2BoysMum&Dad
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
In my hand-written notes I made at the end of Friday 23rd July, I spookily gave the days report the heading The Calm Before The Storm, only because it was the day before we flew out to Florida and didnt think at the time it was really a very good or apt title. I have decided to name all the parts of my trip report The Calm Before The Storm Tour, in honour of the climax of our trip - Hurricane Charley which gave us an extra day in Florida.
Sunday 15th August (Sanford Airport take two)
THE CAST
Sergeant Major Zoe You WILL enjoy yourselves
DH Trevor I am NOT going to like this
Birthday Boy Michael (aged 10 to 11)
Why to everything Piers (aged 8 and a bit)
Are we nearly there yet? ........ Believe it or not, these are the words I wish I was hearing from Michael and Piers this morning. But no, we were still in a hotel room on International Drive getting ready for our second attempt to access Sanford Airport. Were in room 1107 of the Radisson Barcelo hotel, all surfacing this morning between 7.45am and 8am. Trevor had a shower and shaved while I bathed the kids. Off to the foyer of the hotel to find out what was happening about breakfast. We dont think First Choice were paying for this, but if its the only extra thing we are paying for during an extra 24 hours in Florida well be happy.
The head firmly screwed on rep was sitting there waiting for any First Choice customers in need of information or help. We were advised that our flight was expected to leave at around 2pm this afternoon after landing at 1pm. The pilot was expecting to turn around in an hour but our F.C. rep thought this was highly unlikely. This had to be what we were aiming for today though.
Unfortunately it seemed we were not getting free breakfast courtesy of First Choice. He advised us that we could try Sizzlers which was very good and cheap for breakfast, buffet style and should only be about $3 a head. Hed just purchased a muffin for himself from the hotel restaurant for $3 and was rather horrified (rightly so) at the price. He apologised for not being able to give us a personal recommendation for Sizzlers, but had heard good things about it from other people. I asked him if he was getting paid a load of overtime money or a good bonus for all his hard work and he said no chance! he said probably just a can of beer!. I really felt sorry for him.
Anyway, this restaurant he mentioned sounds like a good idea to us rather than a hugely expensive meal in the hotel. We head out through the main entrance and on to International Drive, turn right and are greeted with a tree lying across the footpath. The grass around the tree between the footpath and road is already well flattened by pedestrians. We cannot see anywhere called Sizzlers immediately but do see a lot of activity in a restaurant nearby which fits the reps description. Its called Ponderosa Steakhouse and decide this is probably where he meant. Just before entering, we notice Sizzlers a bit further down the road, but Ponderosa looks very inviting. There are a lot of English people queuing up and the place is buzzing with activity. The system seems to work well you queue up at the till first to pay for what you want before being taken to your table. At the till, you are given any drinks which are not the refillable sort like apple juice bottles. We are taken to our table and told to help ourselves from the various self-service counters. There is everything you could possibly want including muffins, chocolate brownies, yoghurt, bread, fruit, grits (yuk!), bacon, a salad bar with all the usual types of dressing, pancakes, syrup, scrambled eggs and lots of other hot and cold food. We try to encourage the boys to eat as much as they can as we have paid a fixed price for this meal and it doesnt matter how much they eat. Luckily they seem to eat a sensible amount. This place even had a self service ice cream machine with a choice of toppings like the ice cream factory you get in Pizza Hut but we didnt see anyone else using it. I really dont fancy ice cream for breakfast anyway!
Trevor asked me whether he thought we should be tipping the waitress. I was sure I had read somewhere on the DIBB that you should add a tip to the cost when you pay for the meal at the till. As we really wanted the waitress to get the tip, I gave her a couple of dollars before we left. Trevor finished eating first and left before us to start packing up the car. Michael and Piers wanted to use the toilets and have a look in the attached gift shop. Piers thought hed noticed somewhere that if you exit through the gift shop you get a free gift. I told him we didnt really have time to think about things like this and we only spent one minute in the gift shop before I ushered them back out towards the hotel.
