Back to the Tropics, Day I

Welcome back, Internet.  Prepare thyself for an adventure of epic proportions.

It had been three long years since the Houghs last embarked on a eight/nine-day venture down to Florida.  Three long years since we hit up theme parks, overspent on food and drinks, and nurtured sunburns under swaying palm trees.  Covid had a big part to play in all of this, sure - prices have been up ever since Society collapsed in the Spring of 2020, and we've been keeping a close eye on flights, rental car companies, Airbnbs, and park ticket bundles since 2021.  Finally, in the early months of 2020, we decided to pull the trigger and put a concrete plan into action.

We were lucky enough to purchase our Delta flight tickets months before gas prices rose astronomically following Russia's inevitable invasion of Ukraine in February (had we waited a couple more months, they would have cost us double.)  We ended up getting ours for a little over $200 apiece (thank God), which is an absurdly low price nowadays.

For our lodging, we once again decided to stay at the Blue Heron Resort, our hotel choice on our last trip, due to its convenient location, wonderful amenities, decent price, and familiarity.  Our old Host was no longer renting his condo, which was a shame, but we found another Host in the same building that was decently well-rated (although he wasn't a Super Host, which I'll be talking about in a little bit.)  A lower floor, but the same floor layout and features, we knew exactly what we were walking into.

The rental car situation proved a little more challenging, however.  Last time, I went with an online company that was well-rated and we were able to nab a Kia Optima for something like $250 all week, which was an awesome deal.  Since most of the rental car companies sold off their fleets in 2020 due to the Pandemic, prices were through the roof for rental cars - so much so that we contemplated utilizing Uber or Lyft for all our transportation needs while on vacation.  This left a lot of unforeseen variables in our day-to-day plans - no one picks you up, you have a shitty driver, you run late to parks and your day gets thrown off, etc.  In the end, however, Kris stumbled upon a site called Turo, which is basically Airbnb but for vehicles. For about $400 - still a decent price - we had the owner of a Ford Focus leave their car for us at the Orlando International Airport and we were able to use that for the entirety of our trip.  This worked out so well that we're planning on using this service again for our next Florida trip (unless rental car prices plummet to their pre-Pandemic levels, of course.)

Lastly, the parks.  We decided we weren't going to revisit the Universal Orlando theme parks this time around.  For starters, neither of our girls are really into Harry Potter anymore, and that was the main draw for them last time around.  We were also less than impressed with the parks outside of the Harry Potter stuff - the crowds, while smaller than Disney's, were far more noticeable, and in the end the kids preferred the Disney experience over the Universal alternative.  Instead, we bought some bundle tickets for Discovery Cove, Sea World, and Aquatica - all owned by the same company:  Kris and the girls really wanted to swim with dolphins at Discovery Cove, and while that's ridiculously expensive, for $60 more you could get unlimited access and free parking to Sea World (the aquatic zoo) and Aquatica (their equivalent to water parks like Disney's Typhoon Lagoon.)  This made Discovery Cove's ticket price easier to stomach, and gave us something water-based to do for the first few days of our trip, when the weather's Real Feel temperature was hovering in the low 100s.

I'll get more into detail with each of these aspects as we get to them in the following blog posts, so for now I'll just wrap this up and start you off with the first installment of pictures and videos chronically the Houghs' epic return to their once-home of Florida.

Behold. . .

Day I

The Houghs Go South, or the Establishment of Headquarters

In the late morning, we loaded up the van - checking and double-checking the luggage - and began loading the kids up.  The previous evening the girls and I had dropped the dogs off at Shelby's in Coleman, where the two shitheads once again shared a cage for a week amongst a room full of load-ass dogs.

Setting off down US-10.

By the time we hit Birch Run, we were kinda hungry, and Kris and I didn't want to mess with paying airport prices for family-of-four's lunch, so we stopped off and hit up this Jimmy John's.

Chowing down while driving down I-75.

Entering scenic. . . Romulus.

As usual, Kris didn't want to stop off at The Landing Strip to try their Salisbury steak special.  One of these days. . .

