The Unexpected Festive Family Trip - 24.12.2018 - Travel Day – No Kheys to the Kingdom for you!

[Rescuer]

Travel Day – No Kheys to the Kingdom for you!


Christmas Eve

Index

We were rudely awakened by the alarm clock at 3am, it was pitch black, it was freezing and ds was up excitedly checking if Santa had been yet. No, wait…, rewind, up excitedly because we were going to Disney today!

Out the door and into the taxi at 3.45am to pick up Mil and head off to the airport with “Holiday Road” playing in my head, thanks to years of watching Phil, Emma and Ben videos on YouTube.

I was a little concerned over the whole Flybe/Virgin codeshare route, even though I’d checked in online on the Flybe website rather than the Virgin one as it wouldn’t let me do it. That’s just me though, I’m an overthinker!

The process was fine in reality though and we were checked in at the desks with the luggage labelled all the way to MCO. Now we were super early! The airport was busy but security was super quick. A little wander and it was soon time for our flight. Some sugar to keep us awake was called for.

Someone on the dibb had mentioned that the Edinburgh – Manchester Flybe flights had been consistently an hour late and what do you know we were an hour late.

Having done the Edin-LGW-MCO route with BA a fair few times it made a nice change not to find ourselves landside but able to follow flight connections. It was all straightforward enough until we reached the Flight Connection Centre where the guy dealing with passengers seemed to by trying to make life very difficult for himself by starting the line for the desk at what should have been the end and then getting himself in a tizzy when new people turned up, assumed those in the line had been dealt with and made their way to the desk. Once seen we gave details of where we were spending our first night and showed our boarding passes and luggage receipts. There was a little bus that took us to the next terminal.

Here we settled on Frankie and Benny’s for breakfast.
We went to Frankie and Benny’s in Manchester airport for breakfast. By this point we were all starving. The place was busy but we were seated quickly and service was efficient.
2 all American breakfasts for ds and Dh.

Pancakes with bacon for mil

and a traditional breakfast with no egg for me.

It was all fine and filled a very big hole in my tummy.

There should not have been all that long to wait for the flight but the board just did not change to announce the gate when it should have. The virgin flight was about an hour late in leaving. I was happy with that though after all the worry of the holiday not happening due to strike threats.

It was all very festive on the flight; the staff were all wearing Christmas jumpers and Christmas hair accessories and were all very cheery. We haven’t flown with virgin since 2001 but they were the much better price for this trip than BA which were about £5k for the 4 of us by the time we booked. The plane was nice, we were on Pretty Woman and ds was over the moon with the massive choice of inflight movies, he watched the Meg and Infinity War. Dh watched the Meg and listened to lots of the music on offer. I watched Rampage and Crazy Rich Asians, I had planned to do my summer plan but forgot to lift my notes about the busy day guides so that did not go to plan.

The food on Virgin was way better than BA. I liked the little touch that you got a menu for a start.

The pasta salad was fine. My sausages were actually good, very chunky and flavourful.

Everyone else had the Christmas dinner and said it was fine.

Pudding was nice and light and it was Boursin cheese with the crackers which I liked.

Everyone got a little gold Lindt Christmas teddy which was a lovely touch. Ds was chuffed to get 2.

They came round later with little fab ice lollies.

Ds and I were asleep when they came round with the sandwich and little snack boxes so Dh just got one between us. The sandwich was really good, cheese and tomato chutney with crisps and a chocolate bar that ds and said was nice.

At the end of the flight they brought round a cracker full of Haribos for the kids at the end of the flight as a little Christmas present. Ds is really funny with things like this in that he wants to be seen as mature but still wants all the kids things. The flight itself was uneventful. We were in row 35 and I had primed Mil that I wouldn’t be rushing her but that she needed to be ready to get off the flight when it was her turn. To her credit she was speedy fast.

The immigration hall was not crowded when we got in. Again, there was no sign of the machines and everyone was directed to the kiosks. It did not take long at all until we were at the front, about 20 minutes. Mil came forward with us and the guy at the desk was nice. We had then to wait on the luggage though, one carousel was meant to have the economy bags and the other was meant to have premium but our bags were split between the two. It took us an hour from touching down to standing at the Christmas tree inside the airport.

Next stop the Magic Express.

Excited and shattered we arrived at the desk to be met by Khey. I stood at the side of her desk and said we were catching the Magic Express, she instructed me to stand in front of her and quickly find my paperwork. I did as I was asked and tried to engage her while I got my confirmation out, nothing… She literally stared at me like I was an ant she would like to squash, I was gobsmacked. This CM was miserable and oozing hostility. No smile, no welcome, no happy holidays and not even any politeness. She looked over my paperwork and gave us our number of row. I was glad to be away from her but I was also seething. When I turned around a few minutes later she was gone so we were obviously her last guests. I did actually email Disney to complain as this is not a great first impression of Disney to anyone.

