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Old 27 Jul 17, 07:37 PM  
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Fuellady
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No Parks, Just Relax - Day 11- Hurricane Matthew, Olive Garden, Travel Home - Thurs 6th Oct 2016

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No Parks, Just Relax – Day 11- Thursday 6th October 2016

Hurricane Matthew, Olive Garden, Travel Home

For days now we had been following the progress of Hurricane Matthew on the news and weather programmes as the storm approached Florida. We woke around 8am but lay in bed until after 9 watching the news for the latest updates in case it affected our travel later today. During that time, the house phone rang and it was Dianne, the lady we had rented the villa from. She was checking with us how the weather was at the moment. She very kindly offered for us to stay there for longer if our flight was cancelled as she didn’t have any guests coming in immediately after us.

She told us that the weather reports often exaggerate the severity of the hurricanes. Neil asked if there was anything we could do, like take the outdoor furniture into the garage for example, but she told us just to leave everything as it was.

Shortly afterwards, we decided that we should phone British Airways to see if they knew if our flight was still going. Neil got a BA call centre in India when he phoned and explained that there was a hurricane heading our way and we didn’t know if our flight would still be going. The call centre person very unhelpfully told us that he didn’t know anything about that and it was a lovely day where he was! Eventually they offered to change the flight but since we hadn’t had any notification of it being cancelled and BA didn’t know anything about it we decided just to wait.

We got showered, and then about 11am Neil got a text from BA saying that we should go to the airport early so that the flight could take off early. Check in was now 4.30pm-6.30pm for our flight. Now that we knew what we were doing, we ate the muffins we had got from Perkins yesterday for breakfast. We ate outside as even though the storm was approaching it was still warm at the moment. While we were outside, we facetimed June, Neil’s Mum and Eilidh to let them know what was happening. We couldn’t facetime Shannon as she has a full Uni day on Thursdays so she wouldn’t be around but we sent her a whatsapp instead. We caught Eilidh as she was just home from school and we chatted with her for a little while. She was looking forward to us coming home and had been regretting not coming with us!

After we had finished breakfast we came back in and stripped the bed and put the bedding in the washing machine. We spent the next while doing chores – putting on the dishwasher, washing towels, tumble drying the bedding, finishing our packing. Neil popped out to give a passer-by who was walking his dog the left over beers. He was very grateful apparently!

We finished off in plenty time, and watched TV for any further updates on Hurricane Matthew. We learned that the airport was closing at 8pm and our flight had originally been due to take off at 8.05pm so that explained why it had been brought forward.

We locked up the villa and left at 2pm. We decided to get something to eat before heading to the airport so we stopped at Olive Garden on the 192. We arrived at 2.10pm and there was a sign on the door saying they were closing at 3pm. It was very busy and we waited around 15 minutes for a table. We had the lunch duo again, minestrone soup for both of us then Neil had the rigatoni again and I had tortellini. We didn’t get our breadsticks until the soup arrived, which was understandable as they were rushed off their feet. Neil was feeling sick and didn’t eat any breadsticks. He was just really anxious to get going to the airport in case the weather deteriorated. It was very overcast now, the wind was getting up and it was starting to rain a bit.






We finished our meal and it was bang on 3pm when we were leaving the restaurant. Even though they were meant to be closing then there were still loads of people eating. As we left there was a manager by the door locking it behind everyone who went out. As we were getting into the car a family approached the door of the restaurant and were turned away.

We started heading to the airport but missed our turning as the 192 was very busy now, so we took the turning onto the 417 from Celebration instead. The 417 south bound was at a standstill for miles and we felt lucky that we were going north. Our side of the road was entirely clear.




The rain was very heavy now and there were signs that all tolls were suspended on the way to the airport.



We arrived at the airport at 3.50pm, handed back the car and went straight up to check in. The queue for check in was really long already, along from the desk and round the corner to the bottom of the shops. Check in wasn’t open yet, but everyone had obviously made sure they were there in plenty of time. While we were queuing, more and more flights were being cancelled.



They started checking in about 4.20pm, when we got to the front of the line my bag was a tiny bit over but nothing was said. Neil’s was a bit under so maybe that was why. They were advising everyone to go straight to security so that’s what we did. Security was actually quite quick although Neil got stopped and checked. Once through, we sat on a bench and charged our phones up for a while. The duty free shop and some of the other shops were shut already.



After a while we went through to departures, which was absolutely heaving. We eventually found 2 seats right at the back of the room nowhere near our own gate. After we were settled there I decided that I would go back and get a Starbucks as it was still open when we came through here. However, by the time I got back it was closed.

