Day 6: Ciao Bella! Welcome to Portofino Bay!

  Orlando, Florida, United States
Thursday, July 27, 2006

01 - Hanging Out Around the House

Today I woke up at 8:30.  It was really early for me and I was exhausted, but I just couldn't fall back asleep.  I went into the living room to have a bowl of Smart Star cereal and a piece of carrot cake for breakfast while mom and dad sat out by the pool.  At 9:00 I went online to check my mail and my Myspace, and also to look at menus for the Universal resort restaurants.  I wanted to see if there was anywhere good to eat that night when we visited the Portofino Bay Resort.  I couldn't find many updated menus so I gave up and checked a few websites before looking at the pictures that we had taken the past few days on the laptop.  At 11:00 mom and dad went out to Target.  Mike wanted them to look for the Halo Graphic Novel and I wanted them to see if Target had "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston.  I then want to take a shower and when I was done I did my makeup in my room while I watched the "Surreal Life" marathon on VH1.  It was the season with Adrienne Curry and Christopher Knight which I hadn't seen and I'd been watching "My Fair Brady: We're Getting Married" with the two of them, so it was funny to see where it all started.  I was upset that I hadn't watched that season because it was hysterical!

02 - Hanging Out Around the House

At 12:30 I put my hair up and went into the kitchen to have a snack for lunch.  I had some chips, pretzels and onion dip and just hung out while Mike watched TV in the living room.  While I was eating I looked out at the backyard and saw that there was a man checking the pool.  I told Michael to go out and it was Steve the pool guy.  He was the guy we were told would be by to take care of the pool after the people the owners had originally hired didn't know what they were doing.  Michael soon came back in but Steve called him back out two minutes later to show him the pool levels.  The level of Chlorine was extremely high and Steve said that he was surprised that our skin hadn't turned red from all of the chemicals.  What?!  He told us that he could fix it but he would need Chris, the manager's, permission before he did anything.  So he left to e-mail Chris and we called mom and dad to tell them.

03 - Portofino Bay Resort

I took the laptop into my room to type up some of my trip report from the day before, and mom and dad came back at 1:30.  They were both fuming over the pool situation!  We tried to call Chris but we couldn't get through to him and we were all extremely pissed.  We let it go, though, and when no one had contacted us by 2:30 I went online and e-mailed the owners of the home.  I told them how dissatisfied, disappointed and angry we were over the way the home had been taken care of.  I told them about the house being filthy when we checked in, about the remote control and chairs being broken, and about the fact that Mia had dumped a bucket of Chlorine in the pool and put us at risk.  I was really, really mad.  The anger then translated to mom, dad and Mike who were really annoying me.  After having a snack of cheese and crackers with everyone, I wanted to finish typing up my trip report but no one would let me on and I was so frustrated.  I just sat in my room and watched the "Surreal Life" marathon on VH1.  I had wanted to leave for the Portofino Bay Resort at 5:00, but everyone kept yelling at me that we didn't always have to do what I wanted so I didn't bother getting ready to leave.  Then at 4:45 mom banged on my door and screamed at me that they were all in the car.  I had no idea that we were even leaving!  It would have been nice to have been told a few minutes beforehand... I thought no one wanted to follow my plans.  Whatever.  I got ready quickly and met them in the car five minutes later.

06 - Portofino Bay Resort

We drove over to Universal Studios and found the Portofino Bay Resort.  We parked and walked to the entrance.  There was no where to walk besides in the street, though, so I didn't like the parking here.  We were at the entrance by 6:00 and walked around.  The resort was gorgeous and looked just like Italy, but none of us really liked it.  It was far too formal and everyone staying there was with a conference - there were lots of business men and women instead of families and children.  Also, the staff wasn't very friendly.  Everyone was very uppity and tried to appear sophisticated and stuck up as if they were saying, "Kids aren't allowed to run around here. We're in Italy."  Um, no.  This is Universal Studios in Orlando, lighten up!  We wanted to eat dinner so we went around to the back of the resort where the restaurants were located.  We looked at the menus for Mama Della's and the Bice Ristorante but they were both ridiculously expensive.  The back of the Portofino Bay Resort was very pretty, though.  There was a nice bay full of gondolas and a lot of different shops.

