18 Days Of Orlando Magic Day 18 - Last Minute Shopping & Time To Go home

[Blondie1979]

So here it is my final post for this wonderful holiday. As I write this I am sat at home surrounded by washing, suitcases and souvenirs!
Let me go back a mere 29 hours since I last got up from any decent sleep and relive the final day with you

So I wake up early to finish off the packing from last night, I stood on the balcony with a cuppa for the last time, I will really miss waking up to this view!

After a stressful trying to get everything in the suitcases and making sure they're all under 23kg (chocolate and Converse can weigh a lot!) We leave our apartment for the last time, it's funny how you do this everyday without thinking but on your last day you try to remember to look at everything that one last time!

We pick up Jean and Roger and drive to DTD for our check in.
Again driving under this sign today was with a heavy heart

The DTD check in was so easy to find and much less stressful than at the airport, it was nice to know that we wouldn't have to handle or see the cases until Gatwick!

We leave DTD for now as the majority voted for a last breakfast at Cracker Barrel.

I'm smiling because I'm still here!
Breakfast was as good as ever.

I had the apple cinnamon oatmeal again as it's delicious, apologies for the blurry photo!

Charlotte has the kids 2 pancakes and maple syrup.

Ryan has 3 pancakes with bacon and sausage.

Yep you guessed it again, Ian has this plateful!
Jean and Roger had toast with scrambled egg.

The kids played checkers afterwards and we sat on the rocking chairs in the sunshine

We say goodbye to Cracker Barrel and leave via the toll road back to DTD.

Of course we need to visit the World of Disney store again, yes I did purchase, pictures are later in the report

Silly hat photo opportunity is a must when you find a new batch of never seen before hats!

These visitors have been here ages the lucky devils!

We walk to WestSide and dive into the first air conditioned shop.

Oh yeh another hat!

The new Starbucks from outside looking towards Pleasure island & Marketplace.

More hoarding up here.

To kill some time we wait for a water taxi

We leave DTD to head for the Florida mall. On the way we stop at Walgreens so that Ryan can pick something up to try which will make his friends jealous!

Just like the old KP choc 'n' dips!

As we drive to SandLake road up I.Drive I take some pictures of all the new restaurants & shops they are building in the old Wyndam hotel site.

At the mall we stop in the food court for something to eat as apart from Ian and Ryan no one is very keen on airplane food!

I had a chicken teriyaki sub from Philly Steaks, it was so nice I totally forgot to take a photo!

The kids had a Taco Bell and then quite a few free samples from all the food stalls.

They liked the chicken.

As it's nearing 4.30pm we have to leave for the airport. I read that the TSA security lines are long at MCO and they were! Although they moved fairly quickly and were fairly well organised.

Here we go...

Airports are never as exciting when you're going home!

The toll is $1.25 to exit for the airport not $1 as stated on my map!

Terminal A to drop off Alamo car with Virgin.

We did a total of 860 miles this holiday! Thank you car you were very comfortable with great air conditioning! We had a Chrysler Town and Country and filled up twice the whole holiday, $60 first time and $50 the second.

We take the London Underground length escalator to the terminal.

We sit in the atrium for a while as the shops are better here than at the gate. We all get changed into our travelling home clothes, for me putting on leggings after nearly 3 weeks of wearing shorts was horrible!

It took us about 3/4 of an hour to get through security and on the transit to gate 85.
There's our ride home

We stay in the departure lounge as long as possible. We have pre booked extra leg room seats for the way home too, we have rows 42 & 43 A,B & C.

Eventually we have no choice but to board.

The cabin crew on this flight were much better than our outbound cabin crew. Really nice and actually interacted with passengers not just serving them! We were on the VS16.

Ian and Charlotte are distracted already and we're not even in the air yet! Ryan is sat with grandma and grandad in front of us.

Some photos as we taxi to the runway.

Here we go...

Lift off...

And we're up!

Bye bye Orlando, see ya real soon!

This is our menu for this evenings flight.

And this is my film I'm going to watch, it was alright but not really my thing, but hey it passed 3 hours!

Charlotte had the vegetable pasta, she liked the pasta but the vegetables were soggy

I had the teriyaki chicken, the chicken was yummy but the rest was gross!

Ian had the beef, it was a thumbs up from him but as you can guess he will eat anything!

Breakfast was served an hour and a half before landing. It was yogurt with granola and a blueberry muffin. I didn't eat it as I felt rubbish by this point, not ill but tired!

The flight home only took 7 and a half hours.

Coming into land...

Nearly down

We land and we're off really quickly, and take the longest trek to passport control. We get through quickly there too and go to wait for our bags.

We are out landside in an hour. We have pre booked a taxi home.
We live near Brighton on the south coast so it didn't take us too long to get home.

Now as promised a few days ago, here are some photos of some of my souvenirs...

This is my fridge and here are the new members...

It will take some rearranging!

This is the new addition to the top of the fridge.

It's going up here!

My new Xmas tree decorations.

Tea towels and a new oven glove

Some reusable shopping bags.

A car window sticker and magnetic notepad.

A new drawstring bag.

For the kitchen wall.

I have this print up in my dining room already.

So we have bought this to go with it...

And this one too!

Now for one of my favourite purchases, My new iPhone case!

So that's it! 18 Days of Orlando Magic was had by us all.
We have had such a magical holiday and I have enjoyed sharing it with you all.
Thank you for reading and all your kind replies, this was my first attempt at doing a trip report and I was worried that it wouldn't be interesting!

Hopefully it won't be too long until the next one!

Anna x x :-)

[app]

New Photo Added by Blondie1979 - 1 Aug 14 6:19 PM.

[beck_loz]

Wow great report x

[Guest]

A brilliant report to end a truly magical holiday. Loving all the new purchases. Thank you so much I really felt I was with you
Love

[Kelly22]

I really enjoyed reading your trip report. It's given me inspiration to try my own.

[rosiebun3]

Have enjoyed every installment. Thanks for helping to pass the time before our trip

[Nanof2]

Thankyou for sharing your fab holiday with us , great trip report x

[Mrsfrog]

Great report, thanks for taking the time to post it all. Great photos!

[bigplan415]

Thanks for writing your live report. I looked forward to it every day! Great writing and fab photos.

[Thing1thing2]

Great report! Loved reading it all.