#girlstrip - Travel Day (Here Come the Girls)

[wilma-bride]

Saturday 24th November

So, apologies, because today is woefully light on photos. I have a ton of notes from today but not many pictures, in direct contrast to every other day of this trip

I woke up at 6.30 after a great night’s sleep. I always sleep so well in the Premier Inn, I have no idea why. Rea was still asleep, and it tickled me that she was talking in her sleep. Most of it was unintelligible. She did say “OK” a couple of times too, so goodness knows what she was dreaming about.

We were in no hurry to get up as our flight wasn’t due to leave until 1pm, and we had already checked in the night before, so I let her sleep and spent some time checking Facebook. Rea woke up at about 7.45 and she was super excited. She knelt up on her bed to look out the window, forgetting about the ‘double window’ (for those who aren’t aware, the Premier Inns have this weird double glazing where there is about a foot between the outer window and inner pane of glass – presumably for security reasons), and promptly headbutted the window. For some reason, we both found it hilarious and were in stitches

We both got showered and dressed, repacked our hand luggage yet again, then left the hotel around 9.30 and crossed over to the North Terminal.

Because we’d done Twilight check in we were able to proceed straight through to security. As we were called forward to where you load your stuff into the security trays, I could smell this awful smell of BO. It was seriously bad, to the point where it was making me gip. It appeared to be coming from a man stood next to me; it was seriously awful. I quickly pushed the trays onto the belt and went through the electronic scanner. Rea got held up, for some reason, but finally she was through and we took our trays to the nearest counter to sort out our stuff.

The smelly man was at the other end, unloading his tray, and all around us people were commenting on the smell. I felt really sorry for anybody who ended up on his flight, it was the worst case of BO I’ve ever smelt (and I’ve got a teenage son!)

We did the duty free walk, dodging all the people trying to spray us with perfume. I then popped into Boots to buy some Olay Beauty Fluid (better known as Oil of Ulay moisturiser – I’ll never understand why they changed the name). I bought a packet of tissues too, as I was a bit sniffly, and had forgotten to bring any. The Olay was loads cheaper than normal (presumably being duty free) and I used Boots points too, so it was effectively free. Yay!

There was a lot of building work going on in the terminal, meaning that some paces were closed and everywhere else was super busy. For lack of any better ideas, we ended up at Jamie’s Italian for breakfast. I hadn’t been that impressed in August, but really your choices are pretty limited at the North Terminal. I think next time I might be attempted to try Wetherspoon’s though. It took a little while to get seated at Jamie’s and then we waited an absolute age for somebody to take our order.

Rea – Sausage bun, with toast and jam and tea to drink
Me – Bacon bun (no butter) , with croissant and marmalade and water to drink

The food came fairly quickly, although they did forget to bring the marmalade for my croissant. I did ask again, but he must have forgotten the second he walked away because 10 minutes later we were still waiting. For some reason, when they brought Rea’s tea, they also brought a coffee which we hadn’t ordered. Still no marmalade though. And I hadn’t got my water either.
Eventually, somebody completely different brought me the water I had ordered originally and, when we asked, they also fetched some marmalade and more jam for Rea’s toast.

At this point, Rea glanced up at the departures screen and noticed that the gate info for our flight was now due at 13:05, which was weird, given we were supposed to be departing at 13:00.

We paid the bill, which came to £17.85 and decided to walk around the ships for a bit, as we now had time to kill. We checked out the new Harry Potter store, which was nice but very small and the stuff was super expensive. They didn’t really have anything that you can’t buy in Universal but I can see the appeal to foreign visitors.

In Accessorize, we bought some hair bands and then we when to WHSmith, where we bought the usual staples of Pringles and Pepsi Max.

Just as we were leaving WHSmith, I got a text from Virgin Atlantic, advising me our flight was delayed until 14:00. You don’t say! We still had a while to wait, so decided to head back upstairs to Starbucks and hang out there for a while. We managed to find a couple of chairs in the corner, and I went and bought Rea a tea. I was going to have a hot chocolate but wasn’t really in the mood and was full up from breakfast. We people watched, did some of Rea’s Hanjie and Sudoku puzzle books and updated my notes (hence why they are so detailed for today). We checked the board again and it was now saying the gate info was due at 13:25. When Rea finished her tea, we decided to wander around the terminal and stretch our legs. We noticed the board now said gate info was due at 13:05 again. So we sat and waited. As it got to 13:05, the board changed again and was saying 13:25 again. How frustrating! Finally, as the clock on the board clicked over to 13:25, the gate info appeared – gate 567! We made our way to the gate, following the hoardes of people who seemed to be heading in that direction also. It was looking like the flight was going to be very busy, which was what the seating plan seemed to suggest when I’d selected our seat a couple of days prior.