11 - Sal's Deli

We walked over to Sal's Deli and the menu looked pretty good.  We went inside and it was dark and they were selling teas, Italian spices and sundries in the front of the small restaurant.  It was counter service so we went up to order.  Mom and I decided to share a turkey and cheese panini and a roast beef panini.  Dad also got the roast beef panini while Mike got the turkey panini, and we got a small pizza with eggplant and peppers to share.  We then got a seat at a big booth.  The bill came to $80 which we were all shocked by.  We've never paid $80 for pizza and paninis at home!  We usually get pizza and panini's at home for $40 at the most!  As much as the people at the Portofino Bay Resort wanted us to feel like we were in Italy, we were still in the middle of Orlando and the Italian food here definitely mirrored that.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, especially for $80.  We were all very disappointed.  We ate within twenty minutes and left.  What was funny was that it seemed as if the waitress who had brought us our pizza was looking for a tip.  We just paid $80 for pizza and all she did was bring it to us.  We had gotten the rest of our food and our own drinks.  She wasn't getting a tip.

14 - Portofino Bay Resort

When we left it was raining so we walked under the awning to a few more stores.  We passed the Gelato store but we didn't get anything since we were all full.  We headed back up to the lobby with mom and I taking the elevator and dad and Mike taking the stairs.  Dad and Mike beat us, but we all met in the lobby within two minutes.  We then walked through the small Italian marketplace. From the pictures I had seen I thought that this area was outdoors but it was actually inside with lights on a darkened ceiling making it seem as if we were outside.  As nice as it was, it just didn't sit well with us.  It was very small and nothing special.  We walked to the end of the long corridor and back, not bothering to stop in any of the stores.  We then headed back out to the parking lot and on the way we saw what dad thought was a little bat curled up on the wall, but to me it looked like a piece of tape.  Who knows what it was but it was weird!

15 - Portofino Bay Resort

When we got back to the car we realized that we needed to show the girl at the valet parking window the ticket we had gotten on our way into the parking lot.  That meant that we had to walk to the car to get the ticket and then walk all the way back.  Mike and I waited in the car while mom and dad went back.  They usually make you pay $10 a day for parking but dad was able to park for free with his employee discount. At least we got something good out of the deal.  We had been planning on visiting the Royal Pacific Resort right next door on the next day but we decided to skip it.  The Universal Studios resorts weren't thrilling us.  As we drove back to the house dad decided to take the long way home and we went all the way out of the way onto International Drive.  We drove around for a while and then headed back to 192 East.  The sky kept getting darker and darker and there were strange horizontal clouds coming down from the sky.  I joked that they were tornadoes so we were very surprised when we turned on the news when we got back to the house at 8:00 and saw that tornadoes had been seen in the area.  Scary.

20 - Portofino Bay Resort

A storm was brewing outside and it was completely dark with constant thunder and lightening.  I went online and had received a nasty email back from the owners of the home.  They said that we had checked in too early for them to clean the home and that they had spoken to Chris and he said that the pool was safe and fine to swim in.  Two minutes later Chris called and told us not to go in the pool since it had not yet been taken care of.  I was fuming!  I wrote a letter back to the owners saying that we were never given a check-in time and that if we had been given a time we would rather have checked in late than have to check into a dirty home.  I also said that Chris never said that the pool was safe to swim in, and that as the owners of the home we were disappointed that we couldn't even trust their input since they had just blatantly lied to us.  Before I could send it, though, the internet went out due to the storm.  Damn!

21 - Portofino Bay Resort

From 8:00 to 9:00 we hung out in the living room and watched the first hour of "America's Got Talent."  The storm outside was ridiculous.  It was pouring and there was constant thunder and lightening.  There were warnings on every channel to stay inside on the first floor of the building and to stay away from windows.  We decided that if it got any worse we would take the dog and drive over to a Universal Studios resort!  They accepted pets and we would feel safer waiting in their lobby.  At 9:00 we watched "So You Think You Can Dance."  We all love that show so it was fun to watch it on vacation.  At 9:50, during Heidi and Benji's last dance, the television went out, the lights flickered, and we lost power in the house.  It freaked me out!  A black out was the last thing we needed in someone else's house across the country from home.  The lights came back on in a minute but it took a few minutes for the Cable to reboot.  Mom went into her bedroom to see the end of the show, but the Cable came back in time for us to see the end of Heidi and Benji's dance.  They did awesome!

At 10:00 mom, Mike and I all played California Rummy.  I won, and we were now at two games for him, two games for me and none for mom.  Not bad.  We were done playing by 11:00 and we were all pretty tired.  I took my makeup off while mom went to bed and Michael played games in his room.  I then read "The Great Gatsby" in my room before falling asleep at midnight.