Brett, Jo & Marceline's Festive Adventure - Day 14: Our Final Day *cry*

[Happyhaunt1000]

INDEX

So, here we are again. The final day of our trip... and as always it sucks to be leaving! I feel I should warn you it’s a boring day. I have a couple of moans, but other than that it’s very vanilla! (I won’t be upset if you just look at the sprinkling of pictures and skip to the end where I summarise the trip as a whole!)

We were awake about 7:45 and Marceline was being a little bit whiny, but we got her into bed with us and she settled a little bit. Jo volunteered to go downstairs and look at the cases for sale in the shop, but she came back a short time later saying she really needed my opinion on them before choosing which one to get. I chucked on some shorts and a hoodie, put Marceline in her hoodie and the three of us went downstairs. There wasn’t a huge amount of choice, but we settled on the larger hard-shell case, which has Mickey cartoons all over it. It was not cheap… but it was definitely cheaper than if we paid the excess for all of our cases being over the weight allowance!



Back upstairs we went, and while Marceline ate breakfast, we finished the packing… and with a whole empty case, it meant we could take a little out of all the others to make them definitely under the weight limit. At about 9.30am I made a call to Bell Services and asked them if they could send someone up to help us with our bags at 11am.
“I’m sorry, we don’t do that Sir.”
“What, you don’t help people with their cases?”
“No, sorry, what I mean is we don’t allow you to book a certain time.”
“Oh.”
“You’ll need to contact us about 20 minutes before you’re ready, and we’ll get there as soon as we can”
“Ok. Thanks.”

Brilliant… once again Beach Club, your wonderful customer service just shines through! At Saratoga Springs we booked the night before and not only did they help us with our cases but also took us all the way to Disney Springs on one of their carts! Ok, so it's Beach Club’s policy, but… you know what, even thinking about it again as I write this confuses and somewhat angers me, so let’s just end this by saying it’s their policy… and it sucks!




(A little story behind Jo’s t-shirt… she ordered a slightly different version to this which said ‘in my favourite place with my favourite people’... and because it was delivered to Beth back in September, it was only when she opened the package at the hotel that she realised they’d sent the wrong one. And it was a bit too late to do anything!)



I made no reference in the VM as to what we did between making that call downstairs, and calling them again 20 minutes before we wanted to leave, but I assume we got our carry-on bags sorted and chased round after Marceline. When I did call them, they said they'd send someone right up, so I had to point out I didn't need them right now… but in about 20 minutes!

15 minutes later there was a knock on the door and it was a guy from Bell Services. I helped him load on the ridiculous amount of suitcases we had, and he said he’d take it down stairs in the staff lift, and meet us out front. We also gave him our carry-on bags to store until later in the day, so he handed us a ticket for those, and he was gone. We did the final few checks to make sure Marceline hadn’t stashed anything anywhere and we’d not noticed, and left our lovely room for the last time.

Downstairs at Bell Services we waited for a couple of minutes and the guy appeared with our cases. We asked them to book us a cab to Disney Springs, and as luck would have it, one appeared almost immediately. We loaded up and headed straight off.

When we arrived at the Virgin Atlantic desk, we saw a long queue of people waiting. Just as I was about to join the end of the queue, I looked round to the front and saw that there was a separate Premium Economy line (where nobody was waiting). So we wheeled the cases to the front and were ushered forward to have everything weighed. Only one case was very slightly over the limit, but they let it slide… so that was a plus. We were then called over to the actual desk and began checking in. As Jo went through the motions with the woman behind the desk, who should sidle up next to us but Angela, Adam and Ava! We hadn't seen them since our first day so had a quick chat about our respective holidays. When we were all done, we said goodbye to ‘Triple A’ (which I think they should adopt as their version of #TeamHarding) and said we’d no doubt see them again at the airport (spoiler - we did!)

With our cases loaded on the lorry and boarding passes safely stowed away in Jo’s bag, we were free to enjoy our last few hours in WDW before flying back to what we were hearing was a very cold Essex! Jo had received a message from her mum offering to turn our heating on for when we got home… which we gladly accepted!

We had a 12pm ADR at Frontera Cocina but we had a little time to waste before then so we browsed in a few of the shops. We spotted some exclusive Ray Ban Mickey Mouse sunglasses in the Sunglass Hut… but neither of us liked them much, and the price ($250) was way more than I'd want to pay for glasses like that!

