The Mad Hatters in Florida May/June 2018 - Day 21/22 – Travelling home day

[Mad Hatters]

Hello and welcome to my very first trip report

So we are the Hatfield’s: Adam (Me), Grace (Wife), Joshua (Oldest Son), Trayvon (Youngest Son), Mick (My Dad) and Sue (My Mum).

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Thursday 7th + Friday 8th June: Day 21/22 – Travelling home day

Today was the day of the holiday that we always dread, travel home day Grace was the first person awake this morning at 7am. I slept a fair bit longer until 7:40 am. Joshua and then Tray didn’t wake until 8:25am

The first thing that Joshua said to us when he woke up was thank you for the holiday and that he enjoyed it and appreciated it, which was lovely of him to say

Breakfast was back to being eaten in our room today.


Both of the boys had scrambled eggs and toast.


Grace and I just had some toast.


There was also a donut each for the boys, but only Joshua ate his.


Whilst all of us were getting ready, we were also packing away the last of our things. Content that we had everything packed, I popped across to my parent’s room to borrow their luggage scales.

I thought that we would be ok, but we were over the weight limit by quite a bit and I couldn’t get any of our 3 cases under 23kg. Our smallest case was full to bursting point

I went back to my parent’s room to see how they were getting on and if they had some space. My dad weighed theirs and they were 1 kg over with both of their cases.

Uh oh!

To avoid any potential excess luggage charges, we decided that we would re-use the old broken case that we were going to throw away and we would all transfer stuff into it to ensure that all of our other cases were well under weight.

With all the bags now packed and well within the weight limits we headed down to reception to check out.

Final pictures of our home from the last 2 weeks.




We were down at reception at 10:55am. We left behind our pushchair as it was just something extra to lug around that we would no longer need now.

We left our cases in storage at the hotel and headed to Millers Ale House, which is where we planned to stay until we got picked up by our Mears airport shuttle later on.

I popped to Walgreens next door for some duct tape to hold the broken case together. A couple of the staff asked how Trayvon was doing which was nice that they remembered he had been un well.

Obviously the thousand visits we made meant that they had got to know us a little With duct tape in hand, I re-joined everyone at Millers.

Drinks were soon ordered.
Dad and Trayvon had Fanta orange, Grace and Mum diet coke and Joshua a Dr pepper. I had a Yuengling beer.


All sat together for the last holiday feed at Millers


Silly pictures time.





We ordered up some food for the 4 of us, my parents weren’t very hungry when we ordered. The food arrived at 11:35am ish.

I chose Beef and Chicken Fajitas.



Tray had chicken tenders.


Joshua a hot dog.


Grace had garlic parmesan zingers and a side of loaded fries.



I also got a pitcher of miller light, excuse the blurry photo.



The food was ok. I actually quite enjoyed my fajitas and the boys had no complaints. Grace on the other hand really didn’t enjoy it and wished we had gone to Buffalo Wild Wings. In retrospect, B-dubs would have been a better option.

Grace also got a diet coke top up but was brought Dr Pepper by mistake. She got it changed pretty quickly, but I think that didn’t help with her thoughts on Millers. She didn’t particularly enjoy eating here on our previous trips so I think that will likely have been our last visit

My parents didn’t want to eat here so they decided that they would grab a subway and then meet us back at the hotel.

It was getting close to leaving time but I realised I had time for a long island iced tea, so got one ordered sharpish


Random pictures.






We headed back to the hotel and the time was now 1:30pm.
We collected our luggage from the storage room and I made the required bodge necessary to get the damaged case home in one piece. If you can remember far enough back, it’s the case that the zip broke on travel day morning.

Said bodge which clearly lasted as the picture was taken at Manchester airport


At 1:45pm, 15 minutes early, the Mears shuttle turned up, to take us to the airport.

We loaded all of our bags up and said goodbye, for now, to the Homewood suites. It was a really great hotel to stay in on I drive and would certainly love to stay there again in the future. I can definitely recommend it as a good hotel to stay at.

We arrived at Orlando International airport at 2:10pm. Our flight wasn’t due to take off until 6:20pm. A fair old wait, but at least we were at the airport now.

We got ourselves checked in at 2:50pm and managed to get through security by 3:18pm. Not bad for timing at all, compared to some years My parents were selected for the TSA pre checks too.

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[Mad Hatters]

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We wanted to make sure the boys had eaten before the flight as we know that plane food can sometimes be a bit iffy Joshua and Trayvon had a Kids turkey and cheese lunchables box each.





Mum and Dad were also hungry after only sharing a subway earlier so they got a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich each and some blueberry muffins which I forgot to picture.


Grace had a packet of crisps and I was still pretty full, so didn’t bother having anything

I popped to the little duty free section and picked up a bottle of rum to bring back for my friend Jack. I also got a bottle of gin as a gift for my sister and brother in law as well as some chocolate pretzels for my nephews and nieces. I treat Grace to some Hershey’s cookies ‘n’ crème chocolate because i'm nice like that

The rum for Jack.


