All Villa No Filler - Day 1: Travel day - Orlando via Philadelphia

[Stewboy]

The Index

Saturday 22nd July 2017

Good morning all, we’re off on holiday today.

Despite how comfortable the Premier Inn bed was (Sir Lenny don’t lie!) Jo didn’t get a great night’s sleep; she was tired but apparently found the duvet to be too heavy.

After the 5:45am alarm, I made tea, and then got dressed to go down to Costa in the lobby to get us a coffee and some croissants. From what we could find on the internet breakfast didn’t start until about 6:30am, and as we were leaving at 7:30am it was going to be a bit of a rush.

Jo had planned ahead and booked the ‘Escape’ lounge at Terminal 3 so at least we could fill ourselves up AND get a seat - we’d heard some horror stories about long queues at the Costa in Terminal 3 and the lack of seating - so we just needed something light to help us on our way.

I made my way down the stairs to the lobby, headed to the Costa, and found it shut. When I asked at the check-in desk what time it open they said 9 o’clock. 9 o’clock?! Really?! A coffee shop in a hotel near an airport doesn’t open until 9 o’clock? Who thought that was a good idea?

Returning to the room empty handed, it then transpired that breakfast was being served from 5:30am (as is now detailed on their website - it wasn’t before) but it was too late now anyway - we didn’t want or need a big breakfast as we had paid for the lounge.

With Isabella now awake, we made do with some crisps, raisins, and tea to tide us over, and then got ready to start our holiday.


Morning


Mmmm, raisins

Checking out at 7:35am, we drove the 10 minutes to Manchester Airport Terminal 1/3 Long Stay Car Park. Finding a space was a real issue as it was rammed. Eventually we squeezed into one, and quickly unloaded and bid farewell to Katie (our car). We hauled the cases over to the closest bus stop (Red Zone Bus Stop 10) and waiting impatiently for a bus.


Remember where we parked


On our way to the bus stop


Waiting for the bus


Here it comes!

The bus arrived about 10 minutes later; watching them enter the other side of the car park and move slowly up and down the rows is a pretty frustrating experience, but it was here now, so we loaded our cases, car seat, stroller and child onto the bus and were on our way.

It was about 8am by now and everything was taking longer than it should have done. With a bus full of people it was inevitable that we would be the first (and only) people to get off and I can only imagine everyone’s mounting sense of frustration as I unloaded our cases from the bus in about five trips outside Terminal 3.

Crossing the road from the bus stop to the terminal building (which was very close), we made our way to check in, and headed to the self check-in kiosks with our boarding passes already printed out. What is supposed to be a straightforward process (but rarely is) turned out to be a real pain as we couldn’t get the kiosk to print out the oversized baggage tags (for the stroller and car seat). An attendant came over to help, but ended up only printing off the oversized baggage tags and no other bag tags!


Kiosk fun

Having already checked in online Jo was understandably annoyed with the entire process and we ended up having to ask the person at bag drop to help us, after we had waited in the long queue to get to her. She couldn’t just add the extra bags on and had to cancel the tags and completely start again. It was frustrating, to say the least.

We finally were done and it was time to head through security. We dropped off the oversized baggage and joined the queue, about an hour after arriving at the airport. We had received Fast Track passes with our car park booking, but they were not needed at all. In fact, I’m not convinced we didn’t wait longer in the Fast Track line than the normal one!

As with most airports there was an air of confusion as we approached the conveyor belts. What should and shouldn’t be in bags had not been communicated in good time, resulting in lots of airport staff barking at travellers who had not followed the last minute instructions correctly!

The way that Manchester deals with this is that everyone that gets it wrong gets to have their bag checked post-scanner at a table. The amount of people and bags afforded this special attention should perhaps give them some indication that they need to give people better information about the requirements!

I was lucky to be selected for extra security checks for not only one bag, but two. Whilst Jo and Isabella headed off to duty free I got to watch someone open my bag in front of me and tell me which electronic device I’d deliberately left in there to annoy them! And to add the fun, they refused to do the two bags at the same, and I had to wait for a different person to wander over and pick up my other bag and go through it with me. The offending items turned out to headphones (why?) and an DVD player for the car.

