Last December, Karen, her friend Paula and I went to Hawaii to celebrate Karen’s birthday. When we originally booked our flights, we paid for our flights to Maui and used Aeroplan miles to come home. But when I decided to go for an extra week, there were no reasonable priced flights that I could switch to and use up my money. So I decided to basically forfeit the flight. Really what that means is that you have one year from the date your purchased your ticket (May 6, 2014) to use up the money which in this case was $574 CAD (plus a $200CAD transfer fee that they didn’t tell me about when I cancelled the ticket … ARGH). I really did want to lose this money and so began the task of where do we go that I can use this money. We spent many hours researching and finally came up with Marco Island in Florida. I have never been to Marco Island and the last time that Karen was here was twenty five years ago.
We left this morning around 10:30am and made our way to Toronto. Maui is lucky enough to be staying with Uncle Ross and Aunt Susie for the week. He is going to have alot of fun with them. We had a quick visit with them and their daughter Liz before getting a ride to the airport from Ross.
As I said, we needed to book our flights with Air Canada but Karen was lucky enough to use her Aeroplan miles (16,250 miles + ? CAD in taxes). We got checked in pretty quickly and security was once again a breeze thanks to our NEXUS cards. It probably took us in total about twenty minutes to get through everything which left us over one and a half hours before boarding.
When Karen and I got our TD Aeroplan VISA cards, they each gave us a pass to the Maple Leaf Lounge. Unfortunately the passes expired on February 28, 2015 but we thought we would try and give it a shot. When we got up to the counter, the agent noticed the expiry date and denied us entry. So we made our way back downstairs to sit and wait for the rest of the people. We needed to have some lunch so we found a restaurant that has iPads at every seat. What a great concept. You use the iPads to place your order and then you can surf away using the free WiFi or play any of the numerious games.
Our flight left on time at 3:00pm and three very quick hours later, we arrived in Fort Lauderale to a beautiful sunny 82°F. While waiitng for the rental car centre shuttle bus, we noticed some people we knew from work. How weird was that. Since there were so many people on the shuttle bus, we came up with a plan that I would run over to Hertz to get in line and Karen would take care of getting the suitcases. We booked a standard size car (Chevy Impala) for $184USD plus taxes.
To get to Marco Island from Fort Lauderdale, you have to take the I-75. What we learned is that there is nothing on that highway in terms of amenties. We were lucky to find the only gas station which had a very large convenience store. We picked up some chicken strips, drinks, chips and nuts and got back on the highway.
We arrived at our rental house ($1300 USD) around 9:00pm and were warmly greeted by Dave who is Karen’s nephew, his lovely wife Cathy and their two adorable boys Michael and Liam along with some margaritas. When Karen and I booked the rental house, Karen sent out an interest finder to her family to see if anyone wanted to join us since this place has four bedroom, three bathrooms and it’s own private enclosed pool. Dave and Cathy said they would love to join us. After getting lots of hugs, the boys took us on a tour of the house. The pictures do not do the place justice. This place is so huge you can very easily get lost.
The rest of the night was spent hanging out, swimming in the pool and watching movies. What a great way to start a vacation.
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