We waited ages in departures, our plane didn’t arrive until 7.20pm. It was getting so close to the airport shutting at 8pm now that we were worried that they would decide not to let the flight go, but in the end we started boarding about 7.40pm. We didn’t take off until 8.24pm after the airport was closed. We were just glad to be away before the storm hit.

On the flight we got a cold drink after about an hour and then a while later some cheese pasta for dinner as the chicken dish was finished. I slept as best I could for most the flight, Neil watched Star Trek and tried to sleep a bit because he had to drive all the way home from Edinburgh later. We got breakfast about an hour before landing, it was a cream cheese pretzel and biscuits.

We landed on time at Heathrow and cleared immigration, then we waited until it was time for our flight to Edinburgh. We received a drink each (water for me, coke for Neil) on the flight to Edinburgh and arrived about 1pm. After collecting our bags we headed out to get the bus back to our car.

We were soon driving up the road and we had a stop at Castleton for a late lunch. We both had their soup/sandwich deal which was Tomato & Lentil soup, then I had a tuna mayo sandwich and Neil had chicken mayo. We arrived home just after 6pm and Eilidh came home about 7, just as we were finishing our unpacking. We watched the Great British Bake Off with her, although Neil didn’t make it to the end, going off to bed about 8.30pm.

We had such a lovely time this holiday, great memories and we loved the relaxing nature of it. We discovered that Orlando is a good place to take it easy in the sun as well as to have a busy park filled holiday.
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Old 27 Jul 17, 08:24 PM  
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Wow what an exciting end to the trip! Thanks for sharing, I've enjoyed the read as we're doing similar in October!
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Old 27 Jul 17, 08:33 PM  
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Glad you made it home in time. Fab trip report, thanks for sharing.
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Old 27 Jul 17, 10:01 PM  
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Originally Posted by Zomax25 View Post
Wow what an exciting end to the trip! Thanks for sharing, I've enjoyed the read as we're doing similar in October!
Haha, it wasn't exciting at the time... the later it got the more convinced I was that we were going nowhere!

Thank you for reading... I hope you enjoy your trip in October. There is so much to do outside of the parks, I think if we did another no parks trip we would explore more

Originally Posted by Excitedx4 View Post
Glad you made it home in time. Fab trip report, thanks for sharing.
So were we... I've never been so glad to be taking off in a plane!

Thank you for reading and for all your lovely comments. Enjoy your upcoming trip. Would love to visit Miami some time. Are you doing a report so I can get some tips?
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Old 27 Jul 17, 10:43 PM  
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Excellent trippy! Thanks for taking the time
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Old 28 Jul 17, 12:06 AM  
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So glad you got home safely. Im sure it was quite scary at times. But you definitely did have a relaxing holiday despite you both feeling unwell for a few days. Thanks for another great trip report
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Old 28 Jul 17, 03:58 AM  
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Glad you got home safely. Glad you enjoyed your relaxing holiday. We tend to do a few days in the Tampa/Clearwater area then 4 nights in Disney then back to Tampa. Slightly more relaxing than just in the parks 😀
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Old 28 Jul 17, 09:42 PM  
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Originally Posted by boltyboy View Post
Excellent trippy! Thanks for taking the time
Thank you for reading and for your comments Paul

Originally Posted by Jane71 View Post
So glad you got home safely. Im sure it was quite scary at times. But you definitely did have a relaxing holiday despite you both feeling unwell for a few days. Thanks for another great trip report
It was a very different holiday for us, but we enjoyed it very much. In the end I just wanted to get away before the storm came, and thankfully we made it.

Thank you Jane for reading and for all of your lovely comments. I hope you have an amazing trip to NYC when it comes around

Originally Posted by Red View Post
Glad you got home safely. Glad you enjoyed your relaxing holiday. We tend to do a few days in the Tampa/Clearwater area then 4 nights in Disney then back to Tampa. Slightly more relaxing than just in the parks 😀
Thank you, it was a bit scary towards the end. We keep meaning to visit Clearwater again, and have at least one overnight stay. It's so lovely there and no temptation to go to the parks, just pure relaxation. I can see why you visit there before and after park time, great idea.

Thanks for reading and for all of your comments
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Old 30 Jul 17, 05:20 PM  
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Enjoyed reading your report, sorry I haven't commented until the end. I'm really pleased you got away on the flight...I felt myself panicking a bit for you as I read, it may have been due to the rain suddenly pelting down here as I got to the airport part! We flew out the week after you got home that trip seems so long ago now. Thanks for sharing your holiday.
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Old 30 Jul 17, 08:22 PM  
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What a stressful end but glad you got away safely.
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