Leaving On A Jet Plane

Greetings from mostly sunny Florida!  To be more specific Orlando (Oooooorlaaaaandooooo! [if you have seen or heard the soundtrack to Book of Mormon then you totally know what I just did there]) Early this morning we got on a plane and headed down to Florida for our vacation for the year!  Can you hear the excitement?  Well it has been a totally exciting day and now that we're at the end of our day I can't believe that we've only been away from home for about 12 hours!  We've done so much and yet it's been totally relaxing.

Our day started bright and early leaving at friggin' 5:30 in the morning.  Often when I fly I end up leaving quite early in the morning, but the airport was really empty compared to other flights I've taken. In fact we checked our bags, made it through security and got some breakfast from McDonalds/Starbucks within an hour of leaving the house.  We even took a few minutes to stop and enjoy the fountain that is in the Delta terminal.

I actually really like flying out of Detroit because the Delta terminal is really nice.  It's very open, it doesn't stress me out like other airports do.  Perhaps some of that is because we always fly Delta, and we always fly out of Detroit so I've been to it a number of times and therefore I'm familiar with it.  Or, it's just a really nice terminal.

We had a little extra excitement for our flight because this was the first time Jasmine has ever flown, and Tori also has only flown once so they were pretty excited.  This is added to the excitement they already had for going to Florida, seeing the ocean, going to Disney World, and going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  When we got to the airport our plane was already at the gate so we got to watch them load it up with our snacks.  Things were going along quite well but then we got word that our flight had been delayed due to mechanical issues.  We watched them messing around in the nose cone for a bit, and then they managed to begin boarding about five minutes late and we pushed away from the gate right on time.  The flight was very smooth, nice and short, and the pilot had a wonderful landing so all in all this was a great flight.  In addition we even managed to deplane and be on our way five minutes early.

Since we got to Orlando by 10:00am, and our first part of the trip included some time at the beach we decided to make our first stop Universal Studios Islands of Adventure.  Now, I have to say that I have been to Universal twice and I'm really not impressed.  In fact, last year we went and I was actually really disappointed in not only Universal, which I find to be not a value at all and the rides hardly thrilling, but also in the Harry Potter portion of the park.  Last time it was super busy, there wasn't enough room, and the lines were just a nightmare.  I have to say this time I had a far more enjoyable experience.  The crowds weren't nearly as bad, so you didn't have to stand in line just to get into the shops.  It didn't take long to get into the attractions and all together it was absolutely fantastic.  It really is the closest thing you can get to being in the books.  It's really just wonderful to walk around and hear the music playing, walk through the shops, pick up some candy at Honeydukes, or some neat things at Zonkos.

We decided that this time we were going to get some food in the Potter section of the park and went into The Three Broomsticks to see what they had to eat.  Oh. My.  Why did we not come here last year?!  I think we may have been thrown off by the "specials" menu because it only listed some less than desirable items for lunch, but once you get inside the menu is much bigger.  I ended up with the Fish and Chips, there was also a lot of roasted chicken, and everyone added some Butterbeer to their meal.  As park food goes it was super delicious, and the prices weren't completely outrageous.  I mean all park food is overpriced, but in the range of "wow that seems a bit expensive" to "Ouch! Something just screwed me in the ass" this was "hmm, that could have been worse."  I think part of the charm of it too was being able to sit and be immersed in the world.  The staff helped direct you to tables so you really didn't have to worry about finding a place to sit, and you could just take your food, have a seat and enjoy it.

Once we made it through all the Harry Potter sections of the park we did the rest of the circuit and then headed back to Hogsmeade to pick up some souvenirs and try the frozen Butterbeer.  Becky thinks that is the superior format for Butterbeer, but I have to say I think it just gets the bump because it's like a  Slurpee.  For flavor and experience I think I like the traditional Butterbeer better.  We then packed up our stuff and headed out since we were all pretty tired.  It wasn't too terribly late yet, but just in time for dinner so we had to head up to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, which was delightful!  Of course we haven't ever really had a bad experience here but it was extra good since we were pretty tired, and all in need of some water.  We ended up being so full that we had to take our cheesecake to go, and headed out to our hotel in Melbourne right on the ocean.

I will say that this ended up being the disappointment of the day.  It's about an hour drive to Melbourne from Orlando, and we had to drive through the rains of death to get there. I 'm talking rain so hard that even on the highest settings the washers just can't keep up.  I was actually shocked at how long this went on for because generally it seems that intensity like that just can't last, but this went on for probably a good half an hour, and we were driving into it, so really it should have passed over far quicker but it didn't.  We made it safely and checked into our hotel, but the entire night I just haven't been happy with the room location, the quality of the hotel or just anything.  We've stayed here before and it's been renovated, but this just isn't what I wanted.  We're on the first floor and our room is really dark, narrow and damp.  They have a dehumidifier but it was full when we got in and who knows how long it's been that way.  The room was also right next to the elevator so that is making a ton of noise, and there are a lot of stains on things like the bed skirt, the sheets on one bed, etc.  It's just kind of gross.  I checked with the desk to see if we could move, but they said they didn't have any other rooms available.  I plan on checking again in the morning, but I'm just really disappointed.  The up side is that the ocean is here, we got to go down to the beach for a few minutes and stick our toes in, though I'm also worried because the water seems far more rough than usual and I'm not sure how well it will work to go swimming in it.  I don't know, I guess we'll see how it is in the morning.  Good night all! It's only been one day but feels like we've been here for ages!

Picture(s) of the Day:

Because there are so many pictures in the next few blogs, I may try to only pick one or two for the featured picture of the day.  Really it'll probably just be a picture that I couldn't really fit into the blog itself.  So, we'll see how this goes over the course of the vacation.

Picture 87

The girls walking down to the plane.  This is a super high level of excitement considering it was about 7:00am, and they had already been up for a couple of hours.

Picture 88

Hogwarts Castle.  I mean, this really is the picture of the day.  What is cooler than Hogwarts?  The answer is nothing, so if you were thinking of something else you are clearly wrong.