I gave Kevin a really hard time when he booked travel him from Prague with a NINE HOUR layover in London. It wasn’t enough time to get out and tour the city, but it was too much time to sit in a terminal and still maintain our sanity. Alas, we survived and life went on.

I evened the playing field on this trip when I booked an international flight that left at 7am. We’d decided last year that we wouldn’t take any flights that left before 8am, especially international flights, because it requires such a ridiculously early wake-up call. I forgot. In my defense, flying from Vancouver to Orlando isn’t nearly as easy as you might think.

So, our alarms went off at 3:30am and we did all our last minute packing, kissed the cats goodbye and took a cab to YVR. We flew from there to Dallas Fort Worth where we explored the Cowboys Pro Shop, grabbed some lunch and picked up my Dallas Starbucks You Are Here mug before we were on our way.

We arrived at MCO around 6pm and to our hotel, Hilton Orlando, about an hour later. We dropped our bags and hit the pools, swimming, floating the lazy river and having slushy drinks. ????

We eventually went back to our room and got changed so we could hit the lounge downstairs in the hotel. We watched seven screens of sports action – college football, basketball, UFC – while we snacked on salad (me), wings (him) and (shared) the most amazing crab nachos.

We explored a little further, accidentally discovered that I’ll actually be able to walk to my conference instead of taking a shuttle and picked up some coconut water from the hotel marketplace because I was feeling a strong need to rehydrate. 

By then, it was 11pm local time (8pm in our west coast minds, but we were tired) we headed back to the room for some sleep.

What travel booking risks do you try to avoid? Have you ever booked something you really wished you hadn’t? Do you have any great travel tips for us while we are here?