Tag: Applebees

The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019 – Day Three

by mkingdon, posted in The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019

As often happens, the number of folks who turn up to read this nonsense goes up quite a bit when a trip report happens. I’m grateful, but come on, where were you buggers when the rest of us had to endure the weekly grind of me papping on about each minor detail of this trip? I appreciate anyone who tolerates what I churn out here, I really do, but the real heroes are those that are here every week as I struggle to squeeze out 600 words on a failed FastPass booking and a bad commute to work. I salute you.

If you had been around for that, you’d know that the plan was carefully crafted, honed, perfected and laminated over many, many painful weeks. Today, as our third day dawned, I was sat in front of the rolling coverage of Dorian, with my plan in tatters and in need of being put back together. I had time to do so as I had been awake since 5am. At around 7am I made breakfasts for folks, put a wash on and re-engineered the plan all at the same time. If there had been a brush available it would have gone up my rear end to sweep as I went along.

The thinking at this stage from the experts on the telly was that Dorian would “hit” on Monday, some three days from now, and that day on the plan was Animal Kingdom. Today should have been a strategic rest day at a water park, to get us over the inevitable tiredness following the travel day and first-day adrenaline. So I moved that around and brought Animal Kingdom forward to today, thinking that we’d either be in a motel in Carolina or hiding in the bathtub come Monday.

I was making FastPass reservations whilst filling the dishwasher as everyone got themselves ready. As you can imagine, there was slim pickings available on the FastPass front at this late hour.

We left the house at 9.20am, took Sherberth Road and we were pleasingly in Giraffe 42 before too long at all. A tram was waiting just for us and it whisked us to the drop off point which again was still some considerable distance from the actual entrance.

We made our way up the paths and into the park…

Freddie is currently obsessed with Up! and so we were delighted to see Kevin wandering about as we entered.

It does make you wonder what Freddie makes of the whole thing. Having seen this character on his telly for months, to have it there, in front of him, must be weird. He, of course, took it in his stride with a smile and a wave.

Because our last-minute FastPasses were crap, we had nowhere to be immediately so we took the chance to do something we only do with no rides to get on. Or at least we did when the girls were little. We headed, for the first time in many years, to the boneyard.

First, Freddie was let loose in the playground part and did some sliding.

Then we took him over the bridge to the dig.

I said this at the time, but it was incredulous to me that it had been something like twenty years since I was watching the girls do the exact same thing.

It was a lovely half an hour or so watching Freddie fill his shorts with that thing they pass off as sand and then we moved out of the boneyard and Rebecca and Tom took Freddie on the Triceratop Spin.

As they boarded and we got ready to do the “grandparent wave” I bought a couple of tubs of popcorn as it had been many minutes since food passed my lips.

Freddie was looking very hot after his ride so we made our way into the nearest source of AC to cool him down a bit. That happened to be a shop and I left a good few dollars lighter having given in to his pleas for a plastic thing that produced bubbles. He shunned all other models in favour of the Ariel one. I understand that, as I too would choose an Ariel that blows.

We had a FastPass looming for It’s Tough To Be A Bug now, yep, that’s how slim our pickings were. As we arrived to find an unsurprising five-minute wait we took the chance for Freddie to meet two of his favourites, Russell and Doug.

On the way into the ride, I think we were all little concerned at how Freddie might take some of the effects, noises and darkness in this show. To that end, we made sure we were first into a row and of course moved all the way to the end so that should he not be too happy he could be easily taken out.

We needn’t have worried. It seems that this child was built specifically for theme park touring. He loved it all and did not flinch at even the most scary elements.

Lunch was very much on our minds now and as we made our way over to Pandora, at an inevitable restroom stop, I mobile ordered for everyone.

I have no real clue what everyone ended up with, but they looked like this and it all cost $120.

Everybody said their dish was tasty. and surprisingly filling. I had tried to get sangrias for Louise, Emily and Rebecca but had to sacrifice one of them as only I had photo ID and it’s a two per ID limit.

Naturally, a restroom visit followed and as we loitered for that to happen rain came along. Luckily, we managed to find a table with a huge brolly over it to sit it out. Throughout lunch, I had been watching the app to see what the wait times were, as Flights Of Passage had been loitering around the 60-minute mark all morning. Freddie had fallen asleep by now and as the rain continued the app showed the wait time drop from 75 minutes to 60. It was now or never. Rebecca, Tom and I decided to go for it. Emily didn’t feel like waiting for an hour as she wasn’t feeling great.

We left Freddie and an allocated amount of cash with Louise so that they could amuse themselves whilst we rode.