In the Alex & Ani store, Jo bought one last bangle… a gold one with a Mickey silhouette as the charm, with three white snowflakes on it. She wore it straight away along with the other new bangles she’d bought over the course of the trip.





After that we took a slow walk over to the restaurant and parked the buggy up outside. We were still about ten minutes early, but we were shown to our table straight away and popped Marceline into the highchair. We wouldn’t normally have a starter, but as plane food tends to be so bad we wanted to stock up a bit for the long journey… so we ordered some guacamole topped with bacon, and tortilla chips. For our mains we both picked the Grilled Taco Trio from the special Holiday Menu… Mojo Florida Shrimp, Carne Asada and chicken, served with soft tacos, and an assortment of sides. Marceline was scribbling away with the crayons the server had given her, but stopped as soon as the guacamole and chips arrived, and got stuck in!











At one point during eating, Marceline slammed down her cup of milk, and a single (rather large) drop jumped out and landed right on the top of Jo’s head. I found it amusing… not sure she did though! The main meals arrived, and they were pretty good… nothing to write home about, but they were tasty and we were full!



We declined an actual dessert, but the server said we could have a coffee instead if we wanted, so Jo got one to go. We had a few Fastpasses booked at MK, so walked over to Saratoga Springs to catch the bus there! A certain someone was tired on the walk over, so as soon as she settled into her seat on the bus, she was soundo! At the park entrance, we were through bag check quickly, but hit a wall of people as we got into the Town Square as there was a parade of marching bands going on!






We had a FP for Small World, but because Marceline was asleep we decided instead to go on Carousel of Progress. We managed to get her out of the buggy and onto CoP with her waking… and she stayed asleep until the second scene… whereupon she woke up and was trying to figure out what the heck was going on in front of her! Once she spotted Rover she was all smiles though.











When the ride was over, we were able to get over to Fantasyland, park up the buggy and get into SW before our FPs expired. It was an impressive feat given just how busy the park was!





I was still carrying around the other Rider Swap pass for Space Mountain… so we had to either decide which one of us would be going on, or we could do something nice and give it away. We chose the latter! Behind us in the Small World boat were three women, two maybe in their twenties and the other one I think was their mum. As we were waiting in the queue of boats to unload, I turned round to them and asked if they wanted the SM pass. They were ever so grateful, and the older woman told us how they'd tried to book a FP for it but couldn't get one. I handed over the pass, and they kept saying thank you to us until we docked and exited the boat.

We had a FP for Dumbo, but at that point it was 3:30, and the thought of battling all the way back through Fantasyland and over to Storybook Circus just wasn't appealing, so we called it quits and took a slow walk out of the park... stopping to get some final Photopass shots down Main Street on the way.



We'd only been in MK a couple of hours (if that), but because we had to get to Epcot and then walk round to Beach Club, we figured we didn’t want to rush and leaving was the sensible thing to do. We said goodbye to MK for one last time and walked over to get the monorail. We were then faced with the mother of all queues! It's that long, anyone would think it was chucking out time after the fireworks! We had to wait for two monorails to arrive and depart before we could get on the platform.

At the TTC the rudeness and complete selfishness of people was in full effect. We walked down to the end of the platform to wait for the next Epcot monorail… and there was us three, and another couple with a small child in a buggy waiting to board through the very end doors. As the monorail turned up, so did a big family of proper scratchers. Within the family was a woman with a child in a big buggy… and they split themselves over our set of doors and the one next to us. But because all the women in the group were getting in with us, so too is the one with the buggy! So that was three buggies, trying to squeeze into one space, along with god knows how many adults. Looking over the middle seating, everyone could clearly see there was so much more room in the section next to us… there was literally only maybe three guys standing up.
“I'm not waiting for another monorail… I was getting on this one no matter what!” she was saying… like she was all proud that I now had the wheel of her buggy squashed against my leg! The guys in her group were laughing about how much room they had, and the woman was shouting across “I don't care, I didn't wanna be with you idiots anyway!” It's stupid little things like that that make life more difficult for everyone else, and she clearly just didn’t give a toss. We all piled off at Epcot, and so began the bitching-fest by Jo and I. When you come to the end of your holiday, you just want to enjoy the final few hours without throbbers make it a painful experience!







