<center>Kissimmee</center>

Sunday, February 13
Sunny 70 degrees
Time was spent just getting settled in. Paul went to one of his favorite flea markets while I did laundry—preferable to going to a flea market.

I walked around and took pictures of the inside of our unit, the outside (each unit recently painted a different exterior color), and the new pool that is on the site of the very small pool that we liked. This was to document what is being done with our special assessment of $1500 per unit. This is the first time in almost 20 years of owning here that there has been a special assessment. We like what we saw being done.

Monday, February 14
Sunny 70 degrees
We did go for a walk to the Surf Rider that was built as part of our special assessment. It is supposed to be a money maker to keep our maintenance fees low. I also took some photos of the ongoing construction. We’ll see what it looks like next year.

We discussed going to the Pioneer Museum in Kissimmee, but found out that the houses, etc. are only open Thursday through Sunday.

Tuesday, February 15
Sunny 78 degrees
Tuesday is the day that the weekly “Coffee with the GM” is held. This is a chance for owners to meet with the resort manager to be brought up-to-date and have questions answered. After the update, when the opportunity to ask questions came up no one had any questions. That is a first for all the years we have been attending these. We were given a tour of the new housekeeping and maintenance facilities that were part of the assessment. Their previous location was more a shack than a building.

After lunch, we went to El’s Orange World. We call it “The Big Orange” and bought some honey and marmalades for gifts.

We had talked about possibly going to Epcot Wednesday. It is so expensive we were not sure that it was worth the cost. I realized that there was no way I could do all that walking and would need to rent a scooter which would add even more to the cost. We decided not to go because we had been many times before, and there really was not much new that we could do.

Wednesday, February 16
Partly Cloudy 75 degrees
Slept in and played miniature golf in the afternoon.

We went to Celebration Town Tavern for dinner. They specialize in New England type seafood. The place is huge and was very busy. Service was way too fast. We had just gotten seated and had not had time to look at anything when we were asked if we would like to order a drink. We told the waitress that we had just been seated. When she did come back to take drink orders, we still had not been seated more than 5 minutes. She took our dinner order when she brought our drinks,.

We had not taken even a few sips of our drinks before our soup arrived. Food arrived way too fast, and we felt very pushed. The food was good, but we do not like being rushed, so probably will not go back. We had not been there before.

Thursday, February 17
Sunny/partly cloudy 80 degrees
After lunch, we went to the Pioneer Museum in Kissimmee. It is a composite if buildings that have been moved to that site. They show how people lived in this area of Florida in the mid to late 1800’s. We never knew the origin of the name “Florida Cracker.” It apparently comes from the whips the settlers used to round up rogue cattle that they were allowed to round up and brand. They used a whip to make a noise to startle the cattle out of the grasslands and wilds of Florida. Women and children helped with the round ups. The sound of the cracking whip resulted in the moniker “Florida Crackers”.

Friday, February 18
Partly Cloudy 78 degrees
Both of our keys stopped working this morning. I went to the office to get them reprogrammed. The door unit needed a new battery, and maintenance was there when I got back. On the way back from the office, I saw a huge grey bird crossing the street close to our unit. At first I thought that it was a blue heron. As I got closer, I could see that it was a pair of sand cranes. They are a protected species. By the time I grabbed my camera, they were right outside our unit. I took a lot of photos. They were undisturbed by having anyone close to them. The maintenance man said, “They know they are protected.” He went on to say that it was really fun to watch them when they were dancing. It sounds like this is pretty much where they hang out.

We spent about 1 1/2 hours at the pool. This was the first time that we used the new pool. It replaced the very small pool that we used to like. Right now it is the only heated pool open. There is another very small unheated pool. The main pool area is a construction zone. There will be an activities center, a swimming pool, and a lazy river when it is finished.

After our pool time, we got changed for dinner and headed to the Olive Garden about 5:15. We’ve found that the only way to get in there without a long wait is to go early. Once again we had barely touched the chairs before the waiter arrived asking for our drink orders. We told him we were not ready. He did allow us some time before he came back. I wanted a split of Asti. He insisted it was by the glass. I insisted that it was not. (The way it is shown on the menu is confusing). He said he’d ask the bartender. He came back with the split and 2 glasses. I told him the split was for me, and we only needed one glass for that because my husband was ordering something else. We ended up having a nice leisurely dinner, and were actually there for about 2 hours. When we left, there was the usual huge crowd waiting for tables.

