At least today there won’t be any going to the beach and I’m sure we’re all agreed that this is a good thing.
Instead, you get the riveting, very badly remembered travel home day. For those still here, I salute you.
We were awake at 6.30am after a poor night’s sleep. We dozed and rested for a little while before getting up to undertake the unpleasant task of packing. It took about an hour or so and then we showered. We left the room just after 10am with the weather outside already hot enough to make the recent shower irrelevant.
We loaded up the jeep and headed for a gas station. I filled up and got us some “breakfast” from the mini-mart inside. It was a high-class establishment as most “mom and pop” gas stations tend to be in the US. Breakfast took the form of a Starbucks iced coffee thing in a bottle and some sugary cake-based thing.
We endured the I95 for the final time this trip and it was a long and brutal two hours. Thankfully with none of the horrendous weather we endured on the way down (doesn’t that seem a lifetime ago?).
I’d set the sat nav for a mall in Melbourne that was not far from the airport as our last-minute gift shopping had become even more last minute. It was lunch time by the time we arrived so I was delighted to see….
It was pretty quiet and we were seated immediately. We wanted to go out with a bang and a need for some larger clothes so we started with the Bloomin’ Onion.
and the bread of course.
It was glorious.
To follow, I had Sirloin and Ribs and a Jacket Spud that bore little resemblance to the rock hard taste taste-free entities I endure at home.
Louise had Fillet
It was all gloriously tasty and I really enjoyed everything about it. The bill was $110 including tip.
We drove to the mall entrance and began the dash for suitable gifts.
We got Emily a couple of band T-shirts from this place…a sort of Hot Topic lite…
And my Dad would have been looking down approvingly as we secured presents for Rebecca, Tom, Freddie and Dougie in….
We got the grown-ups matching Nike caps for their October Disney trip and the boys a personalised cap each sporting a Batman logo.
Here they are a few days later, at my Mum’s house, having just received them.
We did the correct thing as Grandparents and also bought a “shit ton” of US sweets and candy too of course.
With our shopping done, we headed back to the car, topped up with fuel again and headed for the airport. Again, Melbourne proved to be a simple delight for car drop-off and check in. Security too came with none of the drama and queuing MCO is infamous for. As a testament to our “leave it to the last minute” approach to gift shopping we then got my Mum a fridge magnet in the airport gift shop (she collects them!).
We got a drink and sat and waited for a bit.
We watched an incoming set of passengers from a newly arrived plane wander in through that corridor. I’m sure airports do it on purpose. The last thing I want to see when waiting to fly home is a load of folks just about to start their holiday!
We wandered the short distance down to the gate and waited to board.
My notes stop here and I have very little recollection of the flight which is a slight concern. It can’t have contained anything unpleasant or I would have remembered, I’m sure. I do recall that our extra legroom seats in a row of three actually had a third person on it, which was unfortunate.
We ate, watched things and got progressively more tired as sleep was clearly impossible in what felt like a cramped environment.
Upon landing, and having trudged the long distance from plane to passport checks, as ever the automatic passport gates refused to accept my face and I had to go and see a human. Our cases took too long to come off and the drive back around the M60 and up the M61 after a Florida trip lived up to being one of the most depressing things known to man. Soon we were home.
We loved Delray. It was exactly what we were looking for and my low-level fears of it being a bit “Daytona” or “Blackpool-y” (apologies to residents of both) were unfounded. The beach was gorgeous and the eateries and evening options were plentiful. Our hotel was perfect and lovely and we would go to Delray and that hotel again for sure.
We flew TUI for the first time and it was very good. The plane and flight were fine. The 3-3-3 config isn’t ideal for those travelling as a couple of course but the seats, entertainment options and service were all absolutely fine.
Melbourne Airport is a delight though. It’s much smaller scale than MCO means you avoid many of the issues found there, namely that double bag drop nonsense, long security and immigration queues and the long schelps from monorails to terminals and car hire places. We would and indeed are doing TUI again in October.
I appreciate the (lack of appeal) this kind of holiday may have from a reading about it point of view and I almost did not do a trip report, but I figured it was worth doing just for me to look back on in the future and if a few of you tagged along then, thank you and I hope it was not too tedious.
Planning and prep for October is underway and next week I can begin to let you know my plans, concerns and ambitions. See you then?
Hey, we’re almost there. We are on our last full day so you just have today and next week to endure before we can get back to slightly less boring content about the build-up and countdown to our more trip report friendly October theme park bonanza. You’ve come this far, it would be a shame not to stick it out to the end, right? RIGHT???
As much as you are bored of reading about it, I suspect we too were almost beached out by now as our start was slow, with a lie-in and then a beachbound brunch at Boheme.
We both had a blurry stuffed baguette, an iced mocha and an OJ.
$60 lighter we undertook the remaining steps to the beach in what were new levels of heat today. We grabbed some beds using the last of our bulk-bought days (who says beach holidays require no planning?) and an essential umbrella and, well you know the rest.
As this will be our last beach day for who knows how long, have several photos.
