No Parks, All Recreation! Team Jamerica's August 2016 Brexit - Day 1 - Travel Day

[JoJo88]

Team Jamerica’s 2016 Brexit

No Parks, All Recreation!

INDEX

Day 1 – Travel Day, Heathrow – Dallas - Orlando

Wednesday 17th August 2016

The alarm was set for 5am. Those 6 words should be adequate, but as you’ll find out as this trippy goes on, why use 6 words when 600 will do So as I was saying, the alarm was set for 5am. Or at least it was supposed to be set for 5am, but it was actually set for 5.30. Let me explain...

Simon has this weird thing of liking our bedside clock to be half an hour fast. There are three reasons for this. First reason. Apparently it gives him more time in the morning. Second reason. He can’t bear to set his work alarm for anything before 6am, so by putting the clock forward 30 minutes, it means he can set the alarm for 6, but actually be woken at 5.30. And lastly, the time on the clock when the alarm goes off is the time he want to leave the house, so if he sets the alarm for 6, that gives him half an hour to get out the door. Make sense? Perfectly reasonable? Still with me?

Just to complicate things, I like to set my alarm for half an hour before I need to get up so that I give myself a nice, gentle 30 minute lie in before actually getting out of bed. So when we have conversations about what time to set the alarm, it usually goes something like this….

Simon: ‘What time would you like the alarm set for?’

Me: ‘5.30 please’.

Simon: ‘Is that 5.30 actual time, or 5.30 on the clock?’

Me: ‘5.30 on the clock please’

Simon: ‘So you want to get up at 5am? ’

Me: ‘No, I want to get up at 5.30’

Simon: ‘So why am I setting the alarm for 5.30 then?’

Me: ‘Don’t worry about it, just set the alarm for 5.30 please’

See how confusing it can be?!

We got there in the end, or at least I thought it we did until I made Simon push the button to check it one last time and saw that it was set for 6.30am. I know it’s confusing, but how on earth he arrived at that conclusion, I’ll never know. And there came a phrase that I would utter quite a few times over the next couple of weeks….. ‘you had one job’!

So, alarm eventually set, correctly, Simon bedded down and nodded off while I watched the Olympic cycling. We’d really enjoyed the cycling, particularly in the velodrome, it’s quite something watching them creeping along, cat & mouse style waiting to break away. That night was pretty spectacular, with Trott & Kenny both winning gold, and I got a little carried away celebrating which woke Simon up briefly, oops!

Surprisingly, sleep came easy once I turned the TV off at around 11.30, but didn’t last long and I woke at 1, and then tossed at turned until nodding off seconds before the 5/5.30 alarm. If only I’d had another half hour shut eye

The plan was to leave home at around 7, giving us plenty of time to get to Heathrow for our 12.50 flight. I much prefer to travel up the day before and spend the night at the airport but I wasn’t allowed this time, and to be fair, there wasn’t any need.

The journey to Heathrow down the M4 from us is around 90 minutes, so a 7am start gave us plenty of time for any possible traffic mishaps, or faffing around at the airport with parking the cars. We’d also arranged to meet Grandma & Grandad at Membury services at 7.30 so that we could travel down in convoy and possibly off load a child or two.

I jumped – okay, rolled out of bed at 5.30 and stumbled into the shower before waking the boys and packing the last bits and bobs.

I’d done most of the packing over the weekend as I was working up until 6 on the Monday & Tuesday before we left which didn’t leave me a lot of time. Incidentally, weeks before the holiday Adam & I had decided on what we thought would be our holiday song this year, and it was the last song that came on the radio before I shut down my work PC.

As it happened, we didn’t hear it once during the entire two weeks, yet I still think of it as a holiday song!

Thankfully Grandma had been at mine looking after the boys while I was working, which doesn’t really require much these days, particularly as Daniel was at a nearby cricket camp, and Adam is old enough to stay on his own. So really I had her there under false pretences, to do all the last minute jobs for me – changing the bedding, cleaning the house, etc. She’s a good egg! And won’t fall for it again now that she’s read this

So, back to the packing. I’m a big fan of packing bags, and so to avoid any doubt as to how good they are, let me demonstrate!

I also packed a smaller case inside a bigger one for all the goodies we might want to bring back

We each have different coloured bags and I just find it so much easier at the other end if everyone’s things are packed together, especially as I like to pack across all cases just in case a bag goes missing. Not that it ever has. Or has it?

Car all packed, bleach all deposited in the loos, everything that could be unplugged unplugged and water turned off, we piled into the car and left bang on 7am as planned. So far so good!