With the bags back in my possession I swiftly made my way to catch up with Jo and Isabella. I was foiled again though, this time by a recently landed flight deplaning it’s passengers into the corridor between security and duty free. This meant nobody could walk through to duty free until it was finished and the queue backed up quite rapidly. So far, Manchester really seemed to have it in for me!


Waiting for passengers to deplane

Finally I made it to duty free, and found Jo and Isabella browsing the perfumes. Jo had already bought herself some new headphones and another USB/American plug; with four devices and only two of these, we were probably going to need it.

After about 15 minutes buying aftershave for me, some alcohol for the villa, and some Clinique, we finally making our way to the ‘Escape’ lounge to get some proper breakfast, and some much needed coffee.

Once again this wasn’t straightforward, as the two groups of people in front of us took an age to check in; the first person had actually booked the lounge at Terminal 1(!), and the second family had no boarding passes which caused a problem for the lady on the desk.

Eventually we were in, and determined to make the most of the £67.50 it had cost us to book. With only about half an hour until we needed to go to our gate, it was highly doubtful that we would get our money’s worth, which is a shame because if all had gone to plan we would have had a nice couple of hours to relax and enjoy the coffee, pastries and hot food on offer.






The lounge

Speed was of the essence, so we wasted no time in getting pastries and coffee (latte for Jo, flat white for me) and ordering sausage baps, followed by bacon baps and another coffee.

Half an hour later we had to leave - that was a fairly expensive 30 minutes, but it’s a nice lounge and I think we might go for it again in October when we’re here again.






The food


Tucking in

The gate was our next destination, and as we were in a rush we avoided WH Smith and picked up some water from a kiosk on the way to the gate.

At the gate, the flight wasn’t boarding yet, so I was despatched back to the main terminal to get the ‘buy a newspaper <The Telegraph> get a free bottle of water’ deal from Smith’s. We’re not fans of the Telegraph but Isabella found something in the paper that she really liked: a British Gas boiler ad insert. It went everywhere with us for the rest of the day!


"Daddy, we should get a new boiler!"


"So, shall we get a new boiler?"

At 10:30am it was finally time to board our plane - hurrah! We were seated in a four in the centre (it was a 2-4-2 seating layout); the man next to me was from Philadelphia and had been in Southport watching the Golf Open Championship. We spoke briefly about golf, despite the fact I have no interest or knowledge of it - I don’t think he caught on.

Prior to takeoff, a man near to us realised that he had left something at security - his MacBook. He was told that he would have to collect it on his return to Manchester, as it was too late to get it. However, one of the airport staff went out of their way and managed to recover it for him - an act that he was nowhere near appreciative enough of.


Plane selfie

It was 11:00am when we finally made it into the air. We were flying American Airlines (although by the age of the cabin crew, ‘Cocoon Airlines’ was more appropriate) and the seat back entertainment, whilst good in terms of content, was pretty poor in terms of quality, constantly cutting out and being unresponsive.

Despite these issues, Jo managed to watch ‘Avatar’ - to refresh her memory in preparation for visiting Pandora - and the recent ‘Beauty & The Beast’ film. Isabella also watched ‘Beauty & The Beast’ and then looked through one of the magazines that she brought with her, before she watched ‘Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone’.

For my viewing pleasure, I decided to watch ‘John Wick - Chapter 2’ (not as good as the first one IMO) and like Jo, ‘Avatar’.

About 12pm it was time for lunch. Our plan to buy Isabella a sandwich for the plane had been forgotten and she didn’t fancy the pasta or the chicken, instead settling for the roll with some laughing cow cheese followed by the apple crumble dessert.


Lunch

Jo and I both went for the pasta, it was ok but we weren’t really that hungry anyway. Jo had wine and I had a Sam Adams - as did my seat neighbour - we got the last two. As well as our mutual love of golf(!) it seems we also like Sam Adams beer.

