Hilary
There's always something new to learn!
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2000
- Messages
- 6,483
We arrived back on Saturday morning and I've just about caught up with the unpacking and putting away, so here's a very mini trip report 
Flights: Britannia Thomsonfly flights from Birmingham to Sanford - extra legroom on the way out was good, Premium seating on way back was very good. Entertainment okay, food better than sometimes, crew very good. Sanford was much improved since the last time we were there and we now prefer it to Orlando International for ease of access. We even had an express check-in line because we had Premium seats
Car - rented with Dollar through Airline Network. Very smooth, no problems collecting the car or returning it. Much less hassle than we have had some other times. I think we may have been lucky that Thomson packages use Alamo, so we had no wait whatsoever to collect the car as I assume a lot of other people on our flight were going to the Alamo desk.
Universal's Royal Pacific Resort - fantastic! I loved this resort. Short walk to the Universal parks and CityWalk, beautiful buildings and grounds. I'm sure we'll try to stay here again.
USF and IOA - Pretty quiet, but it wasn't good weather (wet and windy - edge of Hurricane Dennis), so that may have had an effect. Front of Line access with room key was brilliant
Fort Myers Beach - I'm not a 'beachy' person, but I think this was as good as it was going to get on a beach for me! DH and DD2 went parasailing and jetskiing, DD1 had a sailing lesson. It felt very much like the Keys here, even though it was only 20 minutes from downtown Fort Myers (good shopping )
Very relaxing
Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort - very nice! Great location within a short walk from Downtown Disney and Pleasure Island. Beautiful grounds. Very HOT!
Disney parks - We had half a day in each of MGM, MK and Epcot, then did the 3 hours Extra Magic evenings in MK (left the park at 1:30 in the morning
), AK and Epcot. All the parks seemed pretty busy, but MK was completely mobbed. Even with EMH there was a 40 minute wait for Peter Pan (no we didn't 
). We also spent a great day at TL.
Eating - Sweet Tomatoes on IDrive was a real hit with DDs and me (DH was less keen), Mama Melrose was really good, Boma's was excellent but Spoodles was an expensive disappointment.
Shopping - We all look forward to finding a WalMart, but DH thought he'd died and gone to heaven when we went to Festival Bay and found the Bass Pro shop
He spent longer in there than DDs were in Ron Jon's surf shop! Festival Bay was a great mall with something for all of us.
I'm sure there's lots more I should have mentioned, but I'm trying hard to keep this brief!
Flights: Britannia Thomsonfly flights from Birmingham to Sanford - extra legroom on the way out was good, Premium seating on way back was very good. Entertainment okay, food better than sometimes, crew very good. Sanford was much improved since the last time we were there and we now prefer it to Orlando International for ease of access. We even had an express check-in line because we had Premium seats
Car - rented with Dollar through Airline Network. Very smooth, no problems collecting the car or returning it. Much less hassle than we have had some other times. I think we may have been lucky that Thomson packages use Alamo, so we had no wait whatsoever to collect the car as I assume a lot of other people on our flight were going to the Alamo desk.
Universal's Royal Pacific Resort - fantastic! I loved this resort. Short walk to the Universal parks and CityWalk, beautiful buildings and grounds. I'm sure we'll try to stay here again.
USF and IOA - Pretty quiet, but it wasn't good weather (wet and windy - edge of Hurricane Dennis), so that may have had an effect. Front of Line access with room key was brilliant
Fort Myers Beach - I'm not a 'beachy' person, but I think this was as good as it was going to get on a beach for me! DH and DD2 went parasailing and jetskiing, DD1 had a sailing lesson. It felt very much like the Keys here, even though it was only 20 minutes from downtown Fort Myers (good shopping
)Very relaxing
Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort - very nice! Great location within a short walk from Downtown Disney and Pleasure Island. Beautiful grounds. Very HOT!
Disney parks - We had half a day in each of MGM, MK and Epcot, then did the 3 hours Extra Magic evenings in MK (left the park at 1:30 in the morning
), AK and Epcot. All the parks seemed pretty busy, but MK was completely mobbed. Even with EMH there was a 40 minute wait for Peter Pan (no we didn't ). We also spent a great day at TL.Eating - Sweet Tomatoes on IDrive was a real hit with DDs and me (DH was less keen), Mama Melrose was really good, Boma's was excellent but Spoodles was an expensive disappointment.
Shopping - We all look forward to finding a WalMart, but DH thought he'd died and gone to heaven when we went to Festival Bay and found the Bass Pro shop
He spent longer in there than DDs were in Ron Jon's surf shop! Festival Bay was a great mall with something for all of us.I'm sure there's lots more I should have mentioned, but I'm trying hard to keep this brief!
Welcome back Hilary. Glad you seem to have had a good time and I look forward to reading more. I too was disappointed with Spoodles when I dined there in March but had read such glowing reports of it (before and since) that I decided it must have been us - maybe not!
It seems (to me 
not that you wouldn't rather be somewhere else................ 
