Thursday 4th December 2008

Off we go

Up this morning at 4am, breakfast and loaded the car up. Just as we were leaving it began to rain. The car said it was 3'C outside and it certainly felt it. However, there was no sign of any snow which was good. It also meant we didn't have to waste time defrosting the car.

The dive down to Gatwick was dire. No traffic, but we were driving in heavy rain in the dark. Nasty stuff.

Flight was almost a hour late, due to some technical issue with the entertainment system apparently. Flight looks 100% full to me, the queue to the gate took over 15 minutes to reach. As soon as we sat in the plane, the captain then announces the flight will be longer than normal, over 9 and a half hours. :(

Still the flight itself was uneventful. I didn't end up watching any of the films but spent most of the time on my DS.

We arrived in the late afternoon in Florida. There was some haze and cloud about but the temperature was quite nice, much better than chilly UK!

Fair queue for immigration, but at least we got through with no issues with the paperwork which is always a worry.

Where's the bags?

Orlando airport is odd in that once you pick up your cases, you have to pass them off again to be transported to the main exit whilst you travel there on a small railway. This we did and happily waited for about 30 minutes for the cases to pop out at the other end. We were waiting at baggage collection point A as we'd been instructed but no sign of the cases. Eventually, Linda went off in search for more information only to be told that there was a second collection point A, on the floor below. Our cases were having the time of their lives, travelling around and around on the carousel.

Will it fit?

We picked up the car, this time we've gone for a convertible again. But the big issue with this car is that there's hardly any space in the boot. Eventually, we got the top down (even that took time to do as the boot needs to be set up correctly to accept the top) and loaded the cases, upright, into the back seat. Thankfully, it wasn't cold or raining as we drove to our location so having the top down, at night, wasn't a problem.

Rattling around

We found the place without too much issue. One odd thing on the way in was that we had to stop at the big level crossing at the main street in Kissimmee. Unlike in the UK, the road was closed for only 30 seconds or so as a big AmTrak train honked its way through the city.

We checked into Terre Verde and found our place pretty easily.

It's big. 4 bedrooms, Kitchen, 3 bathrooms, pool area.

It was gone 7pm US time when we got here (that's midnight UK) so we were feeling the effects of the journey. So after a quick look around and an attempted call to Shirley (Skype was playing up - not sure if it's our end of hers) we had to get back into the car and find some supplies for the next few days: Milk, bread, coffee, that sort of thing. For that we travelled over to the big WalMart that we drove past on the way in.

Finally back at base, it was gone 10pm before we had a chance to eat anything then it was straight to bed as we were both exhausted.