After All This Time...Always- August 2015- Day 1- Travel Day

[xAimeex]

Hi guys and welcome to my 2015 trip report! You may have read some of my old reports, if not click here to read the pre-trip report if you want a bit of background on this trip!


I almost changed the name of it to ‘I’m late, I’m late for a very important date!’ as we managed to be late to 9 out of 12 ADR’s this trip ! Mostly only 5 or 10 minutes but we ended up arriving 30 minutes late for Yachtsman Steakhouse after a big storm! I don’t know how we managed it as we’re usually such good time keepers! Sometimes it was due to weather, sometimes transport and sometimes we were just running late ourselves!


Slightly different this year is that I’m not doing a Day 0 as quite frankly our pre-travel day was pretty boring (although ridiculously exciting for us!), it mainly consisted of finishing packing the suitcases, painting nails, eating dominos etc etc! We didn’t do an overnight stay at Gatwick so no exciting trip to the airport either!


The most interesting part of the day was the drama over some missing ant powder which had potentially been packed in to one of the suitcases by mistake (Honestly! I bet stuff like this doesn’t happen in other people’s houses! ). As you can imagine none of us particularly wanted to wait until security at the airport to be told we had suspicious white powder in our cases!


My Dad was adamant he’d left it by the back door which also happened to be where the piles of ironing were sitting waiting to be packed! By the time he noticed it was missing we had all completely finished packing and we spent a good hour turning over the entire house searching for it before admitting defeat! We were literally just about to start unpacking all the suitcases (! ) when my Dad decided he’d just check outside.


Well thank goodness he did as it turned out he’d put it away in the shed! I’ll admit there were a few crossed words during that hour but at the end of it all we were just glad we didn’t have to go through all our bags! I’d bundle packed my clothes so it would have taken me forever to sort through them! (N.B. I mentioned bundle packing in my pre-trippy and for anyone that is curious as to how it turned out, I’d definitely say my clothes arrived less creased than normal!)


With that little disaster averted the rest of the day ran pretty smoothly! Which leads me nicely on to travel day! As I am seemingly incapable of writing short days I’d grab a drink and snack of your choice before you get started on this hehe.


Day 1- Monday 17th August 2015- Travel Day


There’s nothing like waking up on travel day is there! The mix of nervous excitement and anticipation knowing that you’re off to Florida THAT day!


We were all up just before 6. I’d somehow managed a great undisturbed night’s sleep which is rare on the night before as normally I wake up a couple of times hoping it’s time to get up already!


Lauren and I did our make-up and we all spent around half an hour chucking the final bits in the suitcases (minus the ant powder ) and weighing them. I had a medium sized tripp case that was packed full of my stuff which was then packed inside my usual silver case. Normally I’d have been taking just the silver one but as I’d only paid to bring an extra suitcase back for the journey home I had to have the tripp case inside it. This meant that my suitcase was heavy! It weighed in at just under 21kg (my luggage scales were wrong though and it was even heavier!)





There was the usual mad 5 minutes of everyone trying to remember the codes for all the suitcases, luggage locks and straps etc before all of our luggage was sorted and by the door!






I love this luggage tag!


Mum and Dad went around the house leaving notes for the house sitters explaining how the tv worked, where dishwasher tablets were etc etc. My favourite one was in the bathroom, my mum left a post it note apologising for how old it was but unfortunately they’d spent the money they’d saved for a new one on their last minute Florida trip with us hehe. The bathroom might be a bit out of date now but Florida was worth it!


The usual leaving the house selfies and photos were taken before heading out to my car to start loading it up!












This is like the before photo of a girl who worked really hard to lose 18lbs since Christmas but then brought quite a few of them home with her on her legs, bum and tum because she ate so many snacks!



I’ve had a change of car since last year to a Peugeot 3008 which has a big double layer boot (perfect car for being a nanny)! Despite taking everything out of it including all the car seats (4 of them including the spare ones!), all the junk out of the boot and the second parcel shelf we still had to put one of the back seats down to fit everything in!


