We're back!

We finally landed at 10:40am this morning. The pilot had managed to make up those 45 minutes in the air. Thanks to some very noisy and silly young Americans, we hardly got any sleep last night.

Once landed we got through passport control, baggage reclaim and customs in record time. Just as well because we heard that the building control inspector would be at our house within half an hour. We caught a taxi home to drop off the bags and pick up our car. Due to temporary traffic lights and a motor vehicle accident that had just happened along the Balcombe Road, we arrived at our house two minutes after the building inspector left! Fortunately my dad had been able to be present for the inspection. We went inside anyway to view the progress of the past two weeks.

The velux windows were all being fitted today.

The kitchen / family room is now framed out.

The widened out area of the lounge.

The velux in our ensuite.

New kitchen door looking into the hallway.

Back to the rental home with mum and dad for lunch then time to unpack (shower for Harrison!) before we all fall asleep!

Homeward bound

So despite packing everything up and cleaning last night, we still missed our 10am eviction time by ten minutes! The cleaner was sitting outside in her pick up truck with her children waiting for us to finish loading the car. Hopefully she won't complain about the extra ten minutes because it was due to me running the vacuum cleaner around, washing and drying the breakfast dishes and putting them away.  

Our tardiness was mainly due though, to the incredible storm that went on directly overhead until 1am this morning.  We had to put Harrison's overnight equipment onto battery backup for safety.  None of us were able to sleep through the storm- the very night we needed to!

Last year we drove around aimlessly for several hours until we could drop the car off at the airport and check in. Today we'd decided to go back to the Cinepolis to see 'Inside Out' the new Pixar movie.

We had two hours before the start of the film so popped into Walmart to buy another bag to bring everything home. We've managed to fill another entire suitcase and a carry on and I thought we'd bought less than last year!

At the cinema complex we bought our tickets and settled down for an hour to watch the Radwanska quarter final match from Eastbourne.

To ensure that we had time for lunch, we ordered pizzas to eat whilst watching the film. The mini film showing prior to Inside Out was called Lava and it was very cute. About two volcanoes, one above sea level and one below, both of whom were looking for love. 

Inside Out was really good! So imaginative. I would say that it was definitely one of Pixar's best.

The cinema complex puts British ones to shame. It was spotlessly clean - staff were constantly sweeping and wiping up invisible crumbs and spills. There was a lovely seating and bar area with comfy chairs which could be turned to face six screens showing different sporting events. 

In the screens themselves, they weren't huge but everyone had a great view, more than enough leg room and reclining seats.

The film finished at 2:49pm so we meandered up to the airport using the I4 and back roads to avoid the tolls. This year though, we did have the cash to pay for them (unlike last year)!  We also called a porter to transfer our luggage to check-in. Embarrassingly last year, we had the help but had to admit beforehand that we didn't have any cash left to tip.  They still very kindly helped us though. 

Fortunately at check in there was nobody behind us. We checked in the cases (all under the limit - phew!) and then the duty manager suddenly appeared to ask us 'some questions'. A fleeting moment of panic until she explained that we'd been allocated three seats all in completely different parts of the cabin. They couldn't have put us further away from each other! This is despite the notes on the system saying that we must sit together and had allocated us our return seats before we left the UK!  With some shuffling around of passengers (I hope they're not too upset when they find out) we were sitting two together on the side and one across the aisle. I actually like this arrangement because it gives both Bernard and I an aisle seat.

There was no rush to get to the departure gate as the plane was delayed for an hour due to the weather.  As we had stepped out of the car rental return garage the heavens opened and another thunderstorm started. We sat by the fountain in the centre of the shopping and food court area, waiting for news about our flight and watching the lightning through the glass roof.

The storm stopped by about 8:45pm but had already further delayed the inbound flight meaning that we didn't start boarding until 9:15pm.  We finally took off 9:50pm (scheduled time was 8:05pm), but the captain was hoping to make up about 45 minutes during the flight.

The last day 😢

This morning the neighbours were quiet but the gardeners / maintenance men were out in force mowing, strimming and watering the grounds around the pool nets and fences. We couldn't work out why the grass needed watering when it's been getting a drenching every time it rains!  The sun beds and patio area beneath them were still wet when I came out this morning.  Last night we must have had our heaviest or most prolonged rain so far. It was definitely still raining quite hard at midnight because I could hear it on the bedroom window which is on the side of the building and quite sheltered.