After nearly managing to get lost inside another hotel which I thought was part of the Radisson, we arrived back to the room and get the rest of the bags packed into the car. We spent a couple of moments debating whether we should just drive off with the room cards and not bother officially checking out so we could hit the road a.s.a.p. But my conscience got the better of me and Trevor stopped the car outside the front entrance and I dashed in. Our account was clear and I handed the chap our room cards. But I believe this is not necessarily a problem because the cards are automatically cleared when guests leave (am I right?).
Other First Choice customers were loading onto a Pegasus coach and we needed to get moving quickly to get to the airport before them. At the airport we stop behind other Dollar cars. There was a sign requesting drivers leave the keys in the car. We are somehow convinced there must be some paperwork to complete or something and are a bit bewildered (doesnt take much to confuse us!). We probably spend a good 15 minutes flapping about with a trolley (costing us $3), kids, keys and bits of paper before we work out where we should be and what we should be doing.
We decide to stick together and sort the car out first before going to the check-in desk rather than run the risk of not finding each other again later. Im in the queue in the Dollar office (Trevor with the kids and luggage nearby) and listen to a friendly Dollar guy talking to us all in the queue. He is apologising for any delay and the state of some of the cars as some of them do not have a full tank of petrol. I make some jokey comment about our car which we are just returning. He looks rather puzzled as we shouldnt be queuing up we just need to see the woman outside. Where???? We saw no woman!!!! OK, so thats another ten minutes of time weve wasted! We could now see the woman who seems to have reappeared and I dash off towards her while Trevor and the boys head off towards the terminal. The Dollar woman asks for a pink form ..... a BIG sigh and I managed to refrain from using a few choice four letter words and head back towards Trevor. Your turn to run around I said to him and Trevor takes the form to the woman while I carry on towards the terminal with the boys and trolley.
The three of head in the general direction of where we came out on our arrival three weeks ago. This is the exit of course and I needed to work out where we were supposed to be. We head west and find ourselves in Terminal A. There are quite a few queues and information about various airlines but none for First Choice. We must be in the wrong place and we retraced our steps. Back near the arrivals doors again and Trevor meets us coming from Terminal A where he was queuing and hoping wed find him there.
The whole airport episode up until now must have looked like a slap-stick comedy programme comparable to the likes of Fawlty Towers! All of us together again and we queue up in the correct line for First Choice in Terminal A. Trevor couldnt be too cross now as he just realised he was in the wrong queue before coming to find us! When I was returning from Terminal B with the boys, we passed a Pegasus bus. Luckily I think we still managed to join the First Choice check in desk before the majority of Radisson guests. During one of my toilet breaks, I saw the three young lads arrive who were at our dinner table last night. They were flying premium class and I pointed them in the right general direction. We finally got to the front of the queue after 1.5 hours, the lads didnt take that long to get through of course there was a separate check in desk for premium customers. Thank goodness for Gameboys, Piers and Michael spent most of this time beating boredom sitting at the back of the hall with other children nearly all playing Gameboys. We were surprised to find that all our hand luggage weighed exactly the right amount and we still had enough allowance in our hold luggage to take another 20kg. We get two seats by the window and another two seats across the isle in the same row. Checking in now complete and we head off towards the escalators, show the security guy our passports, go through the x-ray machines and up the escalators.
All this time, I was hoping I could check into the Guest House. I had deliberately not booked it in advance and was sure Trevor wouldnt want to pay money for something that wasnt absolutely necessary. We found some seats just for a few moments rest and I head off to find the Guest House telling Trevor I was only going to see what it looked like and how much it is likely to cost. As it happens, there werent any available spaces for us but shed put us on a waiting list. Unfortunately, our names were never called out, but that made Trevor happy.
Sanford Airport has a food court and we buy ourselves some lunch. We took it in turns to have a wonder around the airport window shopping. Theres a nice toy shop and the boys want to buy themselves something. There was a display of Yu-Gi-Oh products in the display window and they want some more cards (surprise surprise!). We sat in the seating area for a while longer while the Michael and Piers admired their new cards. A boy with his own supply of cards came up to chat with Michael and wanted to know if he wanted to do some trading, Piers also joining in.
