Fort Myers 2020: Diary – Days 6-7

We kept up our daily school routine as best we could. The boys were getting to the end of the work packets they had from school and there weren’t any online zoom classes like there are now. The whole remote thing was still quite new.

With the hotel lounge and eventually most of the restaurants closed, we ended up eating breakfast from the Cool Beans cafe. For lunch, the poolside bar was still an option though Cool Beans also had some lunch offerings. I particularly enjoyed the fried chicken from the refrigerator section which they heated up for me. Fried chicken doesn’t usually make for good leftovers but I found it to be yummy.

Getting Home

When I booked the flight to Fort Myers I didn’t book a return flight. With the uncertainty back home we didn’t know if it was going to be a better idea to stay in Florida or not so we took the risk. During the week I had even tentatively booked some hotel stays in the Orlando area. While Disney had closed by that time, we considered finding a hotel with a nice pool to spend a second week away.

After we saw how things were closing down at the hotel we were at, we decided it was best to head home. We did consider staying another day until Sunday, but in the end figured we’d want that day back home to figure out how to get groceries and exist in the newly locked down situation back home.

It was Friday morning when we made this decision and I was prepared for some pretty expensive tickets to get home. To my shock the tickets were $19 each. For less than $80 TOTAL we were able to book flights for the next morning for all of us, including taxes and fees!

The tickets were basic economy fares, but since we purchased them less than 24 hours ahead of the flight we were able to select our seats for free so there was little value getting the higher ticket class.

Our Last Night

We were sad it was our last night at the hotel. We had a wonderful stay and the hotel did a fantastic job pivoting due to the virus. Our stay was quite relaxing, though part of that was probably due to having the place mostly to ourselves. There were very few guests by that time so the pools and lobby were nearly deserted. The hotel closed down for a couple months about a week after we checked out.

We took the final afternoon to enjoy the waterpark before enjoying our last DoorDash delivery while watching the sun start to set over the fountains. It was far from a gourmet meal but the experience made the meal. We practically had the hotel to ourselves.

The Trip Home

Finding a flight for next to nothing less than 24 hours from departure gave me the impression that it would be pretty empty. I was completely unprepared for how busy the airport was and how the plane was 100% full. During the week we had heard in the news about nearly empty planes but that was the opposite of what we experienced.

Luckily the boys were able to sit together with me while my wife was in the row ahead of us. We didn’t have much in the way of carry-on luggage so we didn’t have to worry about competing for overhead space. We had checked our two big suitcases for free because my wife holds the JetBlue Plus card and we just had backpacks we put under our seats.

The flight itself was pretty normal and was on time. When we arrived in Boston the airport was a ghost town. Barely any people were there and very few stores or restaurants were open. The boys were famished so we were fortunate to find Wahlburgers open to get them some burgers before picking up our luggage and catching a Lyft home.

We were definitely happy to be home but already missed the sun and pools from the hotel. We had certainly taken a risk by going on that trip though we were happy we did it, especially since we were effectively homebound for the next few months due the lockdown.