A Magical New Year: Day 1 - Harry Potter and the Journey to Cabana Bay

[Stewboy]

Index

Saturday 29th December 2018

Travel day begins at 7am with me showering before heading down to get Costa coffee to kickstart what was sure to be a long day! With this in mind we wanted to let Isabella sleep as long as possible. At about 8am we woke her up for a morning cuddle and a (Costa) cup of milk.


Coffee in lift selfie


Her penultimate sleep as a 6 year old

By 8:40am we were on our way down to the breakfast buffet in the Thyme restaurant. It’s part of the meal deal, and definitely good value. The restaurant was less busy for breakfast than for dinner last night. I started with some hot food in a bagel and ended with a croissant - washed down with my last cup of normal tea for a week! Jo went for the healthy option to start - yoghurt and granola - and then had a pain au chocolat followed by some hot food, also with a nice cup of English breakfast tea; Isabella was content to eat pastries and sausage. We all enjoyed our food.




Breakfast

Breakfast was done and it was time to get our stuff together and head for the terminal - a more straightforward experience than the reverse trip last night!

Having no bags to check is a great feeling - I love twilight check-in - and going through security was hassle free. By 9:30am we were strolling through duty free, checking out perfumes, the Harry Potter shop (there’ll be much more of that in Florida!), and WH Smith (if wasn’t for airport locations surely this shop would’ve gone out of business years ago, the high street locations are always awful)!


Merry Christmas to you too North Terminal!


Trying on some perfume


The first, but definitely not the last, Harry Potter shop photo

Isabella isn’t a fan of plane food, hence the trip to Smith’s so that she could choose herself a sandwich. Waters were also purchased and then it was time to do a little more wandering the terminal; this didn’t take long as there’s not really much there!

Deciding it was probably time for another coffee, we headed to the upper level and Starbucks. It’s not only in America where they constantly misspell my name - on this occasion I was ‘Stuard’!

While Jo and I relaxed with our coffees, talking about our upcoming holiday and what things we were looking forward to doing, Isabella caught up on some reading.


Stuard


Stuard's wife and daughter


Happy faces


Reading face

It was soon time for us to head down to the gate. As anyone that’s been to Gatwick can attest to, this can sometimes be an epic trek - it wasn’t too bad today.

Once we arrived, people were already queuing to get onboard, so there was to be no hanging about - which suited us fine!

As we were in line to get on board we spotted Lee McQueen, winner of season 2 of ‘The Apprentice’, queuing to get on our flight - he wasn’t flying Economy though!

There was a short queue in the gangway to actually get onto the plane, but soon we were settled in our seats…. And waiting an hour before taking off! That was a hot hour too as they couldn’t get the aircon working until they started the engines, and they couldn’t start the engines because there were paperwork issues - whatever that means.

Finally at midday we were on our way, the plan was in the air, the seatback entertainment was on, and drinks were being served.


Plane selfie


So excited!

After browsing the entertainment I saved a selection of films to watch later on the flight - to watch after I’d enjoyed my Tiger beer and my dinner. Today I’d opted for the Malvani chicken curry, as did Jo. Isabella decided she didn’t like the look of the kids pasta and had her Smith’s bought ham sandwich instead. Jo and I ended up eating a little of her pasta - let’s call it an appetiser - it was actually pretty good.





I ended up watching two and a half of these


Engrossed!






Cheers


Crazy static hair!


Plane food

The food was good - that Gü passion fruit dessert was amazing - and once we’d eaten we settled down with the entertainment; Isabella read a little, played a game, watched a couple of films, and slept. Jo and I watched a couple of (different) films and documentaries. At some point on the flight, the Pringles came out and were swiftly despatched, and mini Fab lollies were handed out.

It was a busy flight, with a lot of kids, some of whom were allowed to stand up on seats, lay down in the aisles, and run up and down touching other passengers seat arms - I’ve literally never seen anything like it. We did a lot of tutting and looking wide-eyed at each other!












I met someone who looked just like me!


Don't worry, I didn't cry...


FAB!


Once she popped... !


Isabella (or it Izzy?!) also popped

Seven and a half hours had flown by - before we knew it we’d arrived; despite the feral children it had been a good flight, and being seated close to the doors it didn’t take long to disembark, even after being made to wait while passengers from the bubble were let off first - don’t worry though, we overtook them in the tunnel between the gate and the immigration hall! #powerwalk

With visions of one of our recent holidays where a flight full of Chinese passengers arrived at the same time as us causing a long delay at immigration, Jo was concerned about the BA flight due to land at the same time as us. Her fears were unfounded though, and we sailed through immigration, collected our luggage, got the tram and were in the main building 45 minutes after landing - Hello Orlando!




Hello Orlando!

What a great feeling this is. All we needed to do now was collect the car, usually a fairly straightforward process. Today however, we were using Budget for the first time (Avis & Alamo were working out at twice the price) and as we approached the Budget rental desk the queue did not look promising.

The (Orlando) time was about 5:45pm as we joined the queue. People in front of us were not happy - there was some issues with car availability, we could hear multiple customers complaining about pre-booked cars not being ready, or available at all.

Twenty five minutes later we were finally at the desk being told our car wasn’t here but if we come back in 20 minutes it would be ready for us! Slightly annoying, but it could have been worse.


Me in the queue with Lee McQueen somewhere in the background!