Like last time, Kris' uncle Wayne let us park our van at his house while we were away, which is super convenient because he's like a five-minute drive from the airport.  This time around, however, he was actually on hand to drive us up there himself, so we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spend.

Dropped off at Departures, Kris makes sure she has all her necessary shit in her purse before saying adieu to the van.

Self check-in kiosks now allow you to print tags for and weigh your checked luggage, which saves a ridiculous amount of time.  Because Kris is a Gold Member (whatever that means, we have some kinda card that racks up Delta miles or something, I have no idea how it works), we were able to check all three suitcases - the girls', plus the one Kris and I share - for free.  Can't be free, folks.

We had zero issues checking in our luggage, and security was easier than I had ever previously experienced.  I queued into a line where you didn't have to pull stuff out of your carry-on luggage, with the girls in front of me, and when it finally came time to walk through the full-body scanner, the TSA agent saw that I was with two minors and told me not to worry about it.  With all this great luck we'd been having up to this point, we reached our terminal with about 90 minutes to spare.

So what did we do in the terminal for an hour and a half?  Well, at first we poked in to a couple different shops, but at the DTW - as in other airports - they're all pretty lame and over-priced.  After about 20 minutes or so we got bored with this, and the girls asked if we could ride the tram.  What the hell else was there to do?

It was almost embarrassing how excited they were to ride this thing.

I was the only one carrying a carry-on bag - my Swiss Army backpack, which was heavy as f*** because it was filled with electronics, camera equipment, and anything else heavy so as to lighten our checked suitcases' weight.  I'd set it down whenever I possibly could.

Kris, texting her group of moms. . . as usual.

We ended up taking this tram back and forth across the terminal like three times - not kidding - and on one occasion we found that we had the entirety of one of the cabin's to ourselves.  Cowabunga.

With about 40 minutes before our departure, we decided to mosey on over to our gate.  The flight was on time - thank God - so we had some time before they called for general boarding.  Kris ran over to Qdoba and picked up the kids some pop, chips, and queso while they played on their phones (and I played Civ VI on my Nintendo Switch.)

Heading down to the plane, at long last.

Pre-flight selfie.

I think it's a law you have to give your kid the seat with a view (I'm an aisle man myself, but on trips like this I'm always forced to take the middle seat like a bitch.)

I had Alayna take a few pics from the window as we began our trip South. . .

Coming into muggy-as-hell Orlando, FL. Took us 3 1/2 hours because we had to fly around a severe thunderstorm that covered everything from Atlanta down to Jacksonville.  This was the first of a few different set-backs that would cause us to arrive at our condo about an hour later than we had hoped for.

Upon landing at the OIA, Kris took Alayna and the two of them darted into the women's bathroom.  While Abby and I stood outside, waiting patiently, a random Australian man ran up to me and gave me a huge bear hug.  He had seen the Masonic hat I was wearing and, as a fellow Freemason, wanted to say 'hi.'  You can imagine how weirded out Abby was by all of this.

Knowing this airport like the back of our hand, we found our luggage in no time at all.

Unfortunately, we had to carry all of our suitcases up multiple escalators and elevators in order to access the parking garage of the A Terminal (our flight and baggage claim were both in B Terminal), where our Turo rental was parked.

Our ride for the week. . . a 2013 Ford Focus hatchback.

Using a keypad entry with a code texted by the owner, Kris was able to access the car and then, in the center console, she found the parking garage ticket, the Florida Sunpass (allowing us to avoid tolls during our trip), and the key vob.

The trunk was ridiculously small, so the girls had to stack their suitcases in the middle of the backseat, between the two of them.

Sunset over the OIA.

Back on the 417.

About to get off on a very familiar exit. . .

Like last time, Kris ignored my suggestion and took the wrong exit onto John Young Parkway.  This time around, she just pulled a Florida U-turn instead of taking the entire Town Loop route.

