$30k later - 18/12/16 - Day 02 - Travel Day P2

[Leyfy]

Travel Day Part 2

Index
Day 1 here

So, having fallen asleep at 9pm I slept through until the alarm at 6am, only briefly waking up once. Phil and I got up and got dressed and headed down to breakfast, which we were told started at 6.30am. The night before we'd booked the free shuttle back to the airport for 7.30am so we had an hour to play with before we were due to leave. Our flight to New York was due to take of at 11.10am and there was no way we were missing it!

We made our way down to the lobby and saw that breakfast was just being set up, so we were one of the first ones in there. Breakfast was a continental buffet or hot food - all free, thanks to Aer Lingus paying for us!

We ordered some coffees and I grabbed a bowl of fruit, before making our way up for some hot food. They also had white pudding, which I'd never seen before! I'm not a fan of black pudding, so I missed that and just had beans, eggs, tomato and a rasher of bacon. Phil loves black pudding so he was happy to have some with his huge breakfast! As we were sat there two ladies came down in their dressing gowns! They were locals who'd been to a Christmas 'do' in the hotel that evening and announced loudly that they'd not even been to bed!

They then proceeded to order the poor waitress around. 'Would you like your eggs scrambled or boiled?' she asked 'Poached' came the reply! They sent the bacon back to the kitchen to have all the fat cut off! It was quite a amusing to watch but I did feel sorry for the poor girl dealing with them!

We finished up our breakfast with an extra coffee, knowing it'd be a long day, and went back to the room to pick up all of our bags. We made our way outside and we were first in the queue when the shuttle bus arrived. We piled on and I loaded up the news to notice that Gatwick was shut because of fog - again!

We were then quite glad that Aer Lingus hadn't sent us back to Gatwick the day before, as we quite possibly would have missed ANOTHER day! We got chatting to a couple in front of us who were going to New York for their holiday and had missed their flight the day before as well.

Shortly we arrived back at Dublin airport and made our way to check in. The line for ticketing was huge as people were trying to get to London - I think I am correct in saying that all the London airports were experiencing delays as this was the fog warning:

The line for check in was also huge but moving steadily and we creeped forward. As we got near to the front it slowed down a bit and it turned out that there was a group of about five French guys, only one of which who appeared to speak English, and they were trying to check in about five shotguns between them!

Once we got to the front of the queue they took our cases but didn't offer to take my little case for free, unlike the day before. I was quite happy to keep it with me and we wheeled off in the direction of security. There was barely any line and we got through quickly but I got pinged to have my little case swabbed and searched. I think it was because the x-ray machine couldn't see through the metal bars properly? Anyway, the strongest thing I was taking with me was a packet of chewing gum, so we were let through and made our way down to the US border control, which is down some steps.

We then had to go through security AGAIN! Honestly, I felt like my handbag had been x-rayed about 20 times by that point after all of the faff the day before! Having not managed to put anything extra in from the first set of security to the second, we got the all clear and went through to immigration. It was pretty empty in there and we were put in a line to be next up to security, but the couple in front of us seemed to have some sort of issue with the lady's passport. Eventually the immigration officer said to her 'This isn't going to be easy to sort out' and took them both off 'out the back'...



That is one thing I always *dread* happening and I really hope whatever the issue was they were able to resolve it.

Presently the immigration officer came back (alone) and beckoned us over. He was actually really chatty! Talked about his time in the military and asked us where we were going in Florida and if we were going to Universal. Phil and I were still like:

We are very aware that they can make your life very difficult!

He stamped our passports after asking how long and where we were staying and we went off on our merry way. By now it was 9am so we found some seats near to the stairs that led to our gate (which was still shut) so I popped into the newsagent to get some water and some mints. We sat there for a while and eventually the stairs up to our gate opened so we made our way up there and found some seats. Our plane was sitting at the gate and there there was a great view of the runway. Plus, most importantly, NO FOG! Hurrah!

