Florida 2019: 19th October 2019 - the longest day

Several weeks ago when Roderic and I were driving home on the M25 we passed (in the other direction, thankfully) two very long traffic jams. We commented to each other that if we were to encounter those when we were on our way to Heathrow to catch our flight to Florida we'd probably miss it. So on the spur of the moment I booked us three hotel rooms at the Heathrow Central Travelodge for the night of 18th October at the bargain price of £80 for all three.

So far, so great. The rooms were fine, we all arrived safely, and were set to meet in the hotel foyer at 5am to head for the airport parking. Unfortunately at 4.45am the hotel fire alarm went off. We all dutifully stomped down four flights of stairs and met up outside the hotel, Ceri still in her pyjamas.

Problem was, our schedule had us leaving the hotel at 5am, and our bags were inside. As time ticked by we started to worry, but finally the all-clear came, and we were allowed back into the hotel.

There were signs in the bathrooms telling people to close the bathroom door when they showered to avoid setting off the smoke alarms. Someone evidently didn't listen, and Ceri thinks she was behind the culprit on the stairwell heading back up. As hundreds of people stomped wearily back along the hotel corridor a chap wearing only boxer shorts leaned out of his door and shouted at us all, "Oi! Do you mind?" What, two hundred people padding quietly along a corridor at 5.30am woke you up but the fire alarm didn't?

We drove to the car park and dropped off the cars, then got the bus to Heathrow. Flight 1 was Heathrow to Dallas and took ten hours. Good films on the flight (I watched Aquaman, the new Men in Black, Yesterday and four episodes of Young Sheldon) and we loved Dallas airport. It was possibly the quietest airport I've ever been to, with lots of empty seating and very bored shop assistants.

Big gulp, cookie dough, and nachos. Not all for me. Note also a power socket that I couldn't charge my phone with as all the adaptors were in Roderic's suitcase.

We livened up the day of one of them by buying some traditional American food.  In my first ever visit to a seven-eleven I was overcome with joy at the sight of a nacho condiments bar, where you can not only have warm nachos but add to them whatever you want - salsa, guacamole, onions, jalapenos, and several other things I didn't recognise. Also, nacho cheese, on tap. It was awesome! Once I figured out how it worked.

The rest of the family got to try Popeye's chicken for the first time (they liked it) apart from Hari who went to McDonald's. While she was there I asked whether they had any vegetarian choices on the menu, for future reference (I had my nachos). No, they didn't. No veggie deluxe, no spicy veggie wrap, nothing. Nada. Hopefully that's not true of other places.

Before we left we'd crunched the numbers and decided not to hire a car on this trip but to use Ubers instead. So after after another two hour flight to Orlando we ordered two Ubers to take us (and all our luggage) to our accommodation. It was sooooo much easier than waiting in a long queue to get a car, fending off all the upgrade suggestions, and then poor Roderic trying to negotiate unfamiliar roads in an unfamiliar car in the dark after being awake for 24 hours.

We took a golf cart from reception to our accommodation. It was free, but now I'm plagued with doubt. Should I have tipped the driver? This tipping culture is a minefield. But what's 10% of zero?

In the golf cart. Looking surprisingly chipper for sleep-deprived folk. Apart from Ceri, who was very fed up by this point.

Westgate Lakes was even more beautiful and spacious than I remembered - more on that later - and we'd got a second wind by that point, so we actually unpacked before crashing into bed at around 11pm local time - 6am our body-clocks' time - 26 hours after waking up.