Brett & Jo's 'Not So Scary' Wedding Adventure : Day 1 Travel Day - Homeward Bound!

[Happyhaunt1000]

And so it begins…
Before I start, let me be open and honest with you all. I didn’t wanna do it… I felt pressured and backed into a corner and like I didn’t have any choice in the matter… but hey, I’ll get to the wedding in good time! (Sorry... couldn’t resist)

I guess what I’m feeling at this moment is exactly what a lot of you have felt when it came time to sit down and write your very first trip report. I’ve sat here, staring blankly at my screen wondering how I should start.

Ahead of me (and you) is a 26 day trip report (assuming you stick with me for the whole journey). We met some amazing people, had some amazing days (and nights) and it truly was a once in a lifetime experience… oh… and we got married as well!

So here we go… “Light speed to Endor”

Our tale begins on a sunny September Saturday morning. For once, we weren’t running around like madmen frantically turning off plugs, water mains and pointlessly checking and double checking everything has been done. Oh no… for once we were organised and prepared. We’d both booked the Friday off work as we figured that going for a month required more than 6hrs of final preparation in the evening. With so many other things to plan for, the last thing I wanted to be doing 5hrs before a flight was faffing about under the sink trying to reach a watermains tap that was so hidden I needed a bloody treasure map to find it! No, no, no… not today.

Our suitcases were downstairs and ready by the front door.



Our lovely baby Tarn was already living the high life in Leicester with my brother, his partner, the 4 kids, 1 dog, 2 cats & 4 rabbits! (I’d like to point out that just Tarn is ours… the rest of the petting zoo belongs to Glenn!)

For all intents and purposes… we were ready to go. Such a rare occurrence is us being ready on time, I think Steve (Jo’s dad) said a swear as he walked through the front door and saw both of us dressed and the cases sitting there ready and waiting! After one last sweep of the house (just to settle Jo’s nerves) we loaded up the car and made our way to the airport.

As ever, this was an uneventful journey, filled with me refreshing my twitter account, looking out the window, and mentally ticking of the minutes until my feet were on American soil.



We arrived at the airport, parked up and made our way towards check in.



The two Virgin employees standing near the desks assume that Steve & Beryl are also coming to Florida as they are each dragging one of our suitcases. Sadly no (not yet anyway) and we’re directed over to the Premium Economy desk. At check in we drop into the conversation that we’re getting married… hoping that miraculously there are a couple of spare seats going in Upper Class… but alas, its fallen on deaf ears. The woman just wanted to us check in and have us on our way so she could carry on her conversation with a colleague whose face resembled the colour of a cheesy wotsit!

With check in complete, we say our goodbyes to Steve & Beryl and say we’ll see them next week. Next stop… Premium Security. For the first time ever, there’s more than one other traveller in this area waiting to go through. In front of us are a middle aged couple who can’t seem to get their tickets to scan properly on the automatic gates. I roll my eyes, make some hushed comment to Jo about older people being crap with technology… and how it’s like being at the entrance of a theme park watching people struggle trying to get their bloody hopper pass to work because they can’t remember what finger they used when they registered the ticket!

(DISCLAIMER… I will try to keep my rants about ‘stupid people who don’t know how to use the park turnstiles’ to a minimum… but I’m not promising anything! Over the course of 26 days I witnessed some truly amazing feats of stupidity and feel I should share them with you!)

After what feels like 5 minutes, but is actually more like 30seconds, someone comes over and takes the tickets off them and scans them on a machine off to the side. The guy in front of us, who’s obviously off to a Miami Vice fancy dress party, swipes his ticket and is through without a problem. “See Jo, it was those stupid old gits that were the problem… not their ticket.”

Up we step….

BEEP BEEP

Nothing happens……

BEEP BEEP

Again nothing happens

Suddenly I’M the old git who can’t get his ticket to work. The same guy that helped out Mr & Mrs Meldrew comes walking over. He looks at our ticket… mumbles something about ‘Bloody front line… Stupid printer… barcode not showing up’ and then just opens a gate for us to walk through.