We once again had to stop off at our old Publix, in Hunter's Creek, in order to pick up groceries and snacks for the condo.  The girls were both pretty spent, and Kris and I had short fuses since we had been wrangling kids all day, but we were able to snatch up everything we needed - snacks, breakfast stuff, coffee, booze, drinks for the girls, etc. - in less than an hour.

Around 9:30pm - about an hour and a half later than we had wanted - we finally pulled into the Blue Heron Resort. . . where Kris had to stand in line at the check-in desk behind a couple of college girls who had to have the resort's small print spelled out for them in Moron-ese.  It wasn't until about 10pm before we finally had all of our luggage and groceries unloaded from the car and brought into our condo.

Didn't get a walkthrough video of the place until the last day of our stay there - so stay tuned for that - but this is me and Kris' master bedroom.

Abby inspects the bunk beds, which is exactly what they had last time. . . albeit lacking the creepy Mickey and Minnie Mouse stuffed animals and decor.

The decor of this place wasn't as nice as the last place, and upon further inspection we found that a lot of the furniture was pretty dated.  Still, at least it was clean.

After everything was unpacked, and the girls were put to bed, I felt it was necessary to open up a bottle of my standard Florida Vacation whiskey from the Ole Smokey distillery.  Our first day of theme parks kicks off tomorrow - stay tuned. . . 

- Brian

The Houghs' Return to Florida: Day I

Greetings, fans.

(I don't know what this says.)

We Houghs have been Michigangsters for about four years now, but before that we were bonafide Floridians, well-versed in five-minute traffic lights, afternoon monsoons, stupid tourists, and every form of terrible Puerto Rican music you can think of.

Since leaving America's Wang, we'd always expected to return to vacation and see old friends, but our plans to do so promptly were put off first by our initial difficulties in finding well-paying jobs, and then the purchase of our home.  After a couple years back in the Mitten, the dust of our cross-continental move had finally settled, and we were finally able to start planning - and saving - for our inevitable Florida Vacation.

Being seasoned theme park veterans, and knowing the greater Orlando area like the back of our hands, Kris and I had little difficulty in planning for the trip.  Kris found an insanely well-rated (and well-priced) Airbnb condo in the heart of the touristy area that perfectly fit our needs, and locked that in right away.  We also found Delta airfare for around $230 apiece, which was awesome.  This was a considerable chunk of our expenses, and having that out of the way took a lot of the pressure off.

Theme park tickets to Universals and the car rental took a little longer to purchase, though, as we had to shop around a bit in order to find the best prices.  We eventually settled on a two-day, multi-park 'hopper' pass at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure (about $200 more as a family than your standard two-day, two-park 'non-hopper' pass - the difference being you could only take the Hogwarts Express train to and from the different parks with the 'hopper' pass. . . and our kids really wanted to do this.)  This purchase option came with three 'free' days of park-hopping (see left pic), but we ended up doing Disney the second half of the trip, so we didn't bother using the free part.  It cost the same as the bundle that didn't have the three days tacked on, so in the end it didn't matter.

Eventually, I was able to lock in a full-size rental car for about $240 for our eight day stint, which was insane.  The bulk of the rest of the expenses for the trip was allocated food, souvenir, and miscellaneous spending money, which ended up being a LOT (what can I say, I like my souvenirs.)  The girls had each saved up about $300 apiece for souvenirs, too, and so were far better off than either of the two times I went to Disney as a kid.

So yeah, with our plans and finances in place, we threw some crap into our suitcases and set off for our first of what I'm sure will be many Florida Vacations.

Here we go. . .

Day I

Traveling South and Establishing Headquarters

The girls, ready to hit the road with their matching carry-on spinner suitcases.  These things ended up holding up really well throughout the duration of our trip - well worth the hours I put into researching them.

The Houghs hit the road.

Driving down I-75.

Entering ever-so-scenic Romulus.  We were dropping off the van at Kris' Uncle Wayne's house, but when we got to his house, he wasn't there - he had gone to work, as he had forgotten what day we were flying out.  Of course.  Fortunately, we had given ourselves about an hour or so wiggle room before we had to be at the airport, in order to avoid dilemmas such as this.

