Florida.

I am pretty sure Sea World was the first place we visited after landing in Orlando. I think I even remember the name of the hotel. Back in 1980 Orlando was nothing like it is now & International Drive was a 2 lane road with a sprinkling of hotels on it. We stayed very close to Sea World, I believe it may have been the Wyndham Resort hotel which, at the time seemed very posh but I believe it is now under redevelopment. I seem to remember it was next to a Hyatt Regency Hotel which was very, very posh.

Sea World was a lot smaller in terms of things to see or experience back in 1978 but the highlight for me was seeing Shamu & getting splashed by waves of cold salty water as the killer whale splashed water over kids brave enough to experience it up close. I remember seeing the dolphins perform & the Walrus show but I don't remember a lot else being there when it first opened.

I remember the Hotel we stayed in at Clearwater very well. I have since stayed there on several occasions, as did my mum & dad, but it seems to have changed hands every time any of us stopped. It was right on one of the canals just in front of the main beach at Clearwater. I stayed very close to this hotel a few years later when I met Hulk Hogan who lived & owned a bar in Clearwater Beach.

I remember it had a small swimming pool at the side near a pontoon that we all went fishing off of. We all caught lots of little fish in the canal as we watched boats go up & down it or spent time splashing about in the swimming pool.

I remember exactly where we stayed in the Florida Everglades as I went back there many years later & stayed in the same hotel that we stayed in on this trip. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the hotel on any maps, I do hope that it & the other small hotels near it are still there & haven't been demolished by the many hurricanes that hit the area.

Back in 1980, there were not many hotels to choose from & after driving all day we took the first hotel that had a room. I do remember it was evening & getting dark when we arrived at a small back road with a few hotels on it. For my nine-year-old sister, Karen & I it would have been quite frightening & exciting to be in the middle of a swamp with nothing but the noise of a few unseen animals breaking the silence of the night. We had had a long drive down from Clearwater & the whole family was very tired. We booked into the hotel & went to our room.

I remember the hotel room backed directly onto the swamp which was about 100 feet from the building we were in. We were on the second floor of a two-storey hotel & the door had a large net mesh across the front of it. I don't remember going to bed but I do remember waking up, it was pitch black outside, which was surprising as it was about 8 am. Whilst my mum & my sister got ready to leave my dad took me outside to look for somewhere to get something to eat. When we opened the front door we realised why it was so dark.

We had heard frogs & toads croaking outside but when we opened the door the netting on the door & windows to all the rooms was completely covered in large frogs & toads croaking as they enjoyed some nocturnal pleasures with their partners. There were so many of them that they blocked out all the light in the room. My dad got my mum & sister to take a look at them hopping around but mum, never one to like frogs, wouldn't come out in case they got in the room. The amphibious creatures outside were huge, I am sure some of them were large enough to eat a small eleven-year-old boy.

My dad & I made our way through the frogs & toads to a small shack next door to the hotel, selling guidebooks & swamp tours & general groceries. My dad bought a few groceries, drinks & snacks for the trip to Miami & then we returned to the hotel room. My mum & sister joined me & my dad & we ate breakfast in the small hotel restaurant before checking out & continuing our journey through the Everglades. As we drove up the dirt track the hotel was on we saw our first live alligator or crocodile crossing the track in front of us. I remember stopping to look at it as it crossed the track from the swamp water on the right of the car, to the swamp on our left. I do not remember if we got out to take a closer look.

I think we stayed on the first of the Keys, Key Largo. I don't think we stayed very long there, possibly because as an eleven-year-old there would not have been much to keep my interest in the Florida Keys, my main memory is going into a tourist shop & looking at the skulls of the alligators & crocodiles for sale. I think I bought a badge that I could sow on a coat when I got home, it had a dolphin on I think.

When we left the Florida Keys we drove to Miami South Beach. I remember the hotel well, it was right on the beach & the main road. As you approached from the front you could see large portal-shaped windows which showed people swimming in the hotel pool. I remember going into the lobby with my mum, dad & sister & when we wanted to book for two nights the hotel receptionist asked my dad if he was sure he wanted two nights. When dad said yes the receptionist gave him the key & told him he would check us in for one night & we could let him know if we wanted to stay longer the following day. I don't remember much about the room but I do remember mum wasn't too impressed with it. 

Mum didn't want to go too far from the hotel for dinner that night so we walked across the road to a diner with a queue of people outside who all looked very rich. When we went in it was packed, from memory it looked more like a school canteen but there were hardly any tables spare. The only thing I remember eating was the chicken soup, I probably only remember that because the very old waitress ladled more of it out over our laps than she did in the bowls on our table. The restaurant was a Jewish restaurant, the food was kosher, the waitress's wig kept slipping & all the customers seemed to be very elderly rich Jews.

After our meal, my dad insisted on walking a short way down the road to have a look around but eventually, my mum convinced him to go back to the hotel. She didn't like Miami Beach & didn't think it was safe, she wanted to leave straight away but agreed to leave the following day. As we walked back up the road some police cars came flying past us with their sirens blaring & the lights flashing blue lights up the street as they passed. I joked that someone had probably been murdered in our hotel room, mum didn't find this funny.

When we got back to the hotel, all the police cars were sitting right outside. Someone had been murdered there & the police ushered us back to our room & told us to stay inside. The following morning we checked out early & thanked the receptionist for not booking us in for two nights.

I don't remember if we stopped anywhere on the way here from Miami but it did take us longer than the trip should of so I guess we may have stopped off to look around something on the way up. I do remember my mum being very upset because I & my sister were so tired. I remember as we came off the I95 at Titusville my mum made dad stop at the very first Motel we got to. I know exactly where it was because it was on the I95 junction with the 528, from Orlando to the beach. I always used to think of the one night we spent there when I drove past hundreds of times in later life. 

When we got up in the morning, mum & dad realised that they were only a couple of miles from Cocoa Beach. I think they were annoyed they had stopped so close to our destination but as they didn't know the previous night that they were so close, they soon forgot it. Back in 1978 when we first went there, Cocoa Beach & Cape Canaveral were nothing like they are now & there were only a few hotels along the beach. We stopped at Motel 6 for 2 nights which is on the main A1A just 1 road back from the beach. We had fun on the beach, fished off the pier, looked around Ron Jon´s Surf Shop, & went to Kennedy Space Centre.

The Space Centre didn't consist of much back then & I wasn't very interested in the exhibitions like my dad was but I did love walking around the Space Garden looking at the different rockets on display there, this was a long time before the Space Shuttle. I do remember having a photo taken of me next to the Saturn 1b rocket in the garden, but like so many photos from my youth, they have all been lost.

When we went to Disney World on this trip the only park that was open at that time was the Magic Kingdom. We stayed in one of the few hotels that were open then, the Howard Johnson at the Walt Disney World Disney Village. It was a short walk to the Walt Disney Village & our room overlooked the pool below us & the I5 to the back of the hotel. I only remember a few things about going to the Magic Kingdom, they are

• My favourite ride, Pirates of the Caribbean
• The Captain Nemo ride.
• It's a Small World & the repetitive song that no one can stop singing after they go on it. 
• And lastly how cool the nighttime parade with all the lights was.