Piers doing business
//www.thedibb.co.uk/photopost/data/513/3022Sanford_Airport.JPG
The boys family came over and I got chatting with the his mother. It turns out they were also First Choice customers who were also originally supposed to fly out on the same flight as us yesterday. They had been told to stay the night in a different hotel near International Drive but were not given a free meal. They were not aware of any other First Choice customers staying at the same place as them. The only thing that would explain this would be that there wasnt enough space at the Radisson hotel for all the passengers. The father planned to complain when they got home. I am not sure whether I would have bothered, it depends how much out of pocket they were.
We phoned Trevors parents with an update (after a call to them yesterday) and said wed be landing at around 6am tomorrow morning (B.S.T.). Wed phoned yesterday to say we were fine but couldnt fly out as the airport was closed. Apparently my elderly grandfather (aged nearly 98) had seen the hurricane reports on his t.v. and was very worried about us. Hed phoned my mother whod phoned Trevors parents. He was able to phone her back with a progress report after wed spoken to him yesterday.
I was so glad I went to the trouble of getting myself a mobile phone suitable to use in the US. It became very useful over these last few days particularly as there were very long queues for the public payphones in the airport. We felt very smug using my phone with all these other people having to queue up! Sorry if you one of those people!
Nearer to our departure time we decide to sit by the windows overlooking the planes and we could see ours getting ready for departure. The First Choice rep at the hotel this morning was right, our plane wasnt ready at 2pm and our flight time was actually 4pm. After numerous trips to the toilet near to 4pm, we were called onto the plane in groups of seat numbers. After passing the gate and another woman checking passports, we are on the plane. We are a little puzzled as we approach our seat numbers. Theres a family of four with two boys of similar age to ours sitting across the centre section and we think two of them should be ours. The mother looks a little cross (but not at us) saying she was told theyd been given seats together. After showing her our boarding passes, I explain shes probably got two window seats on the other side hoping this would actually make her happy. She gets her DH to check and Im right (of course!) she moves to the other side of the plane with one of her boys.
Our seat numbers (if its of any interest to anyone) were 26 A, B, C & D. For take off, we let Michael and Piers sit by the window. Michael wasnt bothered particularly where he sat and Piers was fascinated by the view out of the window as we moved along and took off. We did quite a lot of seat hopping during the flight, except for Michael who stayed in the same place throughout the whole journey. Initially, we had to remove Piers because the boys were arguing over the arm rest whether to have it up or down. Dont know why it bothered them now, they didnt argue about it during the whole of the flight out three weeks ago!
What was life like before Gameboys? Heres Michael with his
Can you spot the DIBB car sticker?
The plane crew kept apologising at various stages about the lack of food choices and products available on this flight. A woman behind us asked why her child had not been given a childs meal. The stewardess explained that unfortunately she was not on her list of people receiving a childs meal, this has to be pre-booked at extra cost. The woman had pre-booked the meal as it happened. Then the stewardess carried on to explain that unfortunately, they were not able to provide any childrens meals anyway because of the food supply problem. The plane had not come from where it originally should have done because of Sanford Airport being closed and messing up plane flying schedules and consequently didnt have enough of some things or the usual choice of food. The plane had come directly from Bangor Main.
Pretty view and just checking the engine is still attached!
Same view taken a bit later, darkness creeping up fast
By now, the two boys from the family next to us were sitting together next to me. Piers was by the isle but soon swapped with me when I pointed out that the other boys were playing with Yu-Gi-Oh cards! They all seemed to get on really well and they also both had Gameboys. I had problems trying to get some sleep, mainly because of Piers being so fidgety and talkative! Later I managed to persuade Trevor to swap with me, hed had as much sleep as he was likely to get at this stage and got stuck into reading a New Scientist magazine. Trevor felt quite pleased with himself that hed caught up with his magazine reading over the holiday, managing to read four New Scientists until we arrived home finding another stack of them waiting for him!