There was still a bit of time to kill so Grace and I decided to have our last holiday drink. Mimosa for Grace and I had my first ever Margarita



There was an announcement to start boarding infants under 2 years old and all the usual impatient people with clearly older children went up. I had a chuckle when they got turned away

Our plane being loaded up.


We boarded at 6:13pm. Clearly we weren’t going to be taking off at the planned time of 6:20pm

As we were pushed back the heavens opened and the rain was properly coming down Florida style. We lined up for the runway and then stopped. The pilot announced that due to thunderstorms around the airport we couldn’t take off yet

After what felt like ages, we got moving again and had a little wait to take off as other planes were ahead of us in the queue. We finally took off at 8pm. 1 hour and 40 minutes later than scheduled

We opened up some snacks to keep us ticking along and our first meal was served around 10pm.

The kid’s meals were chicken nuggets, tata tots and peas. This was served with a bread roll, cheese and biscuits, a chocolate brownie and some sweets.



The adult’s meal was rice, chicken and vegetables. My notes say that this “wasn’t bad actually”. I was starving though, so that may explain that.



Trayvon was very tired and was asleep before the food came round. We were glad that we had got him to have the lunchables box in the airport. Joshua only picked at his meal.

Tray asleep


I settled in and watched Daddy’s home 2. It was a really good film.
We all slept for a bit except Joshua who decided he wasn’t going to sleep at all on the flight. I know it’s not easy sleeping on a plane but I always like to try. I probably managed half an hour or so.




The flight itself was very smooth and pretty comfortable.

Unfortunately there was a little girl in the row in front of us who wasn’t very well and was sick twice the poor thing.

To pass some more time along I put Avatar on for a while.

Breakfast was brought round to us at 3am USA time. This consisted of a yogurt, an oat bar and some orange juice.



We tried waking Tray to get him to have a little something to eat and also we were coming in for landing soon, so he needed to sit up anyway. This proved to be very difficult as he was still super tired and very grouchy

We finally landed at 9:05am UK time. We had a feeling of déjà vu as we then had to sit on the runway and wait for a stand so we could get off the plane

Thankfully this was nowhere near as long a wait as we had when taking off. We were round at the baggage reclaim area by 9:40am.

An announcement came on and said that the baggage would be delayed. Everyone was getting hacked off by this point. Especially when people on flights that landed after us had collected their bags.

The baggage carousel started up and some bags started circulating, then the belt jammed up. It was so frustrating!

We had finally got all of our luggage by 10:35am and were heading outside at 10:45am. I phoned up the contact we had been given when dropping the car off at APH parking on travel day. They said there would be a bus along shortly.

The bus arrived at 11:11am. A longer wait than we had hoped for, but it seemed to be par for the course now did waiting

We collected my car and had a nice clear drive home thankfully. We fully expected the M62 to be at a standstill. We also tried to keep Joshua awake as he hadn’t slept on the plane at all and we told him he would be tired but was adamant he would be fine. We gave in and let him sleep after trying to keep him awake for about 5 minutes haha.

We were home at 12:15pm after an extremely long and at times quite frustrating travel home day. And that was that, our holiday was over with

We cracked on with unpacking some of the cases and getting washing straight on.

Grace popped out to Morrison’s to get us some essentials in. This included a Chinese for our tea as we wanted something nice and easy. Well at least it was easy at least

Joshua’s mum picked him up early in the afternoon.

Grace and Trayvon went to bed at 6pm, absolutely shattered. I battled on and stayed up until 8:30pm to try and help reset my body clock. Working shifts helps a bit with this.

Total steps for Thursday: 12,219.
Total steps for Friday: 10,647.

I just wanted to say a thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting on our holiday. I have loved writing up about our trip and reliving it at times with bits that I had forgotten about. I know Grace has enjoyed reading it when I have posted it up too

We really did have an amazing holiday. We were all shocked at how much we loved the Disney on site stay. I knew it would be good, but never imagined it to be as good as it was. We also loved the quick service dining plan too. With the experience of using the QSDP, next time we will be more efficient with it I am sure.

Anyway, that’s the end of my trip report for our 2018 holiday, so thanks once again to everyone who has read and commented.

Cheers

Adam

[MrsArcher2b]

Thanks for writing this all up. I've really enjoyed reading and gotten lots of ideas and restaurants to go visit.

It wasn't until this last post that I saw that Joshua isn't Grace's son and it really surprised me. You are such a lovely family. That picture of Trayvon asleep on the plane with his feet on Joshua is so sweet. Not every brother would put up with that haha.

[Mad Hatters]

Originally Posted by MrsArcher2b

Thanks for writing this all up. I've really enjoyed reading and gotten lots of ideas and restaurants to go visit.

It wasn't until this last post that I saw that Joshua isn't Grace's son and it really surprised me. You are such a lovely family. That picture of Trayvon asleep on the plane with his feet on Joshua is so sweet. Not every brother would put up with that haha.

