The Theme Parks, the Dining & Compeed..nailed it! (4/10) Life Update

Princess Leia · Jul 27, 2015

Hi everyone! Although I've been on the Disboards for many years I have never written a trip report. I have spent many an evening, when I should be doing other things, reading other people's trip reports.

Let's start with some introductions:

Meet the Family

This will be our 5th trip to Florida. Our first trip was in July 2008. I had been twice to WDW in my late teens but it was the first time for the others.

The trip in 2008 was our ‘Once in a Life-time’ trip. I wonder how many people have said that? WDW has been an important part of every Orlando trip. The other theme parks we tend to visit on alternate trips. This trip the plan was to spend the first two nights at Universal before 12 nights staying at Old Key West. I have really enjoyed the other Disney Deluxe hotels we have stayed at but we really needed to move to separate sleeping arrangements for the children. I had come up with some off-site options but they were having none of that! This will be our fifth trip to WDW so we have lots of Disney memories.

I’m known on the Dis Boards as Princess Leia. I work full-time and spend most of my non-working life driving the children to their various activities. I have always enjoyed our family holidays. I also love singing and musical theatre.

Favourite Park: Magic Kingdom

Favourite Ride: Space Mountain

Favourite Character(s): Pluto and Chip & Dale

Favourite Disney Movie: Peter Pan although I do have a soft spot for Pete’s Dragon!

Alan (DH) loves going to WDW. He wasn’t so keen on the idea the first time but was soon won over by how well organised it was! He hates leaving the Disney bubble so was looking forward to the first two days of our holiday being over! He is great with rope drop but not so great with late nights! He enjoys playing tennis and watching rugby.

Favourite Park: Magic Kingdom

Favourite Ride: Splash Mountain

Favourite Character: Sulley

Favourite Disney Movie: Monsters Inc

Hannah is 14 years old. Her hobbies are singing, acting and being an all round drama queen! Like most teenage girls she spends too much time on Instagram and Netflix.

Favourite Park: Magic Kingdom

Favourite Ride: Expedition Everest

Favourite Character(s): Rapunzel and Minnie Mouse

Favourite Disney Movie: Loves so many but at the moment Tangled.

Then there's Peter. He's the one in the sunglasses.

Peter is 10 years old. He spends his time playing rugby, swimming, going to rugby matches, playing guitar and the Xbox. Peter particularly loves going to the water parks.

Favourite Park: Magic Kingdom

Favourite Ride: Space Mountain

Favourite Character(s): Chip and Dale

Favourite Disney Movie: Monsters University

For more details of the plans for this trip you can read my short pre-trip report.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/we-get-to-do-it-all-again-july-2015-ptr.3423540/

Hope you can join us on our 14 day trip.

Princess Leia · Jul 27, 2015

Links

Day 1: Ladybird, Ladybird fly us to the Sun

Day 2 - Part One 'Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!'

Day 2 - Part Two 'Oh the Places you'll go! There is fun to be done in Universal!

Day 2- Part Three: Oh, the places you'll go! Where will the Hogwart's Express
take us?

Day 2 - Part Four: Oh, the places you'll go! Where next? A Rockstar Mansion...
Whoohoo!

Day 2 - Part Five: Nice Pants!

Day 3 - Part One: Where’s the Port of Exit? aka When Alan’s away the others just play!

Life Update

Interlude: September weekend in Scotland

Interlude: September Weekend in Scotland Day 2

Interlude: September Weekend in Scotland Day 3

Day 3- Part Two: Oh the Stories You’ll Hear

Day 3 Part Three: The Circus, the Rest Rooms and Banshees

Day 3 Part Four: Old Key West – We need a rest!

Day 4 Part One: Everybody’s got a laughing place!

Day 4 Part Two: Ice cream for breakfast....squirrel!

Day 4 Part Three: I want my photo taken with the Horse

Day 4 Part Four: It’s a Festival of Fantasy!

Day 4 Part Five: Wocka, wocka, wocka!

Day 5 Part One: What no rope drop?

Day 5 Part Two: Dining at Mama Melrose’s

Day 5 Part Three: Sit at peace I’m watching Fantasmic!

Day 6 Part One: Blitzing Blizzard Beach

Real Life Update - June 2016
https://disboards.com/threads/the-t...-10-life-update.3433152/page-10#post-59068413
Real Life Update - April 2018

Princess Leia · Jul 27, 2015

Having a real problem with Gremlins tonight. No matter what I do I don't seem to be getting sorted - hopefully will resolve soon.

DaisyDuck001 · Jul 27, 2015

Were you there July 3-17? I was there July 11-21.

Princess Leia · Jul 28, 2015

DaisyDuck001 said:
Were you there July 3-17? I was there July 11-21.

Yes we were there 3rd to 17th July.

xlsm · Jul 28, 2015

HI!!

Popping in from your PTR, I got behind putting the finishing touches on our trip and then going on our vacation. We were there 7/13 - 7/21

We took one day at Uni/IOA, and I'm anxious to read how your experience was. Ours was...tiring. LOL!