The after dinner coffee included an amusing incident in which a member of the cabin crew accidently threw sachets of sugar at me; I said I didn’t need sugar, he misheard me and tried to give me sugar, I tried to gesture ‘no’ and he thought I was holding out my hand and let go. Sugar shower.


"Urghhh. Someone's having tomato juice!"


Excited


Watching a film

Seven hours from takeoff and we were in the ‘City of Brotherly Love’. The flight had been ok, aside from the last 20 minutes when we’d experienced some really bad turbulence - we left our seats at one point! Some people were screaming, fearing death was imminent, whereas Isabella thought of it as the first rollercoaster ride of the holiday - she had her hands up in the air and everything!

That whole episode had left me feeling pretty sick and I was relieved when, at about 1:30pm local time (6:30pm to us), we finally landed on solid ground. Once we’d deplaned we made our way to passport control where we joined the ever increasing queue - no self service kiosks here.

After about ten minutes snaking back and forth across the immigration hall we were fortunate that, as new Customs and Border Patrol officers became available we were seen quickly, and Jo even made him laugh with a Disney World related joke!

We recovered from that shock and made our way to collect our luggage, which was already on the carousel. Bag drop for those of us travelling on to Orlando was a short walk away and as we approached the man putting the bags on a conveyor belt, Jo noticed a sign stating that all duty free must go in checked luggage, even duty free that had been sealed in security bags, resulting in some hasty case repacking at the conveyor belt - there may have been underwear on the floor at one point! This led to the man turning to Isabella and telling her that she’d be on her way to Disney World just as soon as her mum and dad had sorted themselves out - thanks for that mate...

Now that the bags were once again entrusted to American Airlines, we headed to security and yet another line. After a short wait we were amongst a small group that were escorted, via a parking garage, and long corridor, to an empty security area. On this five minute trek we chatted to our fellow travellers, one of whom was English and was taking his young son to take part in a BMX championship in South Carolina. What a great experience for them both!


Queuing is thirsty work






Taking a detour

Once finally through security we headed through the airport to our gate taking in the sights of the airport as we went; it’s a nice airport with numerous displays celebrating Philadelphia’s culture and heritage.

With not much time to explore, we got to the gate, grabbed a coffee, and were soon ready for boarding. On this flight we were sitting as a three by the window, near the back of the plane. The flight before ours had been cancelled due to bad weather and the plane was full, with families spread over the plane. Just prior to take off one of the cabin crew asked me what my name was, and who I was travelling with. She then got on the phone to tell someone that I was a parent with a child. Jo speculated that they had my seat earmarked via lottery to vacate, in order to make room for someone with more priority who needed to be on the flight. If that was the case, then it was a good job I wasn’t flying solo, otherwise it would’ve taken me a long time to get Orlando…








Philadelphia

The flight took off; Isabella was tired and slept all the way, I dozed a little too, and while the two of us slept, we missed out on all the excitement as Jo witnessed eight rainbows out of her window! I’m sure you’ll agree that’s impressive! Unfortunately Jo wasn’t able to capture photographic evidence of this phenomenon - she couldn’t get her phone as Isabella was sleeping on her lap, and she didn’t want to wake me up to borrow mine.

Fortunately for us, all is not lost as Jo has put her artistic skills to use in order to capture the magnificence of these natural phenomena - I’m sure you’ll agree that she has done a fantastic job…


Jo's rainbows

By 6:30pm (11:30pm UK time) we had arrived in Orlando. We made our way off the plane, tired but excited to have finally arrived, and rode our first ride of the holiday: the monorail, or more specifically the brand new Mitsubishi Automated People Movers (APM). Now that’s a name that belongs in Tomorrowland, the future has finally arrived people!

Arriving from an internal flight at MCO and not having to go through immigration or worry about the double bag drop is a joyous thing! With the bags not yet arrived at the carousel we decided to go and get some dinner as it was late, we were hungry, and we didn’t want Isabella (nor me) having a hunger induced meltdown on the drive to the villa.


Riding the APM!


