Month: January 2024

The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour 2023 – Day Eight Monday 20th November

by mkingdon, posted in The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour

Welcome to the next installment of us doing nothing all day and then going out to eat. There are worse ways to spend your time I suppose. I mean us doing it, not you reading about it of course. That sounds awful.

Louise was suffering from a life-threatening hangover this morning. So once awake I let her sleep and made my way out to the balcony (see, the extra few dollars for it was worth it) and wrote up some notes for yesterday in my stupidly expensive note-taking book, acquired on the Disney Wish!

Having left it as late as possible before risking not having breakfast, I left Louise in bed and endeared myself to the hotel staff once again by arriving at 9.56 for breakfast. I had my buffet routine down to an art now. I had largely shunned the hot options for fear that I may eat myself to death before making it home, so each morning I had a bagel and some cereal. The bagel had to have peanut butter and jelly on it too. I was truly living La Vida Loca!

I took up a spot by the pool in the glorious sunshine and didn’t really move for many hours. I spoke with Rebecca back home for a bit and Louise eventually joined me before lunch.

Things looked like this.

The weather today was the best we’d seen, which wasn’t hard I know, but we enjoyed it. We did nothing of any note all afternoon. There may have been swimming. No formal lunch again, just more Lays.

We left the pool around 4.30 and got ourselves ready for dinner. Because we had managed to slot The Cheesecake Factory in on a rainy day at the mall, it had freed up an evening dining slot on the plan and to confirm how highly we thought of Sickies, we made a second trip there tonight.

As is very often the case, a second trip often struggles to recapture the magic of the first but the food was still glorious. Our server had some serial killer vibes going on, but after arriving at six and being seated immediately at a high table which tested our agility, we of course ordered those pickles again.

I spent an age studying the extensive menu only to order the same thing I had last time. The Chowzilla with tots.

Louise chose the Mozzarella Burger.

Mine was fabulous again, Louise rated hers just OK. To make up for it, Louise decided to have a dessert and asked our server for a menu and some sign of a personality. Neither arrived, instead, the server just reeled off some desserts in a way that somehow made no sense whatsoever. Louise heard the word cheesecake and stopped our server there to put us all out of our misery.

It was nothing to write home about or indeed photograph it seems.

The bill was $115ish and frankly, we may have paid that just for the pickles. We had started the evening with every intention of going back to Jellyrolls, but as we clambered back into the car a brief conversation saw us decide to head straight to bed like the crazy cats we are.

Nothing wrong with a 10.30 bedtime! I bet you can’t wait for another exciting installment next week?

Till the next time……

The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour 2023 – Day Seven Sunday 19th November

by mkingdon, posted in The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour

I’m sure you’ll agree that as nice as it has been thus far to be away and in Orlando, this trip has a feeling of taking a while to get going, certainly as far as actually doing what we came here to do. You can’t control the weather I guess. Similarly, as day seven arrives, I can finally start to make some sense of the title of this trip report for you. That is what is called a teaser. Well, I have to do something to encourage you to read this guff.

We awoke around 9am following our wild late night last night! We made it to breakfast before it closed and were heartened to see the weather looking very good. It was noticeable that breakfast and the hotel in general were much busier on a weekend. It wasn’t unpleasant in any way, just noticeable.

After breakfast, we needed to nip out to Target as I needed a new book to read. Now, nobody just “nips” to Target of course, and it was lunchtime by the time we got back to the pool.

Feast your eyes on this….

You will understand that we did not move from our sun beds, appreciating the weather and reading.

In an attempt to stay out beyond 10pm tonight, the plan was to skip lunch and eat an early dinner so we did not immediately crave bed as soon as the food hit our stomachs. We aren’t animals so I went to the shop and got us some snacks to keep us going.

Louise, as she would now for pretty much the rest of the trip had a packet of Lays for lunch. I know the reveal wasn’t worth the build-up, but when I thought back on this trip when dreaming up a title, I didn’t want to use one that bemoaned the crap weather and the other thing which stuck in my mind was our crisp-based lunches by the pool.

