Will we ever get there? COMPLETED August 2019 Disney DDP Universal and St Pete Beach

[Sparksy72]

Hello! We are Michelle (the planner/researcher) Adam (the Booker) and Cooper (loves a holiday). We moved to the U.K. from Australia 13 years ago and we love to travel anywhere warm!

So in August 2019 we had a fantastic trip planned. Flying from Manchester to Orlando via New York on a Delta/Virgin codeshare flight. So I booked 1 night at the Rosen (as we were arriving late) and we then had 9 nights at POFQ and I had upgraded to DDP, followed by 8 nights at Royal Pacific Resort at Universal followed on by 4 nights at The Beachcomber Resort at St Pete Beach. I wasn’t planning on writing a food report so there are no prices and I did miss photographing some of the things we ate, however it’s been fun to look back at the places we visited and we are hopeful that our trip back to Disney (postponed twice now!) will actually happen in 2022.

Check in at the airport was easy and they were handing out ice creams so the boys tucked in. Adam didn’t eat 2, one was for me. 😂

Cooper was starving and freezing so we picked up a hoodie from Superdry and some Sushi from Yo Sushi - spicy chicken roll (he loves this).

Flight was fine and the meals were not terrible, we had Chilli and rice and pesto pasta. There may have been wine too 😁

The flight felt fast and we watched several movies and before we knew it we had landed in JFK, we were excited that the first part of our journey was over. We were completely unaware of the situation we were walking into 😱

[Juliemack]

Subscribing ... we've been starved of food reports over the last year.
Who on earth puts sweetcorn in rice ... bleurgh!

[Goldia]

Hey there Michelle I'm definitely following this Woohoo, another food report.

[Sparksy72]

Originally Posted by Juliemack

Subscribing ... we've been starved of food reports over the last year.
Who on earth puts sweetcorn in rice ... bleurgh!

See more...

Lol! It won’t be as detailed as my 2019 Christmas food report however it will keep me busy! I hope you enjoy it.

[Sparksy72]

Originally Posted by Goldia

Hey there Michelle I'm definitely following this Woohoo, another food report.

See more...

Hi Abby yes I know how you feel! I love food pics (other people’s and my own) I hope you are good. Xx

[Sparksy72]

So after immigration, Adam went to collect our luggage- my job is to stand still with the hand luggage so he can roll the big luggage to me as he gets it off the carousel. I was checking my phone and saw I had emails from Delta regarding our onward flight. Turns out it had been cancelled due to weather issues. We were told to go to the desk to get rebooked into a later flight.

After queuing for 3 hours (we had donuts and water bottles from a kiosk near the Delta desk, sorry no pics) we were no closer to speaking to a human. We found a phone number for Delta and the earliest flight they could get us on was 2 days later 😱 we did toy with hiring a car and driving to Orlando (we were desperate) however I decided it would be best to just get on with it. We eventually found a room at The Wellington Hotel near Times Square for 2 nights and jumped in a yellow taxi (set price from the airport) and were on our way.

We checked in and popped to the Park Cafe diner in the hotel. The staff were great and the food was good, however we were shattered and just trying to come to terms with the situation.

Adam was thrilled to be having pancakes!

Cooper and I shared a bacon and cheese toasted sandwich, we really weren’t hungry once the food arrived but we did our best. We love New York (had a holiday there in 2015) so I was determined to make the most of it! Off to bed completely exhausted. 😴

[Sparksy72]

Is it a sign? I mean I know it’s a real sign but I was hoping it meant that we just needed hope and we would get to Orlando without too much more drama! So we were up early, popped to the Starbucks conveniently located across the road from the hotel and grabbed a caramel latte for Adam and a large strawberry açai refresher for Cooper and I to share. I wish they made these in the U.K.

We walked down to the Grand Central Terminal and decided to hop onto the Subway over to Brooklyn. We hadn’t been before and wanted to walk back into Manhattan over the bridge. Subway was easy to use and we were there in no time. Stopped at Joe’s coffee company for coffee (Adam) and waters (cooper and I) and fresh croissants. This was a lovely little coffee shop and the staff were super friendly.

