A tale of land and sea - travel day

[pho3nix]

Hi Dibbers!

I'm hoping someone out there is reading - feels strange to be writing with no idea if anyone is actually going to read or not!

My first actual trip report day!

Travel day - Virgin flights, Avanti Resort &Walmart

10th September 2016


THE DAY is finally here! Excited was definitely an understatement...
Woke up early this morning but our flight wasn't until 12:45 so as we are only an hour from the airport we had plenty of time to get ready.
As we left we were treated to the sight of this landing at the end of our road - not something you see everyday!

We headed to the airport, parked up in our pre-booked JetParks space and waited for the bus - the wait wasn't too long but long enough to take a picture of my new (Primark special) Potter pumps!

Short bus ride and into the airport. Bag dropped - we had checked in online and then on to Security. Security was fine - no issues other than my large number of electronics that had to be unloaded from my case- yes I was THAT person!

Intended to look for a new waterproof camera while we were in the airport but no luck - unfortunately the ones they had were waaay out of my price range!

Next up - food - you will see from this report we (especially me) love food! so where did we go for amazing food in the airport - Burger King. My first ever Burger King burger - now I know why! Definitely nothing to write home about - I don't even have a picture...

So round to the gate and saw our plane waiting for us:

Our ride today was Jersey Girl.

Loaded onto the plane and into our seats - I never know what the rush is with all those people desperate to be first on the plane, you're going to be on there for rather a long time and it's not going to leave before you get on, just take your turn! Rant over!

Onto the plane and we were row 26 seats K&J - the window and middle seat. I took the window and Sophie the middle (I'm a window seat kind of girl!) and a gentleman very briefly sat in the aisle. Before his bum even really touched the seat, he grabbed his bags and was off - I presume to sit in a free seat near his family. Whatever his reason, we were very grateful, more space for us and the headphone jack on the middle seat didn't work so if the lovely gentleman hadn't up and left, poor Soph would have been left with no IFE for the whole flight.

So on with the flight! Got myself hooked up to the IFE and got my new book out 'The Girl on the Train' - while reading I listed to a variety of albums (Carrie Underwood, Ella Henderson & The Script). Book finished and 6 hours to go. While reading we had drinks and snacks brought round - the snack was Sour Cream & Chive pretzels and I had a diet coke:

Over the course of the flight I played suduko, listened to more music and watched a couple of movies "How to be Single" which I have written down was quite funny and "Sisters" which I have written down "passed the time" - not great then!

Lunch was served:

We both had the teriyaki chicken with rice & veg which was served with bread & bourse (good times!), salad and white chocolate and raspberry Gu! It was all quite good - I'm one of those weird people that actually quite enjoy plane food

We then had the snack - Fab lolly - not a fan of these at all -I do not agreed with lolly and chocolate mixed together...

And then afternoon tea -ok so on a plane they feed you A LOT!

I actually really enjoyed this (and a cheeky glass of wine!) as it was a cheese and pickle sandwich! Small things make me happy - like a sandwich with no mayo - as a lifelong mayo hater this can cause problems, usually there is zero choice of sandwiches without mayo!
Finished off the journey watching a little bit of "Dogs Might Fly" - very good!

We were off the plane quite quickly and managed to do the quick walk/shuffle through the airport. Very painless process although I was so nervous (no idea why - I'm good I promise!). We had a great customs officer who was laughing and joking with us - great welcome to the States! Collected our bags and then through the second check and out! We are officially in FLORIDA!

Next challenge - finding the Alamo desk! Desk found, and no-one else there - winning! I had amended our booking online when I saw a post on the Dibb about an Alamo price drop - it has dropped to £326 for our economy car for the whole holiday and I knew I just wanted to add fuel. They of course went for the upsell which I politely refused. They did try to charge me $500+ and when I queried this, it was the original price not the amended price but thankfully I had the paperwork and it was no problem for them to charge this - Dibbers beware, just in case this happens to you.
Headed out to the garage and were shown to a row of cars - glad we chose economy, these were plenty big enough. We went with a white Nissan Sentra with a HUGE boot! Despite having two large cases (one ultra huge) and a cabin case and a back it all fitted in with room to spare!

And we were off! First port of call was the Avanti Resort on International Drive. We took our time driving as it was Sop's first time Florida driving but we made it smoothly with no issues. We had downloaded some google maps and used this for navigation with no issues at all over the course of the holiday.

Arrived at the Avanti and headed inside to reception - had to pay a $50 "incidental" deposit and resort fees of$22 ish! Paid cash and just needed to pop back to collect our $50 deposit before leaving. Very easy and pain free process with the lovely girls on the desk.
Headed back out and round to our room, parked up and pulled our cases inside. We had a room on the top floor - Avanti looked lovely but we wouldn't be seeing too much of it!

Few obligatory room pics before we had time to mess it up:

This was one of the nights I hadn't really planned anything as I didn't know how we'd be feeling - on this occasion no panning was good planning! We were tired and didn't feel like a big sit down meal but did fancy a wander so headed to Walmart.

I heart walmart and could have browsed for days...instead we had a short(ish) stroll around eyeing up all the goodies and spent $25 on strawberries, cheetoes, mountain dew, batteries, Chips Ahoy - smores!, raspberry buns and 2x EOS lipbalms (one for me one for a friends daughter) - ALL the essentials really!

Back to the Avanti and into bed for 10pm - rock and roll we are not!

Hope you are all still with me and enjoyed the very first day of my very first trip report

[davdawnbro]

Yes, I'm reading!

Sounds like a great trouble free travel day! Great to see pics of the Avanti, are are booked to stay there in October.

[pho3nix]

Originally Posted by davdawnbro

Yes, I'm reading!

Sounds like a great trouble free travel day! Great to see pics of the Avanti, are are booked to stay there in October.

See more...

Aww yey! My first reader! Thank you so much.

It was a great travel day as they go - very relaxed and stress free!

I don't have too many photos of the Avanti as we were only there for 2 nights and didn't spend much time there. The staff we met were friendly and the hotel as a whole was very neat and clean and our room was big and comfy - I would def stay again!

Very jealous that you are going this year - wish I was heading back!

[Floridaagogo]

Reading along 😀😀😀😀

[EJSakaAnna]

Sounds like you had a good travel day. I love Walmart, so going on your first night is my kind of trip haha. Looking forward to reading along

[KittyBlackDog]

Me too!

A good travel day and looks like welcoming comfy beds too!

[wellbehaved]

I'm following too. My daughter and her boyfriend have a couple of nights at the Avanti to in November so looking forward to seeing it feature in your tipple!

[Sparksy72]

A great travel day. We love a trip to Walmart and an Eos lip balm! Thank you for sharing 😊

[ribena]

Loved the report look forward to reading the rest!

[MarionG]

A good start, we love Walmart but never seem to get in and out of there in less than an hour and very often a lot longer than that!