Having enjoyed an afternoon of cloudless skies and temperatures in the mid-70s, we retired to our room at around 4.30pm to get ready for our early dinner. We still didn’t leave the room till 6 after the usual sixty minutes of hair dryer use by Louise.

Tonight’s dining choice was Romano’s Macaroni Grill. A stalwart of our trips over the years and often one not known about by many. This proved to be tragically true as we drove up to it. All the lights and signage were off and it looked as if it had shut down for good. We were genuinely gutted.

We assessed the nearby options and opted for Bahama Breeze, not least because it was five minutes away.

We were seated immediately with it being 6.20pm and started with a Spinach and Artichoke Dip, a Bud Light, and a red wine.

I don’t drink much/often so tonight’s beer had to be recorded. There would be a good many more to follow as our plans for later involved Jellyrolls if we could stay awake.

Louise, as ever had the Jerk Chicken Pasta…

and I, after much consideration, opted for the ribs, despite the fact that the calorific value was pretty much the highest of any item on the menu.

Both were tremendous.

We declined dessert, paid the $100 bill, including the tip, and drove back to the hotel. A Lyft was summoned and I nipped up to the room to get some actual cash for the requesting of songs at Jellyrolls.

We were soon dropped off at the Boardwalk and got into Jellyrolls around 8.30pm.

At that time there were still a few empty tables, so we claimed one, ordered some drinks, and received our bottomless popcorn.

We had four excellent performers and felt lucky to have been able to watch them. Our fave was Michael, and here he is performing a classic….

We had a few requests played, trying to not request the stuff everyone else does like Billy Joel, Elton John and the like. We went for One Week by Bare Naked Ladies and That Thing You Do.

We sent a few videos to Emily who was up at 4am UK time due to a snoring boyfriend and dog and she was enjoying it all with us, despite being 4,000 miles away.

We stayed for a long time and drank too much. The place really filled up as it got later (those two videos were taken within half an hour of us arriving) and much of the crowd tonight seemed to be young cast members. Many Disney songs were requested and played and when Circle Of Life was playing it became obvious that many of the CMs were from the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom as we got a performance of the dance routine!

With things now being very crowded and rowdy as drunk youngsters were constantly dancing about three centimetres from our table, we left at around 1am.

I don’t know how much we had to drink if I am honest, but it could have funded another holiday. But, we had a really good night and we would return.

We made our way back to the Boardwalk and waited about ten minutes for our Lyft to arrive. Our driver was called Gaston, from Chile. He was an engineer by trade, working for Lyft at night to raise the funds to get his family over.

I don’t remember everything he said but Chile sounds like a scary place to live and no place for his two young kids.

We tipped him well and fell into bed just before 2am like the wild crazy kids we are.

Till the next time…..

The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour 2023 – Day Six Saturday 18th November

by mkingdon, posted in The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour

The weather seemed to be behaving itself now. We awoke to much more acceptable fare, or at least the promise of it and we celebrated by getting down to breakfast with more than three minutes to spare before they closed.

After another very acceptable free brekkie we were out by the pool at 10am and here, captured by my excellent photography skills was the very moment we first saw the sun on this trip. It was quite emotional.

I know that modest glow actually being the sun is debatable but after the last few days, we were getting desperate. Yes, it was cloudy, but crucially it was dry and warm. We embraced this opportunity and did little else but read and relax until a break for another average poolside lunch at 1pm.

Louise had a Quesadilla and I had Tacos. They did not justify a photo.

More resting and reading followed lunch and even what had previously been an unthinkable dip in the pool happened.

We were back up in our room at 4.30 for showers and general readying for our trip out for tea. I couldn’t help but capture the unusually glorious weather a few times. I had forgotten what shadows were!

We were seeing things from the balcony that had been up until now concealed.

No Lyft was summoned tonight as we were headed to Universal, so I was driving.

This was the view from the window by the lifts on our way down to the car. Florida can be pretty when it’s not pissing down with rain.

It took about 20 minutes to travel up the I4 and park at City Walk. We arrived at the car park at 5.55 to see a load of cars pulled over to the side and not going through the payment booth things. We soon realised why, as parking became free at 6pm.