Literally every inch of my poor car was covered in either suitcases or people hehe. We had 3 big suitcases in the boot, 1 medium suitcase on top of the collapsed seat and 2 cabin size cases on top of that, Mum had another cabin size suitcase under her feet in the passenger seat and Lauren and Dad were squeezed in to the 2 remaining back seats with rucksacks and handbags at their feet.









They all had a little moan about how I was the only one with any space hehe that’s the bonus to being the airport driver! Dad can’t drive, Lauren hasn’t driven an automatic before and Mum doesn’t like driving my car as it’s too big so I really had no choice but to take the only space in the car that wasn’t affected by luggage hehe.



Traditional car selfie!


We left bang on time at 7:30! Our flight wasn’t until 1pm so we were leaving probably earlier than we needed to but as it was a Monday morning I knew to expect more traffic due to commuters.


It was actually a nice easy journey. There was the usual work morning levels of traffic but no queues until we got to the Gatwick exit off the M25. It was a much nicer drive than the previous year as it wasn’t pouring down with rain!


Lauren and I had made a Florida playlist including some of our best cheesy favourites including some of the songs from Teen Beach 2 (a Disney channel original movie for those of you without small children). I’d pretend it’s the kids I’ve nannied for over the years that made me watch it and the original but I’d be lying, I love cheesy musicals!


We arrived at the long stay car park at 8:05 and drove into zone F which was really quiet so I found a space not far from the bus stop!







The bus arrived shortly after and we were on our way to the South Terminal by 8:10!



Bus selfie


Shortly after getting off the bus I managed to embarrass myself by tripping over my suitcase! I was balancing my cabin case on top of the big one and trying to push them one handed as I was being one of ‘those’ people with a go pro attached to their hand (so really I deserved it hehe). The wheel of the big suitcase got caught in a groove in the pavement and both my suitcases went flying! I did manage to maintain some of my dignity by staying on my feet and trying to style it out but I’m sure anyone behind me (and anyone now reading this!) had a good giggle. It was my own fault though, I was an accident waiting to happen!


I managed to make it into the terminal and over to bag drop without throwing myself on the floor! As Mum and Dad had booked so last minute to come with us there was only premium economy seats left (they weren’t too devastated by that funnily enough apart from the added cost!) so they were heading through the premium line while Lauren and I headed off to the regular line.


Another downside to booking so last minute was that Mum and Dad hadn’t managed to request seats together in advance and at online check in there was one seat left up in the bubble and one downstairs. They were expecting to be sitting apart but being on different floors of the plane was really inconvenient!


Luckily when they got to check in there were given the option of 2 seats sitting apart either upstairs or down. As I said they didn’t mind not sitting together we just wanted to all be on the same floor so they took the 2 spare seats in the bubble. Mum had one in about the 3rd row of seats and Dad lucked out and was given a bulkhead one! In hindsight they should have selected the 2 downstairs as they’d have been off the plane quicker after landing but as Lauren and I had seats upstairs in Dibber’s row it made it easier on the flight!


There was a short queue in the economy line but Lauren and I made it to the front quickly. We had a really friendly check in girl which was a good thing as when we weighed our suitcases mine was 22.9kg and both our hand luggage cases were over 9kg (They were 7kg according to my digital luggage scales)! As we had lots of heavy bags (although not over the limit) she made us weigh our handbags too just to check we weren’t trying to sneak on extra luggage but these were fine luckily. She did let us know though that our bags were on the heavy side, whoops! My big silver case even had a special sticker warning the baggage handlers that it was heavy! As I said above this was due to having my smaller suitcase packed inside it but still!


This meant that my luggage scales were weighing everything around 2 kg lighter which would be a pain on the way back!


As Mum and Dad were only coming with us for a week their bags were fine as they had less clothes/toiletries etc! Despite being entitled to 2 suitcases each they only had one big and one medium case between them as they were flying back in economy so would only have an allowance of one case each then.


We were relieved to see the back of the hold luggage and headed on up to security. One of the security officers was going to send us through the family line (which I thought was only for people with little kids) but as Mum and Dad were premium and we all had lounges booked he sent us through the premium line. As with last year though nobody checked to see if we were meant to be going through that way!


