With Florida, you go and you never know what you are going to experience. Each time we visit something new and unexpected happens. Last year, we got bad news about our surrogacy. On this trip, we were too hot to care about anything else happening.
With the World Closed the Republic of Florida Remains Open
The United States is closed, but Florida has decided to secede from that idea. Upon landing in Florida we were greeted with hundreds if not thousands of happy travelers ready to enjoy the Disney World or the Conservative Political Action Committee Conference with keynote speaker Donald Trump. However, we were not in town for either of those events, but rather our friend’s (Debbie and Andrew) wedding.
Sunshine State is Always Cloudy
Grant raised a good question on this trip. He asked, “why do they call Florida the sunshine state when every time we come here it is raining?” Evidently, there are times of the year when it is sunny in Florida, but we tend to always miss those times. When we visit it tends to be sunny on one block then we drive five minutes down the road and there is an isolated shower. We wait five minutes and the storm is down the street. Like the weather, our trip had some were some sunny bright spots and a few isolated showers that passed quickly.
Name an airliner and we flew it on this trip. Grant originally planned to gone alone to Fort Lauderdale and then I decided last minute to tag along. He flew Jetblue out and was returning on Southwest. I decided to fly Spirit out because of the layover situation and flew American back based on availability. Out of all of the airlines— the only one that did not alter our flight was Spirit…so this was already a very strange start to this adventure.
My flight with Spirit left at 6 am and arrived in Houston at noon. I choose this flight so I could visit my family. My mom and dad picked me up and we were off to go eat lunch at Gringos. They surprised me with ranger cookies (my favorite) and I only ate half of one. I say this as I regret not eating more because the remainder of the cookies were inhaled by Grant as soon as I met up with him and they were good. Note to anyone reading this— do not put cookies near Grant unless you want them immediately consumed.
Gringos is a Tex-Mex place near my parent's house that has really really good green salsa. In California, its salsa verde. In Texas, its green salsa as the contents are a bit more “gringo-ified.” Between my mother and myself, we must have consumed probably 4 or 5 bowls full of the stuff. Then our food actually came out and we still found room to consume more. Afterward, we drove around a bit to see how developed Cypress actually has become. It is crazy how in such a short period since I have left how developed the area actually has become.
When we arrived home, I was greeted by 4 monsters. 2 that I like, 1 that I dislike (it’s mutual), and 1 new puppy named Babs that I had not met before. The new one was a bit standoffish at first, but after throwing her ball a bit she opened up and we became friends. It wouldn’t be my family if after settling in I was not greeted with 4 different cupcakes to sample. It wasn’t long before my dad came out and said that we need to go ASAP. The flight started boarding at 3:45 and we were just getting in the car at 3:30. Thankfully, with TSA pre-check it doesn’t take long to get through security and as they were calling “last-call” I slipped right on the plane.
Upon landing, I was to meet up with Grant who had arrived about 2 hours before me. The plan was that with the rental car in hand, he would have checked into the hotel, and I was to hop in the car for a nice dinner in Miami. Poor Grant was greeted with a long line of irate people at Alamo as they had oversold with no rental cars available. After promising him that a car would be available in the morning we readjusted and went to our hotel called Fortuna Hotel. We expected friends from Orlando to visit so we got a two-bedroom apartment with 3 beds. Since they weren’t able to make it— Grant and I decided that each of us would have our own wing and own bathroom. I would highly recommend this for anyone as it was awesome. After putting our stuff down, we dined at Casablanca Cafe in Fort Lauderdale. This piano bar right on the water has tasty food and a nice ocean breeze to cut some of the heat. We walked along the beach until exhaustion hit in and then skedaddled back to the hotel for a good night sleep.
The next morning I woke up late. Grant had gotten up early and had not only went to the beach but also went to get the rental car.
With the car in hand, we hightailed it to Little Havana in Miami to go to the Cuban restaurant we intended to go to the night before. We ate at Versailles and got anything that had the word sampler in its title on the menu. We just had an assortment of empanadas, yucca, croquettes, plantains, vacca frita, and other yummy stuff. Afterward, we attempted to find the heart of Little Havana. If you put it in Apple Maps you end up at the Dolphin stadium for some reason. We tried multiple addresses and there wasn’t anything like a street or sign that we could find. So we gave up and drove over to Wynwood Walls.
This area is incredible. A predominantly warehouse area has been transformed into a street art gallery with murals everywhere and eccentric pop-up shops and restaurants. Although the Wynwood Walls themselves were closed the surrounding area was filled with incredible street art. The whole area got in on the vibe and the local shops/ vendors all had bright graffiti-like decor to blend in. We stopped at a few shops and perused around until settling on just snacking at an awesome ice cream shop.