Well, it must be midnight by now according to B.S.T. So Ill finish this report here mid flight!
For the concluding part, youll have to wait for another day. Nighty night, sleep tight (well try, but you know what its like trying to get some kip on a plane a bit difficult! 
).
Sunday 15th August (Sanford Airport take two)
THE CAST
Sergeant Major Zoe You WILL enjoy yourselves
DH Trevor I am NOT going to like this
Birthday Boy Michael (aged 10 to 11)
Why to everything Piers (aged 8 and a bit)
Are we nearly there yet? ........ Believe it or not, these are the words I wish I was hearing from Michael and Piers this morning. But no, we were still in a hotel room on International Drive getting ready for our second attempt to access Sanford Airport. Were in room 1107 of the Radisson Barcelo hotel, all surfacing this morning between 7.45am and 8am. Trevor had a shower and shaved while I bathed the kids. Off to the foyer of the hotel to find out what was happening about breakfast. We dont think First Choice were paying for this, but if its the only extra thing we are paying for during an extra 24 hours in Florida well be happy.
The head firmly screwed on rep was sitting there waiting for any First Choice customers in need of information or help. We were advised that our flight was expected to leave at around 2pm this afternoon after landing at 1pm. The pilot was expecting to turn around in an hour but our F.C. rep thought this was highly unlikely. This had to be what we were aiming for today though.
Unfortunately it seemed we were not getting free breakfast courtesy of First Choice. He advised us that we could try Sizzlers which was very good and cheap for breakfast, buffet style and should only be about $3 a head. Hed just purchased a muffin for himself from the hotel restaurant for $3 and was rather horrified (rightly so) at the price. He apologised for not being able to give us a personal recommendation for Sizzlers, but had heard good things about it from other people. I asked him if he was getting paid a load of overtime money or a good bonus for all his hard work and he said no chance! he said probably just a can of beer!. I really felt sorry for him.
Anyway, this restaurant he mentioned sounds like a good idea to us rather than a hugely expensive meal in the hotel. We head out through the main entrance and on to International Drive, turn right and are greeted with a tree lying across the footpath. The grass around the tree between the footpath and road is already well flattened by pedestrians. We cannot see anywhere called Sizzlers immediately but do see a lot of activity in a restaurant nearby which fits the reps description. Its called Ponderosa Steakhouse and decide this is probably where he meant. Just before entering, we notice Sizzlers a bit further down the road, but Ponderosa looks very inviting. There are a lot of English people queuing up and the place is buzzing with activity. The system seems to work well you queue up at the till first to pay for what you want before being taken to your table. At the till, you are given any drinks which are not the refillable sort like apple juice bottles. We are taken to our table and told to help ourselves from the various self-service counters. There is everything you could possibly want including muffins, chocolate brownies, yoghurt, bread, fruit, grits (yuk!), bacon, a salad bar with all the usual types of dressing, pancakes, syrup, scrambled eggs and lots of other hot and cold food. We try to encourage the boys to eat as much as they can as we have paid a fixed price for this meal and it doesnt matter how much they eat. Luckily they seem to eat a sensible amount. This place even had a self service ice cream machine with a choice of toppings like the ice cream factory you get in Pizza Hut but we didnt see anyone else using it. I really dont fancy ice cream for breakfast anyway!
Trevor asked me whether he thought we should be tipping the waitress. I was sure I had read somewhere on the DIBB that you should add a tip to the cost when you pay for the meal at the till. As we really wanted the waitress to get the tip, I gave her a couple of dollars before we left. Trevor finished eating first and left before us to start packing up the car. Michael and Piers wanted to use the toilets and have a look in the attached gift shop. Piers thought hed noticed somewhere that if you exit through the gift shop you get a free gift. I told him we didnt really have time to think about things like this and we only spent one minute in the gift shop before I ushered them back out towards the hotel.
After nearly managing to get lost inside another hotel which I thought was part of the Radisson, we arrived back to the room and get the rest of the bags packed into the car. We spent a couple of moments debating whether we should just drive off with the room cards and not bother officially checking out so we could hit the road a.s.a.p. But my conscience got the better of me and Trevor stopped the car outside the front entrance and I dashed in. Our account was clear and I handed the chap our room cards. But I believe this is not necessarily a problem because the cards are automatically cleared when guests leave (am I right?).