Wayne's house was locked up, and the girls had to use the bathroom, so we sent Alayna in through the dog door - frequented by this behemoth of a canine, Captain - so she could unlock the backdoor for us.  We ended up leaving the van keys on Wayne's kitchen table, and Kris set to work trying to arrange a ride for us to the airport.

Waiting for a ride.  Wayne was able to get a buddy of his that lived nearby to come pick us up and take us to the airport, which was about a seven-minute drive away.  Forget the guy's name, but he was super friendly, and soon dropped us off at our departure terminal. . .

Heading into Delta.  We had planned it so we only had to check one suitcase for this entire trip - a large, black spinner suitcase I had purchased alongside the girls' luggage.  It was by no means full (none of us packed a lot of clothes, seeing how our condo had a washer/dryer set up), but we knew we'd be bringing back a ridiculous amount of souvenirs, and we wanted to check our larger, liquid toiletry items without having them tossed out by the TSA.) When we weighed it at home, it was initially 64 lbs, so we took out a freezer bag full of protein bars (for use in the theme parks), various pairs of shoes, etc. and shoved them all in Kris' backpack, which brought it down to 50lbs. . . which got some curious attention from TSA agents as we went through security.

Clearing security wasn't too hard this time around:  like I said, Kris' backpack full of heavy random stuff from the checked suitcase (said protein bars and shoes, an Alexa Echo, etc.) got some attention, and my Maxpedition Pack (my personal item) was searched thoroughly because my spare SLR batteries triggered something, but other than that we breezed through.  Then it was a simple matter of getting up to the tram terminal in order to reach our gate quickly.

Kids got a kick out of the tram ride.  Go figure.

After reaching our gate - at the far-end of the terminal - we decided to get the kids some Qdoba for lunch.

After lunch, waiting for the plane to board.

When I checked in to our flight, 24 hours before it departed, my choices for seats was limited, but I was able to snag us four that were all together.  Unfortunately, it was in the far back of the plane, but at least this way both kids got a window seat (Alayna in seat 1, Kris in 2, myself in 3, and Abby in 4.)

Waiting to board.

Pretty excited to ride a plane (although they've both ridden on a plane before numerous times, they were both so young that neither remember it, so this was more or less their first time flying.)

If you can't tell from this picture, my backpack - full of laptop crap, camera lenses, random cords and electronic devices, and books - was heavy as all shit.

Preparing to take off. . .

Neither kid got sick from this, and they thoroughly enjoyed the take-off.

Dad sent me this tracking of our flight from some app he has on his phone.

Each seat had it's own interactive screen, which provided various movies, TV shows, games, and more, but despite this Abby chose to draw a picture of our family in Florida for the first half of the flight.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the flight tracker (shown here.)

Meanwhile, back in Michigan, Watson was enjoying nap-time with Bailey and Finley at Dad and Cindy's.

Coming in to hot-as-hell Orlando, Florida.

Landed.  Abby very much enjoyed her flight.

The Orlando International Airport.

Awaiting our large, checked suitcase.  Fortunately, it survived it's maiden voyage without a scratch.

It took us a little longer than we liked to pick up our rental car - our credit card, issued from Member's First Credit Union - refused the charge because it appeared suspicious. . . despite the fact we had notified them that we were traveling out of state.  After a couple failed attempts, and contacting them directly, we eventually had to use a separate card.

Found this on Reddit.  Totally legit.

Our rental car for the week:  a 2019 Kia Optima.  Super nice ride.

Back on the 417. . .

A pretty nostalgic trip from the airport, I'll say that. . .

We decided to stop off in Hunter's Creek for some supplies on our way to our condo, which was on the 535.

Once we got off in Hunter's Creek, we took the wrong turn and accidentally started to head north on John Young, so we took Town Loop Blvd in order to circle back around to the grocery store.  On the way, we drove past our old church, Peace United Methodist.

Since we've been gone, they erected a gigantic 200-foot tall cross on their property.  I'm sure you can see it from space.