Boarding commenced on time and we were in the pairs on the left side of the plane, which was an Airbus A330. I was REALLY glad that someone on the Dibb had posted that some Aer Lingus flights use two pin adaptors as I have a really expensive pair of Bose noise cancelling in-ear headphones which I love and yes - it was a two pin adaptor! We got settled and I happily scrolled through the movies - the IFE had great screens but the film selection wasn't huge. I don't usually use the IFE that much, but I'd used up all of my 'distractions' (magazines/games etc) I'd brought with me with all of the airport faff the day before!

I selected 'The Secret Life of Pets' and started watching, pausing only as we took off. FINALLY we were on our way! Not to Orlando, but at least to the United States!

I do love that bit of flying - when you just get into the air and you can still see the ground! I remember my first time on an aeroplane when I was 10 going to Spain and I just loved the whole process!

Unfortunately the 6 hours of tedium on transatlantic flights sometimes can that buzz away!

After we went through the clouds I went back to the film - the pet observations were hilarious!

This is SO our cat!



The actual storyline of the film got a bit tedious in the middle though and I lost interest, only really picking it back up again in the end. Phil was watching some action thing next to me. One that finished I then selected the new Ghostbusters. The film was one of the first I remember seeing at the cinema and there was lots of cameos and silliness! I enjoyed it, anyway! During the film our meal service arrived - it was beef and pasta (which Phil had) or chicken and vegetable with mash (which I had). Both were edible, but we hoped would be a highlight meal of the trip!

Phil's dinner looked like gloop but he said it tasted alright! Mine was ... the only way I could describe it would to be 'pulled chicken'! It literally just fell apart!

It filled a hole though, and meal service finished, we settled back to watch the rest of our film choices. I then, with limited choice, chose the new Absolutely Fabulous movie which was alright but not great. After that I surfed the internet a bit because they had wifi on board! It's still a bit of a novelty - the only time I've had wifi before was on a flight with American Airlines to New York in 2015! It was quite expensive (€14 from what I remember) but it kept me amused for a little bit by uploading photos and browsing Facebook!

We then had about two hours to landing so I watched another couple of episodes of Game of Thrones from the latest series. I've only watched that series once and there was so much I'd forgotten, so it was good to have a catch up.

FINALLY we arrived in New York at about 2.45pm. We made our way to the terminal and to check the departure board that said that ... NOOOOOOO! ... Our flight was delayed from 4pm to 7pm! Honestly, we both almost lost the will to live then! Our two nights on the Boardwalk were basically gone and we wouldn't be arriving in Orlando until 10pm at the earliest

Phil then got upset and angry saying he'd missed five days of the last holiday and now he was missing another two here ... I calmed him down and said let's go and find somewhere to sit with a beer and I'll phone the Swan (again) to tell them to hold our room. We found a bar and ordered two pints of Sam Adams, cursing the fog, cursing our luck and just generally cursing!

Now, in Dublin Aer Lingus had issued us with boarding passes for our connecting flight which was with JetBlue, so it looked like we were good to go. I am ultra paranoid about these things, so I left Phil to his beer and went up to the information desk to check this. The lady at the desk looked at our tickets and said 'Oh, you're not sat together. Would you like to be?' I said if possible that'd be great, so she reissued some JetBlue boarding passes. This would turn out to be crucial later...

I made my way back to Phil via the restroom - I'd *so* forgotten about the gappy toilets?! What is that about!

We finished our beers and went for a wander around the airport, looking in some shops. By about 4pm I was hungry so we stopped in a sushi restaurant (I love sushi) in the terminal. We ordered some drinks. You can tell how hacked off Phil is at this point as he can't even be bothered to Point at a Pint:

I ordered some tuna sashimi and avocado rolls. As I was ordering some food, Phil decided to order some seafood ramen noodles. All were excellent! We also chatted with the bloke on the end of the bar - they'd also been delayed coming in from the north of America as there was thick snow everywhere.

At about 5pm we decided to make our way to the gate. We found seats and I went back to Starbucks to order a coffee to keep me awake. Phil said he didn't want anything. Feeling that I should have something different, I went for a 'flat white holiday spice'. Hmmm - seemed to be a 'flat white with some cinnamon and grit in it', it wasn't the most pleasant of drinks! However, I was glad of the caffeine so I drunk it and settled down to wait for our flight to be called. We were due to take off at 7pm and we just seemed to sit there for ages and the gate was really, really busy. At about 6.30pm they started calling for volunteers to give up their seats for compensation as the flight was overbooked, and go on a later flight! Err...

