Memorial Day Weekend

So, the posts are getting a little more spaced out but much longer. Don’t know that I am keeping anyone in anticipation as the antics and rants have been on the decline but I am staying very busy so I thought I would give another update.
Memorial Day Weekend has come and gone and we kept to the plan of stopping by and seeing the Mouse. After the girl hooked us up with a first class flight upgrade (both ways) and huge discount on rental car we headed off to Animal Kingdom then possibly one of the other parks. The heat and humidity was ridiculous but the park was a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed the Safari ride though I couldn’t convince her to do the Everest Coaster, though she offered to stay in line with me if I wanted to ride it that bad. I do recommend Yak and Yeti if you are there for lunch PF Chang-ish, about the same price, and I actually liked it a little better though the menu is tremendously less in total options. After sweating our way through the park, we decided to check in to our hotel for and get cleaned up for dinner and Downtown Disney for the evening instead of upgrading the already pricey tickets and trying to see part of Magic Kingdom or Epcot. Definitely the right call as it decided to pour down the typical Florida afternoon shower within 15 minutes after we checked in. We also had the opportunity to ride the free shuttles/monorail/water ferries around the park hotels and check them out. It was fun for the girl to relive some memories of past family vacations spent at these locations as we strolled around, especially at the Polynesian. Dinner was at a seafood place on “the water” at Downtown Disney with some excellent beachy drinks and some time in the Downtown Disney bars. Having gotten up around 5:30 that morning and being out in the Florida heat, midnight pretty much came as our time to call it a day/night.
The next morning we tried to score a ton of Hilton Honors points but had been suckered into something much more time consuming than we had been promised. We managed to get out of it having only lost about an hour or so of time and maybe a little extra sleep but no biggie. My advice if you didn’t already know…if you go to get the extra points at the Vacation Club desk, take the points for showing up at the desk and pass on the rest. After this little time detour we headed for the folks place in Venice by way of a little shopping/site seeing in Sarasota and the St Armand’s/Long Boat Key area. The girl had not been that far south on the gulf side before I think she really liked seeing Sarasota. It’s a pretty town, especially if you are into boats and that part of the coastal life. I know she definitely liked shopping at St. Armand’s though the weather was still extremely muggy though we had the ocean breeze to help. That night we met my grandfather and his lady friend for another seafood dinner, this time at an old time fishery in a little area known as Placida. It was great and was a perfect dinner.
Sunday we had intended to go to Siesta Key, regularly ranked as one of America’s top beaches but decided on a big sit down breakfast first. Turns out all the parking for the public beach, including multiple small access areas were full by noon or so. Honestly don’t know if we would have done any better grabbing breakfast on the way and going straight there that morning. We ended up back at a beach much closer to the house and saw some folks parasailing from where we were set up. Decided that was a great idea, so we cut the beach time short and headed around the jetty, 10-15 min by car, swim it in under 5 if you can handle the current and dodge the boats. It was a great idea and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Especially cool since we could go up together and talk, laugh, and take pictures as we sailed over the gulf. They even did the feet dip thing as we were probably 100 yards behind the boat. That night we had a very nice meal at a restaurant at the jetty and watched the sun go down over the gulf. While waiting on our reservation we spent some time on the jetty watching a small school (pod?) of dolphins chasing fish where the canals dumped out into the gulf. Very cool and we took a ton of pictures there.
Monday came around and it was time to head back to Orlando to catch our flight home. Not until we spent a couple hours on the beach and having one last nice lunch and a few drinks.
Getting back was a bummer as it always is after a great vacation. They are always too short but I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Hoping we can get back down there later this year…hopefully without as much of an agenda so we can enjoy some of the simple pleasures after cramming as many of the fun options as possible in the long weekend.