One of the drawbacks of riding stuff for the first time, or at least queuing for it, is that you have no concept of how long you have yet to go. In the end, the wait was more like 80 minutes, but, it was still worth it and that’s from someone who typically has a 20-minute wait limit.

I found the mid-queue Blue Man Group show a little disappointing to be honest.

Having been so frustrated not to get a FastPass for this, although I never mentioned that in the build-up to the trip, of course, I was chuffed that we got the chance to do it without a wait numbering many hours.

We exited and met up with Emily and Louise, full of tales of how good the ride is and we made our way over to Everest as I had managed to secure at least one decent FastPass for today. We set up baby swap with the cast member at the FastPass entrance and Louise and I sat out first with a now awake Freddie as the others rode. I took Freddie over to the wall where you can watch the ride coming down the big drop. He loved it. We played a game of “Ready Steady…Go” for each train as it cam down the drop. This is one of those moments that doesn’t involve a ride, an expensive meal or elaborate hotel but it’s one that I will remember for a long time. It was a lovely thing.

Louise and I then rode. Freddie may well have been at the same wall, watching us as we came down the drop but I was not in a fit state to do any sort of “grandparent wave” as I screamed like a big girl.

Next, we made our way over to the next Nemo show, with a stop for some ice cream on the way and Freddie’s first Mickey Premium Bar.

He made a right mess….just the way it should be.

As we waited for the show to open, he played with his Ariel bubble thing, attracting admirers from all around.

We took our seats in what, I’m sure, where exactly the same place as last year. Freddie did well with this one, with it keeping his attention almost all the way through. I too managed a similar effort. I like it, I do, but it’s no Lion King is it?

Restrooms next of course before heading over to Dinosaur. En route, we took advantage of there being no wait to take Freddie on Triceratops again, this time with me and Louise. There would be no “grandparent wave” this time.

Freddie enjoyed it almost as much I enjoyed riding with him.

Still ultimately heading to Dinosaur we were distracted by the Dance Party thing. Freddie wasn’t too sure about the characters at this stage of the trip, but with some encouragement, he got there.

Finally, we made it all the way to Dinosaur and this time Emily volunteered to stay with Freddie as she has been emotionally scarred by this ride since an early age and now, even at 24, refuses to ride it.

This was a walk-on and as we boarded we witnessed a mother encouraging her young son to get on and reassuring him that he’d be fine. If he’s anything like Emily he may never recover and still blame his parents at the age of 24.

It was 6pm by now and we decided to make a move for the exit so that we could go and eat before Freddie was too tired. The walkout to the exit was a leisurely one involving shops and restrooms and in one of those I picked up some bubble refill fluid for Freddie’s Ariel. I inserted fluid into Ariel whilst Louise was shopping, It serves her right.

We trammed back to the car in what was again incredible heat.

The plan was Applebees but we had to make a twenty-minute detour back to the villa so that the girls could pick up their IDs and a hoody. No, it’s fine honestly.

I programmed the sat nav for Applebees not wanting to take any risk of a further delay to food due to navigational incompetence. It turned out that the Applebees in our sat navs history was the one of the 27, which was considerably further away than the one I would have driven too unaided on the 192. It seemed to take an age to get there but at least we were seated immediately when we finally arrived.

That iPad thingy on the table was a Godsend for gadget-obsessed Freddie, keeping him occupied brilliantly whilst we ordered. Our server, a mixture of Dr Phil and Richard Dreyfuss, was great. He had a comedy routine he clearly rolled out for all his guests but he was funny, knowledgeable and most importantly fast.

Apparently, the trip for the IDs was insisted upon as the girls had remembered that it always seems to be 2 for 1 happy hour at Applebees.

We ordered appetisers of a combo platter plus pretzels and cheese sauce.

These pretzels deserve a photo all of their own, so good were they.

We had –

Me – Strawberry Salad (no, really….)

Louise – Chicken Alfredo

Emily – Alfredo without the chicken

Tom – Ribs

Rebecca – Quesadilla Burger

Freddie had pasta, some strawberries and yoghurt.

Tom managed three, yes, three chocolate milkshakes.

During the meal our server, Phil Dreyfuss, chatted to us about the incoming hurricane, mainly reassuring us that he doubted we’d get any major impact and we also watched with a mixture of disbelief and disdain as the table next to us managed to moan about everything until they got what they wanted which was their bill written off. I’m all for raising issues if you have them but their “problems” were petty much nonsense and they should never have a good meal in a restaurant again as recompense.

We were all too full for desserts and having paid the bill on the tablet thing on the table, it was about $180 but I didn’t make a note for some reason, we made our way to the car.