Other First Choice customers were loading onto a Pegasus coach and we needed to get moving quickly to get to the airport before them. At the airport we stop behind other Dollar cars. There was a sign requesting drivers leave the keys in the car. We are somehow convinced there must be some paperwork to complete or something and are a bit bewildered (doesnt take much to confuse us!). We probably spend a good 15 minutes flapping about with a trolley (costing us $3), kids, keys and bits of paper before we work out where we should be and what we should be doing.
We decide to stick together and sort the car out first before going to the check-in desk rather than run the risk of not finding each other again later. Im in the queue in the Dollar office (Trevor with the kids and luggage nearby) and listen to a friendly Dollar guy talking to us all in the queue. He is apologising for any delay and the state of some of the cars as some of them do not have a full tank of petrol. I make some jokey comment about our car which we are just returning. He looks rather puzzled as we shouldnt be queuing up we just need to see the woman outside. Where???? We saw no woman!!!! OK, so thats another ten minutes of time weve wasted! We could now see the woman who seems to have reappeared and I dash off towards her while Trevor and the boys head off towards the terminal. The Dollar woman asks for a pink form ..... a BIG sigh and I managed to refrain from using a few choice four letter words and head back towards Trevor. Your turn to run around I said to him and Trevor takes the form to the woman while I carry on towards the terminal with the boys and trolley.
The three of head in the general direction of where we came out on our arrival three weeks ago. This is the exit of course and I needed to work out where we were supposed to be. We head west and find ourselves in Terminal A. There are quite a few queues and information about various airlines but none for First Choice. We must be in the wrong place and we retraced our steps. Back near the arrivals doors again and Trevor meets us coming from Terminal A where he was queuing and hoping wed find him there.
The whole airport episode up until now must have looked like a slap-stick comedy programme comparable to the likes of Fawlty Towers! All of us together again and we queue up in the correct line for First Choice in Terminal A. Trevor couldnt be too cross now as he just realised he was in the wrong queue before coming to find us! When I was returning from Terminal B with the boys, we passed a Pegasus bus. Luckily I think we still managed to join the First Choice check in desk before the majority of Radisson guests. During one of my toilet breaks, I saw the three young lads arrive who were at our dinner table last night. They were flying premium class and I pointed them in the right general direction. We finally got to the front of the queue after 1.5 hours, the lads didnt take that long to get through of course there was a separate check in desk for premium customers. Thank goodness for Gameboys, Piers and Michael spent most of this time beating boredom sitting at the back of the hall with other children nearly all playing Gameboys. We were surprised to find that all our hand luggage weighed exactly the right amount and we still had enough allowance in our hold luggage to take another 20kg. We get two seats by the window and another two seats across the isle in the same row. Checking in now complete and we head off towards the escalators, show the security guy our passports, go through the x-ray machines and up the escalators.
All this time, I was hoping I could check into the Guest House. I had deliberately not booked it in advance and was sure Trevor wouldnt want to pay money for something that wasnt absolutely necessary. We found some seats just for a few moments rest and I head off to find the Guest House telling Trevor I was only going to see what it looked like and how much it is likely to cost. As it happens, there werent any available spaces for us but shed put us on a waiting list. Unfortunately, our names were never called out, but that made Trevor happy.
Sanford Airport has a food court and we buy ourselves some lunch. We took it in turns to have a wonder around the airport window shopping. Theres a nice toy shop and the boys want to buy themselves something. There was a display of Yu-Gi-Oh products in the display window and they want some more cards (surprise surprise!). We sat in the seating area for a while longer while the Michael and Piers admired their new cards. A boy with his own supply of cards came up to chat with Michael and wanted to know if he wanted to do some trading, Piers also joining in.