Isabella getting a lift to dinner

So what to eat for dinner? Jo knew exactly what she wanted: Panda Express! Having not eaten it since Texas during the volcanic ash cloud (another story, for another time) I went for it too:

• Me: Mushroom chicken, string bean chicken, chow mein
• Jo: Orange chicken, beef & broccoli, fried rice

This ended up costing us $17.23.

But what about Isabella? She’d decided that she wanted a quesadilla but unfortunately Moe’s Southwest Grill was out of cheese! Fortunately she was happy with a slice of pizza, so I got her a slice of cheese pizza from Sbarro for $4.25.

Whilst in line for pizza, there was an English family in front of me trying to order a slice of Margherita pizza. There were two things wrong with this:

• Margherita isn’t listed on the menu - cheese and tomato pizza is
• The people working at Sbarro had never heard of a margherita pizza - how is that possible?

Anyway, I digress. Once Isabella had her pizza we all ate and felt much better for it. After eating we returned to the luggage carousel which by this time was empty of both luggage and people. We could see our cases in amongst those that remained, all bar one. The main one. With all the clothes in it.


Chinese


Pizza

There was a man scanning bags who pointed me in the direction of the American Airlines baggage office, so off I went. I spoke to someone in the officer and had go and get Jo and the rest of the cases so that they could confirm which bag we were missing.

It transpired that our bag hadn’t made it onto the connecting flight at Philadelphia due to it being picked out and searched by the TSA - probably due to having Jo’s hair dryer and straighteners in it, neither of which she ended up needing as both were supplied in the villa!

The American Airlines lady assured us that our case would be be loaded onto the next flight, due to land at about 8:45pm. With the time currently about 8pm, I asked her to confirm that it would actually land at that time. After a quick check, she said that actually it was delayed due to weather and it wouldn’t be in until 9:30pm.

We had two choices: wait at the airport for an hour and a half for the bag, or go to the villa and get the bag sent out once it arrived.

Our decision was to wait, and while doing so we may aswell go and sort out the rental car, as we really didn’t want to wait till the next day for the bag to arrive.

Making our way over to the parking garage we headed straight to the Avis booth. This would be our first experience renting from Avis (part of our BA flydrive) as we always use Alamo - and have always been happy with them.


Disappointed when we realised Stewart S. wasn't me

We spoke to the man at the Avis booth briefly (too briefly as it turned out - we got a load of unwanted extras added to our account ) and found our car. At this point I’m reminded of Luke Skywalker’s first impression of the Millennium Falcon: “What a piece of junk”. This car had multiple scratches, it was dirty, and the SunPass stuck to the window had fallen off.

As we had time, and as Avis Preferred customers, the ability to swap our car with any in the ‘Exchange Lane’ we killed some time by looking at the options. They were all pretty much the same aside from large truck (a Ram!) with no luggage space that Jo tried to talk me into (I’m sure she was joking).


Fancy a truck?

Eventually we decided to stick with our car, which we christened ‘Virginia’ on account of it having a Virginia license plate, which informed us that Virginia is for lovers… who knew?!

We loaded the luggage (minus one) into the car and then walked back over to the terminal to find out the latest progress on our missing case.


Treebeard points the way

On the way back into the terminal, we’d checked the progress of the flight online so had a good idea that it had been delayed yet further, which the American Airlines lady confirmed. It was now due at about 11:00pm, and there was no way we could hang around the airport any longer so we arranged for them to deliver the case to us at our villa. Their initial estimate was that it would take about 4 hours to get it dispatched, meaning it would be with us in the early hours of the morning! After some discussion they agreed delivering it between 12-1pm would be a better idea. Fortunately this wouldn’t impact on our next day plans too much as we had planned to spend the day chilling out at the villa anyway.

As you can imagine, after a long, tiring, and at times stressful day, we didn’t really want to be dealing with this. Fortunately, as we’d stayed at the Premier Inn the night before, we did have some (dirty) clothes and toiletries in one of the other cases, so it wasn’t all a total disaster. We were also lucky that Isabella was coping so well with the whole situation despite her obvious tiredness.