Earlier in the day Jon had said he was going to be in Epcot in the afternoon, so I message him and said we’d just arrived, and we’d meet round in World Showcase as they were in the France Pavilion (no doubt buying 15 baguettes to take back home with him!) On the way round we got a final few Photopass photos.











As you’ll notice, we were all wrapped up, as it was the first day it had actually been properly chilly. Every time we’d seen Jon previously he’d been dressed like he was on Hoth… claiming it was freezing, when it wasn't and I’d been bowling around in shorts and a t-shirt. So I dreaded to see what he was wearing… I thought he’d probably be huddled inside a Tauntaun!

We walked over to WS and spotted them near the Refreshment Port... and no, he wasn’t inside a Tauntaun! We spent about ten or so minutes talking about what we’d been up to the past few days, and how we still didn't get everything done that we wanted to. And then we had to say our goodbyes, as the time we spent waiting for the monorail had meant we had to go straight to Beach Club and pick up our hand luggage, then head off to the airport.





Epcot was as busy as MK, and we were like salmon against the flow of people walking round. It had been grey and windy all day… but as we got through International Gateway, the clouds started to disappear and the sun poked his head out! Before you know it, there was blue sky appearing and it wasn’t quite as chilly!









At Beach Club, Jo needed a wee, but struggled to find a restroom that wasn’t under renovation! That obviously made her happy, and in the end she said she’d just hold on until we get to the airport. We grabbed our bags, and said goodbye to Beach Club for one last time, before jumping in a cab and heading to MCO.

Literally the first thing we did when we got into the airport was find the toilets for Jo, so she could finally relieve herself. It was then a case of making our way to Security with the ridiculous amount of carry-on bags we had. A bag for each of us, a bag for the buggy to go in (which we’d hand over at the gate) and the Christmas Dooney & Bourke bag that Jo was using as her handbag. We got in line and it was a fairly painless experience… that was until I forgot to remove my wallet from my back pocket when I went through the full body scan, which then meant I had to be patted down and swabbed! Then came the palaver of dragging all our stuff off the conveyor belt and finding somewhere out of the way to put our shoes back on and rehome everything that had been put in the trays.

We got on the shuttle and made our way to the departure area. We had a little bit of time before boarding so we got some food. Marceline wolfed down half a hotdog and some fries, and Jo and I shared a chicken and bacon wrap from Outback (which was basically all lettuce!) Jo also purchased a chicken burger, which went in her bag for later on during the flight.





When we got down near our gate it was chaos! They were loading three different flights from one small area, and it seemed that there were delays with all of them. As such, there was just a big crowd of people stood around not knowing what was going on, and because there were so many people talking, nobody could hear the announcements properly! Someone should create an app that buzzes when it's your time to actually board… and until then, you just stay out of the way of the boarding area! (Copyright Brett Harding… just in case anyone tries to nick that idea! )

While we were standing there who should walk up behind us but Triple A again (see… it's catchy isn't it?) We talked a bit more about our holidays in general, and what we liked/didn't like. Mainly it was us moaning about Beach Club… but there were a few things that happened to them that I’m glad we didn't have to deal with!

Eventually people started to board (nearly 45 minutes late), and by the time we got through the crowds, on the plane and upstairs, pretty much everyone else was already in their seats. This obviously meant we were called a while ago, but just didn't hear them announce it. To add insult to injury, we then sat there on the tarmac, not moving, for ages, and then finally at 9:15pm we started to taxi to the runway. The whole time, Marceline had been really good, but there's always that fear (with a small child) that at any moment they could go off on one and start having a meltdown. It's like holding onto a grenade with the pin pulled out. Thankfully though, she didn't go off!





Food came round shortly into the flight and Jo went for the butter chicken and I had the Beef Stew. Obviously Marceline helped herself to whatever she wanted as we took turns to eat. At 11pm the lights finally went out and with Marceline on my lap/chest, she finally fell asleep. I managed to get about 30 minutes sleep and Marceline had 4hrs. I wasn't particularly comfortable, but then I never am on flights home.









When we got back to the UK we were circling for a bit in a holding pattern… and we finally touched down at about our scheduled arrival time. The flight was really short so we must have had a good tailwind! As we were waiting to get off the plane, people were saying how well behaved Marceline had been, and how happy she seemed. We were basically the last people off from upstairs… and I think now we have Marceline with us, that thing of being upstairs has lost a bit of the shine that it used to… so we might look to book downstairs in the future, especially as now they don’t seem to let upstairs disembark first like they used to. Hell, we all want to get off the plane quickly and get on with our journey, but people could see me stood precariously on the stairs holding a baby, and not one of them would let me go ahead... so I just had to step down and block the 14th couple who pretended like they didn't see us!

