Happy Holidays in WDW, 2-year-old-style! Day 17: Traveling Home via Manchester

nothingless · 31 Jan 20, 01:27 PM

January 4, 2019
[-- Trip Index --]

All good things must come to an end, and unfortunately the same was true of our trip! I woke up this morning feeling a good bit better than yesterday - I think an afternoon of rest did me a world of good, and with the paracetamol and medication, I was fairly confident I'd be able to travel OK.

Our flight wasn't until 17:30 that afternoon, so we had all morning to finish packing. When we were nearly finished, it occurred to me that I hadn't taken proper photos of our lovely apartment yet, so I went around and did that. We'd really enjoyed our stay in Windsor Hills - close to the parks, lovely pool, and the apartment itself had just everything we needed.

Our bedroom

En-suite bathroom

Living room - highchair was part of the apartment furniture and so handy!

Myla's bedroom

The family bathroom shared between Myla and my mom

My mom's bedroom

Kitchen

Just a very good little apartment in a perfect location - I'd definitely consider staying there again if I was staying offsite!

We got everything sorted and the car packed up by 13:30, ahead of our 14:00 goal!

Bye bye Windsor Hills! We loved our stay!

There was no traffic, and we were at the airport by 14:15.

It took less than half an hour to hand in the rental car, make our way to Virgin desk, and drop off our suitcases - everything went super smooth and fast. We decided to do a bit of last-minute shopping and headed to the Concourse. There Myla showed she had been well trained in the past few weeks, immediately going over to every single photo opportunity she saw and shouting at me, "PHOTO MAMA! CHEESE!"

My mom bought some more souvenirs in the Disney store, including a lovely coloring book for Myla, and I treated myself to a T-shirt. Then we browsed the Universal and Kennedy Space Center shops for a taste of what we hadn't seen. When Myla is older, we'll surely visit these! My mom is a big Harry Potter fan, and so am I - we were actually in the middle of watching the Goblet Of Fire when my waters broke at 38 weeks pregnant and I had Myla lol.

After the shopping, we made our way through security and towards our gate, stopped at Starbucks on the way for snacks.

Myla's little Samsonite suitcase came in really handy, she loves riding on it.

Our plane going back was the Ruby Tuesday!

Waiting to board didn't take long.

And here we were all getting settled into our seats. We had 4 seats across the middle at the very back of the plane, which turned out to be a good choice - it was fairly quiet back here which helped with getting some sleep.

Myla was a big girl sitting in her own seat, immediately getting stuck into Frozen.

The flight itself was uneventful - some turbulence, but really all went well, Myla slept for most of it, and watched/played on the iPad for the rest. I got a few hours of sleep, as did Michael and my mom, and we landed on time in Manchester around 7AM

We had booked into an airport lounge here at Manchester, as we had a 6-hour layover until our flight to Amsterdam later that afternoon. But first we had to go through the Transfer area in Manchester - what an absolute joke! Because our bags were checked all the way through, we had to go to the transfer desk, and into a separate area for security check to make our way to our next gate. However, this separate security area was small, and there was NO ONE manning it! We were hardly the only ones off the Orlando flight needing to transfer, pretty much all of us had young kids, and we were stood there waiting for AGES before anyone came. And when they finally started security, it took another hour before we were through. Like seriously - I'm straight off the Virgin plane from Orlando. How thorough do they think they need to search and scan us?

So we were absolutely tired from a short night on the plane, and then had to queue and wait for over 2 1/2 hours altogether to get through the Transfer area in Manchester - ridiculous.

Wrecked, we now made our way to the lounge.

Lovely view over the runway, but I forgot to take any additional photos! We all basically lay down in the seats and Myla on the sofa, and napped most of the time - I was still battling my cold, and everyone else was just tired. The lounge itself was really nice, plenty of seating, lots of foods and drink - definitely better than waiting anywhere else!

Finally just after noon, having had a bite of lunch and coffees, we made our way to the gate for our final flight of the day to Amsterdam.

This was a very short flight - barely an hour, and before we knew it, we had landed at Schiphol, yay! Myla was so good throughout all of it, cuddling, playing, and entertaining herself on the iPad.

Here we were waiting for our luggage, ready to get our winter coats out as it was freezing! My dad surprised us with being at the airport to welcome us home, and after many cuddles, we said bye, collected our car, and were home by around 4PM Dutch time that afternoon.

Unfortunately within a few hours of getting home, Myla got sick, and I was up with her several times throughout that night to comfort her - she had a fever and was feeling really poorly for a few days! But still - better at home than in Florida or on the plane!

The journey home had been pretty good, aside from Manchester Transfer - complete joke compared to how easy this exact same thing had been in Gatwick!

Dutchdisneyfan · 31 Jan 20, 01:36 PM

Always a sad day going home

But just saw your new countdown! Veel plezier

nothingless · 31 Jan 20, 02:19 PM

Originally Posted by Dutchdisneyfan

Always a sad day going home

But just saw your new countdown! Veel plezier

Haha thanks! My goal was to get this trippie finished before the next one LOL!

Tassiriki · 2 Feb 20, 02:34 PM

Great trip report. Thank you for taking the time to do it. Enjoy the next holiday- looks like a fantastic long one!

Palm trees · 2 Feb 20, 08:30 PM

Thanks for sharing your trip with us, it's been a great read. Hope that your next adventures are as much fun and you report it all back.

VizslaMom · 13 Feb 20, 02:42 PM

Fab trippy... and looking forward to your next adverture!

Thank you again for taking the time to write it.

2 Feb 20, 02:34 PM	#4
	2 Feb 20, 02:34 PM Tassiriki Helping Minnie
Tassiriki Helping Minnie Join Date: Nov 19	Great trip report. Thank you for taking the time to do it. Enjoy the next holiday- looks like a fantastic long one!