We checked out some of the beautiful houses and then made our way back over the Brooklyn Bridge. Holy moly the cyclists fly! I was terrified that Cooper was going to get run over.

We ended up in the financial district and with about a million other tourists got a pic with the bull.

Found another subway stop and took it up to Times Square as we were now rather peckish! We knew where we wanted to go... Junior’s Adam is in love with cheesecake (and me a close second ). Cooper had the burger, I had the chicken schnitzel and Adam had the ribs followed by the cheesecake- see that happy face!

We love the food here, it’s not super expensive and the service is excellent- it’s busy and bustling and always open late! Perfect for after the theatre too.

We took a wander up to Central Park, the weather was lovely and there were lots of people out and about.

After a good couple of hours wandering and a quick stop into Nike Town we headed to Hell’s Kitchen. We were going to Five Napkin Burger for dinner. We had been here on our last trip and really enjoyed it.

I had a roasted pineapple margarita which was delicious and a chicken salad, Adam had chicken and waffles and Cooper had Korean BBQ chicken wings. Everything we ate was great and the service was excellent. It wasn’t far to walk back to the hotel and were looking forward to getting to Orlando/Disney the following day. We fell into bed after a super busy day!

[Sparksy72]

We were up early, it was finally our travel day! We stopped at Applejack diner and ordered coffee (for Adam) and water for Cooper and I. The boys had pancakes and I had a design your own omelette with potato hash. Everything was delicious and it felt like a diner you would see in a movie. It makes me love NYC!

We popped to Duane Reade to pick up snacks for the plane and some cereal for once we arrived at POFQ. Just imagine snyders honey mustard pretzels, Bbq Pringles, goldfish crackers, spearmint leaves and chocolate twizxlers.

Got to JFK early, the only flight they could get us on was an indirect one when we originally got stranded. So we were flying JFK to Atlanta, then Atlanta to MCO. Our first flight was 2hrs 35 mins and Atlanta to MCO was approximately 1hr 35 mins. We checked out all the shops and Cooper decided he wanted a shake from Shake Shack so we let him go order one (we were watching him in the queue!). It took about 25 mins thankfully we had plenty of time and they were super apologetic and gave him two for free! Adam was pleased

I really really wanted the lipstick bottle but was trying to be sensible. In hindsight I should have bought two life is short!

Boarding was good and spirits were high, however it just wasn’t meant to be. We were stuck on the tarmac for 4 hours there was an issue with the hydraulics, apparently they knew everything was fine but the computer said there was an issue. They needed an engineer to confirm there were no issues. Because we then waited so long for the engineer we then needed to refuel. Then once those issues were resolved we needed to wait for a space to be able to take off. We knew that we had missed our connecting flight (along with most of the plane). A super kind flight attendant gave us some fantastic advice- she suggested we get off the flight and go immediately to the next concourse and go to a service counter. They let everyone who had connecting flights off first and we ran to the next concourse. We managed to get Cooper and I on the 2nd last flight for the night and Adam on stand by for the last flight of the night. It was incredibly stressful and I was really uncomfortable leaving Adam and not knowing when we would see him next. The worst case scenario was that he wouldn’t get on a flight until the next morning.

Boarding was good but stressful and we hugged Adam goodbye and the most incredible thing happened they called Adam’s name for the flight! Someone hadn’t turned up for the flight and we all ended up on the same plane. It really felt like a bit of Disney Magic! We really were on our way!

The rest of the flight was uneventful- thank goodness! Grabbed an Uber from the airport and cried when we drove under the Disney sign. Check in at POFQ was super straightforward and we collected our magic bands and set them up for the DDP. Opted out of housekeeping and got a credit on our account for our efforts. Straight to bed as it was after 1am by the time we got to our room.

[jools1302]

Oh this is great will be following along 😀

[Loobylou_82]

Following along. Yay ! You finally made it to Orlando.