WDW October 2017 Trip Report Part 1

[Gelatoni]

So rather than posting several threads, I'd thought I'd share our experience as a trip report, hopefully with some useful tips and information for Dibbers included.

We used DriveFly parking this time, so we stayed overnight at the Premier Inn Heathrow the night before. We had to pay £10 to park overnight, which is done at check in and isn't immediately obvious how to do this.

The following morning we dropped the car off with DriveFly with wasn't all that easy to find. It's in the short term car park, level 3, zone A, but once we arrived ot wasn't clear where to go. We clarified with a staff member that we were to park anywhere and then just let them know where we were.

The flights were a mixed bag. More on my actual experience of Virgin UC later.

When we arrived at Atlanta, it was chaos, and the queue was about 2 hours long. A lady was shouting about 2nd time ESTAs, but there was confusion whether this meant 2nd time on THIS ESTA, or second time having one.

We were told conflicting advice so decided to just go through as a couple in the regular line.

Flight on to Orlando with Delta was fine. It's great that they offer IFE on domestic flights.

On arrival at MCO we were waiting in the Magical Express line for AKL for about 40 minutes. I was just excited to be starying the holiday, although both very tired and weary at this point!

We arrived bleary eyed at AKL about 11:30pm. Checking in was sloooow. When we finally got seen to it was close to midnight and we just wanted to crash. We asked for an Arusha side room (having paid for Savannah), and were allocated 3596. At first I was unsure about this as it's right at the end of the Arusha area, inbetween Arusha and Uzima. It was dark and I couldn't see anything. We crashed for the night.

Will the view be any good, will we see any animals? Find out in part 2!

[mick]

Good but long travel day

Joan

[Jake71]

I can feel your tiredness! Not a bad travel day, although we've still to hear about Virgin UC. Hope you slept well and that your view lived up to expectations.

[Gelatoni]

It was a very tiring journey! I was going to leave my UC experience feedback at the end but I will just include it here.

I posted a while ago that I was worried we had been switched to the side of the cabin that faces other people, and I was dreading it.

When we got on, to my horror it had been switched again to the A330-300, the 4 abreast configuration with transparent glass!

I have to admit I did freak out. The flight was full and the amount we had paid was the only thing stopping me from asking to swap with someone in PE. Also I didn't want to leave my husband.

I felt overlooked head on from all angles and I don't think I relaxed the whole flight. I did feel a bit better turning the seat into bed mode but the seats felt narrower than ever.

I think i'll stick to PE next time, until i'm sure the A330 has been phased out!