August 2013 - Aliens to Florida Trip Report

[Alien]

I hope it's not against the rules to post one tirp report rather then daily reports

Flight with Aer Lingus - flying direct was great. Food and entertainment was rubish compared to KLM flight we used to come back from LA, but still - clearing emigration and direct was great. We had our own food on the way back. DS was happy with it, and slept half of the way on the way back. I absolutely hate long flights, but I suppose no other way around it!

Taxi from the airport to Floridays was apr 55 including tip, and we had no issues getting one.

Check in Floridays without any issues. They asked for 50 usd a day hold on credit card, but visa debit was ok to use too. For the 3 weeks they put 700 hold so may be this is the max. No other fees were put on our account for the duration of the stay and the 700 was released on check out. We stayed in 610E, Irish owned condo. The condo is lovely, the pictures really don't show how comfortable everything is - the beds, couch, washing machine dryer, coffee machine, tvs, fridge, wifi everything you could need for a holiday condo was there. Block E is near the small pool. We used combination of both pools, both weren't very deep at all so DS was able to manage. It really isn't very far from main pool, the reports in trip advisor make it sounds like it's miles away - it isn't! Both pools got crowded at times, and the main pool was open till 10 at night, but I suppose it's peak season. Block E is very quiet at night, we had no issues with noise at all. DH wasn't impressed by the bar, as it's full of kids until late at the big pool, screaming and yelling so not really nice to have a drink around but to be honest it's small complaint and if you do have teenage kids it would be a good thing. The food in Floridays is ok, not great but ok for lazy day. There is also starbucks coffee on site.

Picture from the condo if you look left. If you look straight you will be facing the car park. This is the smaller pool, very early in the morning and to be honest it wasn't always quiet.



Herz car hire - We hired standard SUV and we got nearly new Chevy Captiva. The price was 485 euro for the 3 weeks with a deal of 30% off, booked well in advance. Lovely very easy to drive car. On location we pre paid for tank of petrol - 62 usd. We collected it from I drive on first morning after arrival. No hard sale, there wasn't any other cars we could get on location - but we were told to come back if we have any issues with the car. 200 usd hold on card, released on day of return and all charges as expected. The only comment here is to watch out for price of gas as they call it as DH went to some gas station and got it for 5'99 when all other stations were apr 3'3. The price of gas can be really huge, it's not like here nearly all same.


I-ride - we only used it once to collect our car hire. Don't expect to get the comfort of dublin bus. It's hard to imagine a seat being more uncomfortable then they are, it's wooden bench type of thing. Took us hour to get there, 10 minutes to return with the car. We didn't use it again. If you are not staying on site and plan to do and see allot I would say hire a car. The distance between everything is huge, it's so easy to drive, and public transport isn't really that great.

We had short walk to Publix first day, lovely store with allot of fresh produce - we bought allot of pre cut fruit for the parks, and also hot food witch we bought for first night. I would compare it to Superquinn or Sainsburries