There was only 1 other family in there so we were through security very quickly apart from Mum who set off the scanners and had to be checked there and then had her cabin case selected for searching too! There’s always one!


Since we were last at Gatwick they have added little stations to sort out your stuff after. I couldn’t take a picture as photography isn’t allowed in there but they had lots of tables which had room for a cabin sized case so that you could repack it there which made it much easier to get everything sorted!


We made it through just before 9! I stopped in the shop just before duty free to buy a big box of mini Daim bars as they’re my favourite!





We didn’t buy anything in duty free and headed through to the main departure lounge. Lauren and I had the V room booked and Mum and Dad had booked the No. 1 lounge (they booked via travel city direct so couldn’t book the V room like us). We couldn’t enter either until 10 though so we decided to split up for a bit to do some shopping and agreed to meet up again at 9:30.


Lauren and I headed off to accessorize as I wanted a new handbag! I picked out a smart backpack and cute case for my sunglasses as I didn’t have one. They came to £33.36.







We had a browse in a couple of other shops before grabbing some seats on the second level that looked out over the main atrium kind of area. We messaged Mum and Dad to let them know where we were and they joined us shortly after.



I love the hustle and bustle of the departure lounge!


We sat and chatted for half an hour and messaged friends and family to let them know we were safely at Gatwick and through security etc!


Just before 10 we all headed our separate ways again. Mum and Dad headed over to the stairs near Frankie and Benny’s which lead to the No. 1 lounge and Lauren and I walked round to the lift that leads to the V room.


It was crazy busy when we arrived as the 11:15 flight hadn’t been called to the departure gate yet so we stood for a while and waited for a table to become free. Luckily the earlier flight was called soon after we got there so we grabbed a table in what was the adult only section last time we used the V room but is now seating for everyone, I guess as so many people flying with Virgin travel with children.







I went up to the hot buffet first and got a sausage baguette which was delicious. The sausages look a little burnt in the picture but they were yummy!




Lauren went up after and got sausages, scrambled egg, mushrooms, beans and toast. She enjoyed all of it.





While Lauren was waiting for food a flight to the Bahamas, if I remember right, was called and even more tables emptied so I grabbed us a nice table by the window with some comfy chairs that looked out over the runway!





It was much busier in the V room than when we used it in 2012 but it still made for a very relaxing wait for our flight. We passed the time on facebook and on here, I wrote up notes for this report and we of course had some more food hehe.


Lauren had a plate with a cookie and millionaire’s shortbread on. While I headed to the pancake machine!


If I ever win the lottery a pancake machine will be the first thing I buy! You press a button and a couple of minutes later 2 perfect (if slightly small) pancakes pop out on to a plate!


There is a good selection of toppings for them! Classic sugar and lemon (sliced lemon rather than the artificial stuff!), toffee sauce, chocolate sauce, strawberry sauce, sprinkles etc!


I had one with toffee sauce and one with sugar and lemon! They were delicious!





I eventually went back for a 3rd plate of food. This time I had a cinnamon roll, donut, millionaires shortbread and a cookie. The cookie was horrible but the rest was good!





Along with all the food I’ve mentioned that we had there was also porridge, cereals (rice krispies, corn flakes etc), popcorn, eton mess (gutted I didn’t have room for it), a good selection of fruit, croissants and pain au chocolat, a chocolate and nut sundae. Drinks available were tea, coffee etc, soft drinks such as pepsi, apple juice, orange juice and small smoothies.


Of the 3 airport lounges we’ve been to in the past it has by far the best selection of food and is well worth the money (it was around £22.50 when we booked it but I think it has gone up to closer to £25 now). It’s worth noting as well that it’s gets a lot quieter as the morning passes, I’m not sure it would be as relaxing if you were on one of the earlier Virgin flights as it was packed full when we first arrived.


We actually watched the 11:15 flight take off at around 11:25! We were hopeful the 1pm flight would leave on time too as it had been notoriously bad for delays in the weeks leading up to our travel day and this was our 13th trip so I was sure we’d be dealt bad luck!


