I fell asleep rather quickly, according to my Pixel Watch. The planes didn’t bother me that much. On the other hand, I’m still sort of on Swedish time, so I woke up already at 6 and had a hard time going back to sleep. Since the breakfast didn’t open until 06:30, and I couldn’t pick up my car before 11, I stayed in bed browsing the internet.
After a shower, I went for breakfast, and let’s just say, it was at least something to eat, both bread, yoghurt, some eggs, and potatoes. But I once again get reminded of how spoiled I am from Elite or Scandic.
I checked out and walked towards the rental car center, which was close by. When I did the online check-in a week ago, I got the instructions to just walk into the garage, find my name on a board, and then pick a car in the specified section. However, I found the board (at least I thought I did), but my name wasn’t on it. I found a staffer, and his first question was, “Your name is not on the board?”. Apparently, it shows up 10 minutes before the reserved time (fair enough), and I had another 15 minutes before that deadline. He checked my name and found me in his list and told me I could choose any car from the two rows. The majority were Kia Soul and a few Nissan Versa. I realized that it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a car that stood out, so I got myself a red Kia Soul. Took a video of it and then headed for the exit.
At the exit, a woman checked my driver’s license against my reservation and the selected car. She came back and said that the license ID didn’t match my profile on the reservation. It had my birthdate reversed, and not the last four digits. So I had to back up, get to the same guy who helped me earlier. I could update my profile on their homepage on the phone, but then he had to work some magic on the computer before I could try again. During this time, he repeatedly told me not to check in online in advance. He didn’t understand what value it would add, that my name would be on the board anyway, at least if I were a member (even without any special status). I won’t be doing that when I pick up the car in San Francisco in a couple of weeks.
The second try went better, and I could exit the large garage. My first stop was Hard Rock Café in Fort Lauderdale. As in Tampa, the facility seemed huge. Luckily, the shop was quite easy to find, so I could get my magnet. Next stop was a Walmart to find biodegradable sunscreen and some new swim trunks. I found the first one, but swim gear was harder. I stopped at three different stores before I found a pair in JCPenney. I took the opportunity to get some chicken teriyaki for lunch in a food court close by.
Almost three hours after I picked up the car, I’m starting the longer journey towards Orlando. Queuing up a bunch of podcasts and just cruising. The car has a cruise control, but not the adaptive one, which I miss tremendously. During about half the trip, I had to adapt my speed to the vehicle in front of me, and an adaptive cruise control would have made that so much more comfortable. At one point, a truck stopped rather abruptly in front of me, and I managed to brake quickly enough. After a minute of him not moving again, I drove around him and realized that he had crashed into the back of a small car ahead of him. Looked like a pretty serious hit cause the trunk was smashed in. That incident made me more comfortable in keeping a good distance from the car in front at all times. Especially when I don’t have adaptive cruise control (which brakes faster than me if needed).
Other than that, the ride went smoothly. The sun came down during the trip, and I got some pretty beautiful views during sunset. I arrived at Disney’s All-Star Music Resort just before 18.
Check-in was quite speedy except that for apparently, the system had lost my address info, so I had to enter it. But the staffer (or cast member, as they are called) was really friendly and helped out. I expected to pay for parking, but he informed me that it was included, so that was a nice surprise. Got to my room, which looks very much like the one I had three years ago, dropped my bags, and then headed to the food court for some dinner. Had planned to sit there and do some admin, but it wasn’t as nice as I hoped, so I quickly ate my salmon and then headed back to the room.
Even though I don’t expect to spend especially much time at the resort, the area looks rather nice!
Pretty early to bed tonight again, since the parks open at 7:30 tomorrow, and I intend to be waiting at the gates at that time.