This is a diary account for our honeymoon in Floriday, USA in 2002. As with the other's, this diary can be quite long to read, we were there for about 2 weeks or more so be warned. There are pictures etc. are still to come so please bear with me.

Day One & Day Two
September 24th and September 25th
We drove up to Manchester Airport on the 23rd, and stayed in the Raddison SAS overnight, thanks to a good suggestion from Nigel's brother, Ian. It made sure we were at the airport in good time with little stress.
The flight left Manchester at 10:25 and it was an 8 hour flight, which made me ill towards the end due to the air turbulance, probably caused as we flew close to a storm called Kyle, which wouldn't surprise me.
We went through US Customs (Thanks to Nigel part filling in my visa, I was too busy being ill!) and got our baggage, then it was sent through another area we had to walk through to. Collecting the car was good, trying to drive on the other side of the road in a car where the steering wheel is just on the wrong side, was rather strange, but do-able, mainly thanks to the automatics. We found the hotel, checked in and had to switch suites due to some problem with the door, but it was a nice quite all the same (Though, to start with, the fridge didn't work and a bulb was missing from the lamp, but both were fixed while we went and got some food and explored a little, as we'd let them know.)
We explored some of the local restaurants, picked one to eat at: Tony Roma's. Nigel had steak and I had ribs and it was so very tasty, we decided we'd end the holiday at the same restaurant

That night, we slept for about 11 hours, and we got up at around 7:30 local time (Nigel did wake up for about an hour, but went back to sleep for another 5 hours or so), washed, dressed and went to meet the Virgin reps at the AMC studios. We booked a shopping day,the Arabian Nights evening and then breakfast called, so we had bagals and drove to SeaWorld (Not getting lost, how cool did that feel!) and spent the day at Sea World photographing dolphins, penguins, feeding rays riding log flumes, having our cariacatures drawn (They look good!) and just chilling out.
We have a 21 day pass, just as well as SeaWorld is much bigger than it looksa and we didn't do it all in the 6 hours were in there!
We came back to the hotel room (didn't get lost again, nice) to write up the diary and decide on what to do next. We decided to eat at Romano's Maccaroni Grill, across the road from Tony's, and that was also very nice!
We went to a bargain place before duner and Nigel bought some sun-glasses, Revo's and they're not the style he usually wears, but they're comfortable he says, so that's got to be good.

Day Three
September 26th
Nigel didn't sleep very wel today, so we decided on to try and take it easy. After breakfast at the Sizzler (All you can eat buffet breakfast!) we enquired at the hotel reception desk about MGM tickets, a few evening do's etc. so we booked 4 days at some of the Disney Parks, a Medieval Night and then drove to see some timeshares reps about the possibility of owning a timeshare, but we've decided it's not for us at the moment.

From there, we came back and stopped into the demin outlet just off the Drive, and I bought a new pair of jeans that are size smaller than I would in the UK! (How happy am I?)
We returned to our hotel room, I changed (It's just too hot for jeans) then we went to play Crazy Golf , where Nigel beat me by 3 strokes, 55 to 58, though I had added it up wrong to start with and I thought I'd won by 4 strokes. Nigel soon put me right! We then had a mooch around, got some cords for Nigel's Revo's, then we returned again to the hotel suite, to shower and change. We're off to the Medieval Night soon, so read on!!

What a fantastic night!! Both Nigel and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! Our Knight won the tournament and defeated the Evil Black Knight!
Time for bed now, night night!

Day Four
September 27th
A shopping trip day - bargain hunting! And we found quite a few bargains and I have to admit, I bought quite a lot of things, a leather jacket, some sweaters, a few other things and we got sun-burnt doing it, but it was nice not to have to drive at all!
We finished the evening off, sat on the balcony and we went through what we bought, and I replaced the two pairs of trainers out cat decided to use as a sick bucket!

Day Five
September 28th
For some reason I had a bad nights sleep, and I woke with a sore neck. Nigel suggested that we go to MGM studios today, which is quite a good thought. Update you later!

Today we rode on some of the rides at MGM. Thank you to my darling brother-in-law Ian for suggesting the Twilight Zone - Thanks! (Not!) some cool movie clips and some other things to do with movies, some gentler rides and a cool display of live dance, song and acting with the Hutchback of Notre Dame (The last but one performance after a 6 year run) and the Fantastic Light Show at the end.
We drove back to our Hotel and found a Taco Bell so that NIgel could eat, but I'd had enough with the hot-dogs, popcorn and countless bottles of water.

Day Six
September 29th
It's Sunday, so I awoke late and we went to Sea World, saw some shows. We skipped breakfast and late lunch right underwater with the sharkes and fishes! It would have been excellent, if it were not so cold in there though! (I could hang coat-hangers from myself it was that cold) Anyway, we saw the Shamu Show, got soaked in salt water from head to foot, took some photo's of Shamu's family but I couldn't get the 2ndfilm to load, even though I managed to get the first to load and sussed it after the show ended - d'oh!
We saw the dolphin show, the Sea-Lion show, fed some dolphins and we tried our hands at winning prizes. Nigel won a small teddy bear, temporarily called Florida, and a purple droopy dog called Sheraton that we'll keep.
We came back to the hotel, showered and went to Chilies, but after the starter, I couldn't eat anymore, however, the waiter was very nice and reduced the bill by the amount of my main course! Nigel enjoyed his tuna-bake (eugh!) and the 2 for 1 beer - oh boy!

