Nelle's Stuff

So Long Antigua and Hello Orlando!

Well, we made it to Orlando in one piece! What an exhausting day that turned out to be. Although it was only two rather short flights, it was a very long and tiring day. We left Dickenson Bay Cottages at around 11am, and it wasn't until around 10pm that we arrived at our Orlando Hotel.

Checking in to Antigua's airport was quite a treat. First of all, the check-in counters are all outside the building (they are undercover, but it's sort of like a QLD school canteen or tuckshop). As they don't have the large x-ray machines for scanning suitcases, the officers open your bags right there in full view of everyone and poke around your stuff - you know, pulling out the little bits and pieces stored in your running shoes to save space, sifting through your dirty washing, that sort of thing! Quite delightful really! Then, with no regard to the well-being of your belongings, they just shove everything in and zip it shut! Very annoying considering the effort I put into making sure anything breakable was suitably positioned!

Then, its through Immigration where they check your passport and make sure you've paid your $50 to leave the country (!), and then through Security for your carry-on items.

Our flight left about 25 minutes late, which was rather stressful as we knew that the timing between this flight and our next flight in San Juan (Peurto Rico) was quite tight.

In any case, we made it to San Juan, and ran to the Customs/Immigration counter. As Peurto Rico is considered part of the USA, we were considered to be entering the USA, and thus had to go through the whole Homeland Security check, which is a very slow, very painful experience - sort of like a visit to Centrelink, but worse!). After a 40 minute wait in the queue, we made it through, and went to get our bags (fortunately Mack and Kerri had been luckier in their choice of queue at Customs and had already collected our bags for us!). Then it was back through Security. Waiting in another queue, off with the shoes, out with the laptops, etc., etc. After some serious drama with getting Kerri's recording equipment through security, we made it to our next flight with about 2 whole minutes to spare!

The flight to Orlando was mostly uneventful - except for some annoying children, and for the strange "whooping" noises one of the other passengers kept making!

In any case, we finally arrived in Orlando, got our bags, found a bus that would fit all our luggage and made our way to the DoubleTree Hotel that you can see below...

This is pretty much the only photo of have of the hotel as it is a rather boring place to stay. Other than the fact that Universal Studios is just across the road (!!!!) there is very very little nearby other than a few big restaurants, and a Wallgreens which is a huge "drugstore" - sort of like a huge Priceline. Oh, the other exciting thing about the DoubleTree is that when you arrive, they give you one of their cookies. Best "bought" cookie I've ever tasted - now there's something I should have taken a photo of!

posted by Nelle @ 2:07 pm