We had to call at the Publix next door for reasons I didn’t listen to or remember. Louise and Emily went in and the rest of us marvelled at the car next to us which seemed to be a tip on wheels.

After waiting longer than I would have liked, Louise and Emily returned and I drove us home. Full, tired and happy from what was another absolutely lovely day.

Till the next time……

Freddie’s First Florida Fiesta – Day Five 2nd September 2018

by mkingdon, posted in Freddie's First Florida Fiesta

I look at my notes for today and it says we had a lazy start. It feels like there was a lot of this already this trip. I do wonder then why, looking back now, that I was definitely the most tired I have ever been on one of these things this year.

Sure, I’m the oldest I’ve ever been, but without stealing my Jerry Springer style summing up at the end thunder, I may have pushed the pace too hard.

Anyway, lazy we were and there was some TV watching, Freddie had his toast for breakfast and everyone generally did nothing until about 10.30 when readying began. We left the villa at 11.30 and headed for what turned out to be a very busy I4. I don’t tend to think about things like this when planning, but we were heading for Toothsome for lunch, and if I were back home I would seriously question driving that far to anywhere for lunch. It’s different here and on holiday of course food is very much part of the destination not the journey for us, and there is only one Toothsome, so travel we must and did.

It took us forty-five minutes to get to a Universal car parking spot and, another thing I wouldn’t do at home, I spent $22 on parking without blinking an eye or ranting for three and half hours, which I definitely would do in the UK.

We were in Spiderman 455. We unloaded everyone and Freddie’s stroller and after a battle with some escalators and some elevators that weren’t working, or at least not quickly enough for my patience, we were on the moving walkways and heading into City Walk.

By jingo it was hot.

We arrived at Toothsome, and again, it’s a bloody long walk from the car to get there, just after 12.45. There was no wait and we were taken upstairs and seated immediately.

Now, we were here for food. The chap at the front desk clarified that, as they must get a load of folks rocking up just for milkshakes. Regardless of our dining intentions, our priority of course was a milkshake so we spent many minutes looking at a menu we had read many times before the trip, even watching a vlog about them all, to help in our decision-making process.

I still rushed it a bit, and ended up blurting one out feeling pressured by the waiting server.

Me – PB&J

Mikey & Rebecca – Celebration

I can only apologise for the blatant lack of a photo. There is no excuse.

Emily – Key Lime

Tom – Brownie

Louise – No milkshake, but some wine

They are absolutely bloody lovely. I know they look impressive and that is important, but the taste does not disappoint. I loved mine as did everyone else.

We sucked on these whilst waiting for our meals to arrive.

Me – Red Reuben

Louise – Houmous & a side of Onion Rings

 

Emily, Mikey and Rebecca – Chicken Sandwich

Tom – Burger

Freddie – Pasta

Imagine the fullest thing you can, double it and add a bit more and that was me. I was absolutely stuffed, bordering on hospitalisation. So a good meal!

We walked, slowly, back to the car in incredible heat wondering if we would ever need to eat again. (We did).

The plan stated that this afternoon was a non-theme park day and instead we were to go shopping. How this would make the day any more restful, I have never known, but we have always done some shopping so off we went. The location was to be the Premium Outlet Malls at Lake Buena Vista.

The fatal flaw in this plan was defined by the very reason for its existence. Today was Labor (sic) Day weekend, and as such, my plan was to stay as far away from theme park crowds as possible. It seemed that all of those crowds had instead congregated at this mall. We toured the car park for about twenty minutes before finally admitting defeat. There was just no chance of us finding a spot and so I left that traffic nightmare and drove straight into another. The queue of cars to get back to the Crossroads area (Benny says Hi….ask your granddad) past Bahama Breeze was just bobbins. We sat and waited for about half an hour inching forward slowly. Just as we got to the front of the queue some f*ck nugget tried to just indicate and swing in right in front of us. If Freddie’s first words are unrepeatable, this moment will be why. I can assure you, I did not let him in.

Denied of retail therapy at one location we headed to Disney Springs, where these days, the one thing you can be pretty sure of is a parking spot. We pulled into Lime, found a spot easily and disembarked.

We wandered some shops, I have to say halfheartedly.  Emily got a hoodie but other than that nothing was purchased and enthusiasm for such was very low it had to be said.

Rebecca voiced those views first and said they’d rather be in a park. Faced with a fairly forceful sulk, it was agreed that we’d chance a theme park as they couldn’t be any busier than these bloody shops.

Don’t worry, the pin had been removed from the back of this badge…I mean pin…no, I mean badge. There was nothing sharp on what Freddie was holding here is what I am saying.

Once back in the car we pointed the van at Magic Kingdom. He who dares wins.