Kris' old workplace, Sunchild Academy, as seen from an intersection (we were turning left at this point to head towards Publix - excuse the shittiness of the pic, folks.)

A pit stop for some much-needed groceries.  We wanted to stock up on breakfast and lunch food - stuff to eat at the hotel in the mornings before we hit theme parks, and for those days where we wanted to take it easy by the pool.  We also bought a ton of snacks, pops, waters, and - of course - beer (for me) and wine spritzers (for Kris.)

While we were getting ready to check out, Kris and the girls ran into our old friend, Joy (her son, Derrick, and Alayna used to be in pre-school classes together from ages 2 - 5, and we hung out with them on numerous occasions over the years.)

After leaving Hunter's Creek, we got back on the 417 (driving past our old apartment complex at Camden Hunter's Creek, of course) and drove down to the 535 - a major road right in the heart of Orlando's touristy area, and congested with all sorts of shitty traffic.  Our condo was in the Blue Heron Resort - shown here.

 

After checking in with the front office, we found an awesome parking spot (about twenty feet from the elevator) and began the slow and arduous process of hauling all of our luggage and groceries up to our condo, which was up on the 5th Floor.  It took us a little while to realize that the elevators only went up when you used your room key on the elevator's VOB, but once we figured that out it went pretty smoothly.

The view from the elevator landing on the fifth floor - in the distance, you can make out the Epcot 'ball' (Spaceship Earth), along with the Swan Hotel and a few other notable, big buildings. . .

When you walk into our condo, this is what you see - a long hall that leads eventually into the main living area.  That lit-up door on the right is the girls' bathroom (yes, we had two bathrooms - thank God.)

The Living Room, with a lake-side view beyond.

Living Room and Kitchen areas.

The Dining Table Dad's Tech Command Center

Going back down the original hallway, on the left you can just make out the toilet in the girls' bathroom and the laundry room on the right.  Bunk beds are directly beyond that, with the door leading to the Master Suite dead ahead (the door leading outside is around the curve to the right.)

Abby, claiming her bunk.

The Girls' Bathroom

Our Laundry 'room.'  You'd be surprised how much that thin, accordian-style door cut out the noise from the machines running - it was crazy.

Into the Master Bedroom.  The bed faced a TV and dresser (which I neglected to take a picture of, for whatever reason), and oddly enough we never once watched TV in here.

Our bathroom, with a shower and whirlpool tub (which, again, I neglected to take a picture of - seriously dropping the ball here, folks.)

Meanwhile, the womenfolk continue to put away groceries and prepare some dinner (we stocked up on Publix subs, wraps, and popcorn chicken.)

Dinner time in our new headquarters for the week.

I picked up a sixer of Bud Light and this sampler from Dogfish - nothing particularly strong, but perfect for super hot, sunny days by the hotel pool.

Selfie on our veranda.

The girls waited a full hour after arriving and unpacking in the condo before they started bugging us about heading down to the pool to swim.  Must be a new record.

These chairs always crack me up.

(Ours is the second from the left, five up from the ground level.)

Trying out their new swimming goggles - held up really well this summer.

Perfect for 97-degree weather.

Another shot from the fifth floor elevator landing (in the distance you can see the sun shining angelically upon Spaceship Earth. . .)

Watching some TV during the girls' shower times.  We had them wind down early tonight, as Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure was scheduled for tomorrow morning, and we planned on getting there before it opened in order to throughly check out the new Harry Potter area (Hogsmead and Hogwarts) before it got too crowded with asshole tourists.

I brought this whiskey with me, checked in our suitcase, as I figured the Mango Habanero was perfect for hot, pool-side drinking.  This particular distillery I personally visited back in 2014 when we vacationed in Gatlinburg with the Sausage Pad. 

We also had a perfect view of the pool area below (and fortunately the rail was too high for the girls to unwittingly throw themselves from.)

One last picture before the girls went to bed.  Tomorrow, the vacationing begins. . .

To be continued. . .

- Brian