7th Time's a Charm - November 2021 - Travel Day

[Rebecca_]

Index is here

I've never done a trip report before and wasn't intending to do one but have now decided to give it a go! Quick background - we're a couple in our twenties and this will be our second trip together. We will be in Orlando for 16 nights staying at All Star Movies, Walt Disney World Dolphin and Rosen Inn at Pointe Orlando.

Like so many others this trip has been rescheduled several times (hence the title) and we're so grateful & happy to finally be here 😍

We flew on 9th November MAN-MCO with Virgin. The day before we got our covid tests done at Boots in Liverpool - great service and our results were received very quickly. We spent the afternoon doing some last minute packing and then headed over to the Clayton Hotel at Manchester Airport at around 7pm. We watched some YouTube and tried to get an early night ready for tomorrow. I don't know if it was the nervousness/excitement but I barely slept a wink. Woke up at half 2 and struggled to fall back asleep.

Our flight in the morning was at 10:10am so we booked the 6:45am shuttle bus to give us plenty of time in case check in took longer than usual. We arrived at T2 about 5 minutes later and already the line for the Virgin desks was fairly long. As soon as we got in the queue a member of staff came over to us and requested to see our passports, proof of vaccination and negative test results. He checked these over and put a sticker on the back of our passports - we were never asked for these again.

We ended up queueing for about half an hour to get us checked in and bags dropped. Security went very smoothly and the queue wasn't too bad. Terminal 2 has completely changed since the last time I was there so we weren't really sure where to go for breakfast - our old tradition was always Frankie & Benny's but since this was no longer there we tried The Bridgewater Exchange. We thought the food was great and very reasonably priced. By now it was almost 8:55am which was boarding time so we headed over to the gate, although boarding didn't start til around 9:30am.

We were slightly delayed in setting off and departed Manchester at 10:30am. I was lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me so could space out a bit. J unfortunately wasn't so lucky... The second the the seatbelt light went off the passenger in front of him reclined his seat and kept it like that the whole flight - even during meal times! I watched Black Widow and a couple of episodes of Friends then tried to have a little snooze for an hour. I hate plane food so no photos but the choice were chicken & pasta or thai veg curry.

After a long and uncomfortable flight we finally landed in MCO slightly ahead of schedule at 3pm. I was pleasantly surprised about the short wait we had in the immigration hall. We were through and waiting for our bags within 20 minutes. Mine came through straight away but J's did not. We stood there for approx half an hour waiting for his case. But at 4pm we started making our way towards the magical express.

When we arrived we got straight on a coach. This took about an hour to get to the hotel as we stopped at several resorts and of course ours was the last one. We did online check in had our room ready email so as soon as we got to All Star Movies we headed straight to our room. We booked a preferred room and were in the Fantasia 8 building right by the pool. The room is fine for the two of us - the only criticism I have is that there is no full length mirror.

By now it was 5:45pm and we were seriously flagging! And very hungry. We decided to catch an Uber to Walmart to grab some snacks for the room and some dinner. For anybody interested the Uber to Walmart from Movies cost around $11 both ways. First of all we popped in to Wayback Burger for some food. I got a hotdog and J got a burger which cost $13.74. Both my revolt card and Halifax clarity card got declined but luckily I brought a little cash with me. The food here wasn't great but we were starving and it filled a hole.

Usually I go a bit mad in Walmart and buy too much stuff, but because we were so tired already we just couldn't be bothered to have a full browse. We were quite well restrained and only spent $39.46 - this was for a pair of shoes, a case of water, some cans of pepsi and various snacks for the room.

We then grabbed a Lyft back to All Star Movies, got all cleaned up and unpacked our cases. We started watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban but didn't manage to finish it because we were so tired. At 9pm we decided to go to sleep and have an early night before hitting Magic Kingdom for early entry.

Thanks for reading 😁 I'll try to keep posting through the holiday but once I adjust to the time difference I may taper off a bit til we're home.

[anji]

Great first day! 7 times ... finally! Have a wonderful time

[LOU,]

Yay, a trip report. Sounds like a good travel day. Thanks for sharing x

[mick]

Good travel day

Joan

[mitch-fishguard]

Interested to hear about the card problems. Loving people being in Orlando, cant wait to be one of them

[OB1LukeLucas]

Hope you have a good sleep and a wonderful day in Magic Kingdom.

[CrazyBaby]

It's so lovely to read a trip day report after such a long time. Can't wait to hear all about your adventures! Have an amazing time!

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by mitch-fishguard

Interested to hear about the card problems. Loving people being in Orlando, cant wait to be one of them

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Halifax is terrible for declining. Eventually a text comes through but can take a while.

[orlandoamber]

Have the best time! So happy for you to finally get there

[ladyofleisure]

Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for taking the time to write this up. So good to be reading trippie again!