We parked in…

At this time of day there was no army of Cast Members waving you to the bottom of a row so we drifted around the car park like it was the Premium Outlet Mall again until we found a spot.

We were by now getting quite skilled at the routine from the car, onto the tram and off again. Everyone had assumed a role, and we dismantled the stroller and boarded in a few seconds like on of those F1 pit land crews. We didn’t wear helmets though.

We monorailed in

Once in the park we consulted the app to see what horrendous queues awaited us and to confirm that no FastPasses would be available for anything.

 

I have to say, I struggled with the app this year. It was constantly flakey. Certain pages never loaded. For example, whenever I viewed our plans, unless I filtered by something, no content appeared. It froze a lot and was generally about as fast as an episode of Poldark. (Sorry my hatred for all Sunday evening period dramas seeps out now and again).

With every ride rammed we resorted to meeting a character. We rarely do this these days and hadn’t done any this trip. With Freddie with us, we should and we did. We struck out up Main Street heading for Tomorrowland and Buzz who was out doing a meet.

On the way, we passed “the purple wall”. If you “do” Instagram you’ll know….

Mikey, Tom and Rebecca joined the queue for Buzz for Freddie’s first ever official character meet.

We wondered if he would be terrified of them. It may run in the family as Louise is quite scared of other large things with weird heads.

As they queued I loitered ready to take a few photos once they got to Buzz.  There was an Edna drive by…

We needn’t have worried about Freddie. Like everything else on this trip he took Buzz in his stride.

As did Mikey.

Whilst waiting I had used the app to book some FastPasses having found some actually did exist. The first of which was…

This is a ride I hadn’t been on since 2003 I think. After a pre-ride wee our FastPass time came around and we all boarded except Louise who I think thought it may be too thrilling for her.

After feeding Freddie, we now headed back to Tomorrowland (sure, I do know we just came from there…) and we did the old faithful rides when things are busy and you need something to do between FastPasses. First,

Even this had a small queue, but we were soon aboard, enjoying Magic Kingdom at dusk.

When you are “the planner” of the group there can be a certain pressure. Every time you leave a ride all eyes turn to you with a “What now?” attached. So I often find that whilst on one ride my mind is thinking of the next step or two. In this case, the answer was right in front of me and we did Carousel of Progress.

There was a holiday many years ago when Rebecca was obsessed with the song and we had it in the car for the whole fortnight. There is no greater testament of our love for her than the fact that she survived.

Our second FastPass was now due and thankfully it was for Buzz and not some ride at the other side of the park.

Again, the scores weren’t important. These competitive Dads who can’t just appreciate the joy of taking part with their family are a real source of dismay!

As we exited the ride the fireworks were on. This was a problem as Emily and I had been avoiding all online showings of Happily Ever After so that we could watch it for the first time live. So as we bolted for the exit, we did our best not to look up or indeed listen to what was going on! We must have looked a bit strange, head down, shouting instructions to each other, trying to avoid the gathered crowds whilst only looking at the pavement.

The other concern of course was that the fireworks would finish, and thousands of folks would start heading for the exit too, so this was a full paced extraction. We still took the resort monorail as the queue looked shorter and we were soon back at the car.

Right, time to get back on plan! Applebees it said and Applebees we would do.

We did the one on the 192 and were pleasingly seated immediately. More pleasing for those not driving was the news that it was two for one on most alcoholic drinks.

There were so many flying about that I lost track of what they were.

This one is actually Tom’s milkshake. He has an addiction problem, and this is it.

 

 

Freddie was alseep so we had brought him in still in his car seat. Applebees had an ingenious contraption that could be placed at the end of the table that we could rest that on so he wasn’t on the floor.

The fact that the only child in our party was out of it did not stop us from commissioning something from the wandering balloon person.

 

Yes, even at my age, I can still get Woody.

We ordered some appetisers as it had been several hours since our life threatening amount of food at Toothsome.

Me and Emily shared some nachos. Louise and Mikey had some Mozzarella sticks.

For mains we had –

Me – Thai Salad

Louise, Mikey and Emily – Various Pasta things

 

Tom – Club Sandwich

Rebecca – Boneless Wings

Who knows why I didn’t photograph those!

It was all superb. I know Applebees isn’t fine dining but it is good fun, great quality and at $200 including a 20% tip great value too. Full and tired I got us back home and we were in bed by 11.20.

Till the next time…..

 

Summer Lovin’

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

I love the summer. I only hope that next year it falls on a weekend.

