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Old 5 Oct 20, 04:35 PM  
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Mightyfraz
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Florida 2019 - Tell Me This Isn't The Last Time - Day 01 Travel Day

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Saturday 27th July 2019

Guess what day it is? Travel day……YAY!

The taxi was booked for 0700, but needless to say everyone was awake very early. Plenty of time to check the luggage, passports and money again; we made sure the house was clean and tidy as our Niece was looking after the house and the cats whilst we were away. DW checked the copious amounts of notes she made just in case our niece had never seen our house or in fact stayed in anyone’s house before

The taxi arrived just before 0700, all bags packed and just after another check on passports and money we were off. There was little traffic on the way to Gatwick so we made good time. Check in hadn’t opened yet so we joined queue, I think there were a couple of families in front of us so it wasn’t a long wait to check in. Interestingly, one of the staff was asking all families questions about the trip and asking children questions directly too; unsure whether it was additional security checks for UK or the States?

We then headed to security, as we booked My Lounge, it entitled us to premium security. It was the first weekend after the schools had broken up for the summer, the airport was very busy and I would say that premium security queue was probably a quarter as long as the normal queue. I think it’s £5 per person if you bought it separately and, on this occasion, I would have paid the extra to save the time.

We decided that we’d go straight to the lounge, get something to eat and then back to the shops for a look. We checked in, found ourselves some comfy seats and had a look at what was on offer. The drinks bar was stocked with plenty of wine, spirits and beer (both bottles and draught); the food on the other hand was very average, they had some porridge, frittatas, pancakes and cereal. DDs are quite fussy whereas as long as there is wine and beer, myself and DW are fine We all agreed that Aspire where we went on the last trip had a larger variety of food and was probably worth the extra £25 it would have been to go there this time.





All looking happy so far, DD1 concentrating on her phone. Anyway, we filled ourselves up and headed to the shops. DW likes a perfume which you can only get in certain places and we knew they had it in duty free, but apart from that we didn’t really want anything. With that being said, ooo look at the new England Rugby shirt in JD Sports I took off my glasses put them on the stand and tried on the shirt; like all of these things size and choice are not my friends as they only went up to XL. Never mind we went downstairs, had a look around duty free; DW got her perfume, we bumped into a work colleague with his wife who were heading off to Greece. He asked where we were heading to…..now you’re only reading this because you share the same love of Disney that we do….so I became Mr Smug! Oh us, we’re off to Disney World for three weeks

DD1 picked up some make up and we all grabbed water and snacks from WH Smith for the plane. The boarding gate wasn’t displayed yet so we did a bit more window shopping, then DW asked me where my glasses were, I looked in the bag….nope! where could they be? I only need them for driving and watching TV but this was still a problem, I couldn’t spend the next three weeks wearing my prescription sunglasses. We traced back and I remember having them in the sports shop, so I went back and nope! I asked the staff member and she had them behind the counter; thank goodness for that.

Soon we were heading to the gate and boarding the plane; I paid for extra legroom so I was sat on the aisle of the 2 and DDs/DW had 3 of the middle seats. I had a lovely lady from Jacksonville next to me and DW had a retired prison doctor next to her. It was quite ironic that I bought her a book about one for the trip so she offered it to him to read. We all had enough room and the flight was very good with no real turbulence.



I had read up on the IFE before the trip and reviews were average; you have a number of films free but to unlock everything it was £6 each. Most of the premium films we had seen so we all downloaded shows and films from Skygo, Netflix and Prime on to our phones and tablets before we left. That being said DW and DDs all had premium for free for some reason but I didn’t. I ended up watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, When They See Us and Afterlife (again) on my iPad.

The food was good and there were enough soft drinks, you had to pay for alcohol which was fine. As I said in the pre-trip, I wanted to book flights asap and on balance, I think we still saved money using Thomas Cook and would thoroughly recommend them. It’s just really unfortunate they are not running anymore.

As we started our descent, DD2 started feeling ill, DW said to get up and have a walk around; just as she finished the sentence, the seatbelt sign came on quickly grabbing the sick bag, poor DD2 was sick. DW had to hold the bag until we landed, she tried to pass the bag to the flight attendant when we landed, but he pointed to the toilet and said leave it in there.

Now let the mayhem commence…..we got off the plane and straight into the immigration hall (or hell that should be) the only fortunate thing was we were on the 2nd/3rd plane through. The ESTA terminals which we used last time were not being used and without exaggeration, there were hundreds of us waiting in the queue. It took about an hour and a half to get through, it was incredibly hot and there were kids crying with parents telling them to be quiet and having to carry them. Again, maybe because it was the first weekend of the summer break, but it was the busiest I have seen it on all of our trips. An announcement followed to say that they were moving cases off the carousel to make room for other flights, so check both the carousel and the floor for your bags!

