Florida good, bad & ugly

[fbhjr]

It was the first real vacation my wife and I had taken since 2002. We’ve made plenty of trips in that time, some even for ourselves, but none that were a week away for just ourselves.
There was a lot going on for our vacation week, good, bad and ugly.
Do not judge the vacation by counting how many things are under each category and thinking the one with the most wins. The good far outweighs the others. It would take a far greater of minor annoyances to make up for the huge good we had. But, sometimes I can’t help but gripe about small things. It’s my way.

Good:
My wife: I would have enjoyed the other things without my wife there, but no where near as much. Having her with me makes everything better.

Our families: My wife and I both have what we describe as “alien baby syndrome”. Neither one of us really feels at home with the people we grew up with. Both of us have wondered over the years if we were alien babies accidentally left behind on Earth and raised by the folks who found us. (Or, fey changelings if you want to go to another mythology.)
So, it was really good for us to spend the week with family while down on vacation. I’m not saying there wasn’t still some ABS, especially with my wife’s uncle, but we were still welcomed as family and that was very nice.
And, with my father’s side of the family that I didn’t get to know at all until I was in college, they really make me feel like I do belong and I’m not an alien dropped off here.
That’s a feeling I didn’t have for half my life and is still a bit strange for me. But, I like it a lot.

Our friends: Our friends Alan and Constance and their children gave us the hotel in Orlando for a week as a present to us. That was tremendously nice. It’s nice they like us doing birthday parties for the kids and letting them sleep over, but I think there will be a lot of birthday cake coming for the kids for this.

The fun: Blue Man Group, bird sanctuaries, glass museums, wild life preserves, feeding rays, dolphins and sea lions, birthday activities, Christmas parties, socks, tribbles and just being with our families. We had a lot of fun over the week. This one really should go on for a page with all the fun stuff. But, it really is just too much to list. Go back and read the other entries.

The weather: Every day was at least warm to me, two outright hot by my standards. No day was totally sunny, but we got to see some of the sun pretty much every day. I walked around in short sleeves all week without a problem. This was especially nice after problems leaving due to snow.

The hotel: It really was very nice. Nicer then what I’d normally go for myself. And, way overkill for us in terms of activates. But, that doesn’t mean I didn’t like the place. I felt almost bad as each night they would leave us a message on our phone for “activities the next day” when all we’d do is drive away and come back the next night.

Rental car: Avis was very good about getting us a car quickly and getting us out of the airport. As a “preferred” member it really was as simple as walking into the airport garage, showing my card and being handed the keys. There was a long line for non-“preferred” members that I did not have to do more then walk past.
Also, when I first looked on line car prices for the week were in the $900 range. But, when I went through the Avis site with the “preferred” code, we got it for $400. That’s a very good savings, and for a nicer car then the high amount quoted.
When turning it in they refunded me the price of the gas I had in it when I gave it back. I’m told they only do that for “preferred” members, and had to show my card to get the $40 refund.
(A note to Phoenix people, any of you can get “preferred” status through Phoenix if you want it. You do not have to be on a Phoenix job to use it.)

Cookie Avalanche: The Whole Foods supermarket near my cousin’s house had my favorite frozen soy treat “Cookie Avalanche”. For some reason the stores near me just don’t carry it anymore. So, it was very nice having it for the first time in more than a year.

The Albany airport: These guys have it all over Boston in terms of nice, quick and cost effective service. They even have two jetways per plane, front and back, to make it easier to get on and off. Parking there for a week in their best garage is equal to a day at Boston. The folks there are very nice and helpful.
I’m not a huge fan of the two hour drive to get there when there are 4 major airports in the 1 hour range from our place. But, that was the only downside of flying out of there, and I can’t say that about the ones near us.

