So we drove down to Vineland Ave to the Premium Outlet Mall, which as we arrived seemed very busy for 1 hour before opening, but we found a parking space and walked to the central food court, but did notice that a couple of the shops were open, and once we got to the information stand to grab the map, it was signed that during the Holiday season (after Thanksgiving) the mall opened at 9am just about every day.
So a quick look at the map to confirm the shops we wanted to visit and noticing that the mall had got larger since the last time we visited in 2008 with about 40% more stores than last time.
I started out at the Disney Character Warehouse whilst Celia started the look for a new wardrobe, as she had during 2010 lost almost 7 stones, so none of her old clothes still fit, and that had been the driving force to come to the states, and we had decided that Orlando had been the best location for shopping in the US that we had been to.
I found some display books for my pin collection and a range of pins, including some from the Trade City, Star Wars weekends and Celebration V events, so any collectors this should be on your to do list.
Then we went on the hunt for Clothing bargains, and find them we did.
After an hour or so, the bags were getting heavy so the 1st load where shipped back to the Car and we continued the route around the mall, we had done just a third of the stores and had not gone into every one.
The next Third took till 12, so we broke for lunch. Celia going for a Chinese and I went for a Burger and fries.
By 3pm we had been to every store we wanted to go to and walked all around the mall, but had not found everything that Celia was looking for, so after a quick check on the interweb, we decided that the other Premium outlet (where Beltz used to be) had the relevant stores, we drove back to the I4 and headed up to the other mall.
When we arrived we went to Starbucks for a warm drink, as there was a chill in the air as we had arrived during the coldest December for years. So more shopping was done and after noticing a thread on the Dibb earlier in the year, we started to talk about if to go and look at Cowboy boots. We also noticed that the map we had picked up at the information stand had a voucher for 20% at Sheplers.
So now that the Sun had set we drove down to the Festival Bay Mall and after walking in noticed immediately how much quieter it was there than at the other 2 premium outlet malls. But we walked to Sheplers with no one else around and found the ladies boots first, then the decisions started, which ones were best, are we looking at comfort or design. After Celia had got it down to a couple i wandered off to find the men's boots. I was glad to find that the boots were in size order with all the size 12's (my size) together. We were joined by a salesman, a Texas cowboy, who also gave advice on how to wear boots and jeans, tucked in, hanging out or a strange combination of both.
Needless to say we succumbed, I went for a brown pair with light Blue calf bit and some basic stitching. Celia could not decide between a brown and tan boot and a red boot so just got both. I did think about a Stetson but was talked out of it.
Leaving the store we noticed a sign that Universal had a store in the Festival Bay mall, so in case we did not get to Citywalk, and as Celia is a big Betty Boo fan, we decided to head to the Universal store, and that was when we noticed that the probable reason that there were no people was that almost none of the stores were still in business. This was a sobering view of the economic world now, as it apears that only the larger stores were still open and I am not sure that they could find that amount of space in any other mall, but also do not bring enough business to support any other stores.
We did not find anything interesting at the Universal store and left the empty mall to get to Macy's at the Mall at Millenia, by the time we got there it was just before 8pm and we were getting hungry so as the stores were closing at 9pm we decided to get a table at the Cheesecake factory and hope that we had enough time to get to Macy's afterwards. I had the pulled pork sandwich, Celia had the Jamaican black pepper shrimp & chicken. I grab a slice of Reese's Peanut butter chocolate cake Cheesecake to go and walked towards Macy's as it was 9pm but the shops were still open, but as we walked they started to shut. So we went back to the car and then hotel.
I did have half the cheesecake whilst we were pottering arround the hotel, and went to bed.
Oh this is all the shopping we had done during the day
Epcot due in the morning, and we hoped to be there for rope drop.
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