By early afternoon we needed drinks so I hauled myself into an upright position and made the trek to the nearest shop. With a big sweat on when I got back, I ventured into the sea and we both had a swim for half an hour or so. Hectic today isn’t it?
As the afternoon progressed we were surrounded by shite music from all sides, with various people nearby assuming we wanted to listen to their music. If only someone had invented a device that allowed people to listen to music without inflicting it on others.
These were the worst offenders.
This group arrived late afternoon and seemed to be a rag-tag collection of about ten man-boys, definitely too old to be listening to gansta rap and making gang signs at each new member of the group as they arrived. The testosterone levels and the use of the word “bro” were intolerable and immeasurable.
Their musical taste or lack of it was the final straw and we left the beach at 5pm. We enjoyed the stroll back to the hotel in that glorious golden hour sun and heat, knowing we would not see its like again for some time.
Whilst readying happened, I booked that Mexican place again for 8pm and our Lyft took us there in a very nice Volvo X90. We opted to eat outside, again not knowing when we may next be able to do so.
For reasons I cannot fathom I chose to capture that very attractive bin.
We went full Magaluf and ordered a jug of Sangria which was delightful. Of course, we ordered the Nachos too.
Our server was excellent. He advised us just to have the Nachos and then see if we could manage an entree just as we were about to order them. I know we can put food away but he was right, we were full after the Nachos. He could easily have let us order entrees and increase his tip. As a reward for him and us, we did order the Churros which were outstanding. Again, he stopped us ordering two desserts as he knew the size!
I don’t know why everything was blurry this evening to be honest.
The bill was around $90 with a good tip included. We strolled Atlantic Avenue starting our traditional last-minute search for gifts. The heat and “closeness” tonight was off the scale and we were both dripping with sweat, which was attractive. The feeling of an incoming thunderstorm was obvious but it never materialised, it just got hotter and hotter.
The level crossing right through Atlantic Avenue had us wait whilst possibly the longest train on earth went through.
We stopped for one drink at the hotel we’d watched the guitarist at the other night and then walked up to the Yacht Club again for another karaoke night. Several drinks were had which no doubt led to Louise getting up to sing in public for the first time in over 20 years. She made me delete the video the next day.
We left at 12, ready for bed, but not really ready to leave this lovely place.
Today’s post is for the 99% of my readers who are fed up with reading about lying on a beach and eating food. Yes, today we did something different, so buckle up for more excitement than the D23 announcements. Maybe.
We awoke with no plans, but the fact that we were too sunburned to subject our bodies to more sun forced our hands to look for a plan B. I did some googling and before too long found a suitably affordable and local activity and booked it.
We were headed for a two-hour catamaran tour around West Palm Beach. It was $50 each and came with a lot of good reviews. It didn’t start until the afternoon so we positioned ourselves in some shade around the pool for a couple of hours, and the weather was hot!!
We got ourselves ready and left around 1pm. We endured the I95 to West Palm Beach and parked in the recommended car park on the tour’s website. It was a ten minute walk down to the port/harbour/docks (I don’t know nautical stuff) and the place oozed money.
Just so you know, there will be a lot of photos of boats and houses.
Our mode of transport would be more our style/wealth bracket.
We checked in and waited about ten minutes before boarding. We cleverly found some seats in the shade to escape the unrelenting sun, but soon realised that when we set off the boat turned round and we were exposed and were both buckets of sweat within seconds.
The tour takes you along the coast of West Palm Beach island to witness some incredible monuments to wealth.
The crew do a great job of narrating the properties. Of course, it could all be made up but we saw houses owned or previously owned by the likes of Andre Agassi, Sly Stallone, Tommy Hilfiger, Vera Wang and many others that I have since forgotten. Some of the history was fascinating and the amount of dollars involved even more so.
We passed a marina/yacht club where we were told that membership was only possible for those owning a property on the island valued at more than $60m and a golf club with a membership fee of $250,000 a year.
What you need outside a $100m house of course is a boat of similar value.
There was a real variety of properties, with some smaller, cute ones too.
They were much more affordable!!
This is probably one of the most beautiful and wealthy places on the planet.
This was Sly Stallone’s and apparently it’s the one he films his reality show in.
We saw a Bond-related yacht.
Then we pulled away from the coast and took in some of the open water.
After a while we started to see some of the more industrial parts of the port.
Before quickly returning to the wealth and this was, we were told, the largest and most expensive sail boat (may not be the correct term) on the planet.
We were told how much it costs just to moor a boat in these parts and safe to say, if we sold our house and a couple of kidneys we may be able to do so for a week. It’s not cheap to be very rich.
For the last 45 minutes or so Louise was really struggling with the heat. It was brutal. We got drinks of course but the sweat was incessant and as we headed back to where we started, we were very much looking forward to some shade and air con.
We disembarked at 4pm, Louise sat in the shade and I walked back for the car and then returned to collect her.
We absolutely loved the tour and if we were to do this kind of trip again I think we’d look to do more of this kind of thing. I know anyone reading this will probably endorse those thoughts.