They said the gate number would be announced around 12 so we used the toilets and made sure we had everything we’d need for the flight out of our cabin bags as they would be too big for the overhead lockers in the bubble so would be stored at the back in the wardrobe near the kitchen.


12 came and passed but we kept listening out for an announcement. This is where we got really lucky! Mum messaged at 12:05 to say we were gate 31! It had come up in the No. 1 lounge before it had in the V room! This meant Lauren and I had a head start getting to the lifts before they got busy!


We arrived at the gate around 12:15 and found Mum and Dad who had saved us some seats! It was a really weird departure gate, it was in a big open room with a couple of other gates rather than being individual rooms like they usually have at Gatwick.


This was tricky as we kept hearing announcements for other gates and not knowing if it was to do with our flight. This was mostly down to the fact that they were having issues with the tannoy system so you could barely hear a word that was being said!


We kept an eye out for any dibbers as there were a couple on our flight!



Our plane!


An announcement went out and we could just about make out that there was going to be a delay but we couldn’t hear whether they said it was 15 minutes or 50 minutes or if it was even our flight they were talking about!


Mum went over to ask and it was our flight but the delay in boarding was only going to be 15 minutes! It was something to do with the caterers getting food on to the plane which was a bit annoying. I had plenty of plane snacks in my bag and could probably have kept everyone on the flight well fed just with those alone ! Luckily however they were soon calling people to board!


As Mum and Dad were premium they got to go on ahead of us! The economy bubble rows were called not long after PE though so we weren’t far behind. As we were waiting to get on the plane we met dibber Kim (Leyfy) and her partner Phil who were sitting in the exit row seats of the bubble so we had a little chat as we all boarded the plane! By coincidence we were all heading to RPR for the first 2 nights of our trips! We wished them a good holiday and left our small cases with the cabin crew to store in the wardrobe.


We made it onto the plane just after 1 but had a bit of a wait while they loaded everyone on downstairs. We were sat next to a Dad whose wife and children were a couple of rows ahead. It’s always difficult when you’re a party of 2 as you never know who you’ll be sat with (one time we were sitting next to a man who told us there was really no point in us putting on our seatbelts as if the plane crashed they wouldn’t save us which made for a cheerful start to a 9 hour flight! ). Luckily this man was very nice and we had a quick chat before take-off and again as we were landing. I don’t know if he or his wife were dibbers but hi if you are and you’re reading this!


Even when the plane was full we seemed to sit on the tarmac for absolutely ages without moving which was frustrating! Lauren and I passed the time reading trashy magazines!


We eventually took off at 1:40! The pilot came over the tannoy and said we had an ETA of 5:30 which was only 20 minutes later than expected so the 40 minute delay in taking off wouldn’t affect us too much!


Lauren watched Tomorrowland as we took off and once we were up in the air I put in the live action Cinderella as I loved it when I saw it at the cinema!


Shortly after take-off they brought round a hot towel and the menu.


The menu had changed fairly recently as when we were looking up the food options earlier in the year nothing had appealed but luckily we liked all 3 of the meals on offer now!





The cabin crew served drinks and the little packets of yummy pretzels! We both had the fruit cocktail (not too strong as we’re light weights hehe).





I’d made a note of Mum and Dad’s seat numbers so we could message via the seat chat option on our tv’s. Mum got the hang of this quickly and she, Lauren and I had a nice chat from across the bubble. Dad never replied to any of our messages so either he didn’t understand how to make it work or he was enjoying the peace and quiet up in the PE cabin and didn’t want to be disturbed haha.


Lunch/Dinner was served around 3:15. I went for the butter chicken curry which was delicious but VERY spicy but then I am a total wimp when it comes to curry and rarely eat anything hotter than a korma.





Lauren had the tomato and ricotta rigatoni. She said it was nice enough but fairly bland. The meal included cheese and crackers though which is right up Lauren’s street! The cheese was borsin which she wasn’t too keen on but she was happy to have the crackers with butter instead.





They used to bring dessert round separately a little while after the food had been served but they were on the little trays today. Lauren never likes the little GU puddings they serve but luckily I love them so I always get two! Today it was mango passionfruit cheesecake and it was delicious!





