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...
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