Looking forward to reading about your trip!

Princess Leia · Jul 28, 2015

Day One: Ladybird, Ladybird fly us to the Sun

Friday 3rd July 2015

After all the months of planning the day of our trip had finally dawned. We were flying directly from Glasgow International Airport to Orlando International Airport with Virgin Atlantic. We were looking forward to flying with Virgin again. My Dad arrived at 9.15am to drive us to the airport. We arrived at the airport at 9.45am. We waited in line to check in our 3 cases. Security was well organised and turned out to be quick and painless. It only took around 5 minutes. Once airside we picked up our pre-ordered currency for the trip.

Time passed quickly. We picked up some sandwiches and drinks for an early lunch. Alan went for a wander round the shop whilst I sat with Hannah and Peter. I had planned to look at the prices for a new iPad for Peter but by the time Alan came back there wasn’t time. Boarding was delayed slightly so we could observe the one minute silence for those who died in the attacks in Tunisia the previous week.

We were flying on Ladybird.

Hannah and I had seats upstairs in what is affectionately known as ‘the Bubble’ in Seats 79J and 79K.

Alan and Peter had seats downstairs together, 32A and 32B, on the left hand side of the plane. During the 4,120 mile flight that lasted 8 and half hours we passed the time watching films and eating the food that was brought to us. Peter watched Big Hero 6, Penguins of Madagascar and Paddington. Alan watched Big Hero 6 and Penguins of Madagascar. Hannah watched Big Hero 6, Home and Cinderella. I watched Home, Big Hero 6, read for a while and played Jewels. Hannah and I had been keen to try flying upstairs as it was something we hadn’t done before. We liked the cubby hole for storage that was at the side of Hannah’s seat. The overhead compartments were pretty shallow so we had to store our hand luggage in a cupboard to the back of the cabin. As we were sitting next to someone we didn’t know we felt a lot more restricted about getting up and down. This also meant that I didn’t get my camera out so we don’t have many photos except a few on Hannah’s phone. Actually if I thought about it I could have used the iPad...don’t worry I’ll make up for this during the holiday. On the few occasions he got up during the flight we took our opportunity to make a toilet stop or get something out of hand luggage.

The menu choices were beef and red wine, chicken curry or penne pasta. I had decided I would like the chicken curry but they run out just before they got to me so I ended up with the beef. Hannah needed to get changed after her penne pasta as she ended up wearing the tomato sauce. She noted that a dark coloured top may be a better choice for travel in future. The food was pretty unremarkable which is often the case with airplane food.

We were pleased to land in Orlando at 3.55pm. There is a 5 hour time difference between the UK and Orlando and our clocks were still showing the time as 8.55pm. They announced that we were going to start disembarking the plane so people started queuing to get off the plane. This was immediately followed by an announced that they has been informed that due to the number of arrivals we would not be allowed off the plane for another 45 minutes. Groan! I went downstairs to speak to the boys but couldn’t get past all the people still queued up in the aisles. We headed back upstairs but it soon got busy there too as they opened the cockpit to let children see it. I felt sorry for families with young children who had already kept them entertained for an 8.5 hour flight.

Hannah and I got to leave the plane before the boys. As I knew we had to go through immigration as a family I tried to wait for the boys in the area outside the exit of the plane. We were moved on and told we couldn’t wait in that area so we went slowly up to the huge queue. We kept letting other families go in front of us. We ended up moving up the queue and had to ask one of the TSA officers to let us out the queue so we could get back together with the boys. The queue was so long. We were directed to use the self serve kiosks but ended up with 2 crosses for Alan and Hannah. We think this may be due to Alan having a new passport from last trip and Hannah being too young for fingerprints last trip. Anyway we had to then go through the same process with an immigration officer. We then waited to collect our cases and held on to them when we got on the escalator. It is definitely easier travelling with older children as they can help pull a case. When they were younger there were 4 cases, 2 young children to hold onto and car seats.

We found the Budget car hire desk and got into the queue at 5.30pm. It soon became apparent that this was going to take a while. I started to time people being served ...wait a minute that’s been over 20 minutes. We could see our plans for heading over to Islands of Adventure slipping away before our very eyes. We had pre-booked our car and already paid for additional insurance and driver. We just wanted to get our keys and go. When we got to the desk it didn’t take us long before we had been directed to our Chevy Impala. We finally got our car at 6.35pm. We have a Sat Nav which we bring with us with US and Canada maps on it. I had pre-programmed the address for our hotel. It kept saying it had lost signal. Let’s switch it off and start again. We thought it would come to life once we got out of the parking garage. No, it was still not wanting to wake up. I knew I could follow directions for Universal once I was on the right road. Normally I’m a belt and braces person and would have printed out directions but I obviously placed too much confidence in my sat nav. I ended up navigating using the rubbish small print map that the car hire company gives you. We had made some good progress when 'Dermot' my Sat Nav man eventually came out of his coma. Thanks Dermot, glad you could join us!