I have blogged previously about my aversion to winter. As well as being at times sad in a not groovy kind of way (I am down with the kids and all their lingo), I do believe that I have a case of SAD, (seasonal affective disorder) the thing which makes you all grumpy and down when the sun goes away.

The last couple of days of decent weather reminded me yet again that I and pretty much all of the country are different in the sunsheeeeine, as Mr Gallagher may put it. Even Bean, our nut job of a cocker spaniel is a big fan. When the weather is warm we leave the back door open and she can be found outside lying in the sun.

All of this may make some sense, but only some, of my love of Florida. It’s called the sunsheeeeine (I’ll stop now) state after all. It’s not something I’ve made up. I have been under the doctor recently. That sounds a bit odd, but you know what I mean. I have felt a bit crap for ages and yet as many tests have confirmed, I apparently have absolutely nothing wrong with me. So this is just how you feel at my age? Eight hundred and four blood tests can’t be wrong!

However, after my last visit I have been declared deficient. That won’t be a surprise, but that deficiency is not in intelligence (not officially anyway), charm or good looks, but hey you knew that right, but instead, in Vitamin D. I have to take the stuff, having had it prescribed. What that really means is that the doctor says I must get more Vitamin D, which means I need more exposure to the sun and ergo, the doctor says I need to go to Florida more.

Sadly, that isn’t something the over stretched, under funded and short-staffed NHS (a bit more politics, but hey my wife’s a nurse, so don’t @ me as the kids might say) can afford, but it is official, my poor efforts so far in spending as much time (and money) there as possible have been frankly, poor and I must do better.

So knowing that my country and climate are making me ill, and with it being some 128 days until I land in some better stuff, what is to be done? Clearly the UK has shot its bolt weather wise for this year as I sit here looking at some rain, and I have unavoidable incidentals like the mortgage, food and other nonsense to use my meagre earnings on so perhaps I need to buy one of those sun lamps that my Mum had in the seventies?

My only option seems to be to start a petition to have my incurable disease addressed on the NHS. Me living in Florida for around nine months of the year looks to be the only way to address this crisis. I can tolerate the UK from say June to the end of August, which will be a blessing to the UK tax payer and a sacrifice I am willing to make. Naturally, all of my family will need to be funded too as I will need their help and support to get me to all the theme parks and restaurants. The risk of me being “a bit tired” when all alone is not one that I wish to burden the conscience of the medial profession with. I am caring and compassionate in that way.

The light at the end of the tunnel for the NHS is that by living in Florida for most of the year I shall die nice and early from an obesity related disease and to keep costs to a minimum I shall have my ashes strewn outside the nearest Applebees during one of their happy hours so that those attending can pop in and get a lovely meal and a couple of cocktails at minimum expense.

So happy Autumn. That paddling pool you bought on Wednesday can go in the shed now until next year and you can pat yourself on the back that you only invested in a couple of disposable barbecues rather than that £2500 gas powered thing you keep promising yourself.

Feel free to write to your local MP to highlight my struggle.

Till the next time…..

To Siesta Key…And Beyond Tour 2017 – Day Nine April 19th 2017

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, To Siesta Key...And Beyond Tour

Sooooo…another beach day to write about……O…K……this week at the beach is truly testing my ability to make very similar days sound different. You’d think after all these years of stretching the same half a dozen gags over all these trip reports I’d be fine. Let’s see how we go.

We were up early at around 7am. We had arranged to Facetime Rebecca and Louise’s Mum at 12 back home. Having dragged my tired sack of bones from my bed to chat, once that was done I went straight back for a bit. There was no theme park queue to be at the front of after all.

Once up for a second time, guess where I went? Yep, the supermarket. I was picking up the usual stuff for lunch but I also needed a book. I don’t get much time to read in real life but on holiday I tend to devour books at an alarming rate. However, it would appear that the population of Siesta Key are either illiterate or all own Kindles as it took a very long search to find a shop that sold them and then the choice was pretty poor. Having picked up a fairly standard holiday thriller I returned home and got us over to the beach at around 10.30.

There was a lot of wind today, but with all this rich food we were eating, that wasn’t too much of a surprise. After such a strenuous morning we all rested until around 12, avoiding direct sunlight and trying to keep our umbrellas from blowing down the beach. Emily and I went for a wander up the shoreline.

I’m not sure how far we walked but it was the furthest we’d walked since we last saw a theme park.

We encountered some strange and wonderful beasts, native to the area…

These are probably called the orange billed black heads or similar…

This one, probably has a latin name such as hugioscruffygit.

Whereas this creature I think was called something like Mutton As Lamb With Cheesewire Up her Arse.

 

When we reached this it felt like a natural place to stop so we did.

