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Old 5 Feb 21, 10:22 AM  
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Silvercat
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WDW 2019 - days 1 & 2

Previous days/planning are here

DAY 1 – Wednesday 27 November

Plan : Fly to Florida
Actual : Surprisingly, we both had a rather disturbed night, and woke up with the alarm at 6.30 a.m. feeling quite tired. The bed was really comfy and we were neither too hot nor cold, but I think it was a combination of excitement and slight trepidation that kept us awake. We were excited to finally be getting back to Florida, but also slightly worried given that this time last year my mum had been very ill, (although, we thought, getting better or we would never have left her to go on holiday!), and we had had to return from Florida less than 24 hours after arriving. Sadly, she died before we got back, but my dad, who is 82, has struggled without her and although he is relatively fit and healthy, given his age, it didn’t stop us from worrying again this year.

Anyway, we got up and ready for our trip, and we left the hotel and were at Terminal 2 by 7.30 a.m. Check-in was easy and we found a queue that was really short, so that was no problem. However, by contrast, security was a bit of a nightmare – lots of different security officers shouting instructions at people, quite often giving conflicting information. It was very busy and very stressful – DH suffers with anxiety, and he was really unsettled by the whole experience. Next year, I’m going to get him a Sunflower Lanyard, to see if this makes any difference. This is a new initiative backed by the government, for those with “hidden disabilities” such as mental health issues or autism, etc., and is meant to assist by drawing airline and airport staffs’ attention to these issues quietly and without fuss – we’ll see how this works next year. I think I’ll also request ‘special assistance’ to see if we can get through security without too much fuss, DH was in a terrible state by the time we finally got through to airside, having had to endure the full body scanner and also having been wanded, for no apparent reason.

We walked through duty free, DH stopping in the ‘room of shame’ to get some cigarettes, while I had a look at the Jo Malone store, although I didn’t buy anything this time. From there I popped to WH Smiths to get the usual bottles of water for us.

We then headed for breakfast – we prefer to get this in the airport than have it at the hotel, and we decided to go to The Spinning Jenny – it looked nice, not too busy, and the menu was good. DH chose a full English breakfast, and I had a bacon roll, both with coffee. It was all really good, if expensive, but we expect this in an airport.

After we had finished breakfast, we found a departure board but our gate hadn’t been called yet, so we both went to the restroom before going to a food kiosk so I could get a cheese & tomato baguette for later, in case the food on board the plane was full of things that my IBS hates – garlic, onions, cooked tomatoes, curry, and peppers. It usually is.

After this, we noticed our gate had been announced, so we trotted off to gate 208, which seemed miles away! We sat in the gate area, and watched everyone else forming a huge queue, which is pointless as everyone has to wait until their rows are called to board anyway! Eventually, they called row 25, and we boarded, still on time despite being towards the end of the boarding process. Wow, what great seats! Normally we sit in row 45, which is near the loos, and whilst that is handy, it does mean that everyone queues right in front of our seats which can be irritating, plus you get the various smells from the toilets all flight long. But row 25 is right next to the entrance door! Brilliant, we can be off the plane really quickly, we thought! Plus the seat next to DH was free, which gave us somewhere to keep the blankets and pillows when we weren’t using them, and also things like our bottles of water etc., not having seat back pockets to put them in. DH put our hand luggage bags in the overhead lockers, and we settled ourselves down comfortably for the flight.

We took off on time, and were really excited – here we go! We decided to watch a film together, again this is something we usually do, (although my sister thought it was weird when she came with us last time!), and chose Fishermen’s Friends, as we love their music, having seen them a couple of times at festivals. It was a lovely film, although predictably it made me cry at the end. Lunch was served towards the end of the film, and I was surprised at how delicious this was – one of the best meals we’ve had on a Virgin Atlantic flight. Chicken in a mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes, and peas. Yummy! The salad was nice, too. I gave DH my (garlic) cheese spread and crackers, and also my dessert as it was a chocolate & ginger Gu pot, and I’m not a fan of ginger. He said it was really lovely. We both had apple juice to drink, plus cups of coffee.