Piers doing business
//www.thedibb.co.uk/photopost/data/513/3022Sanford_Airport.JPG
The boys family came over and I got chatting with the his mother. It turns out they were also First Choice customers who were also originally supposed to fly out on the same flight as us yesterday. They had been told to stay the night in a different hotel near International Drive but were not given a free meal. They were not aware of any other First Choice customers staying at the same place as them. The only thing that would explain this would be that there wasnt enough space at the Radisson hotel for all the passengers. The father planned to complain when they got home. I am not sure whether I would have bothered, it depends how much out of pocket they were.
We phoned Trevors parents with an update (after a call to them yesterday) and said wed be landing at around 6am tomorrow morning (B.S.T.). Wed phoned yesterday to say we were fine but couldnt fly out as the airport was closed. Apparently my elderly grandfather (aged nearly 98) had seen the hurricane reports on his t.v. and was very worried about us. Hed phoned my mother whod phoned Trevors parents. He was able to phone her back with a progress report after wed spoken to him yesterday.
I was so glad I went to the trouble of getting myself a mobile phone suitable to use in the US. It became very useful over these last few days particularly as there were very long queues for the public payphones in the airport. We felt very smug using my phone with all these other people having to queue up! Sorry if you one of those people!
Nearer to our departure time we decide to sit by the windows overlooking the planes and we could see ours getting ready for departure. The First Choice rep at the hotel this morning was right, our plane wasnt ready at 2pm and our flight time was actually 4pm. After numerous trips to the toilet near to 4pm, we were called onto the plane in groups of seat numbers. After passing the gate and another woman checking passports, we are on the plane. We are a little puzzled as we approach our seat numbers. Theres a family of four with two boys of similar age to ours sitting across the centre section and we think two of them should be ours. The mother looks a little cross (but not at us) saying she was told theyd been given seats together. After showing her our boarding passes, I explain shes probably got two window seats on the other side hoping this would actually make her happy. She gets her DH to check and Im right (of course!) she moves to the other side of the plane with one of her boys.
Our seat numbers (if its of any interest to anyone) were 26 A, B, C & D. For take off, we let Michael and Piers sit by the window. Michael wasnt bothered particularly where he sat and Piers was fascinated by the view out of the window as we moved along and took off. We did quite a lot of seat hopping during the flight, except for Michael who stayed in the same place throughout the whole journey. Initially, we had to remove Piers because the boys were arguing over the arm rest whether to have it up or down. Dont know why it bothered them now, they didnt argue about it during the whole of the flight out three weeks ago!
What was life like before Gameboys? Heres Michael with his
Can you spot the DIBB car sticker?
The plane crew kept apologising at various stages about the lack of food choices and products available on this flight. A woman behind us asked why her child had not been given a childs meal. The stewardess explained that unfortunately she was not on her list of people receiving a childs meal, this has to be pre-booked at extra cost. The woman had pre-booked the meal as it happened. Then the stewardess carried on to explain that unfortunately, they were not able to provide any childrens meals anyway because of the food supply problem. The plane had not come from where it originally should have done because of Sanford Airport being closed and messing up plane flying schedules and consequently didnt have enough of some things or the usual choice of food. The plane had come directly from Bangor Main.
Pretty view and just checking the engine is still attached!
Same view taken a bit later, darkness creeping up fast
By now, the two boys from the family next to us were sitting together next to me. Piers was by the isle but soon swapped with me when I pointed out that the other boys were playing with Yu-Gi-Oh cards! They all seemed to get on really well and they also both had Gameboys. I had problems trying to get some sleep, mainly because of Piers being so fidgety and talkative! Later I managed to persuade Trevor to swap with me, hed had as much sleep as he was likely to get at this stage and got stuck into reading a New Scientist magazine. Trevor felt quite pleased with himself that hed caught up with his magazine reading over the holiday, managing to read four New Scientists until we arrived home finding another stack of them waiting for him!
Well, it must be midnight by now according to B.S.T. So Ill finish this report here mid flight!
For the concluding part, youll have to wait for another day. Nighty night, sleep tight (well try, but you know what its like trying to get some kip on a plane a bit difficult! ).
