A Long Day! Orlando, FL

Orlando, FL

We were up at 630 and after coffee were underway for 730. It was a lovely day, blue skies, English summer at its best. Traffic was pretty good on the way to Gatwick and the meet and greet parking worked a treat. We always find that it is the cheapest way to park at Gatwick.
I was wearing one of my Indian cotton suits for travel (very comfortable) and possibly this is why I was selected for the full “pat down” in Security LOL. My allibaba pants could conceal a host of stuff and they had a good feel around. Best early morning grope experience I’ve had in years!!!!
Daisy and I had a stroll around the duty free and I followed my usual ritual of “lavishment” by generous sprayings of my favourite YSL private collection perfume, topped up with a new Jo Malone I’d been meaning to try. At over £100 a bottle I am unlikely to ever buy it but I must have doused a oood tenner’s worth. My other “lavishment” is to smother my face in luxurious an hugely expensive cream from the likes of Guerlain or La Prairie. Smelling like a Paris brothel and with shiny faces we returned to Bob and headed off to the gate.
The flight was 8 and a half hours but it passed really quickly and the meal was quite nice. I slept a bit and read a bit and joy of joys watched The Second Best Marigold Hotel which I’d been longing to see. Recognised a lot of the locations around Jaipur . Will have to watch it again as the sound was poor over the BA ear plugs. We were very lucky and were allocated bulk head seats on the side and so had masses of leg room.
Arrived in Orlando 15 minutes early but then had to sit on the plane for about 15 minutes because apparently there were too many people already in the Immigration hall. Hearts sank at this news. Once we were off, we quickly reached the hall and were met by huge numbers of people snaking back and forth in a long long queue. It was a very daft system because they had installed a whole raft of automatic passport readers and self service booths and these were excellent, far better than ours HOWEVER, you had to queue in a line with everyone else who didn’t have a biometric passport for ages before being allowed to split off to use the machines rather than continue to a face to face with a human. One you reached the split, you were through in about 4 minutes, whilst about 1000 others queued on to see The Man. The lines should have been split from the beginning and much congestion would have been avoided. I wanted to tell them this ROFL but Bob wisely forbade me saying that the officers would have a sense of humour failure LOL. Very true no doubt.
We then had another wait with Dollar rental car and finally got away from the airport at about 530. Our little red Yaris was loaded to the gills and just about enough room for us with the luggage. It took about 30 minutes to get to Cypress Harbour and we were in the apartment by 630. Unpacked and then feeling pretty spaced out we headed off to Walmart to do a big food shop for the 2 weeks.. We will eat out some nights but also eat in a lot too. Got a lot of stuff including Bob’s ritual tins of White Sausage gravy which is foul gloop, a bit like chicken soup which you put on breakfast biscuits (scones!!). Lucy the Gourmet will have an apoplectic fit when she sees it in the cupboard!!!!
Back to the apartment, unpacked everything and more or less fell into bed. Super comfortable here and will feel a lot better after a good night’s sleep.
Yes, it’s hot. About 32C when we landed this afternoon and still about 27C when we turned in.