O'Sullivans go to Florida. May 22 - Completed Trip Report

[Charlangela]

Travel day. Finally here. Alarms set for 3.30am but i tossed and turned all night and gave in at 3.15am. Got up to try and see if I could locate the cat which hadn't come home last night. Turns out he'd got locked in the shed!

Everyone else started to come downstairs and by 4.30 we were on the road to Manchester airport. Quite a straight forward journey but couldn't go on the motorway at first as it was closed for resurfacing so a little diversion and we were at T3 drop and go for 5.30am. Really straight forward and a very quick bus ride to T2.

Check in was painless. They were checking documents in the queue and putting a sticker on passports so no paperwork needed handing in at check in other than attestation forms that we'd manually done as we travelled on recovery certificates obtained through The Healthify.

Next was security and after all the news reports recently we were apprehensive but they honoured our fast track bought in November and we were through security in 10 minutes, straight to the escape lounge and had a few drinks and breakfast and just chilled for a couple of hours until gate information showed.

Once we had that we walked down, did a quick stop in the shops, and straight to the gate and boarded immediately. Andrew had been selected for extra security checks so we boarded without him and got seated.

Flight departed on time and not long after take off drinks and pretzels were served. Then not long after lunch was served. I wasn't looking forward to this after reviews recently but actually it wasn't awful. The mash was really tasty and bread roll fine. The chocolate pot was too rich but personal preference. Another couple of drinks services and we got an ice lolly!

Flight started getting a bit turbulent over Canada and I had to take a Kwells to help with the sick feeling.

Afternoon Tea came around an hour before landing and this was lovely. The sandwiches were nice, the scone was lovely and the little cake was yummy.

We landed an hour ahead of time at 1.30pm FL time.

Immigration wasn't too bad but we were last off the plane so had to wait for all the other passengers to clear first, but then we didn't wait at baggage collection.

Went down to get the hire Car and we've got a Chrysler Pacifica from alamo with 8000 miles on the clock. Really nice car.

Stopped into Disney Springs to pick up the magic bands we got with our ATD purchase, then off to the hotel. Hotel isn't amazing but it'll do for what we needed. Quick drop and run to Walmart.

Its now almost 9pm FL time and I'm sat in Dennys waiting for takeout for us all. Almost 24 hours of being up and we are shattered. But really looking forward to Hollywood Studios tomorrow!

[Charlangela]

3.30am wide awake. Feels like travel day again!

Tried to go back to sleep but then I felt the presence of someone else. Opened my eyes and Jenson was literally nose to nose with me 😂 "mum I can't sleep you're snoring" right looks like we are both up then.

Pottered around unpacking cases this morning and clearing up from last night's Dennys take out, trying not to wake anybody.

Slowly but surely between that time and 6am more faces appeared.

We all showered and went down for breakfast at 7am. Food selection was basic but the food was nice. Sausage, egg and potatoes along with cereals, pastries and fruits.

8.30am we arrived at Hollywood Studios.

We have the DAS pass for a member of our group so the first thing we did was book smugglers run, we had our first advanced selection booked for rock and roller coaster at half 9 so this filled the time wisely. I'll be honest without the DAS pass we wouldn't have done half as much as we did. We managed all rides and Indiana Jones stunt spectacular. We grabbed a DAS for ROTR and just before boarding the ride vehicle, it went down. We were given an any lightning lane selection. Tried again when it was back up and it went down again. Third time lucky we managed to do it all. It was truly amazing.

After this Jenson had his droid building booked. I'll be honest he loved it but for the cost, I was disappointed. It was $99.99+tax, and they only had the one unit to build which conveniently wasn't the one he wanted to build. Also when the droid goes to sleep you have to take it apart to turn the switch off and on again which is an absolute faff.

Called into Pandora on the way out to grab a park exclusive charm for $75.

We left the park just before 6 and we are shattered.


Showered and chilled at the hotel and took a little wander to Old Town for food.

