Florida 04/22 – Fun Spot Orlando + The Unexpected

Day 11

The final day of the trip was here, and although it’s always a sad time having to go home, this time more than ever I felt that we had completed and got the most out of everything the place had to offer.

With the exception of the last few things that we were going to round up on a big (time sensitive) loop from our hotel to the airport.

Starting with American McDonalds for breakfast, their Canadian bacon McMuffin is about the only thing that American McDonalds do right.

Fun Spot Orlando

Before driving 5 minutes over to Fun Spot Orlando.

Because of its location, Fun Spot Orlando felt much more like an actual park than the Kissimmee site, but also because of its location, the Orlando park had almost no atmosphere, at least when we visited.

No atmosphere and no customer service either it turns out.

Where the staff at the Kissimmee park ranged from slightly caring to so friendly it was a little awkward for my English brain to understand, the Orlando site was staffed entirely by people who didn’t want to be there.

We didn’t have a discounted purchased in advanced wristband like we did at Fun Spot Kissimmee, so instead would need to buy a points card in order to ride today, thankfully we only needed 1 lap on each coaster.

So we went to the ticket counter, the woman serving wasn’t at all interested in being there, and then managed to rip us off too.

It would later turn out that this wouldn’t matter (spoilers) but at the time it wasn’t the greatest of first impressions of a park.

Sea Serpent

We started with the park’s E&F Miler kiddie coaster, the first of the park’s completely cloned line up.

Freedom Flyer

Before making our way over to Freedom Flyer, the park’s Vekoma SFC, and riding the worst example of this layout yet. It was however 100 times better than Flying School at Legoland Florida.

White Lightning

The final coaster left to experience at the park was White Lightning, the park’s twice cloned GCI woodie. I’d ridden both clones multiple times before White Lightning, and I’m sad to say that once again this is the worst version.

And that was Fun Spot Orlando, expensive, and not very good.

Right, clock’s ticking, let’s go.

Next up we visited a K-Pop shop and a Walmart, where we managed to spend so long that all other plans had to be cancelled, it was time to head to the airport, it was time for everything to go wrong…

We got to the airport, with the traditional 3 hours to spare for international flights, had some food, flew through security and then took a seat way too early at our gate.

Then we were delayed, then delayed again, and again…

Then with no staff at our gate, the screens changed from delayed to cancelled… With no text or communications from British Airways, the airport website also changed our flight from delayed to cancelled…

I’m so thankful that Heartline was here during the whole thing. He has experience in this sort of crap that I don’t, so he knew exactly how to react to all of it.

Step 1, we need to sprint back to the check in desks and raise hell.

We were in the first 6 or 7 people to make it to the gate but were immediately told to stand aside so they could check in people for the flight after us, we will make an announcement soon.

And oh boy did they.

A scared man, stood up infront of the 10 of us now and told us:

Your flight has been cancelled because a storm earlier meant your plane landed in Miami. When that plane took off later to come here, the staff on board ran out of flying hours so they had to go back to Miami. There’s nothing we can about that. Also, we phoned BA HQ and they have informed us that even though there are plenty of seats free on the Heathrow flight, they will not be putting any of you on that flight. Once again there’s nothing we can do. We also can’t book any of you onto the next Gatwick flight here because we don’t have permission, you’ll have to do that yourselves.

Step 2, find somewhere to sleep for the night, keeping all receipts so BA can refund it later.

While I phoned every hotel on a special list of nearby hotels that help during this sort of thing, Heartline went on Booking.com.

It began to dawn on us during this search that hundreds of flights had been cancelled. None of the special hotels on the list had a room, and prices on Booking.com were soaring as we went on.

Finally Heartline found us a hotel at a “decent” price, now all we’ve got to do is get there.

Hire car or taxi?

Hire car would be easier in all senses, let’s go down that route.

OH. MY. GOD.

There was honest to God a 3-4 hour queue for every single car hire company. With rumours also flying around that cars were close to selling out…

Thankfully we got to chatting with a very friendly American man in the queue, who after hearing about what we needed the car for, hearing how long the taxi queue was (possibly longer than the car hire one), suggested we try Uber.

It turns out, this man is a genius, and Uber is a lifesaver.

Install app, give details, press find me a driver, then in less than 15 minutes a friendly man arrived and we were off to our hotel.

Which just so happened to be pretty much inside of Fun Spot Kissimmee, for better, and for worse.

On one hand we were sleeping a 2-3 minute walk from one of my new favourite wooden coasters. But on the other one we were sleeping next to a set of traffic lights on a major junction, while also being in a hotel that’s part of the almost 24 hour entertainment area that attaches to the park, either way BA would be the ones paying for it.

Day 12

Thankfully I was still able to sleep rather well, which isn’t all that surprising considering the intensity of the trip that had come before.

How did we spend our free (sort of) extra half day in Florida? By watching Battlebots and chilling in the hotel, but we knew we couldn’t leave for the airport without one more ride on the beast.

So, with 1 hour to go before leaving, we walked back into Fun Spot, topped up the points card we were overcharged for the day before, and made our way back to Mine Blower for 1 last lap. It was amazing, and the perfect send off to the amazing trip that Fun Spot Orlando certainly was not.

Then it was time to once again journey to the airport and deal with more crap from BA.

Because 2 of us booked our flights through American and not BA directly it took over an hour to check us in to the flight. Not an hour plus of come back again soon, but a literal hour plus of standing at the check in desk while they seemingly had no idea what they were doing.

One of the most memorable moments of the saga was being told to go speak to the team at American who were not best pleased at the BA implications that it’s probably American’s fault, go see what they can do. “You’re flying with BA, they are the ones who will have to check you in, I don’t understand the issue”, with an eye roll summed it up perfectly really.

Finally though we were in and it was time to come home, but not without another delay of course. Now the only issue would be getting our money back and squaring the missed hours up at work.

Thank you so much for reading my trip report.