Now, it was at this point last trip where may bag was full of all sorts of I-products and cameras and devices that it took me over 5 minutes to repack everything after the security woman had pulled everything out. I had a quarter of the gadgets this time, so I thought I wouldn’t be going through the same thorough bag check. As it came down the conveyor belt some burly security guard grabbed it and asked me if it was my bag. I said yes and he gestured to follow him checking area.
Oh no… here we go again… I’m gonna have to pull out all the electronics, open every zip, every pouch… turn everything on and off again… urghhh… what a pain! He unzips my bag, reaches in… and pulls out a bottle of water! Oops!

“Oh man… I’m so sorry… I meant to drink that in the car and totally forgot.” He smiles… tells me it’s not a problem, and lobs it in the bin. I expect him to then carry on searching, but I’ve obviously got nothing in there that he needs to nose around at and pushes the bag back towards me and walks off. I zip the bag up (still feeling like a bit of a douchebag because I’m now one of those people who doesn’t pay attention to the NO LIQUIDS IN YOUR BAG signs that are up everywhere!)

Then he grabs Jo’s little case… apparently this one’s been selected for a random check. I see the look of panic on her face… “Erm, that’s got my wedding dress in, does it all need to come out?” He smiles, shakes his head, says that’s no problem and sends us on our way.

We head straight to McDonalds to grab a bite to eat. I know there are plenty of nicer places to have a spot of brunch, but after going into Frankie & Benny’s when we went in May and not being that impressed at paying over £30 for a couple of drinks and some ropey grub, I figure grabbing a McD’s is a safer (cheaper) option.

As always… it’s like a zoo. After finding a couple of seats we tuck into our food.



We’re both eating like geese and my Big Mac is gone in 5 bites! (I’m not proud of this but we were in a rush!) Just behind Jo arrives a family who seem to be collecting unused seats from every other area of the restaurant. (I’m using the word restaurant in the loosest possible term here!) They now have 7 seats round a table for two.

The noisy alpha male of the pack is now ushering (who I assume are) his older relatives into the seats. He then begins talking to them like they are 5 yrs olds! “BURGER… BURGER… BUUUUURGEEEEEEER… YOU WANT A BURGER?” After doing this to four more OAPs, he establishes that that do want burgers. “FRIES… FRIES… ITS CHIPS… YOU WANT CHIPS?”

At this point I realise I’m frozen. I’m holding a chip two inches from my open mouth and I haven’t moved in 30seconds… I’m mesmerised! Suddenly I’m snapped out of it as a woman who clearly thinks its 1984 and is dressed as such (Bonnie Tyler massive hair, some god awful jumper and more gold bling than Mr T) interrupts the third round of “CHIPS” and shouts “ just bloody get them all kids meals”!

Emasculated slightly, Alpha male wants to show he’s still in charge and goes back to the first OAP and says “DO YOOOOU WANT A CHEESEBURGER”? This makes me chuckle, and Bonnie Tyler is clearly not happy. “Just get them plain hamburgers… and bloody hurry up or will miss the flight!”

Unfortunately, we finish our food and we’re leaving as Alpha Male was walking back to the crowded table with a mountain of happy meals. I wonder if they all got different toys?!?!?

Anyway… we don’t really have any time to look around the shops so we rush through Duty Free, spotting this Hidden Mickey on the way…



… then head straight for the departure gate. We have our passports and tickets checked, and I find a couple of seats. Jo wants to quickly take a picture of the plane… and I sit down still thinking about the old people, and how none of them even got asked if they wanted nuggets or a fillet-o-fish! My mind suddenly snaps back from its day dream as over the tannoy the guy says “last call for Premium Economy passengers to board.” What the… ?!?!

I stand up just as Jo races back over to me complaining that she couldn’t get a proper shot because of the little kids and plane nerds that were just standing there ‘bogging’ at the plane.



We board and take our seats downstairs at the very back of Premium Economy. I’m already liking the fact that I’ll not have anyone poking the back of my seat as they try to change the channel on the TV screen.

All our bags are stowed away, and we’re just browsing the movie selection (even though we’d already looked online a few weeks previous and picked the movies we wanted to watch). It’s then that the stewardess walks up and offers us sparkling wine, water or orange juice. We both take the wine, knowing full well it tastes like vinegar.



