Wally’s Deli, Southwest Florida International Airport (MYR), Fort Myers, FL USA

Ordered from a kiosk at Fort Myers Airport, however, the club sandwich is from from Wally's Deli in Fort Myers, Florida.

A week in Naples was just what the doctor ordered. Our first weeklong trip in a year… it was hard to call a weeklong vacation, considering we worked the entire time, taking half of Thursday and half of Friday… But still, working all day and still being able to head to the beach in the evening was a massive win for us. Plus, seeing our son play all day with his grandmother was just absolutely wonderful. Swimming, running, chasing birds, even feeding a giraffe lettuce at the zoo; it was so special to see him in this environment.

Pelican Bay in Naples it’s just absolutely fantastic, it has an almost Disney World feel to it, and offers so much for a family. We were sad to leave, knowing it was 10° in Boston, but alas, home was calling us.

Still, the cultural differences when it comes to social distancing, dining, and mask wearing in Florida compared to Boston was absolutely astounding. In so many situations I completely forgot Covid existed here, even though obviously didn’t. Candidly, it was inspiring to see many people 65+ getting the vaccine down here for 65+, going right out and contributing to the local economy.

The airport experience was a little stressful, but not because of Covid; we booked my wife’s ticket under our current surname, but she only had an ID with her maiden name. And her ticket couldn’t be changed. How do you get past TSA if your ticket doesn’t match your ID? Fortunately, the JetBlue staff came up with an idea of giving her gate ticket, because we were traveling with our son, with the idea that she wanted to go through security to watch us depart, but not board the flight. I have never seen that before! Definitely save the day.

With limited time to catch our flight, and massive hopes our son would sleep the whole way home, I grabbed the only meal I could find: the turkey club from Wally’s Deli in Fort Myers, proudly served by the kiosk inside the terminal.

Dense, mushy turkey with a salty aftertaste. Perhaps that aftertaste was the bacon trying to add its value, because outside of salt, you wouldn’t know it existed. What was even the purpose of the thin slice of lettuce crammed into this wrap? And the tomato – gosh I’ve never pitied an ingredient so much. It was like a trapped circus animal looking for a way to escape, sandwiched in a box there just to add visual stimulation.

The wrap was all consuming too – it was easily 2/3s the entire meal – you could have wrapped 3 sandwiches with it, let alone one. Each bite was so dense. And each bite made me ask: why am I eating this?? For $10 I expected more from Wally!

Wally’s Deli gets outstanding reviews in Fort Myers, but this club sandwich didn’t represent the quality and attention to detail that resonated through the reviews and photos I saw online. I seriously implore Wally to re-consider his distribution through Fort Myers airport, because this club just didn’t do him justice.

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