schumigirl
It's a bit of a roodie doodie word for lady parts
- Joined
- May 15, 2007
So a very warm welcome to anyone who takes the time to read my sometimes ramblings of a trip report from our recent stay in the beautiful USA! New readers and folks who know us definitely welcome and hope you enjoy it.........
Of course those who know us, know how much we love America and spending time there......so no surprises this was an extended trip.
Maybe I should begin with an introduction for anyone who doesn't know us.........
We are Carole`n`Tom.......explained in last years trip report.......we really are joined at the hip spending almost every moment together..........yep.......honest! And barely a cross word........we only ever row about who gets to drive in America as we both love it. Our trip reports are long!! Maybe a little too long, but least you can drop out at any time as we don`t ask questions at the end.........
Our son Kyle was again not joining us this year........he had work and was starting in a new place. So although he gets 6 weeks vacation in a year, he didn't want to take so much time off so early in his new career. So we would again miss him terribly......but Skype would once again save my sanity. Yes, folks always say but he`s an adult.......yes, he is, but he`s still our son and we would miss him as this was the longest we had ever been away from him. We are very close and feel blessed to have such a wonderful son that we are incredibly proud of. Schmaltzy stuff over I promise........
I don`t usually mention money as I don`t like talking about it, or how much things cost, but a couple of people have asked for specific costs to be mentioned, so I will if need be.
We don't make many plans and definitely go with the flow......I couldn't bear the idea of booking things months or really even weeks in advance. We also found this year we did less than previous years.......we decided we didn't feel the need to fill our vacation with something different every day.........so it may get boring.....but we loved every second and would do the same again. Although we say we didn't do much, we were always busy........not sure how that works.......
This year for us has been a real rollercoaster year. We had good news, followed by some bad news and that pattern went on for most of the year........thankfully nothing too serious or disastrous.....but it was just one of those years that I`m sure most people have.
To explain this years trip..........2017 was the year of my 50th Birthday on Sept 13th and our 25th Wedding Anniversary on Sept 5th..........As everyone knows we arrange for our hotel to be booked either before we even leave or shortly after we are home. So we had our usual 19 nights booked by October last year. Flights were booked there and then. Car rental was also booked and our overnight stay at the Radisson booked too. That was our planning over.........
We then began to think what we could do for the Anniversary/Birthday.........many places were considered....but we have been to every country in Europe we want to visit, except Iceland.....always looks too cold for me........and having visited Dubai and several places around there didn't want to go back there.........so in all honesty I told Tom our Orlando trip could be the celebrations....after all we love it there and we are so happy to go there.........so we left it at that. We were due to fly into Orlando on Thursday 14th September, the day after my birthday.
In May however Tom had the chance to take very early retirement.........it was one of those decisions that was easy.........although he loved his career and had done well in it, he wanted to retire and not stick it out for another 5 years or so. He actually finished end of July.
I then thought we should do something special, or extra special as I still consider Orlando special. I had an idea that we could go to NYC before Orlando. I had been three times before but Tom had never been.....he didn't think it would appeal to him but when I started enthusing about everything we had done (I am so good at persuasion) what he would see, where we would go, he began to see the appeal of it.........
He was sold. Not a hard sell really, what`s not to love.......but now we had to have a rethink of our bookings.......
Before we even thought about hotels or anything else, I contacted our airline and asked to change our flights form Manchester to MCO to instead fly into JFK......this only cost $130 or roughly that amount. So we went ahead and changed the booking to MAN/MCO on Friday the 8th September and planned to stay 5 nights there and fly down to MCO on my actual birthday. We also added an extra night at RPR and this was no problem and easy to do.
Looked into internal flights and thanks to a lot of help from Keisha and Mac, we booked JetBlue flights on the 13th down to Orlando. We got the extra space seats which included one piece of luggage each. That was $302 for both of us. We thought this was a bargain but apparently not according to a relative.....lol.......well, we were happy with it. We were due to leave JFK around 11.30 and arrive in MCO mid afternoon. Because of this we made a reservation at The Palm in the HRH for a birthday meal at 8pm. We were looking forward to arriving and not be exhausted after a 10 hour flight. The best laid plans and all that.........