Bernard was determined to make the most of today. He was up and ready to go in the pool before 10am!  Usually, he's the last one in.

It was surprisingly quiet as far as residents were concerned today. In contrast to yesterday when five out of the eight pools were being used simultaneously, today we were the only ones out there all morning. 

We'd had another pool cleaner round yesterday and he'd re-treated the pool.  I was delighted to see that he'd also removed the large black worm and cockroach that had been on the bottom of the pool in the deep end for a few days. I could now make use of the whole pool again :-) Ok, I know they were dead and I'm hundreds of times bigger than them but that's not the point!

Even Harrison's 'boys' went in the pool today!

After a final trip to Walmart to pick up some vegetables for dinner we were resigned to an afternoon and evening of packing up and cleaning.  Good job we didn't have any other plans because as we were eating our meal we were watching the weather report giving out warnings for 'dangerous weather'.  It didn't look that bad outside but it wasn't long before the wind whipped up and the thunderclaps started. These were quickly followed by torrential rain and a power cut! Rather frustrating when I was hoping to do some washing and put the dishwasher on.

How to block out the sound of a thunderstorm.

We were all grateful when the power came back on because the house was starting to get rather warm.

So with the packing and cleaning done, we're more or less ready to come home.

Orlando Science Center

For the first time on this holiday we had a plan for today!  Our daily dip in the pool then a trip to Mall at Millennia followed by an evening at the Orlando Science Center.  Originally, we were going to do the day in reverse as the museum usually closes at 5pm but tonight there's a special Walmart Foundation sponsored evening from 6pm until 10pm. We've decided to do this instead because admission is just $5 per person instead of $27!

After another lovely laze about in the pool I concocted a lunch out of some of the food that we still have in the fridge and freezer.  Breaded fish sticks, coleslaw mixed with blue cheese dressing and a cold hot dog sausage in a roll.  Harrison and Bernard are so fortunate to have such a talented chef on holiday with them! ;-)

We left the villa at 3pm and arrived at the mall about 40 minutes later.  Why had we not found this place before?  The building was stunning!

I  didn't realise that there are at least five malls around here.  Last year we only found two.  I could quite happily spend a couple of weeks wandering around them all.  If only I was here with somebody who enjoyed shopping...... On second thoughts, not a good idea!

The inside of the building was just as impressive as the outside but we soon realised why.  It was full of high end designer shops and was not a discount / outlet mall:

We still enjoyed looking around, although I did feel a bit underdressed in my shorts!  I managed to while away over an hour in Abercrombie and Fitch :-) which left just enough time for a trip to the Apple store.  By the time we came out of the mall, the sky was black again and we were hearing reports on the radio of heavy storms along the I4, just where we were heading!  It was 5:30pm and once again we'd managed to find ourselves tangled up in the rush hour traffic (will we never learn?!) so a 15 minute journey to the science center took us nearly an hour.

Orlando Science Center is located in downtown Orlando in the middle of the medical district.  The children's hospital is right next door and there were several cardiology buildings to the south (obviously we were going to notice these ;-)).  The multi-storey car park was already virtually full and we could see streams of people heading for the science center's entrance bridge.  To manage the queue there was a system for credit card payments on the left and cash on the right, leaving a clear walkway down the centre of the bridge.  The two solid queues of visitors started in the car park and stretched the whole length of the bridge, which spanned the highway, and then curled around inside the building to the tills.   It was actually well managed and didn't take as long as I thought it would to get through.  We could see that the building was absolutely heaving though, and our first experience of just how busy was when we waited around 25 minutes for the one lift that could take us up to the 4th floor!  Apart from a set of stairs, there were no other lifts or escalators.

It was a lovely modern building, well laid out with plenty of space around the exhibits and activities but just not sufficient means of accessibility to each floor for all types of visitor.  As the evening wore on, I saw more and more families using their older, young children (if that makes sense) to help them carry their pushchairs up and down the stairs.  Despite this frustration, Harrison enjoyed himself in the universe exhibition and the science park.  