Found a really nice place called Shoneys. Food was amazing. Jenson opted for chicken and fruit, I had the steak with a jacket and brocolli, Andrew had shrimp and the rest all had burgers.

All fell asleep at 10pm and I was up this morning at 6.30am, much better than the first day. Everyone is still asleep. We're off to Epcot today and potentially Magic Kingdom for fireworks!

[Charlangela]

Day 2 Epcot

6.30am wake up today so feeling really refreshed. Everyone was up and showered before 8am, so we went down for breakfast just after 9am. Today it was cheese omelette, turkey sausage and biscuits with gravy which were amazing!

9.30 we were off to Epcot. The hotel we are in is literally 10 mins away from Disney, so convenient.

We were parked really close to the entrance again. To say that the parks are fully booked so far we've not really found them horrendous.

First up was Spaceship Earth. Once in I tried to book a DAS for Remi's but Kian hadn't scanned in to spaceship Earth so it wouldn't let me add him. I booked it anyway without him hoping guest relations could sort which they did happily. Whilst there she accidentally cancelled our pre booked DAS for soaring so she put that back on as an anytime lightning lane pass which worked well for us.

Had to stop into club cool on the way past to taste Beverley. Actually we found the sour plum one from China to be the worst of them all 😂

We started to head over to Remi's and along the way Jenson stopped in Canada for a Pand-ade, and then in UK we popped into the Rose and Crown for a beer. We've found that we can't seem to find fruity ciders anywhere here, like a kopparberg 😂 so the boys had a Guinness and I had a raspberry vodka and lemonade.

Made it to Remis and this was just amazing. So much fun. Whilst in the queue for Remis I booked Frozen Ever After for an hours time which I knew would give us enough time to grab some lunch on the walk round to Norway.

We stopped in Japan, Jenson wanted some Frushi and Ethan and Amylee had the Chicken Yakatori which they really enjoyed. The frushi was also really refreshing.

We really enjoyed the Frozen ride, we needed a bit of a water ride as it was so hot.

We called into the bakery in Norway and had a Mickey Cinnamon Roll to share and Jenson had a rice pudding pot.

From here we had another advance DAS for Test Track so we headed there and I booked an on the spot pass for mission space.

Test track was amazing. Honestly so fun. I selected the ride picture for this but I've ended up with someone else's!

Outside of Test Track we stopped at Sunshine Griddle for Avocado Toast which was really good just a bit heavy on the avocado. Amylee and Ethan shared the Corned Beef brisket, they enjoyed it but the egg was a little on the snotty side.

On the way to Mission Space we were debating on orange or green. I had assured them all that Orange has bad reviews on the sickness side. All the boys ignored my advice and went for Orange. Myself and Amylee went on green. Needless to say Ethan and Kian were not OK after the Orange ride. Jenson and Andrew were fine though 😂

The last few rides all had short queue times, we did figment, living with the land, Soaring and Nemo and called it a day at 5pm
Headed back to the hotel and we spent an hour in the pool before getting ready and heading into Old Town for a nosy and some food.

We ended up in a place called Flippers Pizzeria which was absolutely phenomenal. The food was so good and our server was brilliant, we tipped her the full 25% as she was so good. Our drinks were running low she appeared with new ones without us asking. Her recommendations on which things were the best were also spot on.

We called it a night at 9.30 ready for Seaworld tomorrow!

[Charlangela]

Day 3 - Seaworld

Started the day a bit later today as we were all quite tired. Set off to Seaworld at 10am, and it was a nice drive until we were turning left into the car park queue and then it was gridlock. It took an hour almost to get to the car park.

Finally parked and got through the entrance which was also heaving.

Picked up 3 refillable drink cups and checked wait times for rides. Manta had 120 minutes which we assumed was because it's the first ride you get to.

We headed further in and by this point the sun was really strong so we decided to do journey to atlantis with a 5 minute wait. Although it wasn't a 5 minute wait, it was nearly 45 minutes. They updated the queue time halfway through to 20 minutes which was still wrong.