Later on, we were given a tiny bag of Skittles instead of the usual ice-cream, which was fine. We watched another film, Rocketman, which we both really loved, (in fact, I bought it for DH on DVD as a Christmas gift later), although I think I was tired and over-excited at this point because the end made me properly sob! We had more coffee, and decided we had time to fit in one more film, so we watched Disney’s live-action Aladdin, which was quite nice, but not something we would rush to watch again.

At teatime, I had my cheese & tomato baguette, as the sandwich we were given was a roll with mozzarella and green pesto on it, so I gave it to DH. However, I did eat the scone with jam and clotted cream, that was really nice.

We made good time flying, with very little turbulence, and landed about 20 minutes early. As we approached Orlando airport, we looked out of the window and could see Kennedy Space Centre – we saw the VAB, 3 launch pads, and the runway for the space shuttle, it was really exciting! As soon as the seat belt sign went off, we grabbed our bags and would have been first off the place, except that there was a little girl who had been barfing for the last half of the journey, according to her parents, who were standing by the door at this point. She was still heaving (urgh!) into a bag, so we let her and her parents off before us. Everyone else tried to follow but we barged our way in front of them as we weren’t letting anyone else off before us, blooming cheek. The immigration hall was totally empty! This has never happened to us before! We were through there in seconds, it was brilliant, although we then had to wait AGES for the luggage to come out. We got our cases eventually, and made our way to the monorail, (we love this!), over to arrivals.

Our first task, after grinning like lunatics that we were here, and me wiping away tears of joy, having cried from the minute we landed until we got to the arrival building, was to locate the Visitor Toll Pass booth. (Although DH’s first task was to find a restroom, I told him to go before we landed, but did he listen? No!) We found the booth really easily, and the staff there were great, we gave them a credit card to link to the account and they gave us the hanging pass for the car, and instructions on how to return it at the end of the trip. Easy peasy.

Next up was to collect the hire car – I braced myself for the inevitable ‘hard sell’ from the rental company, as we headed to Dollar. However, they weren’t too bad, although I did enjoy telling them we have a Visitor Toll Pass when he tried to sell us a Sun Pass, ha! Plus we had brought the Satnav that I bought in June with us, which is loaded with USA maps, so that was something else I could turn down from him. And in addition to that, I already had an excess insurance policy already, again something I had bought in June (for our trip to the West Coast at that time), that was an annual policy so was still valid. All in all not his best customer for upselling! He did try to get us to upgrade the car, but I rebuffed that as there was only 2 of us with 3 cases, albeit one of them had an extra, empty case inside it.

Anyway, we headed over to the parking garage and selected a lovely, black Chevy Mirage that we liked the look of. We loaded up the trunk and back seat with our cases, and I got out the map I had printed off to direct us to Cocoa Beach. We also set up our Satnav with the address of the Best Western hotel.

Soon we were happily driving through the gorgeous Florida sunshine. It was only mid-afternoon, and we made really good time getting to the Cocoa Beach area, driving past the port where we had boarded the Disney Dream in 2016 for our cruise. We struggled to find the reception for the hotel though, as the hotel itself was made up of 4 or 5 different buildings spread over several small side roads, which was extremely confusing! We found it after a few minutes, parked up, and went in to get checked in. There was a life-size astronaut model just inside the doorway, which was lovely to see! As I had joined the (free) Best Western rewards club when I made the booking, I was told by the really friendly guy checking us in that we were eligible for a free room upgrade – nice! So instead of a King room, we got a King suite. We set off to find our room which turned out to be just as difficult to find as reception had been, but we got there in the end. There were only a couple of disabled parking bays, one of which was unoccupied, so we parked up and took two of the cases with us, opting to leave the third and fourth cases, (one inside the other), in the car, as the back windows were quite dark and couldn’t be seen through.