Next change was our overnight at airport........we decided to upgrade to the Business room......you get into the lounge and drinks are complimentary after 5pm and snacks. Although we had heard the snacks weren't great........no problem we would eat elsewhere.........but that was another thing done well in advance.
Car hire was changed to add a separate day as we were now arriving a day early. Our company decided we couldn`t do that so we had to book a single day on the Wednesday, we then would have to take it back to the airport on the Thursday for our regular 19 day rental. They didn't make it easy. But we got sorted.
Then we had the unenviable task of choosing a hotel. Anyone who has been to any city knows there are a plethora of hotels.......the advantage I had was I had been a few times and knew what areas I wanted us to stay in. We looked (and booked) many options including The Sofitel as I had loved the one at Heathrow airport........we looked at the Marriott Marquis right on Times Square and Loews....it was up nearer Central Park........but we eventually found and booked directly with them The Lotte new York Palace.........
We finally after booking and cancelling a few hotels settled on this one. It looked lovely and the contact we had with them was wonderful. We booked a Corner Cathedral View room for the five nights. The hotel is on Madison Avenue and minutes away from The Rockefeller Centre, Times Square, Central Park, Empire State Building and many other places we wanted to see. I love NYC and can talk at length about everything it has to offer and then some.........
We did have to plan a little here......but it was fun.
I have family out in LI so we did make plans with them for us to go out on the Saturday.......my cousins are both teachers so the Saturday was the best day to see them all. My aunt is undergoing chemo so I told her we would call from the hotel when we arrive and check she was feeling well enough for us to travel out. We so hoped she would be as I was so looking forward to seeing them all again and wanted them to meet Tom as they had heard so much about him. I did want Tom to meet them too as I spend so much time talking about them, it would be nice for them all to finally meet.
I knew I wanted to see Wicked again. This would be my 5th time with 3 in NYC and 1 in London. Tom likes the Wizard of Oz too and again, my enthusiasm for the show was catching and he caught the bug and was so looking forward to seeing it.
Tickets were booked and I chose the same seats we had last time........excellent ones, so we were happy with that.
Empire State Building and Rockefeller Centre were our only other things to book. Rockefeller we picked a time, and chose the night we arrived so we could see the sunset over the city. ESB we could visit any time, it just saved you queueing on the day you wanted to visit.
So as far as we were concerned we had everything planned we had to, we had an idea of what we wanted to do and how we were going to do it. Sorted.
As far as Orlando was concerned.........hotel and car was sorted, so we bought our park tickets, HHN tickets and that was about all the preparation we needed for Orlando.
Waiting was the hardest part after all that was sorted.
Between Tom retiring and our trip we had 2 trips to Scotland. One was for our best friends daughters wedding which was fabulous. Such a beautiful day and she was so lovely....it really was a wonderful weekend. And we caught up with a couple we hadn't seen for a long time......always sent Christmas cards, but when we met up it was like we had only seen them a few days before. Lovely.
The next weekend was the "surprise" birthday/anniversary party for Tom and I. Couldn't really be a surprise as we live almost 5 hours away......but we knew we were going to have something and that was it. It was fabulous I have to say. All we had to do was book a hotel for the 3 of us and turn up. My sister, niece and mum had organized a beautiful party with relatives and my best friend who`s daughters wedding we had been to....she had kept the secret well and the friend we reacquainted with at the wedding was there too!!! I was amazed and delighted at the same time........it was just the perfect night and I was over the moon with everything they did for us to celebrate both things.
So now both of those celebrations were over it was only a few days till we left for our trip.
As with this year of highs and lows.........there had to be a low.....well, possible low. We found out the pilots from our airline had planned a strike........and it was a full day strike.......and guess what day it was going to be.....yep, Friday Sept 8th........our day to fly to JFK.
Of course............
Next up.........Overnight at airport and do we fly..........
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