After that we went and grabbed a snack and sat down to watch Dolphin Adventures. This was amazing to watch. Such beautiful animals.
We then headed onto Kraken, this had a posted time of 20 minutes. We found boarding the rides to be really disorganised. There were no staff at the boarding point to let in quick queue or to tell you where to stand so people just went anywhere and everywhere. Shoved in front of you and the turn around times in the station, especially for Kraken were so slow. 5 minutes they were taking to disembark and board new people.

After Kraken we headed to Manta which now had a 35 minute posted queue time, I'd say we waited 10 minutes and we were on. We really loved the queue line for this with being able to see into the aquarium.

It was about 3.30 now so we headed for some food. Most of us had the Chicken burgers, kian had fish and jenson a kids chicken strip meal. Honestly the price of the food here is ridiculous, and it was so dry was really disappointed.

We were cutting it close to get to the sealion and otter show and Amylee still needed to do her insulin injection, so we arrived to the show just after 4pm. This was a good show but the animals today weren't playing ball which was also funny to watch.

Then it was time for Mako. Posted with a 25 minute queue and was an absolute walk on. We got straight back on as it was so good. We would have done it a 3rd time but we wanted to get to the Orca show.

The humidity had really kicked in and we were melting so we went for the soak zone. Again really good show but we all agreed our favorite was the Dolphin show.

We only had icebreaker left to go but just as we got there they closed all the rides due to inclement weather coming in so we called it a day and left.

Got home and had a bit more pool time before heading out to Outback. We ended up going really late due to a thunder and lightning storm that came in.

Food was brilliant here, so tasty. Will definitely be back.

I ended up driving there and back as Andrew had a beer by the pool and a couple more with tea. It was absolutely fine and I'm really starting to get the hang of it now!

Bed time was 11.45pm! Not many pictures today as I forgot to charge my phone and forgot the portable charger!

[Charlangela]

Day 4 - FA Cup Final, Shopping and Animal Kingdom.

8.30 am wake up today, seem to be getting later each day! Pottered around for a little bit and had breakfast then headed off to Murphys pub on International Drive to watch the FA Cup Final. I dropped the boys off then went to Orlando Outlet Marketplace with Amylee.

Bought a few goodies, I bought a face cream and a Kate Spade handbag and purse and Amylee some bits from Nike and some New Balance trainers. Stopped in the food court for a Charlie's philly cheesesteak as Amylee could feel her blood sugar's getting low.

Drove back to the boys just in time for penalties! Bloody tense, but yay Liverpool won so happy husband.

We had an advanced DAS selection booked for Navi River at 3.30 and Kilimanjaro Safari at 4.30 so after a quick pit stop at KFC we shot over to Animal Kingdom.

Made Navi River with 7 minutes to spare and hopped onto Kilimanjaro. After that we managed all other rides other than Dinosaur, and flight of passage is now definitely my new favorite ride.

Kali River Rapids got us the wettest we have ever been from a logflume.

We stayed until park closing to see Pandora at night and it did not disappoint. So beautiful. Left the park and headed to McDonald's. Jenson ordered a happy meal and let me tell you he was not impressed at the size of the fries he received 😂

In bed now at 11pm ready for an early start for discovery cove tomorrow 👌

[Charlangela]

Day 5 - Discovery Cove

Alarm was set for 6.30 today to ensure we were up and out for discovery cove.

We wanted to get there early for a decent dolphin swim timeslot. Set off just after half 7 and got there just before 8am.

Dolphin swim was at 1.45pm, great!

We went to Laguna Grill to grab some breakfast. Food was lovely.

After that we headed to the lockers and grabbed our vests. Nobody wanted a wet suit.

It was 10am now so we headed straight to the lazy river which was so so relaxing. The aviary is also open but you can only get to it through the lazy river. I had a lovely bird land on my head and it kept trying to eat my hair! After one go round on the lazy river, we headed for snacks. A beer for hubby and a pretzel and pop for everyone else.

We decided to go to the grand reef after this and WOW amazing. Once you got the hang of the snorkel etc this was such an amazing experience.

