The problem with going to Florida over Christmas though is that this is high season, the time when flights and accommodation are at their highest prices, and also at their scarcest.

In the wintertime, South Florida is full of people from the East Coast of the USA and Canada, the “snowbirds” as they are known.   Some snowbirds spend a good three months in Florida to escape the bitterly cold winters up north, while others just visit for one or two weeks.  If you go to the beaches in South Florida over the Christmas period and look at the licence plates of the cars, at least 2/3rds of them if not more are from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and in the Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale area too from Quebec and Toronto.   Just listen to the conversations on the people on the beach too, and the all too familiar Hispanic voices are replaced by New York twangs and even more so by Canadian French.

Last week after much searching for a decent route at a decent price, we bit the bullet and purchased our flights.  The price was high, but not as much as we could have ended up paying.  It was actually cheaper than it cost to get Debbie over to Florida for Christmas two years ago, but we also don’t have direct flights, which I hope is not going to be a problem.   When taking a multi-leg flight, you need to allow for delays in schedule, and inbound to the USA as well for delays in immigration, where Debbie has already had issues, her last trip to Miami resulting in her being stuck in immigration for 15 hours!   But hopefully we will be ok this time, since we have a 3 hour layover in Raleigh/Durham before catching our flight down to Miami, and I also now have my USA Passport, which ought to help.

Last night we also bit the bullet and booked a place to stay.  It’s not a luxurious hotel or resort, it’s a typical family owned motel on Hollywood Beach, and although it cost a lot it will hopefully work out best for us.   The few reviews that we managed to find for the motel sounded more good than bad.  There is no pool or hot tub, it’s above several restaurants so it could be noisy at night, but it is right on the boardwalk and we will be able to eat and walk along the beach at night, instead of being stuck in a hotel away from the beach in the evenings.

There really were not many choices for hotels unfortunately, since prices are sky high, and most places are already fully booked.  Left are the hotels close to the airport in Fort Lauderdale, those on the interstate, and some high and low end places that are either too expensive or in a bad neighborhood.  Of the three places on the beach, one was $250 a night, way out of our price range, a second was $100 a night but in the middle of being renovated and with some horrible reviews.  The place we picked was about the only choice.

My biggest fear is that because we don’t land in Miami until 9:30pm on Christmas Eve, is that everything will be closed, and it will be 11pm at the earliest before we get to where we are staying.  Since few places open in Florida on Christmas Day, we could end up without any essentials like bread, milk, juice etc for a day.  However staying right on the beach, there ought to be some shops and restaurants open at least.  It’s going to be a different Christmas with no turkey and trimmings I am sure, but hopefully a good one.   Getting up on Christmas Day is going to be tough, since by the time we get to bed it will already be 5am UK time or later!  Probably a good day to just spend relaxing on the beach or the terrace.

Now we need to find a good deal on a rental car, which I hope is easier to sort out.  There appear to be plenty of choices at least from all the car rental companies, but even that is expensive.  I must remember to use my AAA (equivalent of AA/RAC in the UK) discount to save some money, but since we will be taking the girls out we need to have transport.  

I doubt that we will be spending many days on the beach, but at least we will be right there in the evenings, plenty of opportunities for walking, either on the boardwalk (promenade) or along the waters edge.

So wish us luck!  Hopefully the flights, immigration process, accommodation and weather all work in our favour.  Will post updates and photos later, also a video or two maybe…

After many evenings of packing that frequently went beyond midnight, I finished packing about 1am on Wednesday, with the alarm set for 3:45am to give me enough time to get out and catch my flight in Miami at 8:30am.   I had a quick webcam chat with Debbie, showered and packed the last of my things, said goodbye to Tim my landlord with whom I have become very good friends, and drove down the highway to the train station in Hollywood where I had arranged to leave my car to be picked up.

I lugged my bags (2 to be checked in, my laptop bag and a backpack) up in the elevator, across the bridge, down the other side, and then realized the ticket machines were over the other side.  Fortunately the platform was almost empty, and the only person close to me asked if I was English – turns out he came over to Florida from Birmingham 10 years ago.  So I took a chance and left my 2 big bags where they were and legged it up the stairs, across the bridge, down across the other side, where I purchased my ticket.  Then it was back up across and down, by which time I was completely soaked in sweat.   Despite the fact that it was only 5:30am, the temperature was in the mid 80′s and it was extremely humid.  It took me most of the way to Miami before I cooled off.