Yep, I’m in the back with Adam, because Puke Boy has been known to blow chunks, even on ten minute car journeys, and travels much better in the front. We were also armed with plenty of vomit bags after I stocked up for everyone in anticipation of a 12 hour coach journey to Belgium at Easter, for both boys’ football teams, which subsequently got cancelled at the very last minute due to the airport bombing…… I’d also shoved a Kwells down him and furnished him with those little acupuncture wrist bands, so should anything happen, at least I could say I tried!

A few texts were exchanged with the Grandparents on route, and at 7.30 on the dot we were pulling in at the drive-through Starbucks at Membury services. Again, right on schedule, and they were already there to meet us.

Simon popped in to get himself a coffee but reappeared a few seconds later empty handed – apparently the queue was far too long and we were losing valuable seconds by mucking about at Membury.

He’d have much preferred to carry on without stopping, but the Grandparents can’t be trusted out in the big wide world on their own, not since they accidentally ended up on Mission Space instead of Spaceship Earth in Epcot, or took almost an hour to get from Mall at Millenia to Universal’s Royal Pacific despite having Sat Nav (details in previous trip reports! ). So, to alleviate extra stress for me, it was better that they were in tow.

Daniel decided he was going to change cars which caused a bit of a palaver as Grandad had put the back seats of their car down to accommodate the two diddy little suitcases they had with them. I’ve mentioned in previous reports how the only time Simon isn’t his usual laid back self is on travel day, and today was no exception. He was losing his patience at all the faffing around, all two minutes of it, but eventually we were back on ‘holiday rooooooooooaaaaaaad’, otherwise known as the M4, and on our way.

The rest of the journey was straightforward, and it wasn’t long before we were half an hour from our destination, which was a key moment as that’s when the parking company wanted a call to say we were on our way, especially if we were going to be early, which it looked like we were.

I’d booked Heathrow Parking Force Meet & Greet through Looking4Parking - £88 for the two weeks which isn’t bad for Heathrow, although not as good as the £32 we paid them for two weeks at Manchester airport last year!

Anyway, I called the number and was told that we were booked in for 9 (it was now only 8) and that we were supposed to give them 30 minutes notice. I replied that I am giving them 30 minutes notice, see you at 8.30!

We were then told to ignore the printed instructions which told us to go to the car park, and to go to the departures drop off point instead as apparently the car park can be very busy that time of the morning. I made a quick call to my Dad to let him know the change of plan as he wouldn’t necessarily follow us and could quite easily have carried on to the original drop off point. If he had, he’d probably still be there now. I wouldn’t usually mind, but he had Daniel with him

We approached Terminal 3 at around 8.25

And parked up, the others just the other side of the road, and offloaded the cases. Another quick call to the parking people to check we were in the right place, and two minutes later they were there and had whisked the cars away leaving us to make the short walk to the terminal building.

We were flying with American Airlines which meant we needed Zone 3, and when we got there it was absolutely heaving.

A member of staff approached us and said that the queue for check in was around two hours and that we should use the self service kiosks instead. Now, this should’ve been straight forward, but I’d tried to do online check-in the previous day, which went a little something like this…

It was my lunch break at work, honest

All was going well until I got stuck in a loop of trying to add my mobile number, being told I had been successful, then being sent straight back to the same page where it would ask me once again to add my mobile number. I tried with the country code, without the country code, knocking the zero off the front of my number, leaving the zero there, but nothing would work, and it wouldn’t let me proceed without a mobile number.

Eventually I downloaded the app on my phone, thinking I might have better luck there. Success! It allowed me to check in, at least I had ‘checked in’ against all our names, and a little button saying ‘print boarding pass’. However, I couldn’t get them to print, and so went back onto the PC to try from there. Once again, I could see that we were all checked in, but I couldn’t do anything else, and eventually got this message….

I wasn’t overly worried, but in amongst it all I emailed American Airlines just to see if they could shed any light on what was wrong. Needless to say, I didn’t hear back from them. Not until days into the holiday anyway!

We chanced our luck on the self service kiosks as advised, and all was going well until the machine spat out a little slip of paper, basically saying the same thing as the monitor had the day before – ‘please check in with an agent at the airport’. Perfect!

I went off to find the person who had sent us to the kiosk and he directed us towards bag drop. I explained that we didn’t have boarding cards but he assured me that was fine and that we could go to bag drop, so dubiously we did as we were told.

The queue for bag drop looked quite hefty too but was moving fairly quickly and it actually only took us around 15 minutes to get to the front. Which would have been a right result if we’d been allowed to check in. We saw one family at the check in desk, only to then watch them walk away with their suitcases still in their possession. This didn’t fill me with confidence!

However, on presenting ourselves to the check in lady, thankfully all was well and she proceeded to do the business.

This notice was on the desk:

Me & Simon both said we would be very tempted if it was just the four of us and we weren’t connecting, however, we felt it was just asking for trouble if we attempted it with a connecting flight and my parents with us too.

