By 2002 we had gone to Florida as a family three times. This page is a plan of our May 1997 trip. We bought a vacation package with Vacation Ventures in return for listening to a 90 minute (actually it took about three hours) sales pitch for time-share vacation ownership townhouses. We returned to Florida by car in March of 2000, and then we flew down for a short trip to just Orlando and Tampa Bay in February of 2001.

May 14th (WEDNESDAY)

Leave home at 7:00 am.

Stop for breakfast in Sikeston around 10:30 am.

2:30 pm. Lunch in Memphis. We went to Mud Island.

5:30-7:00 pm. Stay in cabin or camp at Lake Lowndes State Park near Columbus, Mississippi. Or camp at Houston Recreation Area in the Bankhead National Forest (in Alabama, near Natural Bridge), or at the Davis Lake Recreation Area in the Tombigbee National Forest (in Mississippi, near Tupelo). We stayed at Lake Lowndes. This was Sebastian's first camping trip.

May 15th (Thursday

Morning. If in Mississippi, drive to Tuskaloosa in the late morning. Hike or swim in the early morning. If in Alabama, see shrine and grotto in Cullman, then drive through Birmingham on the way to Montgomery.

1:00 pm. Stop for lunch and tour the capitol in Montgomery, AL.

3:45 pm. leave Montgomery

8:00 pm. (have crossed into Eastern Time zone) camp at Silver Lake Recreation Area in the Apalachicola National Forest or stay at the Apalachicola hotel in Tallahassee. We stayed at the hotel, which was dismal.

May 16th

9:00 am. See state capitol in Tallahasse.

10:00 am. Leave Tallahasse going south toward Orlando.

1:00 pm. Lunch in Cross City and rest for an hour.

2:00 pm. Leave Cross City

4:30 pm. Arive in Orlando. Check into hotel.

May 17th (Saturday)

8:00 am. Day at Epcot Center

3:00 pm. leave Epcot for a break.

4:00 pm. check into Comfort Suites Hotel, Kissimmee.

5:00 pm. Return to Epcot for evening there.

9:00 pm. Back to hotel.

May 18th (Sunday)

9:00 am. Relax at Comfort Suites in morning

11:00 am. Vacation Break Resort Tour.

3:30 pm. Gatorland and/or Toy Train Museum in afternoon.

May 19th (Monday)

7:00 am. Day at Disney's Magic Kingdom

1:00 pm. to Comfort Suites Hotel rest for a couple hours.

3:30 pm. Return to Disney for evening.

9:00 pm. Back to Comfort Suites for sleep.

May 20th (Tuesday)

10:00 am. Leave Kissimmee.

12:00 noon. Lunch in Sebastian, on the Atlantic Coast

1:00 pm. Leave Sebastian

3:30 pm. See Flamingo Gardens near Fort Lauderdale (we skipped this. The weather was beastly)

5:00 pm. continue to Fort Lauderdale

5:30 pm. Night in Westin Cyprus Creek in Fort Lauderdale. Dinner at Cypress Room in our hotel.

May 21st

5:45 am. Leave Westin and go to Discovery Cruises dock

Cruise to Bahamas (actually, we the boat was a ferry, not a cruise ship)

Night in Freeport, Bahamas at Royal Islander Hotel (Vacation Ventures put us up in the Princess in Freeport. If ever I were returning to Grand Bahama I would stay elsewhere.

May 22nd

See the sights on Grand Bahama. This might include Garden of the Groves. If Rand Memorial Nature Centre allows small children, that also would be a good place to visit. The submarine tour, a glass-bottom boat tour, a visit to the Underwater Explorers Society, and a visit to the Dolphin Experience are also good possibilities. Our hotel has a free shuttle to Xanadu Beach.
What we actually did was take a tour of the Lucayan National Park. That was worth visiting, but I would prefer to have rented scooters or a car to visit that Park. I also went snorkeling near Xanadu Beach. The snorking was from a boat, rather than from the beach. The reef was good, but not spectacular.

