Day one - Travel day 15/08/18

[pcnine28]

So today is the day! After booking this trip over a year ago, we are finally heading back to our Happy Place.
We had slept OK in our room at The Holiday Inn at LGW and had taken advantage of the VA Twilight check-in too, which meant we were able to get up at 630am to get the 730am shuttle. This was nice and easy and soon we were arriving at the terminal and ready to hit security. This was the day after there had been a security incident at the Houses of Parliament so I was a little worried that there would be massive lines, but luckily we got through fairly quickly, although hubby did have an extra bag check as I had left a hand gel in his backpack - oops!
Soon we were sat in an extremely busy Starbucks, latte and cinnamon roll in hand, yum.
We got some magazines in Smiths and were then off to gate 52 and soon sat aboard Hot Lips ready to fly. I had managed to get 'the bubble' for the way over but not return - boooooo!
It took ages to take off so instead of our 1015 time we were finally in the air at 1100, oh well.
Before long we were watching Coco and eating small bags of pretzels and drinking OJ. Lunch quickly followed at 12pm. Tink had the kids meal (pasta) and also had been given a snack box which was great. I had the veggie option which was also pasta. Think hubby had sausage and mash? These were fine. We had quite a few compliments on our matching WDW t-shirts from crew and other passengers :-)
I watched Ready Player One next and soon it was time for little sandwiches and cake for tea.
We had a smooth landing and headed straight to Immigration. The Manchester flight had just landed too, but to be honest all the lines were open and it took around 30mins which was fine. We picked up the luggage and then had fun finding Virgin to collect our gift card, only to be told it would be over with Alamo. So off we trotted there to pick up the card and car. Tink chose a white Nissan and it was very nice to get in the A/C after the too-ing and fro-ing.
We had a pleasant drive up to WDW, enjoying the sights and getting a tad emotional as we drove under That Arch.
As this was our 3rd time at Port Orleans Riverside, we knew where to go and what to do which was really good as we were getting tired now. Front desk were great as we had requested a room in Alligator Bayou originally, but they had closed 2 blocks for refurb and wanted to give us a better room over in the mansions. But Tink burst into tears as we have always been in the bayou, so they somehow managed to find us a wheel-chair access room instead.
The room was therefore laid out a little differently, but we had a huge bathroom, were right next to a quiet pool and the parking and were only a 5 min walk from the food court. Perfect!
We dropped off the bags and went to the resort store, Fultons, to pick up our mugs (we are on the DDP), grab some milk and Tink got her first toy, a mini animator Elsa doll.
We headed back to the room, did a bit of unpacking, and fell asleep - looking forward to EPCOT and Akershus in the morning.
Steps - 12000

[mick]

Good travel day

Joan

[beegnjasmum]

Sounds like a very smooth travel day. Looking forward to reading along x

[Nicki G]

Great travel day, we were on Manchester flight which came in just before you, immigration was a doddle wasn’t it