HE SAID: We were happy to be back in our favourite US State. Florida has a fantastic winter climate. The moist sea air always feels so good. I know that I always breath so much better here.
After dropping off Dusty and Ted in Miami for their trip to the Dominican Republic, we drove north to Florida where we spent a couple of nights getting for our four weeks away from the dogs and motor home. We found a fantastic dog sitter in Orlando which we used last year. She loves the two girls and we knew they were being left at a great home. After dropping the dogs off we drove further north just past Daytona Beach and put the motorhome in storage. Pat found a great storage site that was in a secured paved fenced property. The worst part of leaving the RV is always emptying the fridge and freezer- although it is a great time to defrost the fridge and do a major clean.
Next we headed to Daytona beach where we had booked an RCI condo on the beach.
This was
a "replacement" condo from last year week in Miami Beach. I had complained so much, RCI gave me the week back so we didn't have to use any RCI points. (As I write this I am watching extreme Cheapskate on TLC..lol). While this condo was not all that great, it was clean, had a picturesque view of the ocean and had awesome internet.
I enjoyed the week in Daytona. It was a hoot driving on the beach. It took us a about a half hour of driving on the beach (way longer then we planned). We decided to go back for pictures later in the week but we couldn't get back on as the weather had deteriorated and the waves were too big.
Daytona of course is home of the Daytona Speedway. Fortunately the first Nascar race wasn't for a few weeks, so the area wasn't very busy.
We actually didn't spend the whole week that we booked here, as we made plans to meet Pat's family in Miami. After we booked into a hotel in Miami, we met up with Norm and Pat's mom at the airport, awaiting arrival of Ted and Dusty from the DR and Tricia from SLC. We had time to have a snack before the planes arrived then we all headed out for a regular dinner. It was nice to be all together. We met again the next day and toured a really cool church that had been moved (brick by brick) from Europe to Miami...go figure. Got some great family photos in the garden.
After a few days in Miami, we all boarded the NCL Getaway and took a week cruise to the Carrebean. Pat and I had been to all the Islands on the iternary but we looked forward to spending time with everyone. We had a really nice cabin, right at the front of the ship, so we could see where we were going. The first two days at sea were rough, and being at the front of the ship, we really felt it. Again, the rougher the sea the better I sleep. Our first port was St. Maartin. Everyone but Norm and Tricia took a guided tour of the Island. We actually did this the last time we were there, but this tour was much better. I got to see the beach where the planes land almost on your head and they take off so close to you, they warn you of a bad burn watching them take off. Even with all the warning signs there were a lot of people standing right beside the fence. Couldn't figure out though if they had this warning why did they post a sign nearby with the flight times???
Our next stop was St Thomas. We have been to this island numerous times. Usually we just shop, but decided to take another island tour. Norm and Tricia left the cruise ship here as Norm had a speaking engagement in Indonesia? . We booked an excursion here to do some snorkelling. They took us out on a boat and we were able to swim with the sea Turtles. It was amazing.
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| Bahamas |
After another day at sea we arrived in the Bahamas. This was our third time there. We took another private tour and which was great. Got to Atlantis which we have only seen from a distance before. Very posh!!!
We were smart on this cruise by brining on board our own soda. I really fought it but it was way cheaper, besides NCL only serves Pepsi and I was able to stick with Coke. As well we prepaid our room charges, so our final bill was really affordable. It was a nice ship, but there was no nightly show. You had to book various venues in advance.
After the cruise Pat and I, Ted, Dusty and Pat's mom all packed into our little Scion XB (along with all the luggage...we were quite the sight) and drove north to Orlando where we had a three bedroom condo. This RCI condo in Davenport was about 30 minutes from Orlando, but we had our own two story townhouse where everyone had a room and their own tv. My favourite part was we had our own high speed modem and you should have seen the download speed. Woot Woot!. I worked on downloading the top 85 best oscar pictures for my library. Dusty finally joined the wonderful world of Apple buying a Macbook Air and she too was downloading like crazy. We had a nice week with everyone. We decided to only do one major park..Universal and for those of you who know the price will know why. I have wanted to do the Harry Potter theme park for years and insisted we do it this year. We bought the Park hopper which was the best as the Harry Potter train goes between the two parks. This was my favourite part.
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| Pat going through the wall....really cool |
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| Harry Potter Train |
I was the only one who would go on the Dragon Challenge roller coaster ride. It was quite the ride ...got pretty dizzy. We all went on the Forbidden Journey ride (line up wasn't that bad). This is the ride everyone has talked about. Wasn't fond of the 3D affect though. We all felt sick after. It was once in a lifetime ride...although I'm sure the grandkids will love it.