Day Seven
September 30th
It's Monday and we decided last night to head to Busch Gardens, so we got up this morning, packed the cameras and we drove to Tampa, Florida.
Busch Gardens is strange, it's not like a zoo or a theme park, but the two ideas combined with the ideas of protecting wild-life.
We ate in the Country House, a local group asked us to take their photo, so I did, then we went around the Africa part of the park, the lions and the elephants were not around, no idea why though. We saw a family of hippo's, I got some photos, then we found other rides (Mainly water ones) such as the Tidal Wave, the Congo Rapids, The Falls and back to the Tidal Wave again, where we got soaked from head to foot, underwear and all!
On the return drive, I somehow hit a right hand turn and took an "Exit Only" scenic route home, which delayed us by about 20-30 minutes, but we managed to get back onto I4 and back to Orlando.
We showered, changed and headed to Joe's crab-shack for dinner. It's the first time I've had snow crabs and they were good!
Oh, since I'd taken a wrong turn earlier on, I've realised writing this, that fuel prices in the USA are vastly cheaper per GALLON than in the UK (Okay, so the UK gallon is bigger_. I paid just under $10 for 3/4 of a tank that in the UK I would have paid £25 or $39 for. Enough said!
Anyway, dolphins call tomorrow, see you!

Day Eight
October 1st
We got up and went to post the post-cards, leaving the car keys in the hotel gift-shop, causing me to have a blank on where I had them last. Found them of course, so we made our way to Discovery Cove to swim with the dolphins!
We arrived, parked up and got booked in, then after a quick coffee, we were shows around the complex, as well as being given the time of our dolphin swim, 11:10am. Nigel decided on wearing a 3/4 length wet suite, while I went for a wet jacket to more or less, match my blue bikini!

We decided to get used to the water after we changed and secured our possessions. While we were swimming (Or trying to remember how to!) Nigel cracked his big toe against some rocks! He tells me it was 20 years or more since he last swam and when he couldn't breath with the snorkel (He got water in it) he paniked, so off to the first aid place he went, and I carried on trying to work out the snorkel and mask. I'm not sure how long he was away for, but I went looking anyway and found him just leaving the first aid building with a bright green strapping on his toe, poor baby!! He however, was treated to a pair of swimming shoes (Compliments of the Cove) and we were sent on our way :)

Oh our way back to the pool where the accident happened, we found a training pool, so hind-sight IS 20-20 after all, silly us! After half an hour or so, we'd figured out the snorkels so we went to our meeting place to prepare for our dolphin swim.
We were given a short but informative video on dolphins and our trainer (I think his name was Brandon) had a hard time cracking jokes with us... must be our British humour! *mischievious grin*

We were then divided into groups and our group was led down to where the dolphins were by Nichole, who was very nice. There we met another nice lady (Whose name neither of us can remember!) and we met 3 fantastic dolpins! The one that both Nigel and I are photgraphed with along of is CJ, who stepped in when Capricorn and Yoko decided not to join in our fun, for their own reasons.
Capricorn is between 28 and 30 years old, around 600 lbs and about 10 feet long and he's an old show horse (Figuritacely speaking) and just loves all the attentio he gets, well, he used to be a super-star, so....
Yoko is about seven feet, 350 lbs and is around seven years old. Her hormones were playing up, due to her being in "season" so she was more interested in CJ than seeking attention from our group!

I don't know a lot about CJ, our unnamed trainer had never spent anytime with CJ, but he did everything that he was asked to do and rewarded with lots of fish - lucky dolphin!
We got to perform some tricks with Capricorn, kiss him, shake hands with him and I was asked to "shoot" the dolphins! Well, if you call shooting them with my hands in the shape of a gun... they were stars, truely magnificent animals and worth every cent, dime pence and pound paid to meet them.

After we met the dolphins, we decided to get some food, breakfast being nothing more than the welcome coffee for me, so we ate a hearty lunch, then went to pay for and collect our photos of the dolphin swim that we selected after the swim itself.
Then we went around the tropical river, a fresh water, warm, man-made thing in the middle of which, was an avery, where we got to feed the birds in all 3 averies (We got some photos) then snorkeled out some more, by which time, we were tired.

We decided to sun-bathe a little to dry out and relax, so we did and then we went and showered. On the way to the showers, Nigel had a problem undoing his wet-suite and I ended up breaking it trying to undo a trapped zip... Whoops!!
So we showered, retrieved our alomost forgtten photo, then handed in the broken wet-suite to be told that was okay, it happens a fair bit! Did I mention that Nigel first put it on, inside out? No? Well, now I have!
We are across the road from the Hotel, at the Olive Garden, a nice, Italian restaurant and now I am tired, worn out, sun-burnt in lots of places so I'm off to bed. Night!