Room 1311 was HUGE, and gorgeous! We had a full balcony that overlooked the ocean and pier, a sitting room with sofas and TV, a kitchenette with a fridge, oven, etc., and the usual bathroom and bedroom. It was a lovely suite and we were really happy to be there. I made us some coffee and we relaxed for an hour – by which I mean, DH slumped on the bed with the TV remote in hand, and I scurried around unpacking toiletries etc. I didn’t unpack clothes as we could live out of suitcases for 3 days. I did manage to sit down and relax for half an hour!

We were very tired, and also a little hungry, so we made ourselves go out around 6.30 p.m. We walked a little way to the Cocoa Beach pier – it was so beautiful, the sun was going down over the ocean and the pier was pretty, and quite busy too, which gave it a really lively yet relaxed atmosphere. We wanted to grab something light to eat, but there were only busy restaurants and bars there. We walked to the end of the pier and back again, and at the entrance to the pier was a snack stall; however, she was about to close up, so the selection was very limited from there. I wanted a pretzel but they didn’t have any, so I had to settle for a bag of Cheetos. DH had a hot dog and a bag of Lays chips; we also got some soda. There was some outdoor seating nearby, so we sat there and had our food.

We walked back to the hotel, and agreed that the beach area was so lovely, we would have to try and get back there during the daytime so we could actually walk on the beach at some point. (Spoiler alert – we were so busy during our time at Cocoa Beach that we never actually got back there on this trip!)

I made us some coffee, we watched TV and tried to stay awake! But at 8.30 p.m. we gave up, we were jetlagged with the time difference, plus we hadn’t slept much the night before, so we got into bed. The bed was incredibly comfy and it wasn’t long before we were both in the land of nod. Wonderful first day.

DAY 2 – Thursday 28 November - Thanksgiving

Plan : Kennedy Space Centre
Actual : We amazed ourselves by sleeping in till 7.00 a.m. this morning! We got up, showered, and got ready for the day.

Around 8.00 a.m. we went to find the dining room for breakfast. It wasn’t too busy, and we found a quiet table tucked away at the back of the room. There was quite a good selection of breakfast items, (sadly no bacon though), we both got scrambled eggs with grated cheese, and I made us 2 pancakes each using the automatic machine they had. I was surprised to see they had passion fruit, orange & grapefruit juice, which here was just called ‘tropical’ juice, but in Disney it is known as POG juice and is very popular. Rightly so, too, as it was delicious! We also had some coffee, DH had toast, and I got a bowl of freshly prepared fruit cocktail over which I spooned a strawberry yoghurt.

We popped back to our room after breakfast to collect our bags for the day, and then drove the 2 miles to Kennedy Space Centre, parking in the disabled parking area near the entrance. We paid $10 to park for the day.

We noticed how different the entrance was since the last time we visited, a few years ago – the Astronaut Hall of Fame has been moved here to a new building, as it used to be in a separate visitor centre down the road. There was the addition of a new conservation information building, and several new cafes too.

We decided that as we had two days here, we would start by taking the bus tour today, so we queued up for the next bus. We had to wait for about 20 minutes, which was fine, but DH decided he was thirsty after we had been in the queue for 5 minutes, and we hadn’t had chance to visit a supermarket to stock up on bottled water yet. Luckily, I spotted a nearby vending machine, and although I grumbled at the cost, ($2.50 for a bottle of water!), I went over to get him a bottle. Irritatingly, the machine only took cards! So I had to pay for a bottle of water on my credit card. Mildly annoying, as I try not to use a credit card whilst on holiday if I can help it.

Anyway, we got on the bus, and managed to get the front seat behind the driver, which I love because it has the best views. While we were travelling to the building that houses the Saturn rocket, we saw a baby alligator, (cute!), herons and egrets, and 4 bald eagles, including the huge eagle nest that has been in a particular pine tree now for many years. According to the KSC website, the nest was built in 1973, but was inactive for the first two years. It has been used almost every year since that time. The estimated diameter of the nest is 7 feet. The "KSC SR 3 nest" is well-known, and drive-bys are a regular part of the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex tours. However, our tour guide also said that it will probably only be used for the next couple of years or so because the tree it is in has died of old age, and will soon become too weak and dried out to support the nest, so he said that the eagles will have to find a new tree soon to build a nest in. I’m sure the KSC staff will track the eagles and find out where the new nest will be! I was a bit disappointed not to see a manatee or any dolphins on this tour, unlike the last time we had done this. However, we did see the newly constructed Space X buildings, which is the replacement, reusable rockets for the Space Shuttle/International Space Station programme, which was exciting to see.

