'Once in a lifetime' trip - WDW onsite & DDP Feb 2019 - Day 1 Travel day

[Scarla]

Ok, this is my first trip report so bear with me & i will apologize now for the lack of food pics, as despite me vowing to take some, i kept forgetting until afterwards

My index can be found here

Introductions first, there is me, Jax, chief planner. My husband Darren & our 2 grandchildren, Scarla (7 turning 8 while there) & Alex, (6 turning 7 while there) who live with us on a special guardianship order.

Me, a rare one of me as there are mainly ride/photopass as i'm usually behind the camera, (& you can see why )

Darren, had to be dragged kicking & screaming to Disney, now, of course, a convert

Scarla, a Disney princess at heart

Alex, dinosaur mad

Anyway, we had booked 2 weeks staying at CBR with upgraded dining plan, flying Virgin premium economy (bubble both ways).

We drove down to Gatwick the night before & stayed at the Hampton by Hilton, which was pleasant enough to take advantage of twilight checkin. The hotel included purple parking & was about £160 for 4 + breakfast
Im glad we decided on travelling the night before as the traffic down was horrendous due to heavy rain & it took about 5 hours to do a 3 hour journey, we arrived about 18.30 & were in the hotel by 19.30

During twighlight checkin i was informed i had been selected for extra screening. Now i had read about this on the dibb so i was fine & secretly glad it was me & not hubby as he would have freaked, (he's a bit of a worrier)

Anyway, we settled down & tried to sleep as we had an early start in the morning, no pics of the room, sorry, I was too excited!

The following morning we went down to the hotel breakfast which, this was not very good, hardly anything out & what there was wasn't great. Still i had booked us in to the No1 lounge (£100 for 4, a bit expensive, but i wanted the start of the hols to be as stress free as possible, or at least that was the plan) so i wasn't that fussed

We then headed straight through to security, this was a bit of a nightmare as hubby had left a bottle of water in his bag so had his bags emptied out & double checked, then we made our way to the lounge, we were a little early but they let us in anyway.

The lounge was nice & worth the money to contain 2 very excited children for a couple of hours. The kids played on their Ipads & me & hubby chilled with the food & drink which was ok, but not great.

Our flight was supposed to board at 10.40 for departure at 11.40 & by 10.15 there was still nothing on the board so we left the lounge to go & investigate. Found someone from Virgin who was absolutely useless so we just loitered hoping for the best.

Finally at 11.15 it was up as boarding immediately so we rushed to the gate, along with about a million other people . Due to the delay there were using all lanes to let people on the plane so even though we had PE tickets it didn't make a difference.

As i had extra security, i was dragged off to the side & through in minutes, however i then had to wait for everyone else who were stuck in the crowd.
We ere finally all on the plane by about 11.30 but didn't take off until 12.15 (apparently the plane was delayed on its previous journey, hence the chaos)

As we were in the bubble the kids got the chance to visit the cockpit, which was a nice surprise

Then we settled down for the flight, which was uneventful.
We watched a few films, the food was great as was the service. Although, i found out when we landed that hubby had been declining drnks as he thought we had to pay extra, bless him, (i hadn't! ), he was across the aisle so hadn't asked me.

We landed in MCO about 17:15 to any empty immigration, which again i had heard horror stories about & went through quite smoothly, although the immigration officer was VERY grumpy & completely ignored Scarla when she tried to talk to her.

We then decided the luggage was too much for us to carry through so (foolishly) decided on 2nd bag drop. We then spent the next 2 hours trying to find our bags in the maze that is MCO as we had decided to separate in to twos to look & then couldn't find each other, the last thing we needed after a looooong day & by now Hubby had had enough & was extremely grumpy

We eventually made it to the Disney MDE about 20.00 & were checked in to the room by about 21.30 (02.30 UK time). However we were starving so grabbed a quick meal & flopped in to bed exhausted ready for MK in the morning, link below:

Day 2 - Magic Kingdom, Festival of Fantasy parade & CBR pool

Thats it for now, i hope i haven't board you all. Any questions, please let me know.

[Loulabelle18]

Really enjoyed reading about your travel day. Had to laugh about the refusing drinks! 🤣🤣
Loving your super long countdown for next time. That was me this time last year. Only a year and a half to go now 😊

[Forest32]

Love a good trip report. Can’t wait to read more : )

[SuziQz]

Shame about the disappointing food early on but a great treat for the kids to visit the cockpit.

Well done for taking on a trip report, I’ll be reading along

[GezzasGem]

Glad you all arrived safely after a very long couple of days! Now comes the fun part! 😊

[Jockey]

Good travel day

[disneypars]

Glad you all arrived OK despite a few hiccups. Kids were lucky to visit cockpit. Hope they enjoyed the experience.

[collybird]

Bless your DH not taking up the crew on their offers of drinks, how innocent of him.

Really excited to read about your trip, it must have been very special taking your grandchildren with you.

[Th1nkT1nk]

Enjoyed reading about your travel day will be following along!

[kansaskitty]

Bit of a hassle for travel day, but amazing that the kids got into the cockpit! Awesome! What a wonderful holiday of a lifetime for the kids who have been through so much, really looking forward to reading!