We  also took him through the dinosaur area and he was glad when we were out the other side!

The science park was full of hands on activities demonstrating various scientific theories in a practical way.  It also had a flight simulator and some kind of driving game.

I'm glad we visited the science center and I'm glad we only paid $5 each.  $27 per person seems rather expensive considering the size of the building and its contents.  It's a fraction of the size of the science museum in London and all of Orlando's exhibits and activities would easily fit into one floor.  Having said that, it's a good place to take younger children as there was plenty for them to do accompanied by enough information to give them a basic understanding of the world.  According to the map we were given on our way in, the center's exhibits cater for young people up to the age of 18.  I would have thought that its maximum suitability would be for a typically developing 12 or 13 year old. Overall, it was an enjoyable evening.

On exiting the car park, Bernard took us on another of his mystery tours.  We've not been to downtown Orlando before and he wanted to avoid the congested I4, so decided to take the back roads.  We ended up in a residential area which looked very smart.  Every single house was of a different design and colour.  We still find it strange how none of them have any kind of fencing or shrubbery to mark their boundaries.  Even the really big houses are completely accessible all round.  Eventually we meandered back to the I4, which we joined a few junctions further towards our exit where the traffic had eased.  

Change of plan

Today my breakfast companion was a tiny lizard. The clothes airer shows you just how small he or she is:

I thought it was so cute that I was distracted from writing my blog as I kept photographing it.

Our noisy neighbours weren't too bad today. Once again they were in the pool by 7am but all was quiet by 8am. A quick dip before heading off to a theme park perhaps?

We'd talked about going to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure today and tomorrow, but a few things have been niggling me:

> The temperature has been consistently higher than last year, which would make it uncomfortable  

    walking around in the heat.

> The main purpose of going to the park was to ride the Hogwarts Express. We'd heard that at least 

    one of the other Harry Potter rides would not be suitable for Harrison.

> Having reviewed the other attractions, I didn't think that we'd get value for money from the $450 - 

   $600 (approx £300 - £380) ticket prices (1 and 2 day passes).  Harrison and Bernard are unable to 

   go on some of the rides due to their medical conditions. Also, Harrison perceives others as 'too 

   scary' so refuses to try them.

> Queuing with crowds in the heat might make us all a bit ratty! 

We considered it again and decided that any theme park would be unbearable in the current heat.  The temperature isn't due to drop to the low 90's until the weekend.

Before we left England, Harrison had wanted to go to Daytona and Legoland.  However, since arriving here, the lure of the pool has been too great!  Our decision not to go to Universal, meant that we were able to fit in our morning float in the pool before going out.  We were a bit short of time though, so we did have to stop Harrison from taking his pre-pool shower.  Today he was down to just two showers lasting around half an hour each!  We need to break his three shower a day habit because unlike here, we don't have an endless supply of hot water at home!

Pool done and one shower each later, we were ready to head off to Chocolate Kingdom. This is a new attraction on a much, much smaller scale to Cadbury World.  We thought it would be interesting to see how chocolate is made over here but more importantly, it's all indoors!  The temperature today was 103F!

We thought the chocolate factory would be really busy because it was featured on the news last night.  

The car park looked very quiet though and we were added on to the 2pm tour which had started five minutes previously.  By joining them, we'd just doubled the number in the group! 

The tour guide was very personable but it soon became evident (when Bernard heckled her), that although she had learnt her chocolate making script well, she had no knowledge of wider world history!  We were taken through various little stage sets to learn about the history of chocolate and to experience the chocolate as it would have been consumed at each particular point in history.  Harrison tried all of the samples except the drink that contained chilli. I also passed on that one!  The tour was quite well done - a couple of minutes input from our guide, some optional boards to read for more information, objects and murals to see, audience participation via oral quizzes, taste tests and a very short cartoon video to keep the interest of any young children. The story was about a prince making a princess some chocolate shoes to replace those that a friendly dragon had melted.  Not particularly relevant to us though, because Harrison was the youngest in our group of six!  

Each 'room' followed the same format and with my trainer / teacher hat on, I generally approved of their approach ;-)  It kept the group together and under control but some additional 'hands on' activities and interactive or paper based treasure hunt style quizzes perhaps after the official tour might keep visitors there a bit longer.

