This trip has had a number of changes before we even set off, all thanks to the airlines moving and cancelling flights.
Firstly, Virgin cancelled all our flights home from Tampa and moved us all onto the flight the following day. Karen and I just shrugged our shoulders and said, “Another day in Florida. What a shame!”
Neil, however, was more upset, as he wanted to be home on the Saturday so he had a day to recover before work on the Monday. He also had commitments for korfball and football.
So, after much research, he cancelled his revised flight home and rebooked to fly on the original day from Orlando with Norse. He was already grumpy with Virgin, as they had moved his outbound flight back four times, meaning he would arrive several hours later than planned.
Then Norse cancelled their flight with him on it.
He got a full refund and rebooked again, this time back with Virgin from Orlando.
He just smiled and said, “Never mind…”. As if.
Our outbound flight had been moved forward, meaning we would have needed a 4am departure from home. We therefore decided to travel down late on Wednesday and splash out £39 on a Travelodge room at Heston M4 Eastbound.
We did a few jobs and some last-minute sorting on the day before we left, but it felt like a nothing day. Karen cooked some chicken for tea before we left home just before 6.30pm. It was chucking it down, which made loading up the car no fun at all. We probably should have left it another 30 minutes before setting off, as the traffic just getting to the A11 was heavier than usual.
Once we got going, it was fine and we made good time to the Travelodge. Cheap and cheerful, with free parking, and we were only going to be in the room for ten hours.
Just before 7am, we were loading the car again for what looked like a short and easy drive to pick Sunny up for our usual parking arrangement. Indeed, when I woke up and checked my phone, it said the journey would take 17 minutes.
By the time we started moving, the London daily commute had begun. The journey was now estimated at 43 minutes, with heavy traffic.
Note to self: if we do this again, book the Travelodge Heston M4 Westbound, as that would have saved us 20 minutes.
Sunny, by name and by nature, was cheerfully waiting for us, and I drove under his guidance to the Virgin Upper Class Terminal, where there were actually other people checking in as well.
That meant a five-minute wait to get through security.
Do they not know who we are?
We hurried to the lounge and ordered some champagne while we made our choices for breakfast. Then we may have ordered more champagne to wash down the breakfast before having more champagne with some hot drinks.
The time passed quickly and we were soon walking what seemed like miles to the furthest gate, where we boarded. More bubbles followed as we settled into our seats.
The plane pulled away from the gate early but then spent 40 minutes taxiing all over London. I can confirm that we stopped next to the old Concorde for a couple of minutes, but given the distance we travelled, I was expecting to see Buckingham Palace at any moment.
The service on the flight was excellent, as was the food. In fact, I would almost go so far as to say that the food was possibly the best I have had on an airline. The ginger-infused prawns, followed by the truffle-stuffed chicken and dessert, were of good restaurant quality.
I watched the film Pressure, which was good, even if not entirely historically accurate. Then, thanks to Elon Musk’s Starlink, I got my phone and MacBook connected to the internet, and it worked fine at a reasonable speed.
Whatever you may think about Elon, he is a very clever man.
It did, however, seem strange hearing phones ringing, as things like WhatsApp calls were permitted. I wrote yesterday’s blog and exchanged some messages and emails simply because I could.
Karen and I then went to sit in the lounge breakout area, just for a change of scenery. We were soon joined by an interesting older British chap who clearly moved in different financial circles from us.
He was taking his young children — presumably from a second marriage — to their house on South Beach for a while. His children were very upset that they were not travelling in Upper Class with their parents and instead had to slum it in Premium.
He said the return flights for the four of them, as originally booked, had cost £10,000. Because Upper Class was full, he had been quoted £36,000 for all four of them to travel in Upper Class instead. Presumably, that was to offset the cost of offloading people like us!
He said they didn’t mind paying up to £30,000, but anything over that, he thought, was just getting silly.
I had absolutely nothing to say to that, while thinking that £10,000 alone would pay for several of our big trips.
He seemed to own businesses in Miami and the UK.
Back in our seats, I watched Project Hail Mary. This is not my normal type of film. It was possibly 45 minutes too long, but it was a good plane film with an interesting premise.
I had afternoon tea while watching the end, and that was surprisingly good too.
We arrived at Miami Airport, possibly at the gate furthest from Immigration. Global Entry worked well and, within two minutes, we were on our way to baggage reclaim, unlike those stuck in what looked like a horrendous queue for normal entry.
Our bags had priority and were soon off, so we set off on a trek to the other side of the airport to catch the shuttle train to the Rental Car Centre.
There was no queue at the Dollar counters, but it still took 15 minutes before they had sorted out the paperwork.
After finding our car, a black Sportage, we spent some time sorting out Apple CarPlay and various other things before setting off on the 71-mile drive down the Keys to the apartment at Tavernier.
The first 25 miles were horrendous, with traffic crawling along and seemingly no end to the number of cars leaving and joining the Florida Turnpike.
Then it all seemed to evaporate as we reached the top of the Keys and joined US1. We followed the familiar blue concrete line dividing the carriageways as the sea got closer on either side.
We made a quick stop at an Aldi to get some milk about ten minutes before reaching our destination, Ocean Pointe.
Our apartment was on the second floor of Block 2. We made our way inside, and I peered into the bedroom as we walked down the hall.
My heart sank.
The bed was unmade.
I could not believe that, once again, we had arrived somewhere that obviously had not been cleaned.
Karen took it very calmly and apparently made it clear that, in no way, was it my fault at all.
Of course, she asked whether I had checked before leaving home that the cleaners had been in and, surely, there was no way I could possibly have booked the wrong dates?
I had booked the right dates and, the day before we left, had received messages from the owners telling us how to access the apartment. Funnily enough, though, I hadn’t been given any contact details for the cleaner.
So I let all that wisdom from Captain Hindsight pass me by.
I tried to call the owners immediately, but went straight to voicemail.
My next thought was the VRBO helpline, through whom we had booked. They were sympathetic but said that, if we wanted to find somewhere else for the night, they would hopefully try to compensate us.
I explained that it was already 8pm, we had been up for almost 20 hours and had absolutely no idea where we could even try.
We decided to strip the bed and wash the bedlinen ourselves.
Then the owner called me and apologised. He said this had never happened before, but he was six hours away and could not fix the problem himself. He was getting no response from his housekeeper.
He said he owned another, bigger apartment on the same complex and suggested we could use that instead. However, he feared it might not have been cleaned either, as it should have been done at the same time.
I agreed to go and check.
It was in an even worse state than the first one.
When I got back and told him, he said that, in the meantime, he had fired the housekeeper. That may have been a little harsh, but I could see his point.
Karen then asked why there wasn’t any spare bedlinen, at least, so that we could actually go to bed.
He suddenly remembered that there was a secret key hidden somewhere which would unlock a locked cupboard that should contain some. After an escape-room-type search, we found it. But would it open the cupboard?
It did.
The linen we found wasn’t the newest, but at least it was clean.
So we made the bed, found some clean pool towels in the cupboard and finally went to bed, exhausted by the travelling and the drama.
Tomorrow will be another day. And no doubt, once I had recovered, we could have another discussion about why I hadn’t checked that the apartment had been cleaned before we left home.
