Day 14 - Friday 30th April - Florida-Washington DC

Today had a nice early start to the day, we were up by 5.40am (yes, gasp!) and on the road by 6.15am. We had really enjoyed our time at the Inn. It was great to walk across the road to the beach, and just pop back to the room whenever we wanted to. The area was so beautiful.

So, on the road we go. Spank was pretty used to driving on the other side of the road by now, but even at that time of the morning the freeways where getting pretty busy heading towards the airport.

After stopping for gas, we dropped our car off and took the shuttle bus to the airport terminal. We where all checked in by 720am. Spanky was happy with that, as it fit within her estimated time frame.

Tampa airport is just like all the others, so after a quick look around and sit down, we were on our way to Washington DC.

The flight was nice and smooth, only taking about 1hr 50min. Flying into DC, we were taken around the city, and then came in over the Potomac River. This meant that we had really close up views of the Washington Monument, Capital Building, while under us was the Lincoln Monument.

We took a quick taxi ride to our hotel, The River Inn, dropped off our bags (Bubbles is looking forward to the first place that tells us our room is ready when we arrive!) and headed out for a walk.

2.5hrs later, we had definitely had enough walking. The Washington Mall is about a 1km from our Hotel, a slight downhill walk, so we went off to the Lincoln Monument, then walked around the Mall up to the Washington Monument, over to the White House and then along Pennsylvania Ave back towards the hotel.

After veg-ing in our room for about 30min, we went to go get Spanky a couple of new SD cards for her camera and have a look around the area. We got Spanky some new runners as well, hers were looking pretty dirty and shabby and although she needed new ones before we left home, we figured that it would be cheaper to buy them in the US – we were right, they were half the price.

We stopped at a local Trader Joes about 2blocks from the hotel to pick up some food stuff, dropped it back at the room, then went to a Safeways (similar to home, but a bit different) for some stuff we couldn’t get at Trader Joes. The Safeways was located in the Watergate Complex.

By this point in our day (5pm) we had both had enough walking.

We had to go find something for dinner though. So we headed out towards Georgetown to find something to eat. We ended up at The Guards, a pub with a bit of English feel to it, and a bit of French influence to the food. The food was Excellent! Spanky had a steak, while Bubbles had chicken breast. Both were so so good! We would happily eat here every night for our stay!


Approx Distance walked: 6km.

Days 11-13 Tuesday 27th- Thursday 29th April

These 3 days we spent at the Inn on the Beach, at Pass-a-Grille, Florida.

These days we will lump together. If we posted these days individually, we think that everyone (ourselves included) would get sick of the copy and paste from the day before!

These are how our days went:
Woke up around 9am, had breakfast in the apartment, and then went to the beach.
After having a break and lunch, we would then generally head back to the beach for the afternoon.
We went locally to dinner each night.

On one of our days, we went to Fort DeSoto. This is supposedly the home of the best beach in the USA. Both of us were not that impressed rating the only difference between it and the beach 20 metres from the apartment as the sand being softer.

Day 10 - Monday 26th April - Pass-a-Grille

We woke this morning from the best nights sleep we have had since we’ve been away! The sun was shining outside after a night of thunder and lightning storms and we were ready for warm weather, sand and surf.

We had no food, so we went out for breakfast, which we enjoyed right next to the beach. Then off to the supermarket to get food and drinks for the rest of the week.

When we returned, Bubbles desided he needed a nap, so has a nice 2hr lay down. Spanky sat out on the deck and read some book out in the sun.

After lunch, we headed across the street (think nice quite residential street) to the beach. It was windy today so the water had small waves. The water was nice, not cold, just comfortable.

We had dinner at the Hurricane restaurant a couple of blocks away from our apartment, it was nice and filled the hunger hole.

Currently, its 9pm and Bubbles is ‘resting his eyes’ again on the couch, and loving that we have windows to let the breeze in and don’t have to have the aircon on unless we want to!

Day 9 - Sunday 25th April - Kennedy Space Centre

Today we were up the earliest of our whole Disney stay (well, it was 645am and that to date the earliest we’ve gotten up). We did a final check that we had everything, put it all in the car, had breakfast and headed off to Kennedy Space Centre.

The drive took about 1hr 10min and was fairly simple – just follow the signs. We went through a number of tolls to get there, they were interesting to start with, but after the 3rd one we had got the hang of it all. We had saved up a whole stack of quarters and had them in a little ziplock bag and when we saw the signs a mile out saying how much it would cost, Bubbles would get the money out so that all Spanky had to do was throw it in the collector and away we go. Thank god that The President taught Spanky how to throw good, the aim was off on only one out of 6 throws.

We got to the Kennedy Space Centre by about 930am and pick up our tickets (we couldn’t print our tickets at home as they processed the payment 3 times and had to do refunds – although we ended up losing about $10 in the international transaction fees and the change in exchange rates).

We had a good wonder around the rocket park and some of the exhibits, then headed off to our 11am tour. The tour was good, it took us up close for a look at the Shuttle launch sites, the landing facility, the Vehicle Assembly Building, International Space Station processing facility and also over to Cape Canaveral for a long distance view of the launch site over there.

