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Five Little Ones Take the Adults - The End - Day 16, Downtown Disney & the 'Sad Bus' to MCO and Home
The previous day can be found HERE Disclaimer, as it is the last day, there aren’t as many photos so there will be more writing and less pictures. Thursday 10 October 2013 Today was the day we all dread, the horrible going home day. :nonono: I had set the alarm for 6.15am and after not sleeping well all night, really didn’t want to have to get up! I had a shower and got dressed and sorted through a few bits. Phil and the girls got up at 6.45am. Phil gave them a bath and got them dressed while I finished the last of the packing. I managed to get everything in, hooray! :thumbs-up The walkway outside our villa   We were the first ones ready to go by 8am (which is not at all surprising!) so we loaded the car with all our cases and hand luggage and my Dad took Phil and Madison in the car to DTD while Kaley and I walked. He then drove back to bring whoever was ready next. We got to DTD Virgin check in around 8.15am and they weren’t open yet and there were quite a few in line in front of us. I didn’t write the time they opened down but I had thought they opened at 8am but I think the sign said 8.15am. Either way, they were late as it was quite a few minutes after we arrived when they opened. Soon enough, they started serving people. There was a family in front (with grown up kids) whose cases were over and they had to move items from one case to another! :omg: It got me a bit worried as I knew our heaviest was very close to the 23kg. Luckily, all the cases were fine and we were checked in and given four seats in the middle on row 42 and on our way back to SSR by 8.55am. At $10 each, I was happy to pay this as there was no worry of the Magical Express not picking us up early enough and no worry of having to check in at the airport. I am sure they didn’t need to see our hand luggage which was annoying having to lug my handbag, my piece of hand luggage with spare clothes, pj’s for the girls, etc., Phil’s extremely full and heavy bag with cameras, etc. in, two trunki’s, one pushchair and two girls back with us! :erm:     We got back and my Dad was still waiting for someone else to be ready! :eek: I have to say, this really annoyed me as we had had to drag/carry all our heavy hand luggage back when Dad could have waited for us with the car. Dad and I made the decision to put all the seats down in the car, load up all the cases and then everyone could walk to DTD rather than taking multiple trips in the car. Phil and I took the girls up to our villa then started taking all of the cases that were packed down to load up the car. After many, many trips up and down, all the cases were finally in the car and everyone was ready to go and check in. They all left and we went back to the villa to wait with the girls. The girls’ balloons    Madison didn’t want her photo taken to start with!  But then was a bit happier  Kaley was more than happy to pose!     Continued in next post |
Continued from previous post Everyone else came back around 10.45am and we were all sat near each other, apart from Michelle, Jamie and the girls as they were flying Premium Economy. Ryan, Bethany and Piper had bulkhead seats again too. We left just before 11am and as our hand luggage wouldn’t fit in the car, we went to Bell Services, leaving my unimportant bag and the Trunki’s. We walked to the boat dock and waited about 10 minutes for the boat to come. We got off the boat at West Side and walked along the water. Madison and Kaley were sharing the pushchair!  Posing again  We walked through Pleasure Island to Market Place  And made our way to Wolfgang Puck Express for lunch. We got two Cavatappi Chicken Alfredo’s ($15 each)  A chicken tenders and fries ($12)  A crème brulee ($6)  A vanilla bean cheesecake ($6)  Along with diet cokes ($2.85), a bottle of water ($3), and a fruit pot ($4). This was all really good, especially the crème brulee. We used three counter service credits and tipped $12.50. We left and arranged to meet at the Characters in Flight balloon at 1.45pm. We went into Goofy’s Candy Co and used up our last 8 snack credits on more bags of sweets ($4.95 and $3.99 each). From here, we went to Earl of Sandwich. This was the first time I had been in here as the two EoS’s we had earlier in the holiday, Dan and Jamie had been to pick up, and I was gutted to see the Holiday Turkey on the menu as I had completely forgotten they had this and would rather have had