Finally we were on board and taking our seats right at the book – 66D and E. We were aware this meant we would be among the last off the plane, but had chosen these seats so we could recline without bothering anybody.

We were told by one of the cabin crew that the delay was due to the fact that the plane had come down from Glasgow that morning but had not been cleaned so we had to wait while it was done. To be honest, the standard of cleanliness was downright appalling. One lady a few rows in front of us found chewing gum stuffed in the seat pocket, stuck to all the magazines.

Eventually, at 14:17 (over 75 minutes late) we pushed back and were on our way. Rea and I chatted for a bit and did some puzzles. When they brought the drinks round we both opted for the usual – vodka cranberry and orange. It’s become my in-flight drink of choice.

I didn’t have the pretzels and neither did Rea. We discovered just how poor the cleaning had been when Rea put her tray down and there was something white all over it (and then we noticed all over the back of the seat in front). God knows what it was but I quickly nipped to the loo for some paper towels and cleaned it up as best I could.

Lunch was served very quickly after the drinks. I declined the hot meal and just had the tray. I only eat the crackers as nothing else really took my fancy. Even the cheese was Boursin so I didn’t eat that. I decided to watch Tag, which was very funny. Then I listened to some music (my favourite album ever, Fleetwood Mac – Rumours). Thanks to the winning combination of Tramadol and vodka, I even dozed off for a bit.

For some reason, there was a lot of turbulence during the flight. Rea and I had a conversation about what causes turbulence. Rhiannon thought it was due to clouds hitting the engines (I had in my head a cartoon picture of clouds going through the engines, and coming out the other side like lots of little mini clouds, almost like they’d been through a sieve). I had written in my notes that I thought it was due to crosswords, but I think I must have meant to write crosswinds

We decided to watch The Meg together, which was better than I’d expected. Then I listened to more Fleetwood Mac and caught up on my notes. The last 90 minutes of the flight actually went really quickly and, before we knew it, we were beginning our descent. We landed at 18:08 local time (just 40 minutes late).

Obviously, we knew we would be towards the back of the queue for immigration, but I hadn’t expected it to be as busy as it was. It took us at least an hour to get through, but on the bright side our luggage was there waiting for us when we did. We dragged it round the corner and up the escalator, then got onto the monorail. This is the point at which I start to feel excited again, once the journey and immigration is out of the way, and we are HERE!

Even though it was almost 8pm, it was still warm outside as we made our way onto the Magical Express. It was only my second time taking the Magical Express, and after 20 minutes of waiting and waiting, I remembered why I didn’t like it. But since I didn’t want to drive or fork out for an Uber, this was our only option and so I sucked it up and pretended like it didn’t matter, although inside I was literally screaming “TAKE ME TO DISNEY! ” I don’t think the woman behind us was amused either.

Eventually, we got underway, after the longest introduction in the world from our driver. He was pretty funny, though, so I forgave him. And, before too long, we were seeing this

I could have cried at this point, I was so happy to be back – even though it had been literally less than 2 months since we left, it felt like forever.

Of course, we then had to drop off at EVERY SINGLE DISNEY RESORT….sigh

20 minutes after we passed under the Happiest Sign on Earth, we were being dropped off at Carriage House, Saratoga Springs, and checking in.

The lovely Cast Member advised us that we were in Grandstand, which I already knew as I had checked the app on the way to the resort and had seen our room number. I was a little disappointed as we had requested Paddock, since it was closer to Carriage House and we obviously didn’t have a car, however he explained that there were no rooms available in Paddock until the next day. He did offer us the opportunity to move, but it was fine. He then told us that, if we went to Bell Services around the corner, they would be happy to help us with our bags and give us a lift over to our building. He also gave me the two parcels that had been delivered for me (one was something I had agreed to bring back for a member of a Facebook group, that she couldn’t get delivered to the UK and one was a lovely Vera Bradley wristlet I’d bought and had delivered to my friend, Kim, who had posted it here for me) and charged me the requisite $10 ($5 per parcel).

