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Old 2 Apr 19, 02:56 PM  
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berniegroves
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Team Groves are Florida Bound! October 2017 travel day

Travel day:
Miley and Grayson seemed to both wake up at about 7.30 so I was also awake.
I had woken up at about 2am and struggled to go back to sleep, I think it was nerves and excitement.
As I’m the main holiday organiser I always feel a lot of pressure when we are travelling. Does anyone else feel that way?

We woke Simon up and decided to go and get breakfast in the hotel before having showers and getting ready to go to the airport.
I had prepaid for breakfast and it cost £20 for all of us as the kids were free.
It was standard breakfast buffet fare, but the kids enjoyed it as did Simon. I ate some of the usual cooked breakfast but I had woken up with a headache, which I think was me being tense about the travel ahead of us.
We took a walk back to our room and then all took it in turns to have a shower.

Miley was fine in the hotel room, she is generally okay in most situations bless her. Grayson on the other hand needs space and a hotel room is just too confining for him, even for short periods of time. He was literally bouncing off the walls!
It confirmed for me that if we ever wanted to stay onsite we would need a villa. A hotel room for more than one night with Grayson would be torture! Lol!

During this time I also checked and double checked and triple checked our hand luggage! Nerves again! We also put the kids iPads in to their new protective cases, this took ages! We ended up using a teaspoon to prise then in!
But it was worth the effort, the cases have a handle so they are easy to carry and the handle folds over so the iPad can stand up easily for kids to watch etc. I would highly recommend them.

We left the hotel room at about 10.20 and put our key in the check out box. We then drove the very short distance to the Gatwick north terminal. We were using their valet parking again this year.
We used the south terminal one last time and it was an awesome service. This one on the outset didn’t seem as good, the drop off is outside with no cover, which was okay for us as the weather was just cloudy. But if it was raining people would get soaked. Whereas the south terminal one was all undercover.
The car drop off was easy enough though and only took around 5 minutes.
Anyway, hopefully it will all work as smoothly when we get back as it did last time.

We took our hand luggage in to the terminal and made our way to the family security area.
I am so grateful that Virgin do twilight check in, how I love getting rid of our suitcases early! And I am so SO grateful toGatwick for having a separate security channel for families.
Travelling with kids and all their paraphernalia can be stressful but it’s made so much worse when people without kids are stuck behind you huffing. Simon doesn’t worry about it so much, but I hate inconveniencing people. So the family one is fab, as everyone is in exactly the same situation with kids or babies etc so nobody is trying to rush you along.

Both kids handled this area really well as I always find it a bit daunting. But they took it in their stride.
The security officers must have a hard job, because most of the people they see will be the usual, but if they let their guard down and miss something then it could have devastating consequences. It must be strange to be under so much pressure when a lot of your day to day interactions will be monotonous.

Anyway, we were now through security! Yay!
We walked down to the kids zone and let the kids go in and burn off a little bit of energy whilst we decided what to do. Next time we fly I think Miley will be too big for the area which would be a shame as they had fun playing together.

I went to Boots and bought snacks and drinks and a few toiletries we needed.
Then Simon went to WHSmiths and bought more snacks and a neck pillow for miley as we had left hers at home.
After a bathroom run it was 12.00 and our gate was due to be announced at 12.05.
Sure enough at 12.05 our gate was up and we were on our way. I have no idea what gate it was now. It was a high number! I’ll see if Simon can remember. I want to say 466.
We made our way along to the gate and joined the queue to enter the gate.
Today we would be flying on Ladybird.


We didn’t wait long in the gate before they started boarding. This always cracks me up as so many people act as though it’s an easyJet flight and they need to get on first as otherwise they won’t get a seat! We saw one family run down the side of the gate, climb over seats and push in right at the front of the queue! Why?! You already have seats!

As we went through boarding I was picked for an additional security check. (I found out later that you can tell from your boarding card if you’ll be chosen as it has SS on it I think.)
It took ages as I had my cabin case, one of the kids trunkis and a shopping bag! I also had both the kids iPads in my bag and also my kindle. So I had to take them all out of the cases (remember we had only just put them in the cases that morning and it had taken quite some time!) then they had to swab them which again took a long time. Then the lady searched my two bags, and then did a body search and I also had to take my shoes off for her to check my feet! I know it needs to be done and is for everyone’s safety but it’s still frustrating when I happened to be carrying most of our bags!
It did take what felt like a long time, and apparently Miley was getting scared the plane would leave without us. She is a little worrier and even though Simon was reassuring her she didn’t understand and thought I was in trouble of some kind. And all she could see was more and more people boarding the plane whilst we had to wait. She gets so anxious about things

A few minutes later and I was done and we were on the plane. Our seats were two rows of two at the back of the plane.
The two Trunki’s went up into the overhead lockers and stayed there the whole flight, simons rucksack also went up once he had taken the snacks out. Inside my bag I had all the stuff for the kids, iPad, headphones, stickers, wikistix etc. I had bought both kids a drawstring bag and put all of their stuff in each. So I just removed the two drawstring bags and gave one to Grayson and one to Miley and my bag also went away for the flights duration. Nice and easy.