Deciding that getting dinner now, rather than waiting till we got to our destination as originally planned was a good idea, we headed back up to the main terminal food court. We’ve been wanting Chick-fil-a again ever since we made a late night stop on our way home from Epcot in May 2018 and now was our chance.

While Jo got us a seat in the food court, I queued at the Chick-fil-a counter and ordered two chicken sandwich meals for Jo and I, and chicken nuggets for Isabella.

Despite less than ideal circumstance, the Chick-fil-a was still good; we had eaten, we were full, and no longer needed to worry about that - we just needed to get the car and get to our hotel!




Chick-fil-a

It was 7pm when we went back to Budget to pick up out car keys, only to be told that they’d been given to someone else! Seriously? What the actual… Anyway, the lady quickly sorted us out with another car, a brand new Toyota Corolla no less; we were happy to finally have a car, and at least it would be a nice one.

Budget do an odd thing with gas - if you don’t take the ‘pay for a full tank, return it empty’ option they insist you fill it up within five miles of the airport and show receipts to prove it… can’t say Budget are on my favourite car hire firms list!

Despite all this, we were happy, we had our car. And when we found it in the garage it had JKR at the start of its licence plate - what else could we call it than ‘JK Rowling’? In the past we’ve had the likes of Blue Lou, White Knight… everyone gives their hire car a name, right?!


JK Rowling

It had been over two hours since we’d landed! Looking on the bright side though, at least we’d had dinner. Now we were finally able to leave the airport; using Google Maps on Jo’s phone to navigate we were on our way to Universal Orlando Resort.

The drive was straightforward, and felt like one we’d done many times before, which is probably because we have. I can honestly say I no longer feel any trepidation about driving in America, I’m fortunate to say it’s like second nature to me, and I might even go so far as to say I prefer it to driving in England.

As we were going to need supplies for the room, we made a stop at Publix on Universal Boulevard to get water, drinks and snacks for the room. When we’ve stayed on International Drive in the past, this was always our go-to supermarket, and I think it’s my favourite Publix that I’ve been to - you probably know by now that we love a Publix!


The Publix 'Assistant Produce Manager' is called Filmore Filmore!

The car was loaded up with waters, snacks, breakfasts and beer, and finally our next stop would be Cabana Bay. We arrived at 8:20pm, and while I waited in the drop off area out the front of reception - and also packed the shopping into one of the suitcases so that we could easily carry it up to the room - Jo and Isabella went inside to check in.

This is our first visit to Universal in any capacity since we spend four great days here back in September 2015 at the end of our Transatlantic cruise. On that occasion we’d stayed at, and loved, Royal Pacific. We were really hoping that Cabana Bay would also be nice.

Jo and Isabella returned. The lady that checked them in was really nice and she’d given Isabella a badge for her birthday (apparently the lady’s brother’s birthday was the same day), a voucher for free cake, and also made sure Isabella was happy with the character on her room key - Isabella didn’t really mind, even though it was Spider-man, who as far as I’m aware she has no opinion about.


Birthday badge

Our room was in the Americana building, 5th floor. There was a parking garage located directly opposite our building, so we found a parking space in there, unloaded the car, and headed across to the building and up to our room. The room was lovely; modern and spacious, with a lovely view and an internal hallway door, which we preferred rather than a door that opens out to an exterior corridor. It was also close to the dining area (the Bayliner Diner) and the Universal parks shuttle buses.


Our room


Retro toiletries

As it was now almost 9pm I got Isabella bathed and in to bed while Jo unpacked. Once Isabella was in bed, Jo and I sat and had a couple of the beers we bought (Goose Island IPA for me, Bud Light Platinum for Jo) - we were so excited to finally be here.


Goose Island IPA

Tomorrow was Isabella’s 7th birthday, and we were even more excited about all the great things we’d planned for her. Once we were sure she was asleep, we had our showers, decorated the room with a few banners and some of her presents (the ones we could fit into the luggage) and finally went to bed at about 11:45pm.

So that’s our travel day finally over with. As with all travel days, it wasn’t without its stress, but we started and ended the day completely chilled out, and despite some hassle with the hire car, it was a pretty straightforward day - we’ve definitely had worse that’s for sure!

Thanks for reading!


Presents for tomorrow

[florida girl]

A good travel day, how annoying about the car though. Love the retro toiletries.

[mrsdjh]

Not a bad travel day then Stuard - apart from the wild kids and the annoying bit with the car hire.

We stayed at Cabana Bay in October half term for a week and loved it - we didn't have a lovely view though

Looking forward to hearing all about Isabella's birthday - what a great place to spend it.

[dixonsontour]

Great travel day.

[mick]

Nice travel day apart from the messing about at Budget!

Joan

[sheluk]

Great travel day in the main - how well did Isabella cope with all that travelling and such a late night (uk compared)!

We loved cabana bay when we stayed there in 2016 - hope it lives up to our great memories of it.

Can’t wait to read the rest & all about Isabella’s birthday! X

[i love jack]

That’s a late night! Sounds lovely like mainly a good day apart from the feral children

[SuziQz]

Great start to your holiday, even the car turned out well eventually! Looking forward to reading about Isabella’s birthday and the rest of you trip

[Floridafour]

Great travel day, we love Cabana Bay, such a fun hotel. Looking forward to more 🙂

[princess allie]

A good travel day. I have nightmares about feral kids on planes.