Instead of suffering three small mouthfuls each, I suggest necking it like a shot! So that’s what we did. If you really want to witness it, we posted videos on our Instagram accounts (Happyhaunt100 and Tarnabanana83).


Finally everyone is on board, and the horrible instructional video with the voiceover from Vic Reeves kicks in. Minutes later we’re up in the air… the seat belt signs are switched off and for some reason half the plane feels the need to un-buckle, stand up and root back through the bags they’ve just packed away! I’ll never understand that!

One of the cabin crew stops next to us hand us our menus… I swear the food is getting worse on the planes. They upgrade the entertainment system, but downgrade the food!



Someone else stops and asks if we’d like a drink. Jo asks for Amaretto, but they don’t have any, so she gets a vodka and coke… but I think they felt guilty about not having the drink she wanted… so she ends up with what looked and tasted like a triple vodka with one of those tiny cans of Pepsi! I go for a Bloody Mary (I think I only ever drink these when I fly… it’s kind of like a reflex reaction that I ask for one when they come to me!)



Soon after drinks, it’s food time and we choose from the menu. We both fancied the beef… but guess what… they’ve run out by the time they get to us! So we end up with the tilapia … which the poor cabin crew have to keep explaining to people is “a white fish, very tasty” as nobody seems to know what it is… and a Thai green vegetable curry.





The fish wasn’t that bad, and Jo said her curry was nice despite looking like something a dog honks up, and since we’ve already had a few drinks, we decided we’ll have a few more and both got wine with the meal. Stupidly I choose the red, while Jo has the white.

For all you wine/food snobs out there… I’ve never been a person that drinks a certain wine with a certain meal… I’m just not that guy. I just drink what I fancy… and I fancied some red. I wish I hadn’t fancied red because it was bloody vile. I like red wine, but can’t stand oaky tasting reds… and this tasted like it was 92% wood, 3% red food colouring and 5% Cillit Bang!



Like the fool I am, I didn’t just leave the wine and not drink it… oh no… waste not, want not… so I got rid of it with a couple of big gulps and learnt my lesson about picking ropey drinks. I say learnt my lesson… that’s not entirely true because 10mins later two cabin crew stopped and offered us an Amarula or a brandy.

I said brandy.

I don’t like brandy.
Never have liked brandy.
I’m not a brandy drinker.
Why did I say brandy?

I politely smile as they hand me a plastic cup with brown poison in it, and Jo gets her Amarula. She waits till they walk away before asking me why the hell I asked for brandy?!?! All I can do is look at her and stammer “ I… don’t … know” !

I sit there trying to enjoy the last 20 minutes of Monsters University (which is very good by the way), but I’m sipping the brown poison and with each swallow I’m cursing myself for not choosing the Baileys-esque drink which I would’ve loved!



The movie ends and thankfully so has my drink. It’s at this point that I decide making some notes about what’s happened so far wouldn’t be a bad idea… except it is a bad idea… as I’m feeling light headed and when it came to using the voice recorder and making notes… I’m repeating myself… Jo is drunkenly interrupting, and it just sounds a mess!

(Listening to that 3 minutes of audio is what I’ve written up so far! Just wait till you get to the 1hr 10min voice recording I did about our wedding day!)

We’re a few hours into the flight and the couple sitting in front of us are obviously travelling with a big group (who all seem to be sitting in Economy), as I’ve already seen 6 different people come through and chat with them.

So I’m sitting there… minding my own business… watching The Internship (a typical Vince Vaughn/Luke Wilson comedy that I quite enjoyed) when suddenly this arm is coming from nowhere, reaching over the head rest of the seat in front of me and ‘SLAP’… whacking the bald head of the guy in front before shooting away and vanishing back behind the curtain!

Well I didn’t move… I didn’t look behind… I just assumed that whoever had done it was standing just out of my peripheral view, waiting for bald head to turn round. Well he did turn round… kind of.

Basically a furrowed brow and set of eyes appeared over the back of seat… staring straight at me… and that furrowed brow was now turning angry!
He was under the impression that it was me… in an unprovoked attack… that had slapped him hard on the head! It was then I realised that whoever had done it wasn’t standing in the aisle behind me… playfully pointing and laughing at Mr bald head… oh no… whoever had done it was back behind the curtain!

