After a night of minimal sleep, because Gizmo is apparently a terrible roommate when a twin bed is involved, I was awake before my 3:15 am alarm. I got up and got ready, while Gizmo conveniently went down to the living room where Nick was asleep on the couch and jumped up on Nick, waking him up.
Needless to say, we were all set to hit the road about 10 of 4. We had very intentionally left the bulk of the luggage in the car, so we just had to sneak out past the dogs (and prevent Gizmo from following us out the door) and get in the car. Surprisingly, it was Snow that got vocal about us leaving. I guess Gizmo had accepted his fate of being my MIL’s TV watching buddy for the week. But, we made it out, Gizmo didn’t escape, and my FIL later reported that Snow quieted back down pretty quickly.
We got to MHT just about 4 after a nice quick 10ish minute drive, and surprisingly found a parking space on the same level (and row!) as the pedestrian bridge from the terminal to the garage. We grabbed the luggage, fired off pictures of the car’s location to my in-laws who would be picking the car up later that day, and then I took great joy in the sound of luggage spinning across the garage, moving walkways and terminal floor, as we made our way to check-in. Seriously…that sound just doesn’t get old!
After February, I was prepared for a long line at baggage drop, but there was actually no line for the check in kiosks with JetBlue, and almost no line for baggage drop, so within a few minutes we were on the escalator to security. Pre-check was a breeze for me. Nick’s belt set off the metal detector, because apparently after almost 10 years of pre-check he still thinks he doesn’t need to take his belt off, so he got a patdown, but we made it through and continued on into the terminal where I bought a maple glazed Holy Donut (no, really, that’s the brand of amazing potato donuts from Maine), Nick bought himself a breakfast sandwich at Burger King (the proof that our airport is small…), and we settled in at our gate.
If anyone didn’t know that this flight was an Orlando-bound flight, they needed their eyes checked. The gate area was filled with people wearing shorts and capris, and nearly every group had a bag or a shirt that was Disney…and often not entirely recent Disney. I quickly understood how, when the price finally dropped on this flight, it filled up quickly. This was a flight with Disney adults. This was also a classic NH airport in late April experience, as all of us were sitting around in summer clothes, watching the ground crews de-ice planes because of overnight frost. Happy April vacation!
As I was looking around, I saw my old officemate, so I went over and we chatted for awhile, which was nice. She moves around the district more than I do, so we don’t get to catch up as often as we used to.
And then it was time to board the plane! Boarding was quick enough, and pretty soon, we were settled in, me watching the sunrise, excited to see multiple planes lined up at this little airport. Is MHT in its comeback era?! I sure hope so!
Boarding was efficient enough that we actually pushed back from the gate a few minutes early, just after 6 am. We taxied all around the airport and then we were airborne, flying right over my mom’s house, on our way east to the Atlantic, before turning south.
It was an uneventful, and reasonably smooth flight down the coast. We landed just before 9, half an hour early. Yay for an extra half hour of vacation! Surprisingly a gate was available, so soon enough, the deplaning stampede began. Deplaning went much more smoothly than it had when we flew into MCO in November, which Nick and I both were grateful for!
Once off the plane and in the terminal, it was an easy and pleasant walk to baggage claim. Both of us were really impressed by all of the food options in this terminal. Terminal C is a major step up from terminals A and B. We made it to baggage claim and then waited and waited and waited some more. Nick got a cold brew right next to baggage claim that he was REALLY happy with. I had time to change from capris into shorts. And then luggage finally started emerging. JetBlue is just not fast at delivering luggage to the carousel in any airport.
Both of our suitcases emerged and we headed to the rental car center. I had done skip the line with Alamo (the ONLY way to rent a car these days!), so we headed right out to the garage where the attendant directed us to the mid-size row, and we picked a bright blue Hyundai Sonata. Nick loaded luggage while I inspected the car, and then after getting GPS established (always a humbling, marriage-testing experience), we were on our way.
Exiting airport property was a bit of a white knuckle experience, but once we were on the Beachline, the rest of the drive to the Brevard Zoo was easy…until we got to the parking lot. The place was mobbed. Apparently they had had a couple events that morning. But, we found a space and pretty soon we were exploring the zoo.
We were pretty impressed with Brevard Zoo. There is a LOT to see here. We also were pleasantly surprised by the food. It tasted good and the serving sizes were massive. We got a plate of cheese fries and the 3 chicken tender meal to share. We could have just gotten a three chicken tender meal, with the fries it came with upgraded to cheese fries and we probably still would have had too much food.
When we had fully explored the zoo, we hopped in the car and headed for Cocoa Beach. Here we lucked into a perfect parking spot and headed for…Ron Jon. I love flip flops. Why wouldn’t I go to Ron Jon? We both found flip flops. We’ve been to Ron Jons in Disney Springs and in Clearwater Beach, and liked them, but we were very impressed by this one.
Flip flops acquired, we headed across the street to our next stop, the Florida Key Lime Pie Company. Here, after watching Florida man give a bath to an alligator named Sweetie (and yes, her toes were painted pink), we headed inside for the hardest decisions of the trip. In the end, we decided on key lime pie ice cream and a key lime snickerdoodle cookie. Nick also found a key lime cheesecake soda. We sat outside eating the ice cream and enjoying the soda, watching people try to figure out if Sweetie the alligator was real or a robot. The ice cream was a little chalky but the flavor was excellent.
Ice cream consumed, we hopped back in the car and drove the last couple of miles to our hotel, the Hyatt Place Cape Canaveral. Check in was quick enough, and pretty soon, we were in room 231, which was good sized and impeccably clean, with kind of a loud air conditioner.
We settled in and stalked the weather forecasts. We had tickets for Illuminature tonight at the Brevard Zoo, but suddenly we had gone from a zero percent chance of rain this evening, to 100% chance. But it was maybe going to be over in time for us to still see the lights? So we set out for dinner at Grills in Melbourne. This was about a half hour, pretty easy drive.
When we got to Grills, the parking lot was PACKED, but we actually were seated about 5 minutes after putting our name in. I didn’t actually take pictures, but I think I had a mahi sandwich. Nick might have had shrimp of some sort? Dinner was good, and there was a nice view of the river from our table.
Dinner consumed, we headed back out to the car to make some decisions. It was clear that the worst in terms of storms was NOT over, so we decided to head back to the hotel to ride it out, and then see where things were at in about an hour. So we did exactly that, stopping at Publix for bottled water, and deodorant because Nick thought he had forgotten to pack that (he hadn’t).
Back at the hotel, I watched the radar closely, Nick discovered he actually had packed deodorant, and I ended up making the decision to bail on Illuminature. Nick was surprised, because it wasn’t really raining anymore in Canaveral, but the radar made it clear that it was REALLY raining in Melbourne. Bummer, because it would have been cool to see, but I think it was for the best. As soon as the decision was made, I showered and crashed for the night…despite the loud air conditioner and our room being over the indoor bar that we could tell was HOPPING. I was TIRED!
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