The other park we went to was Gatorland. It was our second time, but thanks to Groupon we got in without too much damage to the pocketbook. Got some great photos. Dusty was the only brave one to sit on the Gator.
And to add to my sign collection, I saw this at Gatorland.
We said goodbye to Ted and Dusty( we have been together since boxing day - except one week ) and Pat's mom. Pat took them to the airport while I packed. We then moved to the Sheraton Vistana Resort for our last week in Florida. We love this resort, but had to listen to another ownership timeshare pitch. We were given to the big guns who told us we didn't have the right timeshare, and we needed to upgrade. We just laughed. Pat came up with an excuse of the falling CDN dollar and our stocks going down in value. They bought it and sent us on our way. We just relaxed and toured some more of Orlando. Pat upgraded her IPad so she was busy selling her old one on Ebay. Got really tired of all the traffic in Orlando. So many traffic jams.
We were happy to be reunited with our two dogs and made our way back to pick up our motorhome. We left Florida and entered Georgia. It was a good to be back in the RV!
SHE SAID:
Just reading John's post brought back memories of the four weeks in florida. It was a lot of fun and we did lots!
I won't go on too much...just fill in some of my memories of the month. First, the dogs...yes we dropped them off, and yes, we had an amazing sitter (thank goodness). On day one we got an email that dear Kiri had developed the runs. Now, this is a dog that is normally house trained...evidently she wasn't in her new location. I am a dog person and I love my dogs dearly, but they are dogs. Having said that, this entire month away was like worrying about the kids when they were younger. Kiri was very difficult for most of the stay. A portion of my days were spent in email discussion about how to solve the 'problem'. Thank goodness I had read about pumpkin in a site we follow about Scotties. My dogs should have been named Peter for the month, but it did work to stem the flow. Evidently they also developed a bad smell. As an OCD person, who owns guilt very well, this became a real worry and source of a way to kill time for me for the entire month. As a by the way, after getting them back, I put them on a grain free diet, no more chicken, and I'm giving probiotics...it seems problem is fully solved.
In Daytona, John became obsessed with solving the problem of moving luggage for 5 from Miami to Orlando in a Scion XB. We went from store to store. We actually purchased a rooftop carrier, and thought the issue was dealt with. Evidently, not...we took the purchase out of the box, and the attachments provided were pathetic! First time a gust of wind came up, or a truck passed us, I could imagine luggage strewed across the freeway. We then spent a couple of days trying to problem solve how to get this rack to stay on. It was basically impossible. After a lot of time committed, we returned all purchased related to the rooftop carrier, and decided to wing it when the time came. Daytona Beach was quite amazing...we drove the car right on the beach. It is done there - I've never seen that before. The beach is very hard, almost concrete, just had to be aware of drifts, so that we didn't get stuck. We also had supper on the end of a pier, with the ocean right under us. Good food and lots of fun!
A couple of days in Miami, meeting up with Dusty, Ted, Mom, Norm and Tricia was fun. We were not located close to each other, but we did hook up for a few activities, John mentioned. On the Saturday we started the cruise. It was on the Norwegian Getaway, which is a huge ship. So much to do on it, and I don't think I managed to find every nook and cranny on board. The ports were great, and my favourite was the snorkelling with the turtles. This was the first snorkelling I have been on that had a large number of children. It was different, as I did get feet in my face a number of times, especially when something of interest was sighted. Not sure how we have avoided that in the past.
After the cruise, 5 of us loaded into the Scion, luggage and all to go to Orlando. I swear we must have looked like a clown car. We were so packed! When we got to the resort, Mom and I went to the pool, with a lazy river.
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| Regal Palms resort |
At the end of this week, I took Mom, Dusty and Ted to the airport, and we moved on to the Sheraton Vistana Resort. This was really a low key week, we hung out, did some shopping, went to the pool, and saw a couple of movies. My iPad replacement was unexpected. We thought that the Apple Store would trade in my old one. I thought it was in great condition - when they looked at it (obviously I hadn't) there was a dent in the case and the top corners of the glass were crushed underneath the outer layer. Not worth anything with that much damage - to them. I reverted to eBay and got to the dollar what the Apple Store would have given me for a 'perfect' condition iPad. At the end of the week, we picked up our stinky, recovering dogs and headed for Georgia.
Our 'vacation' from our vacation was very relaxing and it was nice to have access to a bathtub for a few weeks :).
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