Finally! A four week adventure! Week One

[Rac20]

Introduction

Hello all!

This trip is our twice cancelled trip (2020, 2021) - wonder if you can guess why? 😬

Our last trip was in 2016 and it was an almost perfect trip with lots of disney magic occurring!

It was always supposed to be our final big trip to Orlando as I know that as teens get older, holidaying with the oldies is not fun! It was touch and go whether DS16 (almost 17) was coming but thankfully, he is!

Here is a pic of my two boys from our last trip.

Doubtful I will get a picture like that this time as they do not get on so well these days!

I’m posting in the Florida section but we’re actually going to New York first for a couple of days.

The itinerary is:
LHR - EWR
EWR - MCO
TPA - LGW

The last couple of weeks have been pretty stressful with talks of strikes and passenger capping at Heathrow etc. Fingers crossed for a super stress free travel day tomorrow!

[Rac20]

Pre-travel day

I woke up about 3:30 and struggled to get back to sleep. Finally, falling asleep about 5:15 this morning - ready to get up for work at 6. 😬

I went for my nails doing yesterday:

£25 - didn’t think that was bad as it took a while. If you look closely, you can see the Empire State Building. Also went for bubbles to represent Disney magic.

DH finished work on Tuesday, DS13 had a half day and I was owed some time so finished at 12:30 today.

We set off from West Yorkshire to Heathrow at 1 and made really good time.

DS13 needed a toilet break about two hours into the journey and DS16 treated me to a coffee whilst we waited.

I hadn’t even finished drinking it before DS13 decided he needed another toilet break! 😂

Eventually, we arrived! Just in time for twilight check in! Yay!

Unfortunately, they had suspended twilight check in. 😏

We are flying back into Gatwick so DH and DS16 set off to drop the car off at Gatwick whilst we waited in hope that check in might open. We had already done online check in but wanted to drop off our main cases in case of delays tomorrow.

After literally 10 minutes, DS13 decided he was bored. It was tea time so we wheeled the three hold cases, three cabin cases and a wonky trolley to the pub just inside terminal 5.
That killed about 45 minutes.
DS13 had chicken wings and a coke and I had nachos and a wine.
It came to approx £25.

DS13 seemed very happy with his wings!

Whilst waiting for the bill, DS13 declared he could wait no longer to check in and off he trotted to ask the BA staff for about a third time.

Finally, they said it was open!

We explained at the entrance to the check in queue how we had done online check in and could we do bag drop and she wasn’t sure but we could join the queue.

So we did… and we made a mess of it! We had a dodgy trolley piled high with cases and it jolted and they fell off! 🙈

After shaking off the embarrassment, we headed to check in desk to see if we could do bag drop. Unfortunately, we were not allowed. It was here that a kind BA staff member must have felt sorry for us and she asked us why we couldn’t check in and so I explained that we’d got here at 6pm to do twilight check in but it was suspended and DH and DS16 had taken the car to Gatwick and weren’t here and she asked if we had boarding passes and I said that I’d checked in online earlier and she told us that we just needed to go to self service bag drop! I couldn’t believe it!

So we headed to self service bag drop - explained the situation to another BA staff member and she scanned our passports, printed our boarding passes and directed us to the self service bag drop. Only took five minutes to print off luggage tags and send our luggage on its way. Fingers crossed it arrives in Newark!

Why did no none tell me that I could use self service? Crazy that you can’t go to the desk if all your party isn’t there but you can check in using self serve!

Anyway, free of luggage we headed to our hotel. We took the free train from T5. After one station we hopped off and headed to T4. From there, we headed down the walkway from departures to our Premier Inn hotel. Super easy!

We asked for runway view rooms when we checked in and got this:

The room is a really decent size:

Probably the best size room I’ve ever stayed in at the Premier Inn!

Finally settled in and it was time for another drink whilst waiting for the other two to return:

It wasn’t long after that they returned. But as it was after 10, they settled for a sandwich from Costa (located in the lobby).

Tomorrow is travel day! ✈️

[hipthehippo]

Yay! Another Trippie - have a fabulous time!

[Gryff]

We have been here nearly 5 weeks and a week to go it’s been amazing but we are grandparents with a 4/6 year old but they have been super stars in the lines , given everything and anything a go that they could
But boy do they eat not so much during the day but at breakfast and dinner they are dustbins

[Buggles94]

Really hoping travel day goes well! So glad you were able to drop the bags last night... We are at LHR tomorrow - so excited but a bit nervous about how busy it could be! Have a wonderful time in NYC

[Goldia]

Have a brilliant time, your room with a view looks fab.

Safe travels today x

[Wanderer87]

Have a lovely time!

[Sparksy72]

I love your nails! A great pre-travel day (despite the luggage falling off the trolley - that is absolutely something that I would do!). Have a fantastic time in NYC. 😁

[mick]

Have a great holiday

Joan

[Kat11]

Your nails look fab! 💅

Looking forward to following along. Especially to the New York bit as we’ve decided to skip Florida next year and do a week in NY instead. Will miss Disney/universal for sure but I think a change is good as a rest sometimes?

Have fun.

Kat