March 14, 2014
The Arrival
The adventure began with a gathering at Vancouver International Airport of 4 of the 5 families headed to Orlando for March Break. The Sandover family (S), Thornley family (T), Duns family (D) and Barret/Zaleski family (B/Z) boarded the little turboprop that took us to Seattle for the red-eye leg of our trip, which was then followed by a short hop from Atlanta to Orlando. The various flights were fairly uneventful and we arrived in Orlando at 9 am tired and excited. We took 3 trains to move a distance that we could probably have walked in ten minutes, and it took two SixT shuttles to transfer the 15 of us to the car rental stop to pick up our two 8-seater Expeditions. From there, it was a 35 minute drive to the Big Brother House which turned out thankfully to look like this:
Too good to be true!
And not this:
It was truly a Mansion, totally under-rated by the pictures we have all been studying for the last 6 months in attempts to pre-pick what we think will be the best bedroom. The house was massive, with what must have been 12-foot ceilings and enough space that, even with 19 people loaded in, never felt crowded or lacking for private places to be. The 15 of us ran around in excited disbelief, touring every room at least twice. We discovered a bottle of Champagne in the fridge and consider popping it then and there, without waiting for the McCagues. Good judgment prevailed and we had our welcome toast after the McCague family (M) arrived an hour later and had their own 2-time tour of the mansion.
Despite misgivings and attempts to hold contests to determine selection order, it turned out that when everyone stated the room that they preferred to have, there were no overlaps. Was this an omen of conflict-free stay at the Big Brother House? Doubtful, but we were certainly off to a good start! The only downside of the House seemed to be an extremely annoying alarm that sounded whenever the pool doors were opened, unless a sescret button on the wall was pushed prior to opening. Should the alarm go off (which it did countless times in the first hour alone), the same button must be pushed to turn it off. It appears, for peculiar legal reasons, that this alarm cannot be selectively disabled. Stupid litigious Americans.
After quickly claiming our various bedrooms, one representative from each family headed off to shop for groceries (the two Dave’s, James, Andrew and me – in typical B/Z family role-reversal style). The shopping was a fun, frenzied romp through the insanity that is Costco, and a few hours and $1300 later, we headed back with the Expedition packed to the roof with supplies, a large amount of which consisted of beer and wine.
Bets were on for who would have the first full-on meltdown, and, against all the book-making odds, today it was almost Andrew T. While having a shower, the heat light fell and hit Jen on the head and shattered. Andrew told the story to the rest of the group who had some very entertaining theories as to how the light might have become dislodged which Andrew didn’t seem to find all that amusing.
The rest of the night was spent eating a delicious steak dinner cooked by Dave D and making a significant dent in our recently purchased booze supply. At some point, Andrew put his electrical skills to use and disabled the annoying pool door alarm, which would prove to be the single best decision we would make all week.
Before heading to bead, we all decided that tomorrow we would kick off our holiday with Disney World (although this was actually pre-decided in Andi’s fantastic colour-coded schedule of activities). Departure would be at 9 am, we also decided. 19 people leaving by 9 – we will see!
Meltdown count: 0