Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To Disney We Go Finally - Feb/March 2022 - Pre and Pre Travel Day

[caitlinsmummy]

Welcome to another trip report!

The index is here

I'll start off by introducing the family:

Myself (Kelly) - Chief planner and organiser

Husband (Chris) - The laid back photographer one

Caitlin (15) - Total drama llama and moody teenager totally glued to her phone all the time

Thomas (13) - The cheeky brain box one

Noah (8) - The cute one. Noah is autistic and struggles with change so holidays are quite often a challenge for him

We have been to Orlando as a family twice before, Oct/Nov 2018. We stayed onsite at Port Orleans Riverside for 14 nights with the free QSDP (upgraded to DDP) We also threw a night in at Royal Pacific Resort in Universal to make use of the express passes, you can find the trip report here.

We returned in May 2019 for 9 nights. We stayed on International Drive at The Rosen Inn International, our first off-site stay. We visited Seaworld, Busch Gardens, Aquatica, Discovery Cove, Kennedy Space Centre, Universal (with a nights stay at Hard Rock Hotel) and 1 night at Caribbean Beach Resort and a day at Magic Kingdom/Hollywood Studios. The trip report is here.

Our plan was to return May 2020 for 19 nights staying on-site with the free QSDP and also 12 nights in a villa over New Year in December 2020 and just doing Universal, as with many others both of these were cancelled. We settled on May/June 2021 believing this would go ahead and obviously it didn’t ☹ so we finally settled on February/March 2022 and if this one didn’t go ahead we wouldn’t rebook due to the kids and GCSEs etc so we had everything crossed it would!

We were delighted when the travel ban was lifted in November 2021, so got to full on planning again. This time we’ve had 4 nights at The Holiday Inn, Lake Buena Vista and 17 nights in a beautiful Dibb Villa in Emerald Island Resort just off the 192, about 15 minutes from Disney. The pre trip report is here if you’d like to read.

Pre and Pre Travel Day

Make sure to grab a brew because this is a long one

Not many pics from today. We were due to travel to London on Friday 18th February for our flight on the Saturday, as it happened Storm Eunice had other ideas. On Wednesday 16th February, Chris received an email from LNER to say that trains on Friday will be heavily reduced and cancelled and strongly advised people to not travel

Cue my anxiety going through the roof! We would need to travel on Thursday evening. I had my nail appt booked for Friday morning, we had to drop Belle off at the cattery on Friday, the kids were supposed to be in school! After much discussion Chris and I decided to travel down Thursday evening. My amazing nail lady managed to squeeze me in on Thursday morning and the cattery could take Belle a day early. I informed the schools too and they were fine (well they couldn't really say anything).

I went to my nail appt, my lash appt and then popped to my friends to borrow her thread cutter as I lost mine and was worried about taking my scissors on the plane. I then rushed home to finish the last bits of packing, stressing that I hadn't been able to catch up on all the washing as I'd planned to do all that today, not all these appts and leaving!

The kids came in from school and changed, Chris's mum and dad came down to see us all before we left. I dropped Belle off at the cattery and picked McDonalds up on the way home for us all. Our taxi picked us up at 5.50pm and took us to the train station, we arrived about 15 minutes before the train pulled in at 6.30pm.

The kids sat in the seats whilst Chris and I played suitcase jenga and tried to fit all the cases into the luggage racks! I ended up staying with one of the cases for about 10 minutes until we managed to get it put on the luggage rack of another carriage.

