Plane food! We were on the VS15 travelling from Gatwick to Orlando at 1pm. This time we were in economy, last time for our honeymoon we went premium so we knew to lower our expectations a bit.
I pre booked seats in the 2s right at the back of the aircraft. The downside here is that you get off nearly last, the upside is not sitting next to a random all flight (and there's a topic in General Chat right now about just how badly that can go!)
DH is very elegantly showing off here the added space you get in the first 3 rows of 2s, as the aircraft is getting narrower but not so narrow that 3rd seat space is totally lost.
Sadly the seat arms won't go up to allow you to fully use this space, but any extra is better than none.
To start with we had the oblligitary pretzels and drinks. DH had a tomato juice (puke) and I had a diet coke which I saved to have with my meal. In the seat pocket you can see my (whale print) Chillys bottle, we used these every day in the parks and they kept water ice cold- would highly reccommend.
The menus are the same as they've been for ages on Virgin:
I had the veggie pesto pasta and DH had the Chilli. I actually really ejoyed the pasta, if you like cheese and pesto you will like this. We usually swap meals halfway through but after a spoonfull of his chilli (meh) I demanded mine back lol.
As for the salad, well it existed that's all I can say. The dessert was a Gu pot, chocolate with a yuzu caramel. I didn't like this, it was too rich and despite the fact I love yuzu it didn't taste right with chocolate. DH ate his though. I wish they would serve something a little lighter for dessert, in PE last time we had a white chocolate cheesecake that was amazing.
A while later they came round with the ice cream which was a fab. Not the best ice lolly but I ate it anyway. Is it BA you get the mini magnums on? They are way better! And I realise I was just complaining about heavy chocolate desserts and asking for something light lol.
Around 90 minutes before landing they served an afternoon tea, the best thing I can say about this is that the box was cute.
The sandwich must have had mayo in (I want to say it was like a pesto mayo tomato thing?) as I didn't eat it and instead had my Pret sandwich. The scone was almost impossible to eat as it disintergrated when you brought any cream or jam near it.
Overall the flight was fine, most of the food was edible and the entertainment was good. The screens aren't very responsive but we found if you used a rolling motion with your finger they worked better. DH had to ask the lady behind us to stop punching her screen so hard, but I think she was just frustrated trying to make it respond.
When we were approaching Orlando the captain informed us that due to storms we would have to take a round about approach to landing, this is the rather odd flight route we took in the end
That ended up costing us around 45 minutes, but I heard some other flights had been diverted to other airports earlier and also the next day so I guess we got off lightly. We tried to get off the plane as quickly as possible but of course being at the back that's difficult. Last time flying PE we breezed through immigration in 10 minutes, this time it took over an hour and ours was the first flight into arrivals. After us two more flights arrived so god knows how long they had to wait.
Some people will tell you not to bother rushing as the luggage takes so long, but we could see the luggage belt and it was coming round way way before we got through. So the suitcases were waiting for us and both accounted for which is always nice. I dumped DH and the bags in the main airport area (the bit with the Disney store) while I popped down to A side to collect our $200 Disney gift card from Virgin. I was expecting an actual Virgin counter but it was just some reps standing around randomly? Anyway didn't take too long.
We then went to the ground transportation level on B side to catch the magical express. First time doing this! It was a convenient free option but definitley took longer than an Uber as Riverside was the last drop off after OKW, SSR and FQ.
Check in also took a while- has anyone else noticed that things like checking into hotels in the US takes forever? In the UK we just print a key card from a Premier Inn check in kiosk... anyway the guy who helped us was super lovely and sorted us out with magic bands, dining plan info, maps and some 'first visit' badges. I'd faxed over a request a few days before for a high floor room in a Mansion building and we were given a 2nd floor room in building 85. The location of this building is perfect- its a 5 minute walk to reception and the food court.
We were so tired and hungry by this point, it was 9.30pm Orlando time so 'very late' in UK time. My original idea of going to DS for dinner was out of the window, and besides it was still stormy and raining outside. So we took our luggage straight into the Riverside Mill food court without even going to the room.
I fancied a burger or something but DH wanted pizza, and the pizza here is 2 QS credits ($15.99 out of pocket I think) so we kind of had to get the same and share. So we got one large pepperoni pizza, 2 QS credits including 2 drinks. I chose two powerades as we like to drink these in the parks, I know we could have swapped the drinks for a snack but we didn't want cakes or anything.
I also picked up the refillable mugs. They only had the Pixar design but that was fine with me. Later on they restocked and had the Mickey design too.
The pizza took forever as they cook them fresh one at a time, and the guy in front of us had ordered 4. So I was cursing DHs name for picking pizza lol. When I got to the till I explained to the cashier it was our first time using the DDP and I wasn't sure what to do. She was super nice talking me through it all and then surprised me by saying the pizza was on her, and gave it to us for free! I feel like I was too tired to realise what was going on and properly thank her so now I feel bad, I was more just confused as to where I was and what was happening lol.
What can I say about this pizza, except that all I heard for the next two weeks of the holiday from DH was about the bloomin Riverside pizza. It was the best pizza ever, it was better than Papa Johns and Dominos and Pizza hut combined, can we go back to Riverside and get a pizza, etc etc. I agree it was a very good pizza but he wanted to marry the thing. We dined so many nice places but every time it was not as good as the Riverside pizza. It was super saucey and cheesey and just very very good. It comes in a proper pizza box so we could carry the left over slices back to the room.
Finally we grabbed all our luggage, refillable cups, hand baggage, pizza box and trundled our way over to the room. As I say we were in building 85 which is past the pool and over the bridge. We had to carry the bags up one flight of steps, and when we got to the top I put everything down to check the room number, which was just down the corridor. They'd given us a pool view room even though we booked standard view, which was really nice of them except we were right next to the pool generator and it was super loud. Ah well can't complain.
Once we got in the room and dumped the cases we were more than ready to pass out, but first I checked DH had put the pizza in the fridge. No, I thought you did? No, where is it? Where's the pizza gone? Yes ladies and gents, I had left the precious amazing Riverside pizza at the top of the stairs when I put everything down to check the room number *face palm*. Before DH went into full panic mode I ran back, and thankfully it was still there! Sitting on the floor undisturbed at the top of the stairs, which were from that point on known as the Pizza Stairs.
And that's the end of day 1, sorry if its too long, I know I have a tendancy to waffle!
DDP remaining/used:
14TS 14QS 28 snacks
No credits used as pizza was freeeeeee
No cash spent