When we arrived at the Saturn building, we disembarked and went it. The first sight of the HUMUNGOUS Saturn rocket never fails to astonish us, and we spent some time taking pictures, and looking around the nearby exhibits, some of which were new to us. We got about halfway down the exhibition hall and realised we could probably do with some lunch, so we went into the Moon Rock Café and had a look at what was on offer. We both chose chicken tenders & fries and coffee. I also got DH a Moon Pie, which turned out to be like a huge Wagon Wheel – marshmallow covered biscuit, covered in chocolate. I got a blondie for dessert, but then was too full for it after lunch so popped it in my bag for later.

After lunch we walked to the end of the hall, pausing briefly to listen to a free talk/tour about the Saturn rocket being given by a member of staff, (and very interesting it was, too!), before going into a movie theatre to watch a film about the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. It was very dramatically shot, but an amazing film, which we really enjoyed watching. After we had explored the right hand side of the hall down it’s whole length, we walked back along the left hand side and looked at all those exhibits, before finally going outside to see the (again, new to us) Apollo 11 garden. As the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing had been celebrated in June 2019, Kennedy Space Centre was full of never before seen memorabilia and exhibits, and this garden was part of this celebration. It was really lovely, with an amazing statue of the 3 Apollo 11 astronauts in the middle, and some trees grown from seeds taken to the moon in 1969!

We had a quick look in the shop after this, but decided to do our main shopping in the big gift store back at the Centre, as there is more choice there, so then went to wait for the bus returning us back to KSC.

On arrival back at the Centre, we had a quick break outside, picking up some coffee and soda and sitting in the outdoor seating area in the middle of the Centre. Then we went into the big store for some shopping! I needed to replace my oven gloves, I love the ones from here and have had a couple of pairs over the years, they are shaped like astronaut space suit mittens and last really well. This time, I got some in bright red which are designed like space shuttle suit mittens. I also got a really lovely Christmas tree decoration, gold-coloured and made of a very finely cut metal. We picked up a t-shirt for our young granddaughter, with “Failure is not an option!” on the front, a white NASA t-shirt for me, and a grey one for DH. DH also secretly picked up a few Christmas gifts for me, (an Apollo 11 50 years celebration t-shirt and mug, a pack of cards with various pictures of Mars landscapes on them, and a book about how to survive life on Mars!), and then we went upstairs in search of some pins for DH and mission patches for me. We noticed there was a very short queue for the astronaut meet & greet, which was just about to start. That particular day the astronaut was a guy called Norm Thagard, a (now) 72-year old who was the first USA cosmonaut. So we joined the queue and were soon meeting him – he was a lovely guy, very shy and quiet, but I got his autograph in the back of my trip report book, which was fun.

After this, we went into the IMAX theatre to watch another Apollo 11 film, showing lots of footage taken by the astronauts themselves and NASA, none of which we had ever seen before – fascinating, we really enjoyed it.

By now the Centre was closing, so we took a slow stroll out, having had a really smashing day there. We drove back to our hotel, (seeing the Disney Dream in harbour on the way, which got us quite excited as we sailed on her in 2016!), and decided to take a dip in the pool for an hour. We were the only people in there, and it was quite windy out there, so we stashed our shoes, room key, and glasses in the (empty) used towel bin while we pottered about in the pool.

Once back in the room, I made DH some coffee and I had the sachet of hot chocolate which I had taken from the breakfast room in the morning. It is made by Swiss Miss and is gorgeous, very smooth and not too sweet. TV, followed by bed. Happy Thanksgiving!

Next days are here
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Edited at 01:16 PM.
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Old 5 Feb 21, 08:16 PM  
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Sounds like you had a good flight and a great day at KSC

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