With the city still sleepy with COVID, we hit downtown to see what trouble we could get ourselves into. Nothing called us so we decided to check out the cruise docks. The highway you cross to the cruise ship docks was empty. So like normal tourists we hopped out of the car on the highway and took some “great photos” with downtown as the background. Pretty sure we weren’t supposed to do that, but if opportunity knocks you have to answer.
We double backed and took the road parallel that got us into Miami Beach. Parking is a nightmare there any time of the year, but Labor Day weekend was especially difficult. 20 minutes of circling ended up translating into a parking spot about 10 blocks away. The water was clear, warm, and not overly crowded. We spent a little over an hour swimming or as Grant has coined it “bobbing around” until we left to go back to Fort Lauderdale.
Our night activity was a cruise on the Jungle Queen. Developed in the 1930s, this outdoor open-air cruise ship took you from the city, through millionaires row, and stopping at their location for an all-you-can-eat bbq. The houses along the river were incredible and unbeknownst to us, it’s a tradition for homeowners to “moon” the boat so we had a very cheeky time.
The boat docked at a private area where we had our food. The meat was fine, but their bread and butter was the star. It was just Hawaiian rolls, but I love those things. Warm with melted butter. Delicious. Hahaha. As dinner concluded the stage that was playing live music turned into the show. We had a singer, a magician, a comedian, and a Hawaiian dance number. The audience was the absolute worst as none of them clapped or even pretended to be interested in the performers. We thought it was great and tried laughing harder to drown out some of the moans. It was especially hysterical when the comedian turned on the audience and started making jokes about the sour-looking people in the front row. They took us back to where we started and called it an early night.
On Labor Day, we got up and went bobbing again in the ocean. We returned the rental car to the airport to avoid late fees and then double-backed by taking an Uber to Carrabba's. Grant got his favorite chain this trip, which means I get CiCis next time.
Mango Flavored Florida
'Tis the season for horror, which means going to the scariest place on earth to me—Florida. As anyone knows my deepest fear is the state of Florida as the rules and regulations that are traditionally associated with any normal functioning society are thrown out the window for debauchery and identity theft. As I write this on the plane ride back, I am already preparing myself for the bevy of fraudulent charges that are often associated with our annual travel to Florida.
The cross-nation flight began bright and early at 7 am on Friday. The goal was to get to Florida as fast as possible to take advantage of the Orlando nightlife. Not sure what we were expecting as the majority of the town shuts down unless you’re at a theme park that stays open. However, if anyone was going to find something ridiculous and over the top to do it would be Grant. Insert Mango’s Latin Cuisine. This dinner and a show venue featured an over the top tropical island theme with Latin based dancers and performances.
We expected two friends to join us for the show, but there was some miscommunication and so the four-top right in front of the stage was only occupied by the two of us. To compensate for the lost revenue that the two would have generated for the restaurant I went ahead and ordered an appetizer to snack on. This meant that I spent $18 extra dollars on top of the mandatory $39 or $49 prix fixe menu on fried cheese. While they were good…the price was outrageous. The rest of the food arrived as the show was happening. We ate salad and the show was going on. We ate dinner and the show was happening. We ate dessert and the show was still happening. Finally, it became apparent that the show would never end. After 3 1/2 hours, I finally asked Grant to leave, which he graciously obliged. He was hopped up on chocolate cake and so I made him drive home.
Fortunately, our hotel was out of the touristy area, but that did make the commute back to the hotel a pain. We crashed hard and I didn’t wake up until 12:20 pm. On California time, that’s only 9:20 am. When I woke, Grant was coming in from having worked out at the fitness center. I had no idea that he left. The plan for the day was that we would eat at Cici’s for lunch and then take advantage of our resort amenities until the main attraction—Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Night 2019. Grant put us at the Omni Hotel which contained an adult pool, a wave pool, and a lazy river. Grant loved Cici’s so much it just made my day. In fact, this meal would go down as his favorite meal of the day.
After hitting the water for a while, we made our way over to Universal. Florida has so much space that I think it’s crazy that they charge $26 for parking. However, the theme parks will get you one way or the other as this was an avoidable charge for sure. We made our way in much faster than last year and decided that we would do the rollercoaster first. This resulted in a classic photo of Grant looking like he smelled his own flatulent that will be in our house next to other classic theme park photos.
This year there were 10 haunted houses throughout the park with the main attractions being focused on the movie Us, Ghostbusters, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and House of a 1000 Corpses. Each one offered something new and different and none of them were duds. The one criticism that I do have to say is that unlike Hollywood, Orlando herds you like cattle through these mazes. To combat that we just go really slow to create separation between ourselves and the people in front of you. This way the “monsters:” have time to hide so we get to experience the full scares as intended. The people working there hate it, but with the amount paid for these tickets I don’t think Grant, or I care all that much.