The journey down wasn't too bad and we arrived in Kings Cross just after 9.20pm. We were very limited on hotels being so last minute and February half term! We stayed at the Kings Cross Hotel which Chris booked through Expedia. We had a room for all 5 of us, it was under the actual hotel and right above a tube line so it was rather noisy! Noah was asleep by 10pm and the rest of us by 11pm. We didn't have the best nights sleep but I was stressed to death about the covid tests

Pre Travel Day

I was awake at 6.30am, I woke to a photo from my colleague of snow back home! I caught up on social media then woke everyone else at 7am. Our tests were booked at 7.40am as the kids were supposed to be at school, we'd left it too late to change the appt so had to go ahead with it. I'd brought LFT's with us and got everyone to do one as soon as they woke up. My heart was in my mouth, thankfully they were all negative but that still didn't settle my nerves, even though they were the same tests we had booked

We logged on at 7.35am for our testing call. We booked our tests through DocHQ with a 30% discount code. The agent joined us after a couple of minutes. I asked if it was possible for Chris to do his test at the same time as I could only book 4 into an appt and she said that was fine and took some details from his appointment which was 8am. She checked all our passports then asked us to do our tests on camera. We had the laptop set at the back of the room so she could view us all. We did our tests and she told us to wait on hold for 15 minutes. Obviously all the tests came back negative, she checked them and sent our certificates over whilst on the call, once I confirmed we'd received them all the call ended. We got washed, dressed and teeth brushed and popped over the road to McDonalds for breakfast.

Chris said he wanted to venture into London to take Noah to Buckingham Palace and Big Ben as he's never been. I strongly advised against it given storm Eunice was a red weather warning from 10am - 3pm but he insisted 🙄 so off we went. We got the tube from Kings Cross to Green Park, I told Chris we wouldn't be able to cross through the park as it was closed so he took us on a detour. Poor Noah was almost swept off his feet several times 🌪️☂️ almost like Mary Poppins! He did enjoy seeing the sights though.

We walked down to Westminster and Noah got to see Big Ben then we went to get the tube. Chris wanted to take the kids to the Natural History Museum as we haven't been for about 6 years and it's free ... only it was half term ... meaning you had to book tickets in advance ... none were available for today. He then looked at the science museum and again none available until after 2pm. I said the best option would be to head on over to Heathrow.

We headed back to collect our cases around from the hotel at 11am then make our journey to Heathrow. We got Paddington where Mr Grump remembered he had left his back pack at the hotel luggage storage 🙄 so off he and Thomas went to get it. Caitlin, Noah and I sat in Costa. Caitlin had a sausage sandwich, Noah had some pom bears and I had 1/2 a cheese and ham toastie (saved the other half for Chris) and got some crisps for Thomas.

Over an hour later Mr Grump arrived with said bag and also didn't lose the child I call that winning for him ! We headed round to the trains for the Heathrow Express we had booked and the dreaded tannoy announcement came

'All trains from Paddington have been cancelled for the next 4 hours' 😬

I suggested we get the tube and get the piccadilly line to Heathrow instead. The tubes were stuck at Paddington for half an hour due to debris on the line near King's Cross. We had a chew chopping and changing trains and lines and after lots of delays we eventually got to Heathrow Airport at 3.30pm 🙌

We decided to get off at Terminal 5 and do twilight check in to minimise wait times in the morning. We had a quick rejig of cases in the airport before heading to the check in desks. I spoke to a BA staff member who said she wasn't sure what was happening with twilight check in because of the storm they'd had lots of delays and cancellations, she would speak to a manager.

After 15 minutes I went back over to check and they said not to bother as the queues were really high and likely to stay that way with people checking in for the delayed/cancelled flights, in hindsight I wish we'd have just done it knowing what was to come next

It was time to head to the hotel, our plan was to go to Terminal 2/3 and get the bus to the hotel. We headed down to the underground and were told there was a 45 minute delay on the tube because of the issues in London! Mr Grump said he had a free voucher for an app called Free Now, we asked the staff member where we needed to go for the taxis and he told us, so off we headed. We got to the taxi rank and Chris had ordered the Free Now taxi, we saw it appear on the app but we couldn't see it around us. Chris wandered up and down and I asked the staff member at the taxi rank, he said he'd never heard of Free Now

Sadly it isn't like Uber and doesn't provide the registration or contact details for the driver so we couldn't even contact them! After 15 minutes they cancelled it on the app I was seriously fed up now as were the kids so I told Chris we were getting a taxi ... his face dropped to the floor, Chris is worse than me for wanting to save money, but right now, it was taxi or I murder him

We went to the taxi rank and asked for a taxi to Premier Inn Bath Road, the staff directed a taxi to us and told the driver Premier Inn Bath Road. I then remembered that there is more than 1 on Bath Road, so I told the driver it was the Terminal 2/3 one. He said it was good I said that or he'd have took us to Terminal 5 We explained about the Free Now issue and he said Uber and such were on the next floor above us not at the taxi rank, so that's where we'd been wrong!