Harrison trying to catapult a marshmallow into the dragon's mouth to gain us entry into the factory area. We all had a go but as nobody was successful with the catapults the guide had us all throwing marshmallows at the dragon together until eventually one went in. She wasn't going to let us pass until we had succeeded! 

The tour lasted about 45 minutes in total and at the end there was an option to create your own chocolate bar.

Having tried a chocolate covered marshmallow during the tour, this was what Harrison picked to add to a milk chocolate bar.  He could choose up to three other ingredients but settled just for this one.  This is progress though, because prior to this tour he would only eat Cadbury's dairy milk bars (with no enhancements whatsoever) or Creme Eggs.  Today he tried a whole raw cocoa bean, chocolate covered marshmallow, slivers of shelled cocoa bean, liquid unrefined chocolate and mini dark, milk and white chocolate shoes.  Bernard and I had been a bit sceptical about how the chocolate might taste. The only American chocolate we've tried to date is Hershey's and we weren't keen on it. The chocolate here though, was very nice and creamy. Much nicer than Hershey's!

Bernard and I were a little more adventurous with our joint milk chocolate bar choosing to add pecan nuts and coffee.  We felt that adding bacon bits as our third ingredient was a step too far!  Once created, the chocolate bars had to set, so we headed back into the main area / shop to wait for them.

All but one of our group were waiting for bespoke chocolate bars and having been on our feet for an hour or so, we would have appreciated a seat.  Chocolate Kingdom could benefit from a proper coffee shop.  They currently just sell bottled cold drinks at the till.  With only a McDonald's in the area for competition, and an apart hotel opposite, they might do quite well.  They could also do with more merchandise; specifically items that target children and tourists e.g. soft toys and pin badges with their logo on and maybe a picture book about the chocolate making process.  Apart from buying their chocolate, there was a choice of a jute shopper, a mug or a bottle of liquid chocolate.

When the chocolate bars were ready, they were transported from the factory by an aerial conveyor:

We all enjoyed our visit but felt that maybe they should have a company research trip to Cadbury World ;-)  They'd certainly come back with ideas!  Harrison would like to have been driven around by a train (like the one at Cadbury World).  A great suggestion for future expansion - the place is way too small for that at the moment!

Our next and final destination for the day was Old Town in Kissimmee. I'd seen it advertised in one of the free coupon / visit Florida magazines and thought it would give us a contrasting experience to the ultra modern attractions generally on offer.  We completely missed it on our first attempt to locate it; partly because it was situated off the other carriageway and partly because it wasn't at all what we were expecting. We did spend about an hour here just walking up and down the street but Harrison was far more interested in Fun Spot next door, which had a couple of karting tracks and a ride on train!  The Old Town is probably somewhere to come at night when the bars would be full and there would be other entertainment. I thought the shops might have been set up as traditional old stores but they were all selling cheap tourist stuff.  Bernard hit the nail on the head when he said that this was Orlando's equivalent to a British pier.  A quick explore was sufficient for us in 103F.  We also needed to try and keep the car as cool as possible so that our chocolate bars didn't melt before we got them back to the villa!  The street did look quite picturesque from a distance and I'm sure it was a lot more vibrant at night.

  

One of Harrison's requests for the holiday that we had not yet fulfilled was for 'a hotdog like the one we had in SeaWorld last year'. A quick trip to Walmart on the way home and he was sorted with a DIY hotdog kit :-)

Fathers Day

I was right! During our brief trip to Walmart last night to pick up the waffles, It seemed like the shop had suddenly become overrun with Brits. Up until now, we've hardly heard any other British accents wherever we've been (probably because we've not been to any theme parks yet).  Even though we were on the third of three planes arriving from Britain at the same time, nobody else has come over to this part of Florida.  Last night however, it was a completely different story. The shop was busier than I've ever seen it and the British accents seemed to outnumber the Americans. All of a sudden the environment had become crowded and loud!  It was the same this morning. My usual quiet 7am breakfast may now be a thing of the past. Although I couldn't see them as their villa has an 8 foot high wooden fence all round, I could certainly hear the loud, shrill screams of several children arguing with each other and jumping in the pool.  They obviously don't have the same 'pool rules' sign as us, or if they do, they've chosen to ignore it.

