Why on Earth would a family of five choose to drive all the way to Florida, in a year where hurricanes became an epidemic, and gas prices tripled? We found the one good week in the fall of 2005 to visit Orlando and Fort Walton Beach, spent 5 days driving during our 10-day vacation, and managed to have a great time in the process....
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Day 10 - Nashville to Home
Estimated Travel Time: 5 hours 8 minutes for 336.8 miles
We had a light day of driving today, so I didn't push the girls for an early start. We checked out of the room, and headed down to breakfast. The full breakfast buffet at the Springhill Suites really makes this an economical way for a family of five to spend the night on the road. We only pay for one room, since the room is big enough to support five people, we have a fridge to store our cooler food overnight, and we save $20 - $30 by not having to buy breakfast at a restaurant. This morning, there were lots of folks wearing Bengals jerseys in the dining room. After a full breakfast of eggs, sausage, belgian waffles, juice and oatmeal, the girls walked out of there with an apple, a banana, and 3 donuts among them. They eat at a buffet like a bunch of homeless people.
We hit the road, and blew through the rest of Tennessee fairly quickly. Nashville marks the point where our return route rejoins the route we took on the way down to Orlando - so it was all looking sort of familiar by now.
Kaybee had her heart set on eating at a KFC in Kentucky for lunch. The irony of it is, once we decided to stop, we couldn't find a KFC anywhere on I-24. We finally found one just across the border into Illinois, at Metropolis (self declared home of Superman). The girls enjoyed the buffet. I was wondering how many months of Weight Watchers I was going to have to endure to make up for these last two weeks.
We stopped at a rest area near Rend Lake in Illinois that had a playground. The girls got out and played for 30 minutes or so, while Elzie stocked up on information for our next vacation from the "Take One" information stand.
We remembered the NL Championship game as we hit I-64, and tuned in to KMOX to see how the Cardinals were doing. Not well, as I recall. We stopped for fuel in O'Fallon ($2.66/gallon - it was finally starting to approach a sane price). Then once across the bridge, with a nice view of the Gateway Arch, we waved goodbye to old Busch Stadium, and before we knew it, we were home.
We hope you've enjoyed reading about our trip as much as we've enjoyed reliving the memories. Wish us luck on our next adventure.
We had a light day of driving today, so I didn't push the girls for an early start. We checked out of the room, and headed down to breakfast. The full breakfast buffet at the Springhill Suites really makes this an economical way for a family of five to spend the night on the road. We only pay for one room, since the room is big enough to support five people, we have a fridge to store our cooler food overnight, and we save $20 - $30 by not having to buy breakfast at a restaurant. This morning, there were lots of folks wearing Bengals jerseys in the dining room. After a full breakfast of eggs, sausage, belgian waffles, juice and oatmeal, the girls walked out of there with an apple, a banana, and 3 donuts among them. They eat at a buffet like a bunch of homeless people.
We hit the road, and blew through the rest of Tennessee fairly quickly. Nashville marks the point where our return route rejoins the route we took on the way down to Orlando - so it was all looking sort of familiar by now.
Kaybee had her heart set on eating at a KFC in Kentucky for lunch. The irony of it is, once we decided to stop, we couldn't find a KFC anywhere on I-24. We finally found one just across the border into Illinois, at Metropolis (self declared home of Superman). The girls enjoyed the buffet. I was wondering how many months of Weight Watchers I was going to have to endure to make up for these last two weeks.
We stopped at a rest area near Rend Lake in Illinois that had a playground. The girls got out and played for 30 minutes or so, while Elzie stocked up on information for our next vacation from the "Take One" information stand.
We remembered the NL Championship game as we hit I-64, and tuned in to KMOX to see how the Cardinals were doing. Not well, as I recall. We stopped for fuel in O'Fallon ($2.66/gallon - it was finally starting to approach a sane price). Then once across the bridge, with a nice view of the Gateway Arch, we waved goodbye to old Busch Stadium, and before we knew it, we were home.
We hope you've enjoyed reading about our trip as much as we've enjoyed reliving the memories. Wish us luck on our next adventure.
Day 9 - Fort Walton Beach to Nashville, TN
Estimated Travel Time: 8 hours 19 minutes for 489.2 miles
Checking out of the condo instead of claiming our beach chairs this morning was a hard thing to do. Three nights is just not enough. Next time we will have to stay at least a week.
I decided to attempt a more scenic drive than the TripTik suggested. We headed west on Highway 98, through the town of Fort Walton, then through Navarre Beach and Pensacola. Navarre suffered a lot of damage both from Dennis and Ivan, and it didn't look like it was coming back any too quickly. We saw several buildings that were missing entire walls and/or roofs. The further west that we drove, the worse the damage appeared.
Pensacola was not much better. We stopped at a gas station in Pensacola that had no gas to sell. Several sections of the fishing pier across the bay had fallen into the water. The visitor's center was closed. Highway 10 and 110 were both under heavy construction.
Believe it or not, I thought I remembered this sign as we drove past, from my trip to Pensacola when I was 5 or 6 years old. Could this sign actually have been there in the '60s?
Anyway, the whole town had kind of a creepy, ghost-town vibe to it, and we were all sort of glad to put it behind us.
Soon we were in Alabama. The directions to get to I-65 were a bit challenging, but we finally made it. There was a lot of damage in southern Alabama as well. This was mitigated by the fact that there's not a heck of a lot in Alabama to damage. It is a big, long, boring state with a lot of tall pine trees and not much else in it. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch in Prattville (just outside of Montgomery, and in case you're still keeping score, gas was $2.72/gallon).
The Hamtaro DVD had mysteriously been misplaced, but the two little ones made due by watching Teacher's Pet (with Nathan Lane) several times. After lunch, having grown weary of Nathan's Jerry Lewis imitation, I was miraculously able to relocate Hamtaro and gave it back to them.
The scenery improved noticeably once we crossed the border into Tennessee (again, this surprised us). We got into Nashville after dark, and checked into our room at the Springhill Suites. It's good that we made reservations ahead of time. As I was checking in, another man was asking the desk clerk if there were any rooms available anywhere in town. There were not. Apparently, this weekend there was a UT game, the Titans were hosting the Bengals, there was some kind of big NASCAR event, and the Grand Ole Opry was celebrating it's 80th anniversary. None of these things had any significance to us, but it did make for a crowded parking lot at the hotel.
We grabbed a quick dinner at the McDonalds at the corner, then returned to the hotel. I thought it was sort of funny that an employee of the nearby KFC was in McDonalds ordering a McChicken for dinner. It was even stranger when she came back and announced that her manager had asked her to order one for him as well. As we were leaving, we noticed an ambulance with its lights flashing in front of the KFC. We don't know if the McChickens were the cause, or if the staff had known something about the KFC cuisine that their hapless customers had not.
After dinner, Mom took the kids down to the indoor pool to swim for an hour or so, in an effort to burn off some of their untapped potential energy for the day. It seemed to work. It was the first time we did not have to beg them to go to sleep.
On to Day 10...
Checking out of the condo instead of claiming our beach chairs this morning was a hard thing to do. Three nights is just not enough. Next time we will have to stay at least a week.
I decided to attempt a more scenic drive than the TripTik suggested. We headed west on Highway 98, through the town of Fort Walton, then through Navarre Beach and Pensacola. Navarre suffered a lot of damage both from Dennis and Ivan, and it didn't look like it was coming back any too quickly. We saw several buildings that were missing entire walls and/or roofs. The further west that we drove, the worse the damage appeared.
Pensacola was not much better. We stopped at a gas station in Pensacola that had no gas to sell. Several sections of the fishing pier across the bay had fallen into the water. The visitor's center was closed. Highway 10 and 110 were both under heavy construction.
Believe it or not, I thought I remembered this sign as we drove past, from my trip to Pensacola when I was 5 or 6 years old. Could this sign actually have been there in the '60s?Anyway, the whole town had kind of a creepy, ghost-town vibe to it, and we were all sort of glad to put it behind us.
Soon we were in Alabama. The directions to get to I-65 were a bit challenging, but we finally made it. There was a lot of damage in southern Alabama as well. This was mitigated by the fact that there's not a heck of a lot in Alabama to damage. It is a big, long, boring state with a lot of tall pine trees and not much else in it. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch in Prattville (just outside of Montgomery, and in case you're still keeping score, gas was $2.72/gallon).
The Hamtaro DVD had mysteriously been misplaced, but the two little ones made due by watching Teacher's Pet (with Nathan Lane) several times. After lunch, having grown weary of Nathan's Jerry Lewis imitation, I was miraculously able to relocate Hamtaro and gave it back to them.
The scenery improved noticeably once we crossed the border into Tennessee (again, this surprised us). We got into Nashville after dark, and checked into our room at the Springhill Suites. It's good that we made reservations ahead of time. As I was checking in, another man was asking the desk clerk if there were any rooms available anywhere in town. There were not. Apparently, this weekend there was a UT game, the Titans were hosting the Bengals, there was some kind of big NASCAR event, and the Grand Ole Opry was celebrating it's 80th anniversary. None of these things had any significance to us, but it did make for a crowded parking lot at the hotel.
We grabbed a quick dinner at the McDonalds at the corner, then returned to the hotel. I thought it was sort of funny that an employee of the nearby KFC was in McDonalds ordering a McChicken for dinner. It was even stranger when she came back and announced that her manager had asked her to order one for him as well. As we were leaving, we noticed an ambulance with its lights flashing in front of the KFC. We don't know if the McChickens were the cause, or if the staff had known something about the KFC cuisine that their hapless customers had not.
After dinner, Mom took the kids down to the indoor pool to swim for an hour or so, in an effort to burn off some of their untapped potential energy for the day. It seemed to work. It was the first time we did not have to beg them to go to sleep.
On to Day 10...
Friday, November 04, 2005
Day 8 - More Beaching
Our original plan was to take a "dolphin viewing" cruise on a glass-bottom boat today. But I talked to the girls about it, and we all agreed that we wanted to spend the last day of our vacation at the beach. The boat trip sounded fun, but nobody wanted to give up our beach time for it. So we'll save the Southern Star Dolphin Cruise for our next vacation. We had a light breakfast, put our suits back on, and headed down to the ocean.
We claimed our same spot, and settled in. The weather was even more beautiful today than yesterday, and the ocean was so calm, it looked like a sheet of glass. We were able to wade way out into the gulf, and the water was still only waist high. It was so clear, you could easily see the bottom. At one point, I saw a pretty good size blue crab on the ocean floor, and he saw me too, because he quickly scooted away sideways before I could get any closer. Darn, there goes dinner! The girls were able to see lots of shells, and unfortunately, lots of screws, bolts, pieces of corroded metal, broken glass, etc. We did our best to clean up the beach of this junk.