After an hour in here we did another lap of the lazy river and then headed off for our dolphin swim.

We were in the water for 5 minutes before being asked to leave as lightning was in the area.
15 minutes later we were back in and able to finish our interaction.

They did the side by side glide and the kiss was on the cheek. We actually got to meet two dolphins, not sure why but we weren't complaining. Again an unforgettable experience and well worth doing.

We then went for lunch but it was almost 3pm by this point. Can't complain at the food, was nice enough.

Another two goes in the lazy river and it was time to get showered and changed and head home. We were all severely burnt besides Jenson who I was hot on topping up, even with using our own Nivea Marine Safe sunscreen.

We got back for 6pm, and Andrew and the boys went to the bar whilst amylee and I apparently had a nap 😂

Andrew woke me at half 7 to tell me there was a storm coming in and if we wanted to miss it we needed to be leaving for tea like now.

Needless to say we got to Ihop as the heavens opened and we waited 10 mins before braving the run to the door.

They were severely understaffed at this one, west irlo bronson highway, but the server was great and really tried her best. Food was great no complaints.

It was 9.30 by now so we headed back, packed our bags ready to head off to Royal Pacific in the morning and crashed out just before 11pm.

[Charlangela]

Day 6 - Universal Studios

Alarms set for 7am today to make sure we were up and out the door ASAP to get to Royal Pacific for our one night stay. We arrived just after 8 and there was no queue at check in. Picked up the express passes and away we went to Universal. Took the usual pictures infront of the globe and the arches, and in we went.

Stopped and bought refillable mugs. These get really annoying throughout the day as there is no handle.

First stop was Minions, it was OK but nothing special. Rip ride rocket next which we loved. Youve got to be quick choosing music though!

Then we did transformers and this blew all the motion VR type rides out of the water, we loved this.

Followed by The Bourne Stuntacular which was out of this world. Never seen anything like it. Make sure you do it.

After this we headed over to citywalk to Panda Express. The food here was amazing but it was so hard to know what was what as the entrees weren't labelled and the lady behind the counter wasn't much help.

Back into Universal and did all the remaining rides. By the end of this I'd had to take 3 qwells with all of the motion sickness I was getting. Simpsons actually wasn't that bad!

We then went to Diagon Alley for some ice cream before getting on the Hogwarts Express to Islands of Adventure.

We decided not to entertain Hogsmeade tonight as it was really busy and we didn't have much time and I wanted to really take in the castle etc. So we headed for Hulk and Dr Doom.

After that we had our reservation for Cowfish and this is where it went down hill.

We had a reservation for 7.30pm but a table wasn't available for 30 minutes. We waited an hour for our food to turn up for it to be stone cold so we sent it all back. I've never had to send a full table of food back. We finally got our food just after 9pm and the only meal that was any good was Jensons Burgushi. Everyone else had burgers and they were just a bit dry.

They brought the bill with the tip added on and nothing deducted for how the evening had gone so we asked for the manager as they wanted nearly $300 which I absolutely wasn't paying when I'd had to return a full table of food and wait 2 hours. He knocked $60 off so in the end including tip we paid $233.

We called it a night here ready for early entry tomorrow.

[Charlangela]

Day 7 - Islands of Adventure.

Alarms set for 7 and we were all up and showered and out the door for 7.50am to get to early entry. We had planned to go straight to Hagrids but the queue was down to poseidons and the app showed delayed so instead we headed straight for Velocicoaster which was a 30 minute wait. I'd say we probably only waited 20 mins. This was absolutely phenomenal.

After this we headed back to the entrance to sort out an assistance pass for Amylee. It was forecast to be about 36 today and there was no way she could queue in that heat with no snacks etc for Hagrids with her diabetes. We had express pass for everything else just obviously can't utilise on Hagrids yet. That was sorted really easily so we popped into Croissant Moon Bakery for breakfast. We all had a ham cheese and egg croissant, except Jenson who had am Oatmeal Cookie.

