A VACATION WITHIN A VACATION

For a variety of reasons, we decided to take a 2 week vacation to Orlando, Florida and flew there from Phoenix on Saturday.  We had a shuttle service take us to the Phoenix airport (about 45 minutes in moderate traffic) and our flight was 4 hours on Southwest Airlines.  Southwest is a bit like WestJet as they don’t do things the same as the other “big” airlines.  They allow each passenger 2 pieces of checked luggage at no extra charge and they provided complimentary soft drinks and snacks on the trip.  The only weird thing is that they don’t assign seats when you purchase your tickets.  You are assigned a boarding position when you get your boarding pass and then they have people board in that order and sit anywhere they want.  Fine for the ones at the front of the pack, not so fine for the ones at the back of the pack.  We were in the last boarding group and the flight was full, but we were fortunate to find seats together.  So we sat in the very back row of the airplane which was convenient for the lavatory but wouldn't have been good had we been in The Amazing Race.

We arrived in Orlando at 5:30 local time and by the time we picked up our luggage and rental car, it was dark outside.  Our GPS got us to our rental villa with a few hiccups (we needed to reset it to avoid toll roads) with a stop for groceries on the way.  Check-in was quick and easy and this a beautiful complex with multiple villas around the property.  We have a 2 bedroom villa that is about 1300 sq ft in size—three or four times bigger than our RV.

SEE THE BEAUTIFUL DISHWASHER???

On Sunday, we bought groceries for the 2 week stay and then drove around the area to orient ourselves.  We made tentative plans for visiting the theme parks in the area and found out the best places to purchase tickets.  The weather was warm but mostly cloudy and the humidity here is quite high compared to Arizona.  We walked around the resort and have photos to share.