The I95 got us back to Delray around 5pm and we had very welcome showers and I watched some TV whilst Louise got ready. I booked what turned out to be our favourite eatery of the trip, the Mexican Roccas Tacos for 7.45 and our Lyft picked us up at 7.15. Our driver was Luigi and he was, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying, a nut case. He was a real character and made the short drive very entertaining. He had lived in the UK for a while and hated it. He now lived in Delray managing the eight properties his parents owned and doing some Lyft driving when he got bored.
We were seated immediately.
Once again we had our Guac made table side….
I had a beer and in a strange turn of events, driven by too much sun, Louise had a diet coke.
Louise ordered from the specials and it was an incredible Beef Fajitas that looked like this. I cannot describe how tasty that bowl of brown stuff was.
I had Steak Tacos and they were also incredible.
I think we both agreed this was our best meal of the trip. It was $113 including tip.
We were very ready for bed at this time and we ordered a Lyft. It turned out that our driver home recognised us, as he was the driver that almost killed Louise by setting off with her halfway in the car. He was still apologetic.
I cannot suggest a plausible reason for it, but somehow we did not feel too hungry this morning. I resisted the urge to call 911, as clearly this constituted some kind of medical emergency, instead, I chose to believe the frankly ridiculous theory that we’d eaten quite an amount of food recently and that may be the root cause. So, and I know this will shock you, we skipped a meal and set off for the beach breakfast-less.
We mounted our sunbeds around 10.30 and enjoyed the lack of wind. Let’s face don’t we all when that is the case.
It was, as you can perhaps appreciate from that photo, a scorcher.
We did some proper lying down until about 12.30, at which time our rediscovered appetites forced us over the road to Lune Rosa to rectify that situation. Luna Rosa is one of the oldest eateries in Delray I think. It has some Brown Derby vibes going on as it is quite old school with lots of dark woods and photos of famous folks on the walls.
We ordered –
A Chicken Walnut Salad for me.
No breakfast and then a salad for lunch could be seen to be some kind of cry for help in my case, but I still wasn’t feeling too hungry.
Louise ordered an Egg and Ham Croissant from the specials board.
They were both excellent, and with soft drinks, such as the iced coffee below the bill came to $60.
We strolled the 50 yards or so back to the beach and did some more lying down.
Once I had observed the universally accepted amount of time after eating to avoid immediate death, I ventured into the sea. It was incredibly warm and clear today and there was none of the nut shrivelling tip-toeing into the water than can often be the case with a sea.
Mid-afternoon there was drama. I say drama, but it’s relative to the complete lack of activity at all other times of course.
We saw lots of people leaving the sea in a hurry and then a group of folks all watching the same dark object move about under the water.
Not being able to muster the energy to leave my bed to investigate further, I just zoomed the camera in a bit and took a lot of photos, so I appreciate that my reporting of this event will not be troubling the Pulitzer committee.
After a while the small crowd dispersed and people ventured back into the water. There was no conclusive declaration of it being a shark, but this was pretty much at the same time as the shark attacks off another Florida coast so it may have been.
At around 5pm we decided to call an end to all this not doing anything and with Louise feeling a bit drained/weird (too much sun maybe?) we headed for home. Leisurely showers and readying happened before deciding that we couldn’t be bothered to head into the main Delray area, so we just strolled the short distance to Luna Rosa again. We were glad we did. Having had breakfast and lunch here already, adding the dinner option too proved to be a smart move.
Bread service with the most garlic we’ve ever consumed.
We then went with the Antipasto Platter. We opted for that rather than the Propasto Platter. Ba Dum Tish.
This was fantastic and I complemented it with a Chocolate Martini.
Louise had red wine and we moved on to –
Steak for me.
Pasta with Broccoli and Sausage in Truffle Oil for Louise.
Both dishes were superb. Louise was still not feeling hungry so did not finish and her lack of energy and feeling a bit “weird” persisted from earlier. So there would be no late drinking/partying tonight, unlike all the other nights when we were in bed before midnight.
Back at the hotel, I made a quick trip to Walgreens in the Jeep for some itch/bite stuff to attend to some wounds we had. We were still in bed by 10pm and I read for a few minutes before welcoming sleep.
My notes tell me I had a bad night’s sleep, and I attributed it to eating too much too close to bedtime. On reflection, it may have been the size of the bill what did it!
With that unsettled night it was 10.30 before we were up and about and we brunched at Boheme Bistro. It being steps from our hotel and on the way to the beach was granting it a lot of our business this trip.
We chose to sit outside and after ordering we Facetimed Rebecca and had a chat for a bit. We were still doing that when our food arrived which resulted in me forgetting to take photos before the eating began.
A large Stuffed Baguette for was mine, which is not a new thing for me.
And that empty plate once contained Louise’s Eggs Benedict.
We encountered a few spots of rain whilst we ate, but it was that kind of hot where that was quite welcome. Thankfully, it was just those few spots and we didn’t need to move inside.
Once down at the beach, we were relieved and delighted to see the umbrellas up, despite there being a decent wind.
We assumed the position under overcast skies. It was of course still delightfully hot.
Mid-afternoon I went for a wander to get us some drinks and another lot of sun cream and besides that, we did literally nothing. The weather brightened too.
