Day#2 (part 1). Checked out of the Wyndham and drove up and down I-drive hitting the souvenir shops. Then strictly for nostalgic reasons, we drove to the hotel I stayed at when I was a kid. Days Inn on I-drive (Now it’s a Rosen Inn near the big McDonald’s) it’s where I first learned how to swim and dive into a pool.
(Backstory: we weren’t poor but not quite middle class either. Our vacations to Florida involved driving straight through from MA., we always stayed at the Days Inn on International Dr. @ $25 a night, breakfast & lunch included cereal and deli meat sandwiches my Mom packed for the trip. Dinner was a treat as we went to Morrison’s Cafeteria behind the Days Inn. Grab a tray, slide it down the rail on the counter and pick items under the glass display along the way. The food was gross and I mostly just ate the jello but my Dad loved the place, I’m sure the price played a factor in that. Lol. Our trips were always 5 days. 2 driving and 5 in Florida. They were “Florida” vacations and not Disney vacations. Most days just involved swimming in the pool all day, walking up and down I-drive to see the shops, maybe mini golf and then 1 day at an amusement or water park before driving home. Of all our trips we only did Disney 1 or 2 times. But it’s what we could afford and we enjoyed it together as a family. Those trips stopped around 1985 as I graduated high school and it was no longer cool to vacation with my family 
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Fast forward 20+ years and now I’m the parent of 2 kids. Now I’m taking my kids to Florida. In 2008 we took our first trip with my family and we took my parents and my wife’s parents. Quite a different trip. We flew down vs. driving. We stayed in a 3 bedroom condo at a new resort on I-Drive South (Floridays Resort) vs. the Days Inn, We did Disney parks, Universal Studios & Seaworld vs. Wet n Wild and the carnival behind the Steak n Shake. And we ate much better food than Morrison’s Cafeteria. Including the Spirit of Aloha dinner show at the Poly, Crystal Palace, Ohana, etc…