As we were connecting in Dallas, I asked if she could print off our boarding passes for the second flight into Orlando, which she duly did. As I hadn’t been able to pre-book seats for that flight, I asked if we were all sat together. She had a quick glance at her screen and then apologised as it looked like we were all split up. Uh oh!

However, on second glance, she could see that we were at least in pairs, so all was okay. As I’d pre-booked our seats for the transatlantic leg (free of charge with AA), I didn’t bother to check those boarding cards, which perhaps I should’ve done…..

All suitcases were weighed, and we were well within our limits. However, as we were so early for our flight (it was only around 9.15am by now), she couldn’t put our cases on the conveyor belt, we had to take them outside to another luggage drop off point, which is obviously why the family we’d seen earlier still had their cases with them……

Once relieved of our cases we headed upstairs. The boys were hungry, having been bundled in the car first thing without so much as a whiff of a Cheerio, so we stopped off at the first place we saw, Leon, where they grabbed a sausage/bacon muffin and a drink.

Simon got himself a croissant and a coffee. I think Grandad had expected us to go for a sit down breakfast somewhere, but I didn’t fancy it, neither did Simon or Grandma, so reluctantly he got himself a muffin too and we had a sit down for a little while.

We then went through security which was very quick and easy. Adam had to go through the scanner for a random check which is strange actually, as on his ticket it says ‘TSA Prechk’ which I hadn’t noticed before, but anyway, it didn’t delay us at all and we were soon in the departure lounge.

We set up camp just by the WH Smith book store and then took it in turns to go off for a wander.

I went with Daniel to try and get him some shades. His pair from last year, which he lost on holiday but was later reunited with, had since gone missing, (quelle surprise) and for that reason I was very reluctant to shell out £50 on a pair of kiddy Ray Bans! We couldn’t find anything cheaper, so headed back to base camp, stopping off in Duty Free so I could grab my usual bottle of perfume.

As we walked out, we were papped by Grandma!

Please excuse the blurry photo, they really don’t get much better than that!

Simon and I then popped to Pret. He always gets himself a tuna baguette for the flight, and I never have the stomach at that time to even think about one, never mind buy one, but of course, once we’re up in the air and he’s smugly tucking into his sandwich, there’s nothing I want more. So we have this understanding now whereby he buys me one as well, even if I’m adamant I don’t want one! We also got some water, bananas and a cheesy pastry thing, one for Adam for lunch, which he ate straight away, and one for me for breakfast, which I also ate straight away. Now that, I could stomach!

I then went off with Adam to WH Smith so that we could get a book each, buy one get one half price. I chose Girl on the Train, and Adam got Pointless, which is basically lots of different activities, a different one on each page.

Back to our seats, we then fiddled around on our gadgets for a while using the free wi-fi. Daniel was iMessaging his friends back home, me & mum were Dibbing, with a bit of Instagram thrown in, my Dad was no doubt playing Ruzzle and, as per the norm, I have no idea what Simon was doing. Adam was working his way through his new book.

I popped back to Pret to grab a couple of plain rolls for Daniel for the flight as he can be fussy, and plane food can be a challenge for anyone, never mind throwing fussiness into the mix! Adam came with me and picked up a BLT to save for later.

I kept checking the board to see which gate we were due at.

Even though it said the gate would be shown at 11.30, I had a text just after 11 telling me we were at Gate 28. We didn’t bother moving though until it was shown on the board, bang on time.

We stopped off for a loo break on the long walk down to the gate, where we were spotted by a fellow Dibber, hello Orlando 2004 Unfortunately she didn't have time to stop and say hi though and so we didn't know about it until later It's a funny thing, people recognising you, especially as they could very easily see you at your worst, you know, telling the kids off or adjusting your underwear etc etc...

We then joined the fairly long queue, which moved pretty quickly.

We were asked if we’d been asked any security questions at check in, which we hadn’t, so we had to join a separate line to be asked all the usual ‘did you pack your own bag’ type questions.

We finally got into the very busy waiting area at around 12.10. It looked like standing room only, but we managed to find some seats dotted around.

It was then that we decided to look at our boarding cards, and noticed that something wasn’t quite right. The seats I had booked had been two rows of three, by the window, behind one another, and yet our boarding cards had us all in Row 22, from D to J. We really couldn’t work out how they’d seated us, and when an announcement came over that boarding was delayed 15 minutes due to the plane being late in, we knew we’d have a little longer to wait before the mystery was solved!

We were eventually called for boarding at about 12.40, and made our way down towards our home for the next, gulp, ten hours!

Papped again!

Once on board, is was obvious why our seat allocation wasn’t as expected, the configuration was 2-5-2, so we ended up in a line of six, Daniel & Grandma by the window

and the rest of us in four of the five seats in the middle, Grandad, Simon, Adam then me, with a spare seat next to me.

