[BucksBugsy]

Having tidied up the apartment (we hadn’t much mess – honest!) we drove to the long stay car park and parked up. I suspect a lot of dibbers have taken a photo like the one below as a way of remembering where you parked! As Caj would be coming back to the car on her own she would have us to help her with helpful comments such as “I think it’s in the next row” !

Being one of those cars with a motorised tail gate I suppose one option would be to keep pressing the key fob button until she heard the crash of metal on metal as the tail gate in the range rover parked behind. But any way – I digress!

Then the short walk to the shuttle bus stop followed and before we knew it we were at Terminal 3 where our Virgin flight to MIA would department from. I suspect most of us grown ups have done the park-bus-terminal thing quite a few times but Niff was loving this. After many months of talking and planning the big day was here. It was time to go get some sunshine.

Having checked our bags in we had breakfast in one of the restaurants in terminal 3 before making our way to the departure lounge.

It was at this point we had our fiurst casualty of the trip – my go-pro stabilizer which decided it didn’t want to work anymore which was a tad annoying because it was bough especially for the holiday. In fact the go-pro hardly ever got used because most of the photos and videos were shot on my Galaxy note 8 phone and I was very pleased with the results. Caj is a bit old school and would rather use a “proper” camera and she got some really good shots on it. I’ve lsot track of how many photos we took between us but was quite a few!

A photo for the ladies follows below – Caj had come suitably decorated for the trip!

In true “lets set a budget and blow it” style I had paid for some seats for Niff and I with extra leg room. Before you start a “don’t be mean to Caj” discussion she doesn’t need extra leg room (yes, she is not that tall!) and she was sat across the aisle from Niff and I. Niff was desperate to sit next to the window so he could see what was going on. Caj was sat just across the aisle from us so wasn't far away.

I had asked Niff before the journey if he was nervous about the flight and he said he wasn’t sure. So I told him my hand would be on the arm rest if he needed to hold on for some reassurance but he was fine. He loved the flight and didn’t get bored at all. Thank goodness for decent stuff on the IFE that he could watch and a blanket he could hide under.

I love this next photo (thank you Caj – it’s one of my favourites) because it shows me spending some random time with Niff – I love the expression on his face and – from a technical view – the lighting is amazing.

Niff was brilliant on the plane – he soon found the sky map which meant that the “are we there yet?” questions were irrelevant. He did get bored but not enough to trouble us!

When we landed at MIA Caj went through immigration on her own as she had a different surname to Niff (no longer the case!) but we had no problem at all with the machines and the CBP staff. I seem to remember that it only took about 30 minutes from landing to clearing customs but it was certainly easier than some MCO direct trips I had been on.

This is my first photo on American soil whilst we were in-between flights. Niff was soaking up the American dream and like all of us just wanted to be at the villa. We were all very grateful that the second flight was just s short hop and we had already cleared immigration.

Not much longer Niff - we promise

Arrival at MCO was painless and so we went to pick up our rental car. I had promised Niff that he could choose the car from the Alamo row but thankfully he understood when I turned down his suggestion of a pick up truck!

I then drove to the villa which was on the same sub-division as I had been to about a decade before. I did a pretty good job of remembering the route until the very end – life is so much easier since they built the 417 – give me that route over the bee-line any day.

We got to the villa and met Beth and Tim from fairytail shopping there. Sadly they no longer operate this business because they were (and still are!) lovely people to deal with and nothing was too much trouble

Shopping unpacked niff then emptied the contents of his case onto his bedroom floor so he could go for a dip in the pool which he loved. In fact I would go so far as to say that he could have spent every day in the pool and would have been happy.

Back to his bedroom there was stuff everywhere and it looked like room had been burgled but there was no point in nagging him about it.

Watch out Florida – hurricane Niff has arrived.