We went out for a 3 week holiday and didn’t have the slightest idea where to begin and having 2 young children with us didn’t help so we came home and a couple of years later happened to see an advert for a Florida property show in York. That was near enough so off we went, we came back armed with lots of information and later that year arranged to fly out without the kids to have a proper look.

We stayed on the Manors North at Westridge and ended up buying the identical house off-plan on the Manors south which at that time was all sand! The location was ideal for us, close to the shops and not too far from Disney world, of course there is a lot more along the US27 now.

We realised that we wanted a home with a west or south facing pool, not overlooked and not adjacent to the highway and because we bought off plan we were able to choose our lot, albeit at a premium but it was worth it.

Then came a whirlwind round of choosing carpets, tiles, furniture, shape of the pool, colour of appliances and what seemed like a thousand choices to make in that one short week. We also chose to have a 2nd en-suite bathroom instead of a utility room and patio doors in the master bedroom.

Then came a fairly stressful few months waiting for the house to be finished and taking a few tentative bookings on the strength of a completion date. We finally completed in September 2000 and nothing can compare to the feeling of owning your own, spanking brand new home in the Sunshine state.

It’s not all been plain sailing and everytime we go we replenish, re-stock, replace, to keep the house in mint condition. All in all it’s worth it and we still get that same great feeling as we walk in through our own front door.