It was about 5.58 when we were next in line to pay the $30 when we saw the team member in the booth get on the phone and then immediately close up. What joyous luck hath been bestowed upon us? We were the first “free” car through and that $30 saving made all the difference in our overall budget for this trip.

We parked in ET and took the long walk into City Walk itself.

We browsed a shop or two, perpetually on the lookout for suitable gifts for those at home. Then we took up a table at the Palm Lounge (near the plane) for a pre-dinner drinkie. It was waitress service…literally, there was one waitress on, so after a little wait we had a beer and a wine.

We then made our way round to the Hard Rock for our reservation.

We were seated immediately and in the decade or two since we last visited we had forgotten how noisy it was in here.

Of course, we shared Nachos to start.

I followed that with a very large piece of meat, which was just OK, to be honest.

Louise ordered Fajitas and the “fixings” arrived about five minutes ahead of the sizzling platter of meat so she had to ask for new fixings as her tortillas were now cold and hard.

I had ordered a milkshake about twenty minutes ago and it now arrived.

Overall, the experience was just about acceptable. The service was patchy and the food was just OK. It may be another decade or two before we return.

As we made our way out Louise did wonder why they had a painting of David Baddiel hanging at the top of the stairs.

The bill was a slightly painful $155 all things considered.

You may guess that at this point, all we wanted was sleep, so was walked back to the car, drove home and let all that food add to our fat collections nicely as we immediately slept.

Till the next time……

The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour 2023 – Day Five Friday 17th November

by mkingdon, posted in The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour, Uncategorized

Much to our disgust there was still no sign of the sun. So we had a lie-in until 9.30, showered, and were that annoying couple who arrive for breakfast at 9.59 when it closes at 10.

As we ate, I consulted various weather apps and they were promising better stuff around 10.30, so we finished our food and headed out to the pool, ready to absorb all this good weather.

It was still shite. We didn’t even bother getting sunbeds, for fear of triggering the Trades Descriptions Act. Instead, we sat on the lanai, undercover and did some reading.

We Facetimed folks back home for a while and when it was time we ordered some lunch from the bar side snack bar. It was once again fairly average.

The drizzly grey stuff continued throughout.

We abandoned all hope of seeing any sun, well even any dryness at around 2.30 and went back to the room. We did some more reading and relaxing before getting ready to go out around 4.30pm. (I bet you wish we’d done some theme parks on this trip?).

We ordered a Lyft around 5.30pm and one turned up within a couple of minutes. We were dropped off at The Boardwalk about fifteen minutes later.

We headed to the new (to us) Abracadabar for a couple of pre-dinner drinks.

I had a Negroni and of course an Espresso Martini.

Louise had a wine and then an Espresso. It’s a nice place. Not huge so I suspect it will get full quickly at busier times.

We wandered over to The Swan at 7.30.

We had an ADR at Il Mulino. This would be our fourth visit of recent times, the third and now the fourth trying to recapture the excellent experience we had on our first two.

The bread service here is excellent and the higher prices get you a lot of attention and lovely iced water served by a team of about 14 staff per table.

I had rice balls….but I suspect it was all this damp weather.

They are one of my favourite dishes of all time but be warned they do pack a spicy punch. There was snot and tears, but all of it worthwhile.

Louise started with Meatballs.

Her main course was Ravioli…

and mine Gnocchi…

Whilst both our starters were superb, the mains were just OK and I think we’ll give this one a rest for a while now. We clearly stumbled into some kind of magical experience the first couple of times that we don’t seem to be able to replicate. None of it was bad, and we enjoyed it, but for the price, we should probably try elsewhere.

The bill was $155 including tip.

All full up now, and clearly exhausted from our very busy day (!?) we decided against Jellyrolls and walked through to the main entrance of The Swan to summon a Lyft.

We waited all of six minutes before it arrived and we were back at the hotel and in bed by 10pm. We are the very definition of rock and roll I know!

I am not one to use spoliers, but tomorrow there may well be a blue sky and some sun!

Till the next time……