this both times before! We got the Holiday Turkey (turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry and seasoned mayonnaise) ($5.99), Beef Montagu (roasted beef, turkey, Swiss, cheddar, lettuce, tomato and mustard sauce)($5.99), Earl’s Club (turkey, bacon, Swiss, lettuce, tomato and sandwich sauce) ($5.99), 2 kids turkey and Swiss ($3.99 each), 3 packets of crisps ($1.29 each), 2 cookies ($1.99 each) and 5 fountain drinks ($1.99 each), which we didn’t use. These were all for at the airport and we used five counter service credits. We went to the Once Upon a Toy store so that Phil could buy more Infinity stuff. He paid and then decided to buy some more! I bought some more Disney dollars, from Guest Services I think, then we went to the World of Disney Store as Phil wanted one of those drink mugs with the lids on but he didn’t like any of the ones there. We made our way back to the Characters in Flight balloon to meet everyone  Phil, Ryan, Jamie and Sydney were the only ones brave enough to go on! As much as I love the Sky Tower at Sea World, I can’t bring myself to go on this. I think it is because it is open rather than enclosed like the Sky Tower. Madison had been saying that she wanted to go on it but decided at the last minute that she didn’t want to. I think this was $18 for Phil and he took lots of photos Tower of Terror  Spaceship Earth  The Grand Floridian  Is this the Congress Park pool?  Saratoga Springs    Contemporary and Bay Lake Tower  Epcot  Premium Outlets and SeaWorld   Continued in next post |
Continued from previous post The air traffic control tower in the distance  Hollywood Studios   Saratoga Springs again  Typhoon Lagoon  Those of who weren’t brave enough/didn’t want to go on  Noticing that they were taking photos  We decided that we had better start making a move. Those going in the car wanted to go to Wal-Mart on the way to the airport and Phil was going with them to see if they had any more Infinity stuff to buy! :D Balloons!  Before leaving, we had one last thing to do. Something we had done with Madison at the end of our holiday in 2010. It was time to let go of the girls’ balloons. :(  Notice Sydney’s balloon? It is missing the clear outer part. Someone who was looking after it touched a wall with the balloon and it went pop!  Oh dear Marie! Luckily, Sydney didn’t mind. Getting ready to let them go  (Kaley had not long woken up) And then they were free   Floating up  (We had tied Madison and Kaley's together to keep them together) Watching them go  Almost gone   It is so sad doing this but we tell the girls that they are going to find Mickey and he will look after them until next time. Continued in next post |
Continued from previous post (Sorry, there is lots of writing now I’m afraid) We all left now, Mum coming back to SSR with us as Phil took her place in the car. We rushed as there was a boat waiting and got that back. We went inside and sat in the lobby area where the TV showing cartoons is. I went and got our three bags from Bell Services ($3 tip) and nipped into Artists Palette to see if they had any mugs. I wasn’t sure on them so decided to leave it. I went back and had a look outside and the Magical Express was already there so we got all our stuff together and went out. Mum sat right at the back with Madison and Sydney and I sat in front with Kaley. Michelle, Jamie and Kori sat in front of us. We were on our way to the airport by 3.05pm. :( Madison and Sydney said that when we came we were on the Happy Bus but now we were going back to the airport, we were on the Sad Bus. :cry: Every bus we passed, they were asking if it was a sad or happy bus. We got to the airport by 3.40pm and tipped the driver $5 (no cases, just the trunki’s and pushchair). We went straight up to level 3 and found some seats near the moving walkways. I took Madison and Kaley for a wander around the shops and saw everyone else coming out of the lift. We showed them where we were sitting and finished looking around. I bought US Weekly from Hudson News ($3.99) and then went back to sit down. It was Earl of Sandwich time! :grin: The Beef Montagu  This one was ok, I had this just to try it and use up the last of our counter service credits. The Holiday Turkey  I wasn’t sure I would like this with the cranberry sauce but it was delicious. I will definitely be having this again; provided they still have this the next time we go. The girls were getting a bit fed up so Phil and I took it in turns going up and down the moving walkways with them which they loved. We spent