the airport but means using their upper class check in which makes you feel so special. We drove up and staff came out to take our cases. We never even touched them. We were checked in within just a few minutes and then went through their own private security – no line, five minutes tops, and we were done. We did a little light shopping first – both selecting a new fragrance having stuck with the same for years – and we were up to the Virgin lounge where we had a delicious breakfast, a glass of champagne to celebrate it was finally happening and then boarding and …wait for it … leaving EARLY!
The flight was lovely and smooth and very relaxing. We enjoyed great meals and I have no idea how they can cook steak that thick and yet it is perfectly cooked, perfectly moist but cooked through. Yes I took pictures!
– gotta love the fact you get afternoon tea –
but it still drags. I am sorry but there is nothing enjoyable about sitting on a plane for 9 hours. The first 2 go quite quickly, the last hour is exciting but – no matter how you look at it – there are 6 hours of tedium.
Last visit Miami airport was hell. We were an hour and a half waiting in immigration in their emergency extra area – with no air – and then another hour and a half at the car hire. Consequently it was a part of the trip we had spent some time dreading.
However, despite the 5000 steps (yes it si a LONG LONG walk to immigration in Miami) there was minimal wait in immigration (would have been no wait if the immigration officer hadn’t said, as we arrived at the window, he was just having to take a bathroom break) and no wait in the car rental at all. The bottom line was we landed at 4.55 and were in our hire car by 6.00. Amazing.
The car was a Kia Sportage. We hoped we would get the slightly larger Kia Sorrento, but the car was fine and served us well.
Last visit we had stayed at the Marriot near the airport and when we arrived after our three hours in the airport had been furious they no longer had our room. They had put us up at the Courtyard by Marriott. We had also struggled finding it – taking a good half an hour to get there though it was only 5 minutes from the airport. This year Nigel had practiced the route on Google Earth and we went straight to it. We had opted for the third hotel in the group, the Fairfield Inn and Suites and it was brilliant. The rooms are all suites and it was less than $100 for the night. It was a super room – obviously we didn’t make much use of it, but it would have been a good place to set up camp for one of our road trips and we will remember the chain for future use.
We headed for dinner at the Champions Sport’s Bar and had a reasonably early night after a very successful first day.
Wednesday 16th July 2014
We were up with the larks – the benefit of jet lag and also – funnily enough – the benefit of the hotel clock being wrong and us believing it. We thought we would get up at 5.30, have breakfast at 6.00 and get on the road. We set the alarm for 5.30 but were both awake. Sadly the clock was almost an hour fast. Mmmm.
We were sorted and ready waiting for the free breakfast to open at 6. Now for the price we paid, to have a free breakfast was a huge bonus and in fairness the cereal and the toast were good. However they had something they referred to as Scrambled egg. It was a very unusual dish. Granular and yet sloppy is dissolved to water on touch. Like I said, the cereal and toast was good!
We headed off to drive across the edge of the Everglades – a place we had never been – and also along a very ‘inspiring’ named road, Alligator Alley. Although I kept my eyes peeled we saw not a single gator but the evergaldes were kind of cool to say. I have to say, however, we both felt we had seen as much of them as we ever wanted to see.
We headed to Naples for a very brief trip to the beach. As it happened it wasn’t as nice a beach as we hoped – we had opted for a state park and it was a little wilder than we hoped – including seeing a very cute snake.
We paddled and I collected some shells and then, as the weather was drawing in rapidly, we headed off.
This trip we were really really lucky as we had almost no rain and the rain we did have happened when we were indoors. That is apart from the first day. The drive from Naples to Disney was pretty pants. It started well butt he air was heavy with moisture and we kept seeing rainbows in the clouds though there was no rain. A cute phenomenon we had never seen before.
Then the heavens opened and of course, Southern Florida is tropical and when they open they really open. We went through some very severe storms and they were quite scary on a freeway.
We headed to Lakeland where we planned to go to a Hobby Lobby and the only Scrapbook store we could find – Violetta’s in Lakeland. The store was amazing. It was the biggest most well laid out store for scrapping I have ever seen. However, I think designated scrapbook stores in America are very expensive and this was no exception. I only spent $50 of my $100 birthday gift. To be honest I was a bit over-whelmed. There was so much stuff, beautifully themed and displayed, it was all a little too much.
It was raining so heavily when we left that even though our car was just outside the store we had to put the papers into a bin liner to keep them dry.
We were both keen to head ‘home’ to our Floridian home for the next 12 nights – Disney’s Caribbean Beach resort. We have been so lucky to stay there so many times and we couldn’t wait to be back. As we neared Disney and onto all too familiar roads, the rain stopped and the sun shone weakly.
We pulled up to the Custom House and checked in, being given a room in the newly refurbished Jamaica (4142) We were so excited to get our Magic Bands at last. And despite some of the things they were saying on various forums, our bands were fabulous the whole holiday. They got us into our room, into parks, got us free food and snacks and worked like a dream. The fast pass system was also a huge hit in our books.
The room makeover was lovely – much nicer than the old Nemo décor – and we unpacked and felt right at home.
We headed to ‘our’ Pizza Hut for dinner and then went into MGM for the evening. We had used fast passes for Tower of Terror and Fantasmic.
We walked straight on to Tower of Terror and it was so good. We always forget how many drops there are and they are all so smooth. The weightlessness is great and as it happened it would be our very first rise – and at the end of the stay also our last.
As we waited for Fantasmic I bumped into a family from school who were having a great time. Fantasmic was as amazing as ever. It really is an amazing show.
If you would like to see the video of the show - not mine ... from You Tube ... have a look below. It is really here for me to view over and over, but you may enjoy it too. It records a classic good over evil story on a vast scale.
We planned leaving straight away, not realising the summer special Frozen show was at 9.45 so we stayed and saw that too and it was amazing. The live action was a bit tedious in places, though the flat Olaf pictures were cute and yes … we have a flat Olaf but the fireworks were fabulous and at the end, when it snowed and it was everywhere – well yes, I had my first Disney tears. A true magical moment.
I didn’t take a photo of it but check out this You Tube video which captures it really well. Only it doesn’t show the snow and for us that was the most magical bit of all.
Today I am thankful for
- being home
- safe cats
- no more operations needed for a while - it's official after my hospital trip today
- nearly being organised in my scrap room
A VERY CUTE SNAKE!!! No way! That's as bad as saying spiders are cute!
Have you ever flown domestic airlines in the U.S.? Even if you pay a load of money and fly first class, you would never be treated so well and have such great food as you experienced with international flights.
Can't wait to hear more about the adventure :-)
Posted by: Barb in AK | July 31, 2014 at 05:31 AM