We had a female pilot today, which Miley was very excited about (as was I!) and she explained we had 5 planes taking off before us, so we were on the tarmac for a while. We had been due to take off at 1.15, but I think it ended up being about 1.25 in the end.
Miley used the iPad until we took off. I believe Grayson did the same. Thank goodness for modern electronics.
I watched 3 films during the flight, A Dogs Purpose, Megan Leavey and Wonder Woman.
I liked all of them, although Megan Leavey was my favourite and Wonder Woman my least of the three. I did lots and lots of pausing during the films to look after Miley or help with Grayson.
I don’t think Simon managed to watch any as Grayson is a lot more work than Miley. Unfortunately for Simon, Grayson is a daddy’s boy, so he refused to sit with me until the last hour of the flight.

The gentleman sat infront of us was very polite and asked if it was okay for his freind to recline his seat or if it would bother Miley. I said it would be fine. And then he asked if I would mind if he reclined his later in the flight and I said that was fine.
It was so nice to be asked rather than have a seat fly backwards towards my head with no warning!

Now I never normally mind airplane food. But for us this time it was just bad. I had pesto pasta which wasn’t great, half the pasta was totally dry with not enough sauce. And the salad than came with it was 90% lettuce. I didn’t eat much.

Miley has a kids meal which was cheesy pasta but she said she didn’t like it.

Simon said Grayson didn’t touch his and Simon had sausages and mash which he said was okay.
Then later on it was cheese and sundried tomato relish sandwiches which I ate. But Miley didn’t like them again. But she ate the crisps that time at least.
The fab ice-lolly went down well though with all of us :-)
Both kids were superstars! Thank goodness! My greatest worry with the holiday is that one or both of them will kick off on the flight. Luckily Miley loves flying. She curls up in her chair with her iPad and her teddy. She has some snacks and wil use the inflight entertainment and she is quite happy.
Grayson however has a tonne of energy and a very strong stubborn streak! So keeping him entertained takes a bit more effort. But he did really well bless him as he was only 3 at the time.
Both kids watched a variety of things but chopped and changed a lot. I think the Charlie Brown movie was the only one they watched all the way through. They both also loved playing with their wiki stix and they keep them occupied for a little while.
We had a lot of turbulence this flight. A lot! I got very nervous on a few occasions and was in awe of my kids as they weren’t bothered at all.
The seatbelt signs were on most of the time so as soon as they went off I made sure the kids used the bathrooms.
Apart from the turbulence the flight went smoothly and I was so excited to be heading back to Orlando!

Finally we landed and half the plane immediately stood up and filled the aisles. And then stood there for a good 15 minutes. Lol.

We exited the plane and followed the masses down to passport control. I’m always hoping that we have a positive experience here, but this year was to be our worst one yet.
We went through the queue and reached a self service room where we input all our details into a computer screen. This room wasn’t great, most people seemed to be having some technical issues and the staff weren’t being particularly helpful. We got it done and left the room and joined another queue. This then took us to the normal passport control desks which was disappointing. We’d assumed that the new system would have sped things up, but this all took a LOT longer than it had in the past!
I’ve since heard that the self service room has been removed; I’m not sure if that’s correct but hopefully it is as it was terrible when we went through.
Despite this all taking a long time the kids did really well. This was where the Trunkis came in useful. The immigration queue is the reason I bought them and we definitely were glad of them. On our previous trip we’d all had rucksacks or shoulder bags. And in addition our kids wanted to be carried etc. So by the time we were through the airport I’d pulled a muscle in my shoulder! The family in front of us had cabin cases and trunkis and glided their way through the queue which made me very jealous!
So this year I had a cabin case and the kids had trunkis and the difference was amazing! The kids could sit down pretty much the whole time and I didn’t have anything heavy to carry. Grayson was carried by Simon for a while and so I could balance his trunki on top of my cabin case so again no carrying of bags.
Honestly it was so easy!

We got through with no hiccups and collected our bags easily enough. We weighed up whether it was possible to get up the escalator without doing second bag drop. But the kids were dead on their feet and so we had 4 hand luggage bags and three suitcases and a small holdall. So Simon and I just couldn’t manage them all between us, so as much as it pained me, we dropped our bags back off and got the monorail over to the main terminal.

After a quick restroom stop we were down to bag collection.
Three of our cases arrived immediately but we waited and waited and waited for the fourth. A rep asked us what we were waiting for and she called through to the baggage handlers. Fifteen minutes later the bag arrived, turns out it had fallen off the conveyor belt behind the scenes.
Once we had all the bags it was time for transport! Woohoo! Finally we could leave the airport!
It had taken us over THREE hours from landing to collecting our last bag! Three hours!
My kids are superstars as they really did do so well!
Unfortunately at this point Miley broke slightly. I had a feeling she would as she is very good at holding it together when she really needs to bless her. And so when I said we were done and leaving the airport she burst into tears. She was super tired and overwhelmed, extreme emotions can be tough for her and so she just had built up a lot of emotions during the day and now they were coming out.
A lovely American family came up to us and the mum asked if she could give Miley some candy to cheer her up. I agreed and she gave Miley and Grayson two bags of sweets. It was enough to distract Miley for a little while so it did help.