The ability to do nothing for hours on end is a non-negotiable skill for these types of holidays. I am very happy to do very little as I so sledom get that chance back home. We endured until around 5.30, strolled back to the hotel and readied ourselves for more eating and drinking.
Tonight we would stray from Atlantic Avenue and indeed Delray by driving out to Bocca and….
It took about 20 minutes to do so, and the I95 retained its crown as the worst road I’ve driven on in the US.
There was no wait to be seated and we kicked off with the bread service.
My diet coke arrived with some of the machine inside it, so I was brought another.
You may have guessed that we of course ordered the Nachos to share here for our entree, with beef added.
They were very good but not as good as those we have had at the Cheesecake Factory in Lake Buena Vista. Despite it being the same chain, experiences and dishes can differ greatly.
We forced ourselves to a dessert, sharing a Cookie Dough and Pecan slice.
It was glorious but it could not be finished.
I forgot to note the cost of this meal but I am confident to say it was a lot more acceptable than the one last night.
We drove home, went straight to bed and watched TV for a bit before enduring another unsettled night.
I spent most of the morning in bed doing something I very rarely do.
Having a lie-in.
It was 10.30 before I was up and about but hey, we had nowhere to be. I had some breakfast and watched some telly whilst Louise slept on. Once she arose she wanted to go out for breakfast. Clearly, as I had already had mine I would just get a drink or something at Boheme Bistro.
I don’t know how to explain why the waitress brought me this to be honest….
It was definite brunch/early lunch territory so Louise went for a BLT.
Eating Hobbit style, with a middle breakfast, might just be the lifestyle I’ve been looking for.
Leaving $60 including tip, we set off back to the hotel to take up our positions by the pool. It was rammed today, with two other people crowding us.
Louise ignored the “you have to wait for an hour after eating before going in the pool” rule….
I cowered in the shade as certain body parts were still a little well done. We only had to move beds once today to chase the shade, but I did have to make several dashes back to the room for reasons I won’t go into, but I was very glad we were not at the beach today. Nobody wants *that* in the water.
With little else to report other than more of the same for the rest of the day, Louise went back to the room around 5.30 to start getting ready and I stayed out by the pool for a bit reading.
I showered and readied around 6.30 and we nipped out to Publix for “bits”.
We dropped the car off back at the hotel and ordered a Lyft. Stand by, because after a lot of nothing happening, there is about to be some mild drama.
We were picked up in a HUGE Toyota Sequoia by a lovely female driver. Delray was rammed, being the start of the weekend, and once she got us within striking distance of our restaurant of choice, we jumped out of the car in the middle of backed-up traffic and jogged unathletically across the road to avoid death.
We walked the remaining distance to Rocco’s Tacos and approached the podium. Upon hearing my accent the young girl trying to sort us a table asked which part of London I was from. Vocally, Dick Van Dyke I am not. I rolled my eyes and explained roughly where we lived and she explained that she lived in Cambridge when she was very young as her Dad was in the Air Force, stationed in the UK.
Pleasant chat over, she asked for my mobile number so she could text me. I thought that was a little bold with Louise stood next to me, but after a few awkward moments, it turns out she meant when the table was ready.
We started walking to the bar, and I did one of 300 daily pocket pats, ensuring I had my car keys, phone, etc. A sudden sickness came over me as I felt the emptiness of one pocket. Looking paler than milk I realised I had left my phone in the Lyft!
We ran outside, knowing she had long gone and with panic raging, I grabbed Louise’s phone and tried to call mine. It would not connect.
I tried to log into my Lyft account on Louise’s phone so that I could message the driver, but that wasn’t possible as it sent a verification code to my phone!
I logged into my iCloud on Louise’s phone and could see my phone moving, so it was definitely in the car, but that was driving away from Delray.
With my mind swimming with the horrors of dealing with losing my phone whilst away, I sent the sound alarm thing to my phone many times. I then tried calling it via every method available, Messenger, WhatsApp and the like. Finally, what felt like a thousand minutes later, the driver picked up. She had heard me pinging it and realised what had happened. She very kindly agreed to bring it back to Delray once she had finished her current drop-off.
I cannot describe the feeling of relief.
We stood outside the restaurant for about 20 minutes, having gone back inside to tell them that there was no point texting me yet and I explained why.
Eventually, she pulled up and I could have dragged her through the passenger window and kissed her. Instead, I gave her the maximum tip the app would allow which was the better option for everyone all things considered..
With my sheen of sweat now subsiding, we claimed our table and sat down to eat. This was the second time that I have left my phone in a taxi whilst overseas and I can only blame the poor pocketage on my very attractive holiday shorts.
We started with some chips and Guac. Enough to sink a battleship.
We ordered a Margharita each.
and ordered the same entree….a salad….
Honest! It was called a Taco Salad Bowl and it was awesome. This was our best meal so far, perhaps enhanced by the surge of adrenaline still pumping through my body, but we paid the $120 including tip happily and left.
We strolled down to Johnny Brown’s, a bar that always seemed to have live music on. It was absolutely packed. It was a literal fight to get a drink and we somehow bagged a table right outside the restrooms. Maybe that was why.