After this we headed to Hagrids to get a return time. It was 10.30am and we were given a return time of 1pm. We then did all the rides in the Harry Potter area. Forbidden Journey was amazing.

It was getting super stifling so we decided to head over to jurassic park river adventure and we thought we were soaked. Little did we know 😂

We started to head over to Toon Lagoon to do the others but we passed Kong and Jenson wanted to do this. We waited far too long for this as they stopped the ride to add another vehicle and before we knew it we had to go back to Hagrids. WOW. Absolutely my favorite ride of the whole trip. So many elements so many surprises. You must do it.

We then headed to Popeye and Blutos Bilge Barge Rats and not a single part of us was dry. We weren't complaining though as the wet clothes kept us cool. We then went straight to Ripsaw Falls.

After this we headed for Spiderman as this was the last thing we needed to do. Jenson stopped to meet Cyclops and Wolverine along with Spiderman and then we called it a day.

We headed back to Panda Express and I also ran into Cinnabon for a vanilla cold brew and some bon bites before catching the boat back to Royal Pacific to get the car and come back to our main hotel.

An hour in the pool and then we got ready and headed off to our booking at the cheesecake factory. The food here was amazing. This totally made up for the mess that was Cowfish. Of course we were all stuffed so had to bring the cheesecakes home. Our server told Andrew that he'd only ever seen 5 people complete his meal in full (he had the parmesan chicken pizza style) so obviously he had to join the list 😂

Another great day and tomorrow I'm getting up early doing some washing then off to a water park, bit of shopping then into Magic Kingdom for the fireworks show, if there's not another thunderstorm!

[Charlangela]

Day 8 - Typhoon Lagoon and Enchantment

Woke up nice and early today to go down and make use of the free laundry facilities in the hotel. Done by 11 and headed off to Walmart as Ethan wanted a Rash Vest to cover his badly burnt shoulders in the water park.

After that we headed straight to Typhoon Lagoon. It was just after half 12 when we arrived. Headed straight to the wave pool for the big wave and then hit the lazy river. We then worked round all the slides and before we knew it, it was 5pm.

Headed home and got ready, called into Wendy's for tea and debated Magic Kingdom fireworks as it had been thundering and lightning but we decided to risk it. Was expecting to pay for parking but nobody was manning the booths so I think they may be free after a certain time?

We entered and I decided to book a DAS for us to use after enchantment at Space Mountain rather than be stuck in the mass crowds leaving.

We had a spot right near the ice cream parlour across from Caseys Corner and Jenson was really struggling to see, one people's phones and 2 other children up on shoulders etc. He ended up on Andrews back as he was getting really upset about not being able to see.

I enjoyed it but it really wasn't as good as the videos of Happily Ever After we had seen. Once finished we headed straight to Space Mountain. This was so funny, I ended up at the front and screamed all the way round as I couldn't see a thing.

We then managed to jump on the people mover. After this we stopped to get some pictures of the castle and headed back. The queues were awful to get out. People pushing and shoving. Made it back for midnight and tomorrow we are having late start and heading into Magic Kingdom in the afternoon.

[Charlangela]

Day 9 - Magic Kingdom

We had a super late start today not heading out of the room until 12.30.

We headed to perkins for breakfast which was really good. Food was great, portion sizes huge and prices reasonable. 6 adult meals and we paid $120 including 18% tip.

It was 1.30 when we left to head to Magic Kingdom. We started with pirates of the carribean, then big thunder mountain, haunted mansion, its a small world, splash mountain, space rangers spin and space mountain again. I think Space Mountain is now a personal fav among us all.

It was 7pm now so we headed off, stopping to get some pictures infront of the castle.

We stopped at main street confectionery on the way out and bought some treats. I now have all the anniversary coke bottles.

Leaving at this time was much less stressful than last night.

Came back to the hotel, had an hour in the pool then went to steak n shake for tea. I had the garlic burger as I've seen how much Kelly in here loves them and it did not disappoint 😂 the shakes were amazing too.

Decided we would do the mall tomorrow as it was forecast rain and its a good job as we've woke up to a weather alert today!