Or at least there was for around 10 minutes, until a girl in her late teens/early 20s plonked herself down. Ah well, it was a nice while it lasted!

Despite the above photo, Simon wasn’t happy at all.

This is more like it

The last thing he wanted was to be trapped in the middle of a row, and for three of us to end up in middle seats was quite possibly the worst possible scenario, well, apart from us not sitting together at all.
Oh well, not a busting lot we can do about it, and actually, watch this space, as it all turns out a lot better than expected!

We were in the cabin just behind the Premium Economy seats, and had also walked past the business class seats, oh what I would give for a bed for the day! Even PE looked sooooo much better.
The plane was very old and tatty looking but I was relieved to see seat back IFE, as I’d read that not all AA planes have it.

At this point I changed my watch to Dallas time, until I realised that Dallas is 6 hours behind the UK, whereas, as you all know, Orlando is only 5 hours behind. I’m not bad at maths, but this was far too confusing for me, so I just put it back 5 hours to Orlando time and kept my fingers crossed that someone else would be keeping track. Especially as we had another plane to catch, at approximately 2am, English time!

We started backing up at around 1pm, even though there were people not quite in their seats! An announcement eventually came over telling people to sit down otherwise we wouldn’t be going anywhere.

We were given ear buds before we took off, but despite being grateful we had seat back TVs, I wasn’t holding out much hope as they looked very very old!

We eventually pushed back properly at just after 1, and soon followed the safety briefing which was done on screen, although we were treated to a partial YMCA when the stewards pointed out our nearest exits. For those who are interested, the plane was a Boing 777, had no charging points, which was a blow for the kids as it meant rationing their gadget use, and we had blankets and pillows waiting for us on our seats.

At 1.10 we began taxiing and eventually took off at 1.30pm, so around 40 minutes later than scheduled.

Deirdra introduced herself as our cabin leader and let us know what times the food would be out, including a snack 90 minutes before landing.

Half an hour after take off we were given a bag of pretzels (plain, not the lovely sour cream & chive ones you get on Virgin), and offered a drink. Soft drinks, wine & beer were free, but there was a charge for spirits.

We all enjoyed a variety of soft drinks

And then settled down for the rest of the day. Or at least tried to.

Simon was having problems with his IFE, it kept glitching and he couldn’t watch anything. Extra annoying as the movies were on a loop so if you missed the start of something you had to wait a while for it to start again.

My seat wasn’t ideal as I had a big metal box down by my feet, which, when I put my laptop bag down there meant I had barely any room. Simon mentioned his IFE to the stewardess who disappeared for a while but then came back and said there was nothing she could unless he didn’t mind moving seats. He asked where to, and as luck would have it, there were two seats at the back of our cabin, by the window. And that was it, him and Adam chipped off for the rest of the flight, giving me & my Dad four seats to spread out in! This was a right result, we couldn’t have asked for a better outcome to be honest.

I shuffled along one seat, giving me a spare seat either side, and therefore loads more foot room. The girl on the end of our row slept for virtually the entire flight, so she was probably glad of the extra space too.

Look, loads of space now for my laptop bag

At around 2.30 the food came round. Beef pie or vegetarian Thai. No kids’ meals and all of us went for the beef. It was like a shepherds pie and was actually pretty good, and wouldn’t be out of place on M&S ready meal shelf.

It was very tasty but quite rich and I couldn’t finish it. The salad was fresh and the dressing was lovely and had me thinking of the lovely ranch dressing on the side salad at Longhorns. Adam really enjoyed the pie but Daniel didn’t attempt it. Instead he had two of the pretzel rolls, his and Grandmas and two lots of the crackers and cheese, which went down a treat.

The cherry cake was quite rich and messy so I didn’t finish it, I just had a taste. All in all it wasn’t a bad meal as far as inflight dining goes!

The drinks trolley came round during the meal. I declined, I swear there was a litre of Sprite in that one can, I was still only half way through! Grandad had a tomato juice, unexpectedly served in a can – we both expected it to be in a bottle! I had a sip, but it was as unpleasant as I expected, and should be chucked into a bolognaise sauce, not into a glass (or plastic cup in this case!)

Having the extra seats was great during the meal as we could properly spread out and didn’t have to worry about elbows!
Once everything was cleared away, I stretched out across two seats and had a snooze. It seemed like it was for a while, but was probably only around 20 minutes. At around 4pm the guy in front asked if I minded if he reclined. I’d have loved to have said ‘yes’, but you just can’t, can you? And I really appreciated being asked. However, when he did recline, I couldn’t believe how far back the seat went!

I reclined a little, without asking, but it was a small child behind me who was entertaining herself by kicking my seat so I felt I’d mix things up for her a little bit by changing her target!