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You’re most welcome, I’m glad to hear you have enjoyed reading along and that it’s given you some ideas 😀

Your comments are very kind, thank you so much.

[caitlinsmummy]

Oh bless Joshua how sweet!

Travel home day is awful isn't it, you feel like your just waiting around to go

Such a shame about the delay but try and think of it as an extra almost 2 hours in Florida

The kid's food on the plane doesn't actually look too bad but as you say it's plane food what more can you expect.

I like Daddy's Home 2, we seen it at the cinema, I love Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.

My first ever flight was when I was 15 and we went to Florida, I spent the whole journey back in the toilet being sick (luckily we were in the bubble) my dad had to keep coming and knocking when people needed the toilet :pgig so I can sympathise with the poor little girl.

I wouldn't have been happy at having to wait on the plane either, by the time you land you just want to get off and get home don't you?

We did the trying to keep them awake too ... 5 minutes in all 3 were gone I just enjoyed the peace (first time in the whole holiday)

Thank you so much for taking the time to write the report, I've really enjoyed it and I hope the next ones in the pipeline soon xx

[Mad Hatters]

Originally Posted by caitlinsmummy

Oh bless Joshua how sweet!

Travel home day is awful isn't it, you feel like your just waiting around to go

Such a shame about the delay but try and think of it as an extra almost 2 hours in Florida

The kid's food on the plane doesn't actually look too bad but as you say it's plane food what more can you expect.

I like Daddy's Home 2, we seen it at the cinema, I love Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.

My first ever flight was when I was 15 and we went to Florida, I spent the whole journey back in the toilet being sick (luckily we were in the bubble) my dad had to keep coming and knocking when people needed the toilet :pgig so I can sympathise with the poor little girl.

I wouldn't have been happy at having to wait on the plane either, by the time you land you just want to get off and get home don't you?

We did the trying to keep them awake too ... 5 minutes in all 3 were gone I just enjoyed the peace (first time in the whole holiday)

Thank you so much for taking the time to write the report, I've really enjoyed it and I hope the next ones in the pipeline soon xx

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It was such a lovely thing for him to say the cutey.

We all hate travel home day. Like you say, you feel like you are just hanging around waiting.

Plane food is plane food, does the job really. Always better on the way out for us though. Possibly due to excitement maybe.

The wait's seemed to be endless when at times they weren't all that long. Its just such a long day really.

Trying to keep the kids awake is so funny, constantly waking them when they start to go The peace was nice though

I am glad you have enjoyed it, it's really appreciated and thank you for following it along. We shall see about the next one

[Goldia]

Such a shame that this report is now over. I've loved reading along. Thanks for sharing it all with us.

You both got a cocktail in on the last day, so I'm pleased about that. Travel home days are the worst, so sad.

So, what are your plans for the future? Have you got anything booked up?

[Palm trees]

Thanks for sharing your trip report with us all. I appreciate the work that goes into them and have really enjoyed reading about all your adventures.

[Mad Hatters]

Originally Posted by Goldia

Such a shame that this report is now over. I've loved reading along. Thanks for sharing it all with us.

You both got a cocktail in on the last day, so I'm pleased about that. Travel home days are the worst, so sad.

So, what are your plans for the future? Have you got anything booked up?

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I'll admit that i am a bit sad it is over to be honest. Really enjoyed doing it. No problem at all, thank you for following it and i am glad you have enjoyed reading about our trip.

Had to get a cocktail in on the last day. In fact, it will now be a final day tradition.

Future plans: We are heading back to Florida next year. We are going at the end of July for 2 weeks and staying at Port Orleans Riverside with the QSDP again and in a pool view room. There will once again be my parents and there will also be my sister, her husband and their 5 kids so its going to be hectic. First time not going to Universal so will be different for us, but we are so excited to be spending the full holiday in the Disney bubble. Also it will be nice for my sister and her kids as they don't tend to go abroad. Maybe a trip report of some sorts

Thanks again for reading

Originally Posted by Palm trees

Thanks for sharing your trip report with us all. I appreciate the work that goes into them and have really enjoyed reading about all your adventures.

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No problem at all, i have really enjoyed sharing our holiday and i ma glad you enjoyed reading along

[mouselover22]

Aww Adam I’m gutted your trippie has come to an end as I’ve really enjoyed reading along. I now know how much time and effort goes in to writing a trip report, so I’m forever grateful of those who manage to do it. They do bring us dibbers such joy

Like you say it’s also a lovely way to record and remember your holiday. What a cutie Joshua is, saying thank you for the holiday What a well mannered young man, you must be super proud of him.

I like your style finishing off your holiday with a few beverages 🍻 The food looks lovely, shame Grace wasn’t feeling Miller’s

Shame about your delays at the airport and on the plane, how annoying as you just want to get home by then.

I’ve just seen you are going back to Florida next year That’s the same sort of time we go every year, so may see you there Wow, there’s a lot of you going, you will have a blast at Universal.

Thanks again Adam and I’ll keep an eye out for your pre-trippie