Thursday 17 October

Yesterday is HERE

I was up early to enjoy a final morning on the balcony so I sat with my coffee waiting for the sun rise and watching the early morning boats go out.



It’s been one of the simple pleasures of the trip sitting out here its a perfect start to each day and I am sad to be leaving it behind.

We dont officially check out until tomorrow but we have changed our plans and heading to Orlando today to meet some friends for dinner so we are not in a rush to check out by any particular time.

We get the laundry on and pack up the final case - by now the leaf blowers and mowers are out in force and its got incredibly noisy which spoils it a bit and we decide to make our way early. We are driving out of the resort for the last time.



And on our way to Orlando around 1030

Traffic gets heavier the closer we get




and when the sat nav alerts us to a crash on the I4 we take a detour - although neither of us is convinced it really saved us any time in the end.

Or that might be as we got lost for a bit as the sat nav lost its marbles slightly and sent us round in a circle for a good 15 minutes .

Eventually we got on the 436 and travelled along that for a while before picking up the I4 again.

So much traffic and construction everywhere but we finally pitched up at the I drive outlets at 1215.

As we had all our cases in the car we paid up the $15 to valet park - definitely not worth risking all our stuff.

It was packed out, slightly chaotic and unfortunately seemed to be full of quite rude and obnoxious people - the majority of whom were red faced Brits either shouting at each other, berating their kids or effing and jeffing at the top of their voices. This certainly wasn’t the happiest place on earth!

I said to Andy that it must be the change in air pressure making everyone a bit crazy and bad tempered with the storm coming in tomorrow.

It really wasn’t very pleasant. Everyone seemed so hot and grumpy. It’s like chill peeps, its a holiday ... but then we didnt have anyone else to bother about except ourselves

A quick detour to Panera

Turkey, bacon, cheese and a thousand island type sauce.



Nice but not as nice as the one earlier in the trip.

The Disney store was full of bare shelves - in fact in a first - we left the outlets completely empty handed as we couldn’t be doing with the queues anywhere

We made our way over the road to the Outlet Marketplace place and hit the jackpot in Calvin Klein where I had an armful of about 20 dresses .. of which sadly only a few suited me in the end but the choice was fantastic .. they must have just had a delivery.

I got these three for $25 each




Feeling that shopping was a bit of a bust we made our way to the Clarion in Kissimmee. We had wanted somewhere quite cheap and near to Manny’s as that was our dinner venue .. so on that criteria the Clarion it was.

Passing Margaritaville ... looks amazing



And the Clarion



It’s ok .. I’m not hugely keen on motel style places and it had seen better days but it was clean and the guy checking us in was very helpful and gave us a winery voucher which I thought was great ... we didn’t get to use it but it was a nice touch.



I also thought their handout was really good for first timers.. who might get carried away in the excitement and forget the basics.



The room ... very Rosen Inn (with that jet engine noisy air on) and well, some wonky furniture but did I mention clean? How little did we know how much we would appreciate a clean room at the time



We had a bit of a chill out and got ready for dinner , taking an Uber to Mannys

We met up with our friends and made the most of 241 happy hour 😁




Moscow mules for me



I wasn’t overly keen on the salad.

I do wish they would ask before they mix in the mayo plus they brought a huge washing up size steel bowl of it when only two people were going to eat it. Very wasteful



I had the filet and loaded potato



Nice but not as good as other steakhouses

Andy has the prime rib



Ditto. Nice but very fatty.

Key lime pie for dessert. This was very nice



This was the bill for the 4 of us



Pretty reasonable we thought

Service was so so. It was busy which meant there long gaps and it felt we were waiting quite a bit .

Overall. We would stick with Longhorns or Outback in preference to here.

We really enjoyed seeing our friends. The time passed in a flash and we were all considerably merrier leaving after the generous happy hour.

Back at the Clarion and it became clear the walls were paper thin. About 1 am I resorted to banging on the walls as the kids in the room next to us had been jumping up and down and running around non stop and it was banging their bed onto our walls. I was not happy

Right on cue Andy then started to snore really loudly and I’m surprised the neighbours didn’t bang on our wall in retaliation so I put my headphones on and gave up . I must have drifted off final about 3 am but me with little sleep is a fearsome prospect at the best of times.


Courtesy of google

I’m sure it will all be fine tomorrow though ...

Tomorrow is HEREa bit more shopping and then we arrive on the Gulf coast for our last few days.

Today’s cocktail tally: 2
Holiday total: 27

Loving your trippy as always. need something to keep me going atm especially with our upcoming may trip about to be cancelled.
Especially looking forward to tomorrows adventures

I so want to love Manny’s and I know it’s a huge Dibb favourite, but none of us really like salad (and when we said don’t worry the server gawped and said ‘but it’s free!?!’ making us feel very small. Plus sorry but it’s not free, it’s built into the cost somewhere. Food has only ever been ok and the service was fine but not amazing. Give me Longhorn any day for a steak!

I’m marginally dreading your check in tomorrow...

Lovely seeing pictures of Orlando. Just don't know when we will get back there.
Why do people get stressed shopping so much, you're on holiday enjoy yourselves!
Not eaten at the Mannys on the 192 , normally have a meal at the one further down the 27. Been good so far..

Another great day, the outlets are just not as fun as they used to be 😣

Enjoying your trippie. I don’t like the Mannys salad dressing either We always ask for it on the side and they are happy to oblige.

Starting the day with a coffee on the balcony must have been lovely! Glad you got some dresses and had a good evening

Thank you x Hope you are doing ok? Sorry about the trip. The year is slipping away isn’t it. We were hoping to go back in September but not convinced right now. Crazy times.
Ugh, the next day

Yeah. I get what you say. It was fun and all but for us the other steakhouses have so far been better. The mules were good though
Yeah, I’m dreading it too I just uploaded the pics ready to write it. It’s made me all over again.

Oh hugs x We were saying yesterday we don’t know when we will get back either
The outlets were just full of hot grumpy people that day.
Is that the one in Haines ? Andy ate there in 2018 and said he though it was better

They aren’t are they ? This was the first time we gave up completely

Thank you We were too slow I think. It was just a ridiculous sized bowl.

I love those mornings on holiday ... wherever it is. But that view was especially lovely.

What a lovely start to the day. That sunrise was worth getting up for. Such a shame that you left the outlets in disgust due to the queues, but it seems you managed to part with a little bit of cash at least, so not a complete dead loss of a day.

Perfect start to the day... until the maintenance guys start Gosh, the shops sound a bit manic! At least you managed to get a few bargains across the road. We always drive past those outlet stores but we've never stopped. Maybe worth a look?

We've not been to Manny's in years, and never the one on the 192. I actually like their salad, but it is a very big bowl. The mains all seem fairly average but I hope you still enjoyed the evening with your friends.