quite a bit of time doing this. Phil went to Disney’s Earport and found a red Mickey tumbler that he liked so he bought it ($19.95). We got changed into comfy travelling clothes and went through security. The lines looked really long but it didn’t take long to get through at all. We took the monorail to our gate area. Phil had a double chocolate chip Frappuccino ($5.30) and the girls a fruit cup ($4.29) from Starbucks and I got a bottle of water ($3.19) and two packets of crisps ($1.49 each) for the girls from Fresh Attractions. Buying the Starbucks took forever, the line was so slow! We went down to gate 81 and found some seats. We had a quick look in duty free then I changed Kaley into her pyjamas. Boarding had already started and our block of rows was called. We boarded and found our seats, 42 D, E, F and G. We got ourselves settled and everyone was on board by 6.30-ish, or so we thought. We then waited ages and finally, 3 latecomers came rushing past us. They must have been 15 - 20 minutes after we had all sat down! :angry: Annoying as I guess if they had been on time, we would have taken off early. We took off just after 7pm. I was hoping the girls would sleep straight away but they didn’t think the same! :tongue: Dinner was served, I had beef with mash and veg and a key lime tart. Only the beef and key lime tart were ok! :d: Madison had pasta, chicken tenders and veg and I didn’t write anything down for Kaley so not sure whether she had anything. :confused: Finally, around 9pm, Madison fell asleep and Kaley fell asleep about 30 minutes later. :zzz: I watched White House Down, which was really good, then tried to sleep, which did not happen! Madison woke around 12am and was a bit of a pain. She was really tired but wouldn’t go back to sleep. I cuddled her for a while so at least she was just resting. The lights came on around 90 minutes before landing and they brought ‘breakfast’ around. We got orange juice, a blueberry muffin and a nature valley bar. I got the girls dressed and read US Weekly for the last few minutes before landing. We landed at 8am, 20 minutes early, however someone had taken ill on the flight so we had to wait for the paramedics to come on. After a while, they let Upper Class and Premium off then we had to wait some more before they started to let us off. We were through passport control very quickly and soon at baggage claim. Some of the cases were already going around but we had quite a wait for the rest. I think 2 of our cases must have been the last off the plane we waited so long! :omg: We went through to arrivals where Dave was waiting for Dan. We called Park and Go to say we were there, they told us to go outside and the guy turned up with the car within a minute. We had excellent service from these and would definitely recommend them. We loaded the car up and were on our way home by 9am. (From landing to getting the cases seemed so much longer than the hour it actually took! :spin:) We called in at Mum and Dad’s first to pick up Phil’s keys, nipped to do a quick bit of shopping and were back home by 11.30am. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * And that was our holiday! :pgig: Thank you so much to everyone who has read my trip report and to those who have taken the time to comment, THANK YOU, it is so nice knowing that you aren’t just writing for yourself! ;) And it's here! The Highs, Lows, Summary and What’s Next is HERE! :grin: Thank you, thank you, thank you again for reading! :wave: |
Great photos
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Really great photos:grin:
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The plane journey home really really sucks!
It has been fun sharing your holiday. It's lovely when families go together and get along. Your girls are beautiful. Thanks for sharing, these reports must be so time consuming. |
great report thanks for sharing
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Nooooooo, its finished :cry:
As last days go, this was a nice one , except all the blooming suitcase lugging around Lovely pics round DTD - we spend our last day there too, I might try one of those EoS goodies for our return journey home I think After seeing the pics from the Balloon I so want to try it now - brill views its been the most fabulous trippy - so many lovely memories to read about Wonderful, thank you xx |
Have loved your trip report, your girls are little cuties and have really enjoyed the fantastic photos.
Thanks for sharing :) |
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