We were using Car on the Drive again, so we gave them a call and arranged a meeting place. Ten minutes later we were loaded up in the car and on our way. Hooray!

We found out at this point that the airport was so busy because all flights were being sent to the same terminal as the other terminal had been closed for the vice-president to arrive!
Cheeky git!
And unfortunately we got stuck behind his huge procession of cars which were being escorted by dozens of sheriff cars!

So it took a bit longer to get to the villa than we would have liked. But it was uneventful and we were back in Florida so it felt amazing anyway!

The kids had fallen asleep so we had to wake them up to get them out of the car. The villa looked fab and we were so excited.
Luckily we had booked car on the drive as we couldn’t figure out how to type the code in to enter the villa but they have us a hand. (I blame tiredness!) they also helped us bring our bags in and showed Simon the controls on the rental car etc so we’d be good to go the next morning. I’d ordered some groceries from them and these were waiting in the villa for us which was so helpful.

Here are photos of the villa and the street we stayed on.



We popped some pizza in the oven for the kids and they picked at those with some cookies whilst I quickly unpacked some bits.
I use packing cubes in our suitcases, different colours for each of us and this always makes unpacking a breeze. I just collected all the blue ones for Grayson and put them in the room he’d be using, and likewise for each of us. I felt better that the suitcases were empty and clothes were in the right rooms even if they weren’t in the wardrobes yet.
Whilst I was doing this the kids had been eating and I had been texting Fairytale Personal Shopper who was delivering some parcels for us. She arrived and oh my goodness it was a lot of boxes! Poor Simon almost had a heart attack!

I left them sealed tonight, planning to open them the next day.

I should also say we rented a double stroller (a baby jogger gt city mini) from Kingdom Strollers and when we arrived at the villa it was already there waiting for us which was good. My kids were 5 and 3 on this trip, both perfectly capable of walking. But Grayson still naps occasionally, especially with the heat, so the stroller is good for that. And Miley takes time to gain confidence in a situation and needs to ease into things. We found last time that she would retreat to the stroller when she needed to get some space, she would pull the hood down and take a break in her own little bubble. She also struggled with the initial crowds at the parks in the mornings at the monorail and tapstiles, so again felt safer and happier in the stroller bubble she created. This also made it easier for us not needing to hold on to the two kids in the crowds. So we decided to rent one again this trip and it was definitely worth it for us.

Simon took Grayson to bed and he was asleep within seconds. I took Miley to bed and even she only took minutes, whereas it normally takes at least an hour. And Simon and I were asleep not long after!

We fell asleep exhausted but oh so SO excited to be in Florida again and to have the whole of our three week holiday stretched out in front of us. It’s the best feeling ever!
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Old 2 Apr 19, 04:15 PM  
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Mel49
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Great travel day exccept for the delays at MCO and looking forward to reading along.
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Old 2 Apr 19, 04:28 PM  
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My goodness that was a massive delay getting out of the airport. Well done to your children for being so well behaved.
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Old 3 Apr 19, 03:37 AM  
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berniegroves
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Originally Posted by Mel49 View Post
Great travel day exccept for the delays at MCO and looking forward to reading along.
Thanks for reading. Yes it was a good travel day all in all. Fingers crossed immigration doesn’t take as long next time we go :-)

Originally Posted by Palm trees View Post
My goodness that was a massive delay getting out of the airport. Well done to your children for being so well behaved.
Thanks for reading! Yes they had their moments but really they were angels as I certainly felt like screaming at someone as it took so long!
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Old 20 Apr 19, 08:10 PM  
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Wow, your children really are stars! Last time DH and I went to Orlando the two hours we waited nearly broke me... let alone two young children!

I am so looking forward to reading the rest of your trippy as your children are similar ages in this report to the ages mine will be when we (hopefully) go to WDW in a few years. Loving all the tips so far!
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Old 21 Apr 19, 01:05 PM  
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great travel day x
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Old 21 Apr 19, 08:58 PM  
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berniegroves
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Originally Posted by kadypants View Post
Wow, your children really are stars! Last time DH and I went to Orlando the two hours we waited nearly broke me... let alone two young children!

I am so looking forward to reading the rest of your trippy as your children are similar ages in this report to the ages mine will be when we (hopefully) go to WDW in a few years. Loving all the tips so far!
They have their moments but they really were amazing during the waits at the airport. There were adults around us being far grumpier than they were.

When are you going to Florida?
I hope you enjoy reading and find some of it useful


Originally Posted by summersun View Post
great travel day x
It wasn’t bad thanks for reading and commenting
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Old 28 Apr 19, 06:11 PM  
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Wow, 3 hours from landing to leaving! Seemed like a really good travel day otherwise, the kids did so well.

Looking forward to the next day x
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Old 30 Apr 19, 11:38 AM  
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Originally Posted by Lisa29 View Post
Wow, 3 hours from landing to leaving! Seemed like a really good travel day otherwise, the kids did so well.

Looking forward to the next day x
Yes 3 hours! It was the worst we’ve ever experienced. The kids were amazing considering I wanted to cry! Lol
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