Bernard was woken up by their screams, so they must have been loud! I'm hoping that this is just the excitement of their first day, otherwise they will be meeting Bernard very soon!

We've been extremely fortunate up until now - except for our immediate neighbour who appears to live here permanently (judging by the contents of his garage) none of the other villas in our little cluster have been occupied.

Harrison watched Lewis come second in the Grand Prix and we were all ready for our daily dip in the pool by 11am.  Yesterday I had pegged a note to our front door handle to tell the Amazon delivery driver that in case we didn't hear the doorbell, we were out the back. When I opened the front door to put the same note back on it today, I found a huge box already sitting on the doorstep! It was heavy too. Bernard's Celestron binoculars had arrived. Thank goodness we brought an empty suitcase with us to transport any purchases home. Looks like we'll be needing it just for these!  Whilst Bernard inspected his parcel, Harrison couldn't wait any longer to get in the pool:

I soon joined him but there was no sign of Bernard for a good 45 minutes.  Harrison and I decided to take advantage by monopolising all of the inflatables:

It was really comfortable and relaxing with our legs on the lilo but it also served another purpose. Due to the thunderstorms of the past couple of days, the water was quite a bit cooler than usual. By keeping as much of my body out of the water as possible, I could still enjoy being 'in' the pool without actually being in the water!

Bernard was delighted with the card Harrison gave him:

If you remember, Harrison loves to torment him about their choice of football teams. He happily told Bernard that there was an Arsenal card too, but he didn't want to buy it!

Bernard had chosen to go to a place called the Cracker Barrel for his Father's Day lunch.  We had no idea what it was like but were intrigued to find out because every time we passed it, the car park was completely full.  We liked the look of the building too - it reminded us of a chain of American style restaurants back home called Smith & Western.

We entered into a shop crammed full of everything you could think of - from jewellery to toys; clothes to candles; homewares to foods, it seemed that there was nothing that you couldn't buy there! It gave us plenty to look at whilst we waited for a table.  Within 15 minutes we were seated and looking through the menu.  Instead of his usual diet coke, Bernard decided to try the unsweetened iced tea, which is a popular drink around here. One sip and he wished he'd stuck to the diet coke!

He really enjoyed the food though!  

After lunch we sat out on the veranda for a while in the rocking chairs provided, which you could also buy:

Had Bernard not got the binoculars, we may just have got away with bringing one of these back flat packed:

As a special Fathers Day treat, I thought that both boys would love a quick visit to the outlet mall 😆.

They really enjoyed helping me to choose a new bag in the Kipling shop!  We then went on the hunt for a book store. I've finished both of the books I brought with me and there's one by my favourite author that's really difficult to get in the UK, so we thought we'd see if we could find it over here.  It appeared that our sat nav wasn't completely up to date because the first destination it took us to was another outlet mall, with no book warehouse in sight.  By now it was 5:45pm and Bernard was concerned that the shops would be closing.  No chance! I think whoever created the shopping licensing hours over here must have been a woman.  During the week many of the stores are open until 11pm and on Sundays they don't close until 9pm - a shopaholic's paradise!

We ended up at Books A Million, next door to the Cinepolis down the road.  It's bit like a Waterstones but much bigger with a coffee shop and sells toys and games too. Despite its size, I didn't find my book but Harrison got some Spock (Star Trek) socks!

Happy Fathers Day!

This is a separate post just to wish my dad, Bernard's dad, my uncle, brother, brother-in-law and any other dads who are reading this blog a very 

Happy Fathers Day!

We hope you're all having a very enjoyable day xx

It's Fathers Day here too and I offered to buy Bernard a very gaudy, obviously high in E numbers, bespoke cake but he declined! Instead we shall be going out for lunch after the Grand Prix - something we really haven't done much of this time.

Harrison wrote Bernard a card before we left England and I had a minor panic last night when I couldn't find it anywhere! Just when I was about to give up searching, I found it in a very safe hiding place - the sock drawer! Fingers crossed his Amazon parcel turns up in good time today.

Anyway, have a great day whatever you're doing! 🎉🍷🍺🍴