Here now! - First WDW Family Holiday - Day 22, Going home, so we are not 'here now' any more!

[scottishnellie]

I was up at 7:30 before the alarm went off and looked over to see Kieran waking up too. By the time I had showered and got ready, the others were awake so we all dressed and headed for breakfast. Breakfast was not included with our room but we were told they had a special rate before 8:30am of 2 adults for $15 and kids under 10 eat free. So we were $22 in total for all 4 of us as we paid $7 for Hannah.

The pic above is just of the fridge and microwave as I forgot to include it yesterday!

It was ok. In fact it was great for the price. You could not eat in it for a fortnight but could certainly do so for 4 or 5 days. I took some photos of what was on offer and there was tea and 3 types of coffee.

Once we had ascertained yesterday that the building and facilities were fine, our next concern was what type of folk stay here, and does it feel safe (is that just us?) but it was fine. It was full of families, no groups of young folk, no rowdyness, and this was evident at breakfast too. We have came away feeling we could definitely stay here for a week or so as a base for the parks with no problem, and are seriously considering looking at it as a first week on a budget for next year, leaving extra £ for a nice villa for the last fortnight. We could see online they were doing 5 nights for $125. If you are on a budget and get a good deal for this place I would say do it. It is 3 star, but it is clean and decent.

We left at 10:45 and since we did not need to be at the airport until 1:30 we headed for our home from home Premium Outlets on Vineland. I have lost count of how many times we have been in here now! But we had time to kill and it would be cool, and Kevin wanted a last look at converse. I also wanted to check the price of Morrocan Oil shampoo and Conditiomer as I buy this at home. That was our first stop but it was not really cheaper than at home at $26 a bottle when I pay £17.85 at my local salon for the same size.

Onto converse where Kevin looked and tried on but did not buy anything. I on the other hand, after insisting I was all shopped out, wanted nothing else, would not be buying, yadda yadda, spotted a really cute pair of baby blue converse, for $34.99 with another 30% of making them a bargainous $26 inc tax. Kerrching! I am going to bling the toes of these ones with my hot wand and Swarovski crystals when I get home as they are just crying out for it.

Hannah wandered about her beloved Charlotte Russe but was also feeling a bit shopped out and, shock horror, for the first time left this shop without buying anything. Although she did say “I am saving twice as much for next year mum so I can run riot in here when I come back!”

I had a nosey around Guess to see if they had anything new since last week but I was just done shopping by then.

We headed back to the car and set the SatNav for the Airport. Hubby started having a freak out about it being for the airport and not specifically for Alamo rental return, no matter how much I assured him it would be bound to be clearly signposted. Sure enough as we got near it could not have been more clear where to go and we found the car return with ease, drove in and the attendant scanned our windscreen barcode. He then told Kevin the only charge would be $60 for gas. Eh no. We paid for the full tank at the exit booth when we hired it. He said his records showed different and we could take it up with customer services. I sure would pal. I left Kevin with the kids and cases and set off for customer services. After a few minutes of discussion she agreed to charge it at the prepaid rate and refunded me $18.

Into the airport, up to check in. Because I was so convinced the flight was empty I asked and was told there were 37 people on it. I asked if that meant we could get a freebie upgrade to premium (cheeky) but she said there was no premium on this flight. Boarded to find all 37 people had been seated in the centre part of the aircraft with premium at the front closed off and the back section closed off. We took off half an hour early as boarding was so quick. There was plenty of space and once up in the air and the setbelt signs off, everyone spread out all over the place. They also had too much food so the dads had 2 meals each (chicken and beef). It wasn't to the standard of the outbound James Martin ones but perfectly acceptable. The films and upgraded films were the same.

Other than us it was mostly Americans on the flight. The air hostesses were really attentive to the kids, probably as they had virtually nothing to do. It was weird seeing everyone laid out across 4 seats and it was certainly the first time (and probably the last) that I have lain flat out on a plane.

We landed an hour early at 11:30 US time and 4:30am UK time. Kieran had slept for around an hr towards the end so a bit groggy getting off, but other than that we were fairly refreshed. What was funny was trying to find all the kids shoes, blankets and toys as they had been spread about all over the place.

No queue to get through passport control as only our wee flight had come in, collected the cases within 5 minutes as there were so few of them. We were in a taxi and away.

We were home by 5:30. This was soooooo much better than going to Manchester. My lovely wee mammy had been in and left us fresh milk, bread and bagels so we had some tea and toast (has to be done eh?) before bed. Kevin decided just to stay up. I went to sleep until 9:30 UK time so we will see how the jetlag goes later. It is currently 3pm and I feel fine.

Today? Well I have already done the small amount of washing we returned home with (massive advantage of staying in a villa). I need to find wardrobe space for all our new gear. Kevin has gone out to buy a blu-ray player so we can watch our discovery cove dvd and my mum is coming over to see us and hear any snippets she has not already read in the TR, which she was glued to every morning. I will be checking the credit card statement, balancing the books, and if there is enough cally dosh left over, I will be seeing if those Thomas Cook flights I had my eye on for the same time next year are still at the same price (fingers crossed dibbers!). Then later I think a glass of wine and some catch up telly is in order before work tomorrow.

Well, it has been a truly wonderful holiday, largely thanks to everything I learned over the past year on the Dibb which allowed me to plan some amazing days with my family and friends. I owe this forum a lot. Thanks to all of you who stayed with us along the way reading the TR too. The comments on the TRs each day really do make it worthwhile to write it, and I am really grateful for that as I will now have this to look back on. I will at the end of this week go back into the days and check whether I have missed any comments of questions so I apologise in advance if I have so far. It is quite hard keeping up with those as well as writing each day so I will hopefully have more time now.

I will also probably write an overview of our highs and (not very many) lows too and chuck it in here over the next couple of weeks as so far all the way home all we have talked about is top 5 rides, top 5 meals, top 3 parks etc etc!

When I posted on facebook this morning that I was sad to be going home a friend reminded me of this most perfect reply

YOU GOTTA GO BACK TO COME BACK!

Love it!