Just back - Hints, Tips and Recommendations

[grant_w]

We arrived back on Saturday after a 17-night trip. Over the next few days (or whenever I get chance) I'll update this thread with the various aspects of our trip to give thoughts and tips etc.
Before the trip/Travel - Breathe Assured, Purple Parking, Premier Inn, Heathrow, BA, Avis
During the trip - Universal, DC & Sea World parks, other days out

If anyone has any questions, please ask and I'll answer them individually too

[grant_w]

I'll start with Breathe Assured.
After weeks of total panic about the test, and self-isolating as much as we could, we booked our test with Breathe Assured for 8am the day before our flight.
We clicked on the link to the video call around 10 minutes early, and a few minutes before 8 the nurse joined the call. She was from South Africa. We confirmed all of our details, name address, passport details etc were the same as we had entered beforehand, and then started the test. It was pretty much the same test as the NHS gave out at one point, just a nose swab, but the nurse took us through it step by step to make it very easy. Once the swab had been taken and you put the drops into the test you have to angle your camera down to the test so they can see you aren't swapping it out for a previously taken test. Then just wait 15 minutes. We went over some more details so they knew they had the correct info for the certificate, and just chatted about random things til the time was up. Once we had confirmed it was a negative test, within seconds we had an email with out travel certificate. We had to check it all over before they would leave the call.

Overall it was very easy to do, you don't really need to be tech savvy, as long as you have a device with a camera and you can click a link on the email they send you then you would be alright. I'd certainly use them again.

[grant_w]

Purple Parking/Premier Inn

We went for the dibb-standard combination, having never been to either before.
We arrived at Purple Parking Bath Road at around 4pm, checked in and mentioned we were staying next door at the Premier Inn and would be coming back in the morning to use the transfer to the terminal. They said that was fine, just show your ticket the next morning.
The Premier Inn is huge! We checked in with a real person, as opposed to one of the machines as we wanted to check the situation with booking meals. As it turns out, its recommended to book dinner reservations with them, but if you are just going for breakfast (as we were) then there's no need to book that.
The room was fine, pretty standard for a PI.
In the morning after breakfast we checked out and met the rest of our party who were arriving that morning, and all walked round to Purple Parking. I had remembered to add our entire party of 5 onto our Purple Parking booking so we could all use the transfers each way too
I'd definitely use both of these again, not only were they reasonably priced, but they were extremely convenient too

[Slore]

Originally Posted by grant_w

Purple Parking/Premier Inn

We went for the dibb-standard combination, having never been to either before.
We arrived at Purple Parking Bath Road at around 4pm, checked in and mentioned we were staying next door at the Premier Inn and would be coming back in the morning to use the transfer to the terminal. They said that was fine, just show your ticket the next morning.
The Premier Inn is huge! We checked in with a real person, as opposed to one of the machines as we wanted to check the situation with booking meals. As it turns out, its recommended to book dinner reservations with them, but if you are just going for breakfast (as we were) then there's no need to book that.
The room was fine, pretty standard for a PI.
In the morning after breakfast we checked out and met the rest of our party who were arriving that morning, and all walked round to Purple Parking. I had remembered to add our entire party of 5 onto our Purple Parking booking so we could all use the transfers each way too
I'd definitely use both of these again, not only were they reasonably priced, but they were extremely convenient too

See more...

Thank you for sharing this. This is what we are doing for the first time in August.

[grant_w]

Flights

We got to Heathrow around 9:30 for our 13:30 flight, nice and early as we'd seen reports of huge queues at bag drop and security in recent days. We'd already completed the tasks on the VeriFly app and checked into our flight, so just had bag drop and security to get through.
30 minutes later and we were through bag drop and security... 3 1/2 hours before the flight... so it turns out some days aren't as busy

The flight was delayed coming in from Orlando so we had an hour delay, this turned into 2 hours so we left around 3:30. Luckily we made an hour of that back on the flight. BA were superb, the cabin crew couldn't do enough for us, dishing out loads of drinks, and a secret supply of biscuits from the galley at the back.

We were through Orlando Airport baggage and passport control in less than 30 minutes, so straight to pick the car up at Avis. We stopped off on the way to get our Visitor Toll Pass, there is a machine just before the walkway to the car hire garage. There's a machine which you have to scan the barcode on the VTP app and it gives you your pass. Mine didn't work, so luckily there were 2 staff members also at the desk who could help, it turned out I hadn't changed my credit card since I got a new one a couple of weeks before. Once I corrected that on the app it worked.

