The Florida, Fringes and Other F Words Tour Day One

[mkingdon]

Previously on this tour...

Pre Trip Ramblings
Introduction

Day One - Sunday August 23rd.

There is something quite magical about the journey to the airport at the start of a holiday. There is a feeling of elation and excitement, mixed with the old school trip feeling of a “day out”. Every year I tell myself to enjoy every moment of the journey, rather than tut and scowl my way through all the waiting and queues. I do find it hard, and now, weeks later I would give any appendage you like to be at that point again, with two weeks of holiday stretching out in front of me, like unspoilt snow.

However, I am getting ahead of myself, as we are not yet on said journey to the airport. At this point I am under the duvet waiting for the alarm to go off at 5am. I don't need the alarm to go off, as Louise has been awake and up and about since 3.30am competing in a light turn-on-athon. She also seems to be making sure that every kitchen cupboard door still has it's slam. They do!

So I doze, and get up around 5am. I am cleansed and clothed (even the right clothes) in about fifteen minutes. I then spend the next forty five minutes waiting for the three females to be ready. Much fring-age takes place, and I get so bored I take a photo of Marmalade (our cat, not a condiment) who doesn't know he is about to spend the next two weeks out on the decking waiting for the neighbour's kids to come in and feed him!



Of all our cats I hate this one the least.

About ten minutes later than I wanted, everyone is ready, and I quickly gather the girls into the traditional position at the front door.



It is now around 6.30, and it turns out this is a good time to realise that we don't have any room in our luggage for two pairs of straighteners, and about sixteen bags of make up. A complete re-pack is undertaken accompanied by a chorus of sighs and tuts from the handsome bald man. Once he'd finished I threw him out.

Luckily, being a Sunday, and the school hols, the roads were quiet, and despite being 15 minutes behind schedule, we arrive at the airport only five minutes late, which is good for us. We'd called ahead to let the chap who was about to steal our car know that we were nearly there.

So after dumping Louise, the kids and the cases at T2, I drive into the long stay car park to find this chap. Sure enough, he is there pretending to be all official, taking down my details for the return flight etc. As I am about to go to Florida, frankly I'd draw him a map to my house and show him which key opens the front door, if he would just hurry up and take the car from me.

Eventually he does, and I am free to join the others in T2.

You may have noticed the lack of grandparents by now. Well, as they had decided to come late in the game, we had already booked our car parking, so rather than cancel and get a taxi, they decided to do the same. So, with Mum & Dad not having two fringes to wait for, I am expecting to see them at our check in queue looking at their watches.

I am half right. As I enter T2, I see my lot stood with Mum and a lot of cases, some of which are ours. I wander up, and before I can ask where Dad is, they ask me “Have you seen your Dad?”

My mind reels with sarcastic replies, but I politely say No, but I have just seen my Mondeo doing 105mph in the outside lane of the M60 with four blokes in high visibility vests hanging out the windows.

It turns out that Mum & Dad did arrive before us, and Mum was dropped off, and Dad went to do the parking thing. However, he has not returned. So that's it, we're minutes into the trip and the olds are causing us grief. We stand and look annoyed for a while, before I decide to wander off and look for him. As I do, he appears, recanting tales of lost bookings and badly organised clip boards.

Mum helps by telling him that I managed just fine even though I arrived after him.

We put Grandad on a lead and proceed to check in. Well, in fact we had all checked in online yesterday, so this should be a five minute job of dumping our bags, right?

We ask a chap where we should do so, and he, all official like, points us to a huge queue full of people too poor for internet access. This cannot be right. So after a few moments tuttage, I ask someone else who tells us to follow him. He checks passports and whisks us, like the important folk we are to an empty check in desk where a young lady takes down my particulars. As pleasant as that was, I inisisted we concentrated on the cases as I have a holiday to go to.

So we are soon done, and headed for security. There has been a fair amount of work in T2 since last year it seems, with automated scanners for your boarding cards, and all sorts of convoluted stuff to get through before you are allowed to spend a month's salary on breakfast and a big toblerone.

Of course as soon as we are all through, and free to do as we wish, several females need a restroom. So those of strong bladder stand around for a bit and wait. Get used to this!





See how Emily enjoys her Dad hugging her in a public place!



My Dad is caught here mid anecdote.

Reunited, we all need food urgently. Mum spots a Frankie and Benny's, and we are in like Flynn. They have no reservations in the name of Flynn so we just stand and wait for a bit. The manager warns us he is short staffed, and we may have a slower meal than normal. The boy has obviously never seen me eat!

We take the chance and he finds us a table for six.

