The Pumpkins: Day 4 - The Three Ps (Aug 11)

[Mrs Pumpkin]

Our trip report index: The Pumpkins Pop to Florida for the First Time! August 2011
**************************************************
The Cast
Me - Mrs Pumpkin online, Michelle in real life - 34 years old and a plus size chick who is on the shrink, having lost 5 stone this year (so far). From my perspective, I'll be giving other plus-size dibbers my experience as a plus-size guest.
Him - Steven19720 online, Steve in real life - 38 years old and I think even more excited than me about going to Florida! Wants to try many American delicacies including catfish and corndogs (among other things!) So there will be lots of pics of food in our report!
The boy - my son and Steve's step-son, Liam - 12 years old and very excited about visiting Orlando.
**************************************************
I love photography and take a LOT of photos, so my trip reports will be as photo heavy as a post allows! Most of the photos in my trip report were taken by me on my iPhone4, which I used the most because it was easy to carry around with me. Some days I did use one of the 3 Lumix cameras - the DMC-FZ18, the DMC-TZ18 and the waterproof DMC-FT2 - that we also took with us! Full sets from each day can be found on my Flickr. You can also follow my photos on Instagram - @cherry_o or if you don't have an iPhone, online at Statigram.
**************************************************

Day 4 - The Three Ps
Ponderosa, Publix & Pool
All photos from this day can be found on my Flickr!

Paranoid about burning out, (I've not been well) we decided today to have an easy one - breakfast at IHOP, shopping and then chilling in the pool until a buffet dinner at either Ponderosa or Golden Corral...

We started the drive to IHOP - Homer couldn't direct us properly and instead we ended up pulling into Ponderosa on the 192. Close enough! (IHOP is on the other side of the road)

Queued and paid for our breakfast. We all got the waffle add-on, but I don't think we actually needed to do this. Oh well! We were shown a booth and then a waiter came over and introduced himself and we went to the buffet bar.

It is a squish around the buffet, and very close to the booths. Having people's butts in your face when you are eating can't be very pleasant! I'm glad we were not so close to it! I found the Golden Corral layout a lot nicer.

There was a big selection of breakfast goods - eggs, bacon, sausage, cereals, fruit…along with more bizarre items like jelly, chocolate mousse and cake!

I had my first try of biscuits and gravy - another tick on the 'foods to eat in Orlando' list - and they tasted nicer than I thought they would. We actually ended up buying packet mixes of both biscuits and gravy to bring home, when we later visited Publix.

When we paid at the start, we bought three bottles of orange juice - didn't realise we had to pay for all our drinks up front, so when I then decided that I fancied a coffee, the waiter asked if it was on our receipt, which it wasn't, so no coffee for me. I assume I could have gone up to the till again and paid for one? Oh well!

Our waffles were then brought out, and Liam nommed his all up. I warned the boys that the blob of what looked liked ice-cream or cream was actually butter...most of that was flicked to the side of the plate!

I couldn't manage my waffle at all, which is when I remembered my friend telling me to just have the buffet and not pay for the add on…*slaps head*

We weren't overly impressed with Ponderosa. I know it's a cheap meal, but it also tastes and looks it. The bacon was swimming in a vat of oil, and looked rank, and I don't actually remember wanting to try anything much because it didn't look too clever. We decided we probably won't be going back there, but glad we at least tried it to formulate our own opinion on the place.

Attached to the restaurant was a gift shop, so we decided to take a gander in there. Making a mental note of the prices of suitcases in there, we also picked up a few Disney photo albums at $10ish each and a bunch of keyrings as gifts for peeps back home. We visited a few other gift shops along the 192 and I just loved looking at the tacky sounvenirs!

Our next stop was Publix to do some food-gift shopping, as I had a list of American goods from my siblings!

I don't have a dog, but if I did, I would buy them this product on the name alone!

Moving on…!

We found Publix a much nicer supermarket compared with Walmart. I can't say that I actually compared prices, but I am told that Publix is slightly more expensive.

With photos of random foods taken…

…and Liam holding the biggest bucket of ice-cream I ever did see...

...we made our way to the check-out to pay for our sugar-filled treats. Now, they bag up your stuff in Walmart, but in Publix they go the extra mile. There was a lady at the end packing our stuff neatly away, as the other person put the stuff through the till.