We were getting on that flight, even if it meant hanging onto the blimming wings!

By 7pm FINALLY they started boarding!

It takes a lot to rattle me, but by now even I was starting to lose every ounce of patience I had left! As we queued up we bumped into the family of 8 that was behind us in the Aer Lingus queue who also missed the Orlando flight the day before. Turns out, they hadn't re-checked in (in fairness, no one told them to) so still had the Aer Lingus boarding passes bar one who'd ask to change seats. So 7 of them were on standby as they'd not been checked in for the flight!

JetBlue wanted to drive them over to Newark airport (an hour away) to try and get on an Orlando flight or they had to fly at 6am the next morning.

We sympathised with them as it really was a horrible predicament and I silently was relieved that I'd gone to information and got us new boarding passes.

When we boarded we did see a few of the family group on the plane so I really hope they all got there that night. (We did see them on our flight back but didn't get a chance to ask)

We finally took off about 8pm and the captain said it was going to be a little bumpy due to some unsettled weather. We were sat right at the back of the plane and - he was right - it really was bumpy!

(At this point I had visions of the plane plunging out the sky and the family that missed the flight telling the near-miss story of 'we should've been on that plane' etc for the rest of their lives!)

However, the turbulence soon cleared up. I'm not too worried about it to be honest as I've watched some of the Boeing stress tests they do on the airplanes before flight - it's just like bumps in the road, as they say. Having no chance of sleep I watched Finding Dory on the IFE, which I really enjoyed despite the tiredness. I'd like to watch it again a bit more awake as I'm sure I'd like it even more! In all honesty, the JetBlue plane was great! We were too grumpy and tired to take much interest at the time, but there was ample leg room, great IFE (we were expecting nothing as it was internal) and the plane was very new and modern. Phil watched the new Independence Day, which we'd actually gone to see at the cinema when it came out.

FINALLY after quite a bumpy flight we landed in Orlando at 10.30pm to be greeted by ... Rain... Hurrah! All joking aside, we were just SO pleased to have made it back in one piece! Being at the back of the plane it took an age for us to get off and I realised I'd been up 25 hours at that point and I was absolutely shattered!

We wearily made our way to baggage reclaim, hardly able to take it in that we were back! I was mega-paranoid that our cases hadn't made it and it did take forever for them to appear. Eventually about 11.20pm we were ready to leave the airport. We made our way to the taxi stand and luckily were straight in a cab to The Swan. I checked us in and apologised for our late arrival as it was nearly midnight. We went up to the room and Phil said he REALLY wanted a beer so we went downstairs but couldn't find anything open. Knowing there was a bar in the Dolphin we walked across and I literally poured a glass of wine down my neck before saying that I needed to go to sleep! I left Phil with his beer and made my way back to our room.

Shattered but... WE FINALLY MADE IT TO ORLANDO!

Day 2 - Hollywood Studios and a move to iDrive

[alansmed]

Some terrible luck you've had. Read your last report and the rough luck you had then too! Glad you finally made it.
Looking forward to reading the rest and hoping for no more unwanted surprises.

[phoebe23]

What a marathon - I bet Phil was hiding a growI behind that hand😠

[smythy21]

oh my god what a start to your holiday.feel so sorry for you both..heres to a great time on the rest of your hols

[mick]

Glad you made it after a very very long day

Let the holiday start tomorrow

Joan

[RachelM]

What a nightmare journey.

[Floridaagogo]

You don't have some bad luck 😡 note to the women In the hotel : cut the fat off your own bacon !

[Excitedx4]

I'm not surprised you were both grumpy after that mammoth day, I think those travel days would test the patience of a saint glad you finally made it though 🤗

[waiting4disney]

Blimey I'm exhausted now!
At least you made it there eventually.

[waiting4disney]

Originally Posted by Floridaagogo

You don't have some bad luck 😡 note to the women In the hotel : cut the fat off your own bacon !

See more...

I hate fat on my bacon but never in a million years would I think to send it back 😲 who does that!