I was the culprit… I was head slapper! I suddenly lost the ability to speak… all I could do was rapid like shakes of my head in protest. It wasn’t me! He was staring at me for what felt like an eternity (when it actual fact it was probably no more than five seconds.)

Then as quickly as the scowl had appeared, it vanished and I could tell he was smiling… the phantom head slapper had appeared from behind the curtain with the type of showbiz entrance normally reserved for a contestant on Stars in Their Eyes. Mr bald head poked his head a little higher, mouthed sorry and started chatting with the guy who is quite clearly the type of guy that grabs a girl’s bum in a bar, then points at his mate when she turns round. Thankfully that was the last I saw of him for the rest of the journey.

I turned to Jo and said how weird/funny that all was, but she’d not seen any of it as she’d been staring out the window taking pictures of the clouds!







I then explained what had happened and she couldn’t stop laughing and couldn’t understand how she hadn’t seen any of it.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. Watched After Earth and wish I hadn’t (avoid at all costs), had a sleep for an hour while Jo did puzzles in her puzzle book. We had the usual ‘High Tea’ which consists of half a cheese and pickle sandwich, cut into two with the crusts cut off, and a bloody awful banana and toffee muffin. Fine dining it is not!



We started to make our descent into MCO and as we were coming into land, we suddenly started pulling up again. I wouldn’t say it was violent or anything, but it was quite a shock. We were then pulling up sharply and plane started pitching and yawing. There was a woman sitting to our right who had screwed herself up into a ball in her seat… she clearly wasn’t enjoying any of this.



After a couple of minutes, the Captain came over the tannoy and announced that they had to pull up because the plane in front of us as we came in to land was too slow getting off the runway. He then said we’d be up in the air for a further 20minutes. We did what was basically a massive loop over Orlando and 15minutes later was Take-2 of the landing. This time it was fine and I think the woman across the aisle finally stopped bricking it when the plane came to a halt.

Being downstairs and right at the back meant we realistically should have been the first ones off the plane… but oooooh no. There was a girl sitting three rows in front of us who literally ran to the door… then proceed to try and get her mum and nan to squeeze past everyone else and join her. I stood in the aisle and didn’t move. Jo was physically being shoved so they could get past… but she was having none of it and swung her bag round and alongside me so they wouldn’t get any further. I know it might sound petty, but people suddenly lose any sense of manners when it comes to exiting a plane. They rush to get to the front… then shuffle along and walk so slowly it makes you wonder why the hell they rushed in the first place.

We head to immigration and there are 20 or so people in front of us. We’re waiting for no more than 5 minutes and we’re now off to collect our bags. For once I didn’t get one of the officers with a chip on his shoulder who wants to know ‘why I’m visiting HIS country’.

We waited 20minutes for our cases to appear (the longest we’ve ever had to wait) and we head for the second passport check (does anyone know why that is there?) This time I encounter a proper miserable troll. She asks me how long I’ll be in the States. I tell her a month.
“A month… why?”
“I’m getting married”
“You have family here?”
“No I don’t, they are travelling over next week”
“No family, then why so long?”
“Errr... because we like it here”
“So you’re not staying with family here?”
“No, I don’t have any family here… I’m just getting married here”
“When are you leaving?”
“In a month’s time”

I couldn’t understand why we were going round in circles with the same bloody questions… and my cheerful response were getting more and more short and my smile had definitely disappeared. Finally after 2 minutes of repeating the same thing I’m through. I have a face like thunder and Jo is telling me to calm down. We jump on the monorail, arrive in the main terminal and head outside to get a cab. Just as we do, the heavens open and it starts chucking it down! A proper, good old fashioned, Florida early evening shower.

By the time we arrive at the Rosen Inn at Pointe Orlando it’s stopped and the sun is out.



We do our normal routine… I stand outside with the cases… Jo goes inside and checks us in. She comes out with a face like thunder.

I ask her what’s wrong and she explains that we are in the furthest block of the hotel from where we’re standing! We’ve never stayed that far over… in fact, it’s so far across that we are right at the border of the Rosen Plaza hotel! Block G, 5th floor, room 4508 will be our home for the next 26days.

