Some Magic before Marriage! Offsite Trip Report September 2018 - Day 0 - Travel Day!

[MsMinervaMouse]

Pre-travel Day Here

So, it's been quite a few months since I started this trip report. I won't go into too much detail, but as soon as we landed home and were waiting for our lift back to the hotel, OH got a call from his sister with some very sad news and it's all been a bit of a rollercoaster since then. I've had to take a bit of a 'Disney break' to concentrate on other things, but we both are now FINALLY feeling ready to look back on our trip and re-live the magic a little!

So, ON WITH THE SHOW!

My memories of everything are a little hazy now since it's been a few months since we got back, but our flight was at 11:15am so we were up bright and early, showered and dressed, and down to reception to catch the minibus to our terminal. If anyone was wondering from my pre-travel day post, I did not sleep well! That was possibly the worst mattress I have ever slept on. Plus a mix of pre-travel nerves and excitement and I was a mess.

Anyway, when we had checked in the day before, we paid £12 in advance for the minibus to drop us off and pick us up when we got back (£3 per person, per journey), and told them what time we'd like to be at the airport. They picked up us and another couple bang on the agreed time, dropped the other couple off at the South Terminal first before taking us over to the North Terminal. No problems at all, great service!

I had tried to check in online the day before, but because I have a foreign passport (secret Canadian here!) they would only allow Will to check in, and I would have to go to the desk. We decided to just check in together since he'd have to drop his bag off too anyway. All checked in and bags dropped off, we went and grabbed some breakfast.

We wanted to go somewhere we could sit and have proper food, but everywhere was rammed I'm not much of a morning person AT ALL and was already pretty grumpy so we opted for a Pret instead. Couple of egg and bacon rolls, cheese croissants and each a coffee. Nothing special.

Stomach voids filled, we went and stocked up on the usual drinks, snacks, Nicorette lozenges (for me), sudoku book etc before they finally posted our gate.

Here is where things get really special . Will has a friend who is a pilot for BA. He's always saying to let him know when we're booking flights etc and he can try and get us some treats. So, a couple days before we were due to fly, Will shot him a cheeky text to tell him what flight we were on. He text back to say he's not piloting that flight, but he'll check the rota and see if our pilot could sort out something nice for us. When we boarded the plane and the flight attendant looked at our boarding passes, he said "Ah! Mr J and Miss D! Right this way please". I had completely forgotten all about the text with Mr Pilot Friend so was totally confused. Are they kicking us off the flight? Have they overbooked and they have no seats left?! No...he led us straight to the last row of Premium Economy! I was so shocked I just stood there like an idiot. Then immediately another flight attendant came over and asked if we'd like a glass of Cava! I just burst into tears; I couldn't believe Mr Pilot Friend could sort out something like this for us, I was just so grateful. Will text him immediately to tell him I was crying (haha) and to say thanks so much.

I've only flown PE once before with Air Canada, but this was so much nicer!

Leg room!

Two window life!

Definitely one of the recently refurbished planes. I had a peek back at regular Economy and that looked almost just as nice!

Food was pretty good but nothing incredible. I can't remember what the other option was but we both had the beef. The little couscous salad thing was actually very nice. On the scale of airplane food, I'd give it a 7/10.

And then FINALLY, we arrived!

There was only 1 flight in front of us when we got through to immigration which was really lucky. And to my surprise, as a Canadian, I could go through the US immigration control! I was the first person through to baggage! Hahaha Will of course took a little longer, probably about 35 minutes, but by that time the bags had only just started to appear. Sadly, my suitcase came out looking a little worse for wear nothing catastrophic but still annoying!

I should have really read up more on Mr Tom's skip the desk advice as we would have been out of there quicker, but that was one thing I didn't scrub up on so had to go to the Alamo desk to sort out the car. In the garage, they said we could pick whatever we wanted from spaces xyz, so opted for a simple Ford Fiesta. I was going to be the driver for this trip (apart from one incident I'll get in to later) so I needed something I could handle size wise (I drive a Corsa at home) and without too many fancy gadgets etc since I would already be extra anxious driving on the wrong side of the road/car.

I didn't get a pic, but you all know what a slate grey Ford Fiesta looks like!

I stupidly didn't print off any maps etc, but had a good idea of where I was going so off we went! Big mistake. We got lost for over an hour and a half in some extra dodgy looking part of Orlando. I was almost in tears of frustration and fear, but we finally managed to find Sand Lake Rd which I knew would eventually bring us directly to our hotel at the interchange with I-Drive.

Check in was fine, but they then directed us over to this other booth where they tried to sell us one of those "come to this conference thing where we try to sell you a time-share and we'll give you 100 bucks and breakfast". No thank you. I got ripped off with one of those things back in 2012! They also wanted us to pay a deposit! I did feel kind of bad because she went through the whole spiel and it wasn't until she mentioned "deposit" that I twigged to what was going on. Poor lady probably makes all her money on commission but...no thank you!

When we got to our room it was...musty. Clean and tidy and perfectly fine, but oddly damp and musty? I put it down to Florida being a big swamp, turned the aircon unit to full blast and hoped for the best. I was tempted to go and change the room but by this point I had been awake for god knows how long, flown half way across the world and was starving. I was in no mood to move all my stuff.

Rumbling bellies = time for food. We also needed some shower gel, so we took a stroll across the road to Walgreens. For some reason it took an insane amount of time to actually FIND the shower gel section and in the end I had to ask someone. Isles and isles of snacks but one tiny shelf of actual SOAP. Across the road again to Burger King before flopping into bed with our Whopper meals to watch The Office and sleep

"Medium" drink! Haha

[Palm trees]

What a treat with your unexpected upgrade. Looking forward to reading more of your report.

[Cinderella]

Lovely flight 👍

[Goldia]

How lovely that you were treated like VIPs on the flight.