The girls and their mom spent a lot of time building a sand castle. I just can't describe how serene it was, watching my family enjoy the beautiful weather and warm, clear water from my lounge chair. I never wanted it to end.Next to us, was a couple from Louisville, Ky. Coincidentally, the family next to them was also from Louisville. We had chatted briefly with both groups, and when they discovered that they shared a home town they became very friendly with each other. At one point, the lady from Louisville Group 2 told the couple from Louisville Group 1 that she was going up to the condo to make Beer Margaritas. Elzie overheard them (unavoidable really, as she was eavesdropping!) and exclaimed "BEER MARGARITAS!?!" Louisville Lady said she would bring one down for her. It was really good - I had my doubts, but it turned out to be very refreshing. It was different, and somehow familiar tasting at the same time. She gave us the very complex recipe, which I shall now share with you:
| Beer Margaritas 1 12oz Can Limeade Concentrate 1 12oz Bottle Corona 1 12oz Can 7-Up 12oz Tequila Mix it all together, serve over ice. |
Our plan was to visit a place called McGuire's in Destin for lunch, then stop at the Destin Fish Market for some fresh, locally caught fish to grill for dinner. Elzie's good friend had told us that their family enjoyed McGuire's on their excursions to the Panhandle. She told us that they brew their own beer and root beer, have great steaks,
great sandwiches, and U.S. Senate Bean Soup for 18 cents. However, we were having such a nice time on the beach, and we didn't want to interrupt little-bit's nap, so we continued to play until at least 3:00. At that point, we finally gathered up the family, sprayed them down at the outdoor shower, removed the rest of the sand in the showers at the condo, got dressed, and headed across the bridge to the city of Destin.We found McGuire's without too much trouble. We got there right as they were switching menus from Lunch to Dinner. They had us wait in the gift shop for about 15 minutes (maybe they do this to all obvious tourists, in the hopes that they'll buy some Irish Pub junk or a T-shirt or something).
There were lots of "Shoe" cartoons on the wall - apparently the author of that strip is a frequent guest. Hanging from the ceiling are about $300,000 worth of single dollar bills. It's actually sort of an amazing site to see. The kids' menu servings were generous, and contained the "best chicken nuggets" the girls had ever tasted. The bean soup was very good too. I had a huge hamburger with mushrooms and monterey jack cheese. It was so good. I chose home-made baked beans instead of fries, and they were great too. (Lots of beans at this meal - this could be trouble!) Elzie had a humungous Reuben sandwich with fries. I swapped half of my burger for half of her Reuben. Man, they were both great. Other folks around us were getting steaks (they were eating dinner, but we were stuck in a lunch frame of mind). The steaks looked and smelled heavenly.
By the time we got out of there, it was far too late and we were all too stuffed to even contemplate dinner. So we skipped the fish market and went to the pier. We paid $1 a piece to walk out to the end. Along the way were hilarious signs that advised patrons not to engage in "jumping or diving from the pier". We must have been 100 feet above the water! I can't imagine the suicidal idiot that would choose to jump off. There were lots of rather large birds on the pier, which we were informed by another tourist were Great Blue Herons. I guess they are used to stealing bait or other tidbits from the fisherman. There were a couple of folks fishing at the end of the pier, but nobody was catching anything significant. One man had what appeared to be a dolphin on his line for just a few seconds. Whatever it was managed to unhook itself and swim away. We were all somewhat relieved, including the fisherman, who wanted nothing to do with dolphins on his line. We watched the sunset from the pier. The "Blue Heron" guy offered to take our picture, and it turned out pretty good, except for the fact that little-bit refused to look at the camera. But we were glad to have a shot with all of us in it (the only other one we have from this trip is the SeaWorld photo).
Later, we stopped at "Alvin's", the tourist trap souvenir stand. We spent probably an hour trying to find something, anything, to bring home to our friends and family. We couldn't even find a decent T-shirt. Everything in the place was absolute junk. We really felt like we needed to look at another place, but we just weren't up to it. We hoped to find something more suitable the next day, on the trip home (but we didn't). We fueled up in anticipation of our drive the next morning ($2.64/gallon - a comparitive bargain!), and headed back to Water's Edge.When we got back, the girls watched a show on cable, while my wife and I started packing up to get ready to leave our condo at the beach. We could not get over our good luck with the weather, finding such a nice place to stay, and avoiding the red tide (OH! I forgot to mention that they had been experiencing red tide for the weeks prior to our stay - but the water was crystal clear while we were there). We must have found the three most perfect days of the year to visit Fort Walton Beach.
We slept with the windows open again tonight, but the sea was so calm, it barely made a sound.
Read about Day 9...
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Day 7 - Life's a Beach
Elzie woke everyone up this morning by tossing them thier bathing suits and saying "I'm going to the beach. Who's coming with me?" The kids were pretty quick to get up, for a change. We had breakfast in the condo, inflated our new beach toys, and went down to the office to check in officially. The condo came with a complimentary beach "set-up" - an umbrella and two chairs. We claimed ours, and put our feet in the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. The water was wonderful, and the weather was perfect.
In front of us was an elaborate sand castle left over from the previous evening. Someone had spent a long time working on it. JB couldn't stay away from it. She kept climbing over it, sitting in the "moat", gradually destroying it. She dug a huge shard of broken glass out of the "moat" (remnant from Dennis?), and I finally had to put a stop to her fun.Kaybee found a small sand crab - it was about the size of a quarter, and all white. It looked more like a spider than a crab. She put it in our beach pail with some sand, and they got a kick out of watching it bury itself in the sand, all except the eyes, which stuck out like periscopes.
The sand was fine, and white, and nice. The sun was just hot enough, and the umbrella cast a welcome shadow onto our lounge chairs. The kids played in the sand and waded in the gulf. I was able to sit and read and relax, which was a real treat. Elzie watched the kids having fun, and mingled with the other beach goers. She met a couple from Mobile, Alabama who were forced out of their home by hurricane Katrina. A huge oak tree fell and vented their ceiling. Their son works for ResortQuest (but we won't hold that against him), and he was able to get them a condo at Water's Edge while their house was being repaired. They were able to return once a week to Mobile to check on their house, and in the meantime got to stay at the beach. Not something I would wish on anyone, but it sounded like they were making the most of a bad situation.At one point, Kaybee came out of the water crying, saying that a "big brown blob" had scratched her leg. She rinsed off at the outdoor shower, but it didn't help much. Her leg looked scratched, and she said it was really stinging. She was ready to write off the ocean and head for the pool, but Elzie convinced her to give it another shot. Before long she was back in the water and having a good time, her injury forgotten.
(Later, from the balcony, Elzie and I saw something brown in the water, and everyone on the beach was very curious about it, but nobody went too close to it. Finally, I said "I'm going down to see what it is." It turned out to be a rather large, brownish-red jellyfish, a sea nettle I think, as big as a human head. We assume that's what got Kaybee).
Eventually, we got hungry, so we went up to the condo for some sandwiches. Elzie, the sudoku addict, ate lunch on the balcony with her puzzle book. She loves to listen to the ocean (Sometimes at home, she'll sit out on the deck and imagine that the traffic noise from the new 10-lane superslab is the ocean). JB went down for a nap, and after my investigation of the jellyfish, I went for a nice, long walk up the beach.When I got back from my walk, I took the two older girls down to the pool for a swim. Little bit was exhausted, and still sleeping. Elzie sat on the balcony, and was thrilled to see dolphins
swimming in the gulf on several occasions. We swam at the pool for quite a while, as Mom watched and sudokued from the balcony, and the four-year-old slept off the active morning. Eventually Elzie went in to make dinner for us. It was nice to have a home-cooked meal. Libby was especially tired of "eating in restaurants every night."We declared a "TV-free" evening, and passed the time playing cards. JB was thrilled to discover kid books and puzzles along with the board games under the coffee table. Kaybee was very tired, and pushed two chairs together on the balcony and laid on them while listening to the ocean. She reports that this was one of her favorite things that she did while on vacation. It was as peaceful an evening as you can expect to have with three kids in the house.
After the monsters were in bed, I made Pina Coladas, and my wife and I enjoyed a drink from our "fancy" Grande Vista glasses on the balcony. It was cool enough in the evening that we could turn off the air conditioning, open the bedroom windows, and listen to the waves as we slept.
Find out about Day 8...
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Day 6 - Orlando to Fort Walton Beach
Estimated Travel Time: 6 hours, 45 minutes for 429 miles
First, some background information: We had originally made reservations for Jetty East condos in Destin on July 5th, 2005. It took us three months from when we decided where we would stay in Orlando until we decided where we wanted to stay for our "beach vacation". We finally settled on Destin after exhaustive research on TripAdvisor and elsewhere, and a good friend recommended Jetty East to us. We found their website, found a unit that looked good, and called and reserved the room. Within HOURS, honestly, no exaggeration, Tropical Depression 4 became Tropical Storm Dennis. As you know, it became Hurricane Dennis and headed straight for the panhandle as a category 3 storm. The National Weather Service reports that the eye actually made landfall on the terrace of the condo that we had reserved. (Ok, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but not much). Jetty East was clobbered by Dennis, and remains closed as of this writing. They don't expect to reopen until after January of 2006. We were back to square one.
We didn't want much. We needed a two-bedroom, full kitchen condo with a gulf view on an upper floor in a complex with a pool. Family-friendly would be best. Cost was a major factor in our decision - we were trying to stay within our budget.
Eventually, after several more months of research, we settled on the Island Echos condo complex on Fort Walton Beach, just west of Destin. We made reservations on September 24th. When Elzie talked to them, she specifically asked if the pool and tennis courts were operational, and if the beach access was OK. Sure, they said, all repairs were completed as of September 15th.
Within HOURS (again, no exaggeration) TripAdvisor posted a bad review (with pictures) of the place that had been written two days earlier. The review stated that, although management had told them that everything was fine, the traveler had found that a 40-foot section of retaining wall had collapsed and dumped concrete blocks and tons of sand into the pool at Island Echos, there was noisy construction going on, the BBQ grills were missing, there was mildew growing on the walls, etc., etc. We immediately sent ResortQuest (the management company that handles Island Echos) an email message pointing out this information, and asked what was going on. Their reply directed us to contact the reservation office, who had just told us that all the repairs had been completed. Well, ok. The complainer on TripAdvisor had taken his pictures on September 12th, and they said everything was fixed by September 15th, so we assumed everything would be OK, certainly one month later, right?
So, that's where we were as of the morning of Day 6, when we tried desperately to get everything packed up and to vacate the room by 10:00am. We didn't actually make it. We ended up checking out about 10:15am, but luckily they didn't charge us for an extra day. We hit the road, heading north. We stopped at (I love saying it!) Okahumpka again for fuel ($2.79/gallon). We stopped in Gainesville at a McDonalds for lunch so the kids could play in the Playland (and hopefully burn some energy that might otherwise be used to argue with each other in the car). We continued on west through Tallahassee. We stopped at Chatahoochee for fuel ($2.99/gallon) because (you guessed it) I love to say Chatahoochee. "CHATAHOOCHEE!"
