We're all going on a Poly-holiday - October 2019: Day 0: Travel Day: The Flight of the Falcon

[bambikate]

Day 0: The Flight of the Falcon
Saturday 12 October 2019

Index


Travel Day - Flying to Orlando, Magical Express, checking in to the Polynesian Village Resort, Unpacking, Pizza and Champagne in our room

We woke up at around 6:30am, got showered, dressed and repacked then headed downstairs for breakfast just after 7:15am. We have always found the buffet breakfasts here to be really good. We had a selection of food but I was not in full trip-reporter mode and I'm afraid only took one photo of my plate... (Don't worry, I get much more snap happy stateside! Evidenced by my 3,900 photos of this trip



Izzy (bless her heart) made some trip report notes for me, which turned out to be super useful and apparently we had bacon, eggs, toast, sausages, mushrooms, nutella, croissants, weetabix, hash browns and baked beans

Immy decided it was high time to start wearing her minnie ears and wore them to breakfast. We were all wearing our "Take Me To Disney" T shirts, to make sure they didn't put us on the wrong plane



After breakfast we went back to our room to grab our bags and checked out (by dropping our room keys in a box)





The rain had finally subsided and we walked the short distance back to the terminal towards security, which was as soon as you went through the doors.

We headed to the right for the families and special assistance entrance and the queue was pretty short. There were automated gates to scan your boarding passes and staff to manually check them too.

We put our stuff on the conveyor belt and asked if we needed to remove Immy's minnie ears, to which we were told no. She went through the metal detector and it beeped so she was asked to go in the full body scanner (thin there was metal wire in bow bit) the security guy said if I wanted to stay with her I'd have to have a full scan too, so I did.

We took off our shoes and socks and waited in the queue, it seemed to take forever mostly due to the people not listening to instructions properly! After a while we were done,we collected our bags and we were airside and ready to shop!

I wanted a new perfume, some champagne for the holiday and to have a bit of a browse around the shops as we had plenty of time.

I settled on some Chloe, which I had only recently discovered and thought smelled lovely. We also managed to pick up a twin pack of Veuve Clicquot for a really good price.

Next up was a look around the Harry Potter shop, we were tempted with quite a few items as we are big HP fans but in the end we just went for a couple of those mystery bobble head keychains.





It was pretty crowded in the main area so we decided to walk slightly towards our gate and made ourselfs a little comfy area to chill in for a while. The girls opened their mystery keychains and Immy got Luna Lovegood and Izzy got Hagrid

Andy went off in search of coffee and snacks whilst I painted the girls nails and toes in some Minnie polka dots



Andy returned with some goodies and a latte from Starbucks. We hung around and chatted for a while and then walked down to our gate. They had already started boarding so there was only a small queue. Our flight was the VS15 at 1pm with Virgin Atlantic.

The girls got given their little flying packs which they were delighted about. They couldn't wait to put on their red socks

It was then we realised we were flying on THE FALCON! Yayyyy! We were thrilled to bits.






We walked down the slope and boarded the plane. We had chosen a row of 3 and then one on their own in front, which tended to work well for us (not as well as it would if it was 2 and 2 of course! )

Off we go! We were really feeling the butterflies and excitement at this point.













Shortly after take off we started on the entertainment. I watched The Hustle, Long Shot and a couple of episodes of First Dates, Andy watched John Wick 3 and just chilled and napped. The girls watched the new Aladdin, Goosebumps, Secret Life of Pets 2 and Horrible Histories and listened to music.



The snacks and beverages then began!

The usual sour cream and chive pretzels and a drink... I went for Aviation Gin and fever tree tonic; it was lovely Andy had a beer.

[bambikate]

For lunch I had the paneer curry, Immy had the macaroni and cheese and Andy and Izzy had the chicken, mash and peas with mushroom sauce. The latter turned out to be everyone's favourite.

It also came with a side salad, cheese and biscuits and a chocolate and caramel Gu dessert. Andy and I had some wine with lunch.

Shortly before landing they served a gorgeous little afternoon tea, scones with jam and clotted cream and a sandwich. We all loved this and thought it was one of the best pre-landing small meals we've had on a flight.









Overall the flight was really good APART FROM one horrendous thing... On one of the toilet trips, Immy and I were walking back towards the loo and all of a sudden this DISGUSTING pungent smell hit us like a train. We immediately covered our mouths and noses and looked around to notice all of the passengers in that area were doing the same, in fact some had their t-shirts pulled up over their faces and many others had left their seats.