We had a sit down for a few minutes taking in the smell of our skin crisping nicely in the midday sun.

Then we walked all the way back.

Emily resumed her place under her umbrella and I nipped back to the house to get our lunch. We endured doing lots of nothing for the rest of the afternoon. There was literally nothing worthy of a photo or me making a note of it. Some might say that’s an ideal afternoon.

At around 4.45 we headed back to the house and everyone rested and readied whilst I made some notes. As I opened up the camera to look back at our very eventful day, I noticed it had ever so slightly completely broken.  The large LCD display on the back looked like a kaleidoscope. Having experienced a very similar issue at Vero Beach some years ago I diagnosed it as having sand inside it and being irreparable. It did still take photos, as this classic proves.

But clearly a new camera was required.

Once everyone was ready we headed to a Best Buy which I had located online. I left everyone in the car and made a very swift trip inside to pick up the cheapest point and shoot camera I could find. The Canon Powershot was the one I walked out with, having exchanged it for $119. I have to say, the photos from here on in are much better. All these blurry ones weren’t my fault after all!!

We stopped for gas and filled the car with $30. Not actual dollar bills you understand. I swapped that amount for an appropriate liquid. Tonight we were following our sat nav to Applebees.

It was just a five-minute wait to be seated at our table….

and this was done by a young girl with EMO tendencies and an impressive fringe which made me all sorts of nostalgic.

As we perused the menu, drinks were ordered…

Emily had a Blue Long Island Iced Tea…

Louise had a Sangria…

and clearly I now had a camera that worked!!

We shared some Mozzarella Sticks for appetisers…

Then we entree’d as follows….

Me – South Western Steak Salad…

Emily – Burger

Louise – Steak with Garlic Mash and Broccoli

Dad – Chicken and Shrimp

Mum – Who clearly couldn’t wait for me to take my photo….a cheesey chicken thing. I’m sure that’s exactly what it said on the menu..

More cocktails followed and I ordered the Deep Fried Apple Cake thing…

Everyone else said they didn’t want any but I asked for extra spoons and sure enough I had to fight everyone to the death to stop them eating more than me.

The bill was $135 plus tip. Our way home was only interrupted by our daily pharmacy stop, this time at CVS. I didn’t make a note of what we bought other than “more bloody ointments and potions”. Our lovely beach house was beginning to look like a classroom at Hogwarts.

We excelled ourselves tonight by being in bed at 9.30.

Till the next time……

Great Disney Deals

 

Bait and Switch

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Despite me boring you all to tears with the blow by blow account of my planning adventures (and I had, believe it or not, edited out a lot of stuff) following last week’s update there were still some twists and turns to go.

The final link in the chain that did not want to get sorted was our Siesta Key booking. I consider myself fairly experienced in this DIY holiday malarkey but even I was stunned and shocked at some of the stuff I have come across.

I had spent a good deal of time on sites like HomeAway, VRBO and even Trip Advisor looking at and enquiring about properties. As I have said before, Siesta Key has very few hotels and even fewer within striking distance of the beach and village so it was always going to be a private rental.

Now, call me old-fashioned but when you see something online that gives you a price once you enter the required information, in this case, dates and number of people, you would expect that to be the price you were going to pay. There are rules about this stuff…believe me, I do it for a living.

However on more than one occasion, including the property I linked to last week, the web site offering that property at a given price then only gave me the option to Enquire Now, despite showing me a detailed breakdown of the costs involved. I waited longer than was ideal for a response and I then got quite a terse reply telling me that the costs would actually be about 30% higher than shown on the web site I had seen the property on. This wasn’t the only time it happened during my planning travels and they typically then tend to send you a link to a different website, managed directly by them where these new prices are shown.

These websites tend to look like something a teenager built in 2003 and haven’t been touched since. They offer no online booking facilities and do indeed give these new prices the tetchy owner is claiming to be correct. I honestly felt guilty for –

a) having insulted them by daring to want to book their property at the (originally) advertised price

b) querying why the price had risen by a good few hundred dollars

It won’t surprise you to know that I walked away from that particular deal without further discussion. I believe the term I’m looking for here is bait and switch.

Anyway, later that night, using a site I had heard much of but had never used, I found a suitable property on AirBnB. Crucially I was able to book there and then at the advertised price and things such as the cancellation terms etc were also clearly shown.

So, after what seems an endless search, seventeen false starts and more stress than it should have caused, here is where we will be staying in Siesta Key.

final siesta

It is a little bit further away from our ideal location than I might have liked, but the more realistic price and extra space clinched it. It is literally steps from the beach and a ten minute walk to the main street of the village where all the food and stuff is. I also remembered a chat I had with a blog reader (Thanks Mark) months ago when I first mentioned Siesta Key about free taxis operating on the island, so if needed we will use those if the walk is just too much our sun soaked bodies.