We were through passport control within minutes of getting there, but the same couldn't be said for collecting our luggage at the conveyor belt, We managed to find four of our cases really quickly… within seconds of arriving… but then we waited an eternity for the buggy, a large holdall, and our final case. On the plane we were told our luggage would be on carousels 29 and 30 (that’s just an example… I really don’t remember the numbers!) We thought the carousels were linked (like just about every other person there), but they weren't! So while we’d been waiting patiently for the final few bits at carousel 30… our bags had been going round and round on carousel 29! Triple A (yup… that's definitely a thing now) had had the same problem as us, and after about 20 minutes of waiting we wandered over to the other carousel and found the items we’d been waiting for! We said goodbye to them for the third time in 24 hours (!) and went outside where Steve (Jo’s Dad) was patiently waiting for us.

When we got outside into the fresh air my brain couldn’t handle it… we’d gone from the sunny climate of Florida to the absolute freezing cold of the UK in December! After a little game of suitcase Tetris, all the cases (and people) were loaded up and we were on our way home. As we got closer to home there was more and more snow on the ground! Apparently when Steve had left home that morning it had just started snowing, but hadn’t settled at that point. We dumped the cases indoors, turned the heating right up as the house was still freezing, and then went straight round Jo’s mum and dad’s ‘til about 4pm. We got home and the house was still cold… I swear it took a week for the house to heat up!





We had a chilled evening and when we tried to put Marceline down for the night she was really crying, and wanted to be with us. So we gave in and took her back downstairs where she slept on the sofa until 11pm when we all went up to bed. She fought going down a little bit, but eventually gave in and went to sleep in her own cot. I was totally drained at this point (as was Jo) so sleep came easy… and with it, the end of our 2017 Festive Adventure.

There you have it… our adventure in full. Massive highs, some bad lows, but all in, a great holiday. As I always do, before I sign off on this TR, I’ll give you my reflective thoughts on the trip as a whole.

So, as I just said, we did have some downs on this holiday… but in hindsight, most of those were things that we couldn't change. I’ll begin with the rudeness and overall stinking attitudes of a lot of people in the parks each day. I get that we’re all there having paid a lot of money and trying to have our ‘best days ever’... but that shouldn't come at the cost of interfering with or impacting on other people’s holidays. Too many times people completely ignore what their actions are doing to others, and while most things are relatively minor… there are times you really hope karma comes round and gives them one almighty slap round the back of the head!

Beach Club was not the resort we thought it was going to be. It's beautiful to look at, the location is incredible, but I'm not a fan of a lot of the people who were staying there. Their sense of entitlement knew no bounds, and I didn't like being around that. Sure, there were also some lovely people there too, but for the most part, it was not was I was expecting. Maybe they were like it because they'd paid a lot of money to stay there… but then so had we. Just because we had a buggy and a small child, doesn't mean they were more important than us.

The staff at BC were a little off too. Aside from the two CMs we met on the night we checked in, it was almost like anything we asked was too much! They felt like huffy teenagers (and this was from older CMs… not just the younger ones). We were given an amazing room and I'm really grateful for that… we’ll never forget that view (I'm talking about the Boardwalk… not the view from the hotdog balcony!)
Would I stay there again?
Yes… because the location was so great.
Would I recommend it?
I don’t think so. It could just be that we caught the wrong people at the wrong time. But for me, if you're paying what you pay to stay at BC, and you feel like we felt when we were there… then it's not worth the money. One thing I wish we’d done when we got home was write an email to Disney. Not bitching and moaning, but just stating what happened and how we didn’t feel we were as welcome as we’ve felt at other resorts. Disney are all about feedback and customer service… so who knows what they would have done/said!

So what was good about this trip? So much... SO, SO much.
Once again, while we were there, and when we got home, we saw hugely positive changes in Marceline. She loves it out there… and you can see that from the character meet photos and the way I've written about her experiences on the attractions.

The weather was a complete surprise to us. We thought it'd be chilly most days, definitely at night, but we had fantastic weather (which I’m not sure is norm)... but that was wonderful.