Overall the food was very good and as with last year we couldn’t fault the cabin crew up in the bubble! They were all absolutely lovely again and so helpful. I’d imagine it must be easier working up there as there are so many less passengers!

(Continued Below…)

[xAimeex]

(…Continued)

After eating Lauren and I took it in turns to head to the toilets and say a quick hi to Mum and Dad on the way. Dad was fast asleep and stayed that way for most of the flight so he was clearly comfy in his bulkhead seat!


I also took off my face make up (left my eye make-up as it was as I didn’t want to frighten any of the other passengers!) I had a little travel sized moisturising set that came free with a magazine so I applied that to my skin. I mentioned this in my pre-trippie and I’m definitely sold on this routine! I applied the moisturiser a couple of times during the flight before reapplying my make up at the end and I really noticed the difference! On the way back I’d run out of wipes so had to leave my face as it was and my skin was definitely a lot drier when I got off the plane.


Lauren and I both started on new films. I missed Tomorrowland when it was on at the cinema and everyone had said how much I’d enjoy it and Lauren had confirmed it as well after she finished it earlier in the flight!


If you’ve seen it you’ll know why I had the biggest geekiest grin on my face during the first few minutes! I had to fight not to sing along with Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow! Lauren also said that she wished It’s a Small World would add in a drop like in this film!


However a few minutes in the sound started to go funny. The characters would be speaking fine and then it would cut to a new scene and I could hear the background music but all the characters voices sounded like they’d been dubbed over by a strange robotic white noise and then the next scene it would be back to normal again.


Now given that the theme of this movie is largely based around audio-animatronics/robots I watched it for a full 20 minutes before realising that this wasn’t part of the film! Only me!


I just assumed that whatever the characters were saying was being covered by the robot noise as we weren’t meant to know what they were saying and would probably find out at the end hehe.


It was starting to get a bit annoying so thankfully I leant over and asked Lauren if it was meant to be like that before I watched the entire film!


I called a member of cabin crew over to let them know and they reset my screen for me however it was still making the funny noise so I decided to try using different earphones and then it worked fine so something must have gone wrong with mine (although they still work perfectly at home). This meant I had to use the ones virgin provide which are hardly the best quality but at least I could hear what the actors were all saying now!


I started Tomorrowland from the beginning again as I’d missed a fair bit of the plot! It was a really good film and I loved all the little Disney references in it!


Lauren watched Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone on her kindle seeing as we were heading for Universal first!


For about an hour we were flying in line with another plane which was quite cool to watch!







At some point during the afternoon we were served mini fabs which is always a nice sweet treat! I’m sure they were even smaller than before though but yummy all the same!





I filled in our customs form. We’d been unsure about whether we’d need to fill out 2 as Mum and Dad were staying at a different hotel to us and it asks for an address while you’re staying in the US. It says on the form though that if you have the same family name to only fill out 1 so we did. I put down Royal Pacific Resort as I filled the form out in my name and that was where Lauren and I were heading first. This was fine, the immigration officer barely even looked at it!


After Tomorrowland finished I started to get a bit bored. You know when there’s still a couple of hours left of the flight and even though you’ve come so far it still feels like you’re forever away from landing!


I’d bought a colouring book for adults called Animal Kingdom which I thought was appropriate for Disney. I’d bought some Crayola felt tips with me and spent a good half hour colouring. It was very relaxing and I didn’t get any odd looks from any of the other passengers.





Mum came over at some point for a little chat and we explained to the Dad next to us that our parents had booked PE and left us abandoned back in economy hehe.


About an hour and a half before landing afternoon tea was served! This was the highlight of the whole flight for me!





They had changed it to a wrap instead of the little finger sandwiches. Lauren and I both went for the cheese one which was West Country cheddar and double Gloucester! The wrap was flavoured with tomato I think and it was absolutely delicious! It did have salad in which I picked out but it had lots of yummy mayo in too! I was disappointed when I’d finished eating them as they were so good!


The box also contained Tyrells mini plane (geddit!) crisps, a Broderick’s millionaire’s shortbread and 2 little peppermints. This was all yummy too! Virgin really have improved their afternoon tea massively over the years!


