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Old 2 May 16, 02:09 PM  
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nanasamboy
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Welcome, foolish muggles - Days 1+2 - Travel days

Typical. This morning, I woke up at 6 am. Not with excitement, but nerves. I'm a bit of a worrier and even though I'd checked everything the night before, I still worried I'd forgotten something. Alice stayed with her Amma and Tampa the night before, so I didn't even have to be up early (that happens a lot when she stays away - I wake up even earlier than she does and don't get a lie in!) So I stayed in bed for a bit and the cats came in for a last cuddle. I always feel sorry for them - I tell them I'm going, but they don't understand. My cats are very clingy and affectionate, so they'll miss us. Although I'm sure they won't miss headlocks from a two year old…

I went to pick up Alice from my mums, then we headed to get a pre-holiday haircut (just us though, Alice had a ‘my first haircut’ package booked in MK). A relatively stressy morning with a grumpy toddler and we were on our way!



The first leg of the journey wasn't too bad, although we were delayed by about 40 minutes because of crawling traffic just outside of Birmingham. That kind of utterly pointless traffic, where it comes to a stop and then starts back up again for no reason whatsoever. Grahhh so annoying. Oh well, at least G was driving and I got to chill in the back with a sleepy monkey. We stopped at Frankley service station for a wee break and some chips from Burger King. You know, because we didn't already have enough food for the trip *makes piggy noise*

The traffic cleared up again as we left the services, but as we entered Birmingham the traffic was crap again. Damn you Birmingham *shakes fist*

Alice was living the life of Riley, with Peppa Pig on the iPad, a small stack of biscuits and a big bottle of squash. I was rather bored, however. I guess being delayed and stuck in the back of a car is less fun when you're 29 and don't have cartoons and biscuits.



We ended up arriving at the hotel at 6.10 pm. A six hour journey! We were originally supposed to arrive just before 4 and our plan was to dump our cases and head to the Trafford Centre for wander and some dinner. We decided it would be a bit late to head out, so stayed in the hotel.

We booked the Premier Inn South, for £89 including JetParks parking for 2 weeks. We had to pay £5 to park overnight at the hotel, but it still cost less than lots of the other park and stay deals I saw online. The hotel was really easy to get to and was clean and modern. We had a double room with a lovely bathroom and two super comfy beds.





We were all really tired, but G suggested we go downstairs for a drink. I begrudgingly agreed and we headed to the bar. As soon as we sat down, Alice screeched “DEENER!”. I asked if she was hungry and she said yes. Daddy decided it would be a good idea to order her the kids meal deal which was a main, two sides, a drink and a dessert for a fiver. He said whatever Alice didn't eat, he’d eat. He's a trooper, that man! We ordered her a cheese pizza with chips and beans, a strawberry milkshake and a chocolate brownie. Of course, she only picked at a few chips and G had to eat it all. His evil plan worked. Alice made friends with a lovely couple on the table next to us and she showed them her crayons, told them the colours and helped them count (bless her haha).

After that, we headed up to the room, got changed into jammies and got into bed at about 7.40 pm. Our friend Corey text to say she’d also be arriving in Orlando on Saturday and did we want to meet up. Squee! I've been friends with Corey for about 6 or 7 years and we don't see each other very often as she's an adventurous soul and has lived in 4 or 5 different countries since I've known her. She's living in her native Canada and she’d been sent to Orlando for a month with work. We'd not seen her since our wedding 3 years ago and she’d not met Alice yet. We excitedly exchanged a few texts, I sent her our itinerary and we said we’d catch up, probably in Universal so we could geek out in WWoHP.

This was precisely when Alice got a second wind. Yay. She wriggled and squiggled and wanted the light on, then off, then on… and you get the picture. It took almost an hour for her to fall asleep and by that time, I was wide awake again. Yay. So I wrote up my notes for the day (who am I kidding - I totally wrote the whole thing!) and led there hoping to fall asleep soon.

Yeah, so I didn't sleep. Pretty much at all. I think I had about an hour in total, between 9 pm and 4 am. For a tiny person, Alice is a total bed hog and takes up a hell of a lot of space. Every squiggle, sigh and fart (yes!) she made, I woke up. Add in the not having much room factor and I was uncomfortable and annoyed. Dear old husband slept like a log. There's nothing quite so annoying as being exhausted, willing yourself to sleep and your husband (and child, in this case!) is snoring soundly next to you. By 5 am, I gave up on any notion of sleep. It just wasn't going to happen. So I played on my phone for a bit and looked forward to being so tired later on, that I would inevitably cry. I just hoped Alice would nap on the plane for a bit, so I could sleep too.

We got moving just after 7, all showered and headed out to the car park. It was really straight forward to park and we did a bit of strategic parking to make sure the bus arrived by the time we’d unpacked. We had to turf Alice out of her pram, which was annoying, but everything else was straight forward.