The shuttle from the train station dropped me about 1/3 of the way along the terminals in the airport, but of course as luck would have it, United are in the new terminal at the far end, so I had to lug my bags well over 1/4 mile to check them in.  It was rather cool in the airport, and by this time I was desperate to go to the  bathroom, plus I was nervous in case my bags were overweight and I would have to repack or dump some things out.  However, I got checked in pretty quick, was within the weight limit, and got through the security without any problems either.

I had plenty of time to wait for the plane, managed to call Debbie to let her know I had checked in, called Tim as I had remembered I left a drawer of dirty laundry (the result of packing too late at night), and called my daughters before they went off to their swimming lessons.

Under normal circumstances I would have caught an evening flight direct to London, however direct flights at the end of July were about $1,000 and multiple legs weren’t much cheaper.  Debbie fortunately found a flight for $406 through Vayama, a company like Priceline, that offers discounted travel but you don’t find out the route until you purchase.  Fortunately with Vayama having purchased you have an hour to cancel, which swayed me over to trying this out.  I knew the flight left Miami at 8:30am and I didn’t get into London until 6:30am the following morning, but other than knowing it was 2 planes, I had no idea where my connection point would be.  The last thing I wanted was to fly to some place out west and have a short connection time, which might mean spending a day in some god-forsaken spot that I didn’t want to be.   I was lucky however, in that the flight from Miami went direct to Dulles (Washington DC) where I had a 7 hour layover before my flight to London.

The first flight went very smoothly, and there was plenty of legroom too.   In Washington I wandered around the terminals to try and find somewhere reasonable to eat, since by this time (midday) I was feeling a bit peckish.  The terminals are connected by shuttle buses, that look like lounges on wheels and drive all over the airport.    Having covered the rest of the terminals, I found out that the majority of the restaurants are in the terminal that I hadn’t covered.  Of course, the shuttle dropped me at gate 3, and the restaurant I wanted to eat at, Max & Erma’s was at gate 72, a good 1/4 mile hike at least!   I was hungry, but I also had a throbbing headache, which could be stress, tiredness and also the humidity.  I thought a good warm meal might help that.     I opted for a starter of Tortilla Soup, which wasn’t bad, then a Bacon Cheeseburger and Fries.  Not the healthiest item on the menu, but I really wanted something warming and filling, and it hit the spot.  That and 4 glasses of iced tea, which helped replenish the water I had sweat out so far.

I still had 5 more hours to kill in the airport before my next flight, and saw on one of the shuttles that I could take a bus to the Smithsonian Museum for 50cents, and there was free admission too.  On another day I would have jumped at this opportunity, but right then all I needed was to sit and try to relax before the next flight.    I found a seat close to the gate where my plane was due to depart from,  powered on the laptop, and settled down to watch a movie.  I selected “Miracle At Santa Ana” which turned out to be a WWII movie set in Italy with a company of Buffalo Soldiers.  Not a bad movie, but it helped kill 2 1/2 hours.   I had forgotten to copy any movies onto my flash drive before I packed my external hard drive away, so other than the movie all I had was a 1972 Genesis concert.  This got some strange looks from people sitting close, since back then the costumes and stage act from Peter Gabriel were rather odd to say the least.

I did get a lot of amusement from the fact that there was a small glass sided area set aside in the lounge for smokers with about 15 seats.  Not only were most of the seats taken most of the time, but often it was standing room only, with the occupants puffing and dragging away on their cigarettes like their life depended on it.  Really quite funny, but at the same time sad.

My 6pm flight to London Heathrow boarded on time, and I was very pleased to find that I had an Economy Plus seat with extra legroom.  All that for a bargain price, woo-hoo!   However, instead of landing 30 minutes early as we were supposed to, we ended up delayed an hour and a half due to bad weather in the Philadelphia area, which caused air traffic control to stop the take-off of any flights in the area for a while.   But eventually we got under way, and had a smooth flight.   Food wasn’t bad, with curried chicken to eat, and a quick snack for breakfast, and in between a few hours sleep while I listened to some of my favorite songs on my new MP3 player.  I also ended up sitting next to a lady from Fort Lauderdale who was originally from Devon and on her way back there for a visit, so we chatted for quite a while before we headed off to sleep.

Since I was supposed to arrive 30 minutes early and ended up landing over an hour late, Debbie was there to greet me, and I got the most wonderful hugs and kisses, two things that she excels at.  A little more than an hour later and we were home, where I had a much needed shower and cleaned up, then some yummy bacon rolls and off to bed.  We were both really tired, since I had hardly slept for two nights, and Debbie had to get up as well by 4am.

Well two days and lots of sleep later and I was feeling more human and also adjusting to the time difference in the UK.   I will update more on my adventures back in the UK in my future posts.  If you would like to be receive posts automatically, why not Register with us, we promise no spam and will keep your email addresses private.