Food: We ate a lot while down there. Bakeries, Thai places, Cuban places, Italian places, pizza places, Chinese places, tourist places and at our families places. It was all good food, even the kripets. My wife’s aunt made a point of overstuffing us as much as she could. It was so much, I skipped breakfast and lunch on Christmas day because of how much she fed me Christmas Eve.
The Ming Court place we went Saturday night was very good. It was the closest I’ve had to eating in China since the last time I was in China. We got a lot of food as well. We said next time that would be the first place to eat, not the last, so we could bring food back with us.

A Sea World umbrella: Back in 2001 my wife and I were in Orlando and I bought a Sea World umbrella that I really liked. Somewhere in the Orlando airport it went missing. I realized it, as I often do, just as we were about to board the plane. I email the airport’s lost and found, but never got it back.
So, Saturday I made sure to buy a new umbrella and we did manage to get it home with us. I’m hoping it will replace the “magic” umbrella that Tom uses to keep rain away from our Phoenix Swords shows.

Southwest Airlines: They got us there. Even without their good prices, fast service and funny flight attendants, they’d be under the good heading just for getting us there when the other airline couldn’t or wouldn’t. I’m not really a fan of their seating policy, but one that rewards people for getting to the airport early isn’t bad with me either.
And, they found my camera for me when I lost it and had it waiting for me at the end of the jetway. I would have been very sad to lose that camera and the photos it contained.

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Bad:
Delta: What are these guys thinking? Almost every airline that goes over US airspace goes to Orlando. Do they not think there aren’t a dozen or more options I’ve got for getting there? I understand that there was a big storm. I have no problem understanding delays of our flights because of that. The snow stopped at noon and we weren’t scheduled to fly until 7PM. So, I can see some delay getting the plane into Boston from where it may have been. But, cancelling the flight? 48 hours until the next one? Telling me “it’s not our policy to reroute travelers” when I offered to fly into a difference city in FL and drive over to make up for their 2 day delay in getting me to where I wanted to go? Don’t charge me for being willing to do that. I was willing to pay my own time and gas money to get there, don’t tell me that I’m asking for a “change in reservation” and will be charged for it.
I was not saying “I changed my mind and I’d rather be in Tampa, Fort Lauderdale or some other city”. I’m saying “I’ll work with you and take flights that aren’t as full as long as you get me within 200 miles of my goal”.
While I had wanted to get there Sunday night and spend all day Monday and Tuesday in Orlando, I didn’t really need to be there until Tuesday night. My cousin’s birthday party was the “must not miss” deadline I had. Being cautious, I had left 48 hours for the trip with an average travel time of 3. That’s a safety factor of 16. Don’t tell me you’re “sorry but if you had an important appointment you should have planned more time before it in case of travel problems.” This wasn’t a case of my plans having me land an hour before my goal. If that were the case, then you’re right, “shame on me”. I leave two days of wiggle room, offer to drive in from another city, or fly out from another city and you tell me I should have planned better? That’s a “shame on you”.
I say to them “it is not my policy” to ever give you any of my money. I’m not saying I’ll never fly them again. But, they will be at the bottom of my list as they just can’t be trusted to get me where I’m going or do anything to help me if things go wrong.
They were willing to refund my money, but that’s the only good thing I can say about them.
And, to be clear, I’m not blaming any of the three different customer service people or managers I talked with over this. I’m blaming the airline and their policies. The people I talked with were trying to find me a solution that would fit in the policies and reading pre-made speeches for customers. They just couldn’t help within the box of airline rules.

Kids from CA: I’m pretty sure the kids in the room next to us in the hotel were from CA or some other west coast place as their schedule seemed to be 3 hours behind ours. Going to bed at 9 seems good for the age of those kids. But, 9 from CA is midnight in FL. So, yelling and screaming that late was annoying.

