I am glad tosee that we are not the only family that have had jinxed holidays in Florida, I am happy to say that most of our bad experiences have happended in either Cocoa Beach or St. Petersburg.
On our first trip DH and I couldnot sit together on the plane, I was pregnant with our first child and we flew Gatwick to Boston, everything OK, Boston to Orlando I dozed off and some nice person sitting near me stole all my money and travellers cheques from my bag. I did not discover this until we arrived at our hotel, frantic calls to police, etc and then trying to get replacement cheques from Thoma Cook this took 4 days!!! because first they wanted me to go 14 miles to collect them - we had no car and no money, and then they faxed them through to a western union place near the hotel in the wrong name 3 TIMES, we only go with amex now, luckily there was a large group of us from DH social club and the organisor gave us some money to keep us going.
On our 2nd trip to Florida but our First with our 2 year old son we had a wonderful week in Orlando, on our first night in Cocoa Beach he had a temperature and took him to local medical centre and they said he had strep throat and gave medicine (tablets!) and of we went back to our hotel and to bed in the middle of the night he had a convulsion and was rushed into Cape Canaveral Hospital, I had to battle to be taken in the Ambulance with him and was only allowed to sit up front with the driver, but DH who doesn't drive was left standing outside hotel room, Fireman offered to take him on their rig, but in the end the Hotel got a member of staff to take him in their minibus. After a frantic 24 hours at hospital we were discharged after maxing the credit card as no one could contact our insurance company, to get back to our hotel to find a Harley Davidson convention, now I am sure that not all bikers are as rude and ignorant as this lot, but to say it was hell for the next few days was mild. They took there bikes to pieces on the pathways outside the rooms, they rode them up and down the pathways day and night and God help you if you were walking along them at the time you jumped left or right and hoped for the best, not what you want with a sick child.
On our third trip with both DS aged 6 and 2 we had both of them hospitalised, the youngest had an allergic reaction to something cooked in peanut oil luckily it was not a bad as it could have been but this was in Orlando and it did put a downer on the rest of the 10 days as we had to be so careful with what he ate we began to relax a little and enjoy ourselves when we transfered to St. Petersburg, only to have our eldest son go down with a high temp. now given our experience on the previous holiday we took him straight to hospital this time he had tonsilitis and a throat swab was taken and antibiotics given, 2 or 3 days later we got a frantic phone call in the hotel room, from the hospital to take him immediatly to the local Childrens hospital - no explantation - so got up and dressed it was 6.15 a.m. and this time we had a car so I drove imagining allsorts. when we got there we had to wait for initial medical records to be transfered from the previous hospital as they were not expecting us only to discover that his swab had showed positive for MRSA! thankfully the doctor didn't believe it as by then he was better and bouncing around the play room, and the general concensus was that it had been contaminated.
I am pleased to say we have sinces spent 2 further holidays in Orlando with no major problems lets hope the trend continues!!!!