Friday, March 8

We’re almost back to Disney, I promise! But first, CP had a couple of things to knock off her bucket list: seeing her beloved Red Sox in spring training, and dipping her toes in the crystal blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. On this Friday, we handily accomplished both.

The morning can be pretty handily summarized thusly: sleep in. Drink lots of coffee. Get CP some flip flops, after she inexplicably packed for a Florida trip without them. Pile into the grandparents’ minivan, and head south toward Ft. Myers.

Originally, we thought CP’s Gulf of Mexico exposure might best be found through a visit to Sanibel Island. On a visit to Florida for work a month earlier, however, I had dropped in on my grandparents for a day, and we did a Sanibel trip. Now, I live in New England, and grew up near Detroit – traffic isn’t something that really bothers me. Sanibel Island traffic, however, is a whole other beast. After waiting (literally) an hour and a half to cross the bridge from Sanibel back to the mainland, my grandparents and I decided CP could get a Gulf fix without having to endure that kind of traffic. Our plan was to visit my grandparents’ friends on Fort Myers Beach, so after a quick lunch we followed the van’s GPS…..

…right into a major traffic jam.

So, an hour and a half later (sigh), we finally pulled up to my grandparents’ friends’ rented condo. I can’t speak for any of my travelling companions, but after entering the condo my cares eased up considerably. Although the furnishings were a bit dated, the condo offered remarkable beachfront views and gentle breezes, and the afternoon drinking didn’t hurt, either. Soon, it was time to give CP a taste of the beach.

It wasn’t a particularly warm day, but coming from New England the sunshine and gentle waves were just what we needed.  We could have stayed out there for hours, but the Red Sox beckoned, as did our appetites. Before leaving Fort Myers Beach, the eight of us stopped for dinner at a little local restaurant in a strip mall, where the food wasn’t amazing but you don’t quite care.

The drive back to Fort Myers proper was much faster than the drive to Fort Myers Beach, but even still, we were running a bit behind. We arrived to the game by the second inning, and took our seats for what would turn out to be a moderately exciting, and definitely chilly evening at the ballpark.

I think we had a good time, CP especially so. If you’re ever in Fort Myers during the spring, you’d behoove yourself to catch a game at jetBlue park – it’s brand new, and feels almost like catching a game at Fenway. It was a lot of fun.

Back to the grandparents’ rented house, showers, sleep, and packing. Because….

Saturday, March 9

Back to Disney! (See, I promised.)

After a lazy morning, CP and I headed back onto I-75 for the 2.5 hour drive to Orlando around 1pm.  All was well until we hit I-4, and then stopped in a gigantic traffic jam. Our genius GPS rerouted us off the highway, and stupidly right into an equally heinous back roads traffic jam. The cause? The local strawberry festival.  I was hungry, angry (hangry?), and ready to get back to Disney, so I wasn’t pleased.

Eventually, we made our way back to the highway and out of the traffic. We were on Disney property and pulling up to Coronado Springs by 4pm, so the day certainly wasn’t lost. Check-in was painless, and although my request for Ranchos wasn’t honored, we ended up in Casitas 5, in a top floor room that turned out to be pretty great.

After settling in and doing some unpacking, we realized we were pretty hungry, and so we set out to the main building to scope out our options. Coronado’s grounds are really beautiful, and we enjoyed our relatively short walk:

Not feeling in the mood for anything particularly fancy, we decided to grab a burrito at the Pepper Market. I have to say, it was pretty good for quick service, and nice that you can get it made to order. All was well until we decided to cap off our meal with churros. The churros, while also good, gilded the lily perhaps a bit too much, and by the time we returned to our room, there was some belching, not gonna lie.

Anyway!

This was feeling a bit too similar to the now infamous corn dog nugget incident of the previous month, and neither of us was feeling all that great. What can I say – we’re delicate flowers. After sleeping poorly at my grandparents’ rental (I think the mattresses there were purchased at Sam’s Club and were AWFUL) and now feeling a little churropated, we elected to have a more restful evening of pin trading and resort hopping. On the docket? Disney’s new(ish) Art of Animation Resort.

You can go ahead and call us snobs, but this tour of Art of Animation did nothing to make either one of us want to stay at a Value resort. It was nice, though.

The walking was definitely helping with our churropation, so we decided to keep on walking past Art of Animation and over to Pop Century, another resort neither of us had ever seen. I liked Pop far less than AofA, but there were some nice sunset pictures to be had.

By the time we walked back across the lake to Art of Animation and to the car, both of us were feeling better and a bit more awake.  The pull of a park was just too great, so we decided to cap off our evening with a quick stroll through Epcot.  Nothing exciting or strenuous, but it’s always nice to pass through the Epcot turnstiles and soak up a little of the “ambiance.” (I have serious problems with the Epcot of today, but the nostalgia keeps pulling me back.)

Well, that was enough Epcot. It was home to Coronado to sleep off the churros.

Up next: Margaritas, flowers, more flowers, and the best drink ever served in a bromeliad.