Back to the Tropics, Day VI

  (contd.)

Day VI

Father's Day and the Voigts

We were able to sleep in a bit this morning, which - considering yesterday's frantic pace and early start - was very much appreciated, indeed.

Here's a glimpse at the sort of shit my kids decided to spend their money on in Epcot's Japan merch store the day before.  I thought they would opt for some ornate ramen bowls, or a couple pairs of flashy chopsticks, but no.  Frickin' Japanese candy that you can buy from Meijer.  I hate kids.

We were going to spend the morning hanging out in our condo pool, which we've done already this week, but this time around we planned on being down there for a few hours.  As such, Kris ran out early in the morning to a Dollar General within walking distance of our condo and bought a bunch of pool noodles and toys for the kids. . . including this $1 squirt gun that she got for me as a - wait for it - Father's Day gift.  This was all I got for Father's Day this year, which shouldn't be all that surprising considering that this often-overlooked 'holiday' was overshadowed by our Florida Vacation.

This classic photo op was taken in response to a similar one sent in our dad thread by one of my buddies who was hanging out on the beach somewhere in Michigan.  I think my pic was far better.

While Kris and Abby got right into the pool, the Cannonball and I decided to bronze first.  Gotta put some serious work into these Florida tans of ours. . .

Bronzing.

Kris ordered herself a Bloody Mary from the Tiki Bar (a little too hot out for my liking - I stuck to a Miller Lite - but to each their own.)

After awhile of sweating I finally got my ass into the pool, where I proceeded to do the usual dad stuff with the girls.

Broke out the GoPro for some water-friendly pics (I took a video but was too lazy to convert it in order to upload it here - Blogger is a pretty finicky platform for uploading video clips, my apologies.)

We grabbed the girls a few smoothies from the Tiki Bar. . . and let them drink them in the pool.  Screw it, we're on vacation.

After three or four hours down by the pool, we came back upstairs to the room, showered, and got around.  Then we headed back out in order to head to the Voigts' house, out in Winter Garden - we were planning on hanging out at their house (and pool) in order to keep things low-key for Father's Day.

It had been a few years since we had to deal with this frickin' gate - used to drive us crazy back in the day.  They don't have gated communities like this where we live.  Come to think of it, I haven't seen any gated communities in Michigan since we moved back, so maybe it's a Florida thing. . .

Kris tries her damnedest with the gate code.  Always takes a hot minute.

We rolled into their place in the early afternoon, and were met by their newest family addition, this miniature dachshund, which both girls wanted to adopt on sight.

Since we had last been to their house in 2019, Adam had recently converted his 'man room' into a home theater - probably the best home theater setup I've seen from any of the people I know.

He installed an automatic projector screen that lowers with a remote - Kris and I are already planning on buying one ourselves now.

As usual, shortly after arriving at the Voigts' house, Adam and I decided to run up to Publix in order to pick up a few things for dinner. . . and several things of beer (I was also running low on Bud Light Limes back at the condo, so I had to stock up.)

It started raining during our grocery run, but, as is the case with most afternoon, summer thunderstorms down in Florida, it didn't stick around long.

Adam 'twisted my arm' into trying some of the new Cigar City beers that have been released since I left.  I was always a huge fan of this Tampa-based brewery back when we lived down here.

Having a couple beers and trying out their fancy, new setup (this is Rogue One.)

Adam takes down orders for pizza (we were keeping it nice and simple this afternoon.)

Alayna revisits an old kitchen toy that she used to get a lot of use out of back in her younger years.  Didn't really hold up, though.

While Abby and the younger kids frolicked in the Voigts' pool, Alayna was satisfied just dangling her feet in the hot tub.  'Cause teenagers.

Couple of dads.

Abby and Ella (the Voigts' youngest), chowing down on some recently-delivered pizza.

Adam sure loves his Jai Alais (a little too hoppy for my taste, I'm not a huge IPA guy.)

Pretty decent pizza, but it's definitely not Buccelli's.

Adam and I came inside at one point and were promptly ushered to take a seat by these two, who had decided that they were going to run a 'restaurant' (Abby was being a pretty good sport with the younger kids. . . unlike her sister, who spent much of the evening on her phone.)

Ella runs a tight ship.

Ella explains the day's specials and takes orders.

The 'menu.'  Not ideal, folks.

Questionable service at this establishment, to be sure.

Our bill was a bit ridiculous, too - if you ask me, $20 for a mushroom salad is pretty steep.

Following our over-priced meal, we came back outside to sit poolside.

(I guess this happens frequently.)

Back in the pool. . .

One of my favorite Cigar City beers, you used to be able to only grab this at the brewery - pretty awesome that they sell it in stores now.

Adam is having the time of his life.

Meanwhile, back in the house. . .

Kris was super stoked that this beach ball matched her meticulously decorated nails (which were specifically done for this trip, of course.)

Sun beginning to set for the evening, kids winding down.

Towards the end of the evening, we once again had to bid farewell to our closest Florida friends - who were hands-down the closest thing Alayna and Abby had to an aunt and uncle for eight years.  Until the next Florida Vacation. . .

- Brian

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