At a rest stop on I-10, a creepy thing happened. I hopped out to answer the call of nature. When I got back, I started up the car, and noticed a man standing at my driver's side window. I cracked the window just a bit to see what was his deal. He gave me some story about how he was almost out of fuel, was on his way to Texas with his wife and 2-year-old, and had lost his credit card. He was trying to reach his brother-in-law, but he wasn't able to. If I could "help him out", he would be happy to "get it back" to me. OK. Now this guy was reasonably well dressed and clean shaven and everything, and he was driving a later model Ford Explorer, so he didn't look like a bum. However, there were a few things bothering me. First of all, if he had a cell phone, why didn't he call the credit card company, or the Florida Highway Patrol? Does he only have one credit card? What about cash? Ever hear of an ATM machine? Does his wife not have any credit cards or cash or an ATM card either? You know, if I was sure he was on the level, I might have been happy to give him a few bucks, but I was down to a single $20 bill, and I wasn't about to give him that much, or to leave us with no cash. And quite frankly, I didn't buy his story at all. And I CERTAINLY wasn't going to give him my home address so he could "get it back to me". No sir. So, I told him we didn't have any cash to spare (which was the truth), and he said ok and sorry to bug you and walked away. We boogied out of that rest area and got to movin' on down the road as quickly as we could. From then on, whenever I stopped and the family stayed in the van, I made sure to lock the doors. But I still feel guilty about it - if he was on the level, I would have liked to help him out.
We had a rather scenic drive down Highway 98 through Destin to Fort Walton Beach on Okaloosa Island (and yes, I love saying "Okaloosa" too). We missed one turn on Highway 113, where the highway actually does a left turn for about a half a mile and then turns right again. We went straight, but it didn't take long to figure out that the highway wasn't under us anymore. The dead end sealed the deal, so we turned around and found where we had gone wrong.
There was some storm damage evident in Destin, but not much. It was kind of fun seeing all the places we had read about on the Internet while planning to stay there, but we were looking forward to Fort Walton Beach too.
We all got a bad feeling when we found Island Echos. It looked almost deserted. The parking lot behind the building was full of sand and generally untidy. We decided to get out and check the place out before we checked in this time. That turned out to be a very good decision. The pool looked just as it had in unhappy-traveler's TripAdvisor review - full of sand. The beach didn't look usable - there were huge dunes piled up against the building's retaining wall. The place was a disaster.
There was nobody in the office (which closes at 5:00), so I picked up the "After Hours" phone and dialed the offices of ResortQuest. The lady on the other end told me that she had "just been informed yesterday that the pool was down". What a load of garbage. That pool had been down since Dennis at least, maybe Ivan, and they had already lied to us about it being fixed a month ago. I read her the riot act. Then I let Elzie take the phone and read her the riot act, part II. She offered to put us up at Water's Edge, just down the road. She said it was a new building, and they had a large pool which was operational. It was a more expensive room, but she offered us a 15% discount, which brought the price down to $7 less than our original reservation. We were skeptical, but agreed to check the place out. This, along with our storm history and the poor start at Grande Vista, was leaving us feeling as if a dark cloud were hovering above us.
We piled back in the van, and found Water's Edge. We got the keys to unit #509 from the lock box, and went around back to check out the facilities. The pool looked pretty good, great in fact. The beach was fine, well groomed, sugar white sand, and no debris was obvious. The walkover looked to be in good condition. We found a grassy area with barbecue grills. We located the elevators (after some difficulty), and opened up the unit.
We were relieved to find that it was exactly what Elzie had been hoping for. From her notes: "It was beautifully decorated in yellow and blues with ocean themed accessories. We had a 'guest room' bedroom with a Queen Bed (Libby slept in here) and a bunk room for Kaybee and Little Bit, both with TVs, and a master bedroom & bath that had a screen door to the balcony and a view of the ocean. The balcony had 4 chairs, 2 child chairs and a couple of tables.
"The living room was roomy and stocked with games and books. There was a nice, large kitchen table in the dining area and a beautiful kitchen with granite counters and a washer and dryer. The view of the ocean was perfect. Also in the condo was a small print of Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' - Libby's favorite painting ever since she was in pre-school. This was a good sign that we were in the right place."
She got on the phone with the ResortQuest lady and told her we would take it. I spent the next hour or so lugging baggage up to the fifth floor.
We found a restaurant recommendation for a nearby seafood place called "Floyd's" in the "Welcome to Our Condo" notebook that we discovered in the living room. We decided to give it a shot. We loaded the kids back in the van, and drove about a mile to the Okaloosa Pier area. The restaurant was fine, not crowded at all (it was a bit late, though), and the waitress was very accommodating. The TV was on, and showing the first game of the Cards/Astros NL Championship series (one of the few that they actually won). We all had fish of one sort or another, and it was all great (especially my grilled grouper). We let the girls split a brownie sundae desert.
We then crossed the bridge to the city of Fort Walton to visit the Publix. We stocked up on cereal, lunchmeat, bratwursts, fresh fruit, and beach toys. We were back in the Central Time Zone, which made Elzie happier, as her internal clock never did sync up with the Eastern Zone. We all went to bed anticipating the next day at the beach.
Learn all about Day 7...
First, some background information: We had originally made reservations for Jetty East condos in Destin on July 5th, 2005. It took us three months from when we decided where we would stay in Orlando until we decided where we wanted to stay for our "beach vacation". We finally settled on Destin after exhaustive research on TripAdvisor and elsewhere, and a good friend recommended Jetty East to us. We found their website, found a unit that looked good, and called and reserved the room. Within HOURS, honestly, no exaggeration, Tropical Depression 4 became Tropical Storm Dennis. As you know, it became Hurricane Dennis and headed straight for the panhandle as a category 3 storm. The National Weather Service reports that the eye actually made landfall on the terrace of the condo that we had reserved. (Ok, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but not much). Jetty East was clobbered by Dennis, and remains closed as of this writing. They don't expect to reopen until after January of 2006. We were back to square one.We didn't want much. We needed a two-bedroom, full kitchen condo with a gulf view on an upper floor in a complex with a pool. Family-friendly would be best. Cost was a major factor in our decision - we were trying to stay within our budget.
Eventually, after several more months of research, we settled on the Island Echos condo complex on Fort Walton Beach, just west of Destin. We made reservations on September 24th. When Elzie talked to them, she specifically asked if the pool and tennis courts were operational, and if the beach access was OK. Sure, they said, all repairs were completed as of September 15th.
Within HOURS (again, no exaggeration) TripAdvisor posted a bad review (with pictures) of the place that had been written two days earlier. The review stated that, although management had told them that everything was fine, the traveler had found that a 40-foot section of retaining wall had collapsed and dumped concrete blocks and tons of sand into the pool at Island Echos, there was noisy construction going on, the BBQ grills were missing, there was mildew growing on the walls, etc., etc. We immediately sent ResortQuest (the management company that handles Island Echos) an email message pointing out this information, and asked what was going on. Their reply directed us to contact the reservation office, who had just told us that all the repairs had been completed. Well, ok. The complainer on TripAdvisor had taken his pictures on September 12th, and they said everything was fixed by September 15th, so we assumed everything would be OK, certainly one month later, right?So, that's where we were as of the morning of Day 6, when we tried desperately to get everything packed up and to vacate the room by 10:00am. We didn't actually make it. We ended up checking out about 10:15am, but luckily they didn't charge us for an extra day. We hit the road, heading north. We stopped at (I love saying it!) Okahumpka again for fuel ($2.79/gallon). We stopped in Gainesville at a McDonalds for lunch so the kids could play in the Playland (and hopefully burn some energy that might otherwise be used to argue with each other in the car). We continued on west through Tallahassee. We stopped at Chatahoochee for fuel ($2.99/gallon) because (you guessed it) I love to say Chatahoochee. "CHATAHOOCHEE!"
At a rest stop on I-10, a creepy thing happened. I hopped out to answer the call of nature. When I got back, I started up the car, and noticed a man standing at my driver's side window. I cracked the window just a bit to see what was his deal. He gave me some story about how he was almost out of fuel, was on his way to Texas with his wife and 2-year-old, and had lost his credit card. He was trying to reach his brother-in-law, but he wasn't able to. If I could "help him out", he would be happy to "get it back" to me. OK. Now this guy was reasonably well dressed and clean shaven and everything, and he was driving a later model Ford Explorer, so he didn't look like a bum. However, there were a few things bothering me. First of all, if he had a cell phone, why didn't he call the credit card company, or the Florida Highway Patrol? Does he only have one credit card? What about cash? Ever hear of an ATM machine? Does his wife not have any credit cards or cash or an ATM card either? You know, if I was sure he was on the level, I might have been happy to give him a few bucks, but I was down to a single $20 bill, and I wasn't about to give him that much, or to leave us with no cash. And quite frankly, I didn't buy his story at all. And I CERTAINLY wasn't going to give him my home address so he could "get it back to me". No sir. So, I told him we didn't have any cash to spare (which was the truth), and he said ok and sorry to bug you and walked away. We boogied out of that rest area and got to movin' on down the road as quickly as we could. From then on, whenever I stopped and the family stayed in the van, I made sure to lock the doors. But I still feel guilty about it - if he was on the level, I would have liked to help him out.
We had a rather scenic drive down Highway 98 through Destin to Fort Walton Beach on Okaloosa Island (and yes, I love saying "Okaloosa" too). We missed one turn on Highway 113, where the highway actually does a left turn for about a half a mile and then turns right again. We went straight, but it didn't take long to figure out that the highway wasn't under us anymore. The dead end sealed the deal, so we turned around and found where we had gone wrong.
There was some storm damage evident in Destin, but not much. It was kind of fun seeing all the places we had read about on the Internet while planning to stay there, but we were looking forward to Fort Walton Beach too.
We all got a bad feeling when we found Island Echos. It looked almost deserted. The parking lot behind the building was full of sand and generally untidy. We decided to get out and check the place out before we checked in this time. That turned out to be a very good decision. The pool looked just as it had in unhappy-traveler's TripAdvisor review - full of sand. The beach didn't look usable - there were huge dunes piled up against the building's retaining wall. The place was a disaster.
There was nobody in the office (which closes at 5:00), so I picked up the "After Hours" phone and dialed the offices of ResortQuest. The lady on the other end told me that she had "just been informed yesterday that the pool was down". What a load of garbage. That pool had been down since Dennis at least, maybe Ivan, and they had already lied to us about it being fixed a month ago. I read her the riot act. Then I let Elzie take the phone and read her the riot act, part II. She offered to put us up at Water's Edge, just down the road. She said it was a new building, and they had a large pool which was operational. It was a more expensive room, but she offered us a 15% discount, which brought the price down to $7 less than our original reservation. We were skeptical, but agreed to check the place out. This, along with our storm history and the poor start at Grande Vista, was leaving us feeling as if a dark cloud were hovering above us.
We piled back in the van, and found Water's Edge. We got the keys to unit #509 from the lock box, and went around back to check out the facilities. The pool looked pretty good, great in fact. The beach was fine, well groomed, sugar white sand, and no debris was obvious. The walkover looked to be in good condition. We found a grassy area with barbecue grills. We located the elevators (after some difficulty), and opened up the unit.
We were relieved to find that it was exactly what Elzie had been hoping for. From her notes: "It was beautifully decorated in yellow and blues with ocean themed accessories. We had a 'guest room' bedroom with a Queen Bed (Libby slept in here) and a bunk room for Kaybee and Little Bit, both with TVs, and a master bedroom & bath that had a screen door to the balcony and a view of the ocean. The balcony had 4 chairs, 2 child chairs and a couple of tables.
