Starlight, Star bright, Give Kids The World tonight - October 2018 - Travel Day

[PrincessCastle]

Index

12th October - Travel Day

I woke up an hour before the alarm at 4:30. I’d had a very unsettled night’s sleep. Rustly hotel sheets, fidgety children and I now know that Ariana grinds her teeth in her sleep, lovely!

I played on my phone for a while and checked all the facebook/instagram comments from the reveal video/photos yesterday. There were some really lovely ones on there.
I got up at 5:30 and got washed and did my make up in the bathroom. Then I woke the rest of the clan up at 6. Ariana was already awake cause I heard her whisper to an unconscious Oliver, ‘Oliver, we’re going to Disney World today, remember?’ So sweet!

Was quite easy getting the kids dressed and ready this morning cause they were so desperate to get out of the door! Ross got their teeth brushed while I sorted the cases and locked them. We were ready!

We checked out at 6:30 and I remembered to get the medication from reception. A bus arrived pretty much straight away. It dropped a couple off at Terminal 1 first then dropped us off (and a guy from New York who was flying home) at Terminal 2.
As soon as we walked in a saw the huge Virgin check in queue. Thankfully though, an attendant sent us in the premium queue and we were seen within a few minutes. Our check in lady (probably not the scientific name) was lovely. She sorted out Oliver’s wheelchair and booked us special assistance at the gate. She also noticed that we weren’t all sitting together and said she’d see what she could do. She made a call and called another attendant over then said she could move us to a set of 4 bulkheads. I had no idea what this meant but when she asked the other attendant if she could move us there I figured it was probably better than where we were so I said yes please. So she printed us new boarding passes and sent us on our way.
I still don’t understand what a bulkhead seat is and how it was different to the other seats so if anyone knows, please enlighten me!

We went up to security. The guy at the start of the queue was very friendly. He helped me sort out the medication, told me to put everything in separate bags, even the syringes (oral ones) and put it all in the cool bag. We were sent down the priority lane but it didn’t make any difference as it was so quiet.
Everyone at security were very friendly. The guy sorting me asked very politely if he could check the medication, then asked if he could take out the ice pack, I told him to do whatever he needed to do.
Ross had his shoes scanned and the wheelchair got scanned and we all got the all clear.

We went through to the gates via Dixons and duty free where Ross picked up some headphones for the flight and I got a charging cable for Oliver’s tablet since I left his at home. Both were ludicrously expensive, £30 and £15.

We had no idea what we fancied for breakfast. We walked past a spot called Spinning Jenny, Ross spotted chicken and waffles on the menu so that’s where we were going! Ross had settled on those, Ariana opted for nutella and banana waffles, traditional English breakfast for me and sausage, chips and beans for Oliver. Drinks were San Maguel for Ross (cause it’s always 5 o clock somewhere right?), tea for me and a fruitshoot each for the kids. Oliver also needs 250ml of whole milk before he takes his medication so I asked for a glass but they only did skimmed. One of the replacements for milk is chocolate spread (they can also eat peanut butter or guacamole which is weird) so I ordered him some toast with a load of nutella. Total came to £59. God I hate airports!
When I told Oliver about the nutella he wasn’t very happy. He’s always had milk and has never had to have one of the replacements so it was hard for him to deal with the change. Ross went on the hunt for whole milk. He found some in cafe Nero so that cheered Oliver up and I got to eat his nutella toast, bonus! The food was good, not excellent and certainly not £59 good!

We stopped by Smiths to get some puzzle books and drinks then went to sit by the window and watch the planes go by and do a last toilet stop till the gate was called at 9:05, gate 204.

We were called up to board as soon as we arrived but I couldn’t find two of the boarding passes and got in a total panic thinking they weren’t going to let us board but the attendant was like don’t worry we’ll just re-print them! She had the same look that Ross gives me when I stress and over react.
We had to wait on the walkway for a while as another passenger needed a hoist to help them but once we were on we found that row 53 was the row behind the galley so we didn’t have anyone in front of us. This was great as it gave Ross the leg room he needs and it meant the kids didn’t have any seats in front to kick so I didn’t have to worry about that.

We asked a flight attendant about keeping Oliver’s meds in the fridge, she said they weren’t allowed but she could bring a bag of ice to keep in the cool bag which was great.
Michael, the flight manager came to see us, made sure we had settled in our seats and promised we’d be looked after which was lovely.

The flight was meant to leave at 10:05 but we didn’t start taxiing until 10:20. The kids loved take off, they were so excited and a few people around us were smiling at them. You could tell which kids on the flight who had flown before though. There was a girl around Ariana’s age and her little brother next to us and they just watched their iPads and didn’t bat an eyelid, then there were my kids who were screaming with delight!