I watched Mothers Day starring Jennifer Aniston, which was the perfect kind of fluffy movie that’s easy to watch on a flight. No Bourne or Da Vinci Code for me, I just can’t concentrate well enough. The film went tech towards the end, right at the part when the thing you are not supposed to see coming, starts coming. The film never did resume and I couldn’t bear to sit through it again just to find out if it finished as predicted, so I’ll just assume it did!

Daniel slept loads, Adam pinched Simon’s preloaded tablet and watched movies. Grandad did puzzles, read and napped, and Grandma napped too, as well as watching some movies.

The girl at the end of the row continued to sleep. Made me wonder if she was suffering with flu or something

At some point I noticed that all the window blinds were closed and the cabin lights had been dimmed. It was also very quiet so would’ve been peaceful but for the kids behind me who were so irritating, messing around in their seats, or more specifically on the floor in front of their seats, and constantly banging into mine. I did that very English thing of turning round to see what was happening in the hope that the parent would notice, and then do something about it, but he was oblivious.

I spent some time trying to work out, if I was in that situation, how I would like to be approached if my child was doing it. It passed a bit of time but I couldn’t come up with anything. I’ve done it once before, in the cinema. I asked the mum, politely I thought, if she would mind asking her son to stop kicking my seat. He chirped up that he wasn’t, that he just did it by accident as he was moving. Lying little toad, it had been a constant kick, kick, kick, but I felt terrible, and also felt the glares on the back of my head for the rest of the movie.

Daniel had someone kick his seat throughout the new Star Wars movie and in the end he stood up, and in a very stern voice just came out with it – ‘would you stop kicking my seat! ’. My problem during the flight was, Daniel wasn’t sat with me

Eventually enough was enough though, and after another bout of child induced turbulence I peered through the seats and spoke to the big sister who then told her younger sibling to sit still. It lasted all of two minutes so I turned again and asked the younger one directly who just glared back at me. My notes read ‘if I fall asleep now, I’m going to wake up with bogies in my hair, I know it! ’

At around 6.15 the drinks trolley came around again, and we were also offered little tubs of ice cream.

The others all had one but I just had an apple juice. Grandad had a coffee which tasted surprisingly like tea. My guess is that it was tea! The little plastic spoon that came with the ice cream wasn’t up to the job, it was a solid block! The passing of time will help with that though, I’ll sure he’ll enjoy it on the flight home

I then settled down to watch some episodes of the Big Bang Theory. Daniel has consumed the entire 9 seasons over the summer holidays. Thank you Netflix, you’ve saved me a fortune in Kid Camp! Adam too, and yet I’ve only caught the odd episode here and there, so have made it my job to find out what Bazinga means. Spell check wanted to change that to Basingstoke. I’ll make finding out what Basingstoke means my next job…….

I then watched Sing Street, and loved it as soon as they played Duran Duran’s Rio and talked about how dreamy John Taylor is!

Again, it was another perfect, fluffy flight film that I actually got to see right through to the end. I really enjoyed all the 80s references, however dubious the time line. Back to the Future? The film was set in ’85, but BTTF wasn’t out until the very end of that year. Also Rio was released a lot earlier than ’85 and yet they were watching it on Top of the Pops. Oh, well, it didn’t matter, it killed an hour or two!

I missed a couple of minutes of the movie to take Dan to the loo, the first time I’d seen him properly all flight, and we only had two hours to go! The sum of his food intake had been bread, crackers, a bit of cheese spread and a Titan bar courtesy of Grandad! Oh well, a quick visit to Sweet Tomatoes will soon sort him out!

Simon popped by from time to time to pick up food, water, etc. I’d enjoyed my baguette during the film, and by the time Sing Street was finished we were around 1hr 45 min from landing.

It had been a really comfortable flight, despite our seat disappointment at the start, and had gone fairly quickly. Our little cabin only had around 7 rows, and was very quiet and cosy. We didn’t have many movies to choose from, but we all found plenty to help pass the time, and to give an idea of how old the IFE system was, one of the games available to play was Tetris!

And around 9pm Daniel leaned over to ask where Adam & Simon were. They’d only been gone for over 6 hours!

As promised, cabin crew came through with a savoury pastry and a cake at around 9pm, but I declined and just had another drink instead. By all accounts it was very nice though!

Always nice when you get to this point in the journey…..

I asked a stewardess about the white immigration form and was told that they would be brought round soon. However, nothing materialised, despite there being information in the flight magazine that also said we needed to fill one in. I asked again, and was told that they were no longer needed. Oh, okay then. That’s a new one, and not something I had picked up on the Dibb….. (although I have since read a post about them being phased out!)

We began our descent at 10.10pm, and finally landed at 10.30pm, or 4.30pm Dallas time, which made it a 9 hour flight, and not a 10 hour one as we’d been expecting. At first I thought perhaps I’d made the mistake with timings, forgetting that Dallas was different to Orlando, then I remembered it had actually said ten hours on the BA Manage Your Booking page too, so it wasn’t me….