There wasn’t much breeze all day, it was really hot, sticky and uncomfortable.   When I left work and got into the car, the temperature showed 108!   Driving for a few miles it dropped to 98, but then as I headed south down I95 towards Fort Lauderdale it rose again to 100.   Since the air conditioning isn’t working in the car the fan was just blowing hot air and almost sand-blasting my face.

I got home and Tim, my landlord had left the sauna on, so being hot and sticky I headed down to the pool, had a good sauna, and did 30 lengths in the pool.  I felt much better after that, especially since some clouds came over and a light breeze got up, making it feel a lot more comfortable.  It really did feel good cooling off in the pool after an hour long drive home from work.

Later in the evening, Tim and I decided to take our evening walk around the golf course, as we do most evenings, and as soon as you opened the door to the condo the heat hit you, phew!   It seemed like the temperatures just weren’t going to drop, but fortunately as we headed out onto the fairways and away from the houses and trees, a nice breeze got up from the west, a sign of weather changes, and it did cool us down somewhat.  There was also some nice heat lightning out west, no clouds or rain, just bright flashes in the sky.

I woke up this morning and wondered why it was still dark.  One thing you learn about the tropics, is that when you get a spell of extremely hot weather, it usually causes the gods to get angry, and this morning they definitely got out of bed on the wrong side.  

It was pouring with rain just before I had to go out to the car, but I was lucky and it stopped for 10 minutes so I could get out and start my drive.  The car needed filling up before I headed up the highway to work,  and I didn’t want to do this last night in 100 degree temperatures, but this morning with the rain, the traffic was heavy, and then I found my local gas station was closed, so I had to drive to another one.   While there I could clearly see the skies over the coast to the east, and they were as black as ink.  I knew that my drive north up I95 was not going to be a pleasant one.

I got onto the highway, and it wasn’t more than a minute or two before the lighter rain turned into a monsoo0n, with traffic slowing down to 25 mph as the road soon started to flood and a lot of vehicles were having trouble staying on the road.   Fortunately my Toyota Avalon grips the road really well, and also has great visibility, so I get rather frustrated at all these people who can’t see a thing.

By the time I got to Boynton Beach, which is a few miles north of Boca Raton, the rain was so heavy that it was pounding on the roof of the car, it was just like a monsoon!   It definitely got a good power wash today!   The drive was so slow, but about 10 miles further on the skies brightened up a bit and I managed to escape the storm.

Amazingly enough, everyone actually had their lights on this morning, which is a miracle for South Florida!  Quite a few even had their hazard lights on to warn drivers behind them, which is also rare.  Maybe there were a lot of  ”out of state” drivers on the highway today…

But I got to work in one piece, only 5 minutes late, and it was a cool 75 degrees compared to the heat of yesterday, so quite comfortable by comparison.

Ok, first some background I suppose for those of you who are not familiar with the whole story…

I lost my job 6 weeks ago, so since Debbie only gets 2 weeks off work (Easter school holidays in the UK) and the flights from the UK to Florida cost hundreds of dollars more than from Florida to the UK, we decided that I would go to see her for 3 weeks instead of her coming to see me.   Yes we miss the warm Florida weather, but we will be able to spend more time together, nice as we haven’t seen each other since the beginning of January, and also we should be able to live cheaply over there.

And so I set off from home Saturday morning.  The guy I rent with dropped me at the Tri-Rail station at 10:15am, it being cheaper to take the train ($4) to the airport than to drive and park.  My flight wasn’t until 2:10pm, and the train journey is only 30 minutes, but there is free internet at Fort Lauderdale Airport, so I wasn’t bothered about the long wait.

Well the train runs every 30 minutes during the week, but only every 2 hours at the weekend, and it was heaving.  It’s only 3 carriages long, and mine had 3 bicycles, a dozen people with bags and suitcases, and it was standing room only.   2/3rds of the way we stopped twice for long periods because of signal problems, so the journey took an hour.  It was extremely warm as the air conditioning wasn’t working properly, then the shuttle bus to the airport terminal took 10 minutes to arrive.   So by the time I got to the terminal I was soaked with sweat.   The bus stopped way past the terminal, so I had to lug my bags all the way back, the ticket counter at Fort Lauderdale is on the 2nd floor but the up escalator at the near end wasn’t working, so I had to walk all the way to the other end, and by the time I got to the check in desk I was dripping.  Of course the air conditioning in the terminal wasn’t working properly either, and all the staff were complaining.  I actually soaked my handkerchief wiping my head and neck.