Decision made, it was back to the parking garage we went - reacquainting ourselves with ‘Virginia’ and finally leaving MCO 2.5 fun filled hours after we’d arrived…

The drive to the villa was uneventful and only took about 40 minutes. The villa is at The Manors, Westridge, just off of US Route 27 between the I-4 and US Route 192. We were recommended the villa by fellow Dibber JoJo88 and upon arrival first impressions were extremely favourable. It was a welcome sight after our long day to walk into a spacious, beautifully decorated villa; place settings were out, the lighting was subtle and there was a welcome pack on the kitchen counter and in the fridge which contained essentials such as bread, milk, water, butter and teabags.


The welcome pack

We unpacked the bags and Isabella got to chose which bedroom she wanted to sleep in. She had a choice of three: one twin bed room with Mickey and Minnie bedding, one twin bed room with more neutral bedding, and a double bedroom with en suite bathroom. She opted for the Mickey and Minnie room and was soon in her pajamas, asleep. Jo and I got the spacious master bedroom with the large ensuite bathroom and walk in closet.

The garage has been turned into a ‘Man Cave’ which, as well as containing a pool table and table tennis, also houses a washing machine and tumble dryer. As an aside, Jo was scared of the Man Cave for the entirety of our stay, and insisted that I accompany her whenever she ventured in there to deal with the washing.




Man Cave


Dining and living area


Kitchen and breakfast nook


Master bedroom


2nd Master bedroom


Twin bedroom

Once we’d braved the Man Cave, we had showers then sat down to relax with a well deserved glass of duty-free-bought Jameson’s with welcome-pack-provided Coke.

A nice touch was to find that our annual pass Magic Bands had arrived. Jo had got them delivered to the villa management company who had very kindly got them to the villa for our arrival.

We finished our drinks, the washing was clean and dry, it was time for bed. It was 12:20am local time which means for us it was 5:20am and we’d been up almost 24 hours.


The Magic Bands


Cheers!


Isabella's TR Day 1

And so concludes Day 1. Thanks for reading, stay tuned for day 2!


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All of my trip reports in one handy place

[sarahc]

Sounds like an exhausting day! Looking forward to the rest of your report, as always! 😊

[Pumba75]

It's Friday evening here in Fl, I'm enjoying a beer whilst watching a particularly spectacular lightning show and now catching up on your report - good times!

Sounds like things could have gone smoother for you, but the villa looks fantastic.

Things I've learnt from this day:

- Crisps and raisins are an acceptable breakfast
- American Airlines serve Sam Adams (I wish I'd known this last week!)
- Jo has a photographic memory and an artistic flair
- When I need advice on a new boiler then I should consult Isabella.

Great work, as always - thanks for sharing.

[Minnie Mum]

Oh gosh- indirect flights. We are flying Heathrow- Phil- Mco. Think I might keep spare clothes in hand luggage😣 Helpful to know to keep space to duty free purchase in case.
Isabelle did amazingly well- love the hands up during turbulence 😄 Looking forward to the rest of your trip.

[twinkly-tink]

Wow I m exhausted just reading about your long travel day! Villa looks great...!

[juless77]

Great read thanks for sharing x

[halloweenbaby2]

What an eventful and exhausting travel day!
I've got to admire you all on how well you coped!
Have a wonderful holiday.

[scottishvixen]

What a day?! Can't wait to read more

[katie]

What an amazing TR. So much detail which is so helpful to me as we go from Manchester T3 on AA to Chicago. I am hoping to use the Business Class check in desks rather than the self-service terminals which will eliminate one delay. I have had experience of missing luggage in MCO but ours was in the airport - it just took them about an hour to find all 4 of them. Never had a dirty, scratched car with Avis in the past so I hope that they are not letting their standards slip.

[Buffton]

What an exhausting day for you all! Villa looks lovely. Hope your bag turned up the next day?! Enjoying having another one of your reports to read! Hope you're all well and enjoying the summer holidays! Lizzie x