They kept the seatbelt signs on for a while which annoyed Oliver. Ariana was happy colouring in but Oliver wanted his tablet and headphones which were in the bag in the overhead locker.
When they finally came off, Oliver watched Jurassic World 2, Ariana watched Frozen, I watched Avengers Infinity War and Ross played polker.
Soon after take off they brought round the lunch menus and some drinks. I had a voddy and orange, Ross had a tiger beer and the kids had an orange juice each.

Ross went to get his new headphones out from his back and realised they were wireless Bluetooth ones, no good for the flight then! He’d have to use the plane ones like the rest of the muggles on board.

They started bringing the kid’s lunches out at 11:45 which I thought was really early but hey ho. Apparently you need to order kids meals which I didn’t do so ours didn’t get one. When I mentioned it to one of the flight attendants they said they’d order some for the return flight which was helpful and one less thing for me to do.
Adult lunches came at 12. Oliver and Ross had the sausage casserole and mash, Ariana and I had the pasta. The starter pasta was really good and I got to eat Oliver and Ariana’s too which was a bonus. I wasn’t a fan of the pudding, Ariana liked it though.

For the next few hours Ariana switched between watching an episode of an animated Wizard of Oz series and colouring in, Ross watched Tomb Raider and Oliver played on his tablet and had the flight info on his screen. I knew he’d love the flight information.
Michael came to check in on us, make sure we were all doing ok. The kids were too engrossed in their activities to pay any notice but I told him we were fine.

Ross bought and iclip wallet from duty free for £31 I think it was.
Juice and mini twister lollies came round at 2.

Ross and I watched Deadpool 2 together, but it was weird cause my screen kept creeping ahead of Ross’ like mine was playing ever so slightly faster. Bizarre! Oliver watched The Incredibles and Ariana watched Ice Age and some of Happy Feet but she got distracted part way through when the girl next to us decided to make friends. She was called Annabelle and she was 5 too. She had a big cuddly unicorn so she was onto a winner with Ariana. I chatted with her mum, they were from Scotland and they had two weeks of for half term now which was great for them. They were staying at Caribbean Beach Resort for 9 days. I didn’t think to ask if she was a Dibber. If you are and you’re reading this, hello!

Michael came to see us again. This time he came with certificates for the kids deeming them Junior Jetsetters. It was so lovely and the kids were chuffed with them!

Afternoon tea came round at 5. It was cheese and tomato chutney sandwiches. Oliver hated them cause he only eats jam sandwiches, Ross didn’t like them. I loved them and Ariana didn’t like the chutney so she got the two non chutney slices, put them together and had a regular cheese sandwich. The chocolate caramel bar thing was gross but everyone else liked it so I was on my own with that one.
I started watching Jurassic World and Ross started watching Avengers but we never got to finish them. One of the cabin crew came to ask Ariana and Annabelle if they could help her hand out sweets. They got to wear the red jackets and go up the aisles handing out sweets. Ariana looked so chuffed with herself it was adorable. They took pictures of her for their office and let us take pics too.

We started the decent at 6:15. Ariana and Annabelle decided to hold hands the whole way down, until somebody walked past then they had to break apart for a couple of seconds. They were the cutest.
There was an announcement over the speaker thanking Ariana, Annabelle and the other helpers for giving them a hand which was sweet. One of the cabin crew replaced the bag of ice for us.
We touched town at 7pm, 2pm local time. 7 is usually the kids bedtime so I didn’t know how much longer they’d go on for. They would surprise me though!
We said goodbye to Michael on our way out and thank you for looking after us. Everyone had been amazing to us it was such a great start to the trip.

Once off the plane we were faced with a huge customs queue. No special treatment here and no mention of self service machines to bring the queue down either. Oliver started complaining of a sore tummy and was bent double but only when we looked at him, the rest of the time he was stood up straight looking around so god knows how he really felt. I think he was trying to get to sit in his chair but he’d been sat for 8 hours except for a few toilet breaks so I wanted him up and about for a bit.

The customs officer we got was actually quite friendly and sent us through no bother at all. After a quick toilet stop I turned on my phone and it was 2:52 which wasn’t too bad I guess. We took the bags and hopped on the monorail.

At the other end we were met by Frank from Give Kids The World who was holding a big sign with Oliver’s name on. He was so lovely. He said he’d see us to our taxi then say goodbye. He gave the kids a goody bag with crackers, lolly pops and water and went over the rules. There was only one rule, have fun!
Frank walked us upstairs to get our Mears tickets then back downstairs to the Mears stop. We waited a while for the bus. Oliver sat on a bench, Ariana ran round in circles for some strange reason and we chatted to Frank. It was so hot. We were in the shade but I could still feel the heat blazing. We saw a few magical express busses leave and promised the kids we’d be on one of those some day.

