This one is extra boring as it's mostly about driving, I'd stop reading now. We spent just about the whole day on this journey. It does have some puking in it too.
Our final morning in Orlando was the first time we had the proper sit down breakfast that we'd planned for every day. It was nice, and the service was great, so friendly, but not quite as much choice for me as I'd imagined. Still plenty of food though. We said goodbye to the hotel, got the car from the car park and drove off.
I thought we'd picked a more scenic route, but what we'd really done was picked a "not via toll roads" route. So not scenic, via interesting local places to start with, but then mostly on a sort-of-motorway. We had a couple of stops, first one was only a toilet break in an unmanned facilities type stop, nothing to see here. Then one for gas and a couple of local shops. Just ordinary local shops for local people but interesting to us because of all the odd brands. We bought bananas and crisps and chilli sauce. Then after failing to stop at an interesting place advertising alligators and alligator jerky, to a Wal-Mart where Clare thought she could get some. No jerky, but I bought more chilli sauce. Well, it might be hard to get in Mexico.
Now we were feeling the pressure timewise, as we didn't know how long it would take to drop the rental car off and still check in for our flight. So no time for any more stops, not time for any wrong turns, and definitely no time for anyone to NO WAIT STOP BEING SICK!
Thing two had taken his turn in the front seat and for whatever reason had to be sick, while we were driving. Horrible for him, really horrible as we just couldn't stop. I was definitely more concerned for his welfare than I was for what the rental car company were going to charge me for this cleanup, oh yes. We were not fair from the airport though so pushed on. The final bit of drive took us really through the backstreets of Miami, the kind of places tourists would not and probably should not normally go, though I expect it is fine these days. We pulled into the airport and then found no, car rental dropoffs are outside the airport, so had to pass on through, drive right round again, and into that section, where there would be a shuttle to take us across. Then found I'd pulled into the wrong level, so had to go round again, we're starting to panic about the time now. Our first bit of really good fortune here was that the person I returned the car to said the small amount of sick was no problem, and the car being nearly full of fuel was absolutely fine, he gave me a receipt with nothing more to pay, and we're running into the airport. I hope he was genuinely an employee of the rental car company.
One big difference between Miami airport and Gatwick, the cost of a baggage trolley. We didn't really need one but someone asked me to get one and I wasn't putting any more blockers in at this stage, so paid FIVE DOLLARS for one. Non refundable. At Gatwick it is a one pound deposit. America you are weird.
We checked in and made our flight with no problems at all, just an annoying twenty five extra dollars per bag to check in, but we knew that in advance.
Flight was even shorter than advertised, an hour and a quarter from Miami to Cancun. This was not enough time for them to distribute drinks to everyone after they'd handed out all the immigration forms. However (second bit of extra luck on this leg) it was enough time for them to bring our drinks, including our extra booze we asked for, but not enough time for them to take the money for the extra booze! So I'm another fifteen dollars or so up there!
We're not feeling relaxed on arrival, just want to get to the hotel. Navigated through the sales people at the airport. It seems in hindsight they may have had bargain tickets to the XCaret park we would go to but this is not the time to be sorting that out.
Just under an hour's transfer to our hotel, in the dark, not much to see. Confusing check in, yes, why don't we speak Spanish what is wrong with us? They did speak English but were confused that we wanted to speak English too.
At last we made it, and were taken to our rooms on a golf buggy with our bags. But by some mix up I am left in the hotel room while Clare goes to find where the bar is with her dad. I think. Thing two at least must have been very tired by this point, it was a long day. At some point Clare came back to the room having done several laps of the hotel grounds and getting lost. It was a big place. She'd left her dad in the lobby bar for me to try and head back to him. Luckily I had my torch but was able to follow the path from our rooms back to the lobby. The lobby bar was just closing but not to worry there are other options so we headed to the sports bar and had a few more glasses of wine before heading "home" again.
We saw some wildlife in the dark here, scurrying furry creatures possibly a tzereque, possibly a racoon. No tarantulas yet though.
⬅️ Holiday 2019 day six :: It's time to write up the Mexico half of our holiday and I didn't make any notes ➡️
Paul Clarkeʼs weblog - I live in Hythe near Folkestone, Kent. Wed + father to 2, I am a full stack web developr, + I do js / Node, some ruby, other languages etc. I like pubbing, parkrun, eating, home automation and other diy jiggery-pokery, history, genealogy, TV, squirrels, pirates, lego, and TIME TRAVEL.