After tea I put on another film that had been on my to watch list, The Duff. It was really funny! I actually didn’t have enough time to finish it so I saved the last 45 minutes for the flight home.


The rest of the flight passed very quickly and before we knew it there was only half an hour until we were landing. I reapplied a bit of concealer and powder to my face and then made sure all our stuff was all packed up ready for getting off the plane.


As we flew in over the coast it was obvious there was a storm brewing! The skies were grey which made for a bit of a gloomy journey over Florida! We saw a huge strike of fork lightening at one point! We were chatting with the Dad next to us at this point and we were all saying ‘woah did you see that’! We were all grateful we hadn’t been any closer to it (little did we know it would be on our flight home where we’d really get a close up encounter with lightening while on a plane!)


Luckily we soon passed through the storm and were coming in to land at a less than sunny MCO but there wasn’t a drop of rain (or lightening) in sight thankfully. We were relieved as we knew that if there was a storm in the area all the baggage handlers would have to wait for it to pass until they could start unloading the luggage which can add delays once you get through immigration.


We landed at around 5:25 so only 15 minutes late which was good!


Now here’s where it got a little complicated! Lauren and I were at the back of the bubble so got off first after upper class and downstairs PE and we’d explained to Mum and Dad that we would start walking ahead and they could catch us up on the walk to the Immigration hall.


So as I said Lauren and I were off quickly and headed off expecting them to catch up soon. As we were walking along the corridor we could see that another flight had just landed and they were starting to unload them all off their plane too so Lauren and I sped up a little as it can be a nightmare with long waits when multiple planes land at the same time.


We made it into the hall where there was a teeny tiny line, hooray! Only problem being Mum and Dad were nowhere to be seen behind us! We didn’t know what to do as lots of people were now getting in the line so Lauren and I decided to get in too and hope Mum and Dad walked quickly and the line didn’t move too fast.


Typically though the queue was speeding along and Lauren and I were getting closer and closer to the front still with no sign of Mum and Dad. We luckily spotted them just as we reached the
immigration officer who asks if you’re eligible to use the self-service machines.


As we’ve all been within the last 2 years and have ESTA’s we were but we explained that our parents were just over at the back. The lady we spoke to was so lovely and pulled us aside into a little area beside the machines and told us to call Mum and Dad over! Thank goodness! She was so nice and we really appreciated it!


Unfortunately Mum and Dad hadn’t known what to do so were now trapped in the long line right at the back. Lauren and I managed to catch their attention and were desperately trying to beckon them over to us without making too much of a scene! Luckily they got the message fairly quickly and jumped out of the line and walked round to join us. I hoped we didn’t annoy any of the other people waiting!


As I said, in hindsight Mum and Dad should have booked the seats downstairs as then Lauren and I would have been the ones doing the catching up. The issue was that as Mum and Dad had been trying to leave the bubble they had been held on the stairs for a little while to let some of the downstairs economy passengers off which I thought was a little cheeky considering everyone left up in the bubble was PE.


Disaster averted though, we went over to a spare machine. Mum had had trouble scanning her fingers last year but it was all fine this time and we each got a little slip with a print out of our details and picture on (remember these slips of paper!)


We were sent straight to an immigration officer who was friendly enough. Spent barely a minute stamping our passports and welcoming us to Orlando. He took our customs form (I’d ticked yes to bringing in food) but barely even glanced at it and didn’t ask what we were bringing in (only crisps and cereal bars etc) and sent us on our way!


After the initial stress it was one of most relaxed immigration processes ever!


We headed over to the baggage carousels to wait for our suitcases. Premium Economy has its own carousel with Upper Class so Mum and Dad headed over to that and their bags came out super quickly. Lauren and I left our hand luggage with Mum and Dad while we took it in turns to use the restrooms and wait for our cases.


Mine thankfully came out quickly. I have a bit of anxiety about this, I had a case broken in to when travelling back from Rome once and then last summer in Verona airport my suitcase never turned up at all and as pathetic as it sounds I got in such a state that I almost gave myself an asthma attack (it arrived after a couple of days thankfully). It was the incident in Rome that did it and since then I’ve never packed anything important that couldn’t be replaced in to my hold luggage again! I digress I was very happy to see my suitcase!