Our next flight wasn’t due to leave until 8.20pm so we had almost four hours to clear immigration, collect and deposit our cases etc.
The immigration hall was quite busy, but we were directed towards the self service kiosks, bypassing the huge queue to see the officers. I asked the staff member if we needed to fill in a white form and once again was told we didn’t, even though I could see little counters set up with the forms, and other passengers filling them in.

We didn’t wait long at all for a kiosk and all was going well. We answered all the questions – the same ones that appear on the white form! Simon & I did our finger prints, we all had our photos taken and then received a print out. Grandma & Grandad went to a separate kiosk.

However, after finishing at the kiosk and thinking we were good to go, we had to show our print outs to another office, who spotted a cross on mine. So while Simon and the boys went on their merry way, I had to join the huge snaking line of people to see an immigration officer. Oh just perfect!

I then began to wonder about my parents and how they’d got on. I knew that Simon wouldn’t think to wait for them, he has a habit of going off in his own little world, in which case they were likely to panic and wonder where we were. As it happened, they ended up with big crosses too, that’s after leaving the kiosks without even being issued a print out the first time, and being escorted back to do it all over again. They joined me, and it took us a whole hour, from 5 til 6 to get through. There was a lady behind us who was due to start boarding her connecting flight at 6, so she let a nearby member of staff who was floating around know. The member of staff looked concerned, nodded intently and then swiftly ran away and wouldn’t come near us again!

The annoying thing was, the immigration officers kept disappearing. They would process a couple of people and then walk away. Loo break maybe? Perhaps they are as nervous about the whole thing as we are? Coffee break? Personality removal process?

Eventually we got through, and as painful as it was, I was just relieved that we had so much spare time. The poor lady behind us didn’t stand a chance.

We met up with Simon at baggage claim. He was with a member of staff who had sent her husband (also a member of staff!) to find us as he no idea where we were or what was taking so long. He obviously hadn’t seen the huge queue in the immigration hall!

He had all the bags with him expect for Grandad’s as he didn’t know which one it was, but we soon found it and carried on through to yet another huge line, the customs check.

Even though we had plenty of time, we were starting to worry a little bit as we knew we had to go through security again too and everything here seemed to take much longer than it should. Simon asked yet another member of staff if she could help us as we had a connecting flight to catch but she said she couldn’t. Simon then let her know, in no uncertain terms, that Dallas is the most unhelpful airport he has ever been to. She came back ten minutes later and said, very quietly and discreetly that she’s not supposed to help us, but if we promise not to say anything she will. Simon declined her offer, one of those ‘cut your nose off to spite your face’ moments, but the line was moving quickly anyway and we were almost at the front.

We had a very chatty officer, talking about Brexit and Trump and how he wouldn’t vote Clinton as she’s a crook! When he found out we were heading to Orlando we all agreed that we’d rather vote for Mickey Mouse….. It was nice to have a chatty officer, but we were quite glad when he finally let us go!

Next up was bag recheck. There was no queue, just a little area with barriers around it, so we literally dumped our cases with someone who checked the labels and said we were good to go. By this point we could only hope they would arrive in Orlando when did, but judging Dallas so far, it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t. (That is exactly what is written in my notes – just wait and see what happens! )

We then had to go through security again. There was a guy in front of us who had three trays, absolutely full to the brim of things. Simon and the boys skipped past him but I got stuck behind. He kept forgetting to remove things, his belt, shoes, glasses. Then when he eventually got through, two of his bags were held up. One because it had an Xbox in it – so he didn’t seen all the notices about large electrical items then?!

My tray was held up too because my laptop was supposed to be on its own, but it was in a tray with my iPad. Ooops! I asked an officer if there was anything she could do to help as we were connecting and she grabbed it for me and did the necessary checks. Thus proving that not all staff at Dallas are unhelpful!

This only held us up by about 5 minutes, but it seemed a lot longer at the time, and we then headed towards the sky train. It was then that Grandad decided he needed to go to the restroom. I guess he didn’t need to go while they were all waiting for me then?!

We were on the sky train just after 7pm, so well within time, and made the short journey over to Terminal A.

As we were waiting for the train we bumped into the poor lady who was tight for her flight connection, and she was now on a later flight instead. Not a huge crisis, but easily avoidable….

Once we arrived at our Terminal, Adam said he was hungry. Simon had told him there would probably be a McDonalds when we got through and it was the first place we saw so we bought a load of nuggets for anyone who wanted them to share. Simon went wandering off and came back with a burrito, which disappointed Adam as he then wished he’d waited. Something that he needs to learn rather than rushing to get the first thing he sees!

We found a seat at Gate A19, and took it in turns to visit the restrooms.

