Hills and dales in Florida????? Maybe not. When I left off we were just leaving AK to go check in for one night at POFQ. I booked the room with an AP discount. Actually, the wonderful TA I use at the South Carolina AAA booked the room for me with the AP discount. I discovered this TA here on the boards and she is really good. So if anyone ever needs a good AAA TA, pm me and I will forward her info to you.
What I like about this agent is that when she books the room, AAA pays for it, and then I pay AAA. This is handy because I get quarterly rewards from my AAA credit card, so I was able to apply my reward certificate to the room. As it turns out, she booked me a room with a king sized bed. I generally do not like to spend extra money for preferred locations, water views, or larger beds, but this was $15 well spent.
I was pretty excited to see POFQ. I wanted to unpack and go explore. I was thinking about grabbing dinner in the food court, at Boatwrights, or at the ESPN club on the boardwalk. And I was getting hungry.
Unfortunately, DH had other plans. Remember how DH left his sunglasses near our neighbor's mailbox? Well - it turns out he also left his belt in the Phila airport when he took it off for security. Doh!
He decided that he would not be able to live another hour without a belt.
"Come on", I exclaimed, "Can't this wait until tomorrow".
Nope, un uh, no can do. DH had to have the belt the second after we checked into POFQ (which - by the way, there was NOOOOOOO line at check-in
).
We were given a room in Building 1, which is all the way to the right of the complex, closest towards the direction of DTD. I really wanted to see the room, but instead we asked Ellie to help us find a clothing store. Ellie may be good at locating fast food places and hotels, but she wasn't very helpful in finding a belt!
While we were driving around looking for a stupid belt, I realized I was getting seriously hungry. I hadn't eaten anything since a breakfast sandwich in the airport. (Airline pretzels do not count!) I quickly realized that I was not going to be eating on Disney property.
I had a short 2 1/2 hours of "the magic" and I was already being sucked out of it to find a stupid belt.
Fortunately we stumpled upon a Vanity Fare outlet (no thanks to Ellie). I generally like VF, and I was saddened when they closed the one in Wilmington, DE, but at the moment I was in no mood for VF. I prompted DH to hurry himself along. "Did you forget anything else, dear, socks maybe?" (DH always runs out of socks - socks and underwear) So DH grabbed himself a pack of socks, but alas, I should have asked specifically about underwear.
When we got back in the car I announced to DH that I needed to eat - NOW! I am not a big fan of fast food, but I like Chik fil a and Taco bell. TB happened to be on the right side of the street, so it was a sharp right to the drive through. I inhaled that food. Seriously, it was gone in about 90 seconds flat!
After TB, we went into that super expensive Gooding's market near DTD. That place is ridiculous. Seriously, there was a display with trail mix. They were selling small bags of trail mix for $13. Who would buy that?????? Dh and I started laughing and joking around about the prices. We bought muffins for the am ($1 each), beer, water, and entenmann's chocolate chip cookies. Here's a tip - if you ever find yourself at this overpriced excuse for a supermarket, buy Entenmann's. Why - because the prices are already on the food and the store can't mark them up anymore. Case in point - A package of Oreo's was $6.00.
Finally, we were on our way back to the FQ.
Here is DH, VF bag with belt and socks in hand
And here is a picture of room before we messed it up
Our room location was truely great. We had a corner room that was as close to the water as it could be. It was really lovely. I was disappointed that we were only staying one night. I really fell in love with POFQ and I understand why it is so popular on the boards.
Now that we had arrived we decided to do a little exploring. Here are some night time pics of the pool area.
This hot tub area looked so great, but it was about 45 degrees out. The lifeguards looked like they were in snow suits
DH and I decided to keep walking through the resort and right on over to Riverside. We stayed at Riverside in 2003. It was our first on site trip and it was the trip that made me a Disney addict for life. I have special, fond memories of Riverside because I truely experienced my first touch of the magic there.
Here is a picture of the tree in the Riverside lobby
Available in the gift shop for purchase
A quick stop in the lounge - yum!
And this gentleman was in the lobby helping to make memories
After visiting the gift shop and the lounge we went out to walk the remainder of the property. Even though it was cold, there was not wind and the air was dry. It was a perfect evening for a refreshing walk.
OK - I have to admit - I enjoy decorated windows. I don't know how cool it is to take pictures of those windows, but I figure if you decorate your window, then they are fair game. I did use the zoom to get these pics. I wasn't peeping
After our Riverside tour, we returned to FQ for a few more pics
Well, I am thinking I am probably at my 25 pic limit, so I'm going to put a close to this chapter. DH and I did consider a quick trip into Epcot to watch Illuminations, but by the time we completed our exploring it was close to 9pm and we didn't feel like doing a mad dash to Epcot. So we went to our quiet, cozy room with the king sized bed!
We went to a park so I could learn how to drive it. There were some guys there laughing their as---- off because I kept stalling e]verytime I got on an incline! 
The only plants I seem to notice right now are the trees threatening my vehicles
I think these 2 pics are really nice. I never noticed that bike before.. I like it
) seem to take it from the front with EE behind it... I like yours better
You are also fortunate to be spending a month in Florida. I would kill ( not literally) for that! 
I've been know to do that