House 10 this year was Killer Klowns, which was my favorite because I absolutely love that atrocious 80’s B-movie. Having eaten awful food in the park we stopped at CowFish at Citywalk. The premise was that you could get sushi, a burger, or burger sushi. This weird concoction was pretty yummy as we got Cheeseburger Sushi and BBQ sushi. I don’t know of any other place that serves this type of “sushi,” so it was a bit of a fun mashup. The check arrived at about 1 am and we quickly paid to head back to the hotel.
We were burned out on theme parks and so Sunday was a bit of a plan by the seat of our pants. Of course, Grant wanted to eat at Carrabba’s because he loves this place. Since we don’t have it in California, I thought it was only fair after my lunch of Cici’s the day before. The food was better than normal and the conversation with our waiter was…. interesting. I left to go to the bathroom and when I came back, I found Grant having a riveting conversation about how our waiter did not believe that global warming was actually occurring. Gotta love Floridians.
Afterward, we debated a bit as to what to do and finally settled on Grant’ suggestion of going to the beach. The closest beach to where we were located was Cocoa Beach. We drove the hour without traffic and ended up there in no-time. The town itself reminded us of Port Aransas, which was comforting and familiar. We stopped, got out, and walked on the beach for a little bit. Since we didn’t have a shower readily available, we didn’t want to go all the way in. It was a nice time killer and much more enjoyable than just hanging out at the airport. On the way back we stopped at a Wawa (local gas station) to fill up and have an impromptu picnic. We ended up bringing some Carabbas with us and instead of letting it go to waste we added some gas station fine culinary treats to make it a meal.
We dropped off the rental car and made our way into the zoo that is Orlando International Airport. This city loves lines so it should surprise no one that the security was rough. The signs said 20-29 minutes, but it was longer than that. We finally made our way through and quickly boarded the plane. Another successful two-person trip in the books.
Funny people of Florida we saw along the way…
Lady hiding a bag under a blanket, random guy showing up on stage to take photos, and an interesting bike rider.
Theme Parks, Cici's and Rental Cars
For a last minute trip, we really crammed a lot in a very very short period of time. Upon landing we had the distinct pleasure of going to pick up our car from Action Nu Car Rental. Grant was proud of himself for only spending $4 a day on the reservation. The old adage, “you get what you pay for” could never have been more true in this case. We waited an hour and half only to be told that they were out of cars. We had a reservation so they literally rented a car from a different dealership for us to be able to have a car. We missed hanging out with friends, but at least we got a working car, which is more than what can be said for most as we learned when we returned the car. Some people were stranded at the airport when the bus mysteriously stopped working.
Our first stop after the car rental was food. Orlando is jammed pack with chains and so we stopped at one of my favorites— Cici’s Pizza. Grant refused and so we split up. He went to Golden Corral, which was a big mistake and one that I know will haunt him for the rest of his life. :) Mine was outstanding; his was a dud.
The next morning, we got up slowly after a late night and went to Volcano Bay. This is Universal’s new waterpark in Orlando and one of the only parks we have not been too in the area. It started out great with minimal waits and we got to ride a fun tube ride right away. Next was one of their premier rides, which was a water tube down from the top of the mountain. I hate enclosed waterslides because of the heat and humidity (it just creeps me out). But, I went through with it. At the bottom I was waiting for Grant only to find out that the park was shutting down to thunder and lightning. It was a huge disappointment because we had only been there for less than hour.
We went to customer service to demand a refund. When it was our turn to speak to a customer service agent and she let us know that everything was back up and running. For our troubles, she was going to award us 4 “Ride Now” passes to any ride we wanted. So we of course choose the ones that had 100 minute waits and skipped everyone who had been waiting. That’s more our style. Grant finally went on the slide I went on earlier. I chickened out because I hated it the first time. We cleaned up and headed to the other side of Universal— to Halloween Horror Nights.
Halloween Horror Nights consisted of 10 haunted houses this year, which was a record. I wanted to get through all of them as we did not get to finish last year. Each one had a different theme and story, but all of them were extremely well done. They also had a really awesome dance show by Academy of Villans to go along with the haunted houses. By 1am the park was closing and we had just completed our final maze. It was a blast, but we were exhausted. This was definitely a common theme for this trip.
Sunday morning, we got up. Returned the car to the awful car rental place and got on a place to Houston. We had a really nice visit with my family and I got to eat my chips/salsa that I love from La Hacienda. The night ended with us playing some JackBoxTV and Grant finally convinced someone to play Fakin’It with him.