We’ve had better views.
The band were decent but the thought of another trip to the bar and the feeling that we were getting eaten alive by something drove us to seek another venue.
We ended up in the Yacht Club again where another band was playing. This place was much less crowded and civilized and we had a few drinks here whilst listening to the band, who, again were pretty good. Unlike my photography.
We jumped in a Lyft home around midnight and bed swallowed us up as eagerly as I had that Taco Salad earlier.
A good night’s sleep was ended around 6.30am. Rebecca phoned us around 7am to let us know Dougie and Tom had spent the night in A&E, as Dougie was having some serious breathing issues. At the risk of getting political, they left after five hours still not having seen a doctor and there was no realistic chance they would at any point. Go vote on July 4th! Someone else needs a go now.
We got up and had breakfast in our room and then I made the seven-step journey to the pool to “secure” some beds.
Being the only person at the pool, that was not too hard.
We spent most of the day in the shade due to being burned to a crisp from yesterday on the beach. We moved to different beds three times throughout the day to follow the shade!
We spent a good amount of time in the pool, cooling off and chatting. At some point, I made the long seven-step journey back to the room to get our sandwiches and crisps for lunch.
Mid-afternoon, I captured my impressive exercise stats for the day so far.
You know it’s hot when the locals can’t place all their feet on the hot floor.
At around 3.30 we decided to go for a drive to nowhere in particular. We were hot and if I’m honest I just fancied taking our lovely car out for a spin.
We got dressed and pointed the Jeep south on the A1A. Within a minute or so, as we left the area around Atlantic Avenue we started to see some of the most incredible houses we had ever laid eyes on. Louise, frankly, did a poor job of capturing them.
Delray has some proper wealth in and around it for sure. We drove south for about an hour, just soaking in the sights and at that point made the decision to drive on down to Hollywood, outside of Miami. Why?
Well, back in 1980 when all this Florida madness started for me, we stayed in Hollywood. As most of you will know, the story is that we went to AT Mays Travel Agents in Bolton, as we usually did to book our Spanish holiday and due to a dollar rate of around $2.20 to the pound, they told us we could go to Miami for less money than Spain. The rest is, as they say, history.
It felt silly to be staying so close this time without going to have a look, not that I had any real memories of the trip, which was now 43 years ago! But having lost my Dad recently, I felt the need to go and see where it all started I suppose.
With only 25 miles left on the Sat Nav to get to Hollywood, I wondered why it said we wouldn’t be there for 50 minutes. Well, the bobbins traffic in and around Fort Lauderdale soon explained that. It took all of those 50 minutes, but we were definitely in the “we’ve come too far to not complete this” territory now.
I had no clue where we stayed in 1980, and earlier in the pool when talking to Louise about it, from nowhere the name The Diplomat came to me. I was very spooked when I later looked at Google maps before setting off to see a hotel with that name in Hollywood literally be the first thing I saw when I zoomed in. This was weird.
Now, as we were finally driving along the “front” looking at all the hotels, not too surprisingly nothing really rang a bell. We did go past The Diplomat but it looked huge and it didn’t feel like the place we were at, but in 43 years they could have rebuilt the whole town of course.
When I messaged my Mum and Brother later that evening he seemed to think it was called Hotel Miami and there was one called that too, but it was closed now.
Louise needed the loo before we set off for home, so we stopped off at the nearest place likely to have one so that she could release her very own Whopper.
Whilst she did that I got us both an iced coffee to go and as I sat and waited my phone buzzed with a news alert that Donald Trump had been found guilty in his trial. This was also a bit weird as when we walked back to the car we saw that we were directly across from this.
Today felt a bit surreal all round.
We set the Sat Nav for home, this time using the I-95 rather than the A1A so the time was roughly halved. We found CNN on Sirius Radio and listened to the fallout from the Trump trial as we drove back. Again, the I-95 was busy and stressful.
Thankfully we eventually pulled off it onto the A1A again and tried to snap some more fancy houses on the way back into Delray.
We showered and got ready with a Lyft picking us up at around 9pm
and we headed for Vic & Angelos, an Italian.
We ordered a bottle of Montepulciano and some starters.
Mine was an Eggplant Lasagne thing.
Louise’s Meatball obsession continued.
We both had the same Entree. Nonna’s Sunday Gravy.
You may notice it involved another huge Meatball.
We were defeated and could not finish as of course we had also devoured the bread service.
As we were eating outside on the pavement, we were entertained by a lady pulling up and then reversing straight into a very fancy Range Rover parked behind her. She jumped out and we both thought she’d been drinking. A passerby took some photos of her and her car and they exchanged some strong words. She ended up not leaving a note and driving away. I don’t think there was any damage to be fair.
I didn’t note the price of the meal but I’d wager at $150ish due to the wine.
We strolled up Atlantic Avenue looking for somewhere to get a drink. At our age we want somewhere with something going on, but that’s not too busy and noisy. It’s tragic I know.