Weighed down now with all our baggage, the parcels and hand luggage, we made our way round to Luggage Services where there was an enormous line of people all waiting for the same thing. Eventually, they took our names and advised us it would be about a 20 minute wait. At this point, had I known where we were and which way our room was, I would have walked. But it was dark, we were tired, we had no clue where we were going and so we waited. Another couple came (with no luggage) and asked if they could get a lift back to their room and were told the same – 20 minute wait. At this point, we were hungry and thirsty so decided to go and get some food and drinks from Artists Palette, which we could take back to the room with us. We let the guys know we were going to get something to eat and he promised us we wouldn’t lose our place ‘in line’, and also very kindly offered to keep an eye on our luggage, which was sitting on a luggage cart out the front. We couldn’t really decide what we wanted – we were both hungry but were so tired – by now it was 9.30pm (2.30am UK time). Eventually Rea settled for chicken nuggets and chips (forgetting that here chips were crisps and not chips) and I got a cheese flatbread (with no tomato sauce). They put them in ‘to go’ boxes for us and we grabbed a couple of bottles of soda too. We got a DVC discount here and the total came to $24.60.

Back out front, we waited and waited some more. The couple who had arrived after us were complaining about the wait, and I couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t just walk (it was clear from their conversation that they had been here a few days and very much knew the way but just didn’t want to walk). The lady went back up to the kiosk and spoke to somebody, then came back over and grabbed her husband and, together, they walked to a nearby luggage cart and climbed aboard. Just as I was about to moan to Rhiannon about how they had arrived after us, a guy came out and called my name and we were both super happy to be on our way. He loaded our luggage onto the cart and we climbed aboard. The lady from the couple came over and started moaning about how she’d been told she would be taken next and how they didn’t even want to go that far, she couldn’t understand why somebody couldn’t just give them a lift. The guy just shrugged and I managed to restrain myself from telling her how long we’d actually been waiting compared to her

Pretty soon we were pulling up outside the building and the lovely man brought our luggage to the room for us. I gave him a hefty tip and we finally opened the door to our room at a little past 10pm. We literally threw the food down our necks and started to unpack a bit. Eventually, we decided to just unpack everything, sine we’d already started. By then we decided we definitely needed our beds. We had to fight a little with the pullout couch, to the point where we nearly said “sod it” and slept in the bed together but, eventually, we won the battle for supremacy and pulled the couch out to a sleeping position. Of course, it wasn’t made up, which was a bit of a pain in the behind, considering we were so tired we just wanted to fall into bed, but we quickly found the bedding in the wardrobe and made the bed. We literally fell into bed and were asleep straight away.

[mick]

That was a long day but your in your room and settled so let your holiday begin

Joan

[scottishvixen]

Long day for you. We had a similar long day, but ours started at 4.30.

Remember reading your pre trippie and totally didn’t twig we were flying the same day as you. We were on the BA flight though and although we landed at 3.30, we were in immigration for about 2 hours. That was fun. Not.

Looking forward to reading the rest

[wilma-bride]

Originally Posted by mick

That was a long day but your in your room and settled so let your holiday begin

Joan

See more...

Yeah, it was a long day - but there is something about the excitement and adrenalin of that first day that just keeps you going. It was quickly forgotten with all the exiting times we had ahead of us.

Originally Posted by scottishvixen

Long day for you. We had a similar long day, but ours started at 4.30.

Remember reading your pre trippie and totally didn’t twig we were flying the same day as you. We were on the BA flight though and although we landed at 3.30, we were in immigration for about 2 hours. That was fun. Not.

Looking forward to reading the rest

See more...

Wow, long day for you as well I hope you had a great trip. Are you doing a trippie? Thanks for reading along, maybe you'll spot yourself in my pictures lol

[margyloveswdw]

A long day but worth it to arrive in the happiest place in the world

[Dogwalker]

I'm exhausted just reading this! It was a long travel day and the Virgin flight being delayed was a pain (but they usually are!)
I know what you mean about 'just take me to Disney!" every little delay seems to take forever.
Travel out of the way, the fun can begin

[Palm trees]

That sounds like a great start overall despite the hold ups. Looking forward to reading more of your report.

[caitlinsmummy]

Wow such a long day. What a shame about the delay and the cleanliness of the plane!

I know what you mean about The Magical Express, we waited over an hour, not good with 3 grumpy kids and 2 grumpy adults.

What a rude lady, your much more restrained than I am! I'd have told her to stop being such a spoilt brat and wait her turn

Looking forward to the rest of the report x

[Goldia]

Finally you arrived! It wasn't all bad there were Disney nuggets at the end.

[Cinderella]

Looking forward to your trippie👍