Night in Freeport at Royal Islander

May 23rd.

Return to Fort Lauderdale on an afternoon Discovery cruise with dinner included.

Night at Westin in Fort Lauderdale

May 24th

Day to enjoy Fort Lauderdale beaches or attractions. Lunch at Shirttail Charlie’s Restaurant and Dinner at Rainbow Palace. The Rainbow Palace was good, but overpriced.
Instead of spending the day in Fort Lauderdale we drove way down south to Homestead. We saw the Miami Zoo (which is vast), Coral Castle (worth a visit), and the Fruit museum (only for people who are interested in fruit, as we are).

Another night at Westin in Fort Lauderdale.

May 25th.

10:00 am. Leave Fort Lauderdale.

1:00 pm. Stop at Cypress Gardens for a few hours. Four hours wasn't enough. Six hours would have been better.

5:00 pm. Continue from Cypress Gardens

7:00 pm. Arrive in Kissimee, Florida. Stay at Days Inn Maingate West. Ever since this trip we have always returned to stay at the Maingate West. It's a great bargain.

May26th

7:00 am An early start at Sea World. This is Memorial Day, so it’s possible we’ll face big crowds. An alternative is to visit Splendid China or other less crowded attractions and see a major park Tuesday the 27th, but this would mean a two hour drive to Lake City in the night after a day at a major park. We went to Splendid China instead of Sea World. Also, we had free tickets for one of the water parks, so we had a few hours of fun in the waterpark.

1:00 pm. Back to Days Inn Maingate West for a nap and rest for a couple hours.

3:30 pm. Back to Magic Kingdom or Sea World for the rest of the evening. We had dinner at Splendid China, and the food was surprisingly good, despite appearances. The show was excellent, and we enjoyed it again three years later when we returned.

9:30 Back to Days Inn Maingate West for our second night there.

May 27th (Tuesday)

10:00 am. Visit Splendid China in the morning. Instead of Splendid China (which we had seen the previous day) we went to Gainesville and saw the natural history museum at the University there. It was a fine little museum, and we were glad to stop there.

3:00 pm. Leave Orlando and drive north to Lake City, FL. Stay there at the Driftwood Motel. Or if the weather is good, camp in Osceola National Forest at the Ocean Pond Recreation Area.
The weather was terrible, so we drove all the way up to Macon, GA instead.

May 28th

9:30 am. Leave Lake City, FL

1:00 pm. Arrive in Atlanta to tour the Coca Cola plant and see the Georgia capitol building.
We managed to see the mounds in Macon, then we took a tour of one of the historic homes, and then we got up to Stone Mountain (near Atlanta) where we rode a train around the granite, and then we were able to see the State Capitol for a few minutes before it closed, and then we went to the Coca Cola museum before having dinner in underground Atlanta. The morning in Atlanta was better than the afternoon/evening in Atlanta.

6:00 pm. Arrive in Calhoun, Ga. Stay at Smith Motel. But if the weather is good and we make good time we could camp at Cloudland Canyon State Park, which is about 90 minutes beyond Calhoun over the Chattahochee National Forest. We got into Calhoun closer to 8:30 p.m.

May 29th.

9:00 am. See Rock City
We drove up through the mountains between Calhoun and Lookout Mountain instead of taking the Interstate up to Chattanooga. This gave us an opportunity to take a short hike to a tiny waterfall in a national forest, but the roads were twisty and winding.

1:00 pm. Leave Rock City
We arrived at Rock City around noon, so we were a few hours behind schedule.

4:00 pm. Arrive at Nashville. (we will have crossed into Central Time). See Tennessee State Capitol. We got to the state capitol a few minutes before it closed and has a quick look inside. There was a festival in Nashville, so we had dinner at a booth and left around 7:00 p.m.

5:30 pm. continue to St. Louis

11:30 pm. Arrive home for the night in St. Louis. (We got home around 1:00 a.m.)