Right at the far end of Atlantic Avenue is the Yacht Club, a small bar that tonight had some Karaoke on. As there were no more bars if we walked any further, we decided to go in and to be fair it was good fun.
We had a couple of drinks and watched some “mixed” performances. These included an out-of-time Elvis, a crooner who may have been over 100 years old and a yacht rock guy.
We left at 12 and took a Lyft home where bed was immediate.
Sure, I’d been awake for 22 hours, but that didn’t prevent my body from waking me up at 3am. Rather than wet the bed I got up for a wee and then thankfully returned to sleep until around 5.30am.
Louise slept on a bit so I spent that time dealing with some work stuff (hey, you don’t get to be paid millions a year and then have a holiday without doing work stuff…and the same applies when you get paid buttons too it seems).
When Louise was up we finished the unpacking, I made a coffee and whilst Louise got ready I wrote up my notes for the long travel day yesterday, narrowly avoiding PTSD when it came to the drive from the airport.
We were still ready and out of the door by 8am and we strolled down towards the beach and decided upon Luna Rosa for some breakfast.
We both ordered the same thing: Iced coffee and eggs Benedict on avocado and toast. I have never been so hipster in my life!
This was the view from our table.
I think it’s a sign of having had a good holiday when looking back at photos like these causes you physical pain and a deep longing to be back there.
Yes, it was delicious.
After leaving $70 including tip we crossed the road to the beach.
It was still pretty empty at this time and we had our pick of beds.
We oiled up and lay down. We both ventured into the sea for a bit. It was not cold and very calm and clear, and you had to go a long way out to get out of your depth. It was lovely.
Knowing a chap would be coming by soon to collect payment for the bed and brolly hire I feared that I may need some cash, so I had a wander to find an ATM machine. This turned into quite the hike as the nearest one was a fifteen-minute “stroll” up Atlantic Avenue. By Jingo it was hot.
As gruelling as that walk was, it was good to have a look around and get our bearings for where eateries and bars were located.
On the walk back to the beach I called into our room for a tactical wee and to pick up some water. We got a very sad message from an upset Emily that one of her rats, Jim had sadly passed. He was old in rat terms so it wasn’t unexpected but they mean the world to Emily and losing a pet is always tough.
Back at the beach, the bed man came and I need not have worried about payment. He had a card machine linked to his phone and we negotiated a discounted rate for buying multiple days.
We read, dozed and rested for a while longer before needing some lunch around 12.30. Today was to be a big food day it seems!
We wandered up Atlantic Avenue and chose Boheme Bistro based almost entirely on its proximity to the beach.
Louise had a Chicken Caesar Salad.
I had a Turkey Baguette.
Diet cokes and a wine and it cost us $80 including tip.
Louise nipped back to the room which was just around the corner for a loo stop and I went back to the beach.
On the beds next to us (at the beach, not in our room!) were two young college girls. Their conversation was loud enough to hear in Orlando and it was a terrifying “Mean Girls” experience that made me very glad I was old.
We rested some more and then Facetimed my Mum for a bit.
We left the beach at 5.30 after a hard day. A five-minute walk saw us back at the hotel, where we jumped into the jeep and found the local Publix to do some stocking up. Cereal, milk, some sandwiches for lunch tomorrow, (this eating out three times a day was not sustainable) natural yoghurt for Louise who had of course burned herself in the sun today and some water. A terrifying $90.
Back “home”, we showered and I booked us a table at The Office for 9.30. We ordered a Lyft at 9pm and we were picked up moments later.
I had a Giant Pretzel, but I’m not one to brag.
Louise had meatballs adorned with some green crap.
Our entrees were….
A Short Rib Sandwich for me. It was awesome. That white dip is melted marshmallow!
Louise had The Office Burger
With wines for Louise and an Espresso Martini for me, all this came to $145 including a healthy tip.
We were knackered and full so a Lyft was ordered to take us to bed. I jumped in the back seat with Louise a step or two behind me on the other side of the car and he started to set off with her only half in. There was much shouting of “woah, stop, hang on etc” and thankfully no harm was done. I think he apologised for every second of the short journey home.
We were home and in bed by 10.45, deep in a food coma.
Things did not get off to a great start. The night before our flight I received a message from Tui saying that our In-Flight Entertainment would not be working, but fear not, we could claim £30 compensation…EACH….if we wished.
Louise was less than pleased. As a nervous flyer, this distraction is key to her surviving a flight. Trying very hard not to let this darken our mood we pressed on with final preparations and went to bed around 11.30.
I set my alarm for 4.30am, but Louise was up and about well before that ensuring that I was too. I had not had the greatest of sleeps. I found myself anxiously pondering all the things I had not done, feeling massively underprepared for this trip for some reason.
With the broken IFE thing on my mind I put my ear bud things on to charge for an hour before we left just in case I might need them. I had discovered late last night that inexplicably, despite owning about 723 of them, I could not find any UK to US power adapters. This had also kept me awake and with my last search now also fruitless I was resigned to buying a couple at the airport at vast expense. We had a 4 way extension each packed in the luggage so two would be enough.