Over to the Avis garage. We picked up our car from the desk in the garage, plus I wanted to add myself as a second driver using the BA Executive Club offer. I just gave them by drivers licence and they reprinted the agreement with me on it, no selling whatsoever, and I checked the balance said 0.00 on it so off we went.

We had booked a full-size car for 5 adults, assuming we'd have to get an Uber to and from the airport as we knew the luggage wouldn't fit. As it was late, we crammed all 5 big suitcases, 4 cabin cases, 3 rucksacks and a laptop bag in! We had a Nissan Altima, wasn't the best to be honest, didn't have Android Auto/Car Play, and it had an annoying vibration when we reached 60mph, and had recently been in a minor accident with the rear wheel arch all scuffed up. We did try to swap it in at a different Avis on a trip out one day, but the queue was huge and after about 20 minutes the queue hadn't moved, so we gave up and just put up with it, it wasn't too bad to be honest.

[DavrosMackenzie]

I was going to post but then saw this so I'll hijack this one with my own as we've just got back. I don't want to create unnecessary posts!

So we flew Are Lingus. Number one recommendation is to do verify and do all forms and checkin before getting to the airport. We flew from Manchester, joined the queue and unfortunately got stuck behind a load of cheer leaders who hadn't done verify or the CDC form. What we didn't realise is that you could scan your boarding pass at an automated checking station and print your luggage tag and then jump the queue. So it really pays to checkin the night before, they are so understaffed that there were only 2 people checking people in, if it wasn't for my partner leaving the queue and asking someone we'd have been there another hour.

Security was quick and easy, we had fast track but it probably only saved us 10 minutes.

No masks on the plane or both airports.

In terms of Are Lingus, they are not Virgin but good enough to get us there, I probably will fly Virgin next time though.

The car:- arriving in the afternoon, after a virgin meant there was a poor selection of cars, I picked one up and didn't complain as we were tired and needed to get to the villa, my daughter needed the rest. I did take it back next day to exchange it though as it was awful.

The parks:- They are quieter than normal. Ride times are low and if a ride like Seven Dwarfs says 60 minutes, its more like 45, the line is constantly moving too. Rise of the Resistance breaks down all the time so prepare for that if you join the queue. It is worth the wait though.

Mobile ordering food is the best thing ever, use it.

Park hopping, my son sometimes slept in and didn't come out in the morning, he would join us in the afternoon when we park hopped. Disney did not like the fact he hadn't checked in to the first park in the morning and eventually said they wouldn't allow him in after the first few times.

Universal is much quieter too and ride times low, ordering food through their app is not as elegant as Disneys however.

NASA was great and the same as we remember from 2014, no changes so if you've been before it might not be worth it?

Seaword park:- Oh dear... Discovery was great, apart from the aviary not being open but Seaward park itself was a disaster, half the rides closed, shows halved in time, there seemed to be way more gift shops than before, no gators!

Half the park didn't even open till 11, it opened at 10 which I'm sure is later than it used to be. Honestly, if you're going soon I wouldn't buy tickets thinking you'll get the same experience. Skip it.

We had a pass for Busch Gardens but didn't go, we don't really like that park with all the animals directly under rides, they just look sad and badly done to. If Seaward was anything to go by I suspect it wouldn't of been great anyway.

Expenses:- Everything is more expensive, the exchange rate is worse obviously but food, merchandise, parking cost a lot more.

Merchandise is not as good as it used to be either, the variety or the supply.

Leaving and checking in to MCO was easy and fast so nothing to worry about there.

Some negative things here but we were there 3 weeks and the weather was glorious every day. We had a fantastic time and if anyone is doubting going during covid recovery don't worry, just go.
The Disney Parks are still the best and next time, which we are already planning obviously will be onsite at Disney.

[grant_w]

I'll get to my park reviews later but I had no problems with Sea World or Busch Gardens. The only thing that was not open was Infinity Falls at SW and Falcon's Fury and Congo River at BG. I guess the shows are now shorter as they have cut out most of the 'doing tricks' items and concentrate more on natural behaviours.

[DavrosMackenzie]

Manta and the penguin ride were closed for us. Proper love Manta so was disappointed!

[grant_w]

Originally Posted by DavrosMackenzie

Manta and the penguin ride were closed for us. Proper love Manta so was disappointed!

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The penguin ride doesn't exist anymore, it's just a walk through exhibit now.
As I said in another post somewhere, they said Manta was closed while we were there, but it was open on both visits. It does seem pretty random

[DavrosMackenzie]

Ah, that's a shame about the penguin ride! Oh well.

The other thing I forgot to add is we never used genie plus, the only times I planned on using it, like for Slinky dog and Rise of the Resistance it wasn't available due to being on-site guests only.