We're going to Florida, where shall we stay? (Part 1)

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We're going to Florida, where shall we stay? (Part 1)

When you start to plan your holiday there are some questions that always come top of the list firstly where shall we go and secondly where shall we stay?

Well in our house for the last fourteen years the answer to number one has always been the same, Florida. After our first “once in a life time holiday” back in 1993 we were well and truly hooked on the place. I was the person who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the travel agents because the thought of spending 2 weeks “doing” theme parks filled me with dread. As a compromise we opted for a two centre holiday spending 2 weeks in Orlando and a week by the Gulf coast in Clearwater, 2 weeks of theme parks for Dad and the kids, 1 week of sun, sand and sea for Mum.

Well we all absolutely loved everything about Florida, the theme parks, the beaches, the weather, the restaurants, the shopping everything. So the following year when planning our holiday the answer to question 1 was easy, it had to be Florida, there was so much we hadn’t managed to fit in to our last stay, question 2 was a little more difficult.

We had stayed in a hotels on our first trip all the staff were friendly, there were several on site restaurants and the rooms were nicely decorated but after a week or so the strain of all living in one room was getting to us. The rooms had two double beds which meant the kids, then 9 and 11, had to share. At first this was a novelty but soon became a bone of contention with them arguing constantly about who should sleep on which side of the bed and who had more than their fair share of the space. That coupled with the fight for the bathroom in the mornings meant that for our second trip we would have to look for an alternative.

We considered hotels that offered “suites” with 2 bedrooms and living area with some kitchen facilities and on site restaurants but the prices in the brochures seemed a little expensive when the kids would still be sharing a room. We then decided to look at Villas. This seemed the obvious choice, for similar prices to the hotel suites we could rent a full house. The kids would each have their own room and we would also have a living area, a full sized kitchen and the icing on the cake our own private pool! We decide this was definitely the way to go.

There were only 4 of us but we opted for a three bedroom home, as we booked through a travel operator this meant we had to pay a pretty hefty “under occupancy” supplement and we couldn’t actually choose where we would be staying but we figured it would be worth taking a chance for the space and the privacy. It was the home was lovely, well equipped, well maintained and very comfortable. We had a fantastic holiday. We decided to book again for next year but that’s another story …. . (see Where shall we stay? part 2).

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