Finally, surely now, we are all sorted. I have marked the calendar with important dates about the booking of dining and fastpass stuff and I can now start to fill in each day with some plans. You’ll know by now that this starts with our eatery of choice for the day and we work backwards from there. There was a minor crisis when I realised that we simply didn’t have enough days in Orlando to get all our favourites in but I think I’ve resolved that by finding some of the chain restaurants we love, such as Olive Garden and Applebees close to Siesta Key, which frees up a couple of meals for our limited time in Orlando.

With Mum and Dad now coming along, thoughts turn to maybe fitting in a game of golf with my Dad and again that is likely to be somewhere close to Siesta Key as our Orlando time is too precious.

The basis of the plan currently involves the likes of Teak, Cowfish, Market Street Cafe (Celebration), Bahama Breeze, O’hana, Sanaa, Outback, Olive Garden, Applebees and Beaches & Cream. We also somehow have to fit in the new Toothsome Chocolate Factory place at Universal…

Credit to Insidethemagic.net for the image…..

Image credit to themeparktrader.com

I don’t know about you but that’s made me hungry so I’m off to eat something….

Till the next time…..

The Adults Only Tour 2015 – Day Twelve

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Day Twelve – 7th September

There’s a very good reason you probably won’t find too many trip reports of beach holidays. The material for such is a little monotonous and uninteresting as I shall now demonstrate.

We were awake around 8am and of course had to pack, ready to check out. With that unpleasantness done, we went down to the free breakfast. It was very nice and buffet style, so I shall let you draw your own conclusions about how that went.

Nicely full, we took our luggage out to the car before making our way down to the beach and more expensive sunbeds.

I can summarise the next few hours in two photos.

As the second one demonstrates, it was very, very hot and few of us were suffering from a little too much sun yesterday.

The rest of the morning meandered away with little or no activity to report, which of course is the sign of a good beach day. Rebecca, Grandad and I ventured into the very rough sea for a little bit, followed by some more lying around. Riveting this isn’t it?

Around lunch time we experienced a very strange rain shower. There were absolutely no clouds and yet we were sprinkled with not unpleasant drizzle. As this rain was persisting a little longer than we wanted it to, Louise suggested that we drive out somewhere for a lunch a little more varied than the burger van fare available on the beach. With that decision made we packed up and decided we’d head back to Orlando after lunch and so we said our goodbyes to Daytona.

We love Daytona and of course Vero. I do find it a bit odd that we have always done beaches on the East coast of Florida rather than the more traditional destinations such as Clearwater and St Pete’s. One of these years we will put that right I expect, but there is always that dilemma of trying something new or sticking with that you know you will enjoy.

We drove aimlessly around Daytona for a bit learning that the eateries featured in our sat nav were now sadly out of date, with many of them now closed. This should not have been too surprising as it hadn’t been updated since we bought it in 2011 (I think).

We ended up on the road out of Daytona back towards Orlando and spotted a large mall, which was called Volussia. As unappealing as that sounded to me, being a mall, it had an Applebees attached to it and so that made our decision to stop an easy one.

As we waited to be seated, perusing the menu, our decision to leave the beach proved to be a good one, as the heavens opened and stayed open for a good few hours.

We had –

Grandad – Shrimp Starter and then Won Ton Tacos

Me – Appetiser Sampler as my entrée, which was made up of Nachos, Mozzarella Sticks and Boneless Wings. I didn’t have a starter as I’m not an animal.

Louise – Same as me, but with Quesadillas instead of wings

Rebecca – Same as me

Sarah – Mozzarella Sticks and then a Fajita Wrap

Nana – Fish and Chips

I must have been hungry as those two photos were all I could manage.

With some Margaritas and a wine or two the bill came to $130 including a tip.

We left and drove west toward Orlando, through the rain, arriving back at 4.50. The plan had been to collect Emily on our way out to Hollywood Studios, but she told us she was knackered after work and just wanted to sleep, so we changed our plans to leave a little later, taking the chance to nip to Publix for more bits, which essentially consisted of wine and high sugar goods.

We left the villa at 7.30, arriving to see the Studios looking glorious in the dark.

Tonight was the final Frozen Firework party thing of the summer and so we made our way up to DJ Chill who was expertly playing other people’s records in front of the Great Movie Ride.

My ability to take a blurred photo knows no bounds.

The girls got their groove on to the “banging tunes” for a bit, whilst Nana and Grandad wandered off to the shops and to get a drink.

