Florida ~ Our Vacation House

Now that the summer travel season is underway, I thought I’d share with y’all the vacation we took back in April.  Now, we normally head south earlier in the year, when the winter winds have chilled our bones, but this year, there were no winter winds, and when we planned this trip, Bro was planning to come along with his kids, so we planned around their school schedules and birthdays and such.  Unfortunately, Bro was not able to take time away from work during our scheduled vacation.   I had my heart set on visiting EPCOT during their Flower and Garden Festival, so changing our dates just wasn’t going to work.  We’re hoping Bro and the boys will join us next time. 

When we still thought there would be a herd of us on this trip, we decided to rent a fancy vacation house instead of several motel rooms.  The house came out cheaper than four motel rooms, we would have been more accessible to the kids, and we figured having a kitchen would boost the budget, too.  Plus, the house I found was just plain cool.   I mean, check this out:

This was our room.  We had doors that lead onto the lanai.

We had four bedrooms and four bathrooms.

And awesome video games....

in the fancy home theatre!

We even had a private pool & spa ~

In case anyone is wondering, we rented this house through All Star Vacation Homes in Kissimmee.  I would definitely recommend them.

The deal on the house included our choice of $150 rebate or a free weekly car rental.  We chose the car, since there was no way we could rent what we needed for $150.  A couple days before we left for Florida, it occurred to me that when you rent a car, your credit card supplies the insurance on it.  Since we weren’t charging this car to a credit card, I needed to make sure it was insured.  It was not. The folks at All Star explained that if we have full coverage on our personal vehicles, that coverage should extend to this rental.  I have full coverage, but Walker does not, as his van is twelve years old.  So we had a couple choices:  either I could do all the driving, or we could pay for a supplemental insurance policy with the car rental place.  Neither the staff at All Star nor the customer service rep for the car rental place could quote a price for an insurance policy, so we ended up cancelling the car through All Star and taking the $150 instead.   

Our flights to Florida were uneventful.  We arrived to sunny skies, warm breezes, and the scent of blooming flowers.  It was heaven.  We picked up a minivan from National Car Rental – LOVE those folks! – and headed out of the airport.  

The All Star rental office is located in a nice little strip mall directly across the highway from the motel we usually stay at.  We knew from our many trips down there that the same strip mall housed a grocery store.  So I went to sign the lease while Walker picked up some groceries and my mom napped in the backseat  guarded the van. 

The fabulous vacation house provided a gas grill on the lanai, so Walker took care of cooking dinner while my mom and I soaked in the gloriously warm private pool.  It’s worth mentioning, this pool had steps but no railing.  I helped my mom in, but she’s a feisty bird and did not like being dependent on me.  After that first night, she dragged a patio chair to the steps and leaned on that to get in and out of the pool.