The christmas decorations (on a whole) were good… but there were some really exceptional things, like the Christmas Tree Trail over at Disney Springs, and the stuff they were doing along Sunset Boulevard and projecting onto Tower of Terror. I really hope this is something they'll do for years to come. The new Christmas festival in Epcot was good, but I think it just needs a little tweaking before it's up there with the other stuff.

Once again we ate some great places this year (Homecomin’ and, of course, Tiffins being my personal favourites). Disney Springs has really upped its game with the food on offer and I'm looking forward to trying out new places (as well as old favourites) in years to come. For once we used all our Table Service and Snack Credits… but we still had a few Counter Service left, so we were never left wanting for food.

I want to sincerely thank you all for your lovely comments and for taking the time to read our Festive Adventure. These things are hugely time consuming… not just when we you home, but also while you're there. You want to document things that happen so you can write about them or show them (to you guys) in picture form… but you don't want it to come at a cost of interfering with being in the moment and enjoying it while you're there. They really are a labour of love!

Jo thinks that sometimes I've included too many pictures of a specific ‘thing’ or of Marceline… but my response to her is it's MY Trip Report. I’ll put in whatever I want! This isn't a commission-based trip report that people are paying me to write… it's the story of our holiday so I’ll put in whatever I want! (Sorry, those last few sentences aren't meant to sound like a petulant child having a hissy fit with his parents… it's just another glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes of putting this these TRs together!)

A few of you in the comments asked where we got our Disney t-shirts and where Jo got her ears from. Well the t-shirts mainly came from Teepublic or Redbubble (with a few also being bought in Uniqlo while we were out there). Just go onto those two sites I mentioned and search for specific characters, parks, movies or anything Disney related, and you’ll probably find hundreds of different designs. As for Jo’s ears, she got most of them from Etsy, after following various sellers on Instagram - two of her favourite UK based sellers are Ears Ever After, and The Merry Ear Market.

As some of you are aware, the next trip for us is literally just around the corner. Normally I'd write a bit about what, where and how, but because it's so close, just keep your eyes peeled on here and on IG because the Pre Trip Report for ‘Brett, Jo, Marceline and the In-laws’ Birthday Adventure’ will be up very soon!

Just a couple more thank yous and we’re done. Firstly, thank you Fleetwood Mac and Tomorrowland area music. The two soundtracks that have got me through writing the majority of the TR as I travelled to and from work and drowned out the inane drivel being spouted by my fellow commuters! And secondly, to Jo. My better half and mostly-silent collaborator on these TRs. Without her hard work, these TRs wouldn’t reach you lot at all!

And that’s it… one last HUZZAH as we say goodbye to this TR and look forward to the next.



Just remember… I love you byeeeeee xxx
#huzzah
#brettjoandmarcelinesfestiveadventure
#done

[collybird]

I’m guessing they don’t let you ‘book’ bell services after learning from experience, think how many people probably told them a time and then had them hanging around waiting for them to be ready. If they are going to have a policy though it should be across all resorts to stop confusion.

I love Jo’s t-shirt! Her new bangle is very pretty too, and a nice reminder of your Christmas trip.

The shot of you with the tree in the background is awesome, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with that one before. The Epcot one in front of the entrance is gorgeous too, probably the best one of the trip!

Another fabulous trip report Brett (and Jo), thank you for sharing with us, your time and effort doesn't go unnoticed and is much appreciated. See you next time!

[welsh wizard]

Thank you so much just a wonderful read and the cutest photo to end on - now get cracking on the pretrip please x

[Rhoose]

Thanks again for a great trip report. Looking forward to the next one. Glad it's not that far away.

[Dixiechic]

Another great report! Some great photos of you all together and it was lovely to see the Epcot Zip ups from the last trip making an appearance!
Very much look forward to the pre trip report and seeing some pics on IG - have a great time - looking forward to seeing where you eat in AK that will be bird free for the father in law! (I’m also terrified of birds so eating at outside tables get interesting!)

[MinnieMrsA]

Thank you so much for sharing - I have loved every minute of reading this! ❤

[jemima2]

Totally loved this thanks 😀😀😀

[a11mark]

UGGHHH, last day blues (we hate them)

[mick]

Thank you for taking the time to do your trippie I have really enjoyed reading along
I will look forward to reading along as usual


Joan

[ziggyzag]

Brilliant trip report, loved reading all of it, you seem like a very nice family!