I queued up for a frozen yogurt on my way back from the loo, and just as I was being handed it, Simon appeared at the other end of the line as he’d spotted the kiosk too and had the same idea.
Considering it was approaching 2am UK time, and we’d been on the go since 7, we were all doing surprisingly well, and were pretty calm and relaxed. The boys were coping admirably. I know they are plenty old enough to understand now, but even so, they hadn’t moaned, whinged or more notably, bickered once. Don’t worry, they more than make up for it over the next couple of weeks

If anybody was to ask if I’d recommend connecting in Dallas it would be a massive no based on our experience. Severe lack of common sense and helpfulness I’m afraid. We were lucky that we had plenty of time but for anyone with a short layover, it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience! However, looking back now, it doesn’t seem that bad but I have to remember that at the time, it really was!

Boarding started in plenty of time and it was then that we looked properly at our boarding cards. We’d assumed it was going to be a 2-2 configuration and that we’d be in pairs. However, we had 2 seats in row 32, seats A&B. Two in row 17, C&D, and two in row 16, E&F, so with 6 different letters in play, we couldn’t quite work out how it would work, but got ourselves into pairs anyway and hoped for the best.

Once on board all became clear, it was a 3-3 configuration, obviously! We sent the Grandparents down to row 32, where they had the window and middle seat. Simon & Daniel got themselves into row 16, again the window and middle seat, and me and Adam ended up both on the aisle seat of row 17, so near one another, slightly staggered, but not sat together. I could see from Adam’s face that he wasn’t happy. He’s quite an anxious person, and really doesn’t like sitting next to strangers, no matter what we are doing. He always tries to sit either on an end or in between two of us – at the cinema, sporting events, on a bench somewhere, it doesn’t matter.

I got Simon’s attention and suggested that if someone sat in the spare seat next to them, he asks if they’d mind swapping, after all, it’s just one row different. Someone did take that seat, Simon asked, the guy swapped and all was well in Adam’s world. And what do you know, another child free flight for me!

This was a much nicer plane, a lot more leg room, better IFE, leather seats rather than the dodgy fabric of the plane before. It was an A331S according to the leaflet in front of me. However, I didn’t have any headphones as I’d left the others on the other flight, and we weren’t given any more.

It didn’t matter though as watching movies was the last thing on my mind. We took off at around 8.30pm, which was 2.30am UK time, and as soon as we did I began to feel really queasy. Probably a combination of flying and extreme tiredness, we’d been on the go for over 17 hours. I’ll admit I was a bit concerned about Simon having to drive once we landed.

I amused myself for a little while watching Adam who had nodded off. Poor thing, his head was resting on his hand but kept flopping to the side, after which he would do that head jerk thing, put his head upright and then start the whole sequence once again!

I didn’t sleep at all, but kept my eyes closed for most of the flight as I just felt so rough. Daniel managed to sleep for a while but Simon didn’t, and at around midnight we finally touched down in Orlando.
It was lovely arriving as domestic passengers, no immigration, and we were straight through to baggage claim where we were happy to be reunited with four of our five bags almost straight away. It was Grandma’s that was missing but the carousel was still going round and new bags were appearing so we just waited. And waited. And waited some more. Simon went off to sort out the car, taking a case with him, and we waited some more. Until we realised that it was the same few bags going round and round and nothing new was being added, and then the carousel ground to a halt.

Leaving the boys with Grandad, me & Mum went to find AA baggage services which wasn’t far away and joined a line of other people who were also missing things.

There was one person on the desk, and another couple outside chucking suitcases into what looked like a suitcase graveyard, all lined up like tombstones, waiting for their owners to recognise them. We had a quick scan through on our way into the office but none looked familiar.

It took absolutely ages for each person to be dealt with, even when one of the suitcase chuckers came in to help. One lady was missing a pushchair that hadn’t been tagged at her departure point, another lady was missing a suitcase full of things for her baby granddaughter, the case also wasn’t tagged at the departure airport, despite her saying she had pointed it out at the time and they’d assured her it would be. There wasn’t much the guy behind the desk could do as he couldn’t track it, but eventually they came to some sort of conclusion, whether it was satisfactory or not I don’t know, but it was finally our turn.

While we were waiting Simon had appeared needing my Dad’s driving licence so he could add him as second driver. They guy on the Alamo desk had then told him that he needed my dad there too, not just the licence. He sarcastically asked Simon if he would like him to wait again while he got my Dad, or could he serve other people as he only had 11 minutes of his shift left. Simon replied ‘whatever makes you happy’, and was then told that he could get my Dad added at the kiosk in the garage. Why not say that in the first place?