Unfortunately there was no sign of Lauren’s. There didn’t seem to be any more cases coming out and none of the ones already on the carousel were hers. The relief of mine arriving was dissipating and we were worrying that perhaps Lauren’s hadn’t arrived.


There was an anxious few minutes before I spotted someone across from us who was also waiting, point to the PE/UC carousel and say ‘hey there’s our other bag’! Lauren, Dad and I all quickly made our way over there in hope that the same would happen to us and sure enough there was Lauren’s case going around! Phew!


We wondered if it was because Lauren’s case is so big (still within the size limits) as many of the cases now going around were on the larger side. We were so thankful to have all our cases and made our way over to the customs line.


It was quite long but moved quickly. MCO was, as always, the hottest airport known to man which always makes these lines lovely and relaxing…not!


Dad and I noticed that quite a few people still seemed to have their white customs form that we had handed in back at Immigration (I’d doubled checked at the desk that I didn’t need to keep it). So when we reached the front I explained to the man that the officer had kept ours.


Unfortunately this guy was a miserable… so and so. He replied “Of course he did. I need the white receipts from the machines”, Dad handed over his and Mum’s and I found Lauren’s in my bag but mine was nowhere to be seen! My handbag was really packed tight so I was desperately searching for it saying “sorry I’m just trying to find it”. Mr laugh a minute replied “You can stand around looking for it and chatting but you’re gonna make everyone behind you pretty angry. Bye girls.”


I was a bit taken aback but grabbed my cases and carried on towards the exit. How unnecessary was that! The white slip never did turn up so I must have dropped it somewhere along the way but I’d apologised for not being able to find it. He could have just told me not to worry and to go through. I know they’re not known for their manners in there but rudeness is just so unnecessary!


Despite that we made it onto the monorail and back to the main building by 6:25! We were all a bit hot and bothered after dragging the suitcases but nothing beats the feeling of stepping in to the atrium area! It’s so beautiful (unless you’re flying home then its awful!). I love the smell of the fountain!


We were heading our separate ways here as Mum and Dad were catching the Magical Express to Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort and Lauren and I had booked Florida Magical Tours to take us to Royal Pacific Resort at Universal.


We left Mum sitting on a bench with all of her and Dad’s bags while Dad walked us down to level 1 on the A side to meet our driver (the magical express is on the B side of course!) He helped us with our suitcases and also wanted to let the taxi driver see that we had a ‘well ‘ard’ skin head (aka bald hehe) Dad close by just in case he was harbouring hopes of kidnapping us. He’s a very over protective Daddy but we love him all the more for it!


We’ve used Florida Magical Tours before and they’re brilliant! We couldn’t fault them. Our driver was really friendly (not the murdering sort as my Dad had been imagining haha) and helped us with our cases down to his car. We were really pleased to see that despite only paying for a basic town car they had sent a huge SUV with loads of room for our cases! They would have fit in the town car according to their website but it was lovely to arrive in style at RPR! We left at 6:35 and were on our way!


Our driver was very chatty and we spoke about the weather as we had just missed the huge storm that we’d passed as we flew over the coast so the roads were still very wet and he told us what a nightmare foreign drivers could be leaving the airport for the first time hehe. We discussed the differences between driving in the UK and US.


The journey wasn’t too bad, we met a bit of traffic as we passed the Orlando360 wheel but we were pulling up at RPR around 7:10!


We thanked our driver and headed in to the lobby (we’d already paid the tip when we booked).


RPR such a gorgeous resort and we instantly fell in love with it! The first thing we noticed was how incredible the lobby smelt! It really felt like a deluxe resort!


There was no one waiting at check in so as soon as the next member of staff was free we headed over. Check in was very simple, they swiped my credit card, pointed out where to get our Express passes from, told us that early entry was to Islands of Adventure and gave us our room number.


