"A Tale of Two Cities" DC/Florida September 2016 - Day 15 (Travel home and highs & lows)

[soraia]

Day 14 is here.

"A Tale of Two Cities" DC/Florida
Day 15 - Saturday 17th September 2016

And so we come to the final day - the less fun travel day

I woke up quite early with Kieren packing and leaving for his early flight to San Francisco but dozed for a while after that. I was too full from all of yesterday’s food for breakfast so just concentrated on packing everything up etc. Bernie & Tig were up and I could hear them doing their final packing as well.

We had arranged to meet David & Thara at reception around 11:00 to check-out, leave our bags with bell services and then decide what to do. We called for help with our luggage and ended up getting the same guy who took us to our room when we first arrived which was quite a nice touch as it felt like the trip had come full circle.

We met up with David & Thara in Artist’s Palette and spent a while in there figuring out how many credits we had left and what to spend them on. This was my final cull:

Everything was gone in less than a week…

Bernie & Tig were leaving next as they had a flight to Detroit and then from there to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam back to Billund in Denmark where they live so we waited for their Magical Express bus to arrive and waved them off.

And then there were 3. David, Thara & I were leaving at roughly the same times except I was on the Virgin flight and they were on the BA flight. Even though our flights were less than 15 mins apart, amazingly I was booked on the Magical Express 30 minutes before them and they wouldn’t change it! :angry:

We decided to head for lunch at Disney Springs and went to find the boat launch (previously we had always walked from Congress Park) - we ended up not making it on to the first boat which was full but luckily there was another that came 5 minutes later. It was a pleasant ride over.

After our snack cull at Artist’s Palette we each had 1 quick service credit left so discussed our options and decided to give the new Blaze pizza a go.

It was quite busy in there and it wasn’t immediately clear what we could get but we figured it out eventually and decided to make our own pizzas. You choose what base you want (eg tomato, white base, bbq), what type of cheese (in my case, all of them!) and what toppings (veg, meats etc). You can basically have as much or as little on the pizza as you want. I went for a white sauce base, all the cheeses and then garlic, onion and tomato. I was trying to recreate the delicious “gnarlic” pizza we ate at Washington Dulles Airport on the way over to Orlando. (*drool*) and it was pretty darn close!

Really really delicious and I definitely recommend to anyone who loves pizza! The base was really thin and crispy and the flavors were gorgeous!

Suitably full we decided to go for a bit of a wander but all too soon it was time for me to head back as my Magical Express pick up time was soon approaching.

While I was on the bus it got really dark and the heavens opened. I felt like it was mirroring how I was feeling about leaving…

Everything went smoothly with bag drop and security and I was soon by the gate so decided I needed a snack to cheer me up. The answer was fro-yo (with nutella) - yummy!

I got a text from David & Thara who had arrived and said they were in Club MCO and they could have a guest so I went up and joined them for an hour or so. It is nice and comfortable in there and you can have whatever drinks or food you want for free.

It was soon time to board so I said my goodbyes and headed to the gate.

The flight was completely full but fairly uneventful. Amazingly, I managed to sleep for at least half of it (I NEVER manage to sleep on planes so I must have been really tired…) and then it was back to reality in cold, rainy London.

Highs & Lows and final thoughts

It was an absolutely amazing trip and there are no real lows. Just less-highs really.

The main one was bus service from Saratoga Springs. Maybe we were just unlucky but we did have to wait for a long time (20+ minutes) most days for a bus which did put a dampener on things a bit.

Service in Washington DC would be another one. We loved DC as a place to visit but the service at restaurants wasn’t really up to par and was quite surly at times. Reminded me a bit of service in NYC. Maybe we are just spoiled with the Florida hospitality!

As for “high’s” there are too many to mention. Everything!

To name a few:

Georgetown walking tour in DC
HRH pool
FOTL passes - worth their weight in gold!
Riding Kong
Bubba Gump
Yachtsman Steakhouse
Teppan Edo
Food & Wine Festival
SSR room location in Congress Park

You get the idea…

I think for next time I would probably choose to stay at OKW over SSR (I know this is an ongoing debate on here!) I do prefer the QS option at SSR as well as the proximity to DS, but overall I prefer the rooms at OKW and also the general feel of the resort. I know the guys disagreed with me so maybe it is just my personal preference.

I would love to stay at HRH again - loved the feel of the hotel, loved the pool and loved the proximity to the parks and City Walk. As I mentioned, the Express Passes were fabulous as well so I really recommend staying here!

That about wraps it up, folks! I'm already dying to go back and hopefully it won't be too long before I can make it happen...

Thanks for reading!