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Old 5 Apr 20, 02:59 PM  
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nothingless
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Talking 5-week Split Stay in Florida, Feb/March 2020 - Day 02: Windsor Hills & Disney Springs

Day 02: Windsor Hills & Disney Springs
February 11, 2020

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We had a bit of a scattered night. After accidentally falling asleep in Myla's bed last night and only getting into my own around 11:30PM, Myla woke up again around 1am, noticed I wasn't there, and started crying because she was scared in alone in the strange room. Michael and I were both super tired still, so we went for the easiest option and tucked her in between us into our super kingsize bed. She was asleep again within minutes! Michael woke up super early, like 3am or so, and went into one of the other bedrooms to watch tv so he wouldn't wake us turning on the living room TV. Myla and I slept till around 4:30AM and then she was wide awake..which means of course I was wide awake too!

We lounged in bed for a while, I read on my phone and she watched some YouTube on the iPad. I did some more unpacking and finally we showered and got dressed. Around 6am, we headed out for breakfast to Denny’s as we had no breakfast foods in the villa yet, we were starving, and Denny’s is open 24 hours!


Myla 'helped' pack the stroller into the car.






There was no one else in there but us at that hour! Ordering took some time though - Michael had gone vegan since New Years, so around 6 weeks ago, and I was slowly switching over to more vegan foods too - our reasons for this being a combination of concern for the environment, concern for our personal health, and concern for animal welfare. This was going well at home where we were getting used to what stuff was vegan and what wasn't, but it was a bit trickier when eating out! We had agreed prior to the holiday to be relaxed about it - I certainly wasn't planning on sticking to it 100% as I know there's too many Disney snacks I'd be tempted by. But Michael wanted to really try and stick to it - so although he would have ordered eggs, bacon, etc in the past, he now choose oatmeal with fruit, and a side of broccoli. Myla and I shared a serving of (non vegan) pancakes with syrup and fruit, plus we had coffees and Myla had orange juice. It was yummy, we all actually really enjoyed it and Myla ate loads of the pancakes! She's normally a picky and not great eater, so this was good to see! The total came to $20, not bad for a lovely breakfast.


While we were eating, the sun was coming up, and by the time we finished, it was just past 7am - Publix opening time. We headed to the one about 5 minutes up the road, I'd read they do more vegan foods than Walmart so we figured we'd give them a try.


I remembered to take photos of our rental car in the Denny's parking lot - so it was a Ford Edge Titanium we had - that doesn't mean anything to me, but it was a lovely car, very comfortable and it had seat COOLING as well as warming! In the weeks to come, it would prove handy many a time when the black leather seats were roasting hot from the sun. Just turn the seat cooling on for a minute and they were great!



It was still quite foggy at this point, and the temperature was pleasant though you could feel it getting hotter by the minute as the sun was breaking through.


Of course, half an hour into the shop, Myla needed to pee so we had to split up while I took her to the toilet. This was an ordeal in and of itself. Myla is totally potty trained, but like many kids, scared of the noise of flushing. That's fine at home, but here in Florida, nearly every toilet we encountered, including these Publix ones, were auto flushers. So this first week, I'd have to stand and argue with Myla to get her to agree to sit on the toilet, promising it wouldn't flush on her mid pee OVER AND OVER AND OVER, sigh. She was really paranoid about this! So we took like, 15 minutes just for her to pee. And when we came out, I swear we were walking around for 20 minutes trying to find Michael again LOL! We managed to eventually get everything we needed, Publix did indeed have a lot of healthy and vegan food and we were spoilt for choice - around $200 USD spent on groceries for the coming weeks.


We were back home by 9AM, and while Michael tidied the groceries away, I remembered to take photos of the villa. I wanted to do this right now, because I knew if I did it in a few days, it'd look like a horrible mess with all our stuff strewn everywhere haha!


Looking to the front door


From the front door looking into the dining/living room


Myla's bedroom


Myla's bathroom


Dining room


Living room and pool deck


Living room and kitchen


Our bedroom & bathroom


Pool and view


Games room and laundry!

I see that I have somehow forgotten to take photos of the 2 other bedrooms and bathrooms! One was another bedroom with 2 single beds, the other another one with a queen size bed, and both of those bathrooms had full baths (instead of the walk-in showers we had in ours). So Myla actually ended up using the bathroom of one of the other bedrooms instead of her own, solely for the bath! But as you can see, the villa was great! You could tell the furniture wasn't brand new, things were scuffed and in need of replacement sometimes - but it was perfect for us. Everything was comfortable and homey, and we were very content with it.