Well I go to check in, and find much to my horror that my suitcase is 10lbs overweight, and they want to charge me $150.   Did I tell you about the bag?  No?  Ok this is where it gets more frustrating and in a way comical…

Debbie has been visiting me every 6-7 weeks for the past 18 months, and so she has been bringing more and more summer clothing over to save having to carry it in both directions, and it’s things she wouldn’t be using in England in the winter.   Well, since she isn’t going to be coming over in the summer, I am bringing a lot of her clothes home this time.  I already have a lot of my clothes at her house, so didn’t need to pack much for myself.   TEN POUNDS OVERWEIGHT! Shall I say that being unemployed I had a mild panic attack, but then realised that my carry on bag was mostly empty, so I opened my suitcase, took out all of her shoes and a couple of mine, a book and a fleece jacket, and with a sigh of relief found that the bag now weighs 11lbs less.  PHEW! Of course now my carry on is incredibly heavy, full to bursting, I have another thick binder of papers in my laptop bag, and by the time I got my boarding pass I was not so much soaked as melting.  I have been known to be drier when I come out of the shower!   Well I get to the gate, only to find that the agent didn’t give me back the printed copy of my itinery either, but at this point I no longer need it.  I did think to myself though “I hope nobody opens my suitcase – it could be embarrassing being full of women’s clothing…”

Well now the one thing that did go right happens, I find a seat in the terminal next to a nice couple, and it’s one of the few spots in the terminal where you have access to a power socket, so I was able to plug the laptop in and also MSN worked so I could have a chat with Debbie and watch NASA TV so see the shuttle land.  The weather wasn’t good so the shuttle landed an hour late.  My plane was also delayed 35 minutes because of bad weather in Atlanta when it left, so I finally left at 3pm instead of 2:10pm, and only 70 minutes between flights.

The pilot made up much of the time, but then 20 minutes from Atlanta, we were informed that the weather was awful, so we had to go past the weather and circle for ages.  It was also the bumpiest flight I have had in my 20 years of frequent flying, with being shaken from side to side.  Finally we land, 10 minutes after my plane was due to leave, and of course it had – on time

I joined a lot of other people in a long queue at a Delta ticket desk, where 2 women were slowly assisting 2 people.  Then they both assisted the same person.  For about 20 minutes nothing moved, and then one of the women upped and left, leaving just one and about 20 angry people.   Finally my turn came, and this woman said I had been reconfirmed on the same flight – TOMORROW!   That meant 24 hours in the airport!   She was so unhelpful, and they wouldn’t pay for a hotel, but I did manage to get some meal vouchers and then left to head to the terminal, which of course is the complete opposite end of the airport, a long train journey.

I get to the other terminal, and there is a Delta ticket desk, and also a later flight at 10:10pm.   So I join the long queue to see if I can get a standby or if there are any other options.  Meantime it’s now 7:30pm, I landed 2 hours ago, and I have been getting nowhere.   I finally get helped, and a friendly lady gave me a standby ticket for the 10:10pm flight.  Now this was also going to London Heathrow not Gatwick, which is a lot better for Debbie to pick me up, so I was hopeful that things might get better.

At this time another guy joins me.  He was also on my flight from Fort Lauderdale, and had waited back at the first desk, where another person had turned up and he already had a standby ticket for the flight, plus she gave him a hotel voucher and meal vouchers.   I think the other one was related to Hitler in some way… she was just so unhelpful – not exactly what you want when your journey has been disrupted.

The two of us decide to stick together, and head off for a bite to eat before going to the gate to register our standby requests.  We get there at 9pm, and at that time there are not a lot of people waiting for the 10:10pm flight.  We are somewhat hopeful.   But of course time marches on, more and more people arrive, then the gate attendant announces that the cleaning crew haven’t finished cleaning the plane, so they can’t begin boarding for another 30 minutes.   Time drags on, even more people arrive, more announcements to say that the cleaning crew are not yet done.   What on earth happened in there?  Did a toilet overflow?  With all that suction I would hope not!   Did 50 people end up throwing up because of turbulence?  That would be bad, but you know, I just wanted to get on that plane – I would have handled it.  It was the last flight of the night, so my only option for not spending the night at the airport.

Well further delays, the departure time is changed to 11:40pm, more people arrive, and about 11pm they begin to board.    Things don’t look good, but there are still two people not checked in.   They arrive about 5 minutes before the doors close, but there is 1 seat available, for the guy I am with.  It’s seat 1A, First Class too!   By this time it’s 11:15pm, over an hour after the flight was due to leave, and just as the attendant is about to put the ticket in his hands, up marches the final passenger, and of course it’s her seat.   No more room, about a dozen people are turned away.   The two of use were really disheartened, since 24 hours with nothing to do but kill time is no fun, I lose a day with Debbie, and he misses a day with his daughter, who works in London.

