My Holiday to Florida 2010

My two weeks in Florida

In the last 20 years this was our 6th holiday to Florida, this was a special holiday for us as our son's birthday was going to be on the 8th September, and my husband and I thought this would be a lovely birthday present for him, and of course for us, as we all love holidaying in Florida, there is no place like it.

On the 1st September, my husband, myself and our son left our home at 5.00pm to catch the train to Gatwick Airport, as we were staying the night at the Best Western Moat House Hotel near Gatwick Airport as our flight was at 9.15am on the 2nd September. We last stayed at this hotel 4 years ago, when we last visited Florida, and we liked the hotel very much then, so we decided to go back there once again.

When we arrived at reception, we asked for a early morning call for 5.00am, as our flight was at 9.15am, our son wanted to get to the airport at 5.30am, so that he could get a window seat on the plane. The early morning call came at 4.50am, the beds were so comfortable, and we all had a good nights sleep, it was a struggle to get out of bed, but on the other hand, we wanted to get to the airport, as we were all excited about our flight that day.

The airport bus picked us up from the Best Western at 5.15am, the journey only took about 10 minutes, when we arrived at the airport, luckily the check-in desk was already open, there was not many at the time in the queue, as we were early, it did not take long for us to check in and hand in our luggage, go through all the passport checks and receive our boarding passes.

We boarded the plane at 9.00am, and we actually took of for Florida at 10.55am. The food was not bad on the plane, it was quite nice for a change. Our son is so fussy with his food, he only had what we took with us. The only problem that there was not much leg room on the Monarch flight, being such a long journey you felt very cramped.

We arrived in Florida at 2.15pm, America time, because you have to put your watches back 5 hours. When we stepped of the plane, you could feel the heat straight away. It took us quite a while to go through passport control, they asked alot of questions, like they always do when you go to the USA.

After passport control, we had to get on our coach, so we went to the desk and they supplied us a ticket for the coach, there was alot of coaches outside, but we found ours alright, we had to obviously wait quite a while for other passengers to get on the coach.

After 45 minutes on the coach we arrived at the hotel, Rodeway Inn at International Drive, the hotel had been fully modernised, we had stayed already in the past at the same hotel, so we decided to go back there this year.

After we arrived at the hotel and a porter took us to our room, we changed into shorts etc., our son was so hungry we went straight over the road to dinner at the Ponderosa, it is very reasonable in price a steak meal costs $10.49, and that includes a buffet, you can eat as much as you like with the buffet, it includes starter food, main meal food and deserts.

Over the two weeks we did mostly shopping, we did not do the theme parks this time, as we have done them many times before, also theme park tickets are very expensive.

The following day we could not wait to go the shopping centres, the first one we tackled was Orlando Premium Outlet, all the designer shops are there.

This is a fantastic shopping centre, you will be shopping at DKNY, Calvin Klein, Levis, Van Housen, Guess, Fossill, Marc Ekco, Armani Exchange and about another 150 shops. I bought a pair of Levis Jeans for about £30.  In September, they have what you call Labour Day, and all the shops do discounts, alot do like 50% discount,  the only problem is when you go to the till, as in the UK we have VAT, and it is already added to our prices, but in the USA they add something like 6% tax onto your final bill, but it is still cheap. My son bought himself a lovely black Levis Jacket, that was $70, but he had 30% discount of that, so it worked out very reasonable. I bought also jeggings from DKNY, that was a lovely shop, I got them for $30 (£22.50).

The next shopping centre we tackled was the Orlando Prime Outlets.

Orlando Prime Outlets, is very similar to Orlando Premium Outlets, with also a good shopping centre, and so cheap in clothing, the centre has about 175 shops.

Over the two weeks we visited the Florida Mall, which is an indoor shopping centre, they have a lovely Armani shop there, it is better than the Armani at the Orlando Premium Outlet. All the shopping centres have a food court, so you have plenty of choice of what to eat when you are out for the day. We went to the Florida Mall twice, our son had a lovely Burger there he said it was the best one he ever had.

We also visited Wallmart (Asda), it is so huge the shop, they sell prams, bikes everything you can think of, about 6 times the size of ours, we bought cakes and biscuits there to eat in our room, in the afternoons with a cup of tea.

Each morning we sunbathed till lunch time by the pool, after 1pm, it got so hot. It is always very hot in Florida, but this year they did say this is the hottest it has been for 125 years. The pool was lovely, small but very quiet, that is what you want on holiday, as alot of people go out for the day, the pool is never packed.

Over the two weeks, we went to McDonalds to eat also, this is the largest McDonalds in the world, they do not just do the main things that you get back in the UK, they also do other specialy food to order. One of the best chicken meals we had was at Popeyes, the chicken was the best I had ever tasted. We varied we had our meals, Ponderosa we went to a few times also.

We stay at International Drive, you do not need a car there, you have I Ride trolley buses, that go from one end of International Drive to the other.  Orlando Prime Outlets is at one end, and the other end is Orlando Premium Outlets.  You also have the Lynx buses, that go to the Florida Mall etc., it costs $2 on the Lynx bus one way.  The I Ride trolley bus costs us $17 each for a two week ticket, and you can go as many times as you like on the bus, otherwise the trolley bus costs you $1.25 each trip you make.

Our two week holiday went so quick, no sooner we arrived, the holiday seemed to be over, we left the hotel on the 15th September to fly back to England, to freezing cold weather when we arrived home.

I would recommend if you have never been to Florida, pay a visit and you will not be disappointed.