Finally the bus came. We waved goodbye to Frank who reminded the kids of the one rule. We tried to tip him, we weren’t sure if we were supposed to but he wouldn’t take it, told us to donate it to GKTW.
The journey was quite entertaining. We saw some gators in a few lakes, explained to the kids the plan of action for the rest of the day, this plan did not include Disney must to the kids annoyance, discussed what time it was back home and pointed out all the sights out of the windows.

Continued...

[PrincessCastle]

Once we arrived at the village, we tipped the driver $10 cause we had nothing smaller to hand and hauled the cases inside. I honestly feel like we didn’t get the warmest greeting from the lady on the desk, I was expecting something nicer. She was too busy having a conversation with somebody else. Luckily the lady who showed us to our villa was lovely. The complex is huge but we were lucky that our villa was a very short walk from the main buildings. We were behind the cinema and right opposite the helicopter ride and the miniature train ride.

We arrived at the villa at 4:20, had a quick induction meeting, told the rules/guidelines, given our park tickets and the bits I had ordered to the village (Oliver’s hat and sash fabric for his costume, a baymax top for Oliver and matching tops for Ariana and I). They gave us a little gold star that Oliver had to take to the Castle of Miracles to put on the wall, we were very excited to do that. We were also told about their runner service which is basically like a free taxi service that will take you to Walmart or a local restaurant to pick up take out. We asked if we could have someone take us to Walmart which was no problem. I also mentioned the Magic Bands that Beth at Fairytale Personal Shopper Service had dropped off a few weeks prior, they said they’d check at guest services for it.

The kids room and en-suite which was huge and fully accessible.

Our bedroom and bathroom (not en-suite)

I loved having in house washing and drying facilities!

We spent some time unpacking and asked the kids to change into something more climate appropriate until the runner arrived at 5:20. She dropped us off outside and said she’d collect us at 6:30.
We grabbed some whole milk for Oliver, some twinkies ($2.50 for a box of 10 when they’re £2 for one over here. I love America), some huge ‘sharing’ bags of sweets, some cereal, beer, water.

I was so mean here! I said to Oliver 'Pick up that bag of sweets... ok now say cheeeeese! Now put it back' he wasn't happy!

On the right, normal sized bottle of wine. On the left, American sized bottle!

Looked in awe at the size of the wine bottles and how cheap they were! Once we’d finished in the grocery section we moved onto the toys for the kids. Ariana got an LOL book, I picked up a gem of a book and if you’re a fan of Friends you’ll know.

Ariana also got one of the big LOL dolls in the pill shaped packets. I call them gimp dolls cause of how the doll is wrapped, they’re £15ish in the UK but only $14 here so a bargain, a unicorn fingerling for $15 and an Aurora doll for $8. Oliver struggled to find something he wanted but he eventually settled on a Jurassic World remote control gyrosphere with Owen figurine for $30, we later saw the same thing in Universal for $65 so I’m glad we picked it up in Walmart! We also got some Little Tykes animals for Jack. Ross wouldn’t let me look around the Christmas section, we did have a look at the Halloween section though but didn’t buy anything. I picked up some shampoo and conditioner with a free dry shampoo, some facewipes and nail varnish. Then into the Disney section I got a tshirt for Ariana, a little Pluto cuddly for Jack and a magnet and keyring for my mum as that’s what she asked for from the kids. In total it was $230.

Small selection of our Walmart haul

We headed back out at 6:30 and was collected by the runner who dropped us back off outside our villa. The bags were dumped and we headed straight out for tea.
There were three restaurants, a Pizzeria, Nancy’s Kitchen which served chicken and meatloaf with mash and other sides and Katy’s Kitchen which served something different every night. They were all one cafeteria style dining room in the Towne Hall building. On the way there we were in awe of everything. We walked past the arcade, the spa, the shop, the ice cream parlor and the Castle of Miracles.

At the Towne Hall we scanned our food card (you get three free meals a day at GKTW) and grabbed some trays. At the pizzeria we were served by Jim who was an old guy wearing a crazy chefs hat flashing neon glasses, we liked Jim. Oliver and Ariana a couple of slices of pepperoni each and Ross and I got a few slices of meat lovers each. Oliver also got some fries from Katy’s Kitchen. Ross went to Nancy’s for seconds and got meatloaf, chicken and mash. Oliver got seconds of noodles, Ariana got another slice of pizza and a bowl of sweetcorn.