So back to the Delta ticket counter again, another 20 minute wait.  He already has his hotel voucher, and heads off to the shuttle.   I get to the desk, to find out that the voucher is only for a discounted price, and it would still cost me $49 for a room at the cheapest hotel.  Well add onto that taxes etc, and you are talking closer to $80, so I turned that down, and resigned myself to having to spend the night in the terminal.   By this time I am feeling a bit like Tom Hanks in the movie “The Terminal”, where he ends up not being able to fly home, and immigration won’t allow him into the country, so he spends months living in the airport.

As is usual in an airport, the seats have armrests and it’s almost impossible to lie down.  I asked one of the employees where the most comfortable spot might be, and he directed me to a section of gates where there are long seats plus others without backrests.  I was able to pull these together and made a fairly comfortable bed for the night.  Well not exaclty comfortable, but as good as could be expected for the night.   It is by this time midnight… and I am knackered…

I go to settle down, and this elderly man comes up, and offers me an airline blanket.  From a first glance I thought he was asking for money, but I later realised he was just already dressed ready to spend the night there himself.   I accepted the blanket, and in the end needed it, as the terminal got extremely cold during the night.  Not only that, the volume of the televisions in the area was very loud, as were the cleaners, who kept banging vacuums and polishers into the seating.   Also any movement by anyone caused a lot of vibration, so turning over woke the other up.

Well first this man decides he wants to talk.  I find out he is Russian and was married to a Mexican woman.  His English is not so good, so we end up speaking in a common language – Spanglish!   I can’t make out all he is saying since my Spanish is a bit rusty, and he was using words I didn’t know (Mexican has a few words of their own), but finally I get to sleep for a while, but mostly it’s tossing and turning and trying to stay warm for a couple of hours.   I was rather please by now that I had taken my fleece out of my suitcase, as I needed that, and I also had a cardigan in my hand baggage that I used as a pillow.  If not for those I would have had a really bad night.

At 3am Debbie called me, so I got up and had a chat with her, washed my face, and then tried to get back to sleep.

The Russian started getting up at 4:30am.  Seems his flight was soon after 5am, and he wanted to talk more.  At 5am he disappeared, and I managed some more broken sleep until 7am, when I cleaned up a bit, went to the food court and had a bite to eat, and called Debbie.  Cleaning up was frustrating too.  Of course you can’t carry your wash bag with you these days, and I already have everything I need in England.  I was able to get a bag from Delta, which had a thin overnight t-shirt in it, a toothbrush and squeeze out toothpaste that was more like a ketchup packet, so the toothpaste would only be good for one use.  It also had a disposable razor and an other shaving gel packet, that had about 1/4 of the amount needed, would not foam up, and the razor was so bad it was trying to tear my skin off while leaving the hairs behind, so I decided to give that a miss.  Better unshaven than badly shaven and incredibly sore.   Add to this trying to do this in the washrooms.  You know the ones where the taps only work when you move your hands just right?  Well it’s really hard to do this with a toothbrush or a razor.  Just take my word for it…  But at least I brushed my teeth, and they had a deodorant in the bag too.  Not a great one, but a deodorant nevertheless.

And this is where you catch me, now coming up to 10am, 7 hours of boredom left, sitting in the food court where I get free internet.   It’s hard to type as I am shaking a bit from the tiredness,  it’s not a good day for typing!   Hopefully the flight will be smooth tonight.  I have a feeling though that finding a free seat in either Business or First Class will be impossible.  As long as I get on the plane and it arrives on time I will be happy.

Of course the plane is now going to Gatwick as per the original plan, a longer journey for Debbie to make.  It’s now going to be on a Monday morning not Sunday morning, so the traffic will be horrible, and she is supposed to be working too.   I will by this time probably not be smelling too good either.  Delta wouldn’t give anyone their bags back, so I have nothing to change into.  I also won’t have shaved for 2 days.

Updates to follow when I get back online…

And here I am, Monday evening, at Debbie’s house, finally

The flight Sunday night left on time thankfully, and arrived almost an hour early.   No queues to go through passport control or customs, my bag came off quickly, and I was standing outside for about 5 minutes when Debbie turned up, so she didn’t have to pay to park, which costs a small fortune at airports in the UK.

It took about 2 hours to get home, since it was Monday Morning Rush Hour, but we made it.  I had a wonderful shower, it felt good to change clothes after 2 days wearing the same things, had a bite to eat, then upstairs for a nice long nap in a real bed

It feels so good to be home with Debbie at last.   Thanks for all the lovely comments everyone.