Saturday, February 19
Sunny 81 degrees
After lunch, we headed for Fantasy of Flight in Polk City. Rather than taking I4, we took a less congested route. It took us through some pretty rural areas with quite a few cattle ranches and horse farms.

Sunday, February 20
Very Breezy, Partly Cloudy/Sunny 75 degrees
We were going to spend some pool time. Because of the breeze it was just too cool. We went to the Buena Vista Outlet Mall instead.

Monday, February 21
Breezy, Sunny Hot 80-86
In the afternoon we went to the 4:40 showing of The Kings Speech at the theater in Downtown Disney. We both thought it was one of the best movies we’ve seen in a long time. It was 6:45 when we got out of the movie. Even though it was a long movie, it didn’t seem long at all.

We had planned to go to The House of Blues for dinner since it is close to the theater and from past experience knew that the food is good. When we got there we were told to check in at the desk and they would let us know how long our wait would be. I heard them asked the guys in front of us for a credit card before they would even give them a pager. When they refused, they said well then an AAA card or some kind of ID. Our response to that was to leave. We talked about going to Capn’ Jacks on the other side of downtown Disney, but it was too far for me to walk. We thought about driving and trying to find a parking place, but decided that we just needed to get out of Downtown Disney. (We had forgotten that it was President’s Day). That turned out to be a good decision because the Market Place parking lot showed a full sign. We discussed going back to Smokey Bones or China. We both decided that we preferred Smokey Bones.

Just before we got to the Buena Vista Outlet, I remembered that there was a pretty nice looking Frankie Farrell’s Irish Pub that we had seen when leaving the outlet. We decided to give it a try.

We were seated as soon as we went in. We both had a good meal. I had a chicken curry with a choice of having it over rice or “chips.” I chose the "chips". Paul had chicken paremesan over a huge portion of linguine. We both had apple pie for dessert. While we were eating we heard quite a few people with British and/or Irish accents. We sat down around 7:30, and it just got busier and busier while we were there. We also found it interesting that the gratuity was included on your bill as they do in Europe. We would definitely go back.

Tuesday, February 22
Sunny 81 degrees
Spent relaxing with pool time. We were surprised at how uncrowded the pool was.

Wednesday, February 23
Sunny/Partly Cloudy 82 degrees
Another lazy day.

We’d planned to go to Bahama Breeze for dinner tonight, but I was just not feeling up to it. So we had a light dinner in.

We played Gin Rummy after dinner. Paul was soundly beaten. It is one of the few games I can win when playing with him.

Definitely some signs of old age creeping up today. I could have sworn that I bought some Pepto Bismal in Cocoa Beach, but could not find it anywhere. When I went to bed I opened a drawer and looked in a baggie for something else in the drawer—there it was. When I got in bed I forgot to turn on the fan. I got up to do that and lost my pen that I had been using. Since Paul usually has one in his pocket, and I didn’t want to go downstairs; I was going to use his. As soon as I got back into bed, I found my pen. We had a good laugh over that. I had to get up again because I still hadn’t turned on the fan. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" />

Thursday, February 24
Sunny/Very Cloudy 82 degrees
We did a few errands and shopping in the morning.

By then it was lunch time. We had decided since we did not go to dinner at Bahama Breeze yesterday, we would go there for lunch today. Apparently we did not communicate which one. I thought that we were going to the one on International Drive in Orlando. Paul thought we were going to the one on Vineland Road in Kissimmee. We ended up at the one on Vineland Road. It was not all that busy when we got there, but it was when we left. We opted to sit outside because it was such a beautiful day. We both had the Coconut Shrimp with yellow rice and broccoli. They call the dipping sauce a mustard sauce, but it has mango in it as well. Paul had a “Chocolate Island” for dessert. I opted once again for Key Lime Pie. I couldn’t finish it. The piece was huge. I brought about 1/2 of it back to the unit for tomorrow. Because that was our main meal we did what we call “lunch for dinner”.

Friday, February 25
Sunny/Partly Cloudy 81 degrees
Back to “The Big Orange” to buy a few things for ourselves and family. Pool time in the afternoon.

We had our usual last night dinner at the Columbia Restaurant in Celebration. The food was as good as always. The service was very poor. They were crazy busy. When we left, it looked like the line for the Olive Garden. In all the years we’ve been going there, we’ve never seen it that busy. I did e-mail the manager of Columbia in Celebration after we got home about the poor service and received a very nice response from him.

Tomorrow we are off to the Auto Train for the trip home.