Another Amazing Adventure - Day 1 - 3rd April 2016

[Nimbus]

Pre Trip Report

Travel day and it's an early start, just like many of our other trips to Florida. This was the 8th time Michelle and I have visited Orlando and Walt Disney World and the 5th time for Hannah. We'd already done online check-in for our Thomas Cook flight so just needed to get the taxi at 7pm to Manchester airport and drop off our bags. However, once at the airport we still had to queue to use the machines to print off our luggage tags and then visit the desk to hand over our suitcases where they checked our details and our passports. So I'm not sure whether online check-in actually saved us any time.

Anyway, the security check went smoothly and quickly and we were soon airside. Here we are enjoying our breakfast at Starbucks at Terminal 1. The airport seemed very busy.

Before boarding the plane we met a friend of Hannah's and her mum who were also flying to Orlando on the same flight as us. The mum works for Thomas Cook and was waiting to see if they had got a standby seat on the plane (otherwise it was off to somewhere like Tenerife). They hadn't booked any ADRs or the like, were going to get tickets whilst out there, book fastpasses on the day, etc. You see, it is possible to visit WDW without planning anything.

Anyway, after waiting a while - I think the plane was slightly late taking off - here we are onboard and a photo of inside the plane in front of us. TC's plane was reasonably good, food was quite nice (I had the chicken curry), although the standard inflight entertainment was very limited. You could pay £4 to upgrade to includes lots of newer films but we didn't bother.

After 9 hours we landed at MCO (Orlando Intl airport). I'd been fearing the worst but, actually, MCO was quite good. Not as large and complicated as I thought it was going to be. I think I prefer it to Sanford.

Because we were staying onsite at a Disney resort, we could get the Magical Express bus to our hotel. Unfortunately, we didn't get a "proper" Disney bus but instead a Mears replacement bus. That was a bit of a let down.

Soon we were off and we got to see a different part of Orlando than we're used to, having usually arrived from the direction of Sanford. Above is a blurry photo familiar to many - the entrance to Walt Disney World; we're now on Disney property! Woohoo.

It's not long before we are at the Caribbean Beach Resort, our home for the next two weeks.

After a long time checking in at CBR - Disney really need more staff on reception - we collected our Magic Bands (red for me, pink for Michelle, purple for Hannah) and waited for Bell Services to take us to our room. Unfortunately, we hadn't got a room in Jamaica as requested and instead were in Martinique in a block that's not far from Custom House, the reception area.

As you can see we were in room 2137.

Here's a view of inside our room at CBR before we started messing it up...

...and here's a view from the opposite end of the room.

BTW, you can see my review of CBR here.

Of course, it was very similar to the room we had last time we stayed at CBR. I have to say, the room was a little dark, although most hotel rooms are.

Here's a view of a courtyard area at CBR, which was just around the corner from our room. Unfortunately, our room overlooked one of the parking lots rather than the above scene.

A photo of Old Port Royale, the centertown area, in CBR. This was where the foodcourt and shop is located. On the right hand side is the pool. A room was about a 5 minute walk to here. However because it was located towards the back of the blocks and away from the central lake, it was a bit of a maze to get from our room to here.

Instead of staying in our room or at CBR feeling tired and trying to keep ourselves awake until at least 9pm local time (2am to us), we decided to get the shuttle bus to Magic Kingdom. We'd already planned on doing this when we'd heard Big Thunder Mountain was going to close after the 3rd April for a couple of months. Turns out, Disney changed their plans and rescheduled BTMR's refurb until August. But we stuck with our original plan anyway.

Here we are outside MK's entrance. Even at 6:30pm or so, it was pretty busy.

Our first photo of the castle. As you can see the weather was great and would remain so for most of the holiday.

Our first stop was at the Columbia Harbour House to get something for dinner. We had the QSDP included during our stay was it was time to start using those dining credits (we'd still end up with lots left over after 2 weeks).

Another shot of the castle. Just a pity that post is in the way.

Then it was off to use our first fastpass of our holiday at Big Thunder Mountain. It was very busy in MK and the standby queue was very long, extending outside the normal wueue area. So was the fastpass queue, but this moved a lot quicker.

By the time we had ridden BTMR - which is one of our favourite rides at WDW - it was going dark. Here's a photo of the riverboat going past Tom Sawyer Island and BTMR.

Then it was over to Tomorrowland for our next fastpass at Buzz Lightyear.

Hannah and I trying to get the top score on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.

Michelle looking a bit unsure about what she was doing. However, she ended up with the highest score between the 3 of us. I suspect some sort of cheating was going on.

BTW, Disney's Photopass system is supposed to automatically detect and select your photos using your Magicband. However, this often didn't seem to work properly. We ended up scanning our Magicbands at the exit to the ride instead as this seemed to work better.

It was well and truly dark now and getting late. We were tired after a long travel day and decided enough was enough. There was no way we would've stayed awake for the fireworks.

Instead, I took a quick photo of the castle lit up in the evening and we left MK. After a short trip on a Disney bus we arrived back at CBR and headed to our room to sleep.

That was the end of our first busy day.

[Ciano]

Sounds like a lovely travel day!

[app]

New Photo Added by Nimbus - 24 Apr 16 2:41 PM.

[Guest]

It sounds lovely to head straight to MK on arrival night, especially for a ride on Big Thunder Mountain! I'd love to do it someday, but since we usually travel indirect, it makes for some pretty long travel days!

[Pavilion1983]

Great travel day

[Jake71]

A great travel day, I'd love to have the oooomph to go to a park on arrival day, we've never managed yet though.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by klang_kat

It sounds lovely to head straight to MK on arrival night, especially for a ride on Big Thunder Mountain! I'd love to do it someday, but since we usually travel indirect, it makes for some pretty long travel days!

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Originally Posted by Jake71

A great travel day, I'd love to have the oooomph to go to a park on arrival day, we've never managed yet though.

See more...

We had already decided to head to MK straight after arrived based on hearing that BTMR was going to close on the 4th (not that it did in the end). It's our favourite ride in the whole of WDW. Plus it would give us something to do in the early evening rather than sitting around feeling tired like we usually do. It's not *too* tiring - although we left just before 9pm.

Mind you, it is surprising how long it takes to get from the airport to the hotel, check-in, get to the room and unpack. That took us a good 2 and a half hours, after which we almost decided not to bother heading to MK. But I'm glad we did.

Thanks for reading!

[debsym62]

Another trip pie to read, thank you for taking the time

[Redrach1903]

Great travel day and I'm impressed with you going to MK straight away

Those blue skies look SO good! Can't wait till next weekend

[Queen_Elsa]

Great report! We'll be at CBR again in a few weeks, can't wait!