"The living room was roomy and stocked with games and books. There was a nice, large kitchen table in the dining area and a beautiful kitchen with granite counters and a washer and dryer. The view of the ocean was perfect. Also in the condo was a small print of Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' - Libby's favorite painting ever since she was in pre-school. This was a good sign that we were in the right place."
She got on the phone with the ResortQuest lady and told her we would take it. I spent the next hour or so lugging baggage up to the fifth floor.We found a restaurant recommendation for a nearby seafood place called "Floyd's" in the "Welcome to Our Condo" notebook that we discovered in the living room. We decided to give it a shot. We loaded the kids back in the van, and drove about a mile to the Okaloosa Pier area. The restaurant was fine, not crowded at all (it was a bit late, though), and the waitress was very accommodating. The TV was on, and showing the first game of the Cards/Astros NL Championship series (one of the few that they actually won). We all had fish of one sort or another, and it was all great (especially my grilled grouper). We let the girls split a brownie sundae desert.
We then crossed the bridge to the city of Fort Walton to visit the Publix. We stocked up on cereal, lunchmeat, bratwursts, fresh fruit, and beach toys. We were back in the Central Time Zone, which made Elzie happier, as her internal clock never did sync up with the Eastern Zone. We all went to bed anticipating the next day at the beach.
Learn all about Day 7...
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Day 5 - Birthday at SeaWorld
We decided not to drag the kids out of bed this morning. Forcing the issue didn't seem to work on Disney day, and it left us all stressed until well after we arrived at the park, and we were late anyway. So this morning, we simply reminded the girls that it was SeaWorld day, it was Libby's birthday, and that the quicker they got up, the quicker the fun would begin. This logic failed to penetrate with the girls. We were still late (of course), but we all had a better attitude about it, at least.
Our AAA membership did afford us a small discount on tickets at SeaWorld. However, I still could have purchased a pretty nice guitar with the money that we spent on admission to the park. The girls and their mom stood back near the 'lighthouse' while I gave away the nest egg to Anheuser Busch.Elzie wrote down everything that everyone was wearing, their approximate heights, tattoos, piercings and other distinguishing marks. She was not about to be unprepared for the next disappearance.
Once inside, we were immediately accosted by a park employee with a camera who snapped our picture and let us know where we could purchase it later in the day. Elzie had read that it was good idea to circle the park in a clockwise direction, so that's what we did.After viewing the sea turtles ("I see a turtle!!!" - JB) and the flamingos, we encountered the Stingray Lagoon. These creatures are fascinating. They appear to fly through the water, with flapping wings, a long, spiny tail, and two opposing mouths on either side of their flat bottom surfaces. The rays circled the pool, waiting for the patrons to purchase small dead fish with which to feed them. Elzie did just that, and handed one to each of us. The feeding process is this: you roll your sleeves up, and hold your fish with the tips of your fingers so that it floats upward from the bottom of the tank. A ray then glides over your hand while sucking the fish from your grasp with one side if its mutated, center-hinged mouth. It immediately strips the fish of its flesh and spits the bones out into the water at your hand. The girls were very hesitant to perform this little dance, so I broke the ice. Mom followed suit. (Their mom and I had done this 15 years ago when we had visited SeaWorld once before, so it wasn't nearly as scary to us). The ten-year old was then able to successfully lure a ray toward her, feed it, and was actually bold enough to reach in with her other hand and stroke it's top surface. She reports that rays are "soft and a little bit fuzzy". The other two both wanted desperately to touch a ray, but were both a little bit too fearful. They both dropped their fishes and retreated from the water as the stingrays approached them.
After washing up (thanks, AB, for supplying soap and water next to the dead fish purchasing venue), we went to the Dolphin and Whale Show. The girls insisted on sitting in the "splash zone". Elzie, JB and I choose to take seats several rows up, where we could remain dry and still keep an eye on the other two girls. 15 years ago, this was a simple exhibit of dolphins and pilot whales, with a marginally interesting commentary from a single trainer. The animals did jumps and flips and so forth. This has all changed. Now it is like a Broadway musical, with costume changes and an elaborate set. There are about 20 trainers/actors/dancers involved in the show, and they are all fully costumed. There is a lot of diving and swimming and swinging from ropes and climbing and more diving. The animals still do their tricks, splash the audience, and push the trainers around the tank. There's just a lot more activity going on in the background now.
At one point, a cast member was hoisted out of the water by a crane, and she then "flew" over the heads of the audience members on some sort of overhead track. The dolphins, of course, jumped and flipped and waved and danced on their tails through this whole show. At one point, several parrots and macaws were released that swooped over the stage and over the heads of the audience members.Then the "story" turned dark. The dolphins swam to the holding area behind the stage, and black, snub-nosed pilot whales replaced them. A vulture (or buzzard, or some other black, ugly, menacing looking creature) was released from the back of the stadium, and it flew onto the stage. The divers costumes changed to all black. (These folks were all muscle, by the way - you could see the six packs poking through their costumes - even the women looked like they could easily kick my butt in a bar fight). They continued to dive and swing on ropes and do a trapeze act and get pushed around by the whales, but now to a more menacing soundtrack. Then, something happened, and the rainbow divers were back. The dolphins came back out, the macaws and parrots flew again, and the music turned happy and triumphant. Splash, flip, dive, applause, and the show was over.
The girls were somewhat disappointed that they did not get drenched during the show. We assured them that the Orca Show would afford them plenty of opportunity to get splashed.
We then saw a short film about manatees and how they have become endangered. After the film, we moved to an underwater viewing area where we were able to see several live manatees. At least, I think they were alive. It's hard to tell, because they don't actually do anything, like swim, or move, or respirate as near as I could tell. They looked like huge floating... well, politeness precludes me from verbalizing that thought, but look at the photo and you tell me what they look like. The whole crowd came alive with excitement when one of them moved a flipper.We then visited the underwater viewing area at the dolphin tank. Elzie loves dolphins. The kids seemed to love them too. After watching them from below for a while, we visited the tank above ground. I purchased more dead fish for the family to feed to the dolphins. This was Elzie's favorite part of the day. She says, "A dolphin just always seem to have a happy look on its face." Unlike the dolphins in the show, these animals did not jump around so much.
We walked by something called the Lost Atlantis ride. It was a cross between a log flume and a roller coaster. Libby asked if we could ride it. This shocked Elzie, as Libby rarely expresses an interest in riding these types of rides (ever since Elzie took her on the "Waterboggan" ride at Silver Dollar City when she was about three years old). Elzie loves these things, so she agreed right away. JB was too small to ride, so I agreed to wait with her while the older girls rode. The wait was posted at the entrance as 30 minutes, but they waited no more than 10. While waiting, potential riders are warned that the ride will start out dark and scary, and then will proceed to get darker and scarier. Libby and Kaybee were getting nervous. Mom promised to ride next to Libby, but at the last minute, the positions switched (the girls wanted to be in lane 8, since it was Libby's 8th birthday), and the two sisters rode together, and mom was stuck in a seat by herself. The family in the first two seats of the "log" got soaked, but our girls, in the back of the "log", only got wet feet. The girls didn't enjoy the ride nearly as much as their mom did.
Next to the water ride was an aquarium with lots of different reef exhibits. There were clown fish, and jellyfish, lion and scorpion fish, and little yellow-headed gobies and so forth. One tank had a computer screen behind it, upon which danced the image of a mermaid. In one area there was a tank in the ceiling, like a circular skylight. Hammerhead sharks swam in circles in this tank. Spooky. The most amazing exhibit was the leaf dragon, which looked like a large, pale sea horse with leafy appendages all over it. It looked like a water plant that you might see floating among the seaweed. We all agreed that we had never seen anything quite like it.We had lunch at a BBQ restaurant that was pretty good. The girls all ordered a "kids meal" that came in a plastic Shamu lunch box. It was a cute souvenir, but they were bulky and a real pain to carry around for the rest of the day. The outdoor tables at the restaurant attracted plenty of birds looking for food.
Elzie had the presence of mind to bring dry socks for the girls. After the Whale and Dolphin show and Lost Atlantis ride, it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of this bit of planning. The girls changed while I bought the food.
We crammed in a visit to the "Terrors of the Deep" exhibit between lunch and the Shamu show. Elzie and I remember this most vividly from our previous visit. It begins with a simple aquarium exhibit featuring "scary" fish like barracuda, spiny puffers, etc. We whooshed through this area, being short of time. Then came the real show - a people-mover (sort of a flat escalator) which takes you through a plexiglass tunnel through a huge aquarium filled with live sharks of all varieties. Elzie recalls having a fear of an ill-timed earthquake while in the tunnel. The girls, not having seen that movie, were less impressed with the whole thing.
We then trekked across much of the park to reach Shamu Stadium. This place is bigger than a lot of minor league ball parks. We arrived late (what a surprise!), and could only find dry seats at the edge of the park, near the top of the "splash zone". We had seen this show before, so we knew what we were in for. The girls ran down and got a seat in the second or third row. They wanted to get wet.
The show is pretty much the same as it was 15 years ago. First, they warn you that anyone seated in the first 14 rows (!) will get "very wet". Nobody moves. Then a small orca comes out, does some flips, jumps, mugs for the audience, pushes the trainer around the tank, etc. They reiterate "you guys up front are about to get wet!". Nobody moves. The orca swims around the front of the tank, using his tail to intentionally splash water over many of the folks seated in the first five rows. Our girls stayed dry.
Then they give a stern warning - "We really mean it this time - it's going to be wet up front in just a couple of minutes!" Nobody moves. Then the big boy, Shamu, comes out. This is one huge aquatic mammal. He's twice as big as the previous orca, as big as a city bus. He does all the tricks, flips, waves with his flipper, propels his trainer into the air, etc. Then they make an announcement: "Anyone sitting in the front 14 rows with video equipment, or expensive cameras - they will get ruined.". Then Shamu does the same thing as the smaller orca - swims around the front arc of the tank, using his tail to splash the audience. Only this time, EVERYONE gets soaked. Each swing of his tail dumps 200 gallons of water out of the tank, and it does reach folks seated probably as high as the 10th row. Most everyone jumps up at this time and finds seats higher in the stadium, on the steps, if necessary. When he came around to our side of the stadium, and that cold, salty seawater hit our two girls, they popped up like two corks and ran to sit next to us. We just cracked up.
After the Shamu show, we visited the best attraction at the park: Free Beer. The Hospitality Room is such a great idea, and is the main reason why I prefer Anheuser Busch theme parks to any other. Elzie and I got in separate lines, and the best thing I found in my line was the new Bud Select. It tasted pretty much like regular Bud, Bud Light, Bud Ice, etc. Elzie walked away from her line with an Amber Bock. Hey! I didn't know they had Amber Bock! So I threw mine away (down my throat, as there was no other receptacle convenient), and got in the "right" line to get one for me. You are supposed to limit yourself to two samples, but I figured that first one didn't count. After Elzie and I both finished our second Bock, she took the girls to the playground, and convinced me to sign up for "Beer School" at the Hospitality building. This turned out to be little more than a marketing opportunity, but the sting was lessened by (you guessed it) more free beer. Just two-swallow samples this time, all Bud - 6 different varieties, including one stale sample (which didn't taste much different, to be honest), and also including the new B-to-the-E beer spiked with ginseng, ecanachia, caffeine and raspberry flavor. Yuck! After "school", I was supposed to meet the girls outside, but they were running late. So, I ducked back inside and bought a pretzel from the Deli to wash away that nasty raspberry beer taste. And you can't really have a pretzel without an Amber Bock, right?