We walked past the smell and used the loo (which smelled fine) and when we came out the poor poor male flight attendant was trying to sort out "the incident" we can only conclude that the man had pooed himself in his seat.

Immy and I quickly went back to our seats (where luckily the smell hadn't reached) but we kept seeing the flight attendant going back and forth with gloves, bin bags, cleaning stuff, spare trousers(!) and an entire new seat!

I felt so bad for the staff and also all of the surrounding passengers. The guy must have been absolutely mortified. His wife was just looking at the floor with her head in her hands.

I don;t know the full story but I did have a mild panic attack that they were going to have to turn the plane around like that news story I heard about someone stinking out the toilets and them having to land the plane early. We were about half way across the atlantic at this point and the whole situation was so well handled by the staff. Not something I would like to have to sort.

Anyway, apart from the above, we had a very smooth 9 hour flight and landed on time.

We soon exited the plane. In total, border control and collecting our luggage took around 40 minutes, which for MCO I didn't think was too bad at all!

We collected all our bags and made our way to the escalators to the monorail over to the other terminal then down the lift to the Magical Express check-in desk.









The cast member asked for my hard copy confirmation, this was the first time I had to use the hundreds of hard copy documents I had in my travel wallet at least it came in handy for something!

We joined the queue for the Polynesian bus, which wasn't too long and as luck would have it, the bus pulled up within about 5 minutes!

There was room for everyone in the queue so we had our bags loaded in the storage area and got on board.

There were no seats all together so Andy and I sat next to two randomers and the girls sat together at the back.







Mickey shorts kept us entertained plus the fact we found out we had been allocated our room! We were given a room in Rarotonga. We had specifically requested a room on the top floor so we could have a full balcony (some of the longhouses only have juliette balconies on the first floor) and we didn't want a ground floor room.

We had also emailed to request a specific longhouse. We were given the top floor (yay!) but not the longhouse. BUT we ended up loving the longhouse we were allocated. It was super convenient, literally right next to the great ceremonial house, meaning it was close to the restaurants, shops and monorail. It was also so close to the Lava Pool and the Oasis Pool, really close to the laundry room and bus stop and had a great view of the monorail!



We were so excited to finally be staying at the Poly, it has always been our favourite WDW resort hotel

As we pulled up, the resort looked so beautiful! We exited the bus and were greeted with a Lei each right outside the bus as they unloaded our bags.









We walked into the lobby and straight to the check in desk. Check in was easy, we got our magic bands, checked in, pre-authorised a credit card and reset our pin numbers (from previous trips).



After checking in we took the super short walk to our room and up in the lift.



It was so beautiful!



















The room was spotlessly clean and felt much larger than other Disney hotel rooms we had stayed in before.

It was dark by the time we checked in and took the photos so no balcony pics yet...

After a few pictures I volunteered to unpack with Immy whilst Andy and Izzy went to grab us some dinner.

Immy and I put on must do Disney and we started unpacking as fast as we could.

Andy and Izzy grabbed some ice first and got our champagne chilling then headed down to Capt. Cook's to order some flatbreads.

They also chose our resort refillable mugs and picked up some ranch dressing which was free and we found it to be a great replacement for the Dominos garlic and herb dip for the crusts











Andy and Izzy returned and Immy and I were just finishing off the unpacking. I also laid out tomorrow's outfits to make our first morning easier.

After a shower and a change we chilled in bed watching Must Do Disney and "Weather Gone Viral" our guilty pleasure when watching American TV programs.

Pepperoni flatbreads





Champagne on ice



You just can't beat that feeling of the very first night of your holiday when you know you have the entire holiday ahead of you, we felt so happy and lucky to be staying at the Poly.

Tomorrow: Magic Kingdom, Crystal Palace, Pool time and Happily Ever After!

[sarahc]

We’re at the Poly in April! Room looks lovely 😊

[SandE]

Can't wait to keep reading hope you had an amazing time

[Tesh11]

All looks amazing so far! We loved the poly when we stayed in 2018. Poor man on the plane 🙈

[Floridafour]

Lovely start 🙂
So much to look forward too, you can’t beat that just arrived feeling.

[Tinkermom]

Fabulous start, can’t believe how grown up the girls are now (I remember reading your earlier trip reports) 😊

[walt4it]

What a great start - the sheer look of joy on the girls faces throughout travel day just show how much it meant to them

Hope you and Andy did that bottle of Champagne a bit of justice on your first night in Florida.

[jools1302]

Oh I love that first night too... no feeling like it! Enjoying your report 😊

[mick]

Great travel day your room looks good


Joan