We order, and after a little kerfuffle due to a lack of any orange or apple juice, we sit back and wait for the food to come.







Dad is mid anecdote again. We were discussing previous flights and airlines, and he tells us, perhaps not for the first time, about the time he went to Spain with work, and for some reason missed his flight home. So they booked on to the next available flight, which had superb leather seats and great food. As he said...

“That was the best flight I ever had when we came back on that Luftwaffe plane”

He did of course mean Lufthansa, but it seemed irrelevant to correct him at this stage.

So what did we have? A lot...

Me – The Big Eat. Not surprisingly perhaps the largest breakfast option available. Full fry up and french toast.

Louise, Rebecca & Dad – American Breakfast. As above but pancakes not french toast.

Emily – Breakfast Burger. Basically, a burger with bacon on it.

Mum – Eggs & Bacon. Adventurous!

It was very good, and very little got left.

The bill was £60 including a decent tip (getting into the habit).

There seems to be no way to avoid the duty free shop, so wander in there for a bit. Thankfully we escape without too much damage, and we move on to WH Smiths. I've been ever so prepared this year and ordered my book off of Amazon already. (Stephen Fry – Making History. Very good). So the kids get some sweets and Louise gets some OK/Hello tat to look at.

We see the gate has been allocated for our plane now so we wander down there.



As we are seated to the rear, we are the first (after the elitest upper class nonces) to board.

Now, on the subject of seats. About six months ago I had shown Louise the plane seat plan, knowing her fear of flying means that unless we are seated exactly as she wishes, she is likely to put nail marks into places I can't mention. I explained that we could the four seats in the middle, or a 3 and 1 set up.

She said the middle would be fine, so I picked those seats.

About two weeks prior to the holiday Louise then recoils in horror as I show her our seats, in the middle of the plane, and asks me “Do you not know that I only feel safe in a window seat?”

Now, you have to suspend all logical thought at this point. A fear of flying is a terrible thing, but it is hard to reconcile how death may be avoided as you smash into the ground at five hundred miles per hour, because you are next to a window.

Anyway, Mum & Dad had got a window seat, so offered to swap with us and they would sit with the kids. Fools!

So we are nice and peaceful in our two seats by the window, and all buckled up ready for the off.

As boarding is coming to an end the lady next to me asks if we would mind swapping with her parents, who are quite upset that they are seated away from their family party.

“Are they in business class?” I ask, hopefully.

It turns out they aren't, but they do have two seats near the back, with extra leg room, just two rows behind the kids and grandparents. We agree, and quickly transport Ryan and ourselves to our new location. Louise is happy and all is well. That is until we take off.

I am not a nervous flyer, but the turbulence at take off, and to be honest all through the flight was a bit of a bowel loosener. Louise of course is a wreck, convinced at every bump that we are plummeting to our deaths, and screaming out not in an embarrassing way at all.

As soon as we flatten out (technical term), a kindly stewardess appears, and asks if she can help.

“BRANDY! ” Louise shouts in a non panic stricken way.

The lovely stewardess brings her two large ones. As nice as her large ones were, I tell her that she should return at once with the drinks Louise ordered.

The drink helped. The only real trouble caused by the turbulence after that was when I was trying to complete the green forms. Literally as I started writing the turbulence started up again. Imagine threading a needle on a waltzer. I managed, just.

So for the next eight hours we saw this.



At various stages we were given food. Most of it was crap to be honest. The chicken thing was just warm and gloopy, and the chocolate dessert although tasty was small.





To pass the time I fiddle with my entertainment system. Louise tells me that isn't polite in public so I watched some films instead.

I Love You, Man and The Boat That Rocked.

Both very good.



Concentrating...



Success!

This was the view from our seats. Can you spot Emily?



As we had the camera out, Louise thought it would be good to take one of those, at arm's length shots of ourselves.

So we arrange ourselves, and I put my arm around Louise. She turns to the camera and leans back...



and traps my arm between her and the arm rest. Look how I show no outside signs of the massive pain.

I pop by the rest of the family to see how they are doing.



All seems well so I sit down again, before Mum & Dad mention swapping seats.

As time goes by we are given an ice cream...



and what they dared to call a sandwich.



Pitiful!

Still, we managed to force it all down.

The descent into Orlando took about an hour, and we finally touched down at 2.15pm local time. We are caged inside the plane for what feels like about six weeks, waiting to be released. Being at the back we are one of the last off the plane and into immigration. We drift right, bearing in mind the US Citizen line tip, but we have a long wait it seems.

