Well this was the last day in Florida. It’s been great weather all week so a little “clouds with chance of rain” can be accepted. Since they actually said “90% chance of widespread showers” we chose today to do our souvenir shopping. We didn’t do much at Universal or on the Disney Walk because those are just too overpriced. Instead we hit all the little souvenir outlets along the street near the Time Share. I love those kinds of gift shops and I found everything I was looking for and at very reasonable prices.
With time to spare and clouds still threatening we headed out to Boggy Creek Airboat rides. Our captain gave his name as Captain Kirk, but said he was not really the Star Trek type. He sees himself more as a John Wayne kind of character.
We had a full boat and since we all had headphones on to block the noise, Captain Kirk didn’t have to entertain us with sparkling banter. It appeared that the gators and crocks weren’t in the mood to entertain either. We spotted just one baby ‘gator the whole ride but there were a lot of birds, great blue herons, snowy egrets, osprey, ducks and some I didn’t recognize at all. Of course I’m not a “birder”. I’ve been calling “sparrows” “finches” as long as I can remember! But all was not lost, the good Captain swooshed us around the saw grass and sent us racing across the open water. I think he was trying to give us an exciting ride to make up for the uncooperative “critters”. The thing is, if anyone had just been a bit observant JR & I spotted one just off shore in the little inlet by the boat dock. There was a fisherman there and we think his lure or bait had attracted it. It was there when we parked and it was still there when we left. I can prove it too because I got a picture.
As we were leaving Boggy Creek the sun began to come out! So we headed back to the time share intending to finish the afternoon by the pool. I headed for the internet kiosk to print my boarding pass. Should have been a 5 minute project, right? Wrong! It took over an hour and I have no idea how much I was charged. Let me explain,
I already paid for wireless internet for the week but that wouldn’t allow me to hook up to a printer so I had to use the Kiosk. The kiosk had no directions except to either enter cash (Minimum $3.00), a credit card, or a debit card. I tried cash first. It took $2.00 and kept spitting the 3rd back out. So I canceled that and tried my credit card. It gave me a message that it would authorize $20.00, did I want to continue? I used the track ball to place the curser on yes and hit enter. Nothing happened. I tried touching the screen, again nothing so I tried my debit card thinking maybe the credit card was still messed up. Same thing. I went to the front desk and asked for help. They said “just a minute”. So I went back and stared at the stupid kiosk for another 10-15 minutes but no one came to help so back to the desk I went.
This time they told me to call the 800 number on the machine for help. Hate to say it but by now I was well on my way to seeing red. So back out to the kiosk I went. I tried entering the cash again and this time it took the money and gave me a message that I had 3 minutes and could continue. I selected “Print Boarding Pass” and nothing happened. I hit enter, I hit the screen, I pressed the space bar…nothing! I was just digging my cell phone out to call when one of the employees came by and pointed to 2 black unidentified buttons and said “think of these as the right & left on your mouse” and bingo, that got me online. So now I pull up United and they want my mileage plus #, then they wanted my password…I had my mileage plus number but I couldn’t remember my password so I had to do a reset and log back in. Now remember, the clock is ticking. I only have 3 minutes. I felt like I was on “Beat the Clock” or some other timed game show where the prize was my boarding pass.
Anyway, I’m back on the United web page and logged on, I have my reservation in front of me on the screen but I have to get past the upgrade offers to the check bags screen. I was just entering my credit card # to pay for the bag charge when, you guessed it, my 3 minutes ran out. Did the stupid Kiosk ask me to put in more money? NO of course not…It kicked me offline so I lost everything and had to start all over again! By now I must have been beat red because I was sweating and really ticked off (see I’m being nice). I had the credit card out to pay for the luggage so I just inserted it and took the hit for the $20.00 authorization and started again. It took just over 4 minutes to jump through all of United’s hoops again, pay for my 1 bag and FINALLY I could push the button for PRINT! Out came my boarding passes and the receipt for the luggage. The actual charge to my card was is supposed to be $4.87. Of course, I have no way of knowing if the stupid Kiosk actually put authorizations through or not. With the $3.00 from the first try this whole process cost me just under $8.00
I called the 800 number to see if they could tell if the other authorizations went through and got some guy telling me I’d called the wrong # and to call back Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. Big help he was. (NOT). Oh and the discount for taking care of my bag online…$2.00. By my calculations that means the process left me $5.87 in the red assuming there are no sneaky extra authorizations on either my charge card or debit card.
In any event I had my passes and I headed out to the pool. The minute I sat down a swarm of Love Bugs (I told you about them in a previous post) descended. They were everywhere. At that point I said I quit! A nice relaxing afternoon by the pool just isn’t happening today. I came back to the suite, plugged in my laptop and spent the afternoon trying to figure out how to set up photo slide shows. After my adventure with the kiosk you’d think the last thing I’d want to do is play with the computer but I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment. I did have some success as I can put together a decent slide show on Photoshop, unfortunately all it does when I try to upload or email it is pixilate so I still have some more bugs to work out. I did manage to get my Flickr photo stream connected to my blog so soon you’ll get my pictures that way instead of pasted all over the page.
But back to the Florida trip, I’d have to say that Cypress Point Resort is a beautiful resort. They do fall a little short in the customer support area but I’ve experienced worse and it really depends on who is working the desk. Some of the staff were outstanding while others took the easy way out in order to make only minimal effort. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it and I would definitely stay here again. The rooms were clean, the resort is pretty and centrally located, and the staff was always pleasant if not always helpful. The pool area is very nice and I'm told the Love Bugs only swarm 2 times a year. It was my bad luck to vacation on one of those 2 times!
Check out time is 10AM so the next post will be from home. Lets hope the trip tomorrow is as uneventful as the flights down here were. J
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