Currently there is a Shuttle out on Launch pad 39B, is the shuttle for mission STS-132, space shuttle Atlantis (ready for its last mission) and Launch pad 39A is still set up from the launch of the new Atlas rocket that went up 3days ago. (We could bore you all with the many facts that we know about the Space Centre, Cape Canaveral, and NASA, but we won’t, except to tell you that there is only 3 more space shuttle missions left.)

After having lunch at the Saturn V centre, we went back to the main Visitors Centre, checked out the last few things there, and then headed back to the car.

Off we set on out 2.5hr drive to the other side of the state, aiming for Pass-a-Grille. The drive was easy, it was all on freeways and just following the signs to Tampa. Bubbles was still affected by the cold that he had and was a little doped up on some meds that we had got him, so he struggled to stay awake for the drive (that was his reason anyway). We got to Pass-a-Grille just after 7pm, found the Inn we were staying at, meet our lovely Host, Sheila, and were shown our apartment.

It then started to rain. Actually, rain is the wrong word. It started to Storm.

We headed out to a nearby restaurant, had fish & chips (Bubbles had been hanging out all week for it, and it was well worth it) , then headed back to the apartment.

During a break in the downpour, we were able to move our luggage into the apartment and settle in.

Day 8 - Saturday 24th April - Animal Kingdom

Today we went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. This park is set out in different lands (Africa, Asia, DinoLand, Discovery Island) and the main focus is on Animals and conservation.

For a second day in a row we got to the park before opening. As soon as we were aloud in through the park, we headed straight for Kilimanjaro Safaris. The Safari takes you on a jeep ride through Africa where you see a large number of African animals (Elephants, Hippos, Giraffe, etc) .

We had heard that the other main ride is Expedition Everest, so we headed there straight after the Safari. We got on the ride within 10minutes and absolutely loved it! Best rollercoaster in Disney World.

After this, we headed over to DinoLand, did all the rides there, then kept walking around, checking out the Jungle trecks, Conservation station and Forest trail. By this time Spanky was wilting, so we stopped for lunch at Yak & Yeti.

After lunch, we again rode Expedition Everest (not the smarted thing straight after lunch). Then picked up some fastpasses for Kali River Rapids for use later in the arvo.

As it was just after 1pm, we had to head off to the Disney Dolphin resort to pick up our hire car. We took the bus there, found the hire company desk, signed the forms, got the keys and headed out to collect the car. Spanky was a little worried about driving on the other side of the road for the first time, but we got back to our resort in one piece. Back at the resort, we filled up our water bottles, and headed for the buses to go back to Animal Kingdom.

Once back at Animal Kingdom, we headed straight for the Kali River Rapids and both got soaked, which was fine as it was about 30deg and humid. After watching It’s Tough to be a Bug! In 3D, we stopped for a Fro-Co (that’s a Frozen Coke) (Hello to Patrice and Lucille), watched the afternoon parade then headed back to the resort.

Bubbles seems to have received the cold the Spanky has had, so he had an early night, while Spanky packed up all our stuff getting ready to leave tomorrow morning. We are going to Kennedy Space Centre and then driving back across Florida to Pass-a-Grille, near St Pete’s beach.

Approx distance walked: 10km.

Day 7 - Friday 23rd April - EPCOT/Typhoon Lagoon/EPCOT

Today we actually got up early and made it to EPCOT park by 845am for the park opening at 9am. We planned to do the last couple of main rides that we didn’t get done the other day, so we first headed off to Soarin’ along with the masses of other people. This ride is like being in a hang glider flying over different areas of California and by 930 we had done the ride. Strangely, Bubbles was the one to feel a bit seedy after this ride, who would have guessed?

We then headed straight over to Test Track. We enjoyed the ride, but the ride kept stopping in different sections for periods of time, so it wasn’t as fun as it should have been.
Just after 10am we left the park, heading to Typhoon Lagoon again. There was less crowds today than yesterday. We did the slides that we liked best from yesterday again and spent some time in the wave pool.

We again left early afternoon and headed back to the resort for a rest.

We had a 630pm dinner booking a Coral Reef restaurant at EPCOT, so we headed back there at about 5pm. The Coral Reef restaurant has a wall of windows into a big aquarium. The meal was great and watching all the fish, rays, sharks and SCUBA divers was lots of fun.

After dinner we found a spot to watch Illuminations, a fireworks and lightshow located on lake in the world part of the park. The show was great, with the fireworks really close.
After a bit more of a wonder around the park, we headed back to the resort.

Distance walked: approx 8km.

Day 6 - Thursday 22nd April - Typhoon Lagoon & DTD

Today we went to Typhoon Lagoon, a water park. For some reason we enjoyed this water park more than Blizzard Beach. It was much hotter today, about 30deg, and busier at the water park, but we were still able to do all the slides.

The crowds started to get a bit unbearable for Bubbles at about 1pm, so we headed back to the resort and had lunch. We also went for a walk around our resort, checking out all the different themes of the buildings and the pools. The resort is set out with building from different decades, the 50’s to the 90’s. We are in the 70’s building section with big yo-yos covering the stair wells at the end of the buildings and a big flower shaped pool.

After a restful afternoon, we headed out to Downtown Disney for dinner. We decided to try out Wolfgang Pucks Express and each had most wonderful meals. Spanky even got asked for ID when we ordered some beers!