After battling their way right to front for more throwing of shapes they returned to us to watch the fireworks.

We enjoyed the fireworks so much I took another blurred photo.

We then battled our way down Sunset Boulevard for the 10pm Fantasmic, stopping in the villains shop on the way for drinks, souvenirs and more crowd battling.

Once inside a very full and busy stadium we took our seats.

Clearly not feeling myself, I agreed to buy Louise some lighty up ear things and after fighting my way to a vendor and all the way back to my seat, imagine my delight when they didn’t work. The joy continued when the show started, as after about a minute it stopped again due to the increasing rain. Our history of rain and Fantasmic is surely now legendary?

We waited a few minutes and the show started up again…..only to stop once more after not long at all. With our patience at full stretch, we stuck it out a little longer and we were rewarded with the rest of the show without interruption.

Here is my traditional eulogy about Disney’s ability to disperse thousands of people via seemingly a couple of trams without fuss, queue or complication. Within minutes of leaving the stadium (after swapping out Louise’s defective ears) we found a tram waiting for us, with no queue at all and we were whisked away to our car and we are on our way on amazingly uncongested roads. In the UK, if you dare to attempt the Trafford Centre at any time other than 2am on a weekday you sit on the car park for forty minutes waiting to get off.

We did witness some truly scary driving from some folks on the way home, with last minute lane switching and the cutting up of other folks, but thankfully my experience, excellent road sense and The Force saw us home safely. I was so busy keeping us safe that I did miss a junction so we took a lovely scenic route home, which was nice. We were home by 11.40 and I managed about a page and a half of my book before my eyes closed.

Till the next time…..

Back Pain, not going back pain and Applebees

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Just as I start to think I a recovering from post WDW blues, someone does something which brings all those thoughts and longings back.

applebees
Twitter is a cruel mistress

As much as I do feel honoured that the chap or chapess who runs the Applebees twitter account found me and decided I was worthy of a follow, as I read that email it hurt.

There were two reasons for this.  Firstly it was 4.43am.  I was just about to set off down south to get to Head Office for a couple of days, but secondly and mainly it reminded me that the joys of an Ultimate Trio at an Applebees was so beyond my reach that the pain was tangible.

I suspect it is more likely that Applebees will open up some UK branches before we get to go back.  That’s right, I am declaring right here, as is my annual tradition, that I don’t think we’ll be back next year.  The new house demands attention like a naughty toddler, and more than that, it demands whatever disposable income we are likely to stumble across.

I won’t go on about it, as we all know that isn’t the first time I have been here, so we’ll leave it there and wait and see.  It is Emily’s 18th next July, and she has been less than subtle in declaring where she wants to be for it, but that doesn’t magic up the multiple thousands of pounds required, regardless of the amount of guilt I would feel if we didn’t do something special for her.

In real world matters, Louise’s back is improving, thanks to some physio and lots of medication.  She should be returning to her hospital placement tomorrow which is excellent news.  The physio seems to think that the back problems are caused by a long-standing ankle problem which is forcing Louise to walk in a way that compensates for the pain she feels, and this in turn throws her pelvis and back out of kilter, and leads to her back “going” from time to time.  So the end game is to resolve the ankle thing.

The first step (pun intended) in this process is naturally to throw away the £50 trainers she has had for a few weeks and buy some new ones which will be better suited to her needs.  Smashing.  Should anyone want a pair of black Sketchers that have been worn about six times do let me know.  Best price guaranteed!

With Louise mobile again, I am hopeful that we will tonight complete a long-held ambition to enjoy a night with a Bat Man costume in a darkened room.  This is not a Shades of Grey type reference, more a 50 pounds of Pick n Mix reference as we are heading for the cinema.  Our local Cineworld is still showing the Dark Knight film, despite the fact it has been out since July, and having heard nothing but good things I intend to snack up, settle down and slob out for a couple of hours.

Next week sees me in Manchester, Marlow and London, none of which have an Applebees and this is something I am struggling to come to terms with.

However, my pain is but a low throb compared to the white-hot burning heat of a post WDW depression that @tweetwizzo is feeling right about now, having recently landed back in the UK.  He’ll be starting his trip report soon so look out for it.  At the rate I am getting through mine, not only will he finish his before me, he will probably have had another holiday too.

Mind you, neither of us seem to be enduring a lack of mojo on a scale to compare with Gordon (The_Finkelstein) who hasn’t been seen much since his return back in the early days of summer.  I am thinking of hosting a 24 hour telethon appeal to get him the support he needs in these tough times.

Right, I must go.  The X Factor repeat has come on the telly so I need to go and throw it out of the window.

Till the next time…..