There was a sweat-inducing fifteen minutes of weighing cases and redistributing weight (TUI only give you 20kg each and I was trying to get both cases around that figure) and Ryan had to step up and take three pairs of Louise’s shoes to get us under 40kg combined.
We said our goodbyes to Emily and Mikey, inflicted the dogs upon them and left the house our customary fifteen minutes behind schedule at 6.15. It took fifty minutes to get to Manchester airport which wasn’t too bad considering it was mid-week rush hour around the M60.
Upon arrival at the airport we parked in our customary T2 West, having to drive all the way up to level 7 to find a spot my car might fit into. Once at TUI’s desks there were kiosks to use to avoid the (small) queue but they involved having a boarding card already. I had checked in online and I know I downloaded/saved them somewhere, but could I find them now? Nope. So we trudged over to the desks and after a few minutes we were checked in by a surly young chap who’s attitude was inexplicable. Despite me entering our US address on the TUI website, he still insisted on not only entering it again, but he would not trust me to read it to him, no, he had to see it himself on my phone, having googled it. Weird.
Security was a “walk on” to use theme park parlance. I don’t know if they have new equipment and/or processes but nothing needed to come out of bags and we retained our shoes. We walked through the scanner and we were done in under two minutes. Such an improvement on recent trips.
We were drawn automatically to our usual breakfast joint of San Carlos and again it was really quiet. Ever since Covid we have had to queue here for quite some time to get a table, but today it was half full and we were seated immediately by the window.
What a view.
As I fired my camera up for these first pictures I discovered some pictures taken by Freddie last Christmas. I had handed him my camera and told him to capture the day. There were some belters.
We had a good chuckle over those whilst we looked at the menu. As we waited for our food (and you may not believe this), we saw a few small flurries of snow outside the window…in May. Honest!
We were so distracted (and out of practice) that I only remembered to take food photos after we’d started eating. I had the Bacon and Egg on Sourdough….
and Louise a full English of sorts…
We both had tea and Louise added a Mimosa. It was £43.
We wandered the duty-free spraying ourselves with every sample on offer. How lovely we must have smelled. Tragically, Louise could not find the one she felt compelled to buy.
I got a US adapter from Boots and then a few minutes later I got another from WH Smith.
For those of you paying attention, towards the end of our last trip in November, with about two days to go Louise spent almost $200 on a new pair of sunglasses. Yeah, I know.
Still, with us having two trips booked for this year, they would get some use.
She had lost them. So now we found ourselves shopping for some more. Safe to say they did not cost almost $200 this time.
We moved on to the book shop where Louise bought one she wouldn’t touch for the entire trip and then we had a coffee, waiting for the gate info to appear. We moved to the gate at 10.30 and waited for everyone else to queue up to board before we did so last.
We Facetimed Rebecca whilst boarding happened and I squoze in (or is it out?) a last minute pre-flight wee.
A couple of weeks ago, I had changed our seats to row 10 as I noticed that of the three seats in that row, none were taken, whereas our selected seats had us and someone else in them. My plan worked and it turned out that we had that row of three just to us and along with them being extra leg room we also had extra width too, which despite my pre-holiday diet was very welcome.
Much to our delight, and the cabin crew’s surprise, the IFE was working. We pushed back bang on time and took off at 11.50 through some pretty bumpy clouds.
Drinks were served and I watched three episodes of Two and A Half Men that I had only watched a few hundred times before.
The food was perfectly edible and not as blurry as it looks when it came.
That’s better. I devoured everything and anything else put in front of me. For some reason, I am always inexplicably ravenous on a flight.
We tinkered with the very cool dimmable windows for a bit.
I read for a bit and stared at the map too.
Louise bought some Back Opium (the perfume, not narcotics) and some Pringles. I was more pleased with one of those as you can imagine.
I watched two episodes of The Middle and some Big Bang Theory. By this point we were ninety minutes out and for the rest of the flight we listened to the family behind us argue constantly until landing.
Landing at Melbourne is a test of nerve for a nervy flyer like Louise as it is all sea until almost the last minute but the pilot managed and we landed on time. After the Premium elite de-planed we were the first of the plebs off, being in row 10. It’s just a short walk to the one and only baggage carousel and we had a bit of a wait for our cases being one of the last into immigration. The wait was only ten minutes though.
Another few steps to the car hire desks and with most Tui folks I guess being on packages, the majority went out to the coaches leaving the car hire queue non-existent and I was served immediately. I was just about to be handed the keys to some SUV when a manager walked behind my server and said “We have a Jeep Wrangler, if Sir would prefer?”
Well “Sir” did prefer and we walked over to the car park to be delighted by it. Here it is a short time in the future at our hotel.
We were delighted to be hit by that Florida heat as we left the building. It felt nice to be home.
Very pleased with the car and the ease of which we had got from the plane to it (Melbourne is very straightforward and easy compared to MCO), we spent a few minutes getting sorted in the car, connecting my phone to Car Play and setting the sat nav off and then we were away. The estimated journey time was two hours, which seemed odd as when I’d looked at it back home it had been ninety minutes but we would soon discover why.