Once we finished that, we spent half an hour trying to convince Myla to have a nap - she was exhausted already. Finally got her into bed at 9:30AM, with Michael staying in the other single bed in her room with her as she was saying again she was scared alone. I sat down behind the laptop and did some work for half an hour, and then headed to bed too, I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore!

Myla and I slept soundly, and I woke up at 12:30 or so from the doorbell! Michael opened the door - it was a really nice maintenance guy doing a couple of small fixes to the house: light bulb, leaking tap, etc. All small things we hadn't even noticed! Michael chatted to him for a while, and Myla cuddled with me in our bed once she woke up until he left.


I then got up too and we had peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, and then got changed for the pool. Our private pool was very cold this time of the year, and pool heating was $35 USD a day! I don't know if that's normal, but I definitely hadn't been expecting it to be so expensive - so we decided to skip it, and make use of the great community pool we knew Windsor Hills has. Myla likes that better anyway as she always befriends whatever other kids there are to play with!

So we drove down there - our villa was at the way back of Windsor Hills and it definitely was too far too walk.


It was 30 degrees outside, so plenty warm enough! We all swam and Myla played with some other kids for 90 minutes or so before she had enough.

We drove home, I gave her a bath while Michael cooked dinner, and I did some more work while Myla played on the iPad. Downside of having your own company, work doesn't ever stop! We ate dinner just before 5: rice for Myla and vegan burritos for us, yum!

Edited at 02:32 PM.
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Old 5 Apr 20, 02:59 PM  
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We were determined to stay up a little tonight and not collapse into bed at like 6PM, so we decided to go find some Disney magic and head to Disney Springs!



We parked up in Grapefruit just before 6, and had a leisurely stroll around. It was busy but so pretty there with the sunset!




We never got around to visiting Disney Springs on our trip last year, so the last time we'd been here, was 2015 and it had changed so much! We loved seeing all the new shops and the whole place looked better than it ever had. We were all feeling so happy, with the prospect of 5 entire weeks ahead of us, a super relaxing and fun first day, and the excitement of our Disney days coming up!

When we walked past the carousel, Myla begged to go on and of course we said yes. She rode in the little teacup with another boy, spinning each other round and round lol!




We then made our way over to Erin McKenna's Bakery, a bakery filled with only vegan foods! All the cupcakes and pastries looked sooo yummy, but we let Myla pick what she wanted to try, and she went for the chocolate icecream, which the girl behind the counter very kindly added “princess” sprinkles to. I'm not sure what I was expecting from vegan icecream, but OMG it was delicious! All 3 of us absolutely loved it, I sincerely prefer it to regular chocolate icecream!



We made our way back to World of Disney while I played with the Night Mode on my new iPhone 11 Pro (), and let Myla pick out a new stuffed animal - a special treat we'd promised her. She picked out the baby Figaro, which she knows not from Pinocchio but from the Minnie Mouse Bowtoons cartoons, where Figaro is Minnie's cat! By then she was completely exhausted and just lay in the stroller, so tired. We were tired too so we headed home.

Getting Myla to bed was a bit of a drama, she was just soo overtired and we maybe stayed in Disney Springs just a touch too long. She didn’t want to pee, didn’t want to brush her teeth, everything was a drama. And of course, with us being so tired too it's even harder to be patient lol! Finally got her down and she was asleep in seconds!

We watched the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the pool deck for about 5 minutes before deciding to watch it properly some other night and got into bed - tired too but very very happy after a great first day!

Edited at 03:14 PM.
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Old 5 Apr 20, 03:36 PM  
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this is lovely to read and makes me optimistic about getting back soon. thanks for the very informative trippie
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Old 5 Apr 20, 10:21 PM  
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I’m joining you on your wonderful holiday and enjoyed the first 3 days! Lovely photos.
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Old 6 Apr 20, 08:34 AM  
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Great first day. Lovely photos and the ice cream looked yummy.
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Old 6 Apr 20, 09:42 AM  
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This is great, been looking out for a trip report to bring some ‘magic’ back! Will be following along thank you 😊
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Old 6 Apr 20, 09:56 AM  
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Great way to spend your first day taking thing easy


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Old 6 Apr 20, 02:54 PM  
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Reading along 👍🏻 happy memories.
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Old 7 Apr 20, 08:55 AM  
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Chilling out at the beginning of 5 weeks, the best😀
Thanks for sharing
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Old 7 Apr 20, 05:48 PM  
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Ooh I love the sound of all that vegan food. I can't wait to read more about all the food you try.
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