We were dropped off at the terminal and the check in desk was only a short walk away. We had to queue for a little while, but everything was fine and we headed to security. It was less fine at security. Because I am me, and things usually go a bit wrong, I managed to set off the alarms on the scanners. I carried Alice through and accidentally bumped the side with her shoes. Apparently, if you knock the scanner it goes off and they have to do a full search. So they had to search both of us. Alice was not impressed and stood there looking like I’d not only ruined her day, but ruined her Christmas too. After that, I thought it would be all ok but then my hand luggage got pulled to one side and I was asked to open it. I'd popped my pencil case in there, and forgotten there was a pair of scissors lurking at the bottom. Oops. So they got thrown away. No biggie, just a bit embarrassing.

After that mildly mortifying experience, we headed to meet my sister and Sophie near the food court. We decided on Giraffe for a breakfast and it was pretty good! My avocado on toast was really tasty and everyone enjoyed their food. Except Alice, who said she wanted pancakes and then wouldn't even try them. Grr.



Time passed really quickly and all of a sudden it was time to board. Boarding was quick and painless (apart from some ridiculous sign that took us down some stairs to gate 26, only to take us back up stairs to the other side. Not the best when your little one is still in the buggy!) and we didn't have to wait too long to taxi and take off.

I was a bit nervous about take off as Alice hadn't flown before, but she grinned the whole time and shouted “again!” once we were level. She was a bit squiggly in her seat, but we cracked out the first of her plane presents (brilliant tip I picked up from some clever Dibbers) and she sat drawing happily with Auntie Frannie. Poor Auntie Frannie. She got no peace on the plane. Mummy and daddy are bottom of the list when Frannie is around.




Dinner was pretty good - my vegan option was a vegetable biryani, two little wholemeal loaves, some dairy free spread, strawberry jam, a little box of raisins and an apple. It was pretty good and filled me up. The gluten free option was chicken with veggies, a gluten free roll and a gluten free blueberry muffin. The veggie option was a cheese soufflé with leeks, cheese and crackers and a mini millionaires shortcake mousse. Alice wouldn't touch any of it. She's having a stubborn streak at the moment and pretty much only eating Cheerios, porridge, chips and fruit. Not awful, but she's always been a brilliant eater and eaten pretty much anything we've put in front of her.

I made G swap seats so I could have a person barrier between me and Alice, so I could try and get some sleep. The more I tried to sleep, the more anxious I got and the more anxious I got, the less I felt I could sleep. Yay. I was pretty ratty by this point, having been up for 13 hours after no sleep for the past two days. I put my relaxation app on to see if that helped. It helped me drown out the sound of Peppa Pig, but I didn't sleep

She didn't touch the afternoon tea either. She ignored the scone (what a weirdo!) and went straight for the cutlery which she played with for ages. My tea was pretty crappy - two more small wholemeal loaves, marge, jam, orange juice and a banana. Fran had a gluten free roll and the same, plus a gluten free muffin. I was a bit miffed at this point, as the gluten free muffins was marked up as vegan and for two meals running, I'd had bread and jam for the pudding. It's not the end of the world, but I like cake damn it! The normal tea was a cheese roll, an egg roll and a scone with jam and clotted cream.

The time on the map screen didn't seem to be changing. The minutes were ticking by ever so slowly. The first four hours of the flight flew by, but as soon as I acknowledged how quickly time had gone, it started dragging. Rookie error. It was only an hour and a half left on the countdown, but it was going to be a slow hour and a half. I took a bunch of things to amuse myself but didn't really do anything other than sit there and try and keep Alice amused and write up my notes when I had chance. I managed to read a few chapters of my book (Kingdom Keepers III) but I was too tired to really pay much attention.

Small child didn't sleep for the entire flight. She’d been up since just before 7 am and by the time we landed, it was after 8pm. Girl’s got stamina. She was surprisingly well behaved too. She did squiggle a lot, but happily munched on a variety of junk, watched Peppa Pig and chatted to auntie frannie. The only times she got a bit ratty was when the seatbelt signs went on and she had to sit in her seat by herself.