We make the 7min walk across the hotel, get into the room and I then do something I don’t normally do… and that’s fully unpack! I like to just live out of my suitcase… unpacking is a waste of time… I’d rather be down the road playing pirate golf… not doing chores in my hotel room. But I do it anyway… I figure this is home for a month… I’ll have plenty of time to do all the other stuff! (Oh how wrong I would be…)



We’ve finished unpacking but we can’t leave the room because whoever was in the room before us has sodded around with the safe and we can’t lock it. We call reception and they say they’ll send someone along to fix it. 15 minutes later a knock at the door and there’s a security man standing there. He comes in, and starts joking around saying that it was me that broke the safe, and how Jo shouldn’t trust me to do anything because all I’ll do is break it. 2 minutes later he’s dishing out high-fives and leaves… safe problem fixed.

We need to buy Universal Annual passes, so decide to pick them up from reception where they have a tickets/activities desk. We get there at 7:48… they closed at 7:45. Damn it…. it we weren't so bloody far from reception this would never have happened! (This is my first moan about how far away we are… but won’t be my last!)

[Happyhaunt1000]

We leave the hotel and take a stroll down I-drive. I know it’s Saturday night, but it appears to be very busy (more than normal)… there are lots of large groups walking about… the restaurants all seem to be pretty busy and there are double the number of sodding rickshaws riding up and down the pavement!

We decide to head to one of our favourite places on I-Drive, Tony Roma’s. Just as we get to the door there is a party of 10 Brits just heading in before us. The head of their party goes up and tells the woman at the desk it’s a party of 10, and they are told to wait. But instead of moving to one side there are now 7 adults and 3 kids milling about in front of us and we can’t get past them. I say excuse me about 4 times and eventually get past them. We’re seated in a booth straight away and greeted by Jordan who will be our server.

We decided to skip starters and go straight for the mains. But before the food arrived, I think the day had finally caught up with Jo…



She put her head on the table and I swear she actually nodded off!

I went for the St Louis ribs covered in Carolina honey sauce and Jo had the Baby Back ribs in the normal Roma BBQ sauce. They were AMAZING as always. I woofed all mine down, but Jo deliberately ordered a full rack so she’d have some left over and would be able to snack on them back in the room! (Sneaky cow!)







Jordan asked why we were out in Florida and we told him we were getting married. A couple of minutes later the manager came over and offered his congratulations and said a few other kind words.

We paid the bill and headed over to Walgreens to stock up on essentials for the room.


$100 later and we’re lugging bags of lotion, juice and gossips mags back to the hotel. As we were walking back we realised that a restaurant we went to last Sept has already closed down! It had just opened when we were there last year, and goes to show the call for good Hawaiian food isn’t that strong on I-Drive.

We’re back in our room by 10pm and at 10 past I start making the voice memo notes about our day so far! I don’t recall what time we fell asleep, but I’m pretty sure it was around 11pm.

And there you have it… that was our travel day.
Some funny incidents, some rude people, and a bunch of horrible tasting alcohol… what more could you want?!?!

Brett & Jo's 'Not So Scary' Wedding Adventure Index

[Guest]

Great travel day, can't wait to read more! Can't believe you nearly took the fall for the head slapped!

[Guest]

At last! Why didn't I think of the not so scary in the title, so obvious now. Looking forward to the rest, hurry up and knock another one out ;-)

[Happyhaunt1000]

Tell me about it! The guy did not look happy.
Thanks... hope you enjoy the rest of our adventures

[EssexYankee]

Great travel day -- the head slap is classic, totally something that would happen to my DH!

Looking forward to reading more!

[Guest]

Really enjoyed reading this wee report looking forward to more

[wizzo]

Good first effort Brett! You won't have any problem if the rest is like this!

The first security check at the airport is to check you. The second is to check what you're bringing with you! I know this as Lynn's Mam was pointed out here by a sniffer dog for having had a banana in her bag 3 weeks earlier once and I've been turned over at the second one for having contraband baby food with meat in it!

Keep up the good work. Great read.

[Deano]

Cracking start, keep em coming...

[Wozi]

Great travel day, and OMG the slapped bald headed chap, good job his mate owned up