Day 23 – Orlando

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My Contiki Day planner pictures are always so blurry because I take it on the bus while it’s moving!

On Thursday it was off to Orlando, Florida! 🙂
Unfortunately I woke up that morning with swollen glands and my throat not feeling that great. It was only a matter of time before I got sick on this trip.

There’s not much to write about with what I did on Thursday. I sat at the front of the bus (my fave spot) and dozed most of the way to Orlando.

We stayed at The Park Inn which had 2 pools, a gym and a restaurant.
When we arrived, quite a few of us went to do our washing as we hadn’t had washing facilities for like 3-4 days. I’d completely run out of clothes so even though I tried to get to the laundry room before anyone else I was still late and had to wait around for ages.

In the end I did get all my clothes washed and dried and then headed back to my room for a nap. My nap didn’t last very long and I ended up going out with Diogenes down the road to some random buffet restaurant thing called Sizzlers. Where our hotel was located, there wasn’t much around on terms of things to do. Just heaps of Gift Shops and mediocre restaurants.

The buffet was a bit average but I hadn’t eaten much that day so had to eat something.image(Haha he pulls the funniest faces!)
After dinner, we headed back to our hotel and I ended up going to the gym!
I haven’t worked out this whole trip so I was feeling very blah about myself and thought the gym would be a good way to sweat out my sickness.
I guess it helped a little bit. I defiantly sweated!

After my work-out I went to my room and had a bath while watching an episode of Orange Is The New Black.

I don’t think I ended up going to sleep until after 11pm 😴 which was annoying as I wanted an early night. But it was probably the longest sleep I’ve had on this Contiki so far! Haha.

X

Day 22 – Panama City Beach

On Thursday it was off to Panama city Beach! 😎imageWe made a stop off at the Air Force Base (I think that’s what it was) in Alabama and just had a quick photo stop with the planes etc… and got something to eat.imageWe drove for a couple more hours and then stopped off at this shopping center and got some actual lunch.pita pit_large image (1)

I had Pita Pit (first one I’ve seen here) but it deff wasn’t as nice as back home. They didn’t toast it at the end or have any pineapple :|:|days-inn-panama-city (2)When we got to Panama city we checked in to The Days Inn.
Panama city is where they would have Spring Break in America and I can see why. You can drink on the beach!
They have about 100,000+ college and high school students go in March & April so I can see how it’s get crazy.

Their slogan is “The World’s Most Beautiful Beaches” due to the unique sugar-white sandy beaches of northwest Florida. It looks so nice!imageimageWe had a really nice view from our room as well!
As Brooke left yesterday to go back home to Australia, I have Amy as my new room mate. Yay! Someone who’s into make up and fake tanning like me haha.imageOnce we’d unpacked a bit. I headed across the road to the alcohol store and bought some Smirnoffs. As you can’t bring glass onto the beach I bought a big pink party cup to pour it into and then joined everyone else on the white sand.imageimageWe went for a swim and the water was so nice. There were a few little fishes swimming around my feet as well. Plus some dolphins in the distance!imageAt around 5.30pm I headed back my room and had a shower to wash the salt water out of my hair.
We all met at the bus at 6.45pm to head to Hofbrau House for dinner. A German restaurant a few minutes away.
I had some chicken schnitzel thing which was all good.imageAfter dinner we headed back to the Days Inn and a few of us headed to the pool and had a few drinks.imageimageI stayed a couple of hours but headed back to my room to finish off my blogs and try and get a good sleep.
I had a really dry throat when I went to bed and this morning when I woke up my glands are all swollen :|:|
I was waiting for my time to get sick on this trip!
At least tomorrow we’re going to Universal Studios in Florida so I’m going to try and have an early night so I’m not hungover on the rides.

*sigh* I’m so gutted I’m sick. I nearly made my entire Contiki without getting sick but oh well!

X

Day 21 – New Orleans

This morning, My alarm went off at 7.30am which I set so I could make it to the 8.30am bus departure for the Alligator Swamp Tour I’d signed up for.
You’re probably wondering if I made it considering the ending of my last blog.

The conversation with my room-mate Brooke went something like this
Brooke – “Sarah are you going to get up?? You have 10 minutes to be at the bus”
Me – “Ahh, I think I’ll miss it. Isn’t it only like $10 I’m paying anyways?”
B – “uhh no its $60”
Me – “F*** sakes!” *forces myself out of bed and puts some clothes on*

I made it to the shuttle bus just in time looking a little worse-for-wear.
Below is a quick snap I took in the morning of my corner of the bus 😩imageEveryone was feeling pretty similar to how I felt!
When we got to the swamp, we had to wait around for a bit and then got put into groups of around 15 for the boats.imageimageOnce we were out on the water I felt a little better thanks to the boat breeze. I would have sweated myself away in the New Orleans heat otherwise!imageI thought Alligators would be quite scary but they’re not at all. They’re really chilled and kinda just swim around in the swamp minding their own business. We had a really good tour guide who kept trying to grab one out of the water to show us and he told us lots of facts about them. He was saying how the alligator guides cut their tail fins a certain way when they’re born so they can find out how old they are later in life.
We actually ended up getting to hold a baby Alligator too which was cool.

imageimage(My hair is looking beautiful here I know 💁)

When the tour was over we all went back to the hotel. I had a shower and washed my hair and ended up going out again down to the mall to try and find some more clothes to wear.
I ended up only buying a light play-suit to wear but currently I’ve worn it for the past 2 days straight!
I’m in desperate need of doing some washing.

At 6pm we all headed to Mardi Gras world. That’s where they make all the floats for Mardi Gras.
We took a tour to see what it takes to bring Mardi Gras to life year after year. We also learnt about the history of Mardi Gras and our tour guide showed us how they make all the floats.
It was an okay tour, they gave us free drinks at the beginning so I think people were more distracted by that.
We then got to make masks for the next hour.imageimageI didn’t take a picture of my mask but I’ll try to next time I see it.
I gave it to our coach driver Ricky to put on his bus haha.
I made it so it looked like the American Flag.directory-banner-mardi-gras-masks-slide-2

That night I wasn’t planning on going out…but you know what happens on Contiki.imageQuite a few of the people who I feel I’ve grown the closest to left Contiki that night. They were finishing the tour in New Orleans while the rest of us continued on to New York City 😥
There were many tears as people said goodbye! And quite a few pictures taken. (very blurry pictures may I add, I’m only 24 and can afford a Samsung Note 3)imageimageimageimageThe flash wasn’t very good so I guess you could say these pictures won’t be going up on my wall any time soon.

The bar we were at closed after 12am so when the clock struck midnight we all went our own ways and went home.
There was 11 new girls who joined our Contiki group too so let’s see if they like us rowdy bunch! 😜

Xx