After the girls met me sitting outside the Hospitality Room, we went back to the play area (which is called Shamu's Happy Village or something like that). There was a large pyramid with a rope that JB loved to climb, slide down, climb up again. I forked over some quarters for the girls to drive the remote-controlled trucks and boats. There was an overhead climbing area, which Libby and Kaybee promptly disappeared into, and JB played in the sand. We tried to tell her that we would soon be on the beach, with sand as far as the eye could see, but she was happy, and we were relaxing, so all was well.
The park was thinning out by now, but we wanted to try the "Wild Arctic" attraction before calling it a day. There were two paths through the exhibit, one which had "rider restrictions" and one which did not. The big girls took the restricted path, and my 4-year-old buddy and I took the unrestricted path. We were herded into a smallish room with a movie screen, where we viewed an Imax-like film of an arctic helicopter ride. I say "Imax-like" because there was plenty of swooping and flying through cravasses and so forth. I was imagining that the rest of my family was being subjected to the same film, only occupying a room which shook and swooped and dipped along with the film. I was right. After the film, we visited a very interesting exhibit which included beluga whales, walruses, and a polar bear. We were able to view these animals first from above, then later from an underwater viewing area. The attraction's exit conveniently becomes the entrance of the Wild Arctic Souvenir shop. Little bit and I had to wait for the big girls, so we loitered a bit here. JB immediately found a plush polar bear (very soft), and fell in love with it. She carried it around the entire store. When the big girls arrived, Elzie and I decided it was time to buy them something to remember the day, so they each picked out a stuffed animal to take home. (Just what we need, more stuffed animals. We already have more varieties than live at the zoo!). JB kept the polar bear (which she named "Flippy"), Kaybee picked a beluga whale (also named "Flippy"), and Libby chose an orca (named "Shamu", a.k.a. "Flippy").
Elzie picked up a refrigerator magnet, and we were on our way home. On the way out, we picked up the very overpriced digital photo that was snapped by the SeaWorld employee as we entered the park.We did a lot at SeaWorld, but we missed a lot too, as we discovered on the long walk to the park exit. Elzie wanted to ride the Kraken rollercoaster - we missed the penguin exhibit, Key West, the rainforest, sea lions, the Sea Lion and Otter show, the Pet show, and several other things. There's some deal where you can arrange to attend a second day on your single-day ticket (for an extra cost, is my guess), but we were starting the second leg of our trip, so we couldn't take advantage of that. But we all agree that we wouldn't mind returning to SeaWorld some day.
It was still reasonably early when we returned to the "Villa". Libby opened her birthday presents, and we all put on our suits and visited the pool complex behind the office. I ordered some pizzas from the "Pizza Hut Express" at the main complex. We swam, played, and ate pizza until late in the evening. Then we returned to the condo, got packed up, and rested up for the long drive ahead of us. Goodbye Grande Vista!Onward to Day 6...
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Day 4 - Marriott's Grande Vista
Everyone slept in this morning. The girlies slept in very late, and as soon as they woke up they immediately turned on the TV to watch "cable shows". We had breakfast, relaxed around the condo, had some sandwiches for lunch, then tore the girls away from the TV (kicking and screaming) to go for a walk around the grounds. We visited the three open pools to see which one we would grace with our presence for the afternoon.
The first pool was in our building complex. It was nice, sort of plain, and very sedate. Nobody was in the water - they were all laying on lounge chairs, reading books, soaking in the sun. Needless to say, there were no kids at this pool. The spa was roped off, out of commission. Water was flowing over the edge onto the concrete around it. We were getting some subtle glares from the boring pool patrons (I guess we were making too much noise), so we decided to move on. The kids were starting to warm up to the idea of going swimming, and seemed less put out about missing the afternoon lineup on the Disney Channel.
The second pool complex we visited was the one right behind the main office. It was much bigger, with a lap pool, a huge main pool, a kiddie pool (why is the water always green in these pools? Don't answer, I don't wanna know...), and several hot tubs. There was also one of those fountains that shoot up right out of the ground for the kids to play in. This looked pretty promising, but we didn't want to box ourselves into a decision until we had checked out the remaining pool.
We crossed a long foot bridge over the pond (the signs said "Please Don't Feed the Alligators". They're just joking, right?) to visit the most remote set of pools from our condo. This complex had a waterfall, a play area with water cannons and a gradual entry, two pools, and a couple of hot tubs. It also boasted a full-service bar with drinks and hot snacks. We decided that this was the one for us. We walked all the way back to our condo, changed into our suits, and headed back.
(Admission of ignorance here: the gradual entry at the pool's play area was marked with a sign that said "Oft Om". I thought, "Hmmm. What is that? Is it german for "No Running" or something? Have you figured it out? It actually was "0 ft. 0 m.", as in Zero Feet, Zero Meters. Duh.)
It was another hot day, so the water felt great. The kids started splashing around while the adults settled in to lounge chairs with books. Elzie sent me to the bar and told me to come back with "something with a pineapple in it". A frozen Pina Colada did the trick. I had a frozen Margarita which really hit the spot. They came in clear plastic souvenir glasses. Refills were supposed to be available at a discount, but you guessed it, we only had the one drink.
We spent most of the afternoon at the pool, and the kids had a great time. Elzie and I actually got a chance to read our books. Eventually, the youngest got tired and fell asleep, so we decided it was time to head back. The long walk back to the condo was even longer carrying the dead weight of a sleeping 4-year-old. We put her to bed, and the other two fell immediately into the spell of the television. We made a dinner of lasagna, salad, fresh fruit, and "Cuban" bread (which was remarkably similar to French bread). Baby girl slept through dinner.
After dinner, Elzie took Libby to a "family campfire" activity. (Kaybee was much more interested in the TV, and I stayed behind to feed Little-bit when she decided to wake up.) They had a good time, making smores and listening to a man play the guitar and sing campfire songs, and tell "scary" stories. On the way back, they stopped to investigate the main building, and stumbled across an indoor kids playground, with a wide slide that kids could ride down on boogie boards. They later encountered a young woman in the KIDS program area. Libby spotted a sand art machine, and although she had not signed up for the KIDS program, the lady let her make a necklace pendant (in the shape of a frog) if she promised to "keep it a secret". OOPS. Sorry, the cat's out of the bag now.
All in all, this was a very relaxing and fun day. Tomorrow, we were going to have another Theme Park Marathon at SeaWorld...
Read the Day 5 entry...
The first pool was in our building complex. It was nice, sort of plain, and very sedate. Nobody was in the water - they were all laying on lounge chairs, reading books, soaking in the sun. Needless to say, there were no kids at this pool. The spa was roped off, out of commission. Water was flowing over the edge onto the concrete around it. We were getting some subtle glares from the boring pool patrons (I guess we were making too much noise), so we decided to move on. The kids were starting to warm up to the idea of going swimming, and seemed less put out about missing the afternoon lineup on the Disney Channel.
The second pool complex we visited was the one right behind the main office. It was much bigger, with a lap pool, a huge main pool, a kiddie pool (why is the water always green in these pools? Don't answer, I don't wanna know...), and several hot tubs. There was also one of those fountains that shoot up right out of the ground for the kids to play in. This looked pretty promising, but we didn't want to box ourselves into a decision until we had checked out the remaining pool.
We crossed a long foot bridge over the pond (the signs said "Please Don't Feed the Alligators". They're just joking, right?) to visit the most remote set of pools from our condo. This complex had a waterfall, a play area with water cannons and a gradual entry, two pools, and a couple of hot tubs. It also boasted a full-service bar with drinks and hot snacks. We decided that this was the one for us. We walked all the way back to our condo, changed into our suits, and headed back.
(Admission of ignorance here: the gradual entry at the pool's play area was marked with a sign that said "Oft Om". I thought, "Hmmm. What is that? Is it german for "No Running" or something? Have you figured it out? It actually was "0 ft. 0 m.", as in Zero Feet, Zero Meters. Duh.)
It was another hot day, so the water felt great. The kids started splashing around while the adults settled in to lounge chairs with books. Elzie sent me to the bar and told me to come back with "something with a pineapple in it". A frozen Pina Colada did the trick. I had a frozen Margarita which really hit the spot. They came in clear plastic souvenir glasses. Refills were supposed to be available at a discount, but you guessed it, we only had the one drink.
We spent most of the afternoon at the pool, and the kids had a great time. Elzie and I actually got a chance to read our books. Eventually, the youngest got tired and fell asleep, so we decided it was time to head back. The long walk back to the condo was even longer carrying the dead weight of a sleeping 4-year-old. We put her to bed, and the other two fell immediately into the spell of the television. We made a dinner of lasagna, salad, fresh fruit, and "Cuban" bread (which was remarkably similar to French bread). Baby girl slept through dinner.After dinner, Elzie took Libby to a "family campfire" activity. (Kaybee was much more interested in the TV, and I stayed behind to feed Little-bit when she decided to wake up.) They had a good time, making smores and listening to a man play the guitar and sing campfire songs, and tell "scary" stories. On the way back, they stopped to investigate the main building, and stumbled across an indoor kids playground, with a wide slide that kids could ride down on boogie boards. They later encountered a young woman in the KIDS program area. Libby spotted a sand art machine, and although she had not signed up for the KIDS program, the lady let her make a necklace pendant (in the shape of a frog) if she promised to "keep it a secret". OOPS. Sorry, the cat's out of the bag now.
All in all, this was a very relaxing and fun day. Tomorrow, we were going to have another Theme Park Marathon at SeaWorld...
Read the Day 5 entry...
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Day 3 - Magic Kingdom
Our condo package included two adult, one-day tickets to any Disney park. Elzie and the kids had decided that we would visit the Magic Kingdom (Elzie and I had visited Epcot years ago, and while we found it very interesting, we thought the kids would enjoy the Magic Kingdom more.) We had planned on being there when the park opened at 9:00am, but the girls were impossible to wake up, having stayed up late watching the Disney Channel in their half of the condo. After a quick breakfast in the condo, Elzie packed frozen bottled water and a bag of bagles in our STL Zoo cooler/backpack, and we loaded up the van and headed out.
I was suprised at how far away from everything Wally World actually is. It took a good 20 minutes to drive there, and our condo was really on the south end of the "strip" that is International Drive. Once we reached the complex, it took a bit more time to make our way to the Magic Kingdom. It's amazing how much of Florida has become the private property of Disney Corp. It's almost scary. It's like entering The Vatican, a country within a country with it's own infrastructure, customs, and laws.
We received a "Diamond Club" parking voucher from AAA (about the only tangible benefit to our membership for this trip, besides a handful of road maps). This afforded us a reasonably close parking spot, next to the handicapped lot. We walked to the ticketing/transportation center to buy our extra tickets.