We were given a room in tower 1 on the 3rd floor which meant we had one of the recently refurbished rooms! We hadn’t given much thought to where we wanted to be at RPR as our stay was so short and to be honest when I’d seen a picture of the refurbed rooms I thought they were a bit much but as soon as we walked in to the room we were so happy we had one! The pictures didn’t do it justice!


It was absolutely beautiful! We both loved the décor! The beds were ridiculously comfy too!















The view from the window!


We had packed all our clothes for Universal at the top of our suitcases (although we quickly realised we hadn’t thought to do this with our toiletries etc which meant we had to unpack more than we’d hoped to!)


We facetimed Mum and Dad as soon as we could to see how they were! They loved the theming at Coronado! They had a room in Ranchos. They’d requested Casitas but actually Ranchos was great as it was right next to a bus stop plus only a short walk to one of the quiet pool which Mum and Dad prefer to the main pool. It was only about a 10 minute walk if that to the main building where Pepper Market is too so they were happy!


Here are a whole bunch of photos Mum took at various points of their stay at CSR! It looks like a beautiful resort, Lauren and I would love to stay there one day!


























Once we were sorted we headed out to explore the hotel a little. We stopped off in the lobby to take some photos and print our express passes. They machines were really low down but you can adjust the camera. Mine came out ok but Lauren’s picture was covered in a black mark but it didn’t matter as they never looked at the picture and they’re rubbish quality anyway. We’d both bought Harry Potter lanyards with us which were cheaper than in the parks! I had a Hogwarts Express one and Lauren was Marauders Map themed! We added in our room key, park tickets and front of the line passes!











We’d originally talked about catching the boat over to City Walk but we decided against it as although we felt fine we had a feeling we’d crash pretty soon and didn’t want to be too far from our room! This was a shame in some ways as it meant we did miss some of the Universal snacks we’d been planning to have (including Cinnabon although I’ve had them before but still I was disappointed!)


Our back up plan was to grab dinner by the pool bar but neither of us were particularly hungry as we’d been so well fed on the plane!


We wondered down to the pool anyway for a quick look, one thing we noted was that it’s on the small side but fun theming all the same! We never made it in to the pool which was a shame (2 nights was not enough here!)


We wandered down to the boat dock and the start of the walkway to Islands of Adventure just so we knew where to go in the morning. RPR is quite a small resort so nothing is too far away from anything which is nice!


We stopped off in the gift shop on the way back to the room and grabbed some water and an ice cream sandwich each for dinner. This set us back $11! It was all we really felt like eating though







We took them back to the room to eat and sorted out our park bags ready for the next day so we’d be able to set off early!


After showers (no bath in our room which Lauren was a little disappointed about) we watched some tv for a bit before turning out the lights just before 9.


Overall a pretty successful travel day! I’d been expecting all kinds of bad luck with it being travel day number 13 so I went to bed very relieved we’d not been badly delayed or lost any cases!


Thanks for reading x

[Buffton]

Yippee! Brilliant detailed start, as always! The man at the airport sounded so unnecessarily rude. Looking forward to reading the next instalment!
Lizzie x

[vics18]

Great travel day Aimee, love the Potter lanyards!

[mickeysard]

As always great report! I think we will have to wait til we get back to read the rest of your Fantstic reports.We we're hoping to get to see Some pictures and reports of Wilderness Lodge resort as we are thinking of staying there soon.Thankyou for sharing

[sheluk]

Yay you've started! Excellent travel day - glad unlucky for some 13 didn't trip you up (oh wait apart from your mini incident first thing )

Your rooms lovely lovely and those lanyards are fab!

will pm you my fb deets if that's ok? I may have a stalk of your universal and Disney photos I hope you don't mind - in a friendly dibb way of course

Love the new countdown! Assume that's fab half term? You'll go not long after we get back! V exciting.looking forward to the rest xx

[Guest]

great travel day

[Tink 45]

Great start! I know the immigration men can be quite rude! Trying to spoil our fun! Looking to forward to reading more! X

[Dogwalker]

Great travel day
We love RPR!
Looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip

[Guest]

Great travel day! We saw you guys from Chefs De France when we were eating one evening in Epcot, it looked like there was a mini meet up going on but you'd all gone by the time we left!