I had popped down to see the suitcase Simon had on him so we could work out which baggage receipt corresponded with the missing case. I was so glad I had the receipts handy as it’s sometimes easy to shove them somewhere and lose them. Thankfully the case was traced on the system as being still in Dallas, but would be in on the first flight in the morning, arriving at around 9am. Apparently if there is any delay with cases, they send the plane on without them, assuming it will be fine for the case to follow on afterwards. I guess with internal flights the chances are it won’t be an issue, but if we’d been heading off for a cruise the following morning, my Mum would’ve been stuffed! As it happened, she was just relieved it had been traced as it didn’t look like the other lady with the missing baby case had quite the same reassurance.

All this reinforced the idea that packing across cases is a good one!
We asked if the case would be returned to us, but apparently there was a two day backlog so we said we’d pop back for it the following morning.

We were 90 minutes in the baggage hall in the end. What should have been an easy exit from MCO was far from it, but we were all fairly calm about it all, particularly my Mum considering she only had with her the clothes she was standing in. Looks like she’s skinny dipping on her first morning swim then

Finally we wandered over to the parking garage. It was soooo quiet, being 1.30 in the morning, but there was one family in front of us in the queue at the kiosk, the one with the missing pushchair. We didn’t wait long and my Dad was added as a driver and we were told to go and choose a car.

By this time Simon couldn’t be bothered to properly choose a car and so we just took the first Dodge Caravan we came to and loaded up the cases. They all fit in with no trouble, which I guess is the silver lining to being one case short!

It was 1.30 by the time we were driving out and into the Florida night. I will admit to being very relieved we had no plans for the morning, no early morning ADR at Crystal Palace, no rope drop to attend. I did wonder what silly o’clock would look like for us considering we wouldn’t get to bed until gone 2am Orlando time, which would be 7am UK time, therefore exactly 24 since we closed our front door at home!

I sat in the front with Simon so that I could be chief map reader and toll change giver, and the rest all piled into the back. It took Simon a couple of minutes to familiarise himself with the car and then we were off.

We took the 528 across to the I4 and then all the way down to Highway 27. Of course, it wouldn’t be right if we found our way straight away, and so predictably when we joined Highway 27 we ended up going in the wrong direction, south towards Haines City rather than north towards Westridge, which is where we wanted to be. I tell you what, roads seem so much longer when you don’t know how long you’re going to be stuck on them for! It seemed ages but was probably only around 5 minutes before we could turn round and get back on track.

In the end the journey took us about an hour. I had all the instructions with me for the gate code, and the lock box and the alarm, and despite feeling like a zombie, and with eyelids metaphorically propped open with matchsticks, we managed to put the right codes in to everything and finally we were in!

We were staying in a lovely Dibb villa, The Retreat at Westridge, and first impressions were that it was exactly as it looked on the website, if not better.

Jason, the villa owner had called me the day before to make sure all was well, and to see if we had any questions, which was a very nice touch. He had reiterated that a welcome pack would be there to see us through the first night/morning. We were delighted with what was left for us, it really was very welcome and appreciated.

Cereal, bread, milk, butter, jam, water, orange juice, tea, coffee, even a bottle of coke. I couldn’t work out what the little package is, lurking in the corner of the fridge, but the boys have informed me it’s Grandad’s Titan bars from home! (Just noticed I've cropped them out of the photo! )

We dumped our bags in our respective rooms, well, most of us did had a quick look around and then piled into bed, absolutely shattered but it felt wonderful to finally be there!

And if you’ve made it this far, congratulations! I promise, no other day will be quite as long as this one

[closeder]

Hi Jo Delighted to have another of your holidays to follow, wow what a travel day, could have gone smoother with the cases etc, Dallas doesn't sound too wonderful, but then wouldn't have made such a great read! Looking forward to the rest😃

[floridasarah]

Wow what a very long day. Well done to all of you. Will look forward to reading more. We are staying in Westridge at Easter so will be good to hear any tips you have for journeys etc. I was getting excited hoping you might be in the same villa but you aren't

Looking forward to more.

[Firstxmastrip]

Great first day! Can't wait to read the rest!

[waiting4disney]

Wow what a long day.
Really looking forward to your trip reports.

[Milner]

Excellent another trip report.

[mick]

Hi Jo

Glad to see you have started, been waiting what a blooming long day I would have been falling asleep before you did and I guess a bit grumpy
But your now in the villa and the holiday starts in the morning

Joan

[DisneyWishes]

What an exhausting travel day! We had one similar in 2014, with a 3 hour flight delay, 2 hours in immigration and a missing bag. Still once you arrive it seems to all be forgotten. Can't wait to read more.

[caj]

We have done 24 hour journeys. Well done for surviving without falling out!

[Orlando 2004]

You're so organised starting your trip report already. I did make notes this year but not sure I'll manage a proper report. Too busy looking for next years flights on the august thread then I noticed your trip report and that's it day nearly over!