Getting into Wally World aint cheap. We looked for discount tickets, but just about everyone who we talked to basically laughed at us when we told them we were only interested in single day tickets. If you want to commit to a multi-day, park-hopper, gold-star, Disney addict package, then you can get a discount. Otherwise, you pay full price. We weren't going to be in Orlando long enough to spend more than a day enjoying their brand of hospitality. By the way, a 10-year-old is an adult in the eyes of Disney Corp, so we had to purchase two children and one more adult ticket. ka-CHING.
Once we got past the cash register, the kids were excited to see the Monorail which was available to transport the patrons and their now lighter wallets into the parks themselves. The girls were on the lookout for "hidden Mickeys", and spotted a topiary mouse right away.
Elzie asked the opinion of a "cast member", who suggested we take the ferry boat across to the Magic Kingdom, and save the speedier but less scenic Monorail ride for the trip back. We boarded the "Sargeant Joe Potter" and crossed the pond to the Theme Park. Kaybee remembers seeing Cinderella's Castle from the ferry boat on the trip over - I think that's when they finally realized that we were actually there.
Elzie stopped to rent a stroller immediately after disembarking from Sgt. Joe. $10 for the day (No, it wasn't motorized or made of solid gold or anything). It came in very handy most of the day for transporting our backpack cooler. The four-year-old wasn't having anything to do with it, however. She screamed as if we were torturing her whenever we tried to force her to ride in it. (The 7-year-old did get a ride in it on our way out of the park that evening...)
Finally we were in! We headed for Fantasyland, per Elzie's master plan. The youngest spotted the carousel right away and decided that was for her. All the girls rode while Arby parked the stroller (the main activity for the stroller was parking it and retrieving it). We grabbed a "FastPass" for the Peter Pan ride, and waited in line for the flying Dumbos. It was beastly hot and humid, so we broke out the frozen water bottles while waiting in line. I was worried that they might still be solid blocks of ice, but I needn't have. They had melted quite nicely. We also enjoyed mini raisin/cinnamon bagles from the cooler bag. Bringing those was a great idea - score one more point for Elzie. 
7-year-old wasn't sure she wanted to ride the flying Dumbos. In fact, she was quite sure she was NOT going to. 20-30 minutes later, when we finally got close to the ride, she changed her mind and agreed to sit with her Mom. Little bit and number-one-daughter sat together, and Dad snuck out to the exit to avoid flying alone in his own baby elephant. I could just imagine a pained look on Dumbo's face as he struggled to bear my weight and remain airborne.
We spent most of the morning in Fantasyland, riding Peter Pan, Small World, and the teacup ride. We took short side trips into Frontierland and Adventureland, but mostly hovered around Fantasyland, which had most of the rides our younger kids wanted to ride. The FastPass thing was handy - with careful planning, we were able to wait in-person for one ride while simultaneously and virtually waiting in another line with the FastPass.
The park was unbelievably crowded, especially in Fantasyland, where you could barely push your way across the street. We expected the crowds in October to be less than during the summer. We later were reminded that it was Columbus Day weekend, which means nothing to me, but many schools and some businesses are on a three-day weekend for Columbus Day. It was also a Sunday, so maybe we should have planned to go on Tuesday.
Eldest daughter says she enjoyed the Dumbo ride, but next time would choose instead to ride the Magic Carpet ride in Adventureland. It's the same ride, basically, but the lines are shorter for the Magic Carpet ride. Even Dad rode that one (for some reason, three of us squeezed onto one carpet. Some strong magic, indeed!)
We had lunch at Pecos Bill's in Frontierland, which was basically just a hamburger joint, but they had a great "works" bar, including freshly grilled onions and mushrooms. The big girls split a double cheeseburger, which was plenty of food for them. The grownups got single burgers (cheapest menu item) with carrot sticks instead of french fries. We had a virtual salad from the works bar of shredded lettuce, tomatoes, onions and mushrooms. Youngest had a cold chicken dinner with fries, all of which she spurned. We ended up carrying most of it around in our cooler for the rest of the day. (We eventually threw it away just before we left for the beach!) The place was very crowded, and we were unable to find a table in the air conditioning, so we eventually settled for a small table outside. It was in the shade, but still hot. We were accompanied for lunch by a large, white, stork-like bird who apparently had developed a taste for french fries. The girls thought it was very cool.
Afternoon found us wringing wet from the heat and humidity, and we started to frequent the indoor shows. We visited Mickey's Philharmagic, which we all enjoyed. It's a 3-D movie (you are issued polarized 3-D glasses on the way in, which don't give you vertigo like the red/blue variety). In addition, your other senses are stimulated with smells (apple pie!), lightening flashes, puffs of "wind", and splashes of water at appropriate times in the 'story'. We all agreed that this was the one attraction worth doing again.
We also took in the "Enchanted Tiki Room" show, which was an animatronic musical review featuring parrots and other birds, including a "Tiki God". Number-one-daughter was creeped out by the animatronics. But the air conditioning was wonderful. The show included a number of recognizable voices, including Phil Hartmann and Don Rickles in the pre-show warm-up, and Gilbert Godfried reprising his role from Aladdin. The walls came alive at one point, when integrated totem poles started singing doo-wop tunes.
Mom really liked the "Small World" ride. Arby thought it was like a bad experience with psycho-active mushrooms.
After visiting the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, we stumbled upon a parade in Frontierland where all the princesses and many other characters drove by in huge plastic bubbles (a la Pope-mobile). I allowed seven-year-old to view the show on my shoulders. Man was I sore afterwards - but it gave me an excuse to fire up the jacuzzi again!
We rode the train around the park, and stopped to play at the play area next to the train station for just a little while. We also visited "Minnie's House", which was somewhat bizzarre.
Four-year-old kept asking when Cinderella was "going to be home". We finally made it to the afternoon "Cinderellabration" show. It was a play, ostensibly detailing the Cinderella story immediately after the "happily ever after" cop-out ending. We witnessed a re-enactment of the coronation of Cinderella as Princess of Charmingland, and all the other Princesses were invited (including Jas-a-min from Arabia, Snow White, and even Ariel from the ocean depths). The kids and mom really seemed to enjoy this, but eldest angel was getting tired and was less than patient with the grown ups who kept standing to block her view (especially Mr. Black-haired dude in the black shirt who had apparently lost the ability to bend at the waist).
We went around the castle after the show to research having dinner in the castle. Well, it turns out that you need to make reservations way ahead of time to do that. So, we discussed it for a while, and decided to head back through the castle and down the steps to Futureland, for a ride on the Buzz Lightyear ride. At the bottom of the steps, Elzie noticed that our family was one short. Seven-year-old had grown bored with the discussion and her attention wandered off before the conclusion. Somehow she didn't make the trip through the castle, and when she found herself alone, she had no clue where we were headed. We had been herding these kids like border collies all day, and it was only inevitable that one would slip through. Elzie tracked down a uniformed security guard and explained the situation. I retraced our steps up to the Cinderella restaurant, hoping that middle child would take that route. I didn't find her, but when I returned to the castle, she was there with the security guard and Elzie. What a relief! She had wandered off toward the carousel, started crying, and caught the attention of a kind park patron who handed her off to a cast member. Elzie found her walking back to the castle with this large, black man named Sydney, snatched her and hugged her, then hugged Sydney, then hugged the security guard. She was hugging everyone in sight. Libby got a hug from her Dad too. Unfortunately, the experience didn't sharpen anyone's desire to remain unlost, and we had to redouble our efforts to keep track of the brood for the rest of the evening.
After that, we ventured to Futureland to ride the Buzz Lightyear ride. The kids were wearing out at this point. This was another opportunity to enjoy air conditioning. The ride itself was something about shooting aliens with laser cannons or something like that, but I do vividly recall that the air was nice and cool.
It was time to start thinking about dinner - it was past 7:00 by now, and the kids were tired and hungry. Eldest developed a "leg cramp", and I had to go in search of Tylenol for her. All of the "real" restaurants had run out of seating by this point in the evening. If you go, and you plan to eat at a sit-down restaurant for dinner, make plans well ahead of time. Nobody had shared this bit of a posteriori knowledge with us, so we had to settle for a small cafe table on main street. We ended up eating hot dogs and ice cream while the sun set and we watched the parade up Main Street to the castle. (There was a chinese place up the steps from us, and the food actually looked pretty good, but nobody was in the mood for chinese after last night's fiasco.)
We weren't right on the street, but we had a pretty good view, and Elzie decided that we were also in an excellent position to view the upcoming fireworks, as we had a clear view of the castle. So we camped out at that table for the next two hours, just resting, relaxing, eating junk food, and waiting for the fireworks show. We practically had to force the kids to stay there - they had had enough and were hot and tired and ready to head for home. "Sit down here and eat your ice cream!"
Cinderella's castle was lit with colored flood lights for the parade, and the lights kept changing hue throughout the festivities. The floats were all lit up, so it was easy to spot them from our viewpoint. After the parade, we sat and waited for at least 45 minutes for the fireworks show to start. Just before 9:00, Elzie decided she had to have some popcorn, so she left with the eldest. Of course, the show started while she was waiting in the long, slow-moving popcorn line. She missed a good 15 minutes of fireworks - I couldn't believe that she was missing it after 1.5 hours of fending off people wanting to steal our chairs, here I was sitting there during the show not using them. Anyway, she did eventually make it back to watch the show.
After the fireworks, everyone did the same thing as us - headed for the exit. We turned in our stroller, and headed for the Monorail. The line was UNBELIEVABLY long, and we were sure we were in for a two hour wait. We were all very impressed with the organization and speed with which everyone was loaded into the train and whisked away. It wasn't a bad wait at all.
Finally, at around 11:00pm, we made it back to Grande Vista. Everyone slept long and well that evening, as we had planned nothing but relaxation for the following day.
What did we do on Day 4?...
I was suprised at how far away from everything Wally World actually is. It took a good 20 minutes to drive there, and our condo was really on the south end of the "strip" that is International Drive. Once we reached the complex, it took a bit more time to make our way to the Magic Kingdom. It's amazing how much of Florida has become the private property of Disney Corp. It's almost scary. It's like entering The Vatican, a country within a country with it's own infrastructure, customs, and laws.
We received a "Diamond Club" parking voucher from AAA (about the only tangible benefit to our membership for this trip, besides a handful of road maps). This afforded us a reasonably close parking spot, next to the handicapped lot. We walked to the ticketing/transportation center to buy our extra tickets.
Getting into Wally World aint cheap. We looked for discount tickets, but just about everyone who we talked to basically laughed at us when we told them we were only interested in single day tickets. If you want to commit to a multi-day, park-hopper, gold-star, Disney addict package, then you can get a discount. Otherwise, you pay full price. We weren't going to be in Orlando long enough to spend more than a day enjoying their brand of hospitality. By the way, a 10-year-old is an adult in the eyes of Disney Corp, so we had to purchase two children and one more adult ticket. ka-CHING.Once we got past the cash register, the kids were excited to see the Monorail which was available to transport the patrons and their now lighter wallets into the parks themselves. The girls were on the lookout for "hidden Mickeys", and spotted a topiary mouse right away.