Good job we checked as we had two cases on the floor and two on the carousel; next queue was Security. Oh well all good practice for the parks We quickly got through security and got on the train; I love being welcomed by Buddy.



We stopped for a very important toilet break and made our way to MDE which is at the other end of the airport. As we were all tired and DD2 feeling sick again, I looked to see if there was Uber or Lyft around; the nearest one was about 30 mins wait so we decided to go for MDE. It turned out later in the trip that I was reading it wrong and the 30 mins was how long it was to get to the destination We downloaded both apps but Lyft did an introductory offer of 25% off the first 3 rides then 10% off the next 10.



There was only about ten people on the bus; me and DW sat towards the front as the seats had most legroom, DDs sat at the back and pretty much had the back of the bus to themselves. We were the third stop (after Boardwalk and Yacht Club); however, on the way to the Boardwalk DD2 was feeling sick again and yep had to go into the toilet and be sick.

We got to the Beach Club and started walking into the foyer when guess what……..DD2 was sick again. I said for them to wait outside whilst I went to check-in. Madison greeted me, I asked to check in and she went off to find our Magic Bands in the back room. she came back empty-handed and said that they weren’t there and she needed to check. Despite me being very calm, inside I was thinking “just give me the room key and let’s get my daughter sorted”, Madison then said “they’re upstairs” so I asked for the way just as DW and DDs came over. Madison said she’ll have to take us there and had we ever stayed in Club Level before……..pardon Club Level needless to say that all of us suddenly cheered up. We went to the lift and had to use a Magic Band before pressing level 5.

Madison dropped us at the Club Level reception where Susan and Emily welcomed us; clearly, we all looked shattered as Susan said “why don’t you sit down, can I offer you a beer and some wine?” oh yes of course we’d like some alcohol. Susan came back with 2 beers, 2 wines and 2 mocktails for DDs.

DW had emailed Disney earlier in the year and asked, as DD1 was turning 16, could we have a room with a view of the pool; however, to get upgraded to Club was amazing and the best “it’s on Mickey” we could have asked for.

We went to our room and wow! The room was gorgeous and the view stunning





Take it from me the view is fantastic at night but stunning in the day.

We did intend to go to Epcot or grab some food from the Boardwalk but we were all tired and decided to chill. It’s always been a bit of a tradition that DDs go for a swim as soon as we get to the villa, so they did that. We headed to the pool managing to grab some more drinks and snacks on the way from the lounge.

When DDs had finished swimming, we picked up pizza from Market Place (2 cheese and 1 pepperoni) to eat back in the room; somehow a bag of Cheetos fell into the basket too . I paid for this ($32) rather than using DDP credits; it was too much for me to work out at that time of night. The pizza was lovely and then it was time for bed after a long travel day. What a fantastic travel day with an amazing bonus of being upgraded.

Tomorrow is DHS and trying to get onto Slinky Dog Dash; we have FPs for Star Tours, Alien Swirling Saucers and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster with an ADR for dinner in Biergarten in Epcot. It can be read here!

Edited at 10:38 AM.
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Old 5 Oct 20, 04:50 PM  
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disneypars
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Great to receive a Mickey upgrade. Shame DD was not too well.
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Old 5 Oct 20, 08:46 PM  
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Florida1972
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Yay 😀 a trip report to read !
What a great start, so looking forward to more. Thank you 😊
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Old 6 Oct 20, 09:00 AM  
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mick
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Shame your daughter was sick so much hope she felt better after a good sleep.

Nice looking room

Joan
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Old 6 Oct 20, 10:50 AM  
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TigerLily8
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Wow, so lucky to get the upgrade... how special! Room and view look fab. Excited to hear about the rest of your trip!
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Old 6 Oct 20, 12:31 PM  
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Loobylou_82
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Fantastic upgrade. Brilliant. HopecyourxDD is better tomorrow.
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Old 7 Oct 20, 11:34 PM  
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flo-tinka
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Trip report 👍👍 and BC upgrade, wow an what a great start to ur hol
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Old 8 Oct 20, 08:49 AM  
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Mightyfraz
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Originally Posted by Loobylou_82 View Post
Fantastic upgrade. Brilliant. HopecyourxDD is better tomorrow.
DD2 was the same on the last but that was filling up on Apple Jacks :-) She was fine for the rest of the holiday
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Old 8 Oct 20, 08:51 AM  
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Mightyfraz
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Originally Posted by mick View Post
Shame your daughter was sick so much hope she felt better after a good sleep.

Nice looking room

Joan
thanks, she was fine; seems long plane journeys are the problem... ho hey one less on the next trip :-)
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Old 21 Oct 20, 09:32 PM  
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Sparksy72
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So sorry to her about your DD Feeling unwell, my DS is is exactly the sa,e, nasty travel sickness unfortunately

Tota bonus about the upgrade!
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