For now, the mood was glorious and as I connected to one of my Spotify playlists, Happiness by McFly came on, and full of the “just arrived” joy, a lovely car and excellent weather we drove along on a cloud of loveliness and indeed Happiness.
It took a little while to make it out of Melbourne and onto the I95 (this road is horrible and makes the I4 look like a dream) and begin our long journey down south. The sat nav said go straight on for 120 miles, so we did.
The first hour was without incident and we were making good progress. Then, quickly, the rain came. We could see the other side of the I95 backed up coming towards us and above that queue a horrible grey hazy mess of stuff that did not look good.
What followed was one of the most stressful and unenjoyable forty minutes of my life, and I’ve had an office job since I was 17! These were some of the worst conditions I have ever driven in, and I’ve been through a good few Flordia downpours in a car.
This was literally the calm before the storm.
Once the rain started, I didn’t blink for forty minutes. My nails were dug deep into the steering wheel and if Louise spoke to me I could not afford the loss of concentration to even listen. I was glued to the two red dots in front of me that I hoped were a vehicle.
It felt endless and every time I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. The wipers were just spreading water around the windscreen and we did not go above 20mph for a long time. What a storm!
We finally got some respite with about twenty miles to go and I could exhale at last. When we finally did arrive at our hotel it felt like every minute of the more than two hours it took us to get there.
We checked in around 7.20pm and after a little bit of unpacking and organising we were out looking for food.
This was the huge church right across from the hotel entrance.
We stood here waiting for our recently ordered Lyft. I had fired up the map and simply chosen the closest eatery to our hotel.
This was a huge source of shame when our driver turned up, circled the block and dropped us off at the Delray Hideaway about 17 seconds later. Look, we had no idea of the geography and we were tired! I tipped well enough to make it an apology.
Delray Hideaway was, it seems, the locals place, that not many tourists seemed to get to, judging by the stares as we entered. It was very “basic” but the food was decent, quickly delivered and the service was good. We declined to play the bingo that was just about to start.
We had some Mozzarella sticks to start.
I had the Chicken Sandwich
and Louise the French Dip.
With a couple of wines and beers it was $90 including tip.
Despite having been awake for far too long by now we had a short stroll around the place to get our bearings.
Even down to the beach which was a five minute stroll from our hotel.
On our way back, we spotted some lovely local homes.
Back at the hotel we found the second pool…..
and the whole place looked lovely in the dark.
Sadly we did not take photos of the room before we messed it up with some of our stuff but here you go….
Lounge
Dining Area (we did not use this)
Kitchen
Bathroom
For some reason, probably due to the mess we’d already made, I did not photograph the bedroom.
We fell into bed at 9.30 pm US time, 2.30am Uk time, having now been awake for 22 hours. The joys of travel day.
As predicted it’s been a busy old week, with work scaling new heights in ways to keep me occupied for more hours than it should. Battered, bruised and breathless I fell over the finishing line on Friday. My task now is to try and come down from the adrenaline and stress of work life so that I can actually relax and enjoy not working for a bit. Look, I know I’m not pulling babies from burning buildings but it has its moments.
As a parting gift, the UK graced us with 48 hours of continuous pouring rain, just to confirm that our decision to go somewhere else for a bit was correct. Also, how cold has it been? It’s ridiculous for late May.
Having eliminated the pouring water inside the house last week, this week it was (mainly) outside. The biggest challenge has been convincing the dogs to actually step foot outside to do their business. Hey and guess what? We have another leak. Whilst Emily was showering on Friday I could hear a dripping noise and yep water was coming down through the kitchen ceiling and probably has been for a while from time to time as there is a faint brown patch around that area. This house hates me. Well, that can wait till we get back and Emily can use our shower until then and the plumber can return, no doubt to cut more holes into this money pit.
Louise finished on Thursday and has been in prep mode since then. There will not be a shop unvisited before departure and somewhere in between all that and me doing two Pink gigs this weekend, we’ll leave the house at some point early on Tuesday with a couple of cases full of what we need, purely down to Louise getting us all packed on Saturday. The bank holiday Monday is well-timed.
Today I have to break my golden rule of never going to the tip at weekend as needs must so we do not leave Emily with a house full of rubbish that has somehow appeared asa result of holiday prep. No I don’t understand that either.
I should probably report in with you all on the weight loss front. It’s been a fairly strict and well-behaved four weeks and depending on what mood the scales are in of a morning it looks like I have shed something like 8 to 10 pounds. It sounds like a good effort but the injustice of that small number compared to the huge effort and time taken is heartbreaking. It also brings home how horrendous I must have looked at my heaviest as even in my new svelte form I will still be scaring folks on the beach.
Let’s see how the calorie sponge that is my body responds to ten days of holiday eating and you can all make your own bets as to whether all of that goes back on.
So we leave on Tuesday morning, so you can expect the usual “I’m at the airport” post on Facebook just to make you all feel happy for me. Right?
Anyway, we have a busy day ahead so I must leave you. As ever, feel free to follow the trip “live-ish” on the Mkingdon Facebook page and you can all look forward to another trip report about sitting in the sun most days followed by what we had for tea (dinner). You lucky, lucky folks.
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