Travel day 2 and arrival. 3/11/13

[°o°-Hannah-°o°]

Pics to be added when daylight arrives.
After a really poor sleep - maybe excitement lol I manage to wait until 6 before I decide I should just get in the shower, imagine my amazement and delight when I find that what I thought was just shower gel is in fact hair and body wash, yay! Once we're all up we headed down for our 7.30 shuttle.
No queue at check-in and no reason that we couldn't check the little guy in other than they randomly stop people. Things were going swimmingly, queues were moving great until we get to our bags and it then appears that they're pulling bags out for extra checks. The ever so not friendly lady ask for us to open our bag and has a good rummage, she doesn't like that I have all our non-liquid meds together and this is just one tray, but she can only do one tray at a time. This bag begins its journey back through the system and she gets the next tray which our liquids are in, here the fun begins. Ds is on liquid allergy meds for what seem random reactions to who knows what at this stage and she's not happy and as she asks for our boarding cards we have to point out that she's just sent them on their travels in the other tray so now we have to wait for that to come back round. Never mind we're finally through and off for breakfast. Super healthy start to our eating as much Florida food as we want and off to Burger King for sausage butties and pancake pieces.

Off to the play area to waste an hour (boarding is expected to begin at 10 so by the time breakfast is done thankfully it's just the hour), let's say it's not the most ideal place to take my clumsy two before boarding a plane but they need to burn off some steam before the flight, while I supervise dh is off to look at gadgets. One fault I do notice with the play area apart for its small size is that there's no info boards in the area so it means either abandoning your kids to check for gate numbers or dragging them out, putting shoes on a following you to the board every 10 mins. Dh reappears with carrier bag full and sheepish grin - new phone cover, another ipad case and his new headphones, alas no phone charger for me though. Funnily enough there's always one family that ruin the soft play for everyone else and this was no different, big kids playing ridiculously rough and fighting while smaller kids are just trying to play nicely though in this instance the parents are actually watching!
Today we are flying on Hot Lips, all boarded by 11am and ready to leave for our slot at 11.15. The lunch menu was as follows...
A Fruity Waldorf salad
Then either, bangers and mash, butter chicken or vegetable and herb pasta. Followed with a key lime GU pud. I must add here that our agent hadn't ordered the kids meals so these were their options also and there was nothing Niall would eat as there was no bangers and mash by the time we ordered, I'd bought a sausage roll and had apples and biscuits but he turned his nose up at this also! Ds and dh had the butter chicken aka curry which was declared alright, I had the veg pasta but it was particularly tasteless and was burnt to the edges however I was handed the 'men's' salads so had these too. The same with the puds as I ended up with 3 to polish off! What?! They're tiny!
Flight wise we've had a lot of turbulence, in fact I became so accustomed to the rocking that I got used to it but it did make reading tricky and marching my way through little women during the flight became an almost impossible task, so The Great Gatsby it was and a little bit of Ellie Goulding to get me through. Half way through the flight and things calmed down so I spent the next three hours reading.
We had the seatbelt on to often that many folk just got up to use the loo anyway, me being me had to wait and just as I was telling dh that we'd be goners if I sneezed again the seatbelt light went off - no kidding as soon as I got up we got the worst turbulence we'd had so far, oddly the light didn't come back on for ages - I wonder if the captain forgot they had it on and in reaching to put it on again they actually switched it off?

Anyway, the rest of the flight was completely uneventful but we were given mini fab lollies and later afternoon tea - now this makes me chuckle every time we fly, it's almost an insult that they give you such small sandwiches that don't even scrape the sides and a banoffee cupcake that had gone hard as they store them in the fridge.

Anyway our plane was the only one at immigration but with a total of 440 passengers as us at the back of the plane it was gonna take a while, in total I think about 45 mins. As we waited though in came the Gatwick flight with Eeyore Rocks on and Jenny recognised me! That woman's good, we met once at a DTD meet a few years ago! That flight was followed by another and by the time we hit the front the queue was actually back out into the corridor! Leaving the airport was painless really, free upgrade at Alamo (after refusing the escalade this time), there was none of our booked size available so up we go to a GMC Yukon. I have to say that we refused the escalade at the desk. I could see Rich faltering and she could smell it! But he just told her he wasn't allowed. Now you see we wouldn't have had the warm glow of the free upgrade if he'd have caved.


From airport to sunset lakes we hit 2 tolls both $1.50.
Arrived at our villa and after a slightly stressful hiccup we were in. Now I don't know if our kids were just incredibly tired or share my apprehension about not being in a hotel but the pair of them burst into tears! Kinda ruined the moment and the next hour that followed.
We need to crack on so it's back out to get some supplies and tea before getting our miserable pair off to bed.

We purchase from Walmart some Honey BBQ chicken, buffalo chicken and simple fried chicken in a bucket with wedges and some corn dogs, though when we sit down to eat there's no wedges, oh well. We end up eating a pathetic amount but have also got drinks, a crate of water and cereals ready for morning and Niall knows what kind of birthday cake he wants lol.
Well the kids fall asleep as dh and I finish eating, they're frightened to sleep in the bedroom so I've had to set them up on the sofas tonight and Niall can't go to the loo unless one of us stands in the room with him! I'm desperately hoping they're happier in the morning or we've just spent a whole lot of morning trying a villa only for them to be miserable

We try and stay up but end up in bed by 9.30 as the kids have hogged the lounge lol

[mick]

Hope the children feel more settled tomorrow

[nadya]

Hope the kids feel better tomorrow. What a coincidence! We live in newcastle and travelled from manchester staying at the premier inn overnight and have just left villa aurora! .hope you enjoy it as much as we did.we are staying at another dibb villa till the 19th.have a great trip.

[°o°-Hannah-°o°]

Originally Posted by nadya

Hope the kids feel better tomorrow. What a coincidence! We live in newcastle and travelled from manchester staying at the premier inn overnight and have just left villa aurora! .hope you enjoy it as much as we did.we are staying at another dibb villa till the 19th.have a great trip.

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Small world yeah lol. You've been here a week and yet you're still awake at 4am! Dh has had me wide awake since 1.30!

[nadya]

Yes I know.. everyone else is sleeping.pregnancy insomnia at the mo or maybe just baby kicking a lotim nearly 6 months.hopefully get back to sleep soon!.have a great day

[JoJo88]

Oh no, not quite the reaction you expected from the boys! Hope they feel more settled soon x

[Eeyore rocks]

immigration wasn't too bad was it? We were driving out of the garage within the hour...

Hope you are having a fabulous time.

[Redrach1903]

Oh dear, hope the kids settle in! x

[Helen & LittleD]

Oh dear, it was a very long day for them. I hope they feel better tomorrow x