The taxi ride took about 20 minutes and only cost £18 which I didn't think was too bad, I was just glad to be there. We used the self kiosk to check in and took our luggage to our rooms and headed straight for food as everyone was hangry.

It's Thyme restaurant and it's what you expect from a Premier Inn really. Chris ordered lasagne, Caitlin chicken curry which came with rice, poppadoms, mango chutney and naan bread, Thomas and Noah had the kids buffet (chicken nuggets, sausages, chips, garlic bread, pizza, onion rings and brownies for dessert) and I ordered the cheese and bacon topped fries ... why I ordered that I have no idea as I fill up so easily on carbs, but nothing else really took my fancy and I just wanted to get a bath and into my PJs! £50 later we settled up and headed to our rooms, Caitlin and I in one and Chris and the boys in another.

I had a nice relaxing bath and started reading my new Cathy Glass book on my Kindle then PJs on and a cup of tea ready to check in online. All day I'd been having issues with Thomas's covid test on Verifly. I had a notification saying it was approved, however, on the app it was still pending. After a few emails back and forth I delete him, re-added him and this worked 🙌 so checking in should have been a doddle right ... Nope this is me

My check in said that I had no ESTA linked to my passport 😱 queue my anxiety going into overdrive 🙈 I grabbed my print outs and double checked the passport number, name, DOB ... everything. Yep all correct, so why was BA saying I didn't have an ESTA. It was gone 8pm so all phone lines were closed I then also noticed that they had changed our seats! We had row 20A/B and 21 A/B/C obviously I wasn’t checked in but Chris and the others had been assigned 21A/B and 22 B/C, I had nothing as I couldn’t check in. We had requested seats with special assistance and had prepared Noah on where he would be sitting etc.

My anxiety was horrendous, I could feel a panic attack come on, Mr Grump had to come to our room and calm me down. He doubled checked and said it was approved and was clearly an error with BA. We tried to check if I'd input my API incorrectly as we'd read on google that could be an issue. I input my passport number and it said it was incorrect! So I tried my old passport number ... nope that was incorrect too, if I input it incorrectly 5 times I'll be locked out of my account so we decided to leave it. Chris gave me a cuddle and calmed me down and said we'd sort it tomorrow and it looked like online it was a common issue with BA!

10.30pm and I took my sleeping tablet hoping and praying for a decent nights sleep. So yeah pre travel day certainly wasn't the best ... was a very stressful start to travel day but surely nothing else could go wrong? Could it?

[Charlangela]

What a start to the trip! So glad you made it in the end, could have been so different had you not made the decision to go down on the Thursday! Can't wait for travel day 😍

[rafjen]

Stressful start- hope tomorrow is easier

[Donz1979]

Wowza so stressful

[lfc_sarah]

I am so excited to read this whole trip report.

I can't believe how stressful your pre-travel days were, oh my goodness. I actually feel physically sick reading it! Can't wait to read more xx

[MENTALMUM]

Love all your trip reports❤🧡, read them all on another site that shall remain nameless in case its not permitted 😆

[mick]

That was a very stressful day

Joan

[Tartan Tigger]

That was a stressful start.

[Milpston]

I think I would have been completely stressed out and getting even more stressed by trying to not look stressed to the rest of my clan!
I'm looking forward to following along knowing that you actually go there in the end.

[Bootrip2]

You needed holiday after that travel day! Nightmare scenario with ESTA and API!
X