Spending Spree!

 

Luke and Ali slept for 12 hours last night and weren't too disappointed about missing out on the fireworks.  When I phoned to get our car at 8:20, I was told that the pickup was hourly on the hour, so I woke the kids up and we had 35 mins to eat breakfast, shower, pack and get to the front desk.  They were up in a flash and ready on time and then we said goodbye to Disney World.  I had a very heavy heart - what an amazing place.  I'm sure I'll never come back again but it is etched in my fondest memories forever.

 

We picked up our car and I had some last minute doubts wondering if we were doing things in the most efficient, economical and safe way.  We got in the car and I asked Luke to remind me to drive on the right as much as possible.  When I have to drive on the right, I'm alwasy concerned about what my reflexes will do in times of an emergency.  Argh... anyway - the car driving was all fine and I think that hiring a car was a good idea in the end.  We had all our luggage and the flexibility to go wherever we wanted.

 

Luke loves these fire hydrants.... just like in the movies...

 

 

So we went shopping.  It was FANTASTIC!!!  I wish that we had such a selection in SA.  When I go shopping in SA, I just get in a bad mood.  I can never find anything I like, I find the sales assistant unfriendly, nothing ever fits properly and they often don't have my size.  Well, today, everything was superb and Flops, you'll be very happy to know that I bought a LOT of stuff.  Allan Gray will not recognise me - I think I have enough tops to wear a different one every day for a month!  Here's me with all my loot (I even bought 2 dresses... and 5 pairs of shoes!).

I had researched the best place to go beforehand and we went to a factory outlet place - similar to Access Park I guess.  And the best part was that ALL the stores had a spring sale on.  Oh my goodness.  We started out at Gap where they had up to 75% off but most of the stuff was discounted 40%- 50%.  I love Gap but I had to hold myself back a tad because I wanted to get away from my usual tom-boy attire and buy some more feminine clothes and Gap's not exactly the most feminine of shops.  It was so great - I went into the change room with about 20 things to try on and I didn't have to only take in a max of 5 items and get a tag etc.  While I was trying stuff on, a sales assistant knocked on my door to ask if the sizes were OK and off she went to get me some other sizes!  What a pleasure. 

Then we went to Loft which was also fabulous and I bought TWO dresses!  As I was walking around the store picking things out to try on, a sales assistant came and took the things away from me to put in the dressing room.  When I got to the dressing room, my name was on the door and all the clothes I had picked up were hanging up ready to be fitted.  It was bliss.

Then we went to Dress Barn and the clothes there was so pretty - I think I bought 5 things in one shop.  Then shoes and sunglasses and the obligatory ice cream of course.

After the factory outlet, we went to another shopping mall where I wanted to go to Ann Taylor (my favourite US shop from previous visits).  The clothes looked great, but didn't fit very well, so I (only) bought 3 things. 

For those of you that don't know me all that well, you may wonder why I'm going on about this so much.  But for those of you that do know me, will know that I haven't bought clothes in over a year because I just hate shopping.  But today was great.

May I just take this opportunity to thank my London tenants for their contribution to this US trip.

And what were Luke and Ali doing all this time you may ask...  Today was MY day and they knew it!  They were so good and just followed me along with a huge amount of patience.  The bought a couple of things for themselves.  Luke bought a pair of sunglasses which had the effect of changing his walk.  Ali bought a pair of very pretty shoes.  And we all bought something from Gap:

Finally, we stopped off at Pubic... er I mean Publix, the supermarket to purchase some supplies:

This trolley can be found in the Guinness Book of Records for the most healthy trolley ever purchase on US soil.  What you don't see (behind the scenes), is that there were also som Haribos, M&Ms and Skittles added later on.  Luke and Ali have been craving fruit and it hasn't been easy to get in Disney so now we have a supply to last us until we leave.  And loads of water!

We arrived at the new hotel at about 7pm and I was a bit ratty - the driving had rattled me a bit.  I was very happy to take the car to the drop off point in one piece.  Driving on the right with such precious human cargo is stressful!  The new hotel is not nearly as nice as Disney and we are all in one small room with Luke and Ali needing to share a double bed.  But it's adequate and has 3 swimming pools and the location is very convenient for everything that we want to do from here.

Wake up call tomorrow at 7am (Ali was intrigued that I can phone the reception and ask for a wake-up call).  Getting them call us is probably more reliable than me setting the radio alarm and we don't want to oversleep tomorrow - it's the day for the Kennedy Space Centre!