Liz and Ben do Anna Maria Island 2026

 The check in and flight went seamlessly so we arrived at Tampa airport as expected just after 5pm US time (10pm UK time) and found our allocated car at the car rental place at Tampa airport. The car journey which should have taken 48 minutes from Tampa to our first night's stay, but in fact took us much longer as there was an accident on the road just before the Skyway bridge. Having made slow progress we found the place easily in Bradenton and virtually fell into bed at about 9.30 pm. The place where we are staying for the first 2 nights is small but very clean and comfortable for our short stay, but inevitably we woke at about 2am ready to start the day!  Today, Friday, was cloudy but warm compared to the UK so we did a quick shop in Walmart, had breakfast at Wendy's and then went on to the golf course, Manatee, to arrange our monthly membership. When we got there we found we had to apply for our memberships on line so we came back to our apartment and Ben spent some time s...

 We set off on a warm sunny day.  The route was M1 - M25 - M23 to Gatwick Airport.  We parked up at the Hilton Hotel at South Terminal and checked in with all our luggage.  We then drove to the South long stay carpark.  It was not clear that this was the carpark Ben had booked but in the end we confirmed it was.  Having deposited the car we got the car park bus service back to South Terminal. We had a good meal and bottle of wine in the Garden Restaurant, where Liz rounded off with the trio of chocolates - something we could introduce at the golf club as it was very nice!! Trio of Chocolates

 Getting ready to go