While we were waiting, I messaged Beth, Fairytale Personal Shopper, to say we had arrived late and to ask if she would still be able to drop off our Christmas presents. Being the lovely person that she is she offered to still do this and meet us at the hotel at 8pm. Being Christmas Eve there was a less regular service so we ended up waiting about 30 minutes. We were the 2nd stop after Wilderness Lodge.

Continued below:

[Rescuer]

Part 2

I do love the Magic Express, on the way there anyway and even though we were shattered it was exciting to spot all the landmarks, like the Tower of Terror sign and the arches. The Christmas tree outside the Contemporary was a welcome and stunning sight.

I had not done online check in but the whole process was pretty efficient and our interaction with the front desk cast member was wonderful. We were given a little black magical extras card which had a free round of mini golf among other things on it. I had not put in a room request as I’d read there wasn’t really such a thing as a bad view from the theme park rooms. We were given a room on the 9th floor on the gift shop side and we had a view where you could watch the fireworks from your bed!

We got into our room at 7.15pm, so about 2 and a half hours after landing. It also meant that it had been 20 and a half hours since we had left the house that morning!
The room was a fantastic size and the view was breathtaking. I also really like the set up of the bathroom where the toilet was separate from the sinks and bath.

We did a quick unpack and DH and I headed downstairs to meet Beth to collect our parcels that DS and Mil had no clue about. We left them downstairs to explore the shops and food places. I had sent a few parcels to Beth and she had also gone to various places and parks to pick up everything I asked for for the Christmas parcels. I have to say she was a pleasure to deal with and could not have been more helpful or accommodating. It was lovely to meet her and her husband Tim and they were full of useful advice. The parcels she had prepared were beautifully presented.

Presents left upstairs we caught up with Mil and Ds and had dinner at the Contempo Cafe.
Aberdeen Angus burger for Dh. His staple and he liked it.

BBQ flatbread for ds, he really liked it.

Turkey sandwich for Mil, she liked it but complained it was too big. (This will be a theme as she eats like a bird at home)

I had the shrimp Caesar salad which was really nice. I had wanted the salmon as advertised but there was none.

We also got our 4 refillable mugs. No Christmas ones out on display or behind the tills, I was really disappointed by this, I know it’s just a design but I was hoping to be able to pick them up . One person told me they had stopped doing them last week, which seemed a bit odd as it wasn’t even technically Christmas yet and another said we could swap our ones at any resort if we managed to find them over the course of our stay. There were no straws out but if you wanted one you could ask a cm for one as they all had them in their pockets.
We also got 2 strawberry milks and 2 grapefruit beers which went into the fridge for later.

All this would have been $176. I was feeling glad that we had prepaid the dining plan.

Afterwards we had a short explore and went to see the Gingerbread display.

Yes, it is not as pretty as the Grand Floridian one but I was quite glad that the smell of this one was not as strong. They had a little counter selling Contemporary Gingerbread stuff and I bought a lovely little tree decoration with the year and a picture of the display.

Back upstairs for DS and Mil to discover their Christmas parcels which they were really happy with. By this point we had been up for 24 hours but were determined to end our night by watching Wishes from the balcony with the attaching music on the TV.

The photos don't really do it justice.
It was actually so perfect that it actually felt a little unreal and I admit to shedding a small tear before collapsing exhaustedly into a very comfortable bed.

[shona]

Wow what a view from your room

[Palm trees]

What a great start to your holiday, and what a lovely finish to your first day!

[Rescuer]

Originally Posted by shona

Wow what a view from your room

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I could have looked at that view all day, I'm sure I am spoiled for every other Disney holiday we might ever have.

Originally Posted by Palm trees

What a great start to your holiday, and what a lovely finish to your first day!

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Thanks, it was the perfect finish to Christmas Eve.

[margyloveswdw]

Great views!

Straight forward day. Good start.

[bearandbuzz]

Yeah, I can indulge myself even more!
I hope you don’t mind me asking, about how much did you end up paying for your flights? Last year I though I’d got a rough idea, but ba at the moment is more expensive than I’d anticipated (va not released just yet). Looks like I may have to do a little adjusting!

[mick]

A good travel day te view from your room is fantastic


Joan

[Rescuer]

Originally Posted by margyloveswdw

Great views!

Straight forward day. Good start.

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Thanks, the view was amazing. Enjoy your holiday.

Originally Posted by bearandbuzz

Yeah, I can indulge myself even more!
I hope you don’t mind me asking, about how much did you end up paying for your flights? Last year I though I’d got a rough idea, but ba at the moment is more expensive than I’d anticipated (va not released just yet). Looks like I may have to do a little adjusting!

See more...

Thanks, I doubt this report will be fast
Hopefully your flight prices will come down, BA seem to be pretty expensive later in the year, we were looking for New York flights but the prices are very high.
We paid over the odds for our Christmas flights as we were late in booking and didn't have that much choice so we were over £800 each.

Originally Posted by mick

A good travel day te view from your room is fantastic


Joan

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Thanks for reading Joan

[Jockey]

Great Travel day..your view from the hotel is fab! Beth is a lovely lady!