Elzie asked the opinion of a "cast member", who suggested we take the ferry boat across to the Magic Kingdom, and save the speedier but less scenic Monorail ride for the trip back. We boarded the "Sargeant Joe Potter" and crossed the pond to the Theme Park. Kaybee remembers seeing Cinderella's Castle from the ferry boat on the trip over - I think that's when they finally realized that we were actually there.Elzie stopped to rent a stroller immediately after disembarking from Sgt. Joe. $10 for the day (No, it wasn't motorized or made of solid gold or anything). It came in very handy most of the day for transporting our backpack cooler. The four-year-old wasn't having anything to do with it, however. She screamed as if we were torturing her whenever we tried to force her to ride in it. (The 7-year-old did get a ride in it on our way out of the park that evening...)
Finally we were in! We headed for Fantasyland, per Elzie's master plan. The youngest spotted the carousel right away and decided that was for her. All the girls rode while Arby parked the stroller (the main activity for the stroller was parking it and retrieving it). We grabbed a "FastPass" for the Peter Pan ride, and waited in line for the flying Dumbos. It was beastly hot and humid, so we broke out the frozen water bottles while waiting in line. I was worried that they might still be solid blocks of ice, but I needn't have. They had melted quite nicely. We also enjoyed mini raisin/cinnamon bagles from the cooler bag. Bringing those was a great idea - score one more point for Elzie. 
7-year-old wasn't sure she wanted to ride the flying Dumbos. In fact, she was quite sure she was NOT going to. 20-30 minutes later, when we finally got close to the ride, she changed her mind and agreed to sit with her Mom. Little bit and number-one-daughter sat together, and Dad snuck out to the exit to avoid flying alone in his own baby elephant. I could just imagine a pained look on Dumbo's face as he struggled to bear my weight and remain airborne. We spent most of the morning in Fantasyland, riding Peter Pan, Small World, and the teacup ride. We took short side trips into Frontierland and Adventureland, but mostly hovered around Fantasyland, which had most of the rides our younger kids wanted to ride. The FastPass thing was handy - with careful planning, we were able to wait in-person for one ride while simultaneously and virtually waiting in another line with the FastPass.
The park was unbelievably crowded, especially in Fantasyland, where you could barely push your way across the street. We expected the crowds in October to be less than during the summer. We later were reminded that it was Columbus Day weekend, which means nothing to me, but many schools and some businesses are on a three-day weekend for Columbus Day. It was also a Sunday, so maybe we should have planned to go on Tuesday.
Eldest daughter says she enjoyed the Dumbo ride, but next time would choose instead to ride the Magic Carpet ride in Adventureland. It's the same ride, basically, but the lines are shorter for the Magic Carpet ride. Even Dad rode that one (for some reason, three of us squeezed onto one carpet. Some strong magic, indeed!)
We had lunch at Pecos Bill's in Frontierland, which was basically just a hamburger joint, but they had a great "works" bar, including freshly grilled onions and mushrooms. The big girls split a double cheeseburger, which was plenty of food for them. The grownups got single burgers (cheapest menu item) with carrot sticks instead of french fries. We had a virtual salad from the works bar of shredded lettuce, tomatoes, onions and mushrooms. Youngest had a cold chicken dinner with fries, all of which she spurned. We ended up carrying most of it around in our cooler for the rest of the day. (We eventually threw it away just before we left for the beach!) The place was very crowded, and we were unable to find a table in the air conditioning, so we eventually settled for a small table outside. It was in the shade, but still hot. We were accompanied for lunch by a large, white, stork-like bird who apparently had developed a taste for french fries. The girls thought it was very cool.Afternoon found us wringing wet from the heat and humidity, and we started to frequent the indoor shows. We visited Mickey's Philharmagic, which we all enjoyed. It's a 3-D movie (you are issued polarized 3-D glasses on the way in, which don't give you vertigo like the red/blue variety). In addition, your other senses are stimulated with smells (apple pie!), lightening flashes, puffs of "wind", and splashes of water at appropriate times in the 'story'. We all agreed that this was the one attraction worth doing again.
We also took in the "Enchanted Tiki Room" show, which was an animatronic musical review featuring parrots and other birds, including a "Tiki God". Number-one-daughter was creeped out by the animatronics. But the air conditioning was wonderful. The show included a number of recognizable voices, including Phil Hartmann and Don Rickles in the pre-show warm-up, and Gilbert Godfried reprising his role from Aladdin. The walls came alive at one point, when integrated totem poles started singing doo-wop tunes.
Mom really liked the "Small World" ride. Arby thought it was like a bad experience with psycho-active mushrooms.
After visiting the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, we stumbled upon a parade in Frontierland where all the princesses and many other characters drove by in huge plastic bubbles (a la Pope-mobile). I allowed seven-year-old to view the show on my shoulders. Man was I sore afterwards - but it gave me an excuse to fire up the jacuzzi again!
We rode the train around the park, and stopped to play at the play area next to the train station for just a little while. We also visited "Minnie's House", which was somewhat bizzarre.
Four-year-old kept asking when Cinderella was "going to be home". We finally made it to the afternoon "Cinderellabration" show. It was a play, ostensibly detailing the Cinderella story immediately after the "happily ever after" cop-out ending. We witnessed a re-enactment of the coronation of Cinderella as Princess of Charmingland, and all the other Princesses were invited (including Jas-a-min from Arabia, Snow White, and even Ariel from the ocean depths). The kids and mom really seemed to enjoy this, but eldest angel was getting tired and was less than patient with the grown ups who kept standing to block her view (especially Mr. Black-haired dude in the black shirt who had apparently lost the ability to bend at the waist).We went around the castle after the show to research having dinner in the castle. Well, it turns out that you need to make reservations way ahead of time to do that. So, we discussed it for a while, and decided to head back through the castle and down the steps to Futureland, for a ride on the Buzz Lightyear ride. At the bottom of the steps, Elzie noticed that our family was one short. Seven-year-old had grown bored with the discussion and her attention wandered off before the conclusion. Somehow she didn't make the trip through the castle, and when she found herself alone, she had no clue where we were headed. We had been herding these kids like border collies all day, and it was only inevitable that one would slip through. Elzie tracked down a uniformed security guard and explained the situation. I retraced our steps up to the Cinderella restaurant, hoping that middle child would take that route. I didn't find her, but when I returned to the castle, she was there with the security guard and Elzie. What a relief! She had wandered off toward the carousel, started crying, and caught the attention of a kind park patron who handed her off to a cast member. Elzie found her walking back to the castle with this large, black man named Sydney, snatched her and hugged her, then hugged Sydney, then hugged the security guard. She was hugging everyone in sight. Libby got a hug from her Dad too. Unfortunately, the experience didn't sharpen anyone's desire to remain unlost, and we had to redouble our efforts to keep track of the brood for the rest of the evening.
After that, we ventured to Futureland to ride the Buzz Lightyear ride. The kids were wearing out at this point. This was another opportunity to enjoy air conditioning. The ride itself was something about shooting aliens with laser cannons or something like that, but I do vividly recall that the air was nice and cool.
It was time to start thinking about dinner - it was past 7:00 by now, and the kids were tired and hungry. Eldest developed a "leg cramp", and I had to go in search of Tylenol for her. All of the "real" restaurants had run out of seating by this point in the evening. If you go, and you plan to eat at a sit-down restaurant for dinner, make plans well ahead of time. Nobody had shared this bit of a posteriori knowledge with us, so we had to settle for a small cafe table on main street. We ended up eating hot dogs and ice cream while the sun set and we watched the parade up Main Street to the castle. (There was a chinese place up the steps from us, and the food actually looked pretty good, but nobody was in the mood for chinese after last night's fiasco.)
We weren't right on the street, but we had a pretty good view, and Elzie decided that we were also in an excellent position to view the upcoming fireworks, as we had a clear view of the castle. So we camped out at that table for the next two hours, just resting, relaxing, eating junk food, and waiting for the fireworks show. We practically had to force the kids to stay there - they had had enough and were hot and tired and ready to head for home. "Sit down here and eat your ice cream!"
Cinderella's castle was lit with colored flood lights for the parade, and the lights kept changing hue throughout the festivities. The floats were all lit up, so it was easy to spot them from our viewpoint. After the parade, we sat and waited for at least 45 minutes for the fireworks show to start. Just before 9:00, Elzie decided she had to have some popcorn, so she left with the eldest. Of course, the show started while she was waiting in the long, slow-moving popcorn line. She missed a good 15 minutes of fireworks - I couldn't believe that she was missing it after 1.5 hours of fending off people wanting to steal our chairs, here I was sitting there during the show not using them. Anyway, she did eventually make it back to watch the show.After the fireworks, everyone did the same thing as us - headed for the exit. We turned in our stroller, and headed for the Monorail. The line was UNBELIEVABLY long, and we were sure we were in for a two hour wait. We were all very impressed with the organization and speed with which everyone was loaded into the train and whisked away. It wasn't a bad wait at all.
Finally, at around 11:00pm, we made it back to Grande Vista. Everyone slept long and well that evening, as we had planned nothing but relaxation for the following day.
What did we do on Day 4?...
Friday, October 21, 2005
Day 2 - Atlanta to Orlando
Estimated Travel Time: 7 hours 57 minutes for 468.7 miles
We started the day with a very nice, hot, complementary breakfast buffet at the hotel. Not a bad deal for a family of five - we all got to stay in the same room, and they threw in breakfast on top of it, which saved us at least $20. Elzie also stocked up on bananas and apples for the trip. Pretty good deal for free!
We hit the road after fueling up ($3.09/gallon, HELP ME!!!! Why didn't I get an airplane ticket?) and spent all morning crossing the Georgia countryside. We passed up several opportunities to purchase peaches and pecans along the way.
At Valdosta, we saw a sign for gas at $2.83/gallon at a Stuckey's, and we jumped on it. The place was kind of a hole (as Stuckey's tend to be), and they wouldn't take my Discover card (hey, 2% cash back is 2%). It was also very crowded and it took forever. It turned out to be a generally bad idea, because we pulled into Lake Park for lunch (just a few miles down the road) and found gas for even less at "normal" stations in town. Oh well. Sometimes you just need to roll the dice. We had lunch at Cracker Barrel (they are required to have one every 3.5 miles on I-75 in Georgia).
As we crossed the border into Florida, we had a mini-celebration and popped a Jimmy Buffett CD into the player. Peaches and pecan stands gave way to Oranges and Theme Park Tickets.
Our next stop was at the "Service Area" on the Florida Turnpike in Okahumpka. This fact really has no significance other than I like to say "Okahumpka". OKAHUMPKA! Fuel here was $2.95/gallon. It had been sort of chilly in Georgia and this was the first time we had been out of the car since lunch. It was suprisingly warm all of a sudden! We could practically smell the end of our trip by this point. But Elzie had other ideas - she took us on a tour of the local toll roads first (she was looking at the generic directions that would take us into the center of Orlando instead of the specific directions to our hotel). We hit three toll booths before we found our way back to the proper path.