The landing was very smooth and Alice loved it Immigration was the quickest I've ever seen it and it took no time to go through, get our bags, hop on the monorail and head over to Disney’s Magical Express. Alice fell asleep just before we got to the bus - she’d been up 15 hours so she did well to last that long. We didn't have a Mickey bus, we had a crappy yellow Mears one and I couldn't hide my disappointment. The journey was quick and our driver Raymond was a dude

Check in was quick and painless and our nice greeter handed us some birthday, anniversary and first visit pins. We learned a lesson from our last stay at OKW and didn't drag all of our bags to the back end of the report, and paid bell services to do it. We were in building 54 which was a perfect location. Next to a playground and a small, quiet pool and right by a bus stop. I knew this because we stayed in building 53 on our honeymoon I'd ordered Alice a My First Disney Vacation package from Disney Flowers and Gifts. The front desk asked if we wanted to take it with us when we checked in. I remembered Aimee’s experience with this, so asked if it could be delivered. It arrived at the same time as the bell guy finished with our cases, so that was good timing Alice had woken up on the golf cart and was excited to see her balloon. She was still half asleep, so didn't really know what was going on but was excited nevertheless.












We quickly unpacked a few things and me, Fran and Sophie headed out for some groceries while G put Alice to bed. I could waffle on for ages about our adventures but that’d take forever. We took the little boat over to Disney Springs to pick up our $200 gift card, then caught a taxi to Target.


(Ignore my fringe!) Super excited to go to Erin McKenna's Bakery for vegan cake!

It was about 10pm at this point and we wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible. I bought some exciting vegan things we can't get at home and an awesome Disney Villain water bottle We caught another taxi back and hopped into our respective beds. I was shattered, but by this point I'd been awake for 24 hours and didn't see sleep in my future...
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Old 2 May 16, 02:27 PM  
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*supersal*
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Alice is such a cutie! Hope you got some sleep
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Old 2 May 16, 02:51 PM  
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What a great start to your trip! Alice done really well to stay awake all that time. I can never sleep on planes. Her little welcome pack looks lovely too. Looking forward to reading more 😊
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Old 2 May 16, 03:15 PM  
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Disneygirlxx
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Great trip report
Your daughter is such a cutie
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Old 2 May 16, 09:58 PM  
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nanasamboy
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Originally Posted by *supersal* View Post
Alice is such a cutie! Hope you got some sleep
Thanks! Not for a few days, really I'm feeling it now!

Originally Posted by orlandolover04 View Post
What a great start to your trip! Alice done really well to stay awake all that time. I can never sleep on planes. Her little welcome pack looks lovely too. Looking forward to reading more 😊
She's a machine when she wants to be! She's making up for it now though and slept for 15 hours last night! Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by Disneygirlxx View Post
Great trip report
Your daughter is such a cutie
Thanks! Thank you, I think so too
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Old 18 May 16, 02:00 PM  
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Dinxylady
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Loved your travel day post!

I remember my DD at 2, all she would eat was toast, banana, raisins and Tweenies ( remember them) Yoghurts.

Thank you for posting
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Old 18 May 16, 03:21 PM  
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Alice is so cute! Hoping to take our son at 3 in 2018 so I am enjoying your adventures with a toddler!
Your writing is really making me laugh, especially about your husband LOL!
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Old 18 May 16, 03:47 PM  
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stecee
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A great start to your trip
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Old 18 May 16, 04:59 PM  
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What a little star Alice is! I don't think I'd have been so well behaved on a six hour car journey followed by a nine hour flight!

Despite being a meat lover I'm really looking forward to hearing about all your eats this trip, I'm fascinated by alternate diets. The plane food sounds better than the 'normal' fare.

We are staying in a two bed at OKW this year, it looks massive from your pictures!
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Old 18 May 16, 07:50 PM  
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nanasamboy
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Originally Posted by Dinxylady View Post
Loved your travel day post!

I remember my DD at 2, all she would eat was toast, banana, raisins and Tweenies ( remember them) Yoghurts.

Thank you for posting
Aww, thank you!

She's pretty good and will eat pretty much anything at home. I didn't worry too much as it was only for two weeks and was sure she'd go back to normal when we got home (she did, luckily!) Do I remember the Tweenies?! It's still on CBeebies! :O

Originally Posted by kansaskitty View Post
Alice is so cute! Hoping to take our son at 3 in 2018 so I am enjoying your adventures with a toddler!
Your writing is really making me laugh, especially about your husband LOL!
Thanks Two was a great age to take her and I can imagine 3 being even better (apart from no longer being free!).

Yay, thanks that's a lovely compliment And maybe I better not show him what I wrote, haha!

Originally Posted by stecee View Post
A great start to your trip
Thanks

Originally Posted by collybird View Post
What a little star Alice is! I don't think I'd have been so well behaved on a six hour car journey followed by a nine hour flight!

Despite being a meat lover I'm really looking forward to hearing about all your eats this trip, I'm fascinated by alternate diets. The plane food sounds better than the 'normal' fare.

We are staying in a two bed at OKW this year, it looks massive from your pictures!
She was really good, even if I was annoyed she wouldn't sleep!

My food was awesome, pretty much everywhere. Plus you get to feel all special, having the chefs come out to see you in the restaurants

Oooh yay, you'll love it! It WAS huge! And so lovely
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