Hotel hacker: I travel a lot. I take my laptop almost everywhere I go. I have never had so many attempts for someone to hack into my laptop as at that hotel. I’d start the computer, and it would start counting the attempts to break in. I’m sure it was a script, as it was the same thing over and over. I’m glad I’ve got pretty strong firewalls on the machine. Who knows what they’d have tried if I didn’t.
I know it wasn’t the hotel itself as it only happened in the afternoons and evenings. So, the hacker who was trying was either asleep or out of the hotel late at night and mornings.
But, is that really how people want to spend their vacations? Is hacking into other people’s computers really that rewarding? Get a life.

Tolls: It was 12 miles from the airport to our hotel. In those 12 miles we went through 2 different toll booths for a total of $1.75. Both of those booths are on the same road, less than 5 miles apart.
Going to my wife’s uncle’s on Christmas day, I missed an exit on the highway. It cost me $2.50 in tolls to go one more exit, turn around and come back.
I understand that there are no toll methods of getting places, but they aren’t as fast or well marked. So, when going to a place for the first time or in a hurry, I’m not as big on using them.
The car did have a built in toll transponder that would have saved us a lot of time. But, Avis charges $2.50 a day to use it on top of the toll price and you’re charged the service fee even if you don’t go through tolls. I was too cheap to do that. (Note, I’m not holding Avis responsible for that one. It was my cheapness, not theirs.)
I was amazed at one toll booth that had a change machine built into it. If it could take me $1 to give me change, why did I have to get change and then throw that in the bin? Couldn’t it just take the toll out of my $1 and spit out what was left? That is very inefficient. No wonder there are long lines there.
And, to the toll taker who said “this will be faster” and threw had handful of SunPass brochures at me, do you really expect tourists to invest in your transponders?
Or with the Avis stickers all over the car could you not tell and you thought I was a local?

Fridge: Sadly the refrigerator in our hotel room wasn’t very good. So, our extra containers of frozen soy treat turned to soup. Cookie Avalanche soup isn’t very good. Sad.

The McDonald’s guy at the Orlando airport: I walked up and said “Hi, I’d like a #1 meal.” Before I could say the word “and” he said “$6.38 drinks are behind you.”
Now, I have been known to complain that the service in Orlando is less than totally efficient at times, but I would still like a “will that be all?”

Loosing the video camera: Not a tragedy, but still sad. Ones with double the capacity of that one cost less then I paid for that one. So, it could be much worse. I’m glad I didn’t lose the still camera as that would be much harder to replace.

Gators: Apparently the alligators of Florida went somewhere for the holidays. Everyone down there assures me they are all over the place. We did see what were probably their trails through the swamps. But, except at Sea World where they were fenced in, we only saw 1 “could be”, gator the whole week. And, we looked for them. Really, we did.

Not seeing the godkids: As my godchildren’s parents gave us the hotel for a week as a present, it was sad we never got to meet up with them. They flew down on Wednesday, but went off to their aunt’s house. They were going to come back Christmas evening and join us at Sea World the day after, but got delayed. We still saw them the week before, but I do miss seeing them then.

Not hearing from my sister: Yeah, for the 15th Christmas in a row my sister did not call me. Honestly, I didn’t think she would. But, I never stopped hoping. And, every time Christmas passes without hearing from her, it is sad for me.

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Ugly:
Toilet: Yes, the “Attack of the Brown Finless” was not the high point of our vacation. It was ugly in any way you measure it. They fixed it quickly, but it was still nasty.

Raccoon: I’ve never seen a rabid animal in person before. Can’t say I liked it. That whole choice of “do we sit in the car and wait, or try and get past it?” wasn’t that much fun. As it seemed to be into the “not moving well” phase we did go past it (at a healthy distance) and then report it. It was a wild animal with a disease, so I don’t blame the hotel for it being on their property. But, it made me watch the ground around me as I walked about after that. Even more then I already did in the land of gators and snakes.

Comments

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

As you said, the Good Things grossly outweigh Bad Things by a substantial margin.

I am very glad you and Malterre went and had a good time, and despite the Airline Schenanegans, at least you got down there without much hassle once things were put into place.

[kismets-kiss.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you had mostly good, and I'm sorry you didn't see any gators.