Finally, we arrived at Marriott's Grande Vista resort. It was certainly beautiful as we drove in. The resort is virtually across the street from SeaWorld - which was in our plans before we were to leave Orlando for the beach in four days. We checked in, found our room, and drug our baggage out of the minivan.
Here's where we hit our first snag. The room was on the first floor, right by the pool and spa. We didn't want a first floor room. More importantly, the pool was empty, there was "Do Not Cross" yellow tape around it, a bobcat was parked outside of our condo, the spa was down, and we had a lovely view of a mud field and a giant hole that they were digging for some unexplained reason. Not exactly what we were hoping for.
So, we loaded the family back in the van and drove back to the office (this place is huge, by the way). After just a little complaining, we were assigned a new room on the third floor, within walking distance of a working pool, in another section of the resort. This room was much, much better, and had a view of the fifth hole of the golf course. The girls were thrilled to have their own adjoining "apartment". The condo had a full kitchen with a small washer/dryer combo, and a whirlpool tub in the master bedroom.
After retrieving the bags from our first condo and delivering them to the new condo, then dropping off the old keys at the office, we were off to International Drive in search of dinner. We should have planned this out a bit better. We ended up stopping at a Chinese buffet place called LA China (we had a 10% coupon). The buffet was OK, not the best I've ever had, but they had crab legs, which thrilled our oldest. We weren't given a menu, and the prices weren't posted anywhere that we could see, but we were too tired to think straight and just started eating. We assumed that the price would be similar to buffets that we've frequented back home. Even with our 10% discount and reduced prices for the kids, this was our most expensive meal of the trip. Oh well, live and learn.
We stopped by the Publix on the way back to the resort to stock up on groceries. Snacks, cereal, lasagna and salad for dinner on night 3, lunchmeat, and beer and wine for Elzie and Arby.
We had all been so tired at dinner, but once we got back to the room, the girls were charged to be in their own "apartment" with premium cable channels - we could barely get them to sleep. I filled the Jacuzzi after the groceries had been put away. Here is where I discovered the awful Orlando tap water. Once the tub had been filled, the room smelled like sulfur. Whew! What do they do to the water there? Anyway, it was hot and relaxing, and the jets felt very nice, and you don't have to worry about bacteria in the water like in a spa. This plus a pony Amber Bock from our Publix outing helped me to relax quite a bit.
We all enjoyed a lovely night's rest.
Day 3 was much more interesting...
We started the day with a very nice, hot, complementary breakfast buffet at the hotel. Not a bad deal for a family of five - we all got to stay in the same room, and they threw in breakfast on top of it, which saved us at least $20. Elzie also stocked up on bananas and apples for the trip. Pretty good deal for free!
We hit the road after fueling up ($3.09/gallon, HELP ME!!!! Why didn't I get an airplane ticket?) and spent all morning crossing the Georgia countryside. We passed up several opportunities to purchase peaches and pecans along the way.
At Valdosta, we saw a sign for gas at $2.83/gallon at a Stuckey's, and we jumped on it. The place was kind of a hole (as Stuckey's tend to be), and they wouldn't take my Discover card (hey, 2% cash back is 2%). It was also very crowded and it took forever. It turned out to be a generally bad idea, because we pulled into Lake Park for lunch (just a few miles down the road) and found gas for even less at "normal" stations in town. Oh well. Sometimes you just need to roll the dice. We had lunch at Cracker Barrel (they are required to have one every 3.5 miles on I-75 in Georgia).
As we crossed the border into Florida, we had a mini-celebration and popped a Jimmy Buffett CD into the player. Peaches and pecan stands gave way to Oranges and Theme Park Tickets.
Our next stop was at the "Service Area" on the Florida Turnpike in Okahumpka. This fact really has no significance other than I like to say "Okahumpka". OKAHUMPKA! Fuel here was $2.95/gallon. It had been sort of chilly in Georgia and this was the first time we had been out of the car since lunch. It was suprisingly warm all of a sudden! We could practically smell the end of our trip by this point. But Elzie had other ideas - she took us on a tour of the local toll roads first (she was looking at the generic directions that would take us into the center of Orlando instead of the specific directions to our hotel). We hit three toll booths before we found our way back to the proper path.
Finally, we arrived at Marriott's Grande Vista resort. It was certainly beautiful as we drove in. The resort is virtually across the street from SeaWorld - which was in our plans before we were to leave Orlando for the beach in four days. We checked in, found our room, and drug our baggage out of the minivan.
Here's where we hit our first snag. The room was on the first floor, right by the pool and spa. We didn't want a first floor room. More importantly, the pool was empty, there was "Do Not Cross" yellow tape around it, a bobcat was parked outside of our condo, the spa was down, and we had a lovely view of a mud field and a giant hole that they were digging for some unexplained reason. Not exactly what we were hoping for.
So, we loaded the family back in the van and drove back to the office (this place is huge, by the way). After just a little complaining, we were assigned a new room on the third floor, within walking distance of a working pool, in another section of the resort. This room was much, much better, and had a view of the fifth hole of the golf course. The girls were thrilled to have their own adjoining "apartment". The condo had a full kitchen with a small washer/dryer combo, and a whirlpool tub in the master bedroom.
After retrieving the bags from our first condo and delivering them to the new condo, then dropping off the old keys at the office, we were off to International Drive in search of dinner. We should have planned this out a bit better. We ended up stopping at a Chinese buffet place called LA China (we had a 10% coupon). The buffet was OK, not the best I've ever had, but they had crab legs, which thrilled our oldest. We weren't given a menu, and the prices weren't posted anywhere that we could see, but we were too tired to think straight and just started eating. We assumed that the price would be similar to buffets that we've frequented back home. Even with our 10% discount and reduced prices for the kids, this was our most expensive meal of the trip. Oh well, live and learn.
We stopped by the Publix on the way back to the resort to stock up on groceries. Snacks, cereal, lasagna and salad for dinner on night 3, lunchmeat, and beer and wine for Elzie and Arby.
We had all been so tired at dinner, but once we got back to the room, the girls were charged to be in their own "apartment" with premium cable channels - we could barely get them to sleep. I filled the Jacuzzi after the groceries had been put away. Here is where I discovered the awful Orlando tap water. Once the tub had been filled, the room smelled like sulfur. Whew! What do they do to the water there? Anyway, it was hot and relaxing, and the jets felt very nice, and you don't have to worry about bacteria in the water like in a spa. This plus a pony Amber Bock from our Publix outing helped me to relax quite a bit.
We all enjoyed a lovely night's rest.
Day 3 was much more interesting...
Day 1 - Home to Atlanta, GA
Estimated Travel Time: 8 hours 33 minutes for 543.0 miles
Well, I wanted to leave at 6:00am, hoping that the kids would sleep for at least 2 or 3 hours of driving, but last minute "loose item" loading into the minivan caused us to get started at the comparatively late hour of 8:30am. We stopped in Belleville for fuel and breakfast (my first trip to McDonalds in probably 2 years, and of course, they messed up our order[!]). Our first fill-up for this trip was a precious $2.96/gallon (yikes! This is going to be a long trip!).
We blew through Illinois and Kentucky, and stopped in Clarksville, TN (can you hear the name of this town without the Monkee's singing in your head?). We stopped for lunch (at Arby's - I can see my diet is going to hell on this trip), and fuel ($3.05/gallon, Lord help me).
Nearing the Georgia border, we went through what I can only assume were the Smokey Mountains. (NOTE: I have now been told that this was probably Lookout Mountain, part of the Appalachian range) The clouds came way down on us, and visibility was reduced drastically. But, it was beautiful - we were all suprised at how beautiful Tennessee turned out to be. Soon we were on the downward side of the mountains, and heading into Georgia. The sky continued to hang low as a steady mist fell for the rest of the trip.
By this time, the kids were heavily engaged, riding three abreast in the back seat, watching Hamtaro over and over again on the portable DVD player we had borrowed.
We finally made it to the Springhill Suites in Kennesaw, GA around 8:00pm or so. I had experienced a brain bubble regarding the fact that we were crossing into the Eastern Time Zone, and therefore would arrive an hour later than the driving time on the TripTik would indicate. Also, remember that we got a late start.
This was going to be our first overnight, and courtesy of Marriott and my frequent traveller points. The room was fairly nice - an Emabassy Suites style suite, shotgun layout of "kitchenette" (composed of a half-fridge, sink, microwave and coffee maker), office/living area with desk/tv/sofa-bed, room divider, and a double-double bedroom with bath. We dumped our bags in the room (we had the presence of mind to pack separate, small overnight bags), and headed for the nearby Joe's Crab Shack for dinner. The kids were exhausted and crabby (no pun intended). We should have gone someplace easier and quicker, but they gave us a coupon at the hotel for a free appetizer, and I really wanted some Crawfish Etoufee and a salad. I was pretty tired of fast food for one day.
Back to the hotel, and off to bed - what a long day.
Read all about Day 2...
Well, I wanted to leave at 6:00am, hoping that the kids would sleep for at least 2 or 3 hours of driving, but last minute "loose item" loading into the minivan caused us to get started at the comparatively late hour of 8:30am. We stopped in Belleville for fuel and breakfast (my first trip to McDonalds in probably 2 years, and of course, they messed up our order[!]). Our first fill-up for this trip was a precious $2.96/gallon (yikes! This is going to be a long trip!).
We blew through Illinois and Kentucky, and stopped in Clarksville, TN (can you hear the name of this town without the Monkee's singing in your head?). We stopped for lunch (at Arby's - I can see my diet is going to hell on this trip), and fuel ($3.05/gallon, Lord help me).
Nearing the Georgia border, we went through what I can only assume were the Smokey Mountains. (NOTE: I have now been told that this was probably Lookout Mountain, part of the Appalachian range) The clouds came way down on us, and visibility was reduced drastically. But, it was beautiful - we were all suprised at how beautiful Tennessee turned out to be. Soon we were on the downward side of the mountains, and heading into Georgia. The sky continued to hang low as a steady mist fell for the rest of the trip.
By this time, the kids were heavily engaged, riding three abreast in the back seat, watching Hamtaro over and over again on the portable DVD player we had borrowed.
We finally made it to the Springhill Suites in Kennesaw, GA around 8:00pm or so. I had experienced a brain bubble regarding the fact that we were crossing into the Eastern Time Zone, and therefore would arrive an hour later than the driving time on the TripTik would indicate. Also, remember that we got a late start.
This was going to be our first overnight, and courtesy of Marriott and my frequent traveller points. The room was fairly nice - an Emabassy Suites style suite, shotgun layout of "kitchenette" (composed of a half-fridge, sink, microwave and coffee maker), office/living area with desk/tv/sofa-bed, room divider, and a double-double bedroom with bath. We dumped our bags in the room (we had the presence of mind to pack separate, small overnight bags), and headed for the nearby Joe's Crab Shack for dinner. The kids were exhausted and crabby (no pun intended). We should have gone someplace easier and quicker, but they gave us a coupon at the hotel for a free appetizer, and I really wanted some Crawfish Etoufee and a salad. I was pretty tired of fast food for one day.
Back to the hotel, and off to bed - what a long day.
Read all about Day 2...
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