Bucko's World

Entry Date: Monday 10th August 2009
It may be a good time to mention the Sacred Text of St Lisa as it didn’t become known and its importance to us all in having a successful time in Florida. It cannot be stressed how incredibly valuable it was in ensuring the smooth running of our trip, and it became a little book of calm to be turned to for solace and comfort when all around turned to chaos. Or put more simply, without it we wouldn’t never have got anywhere or done nuffink.

The first draft of this Itinerary, as some insisted on calling it, arrived in my inbox as early as April as was on something like V4.2.1 by the time we eventually set foot set foot in the States. The most impressive thing about this document however, was not its neat organising of all the attractions in bites sized morning or afternoon chunks. Nor the way it told us when we could have a rest day or go to the shops. Nor the fact that it neatly broke down who could use the toilet at which time and how many sheets of loo roll were allocated to each bathroom a day. No, none of that. It was the fact that by the end of the holiday, not one single thing had actually been done on the day allocated to it.

The rest day yesterday seems to have done us a lot of good and we’re recovered enough from our jet lag to face our first trip to a theme park, and let’s face it, that’s one of the main reasons for us coming here. A quick check of the Itinerary shows Disney’s MGM Hollywood studios is the venue selected for today, so it will come as no surprise to anyone that we are not, in fact, going there. See, yesterday our Rep, told us that if we pitched up at The Hard Rock Café at Universal Studios by nine today, she’d not only pay our parking, but give us a free breakfast, vouchers for lunch, money off our dinner and discounts off stuff in the Hard Rock shop. It Sounded too good to be true, and such things usually are. I’m a firm believer that you don’t get nothing for nothing, except perhaps your grammar corrected, so I was sceptical to say the least. I mean let’s face it, a free lunch normally ends up with your boss sacking you, free advice from someone usually means they’re going to tell you you’ve been doing something wrong, and free pizza usually means you have to visit a pizza restaurant. It’s all a lose/lose situation in my book.

But, parking is $12, breakfast would be $70 all in, and we’d probably go to Hard Rock shop anyway, so where’s the catch?

And at nine o’clock, as I sit looking at my excellent breakfast – no dry toast and water as we speculated but the full “American”, which is like an English breakfast only bigger – we’re still wondering. We’ve had our parking money back, we’ve got the discount vouchers for the shop, and we’ve even got more vouchers for us to have a free lunch or dinner on the boardwalk opposite whenever we fancy. So where’s is this catch?? Well, I suppose it’s the rather half heated attempted made by the Virgin Rep to give a guide to all the attractions and point out how much of it you can organise through her for such bargain prices, but when you’ve got an itinerary and my wife on board you can simply say bollocks to all that and be on your merry way. It really was, for us at least a free lunch…….