The Only Way is Epcot - Pre-Travel Day

[mouselover22]

Hello fellow dibbers,

Sorry for the delay in starting this trip report. Since our holiday in the summer I've been a bad dibber and not been on here for months I won’t bore you all with the details but let's just say, life sometimes gets in the way. However, with the Christmas festivities out the way and a new countdown *spoiler alert* ticking down nicely, i thought i should get my finger out. So for those who haven’t read it, you can find my pre-trippie here Pre-Trippie

So without further ado, let's crack on with ‘The Only Way Is Epcot’ pre-travel day

A quick introduction for those who haven't read the pre-trippie and for those who read it a long time ago!

I’m Hayley, your trip report writer, Disney addict and full time holiday planner. I am a mouse ear wearer, my favourite park is Magic Kingdom and my favourite ride is Space Mountain

My long suffering hubby is Andy. He may moan and act like grumpy but he loves Disney / Florida as much as we do. He works extremely hard to make all our dreams come true every year. His favourite park is Animal Kingdom and favourite ride is Flight of Passage.

Next is Thomas, my Disney protege. He is assistant planner of our Disney holidays and is now probably better at it than me! He has alerts set up on Disney websites, so he always knows whats going on with rides, food menu’s etc. Im so proud. His favourite park is Magic Kingdom and his favourite ride is The Incredible Hulk at Universal’s Islands of Adventure

And finally your last cast member for this trip is Oliver. Oliver is our football fanatic, meaning we spend all of the winter months on a cold and a muddy field. He is very laid back and even though he loves Florida, like his dad, he leaves all the planning to me and his brother. Favourite park is Magic Kingdom and favourite ride The Incredible Hulk again.

Tuesday 24th July

I had my alarm set for 6am as I still had lots to do before we left for the airport. Andy was working today and still had lots to wrap up so he had already left for work! If you cast your mind back to the summer I’m sure your’ll remember how incredibly hot it was at home. I remember thinking at the time, that I've never been so hot in all my life and that includes visiting Florida! It was just unbearable and having no air con meant the house was like an oven. So in my oven i had to get up early to do the ironing and try and finish the packing. When the weather came on TV i took a picture of the crazy temperatures.

In case you haven't guessed we live in the hottest part ;-)


The boys woke up about 7am and set about eating the last contents of the fridge. I also tasked them with charging all the gadgets, including iPads, fuel rods and head phones.

So by 9am i was sweating buckets and kept having to sit down in front of the fan. The packing was taking a lot longer than it normally would have done. At this point i jumped in the shower as my sister in law was going to blow dry my hair for me at 10am for my hols. She is a hairdresser. In hindsight this was not a good idea as you will see later on.

Hair done

At 11:40am i had a doctors appointment about a bite on my leg. I assume it was a mosquito bite, ordinarily mosquito bites don't affect me, but of course I would have a reaction to one the day before we go on holiday! Typical!

The doctor prescribed anti-biotic cream and said it should clear up. It did!


When i got back i made the boys some bacon butties and i had the a yummy slice of carrot cake

Did you spy the Tomorrowland plate?

At 2pm i had an appointment for my nails. Having the full works today. I was very pleased with these

Lots of hidden Mickey’s

At 4pm came the moment we were all dreading………….me & the boys had to take our beloved doggie to nanny’s house for his holidays. Teddy is our cockerpoo and 5th member of the family. It upsets me leaving him as he is my shadow but he does love my mum and i know he is happy and well looked after.

Our beloved pooch Teddy

And one more, just because

Andy came home about 5pm. At this point I was still sweating buckets and frantically trying to finish off the packing. It was just too hot to do anything so there was no danger of me putting the hoover round and cleaning the bathroom. Andy helped me finish off packing and then started the fun game of playing Tetris with 4 suitcases and 1 car boot.

Fun ’n’ games

At 6pm i was double checking the hand luggage while our bellies started to think about food. We had already decided that tonight’s dinner would be Domino’s. Firstly it was Two for Tuesday, so would be rude not to And secondly, Thomas & Oliver do not like plane food, won’t even sniff it So they ordered large pizza’s so that they could take 3 or 4 slices on the plane tomorrow.

Pizza’s

After eating i placed the remaining pizza in foil and then in a cool bag to take on the plane. At 7pm we were in the car and on the way to the airport hotel….woo hoo!

Excited!

Remember my hair after my lovely blow dry earlier in day………..this is me a few hours later!

Have i already mentioned it was hot today?


The journey was uneventful and luckily no traffic. This is exactly the reason we stay at the airport the night before as we have no desire to play Russian Roulette with the M25 in the morning

Almost there


Just after 8pm we pulled into the Short Stay carpark at the North terminal. We drove up the multi story carpark to valet on level 6 and handed to keys to the reception. Bye bye car, see you in 23 nights!

We then crossed the road and walked in to the Premier Inn.

So close!

I love this Premium Inn, it’s still relatively new and the Hypnos mattresses are lovely. At 8:30pm we checked in, dumped the suitcases and headed down to the bar to start the holiday with a couple of drinkipoo’s. The bar area is always busy here as i suppose everyone has same idea, but we lucked out and got a couple of sofa’s.

It was the best feeling in the world sitting there at the airport, relaxing with a drink, thinking about our magical holiday After a while we grabbed a Costa coffee to take up to the room.

We all had showers after a very sweaty day and got in to bed. I drifted off watching something on the TV and then woke up in the middle of the night to turn it off!

Alarms set for 5:30am as were off to Florida in the morning!

[Cinderella]

Great start👍

[Palm trees]

That's a decent pre travel day, your before and after hair photos made me smile.

[lumosq102]

Super start - looking forward to following along. Although having flashbacks to that ghastly weather - 32 is far too hot when you don't have the respite of air conditioning

[joanna23]

Just had a lovely reminisce as we shared a pre-travel date. It really was unbearable hot and I’d managed to book the dodgy Manchester hotel without air-con! Looking forward to sharing your adventures.

[disneypars]

Great start!

[mick]

Great pre travel day


Joan

[Goldia]

I'm sorry to hear you've had a rough few months. I'm glad things are better now.

Ouch. That bite looks horrid, but your nails are beautiful. I'm looking forward to the rest of the report!

[katy341]

Lovely start! Gosh you looked so hot and tired in the car! I imagine all that stress melted away sat with a wine in the hotel lolxx

[mouselover22]

Originally Posted by Cinderella

Great start👍

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Thanks for reading along

Originally Posted by Palm trees

That's a decent pre travel day, your before and after hair photos made me smile.

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Ha ha, I know Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by lumosq102

Super start - looking forward to following along. Although having flashbacks to that ghastly weather - 32 is far too hot when you don't have the respite of air conditioning

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Thank you. It was unbearably hot, I couldn't wait to get to Florida to escape