Day 1 Fri 15th May 2015 ~ Travel Day ~ Gatwick/Orlando ~ No1 Lounge Windsor Hills Villa

[Mr&Mrs4kids]

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Currently sat in the No1 Lounge in Gatwick North terminal waiting for our 1:55pm flight with BA, the reception desk has my drivers licence in return for 1 playstation controller (I didn't have £10 cash and they dont have 2 controllers... we bartered!) so Paul, Tyler, Sophie and Blake are happy taking turns playing Crazy Taxi, Shanna has 'bagsied' an Apple IMac and is Facebooking to the max before she loses it for 9 hours so I thought what better to do than to start my trip report!

As I suspected, last nights sleep was more or less non existent, think I managed a couple of hours in total, but this was no surprise and I'm now running on a mixture of paracetamol and colpermin as my anxiety levels peaked during check in!

Everyone was up and ready bright and early, Blake thought he was ready in this picture but soon realized he was still in his dressing gown!


The drive up was lovely, we decided to avoid the motorway given the time of day and instead took a more scenic route, and scenic it was!

About 30/40 minutes from Gatwick we started seeing signs for Arundel!

Sophie was very pleased with this (the Frozen connection) and we were all really impressed once we were actually going through it, first there was a river running through it, then came an old castle, and then into sight came a cathedral overlooking the whole village, I am going to google it when we are home and take a peak as it honestly is one of the prettiest looking places I've seen in the UK, and the fact it's called what it is helps, It would be picture perfect with a frost.
Edited to add: I've googled it and it's as gorgeous as we thought it was.

Once we were through Arundel I called APH to let them know our eta of 9am, I had booked this using my Tesco club card vouchers and paid the higher price to go with APH as their meet and greet service was in the indoor carpark with direct access to the airport (last time we went with Metoer who were great but we were so cold waiting outside) so I was a little 'miffed' when I got an email 2 days ago stating that for health and safety reasons the car park was closed and we had to meet them in the exact same place as we met Meteor! Could have done with those extra points a while back.

Anyhow, all was good and our chauffeur was waiting for us when we got there, a quick toilet break and then bag drop, Duffy Bear had her passport checked (Sophie's Duffy has a dress on today as that's what's in her passport!) and Sophie was advised to make sure she (Duffy) behaves on the flight. One of our cases was over the weight allowance but the gent didn't make us make any changes.

Once we were through security we had a little wander around, I bought myself a Jimmy Choo 'Exotic' perfume for £48, chosen for it's 'holiday' scent


We wandered on over to the lounge section to find the No1 Lounge, passing our initial choice along the way.
I booked the 'My Lounge' via Holiday Extras a while back, but got an email prior to leaving to tell me that they had over booked and had a large party visiting on the same day/time as us so they had upgraded us for free to the No1 Lounge, I was a little upset as I chose the one we did purely based on the snacks for the children (happy children = happy parents!) and the fact it seemed a more relaxed, family friendly lounge.
When we passed it I was a little surprised at how small it looked, no wonder they couldn't fit us in!
A little further down is the No1 Lounge, we were impressed from the start, the check in lady was lovely and friendly and we soon made ourselves comfortable on a nice large corner sofa and table set up.

It was before 11am when we arrived so the breakfast buffet and menu options were still available

Paul and Tyler wanted the bacon roll so they ordered theirs and we all helped ourselves to a few bits from the buffet and drinks (majority of us were saving ourselves for lunch)
Soon enough the lunch items started coming out and we were all pretty impressed with the choices, more than enough variety and plenty of hot and cold drinks.




Once everyone had had their fill we took a little walk around and found the games room was empty, Paul went in with the 3 kids and Tyler and I popped to get the controllers for the Playstation, the lady only had 1 and wanted a £10 cash deposit, I didn't have any on me so she took my drivers license instead.
We spent quite a while playing Crazy Taxi and flitting in and out to play on the Apple IMacs which were just outside of the games room.






The rest of us then ordered our meals from the afternoon menu and between us had the Coronation chicken pocket, the lamb kofta and the gnocchi, all of which was very nice (small portions but big enough considering you can beef it up with items from the buffet)

Shanna and I popped out of the lounge as she had seen a little stall with funky iphone cases on, ended up buying a cute doughnut eyeball one.


It was now that the time suddenly dawned on me, we only had about 20 minutes spare! I cant believe I was so 'chilled' at this point as to not have noticed the time fly by (I honestly think the Lounge helped) we rushed back to the lounge where Paul had rallied the other children up and were ready to go, we rushed to our gate, which seemed to take forever and were amongst the last to board the plane, which didn't turn out too badly, a little less time on the thing!

I was pleased with the seats BA had allocated us last week,6 seats in row 18 (D TO K) but we were even more delighted when we realized there was a whole row of empty seats right in front of us (middle 3 seats in row 17) which we were hoping to use as soon as we could.

Everything was running on time, we started taxiing at 1:55 and we took off at 2:10.
As soon as the seatbelt light went off Shanna and Tyler went and made themselves comfy on those seats.

Cabin crew bought the first round of drinks out at 2:45, the kids meals at 3:10 and our meals were with us by 3:20, the food was fine enough however not many of us managed to eat a great deal given what we had already consumed in the lounge!
Sophie and Blake had the childrens meals

Shanna had the pasta option

Paul, Tyler and myself had the chicken curry (not spicy)

I had 1 (or 2) wines...