Suddenly, just as a Hispanic family blatantly push in at the front of our queue, I am spared the task of ejecting them by force by a friendly immigration chap, who's job it appears is to wander about the queues, intrigued by Emily's hair, chats to us, and then takes us to the front of a now empty US Citizen line. I love my daughter!

The chap doing the stamping and scanning is friendly, and again asks about Emily's hair, and I can see the panic on her face, as she realises the whole two weeks may be like this.

We move onto baggage claim, and the first one is easy enough, although for some reason our cases come off on the upper class carousel. We collect them all, and I'm keen to progress to the next stage of the tortuous journey to our holiday starting when Louise announces she needs the loo.

Not frustrating at all this, and I didn't mind standing watching everyone else on the plane walking by to the front of whichever queues awaited.

Anyway, eventually we move on to the monorail, having given our bags away again. The chap collecting them mumbled something about where to get them again, which could have been a carousel number or another state to be honest.

So upon exiting the monorail, we wander around looking for the large group of British tourists collecting their cases. We can't see any, as they all got theirs in the three and half hours Louise was in the loo.

Eventually we locate a likely carousel, and I leave the others to wait for the luggage whilst I go and get the car sorted. I had done the fast track thing with budget, which, those of you familiar with last year's trip will remember was not fast at all.

As we are delay-less this year I am expecting a set of keys to be dangling from the kiosk in the garage which I can run by, snatch, unlock the car and get into the driver's seat in one swift silky movement.

Not quite.

We start off OK, but again I stand staring at some bloke tapping endlessly at his keyboard. He makes not one, but three phone calls, and after about ten minutes hands over the keys. It turns out that something about my booking, and whatever discounted price I got would affect his commission unless he entered his manager's password. That is who he had been calling.

“That's alright, I totally understand” I said, as I drag him through the window by his nostril hair!

Keys in hand I wander back across the road to find the rest of the party, complete with luggage ready to go. We are soon across to the car (Black Kia Sedona) and on our way.

My notes mention something about finding the villa via some scenic route. This can't possibly be true, as Louise wasn't driving!

Continued...

[mkingdon]

Rebecca heads for the pool, the other females unpack, and the hunter gatherers head for the supermarket for supplies.



The pool looked a little chilly at first!



The only reason we booked this villa was for the world class “Muriel”.



Tired, but now unpacked and fooded up, we need some sustinence. The Outback is chosen as it is simply the closest restaurant we know of. We complete the short journey from the villa, making the mistake of letting the kids hold the camera in the car.



and arrive at around 6pm, and are seated immediately.







This was obviously Mum's seventeenth glass of wine!



Yep, Diet Coke again for me.

We had...

Appetisers to share, Bloomin' Onion and Cheesy Fries.

Me & Mum – Queensland Salad



Louise & Emily – Chicken Pasta thing



Dad – Steak and shrimp. Mainly chosen as it was displayed as a large picture on the menu, and he had left his reading glasses in the UK. Remember that, it may be important later.

Rebecca – Chicken Caesar Salad

The food was great and we loved it here again. The bill was $130 including tip of 18%, automatically added for a party of six.

We can't manage dessert, so we leave and head for the car.



As I start the car, we seem to be one short, and we have lost Grandad again. I start to walk back to see how he could have possibly got lost, to see him emerge from the Outback a little red faced. It seems he couldn't get out of the booth, and had his leg stuck. It took three waiters and a tub of vaseline to free him.

We are back at the villa by 7.45pm, or a very late 12.45 am in the UK. We watch a bit of telly, as we've missed the adverts since last year, but we soon all fall into bed, knackered.

Tomorrow – Resting and Shopping.

Day Two is here

[Guest]

YAY! ...Just about to settle down and read this!..But I have to say...HOW GROWN UP does Rebecca look now! ...Her and Emily could now be twins.
You have to tell her Craig..her hair looks GREAT...it really suits her...

[lthewliss]

Yay, love it! Loving Emily's hair! (God I'm going to sound old... ) - Rebecca and Emily are so grown up it's SCARY!

Where's part 2?

[AlisonB]

Brilliant writing as usual Craig... I wish you could go on holiday more often, just for the trip reports!

[chaffey]

Ok the tears have been rolling down my face and it's only day one. No pressure but keep them coming. Glad to see the photo by the door made an appearance

[johnnygrayuk]

Another great trip report cant wait for the rest.
cant believe how grown up your girls look.

[ethanjosh]

Wonderful once again brightened up our wednesday evening

Think the girls hair looks fab

[Helenr]

Fabulous!

[TinkTatoo]

Brilliant start as always Craig, and I'm glad to see that those yokles that were in the villa before you left it tidy