Completely stuffed we headed out the door. Oliver wanted to do his star so we went into the Castle or Miracles. As soon as we walked in we could see thousands of stars all over the ceiling. We were greeted by a lovely volunteer, Sandra, who took Oliver’s star, placed in on the table and gave him a pen to write his name on it. Once he’d done that the star was placed in a special chest. Then Stellar the Star Fairy appeared on the screen, said hello then few down towards the chest and off the screen. The chest started to shake, Sandra told Oliver Stellar had flown into the chest and was taking his star. Sure enough the chest stopped shaking and she appeared on the screen again, star in hand. She flew out of the screen again and around the room (you could see a trail of lights twinkling) then up into the ceiling. Sandra explained that Stellar had taken Oliver’s star to place on the wall and we could come back and see it tomorrow. We checked in the chest and the star was indeed, gone. The kids were amazed!

Stock pic, cant find mine!

Next Sandra asked them their favourite colours. Pink and blue, how stereotypical of my kids! They were taken round the corner to see Mr Buttons to get their dream pillows. Mr Button’s lived in a tree but he was asleep so they had to shout loud to wake him up, he was a little squirrel (he appeared on a little screen in the tree) He said that in order to get the pillows they had to tick three things off his list. The first thing was fun, Mr Buttons said that dance parties were fun so we all had a little dance. Happiness was the next thing, he asked them what made them happy. They said going to the park made them happy, Mr Buttons said that makes him happy too. Finally the third thing was love, they had to hug someone they loved very much. They went to hug me but I told them to hug each other too. With everything ticked off the list, Mr Buttons then told then he’d hidden their pillows for them. The kids found them in the tree trunk and amazingly they were pink and blue. We said goodbye to Mr Buttons and had a look in the star tower which was a tall room filled with stars, it was truly incredible.

That 15 minutes we spent inside the Castle was the most magical 15 minutes...ever!

After all that excitement it was time for ice cream! The ice cream parlor was open every day from 7am to 9pm and it was all free. They did tubs and cone, banana splits and milkshakes. Oliver had chocolate, Ariana had Strawberry both with rainbow sprinkles and Ross had mint choc chip with whipped cream. I got a strawberry milkshake.

We walked back to the villa, calling in at guest services on the way to ask about the magic bands. They still couldn’t find them but were going to keep looking and call later.
The kids decided they wanted a ride on the helicopter ride. I put their ice creams in the freezer in the villa then popped back over. It was 8:10 by now but they were still going strong! The ride was great. It was two to a copter, it went round and round and you had to peddle to make it go higher. The kids couldn’t reach the pedals so it was down to Ross and I to do the leg work but it was really easy.

After that it really was time to call it a night. I let Ariana open her LOL doll and Oliver open his gyrosphere then it was time to bed. The kids flaked out straight away. I unpacked a few bits but then fell into bed. I was asleep by 9:30, 21 hours after I got up! Ross stayed up on his phone for a bit. But about 20 minutes later I got woken up with a start! The villa phone was ringing and it was on my side of the bed. I answered it and it was guest services. They couldn’t find the magic bands so they were going to go and buy us some more. I begged them not to as I didn’t want to take any more of the charity’s money but they insisted. They already had a description of the bands I gave
them earlier so they would pick some up tomorrow and deliver them to the villa. I thanked them profusely and flaked out once again.

[sotagals]

Wow that was a travel day and a half!
Great photos as well - they look so happy and excited. Looking forward to the next instalment.

[GALE88]

Wow, what an amazing, magical travel day. The kids did so well to stay awake once you arrived.

[mick]

A long but great travel day your villa looks lovely and the children did so well to stay awake


Joan

[mrsdjh]

What a great travel day and sounds like an amazing place to stay - the time you spent in the Castle of Miracles definitely sounds magical. The children did well to keep going today - must have been all the excitement!

[EJSakaAnna]

What a day, the kids did so well. They look like they could burst with excitement!

Villa looks lovely & the food on offer looks fantastic too. The castle of miracles sounds utterly magical, all those stars...what a fantastic charity they are xx

[Palm trees]

What a fab travel day. The castle of miracles sounds utterly magical, what a beautiful experience for you and your children.

[prugone]

Wonderful! I normally flip in and out of trip reports but this is one I'm gonna keep up with! I signed up to using Starlight when I buy something but must admit I'm a bit lax about remembering. This is a timely reminder.

[Lisa_Lollipop]

What a fab travel day, so wonderful to see how excited Oliver and Ariana were! And Ariana giving out the sweets was just the cutest!

GTKTW looks absolutely magical, what an amazing place. The stars inside the castle are just beautiful!