Duffy Bear stuck to soft drinks only... good Duffy

I watched Still Alice, kids all watched night at the museum and Paddington, I cant recall what Paul watched.
Some obligatory snap shots of the happy travelers!:




We all swapped seats occasionally and it was pretty nice being able to sit next to Paul for once!


Time did seem to drag and we couldn't have landed soon enough in Orlando, however when we did touch down at 11:20pm (6:20pm florida) we were delayed getting to the gate as there was a container in the way, but we were there by 6:30.
However now we were kept on the plane even longer, there were jets everywhere, and a virgin flight so the immigration hall was apparently rammed! It was 20 minutes initially, and then told another 10, though they finally opened the doors for us 6:55.

It wasn't too bad in the hall, we were in a pretty long queue when an officer asked us if we had ESTAS and of we had travelled to the USA recently... yes and yes! I did say the children has all had new passports issued since our last visit but that was fine, we were allowed to use the self serve kiosks which was really easy, clever the way the camera adjusts height so swiftly between people. Shanna's came up with a cross through it but this was sorted out quickly by the immigration officer, said it was because it was her first time having to do her finger print (she had turned 15 just before we went, Tyler was 13) he was very friendly and asked who the bear was with (Duffy... he could see his homemade passport in Sophie's hands) he checked it over and Duffy has a new stamp in his passport now!

Once all the official bits were done we were soon at the Avis preferred desk to collect our car, we could see our name on the board but there was no number assigned to it so had to speak to a clerk, he didn't seem too competent and couldn't find our booking, to which I pointed to the board in front of him and showed him our printed booking documents, he then printed off a receipt, "there you go" I looked at it to see where we were headed and it wasn't even in our name!
It then took about 10 minutes to sort everything out, not long I know but it was hot hot hot and the children were tiring, we were so looking forward to flying into Orlando and not having a long drive after the flight (previously flown into Miami and Tampa) but this was more annoying than being sat in a car with lovely air con and actually getting somewhere.

As always, we had a Dodge Grand Caravan, and a very smart one it was, it seemed like a higher spec than what we've had in the past, graphite grey, alloy wheels, built in Sat Nav, I think he may have upgraded us for the trouble.

I was really impressed with the ease of the drive from the airport to Windsor Hills on the 192, we did come off (twice) a little too soon so had to do U-turns, otherwise it was fine, and it was lovely when familiar territory started to come into view, Bob Evans! Mermaid shop! Sizzler! WINDSOR HILLS! And then, on pulling onto the drive... Nanny! Auntie Sharon! Uncle Carl!

The kids were full of beans again, and no sooner had we looked around our new home for the next 2 weeks Carl had a dinner of pasta in sauce, garlic baguette and salad on the table for us, guiltily we couldn't manage much as we had consumed so much already, our body clocks were all messed up and we were shattered. We sent the children to bed shortly after and we finally hit the pillow at 11:10pm (04:10am UK)


The plan is to be at Epcot for opening tomorrow and we are going to eat our way around the world showcase in the afternoon!

[FloridaDave]

Glad to see Duffy was behaving himself - on our flight out last time he had one too many sugary drinks and when he was joined on the way home by Big Duffy who joined us in Florida all hell broke loose!

[Mr&Mrs4kids]

And here are a few pictures of our gorgeous villa

[Helen0705]

Really great travel day - loving the upgrade at the airport lounge and the doughnut phone case !
Isn't lovely when you arrive and remember all the familiar places ?
Hope you got a good nights sleep and I look forward to reading more
Villa looks fab !

[Mr&Mrs4kids]

Originally Posted by FloridaDave

Glad to see Duffy was behaving himself - on our flight out last time he had one too many sugary drinks and when he was joined on the way home by Big Duffy who joined us in Florida all hell broke loose!

See more...

Hahaha

I bought my little niece a mini Duffy back and I had a lovely facebook message today from my sister informing me that Ivy has not put it down, very pleased x

[Mr&Mrs4kids]

Originally Posted by Helen0705

Really great travel day - loving the upgrade at the airport lounge and the doughnut phone case !
Isn't lovely when you arrive and remember all the familiar places ?
Hope you got a good nights sleep and I look forward to reading more
Villa looks fab !

See more...

I was really pleased, to think initially I was a bit 'narked'!
It is a lovely feeling, familiarity, though I do miss that '1st time' feeling too sometimes x

[lovedisney89]

Great travel day

[ely3857]

The villa looks fabulous!

[FloridaDave]

Originally Posted by Mr&Mrs4kids

Hahaha

I bought my little niece a mini Duffy back and I had a lovely facebook message today from my sister informing me that Ivy has not put it down, very pleased x

See more...

Lindsay has him on her bag at all times (along with Astronaut Bear from KSC). Bought Duffy's for other people too but Lindsay doesn't like to give them away as she bonds with them (ps, Lindsay is my other half, not my daughter!)

We have acquired several Duffy's over the years - even a couple of pre-Duffy Disney Bears (you can see one top left of this pic from a few years ago - have a darker one too)



If we could have, they would have smuggled this Duffy onto the plane although I think we wouldnt be able to afford all the cookies he would eat.

[P&S]

Excellent travel day looking forward to reading more