I started to make plans for our Florida trip, but the Marriott Vacation Club locations were all booked for end-of-year reservations. Our initial goal was to take the grand kids to Disney World during their Holiday break but apparently everyone else also had that same idea. I would have made arrangements further ahead but some of my points were in a holding account after I mistakenly forgot to bank them last year. Thankfully, they allowed me to use rather than lose the points, so I was able to utilize them as part of this upcoming trip.

We’ll land in Orlando on Christmas Day, stay the night at a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel near a Roy’s Restaurant where we’ll celebrate the season. It’s a familiar favorite, but not quite the family affair that my wife is used to sharing. This will be our first Christmas together anywhere other than Indiana. With the loss of her mother this past year, we decided to visit my son and his family. Unfortunately, we’ll miss out on being with the kids in December, opting for early January when I can get reservations. 

We’ll go straight from Orlando to Pensacola, our first stop along the Panhandle. It will bring back memories for both of us about our parents. They would all winter in the Orange Beach, Alabama area. Our plan is to eventually retire along the Gulf Coast, so this portion of the trip will an exploratory venture to look at options. We’ll also stay in Destin and Panama City, as we continue to drive south towards Tampa. We’ll overnight there for New Year’s Eve and stay in one of my wife’s favorite convention hotels, another in the Marriott Autograph Collection. Across the street is the famous  Bern’s Steak House where we’ll bring in the new year. We ate there twenty years ago when my son was recovering from auto accident injuries in the nearby hospital. This should be a much more enjoyable experience than the worry that we felt that night. 

New Year’s Day, we’ll drive to Punta Gorda, near my son’s home, where we’ll finally get that Holiday family time. Hopefully, at least some of them will be able to accompany us to Orlando and take advantage of our spare rooms at the Marriott Vacation Club’s Imperial Palms. It’s a short shuttle ride from there to Mickey’s Park. All in all, we’ll spend fourteen Florida nights in seven different hotels. It’s not exactly what we would call relaxing, but we’ll get to take a look at some homes, condos, and properties that we might eventually call our “Panhandle Home.”