She made conversation with us, noting that she can always tell the tourists as they buy all the candies Compare this with the UK where they bleep the stuff through as quickly as possible and snarl at you if you can't keep up! Give me American service any day of the week!

She then said she would take our stuff to our car and help us put it in the boot. I felt bad because she was this little old lady, but she just grabbed my cart and off she went! I nudged Steve and asked if we should be giving a tip - we didn't know if we should or not, but to be safe and not offend, we gave her a few bucks. Turns out, that this is actually part of the service, and that you don't have to tip them - at least, according to my American friend who I mentioned this to when we started talking about tipping customs in the UK vs USA. He said she shouldn't really have taken it. Oh well, if it buys her some more blue rinse!

Quite suddenly, Steve started to feel unwell with a stomach ache. He went to sleep for a few hours, whilst Liam and I messed about in the swimming pool. I also tried desperately to catch up with photo editing my iPhone pictures and upload them to Instagram, Facebook and Flickr. I gave up with the ones we took on the Lumix cameras as our netbook was too small and fiddly for me to work properly and it was winding me up so I just resided myself to the fact I would have mountains of editing to do when I got back to the UK. Trying to write my trip report live as I had planned to, was also a big pain in the bumski, so that too went out the window. Learning too, about the riots back home, and close to home as well wasn't too pleasant, and today was turning out to be a bit of a meh day.

I also took photos of our earlier purchases

I was surprised to find cool whip in the freezer section, and had to buy it because of Family Guy lol. It tastes and has the texture of dream topping - actually, surprisingly, not as sweet.

Can't have pie without cool w-Hip!

Some candy corn for Halloween!

And this stuff, which I've never tried, but read about in books growing up!

As for Whitecastle Burgers, I've known about these since I was about 14 and a NKOTB fan lol, as they would always go on about these tiny burgers. You can cook them in the oven or in the microwave, and since I'm on holidays, the microwave was as good as it was going to get! So a nuke of 60 seconds and ta-da, burgers! Liam ate all 6, and I had a bite - they weren't too bad lol.

Steve still wasn't too clever by the evening, so we didn't go out for dinner as planned. We just had some snacky bits at home and I'm pretty sure, that now we're into day 4, all this food is playing havoc with my diet and body at this point in the holiday I was desperate for weighing scales to see what was going on.

A storm brewed overhead and we were treated to a spectacular lightening show.

So, all in all, a rather uneventful day I'm afraid! Tomorrow, for sure, Universal!
************************************************** **
Read the next day:
Day 5 - Universally Speaking: Universal Studios, Mel's Drive In & Chik-fil-A

Read the previous day:
Day 3 - Our 1st Orlando Theme Park: Islands of Adventure & Mythos

[summersun]

hope everyone is feeling better soon, great pics

[Guest]

mmmmmm, American food *drools*

I LOVE the picture of the lightning, though I'd probably have retreated to bed to hide under the covers until it was over!

[ROO]

Oh my ! you have had some rotten luck with colds & stomach upsets, at least Liam is keeping well, long may it continue !
Hope you all start to have the holiday you planned for real soon.

[MFras23]

American foods are so much more extravagant that here! Mmm candy corn!

[asdageek]

sorry you guys were under the weather but it was still a good read and your photos are great! love the lightening ones! i am looking forward to noseying around in american supermarket, we will be in a villa and will go and get basic stock. my dh thinks i'm mad that i want to see walmart/publix as much as some of the attractions lol!

[CC71]

Great report, l saw the Smuckers peanut butter & jelly in the food section in Selfridges in Birmingham today, can't remember the price but I'm sure it's double what it costs in Florida. They had boxes of 'Lucky Charms' cereal for £7.99 - unbelievable Hope your dh felt better by the next morning after some

[Milner]

Hope your DH was feeling better next day. Looking forward to the next installment.

[chelseyleigh]

i love that last pic with the lightening its stunning! I no how you feel about the riots i live in chingford and work in enfield and it was all very scarey! All the treats in publix look delish!

[anfield05]

shame you're all feeling under the weather, the trip to publix looked fun though! XX