We arrived at the Fairfield Inn and Suites, Orlando near Universal. We had packed one case for what we would need for our first 2 nights at Universal. We were quickly checked-in and given our parking pass. We were upgraded to a Studio with a King size bed and a sofa bed. When we got to our room there was no bedding for the sofa bed so we contacted reception to ask if they could make up the bed whilst we were out for our meal.

Alan persuaded me that there was not enough time to go over to Islands of Adventure. I reluctantly agreed. There were a number of restaurants around the car park of the hotel. We had planned to eat at Confisco’s Grill but I hadn’t made a reservation in case we were delayed. I spotted Miller’s Ale House and recalled that Gina had been to the Ale House. I couldn’t remember if she thought it was any good but decided it was very late and we had been on the go from early and needed to get some food and then to bed. Miller’s Ale House was very busy but we got a table.

Alan and I ordered the Bistro Burger and Hannah and Peter both ordered the Chicken fajitas.

We had forgotten how much ice is served in drinks. Peter enjoyed watching the mixed martial arts on the overhead TVs. This was his kinda place. The boys had the good seats for watching the screens – from my seat I’d to snap my neck back to see the baseball on the TV above our table.

When I looked at my watch it was after 10pm. We skipped desserts as we were absolutely shattered. We had been on the go for nearly 24 hours. Hannah and I took the nice big comfy king size bed leaving the boys to the sofa bed. At about 3am Peter clambered into the big bed on the other side of me leaving Alan to tough it out on the sofa bed. We knew the next day we would be up early as our body clocks would still be five hours ahead. I am glad we made the decision to spend the first night in a less expensive hotel as it would have been a waste of an additional night at the Hard Rock Hotel. The location of this Fairfield was good for visiting Universal.

JoshAndEvsMom · Jul 28, 2015

Joining in! Nice start!

Princess Leia · Jul 28, 2015

xlsm said:
HI!!

Popping in from your PTR, I got behind putting the finishing touches on our trip and then going on our vacation. We were there 7/13 - 7/21

We took one day at Uni/IOA, and I'm anxious to read how your experience was. Ours was...tiring. LOL!

Looking forward to reading about your trip!

Good to see you! I've been following along on your trip report. I share your love for Wilderness Lodge having spent 14 nights there in July 2013. I'll be onto Universal/IOA soon.

JoshAndEvsMom said:
Joining in! Nice start!

Good to have you along.

khertz · Jul 28, 2015

Popping over from my TR to join in!

How great that you get such long trips to Disney! That's really awesome, but I guess kind of necessary considering the time lost to travel and such.

And speaking of that, what a long travel day! Y'all are such troopers making it out that late on your first day. Bummer you missed out on IoA but it's better not to stretch yourself too thin on the first day, I'm sure.

disneymomof1 · Jul 28, 2015

Joining in, great start !!

luckylady · Jul 28, 2015

I'm in. Can't wait too hear how you liked Hard Rock.

pookersmom · Jul 28, 2015

Joining in too.

Princess Leia · Jul 29, 2015

khertz said:
Popping over from my TR to join in!

How great that you get such long trips to Disney! That's really awesome, but I guess kind of necessary considering the time lost to travel and such.

And speaking of that, what a long travel day! Y'all are such troopers making it out that late on your first day. Bummer you missed out on IoA but it's better not to stretch yourself too thin on the first day, I'm sure.

Good to have you along. It is good we can do longer trips. They do 14 day UK tickets. We lost a lot of time at Orlando airport this time.

disneymomof1 said:
Joining in, great start !!

Glad you could join us.

luckylady said:
I'm in. Can't wait too hear how you liked Hard Rock.

Will be going to HRH very soon.

pookersmom said:
Joining in too.

LanaBear-ox · Jul 30, 2015

Joining in! I love British TR's, gives a whole different perspective (I'm in North Wales), can't wait to hear more :wave:

Princess Leia · Jul 30, 2015

Good to have you along LanaBear! Hasn't the weather in Britain been awful this summer? Glad I got a couple of weeks of sun!

melduckie · Jul 30, 2015

Joining! What a full travel day!!! Good point on not wasting that first night's money on HRH!! :thumbsup2

cajunfan · Jul 30, 2015

Can't wait to read more!

Lynn

Princess Leia · Jul 30, 2015

melduckie said:
Joining! What a full travel day!!! Good point on not wasting that first night's money on HRH!!

At least the flight was relatively short. I think we were just a bit unfortunate in being delayed with both immigration and car hire. There definitely would have been no real benefit to staying the first night at Hard Rock. We even got a free breakfast thrown in.

cajunfan said:
Can't wait to read more!

Lynn

Next instalment coming up soon.

Princess Leia · Jul 30, 2015

Day Two Part One: Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!

Saturday 4th July 2015

We were up at 5am. We got ready including getting our sun cream on and bags ready for a day at the parks. We went down for breakfast in the hotel at 6.30am. There was a good range of food items and drinks to choose from. Alan made me a waffle with the waffle machine. The children chose cereals, yoghurt and fresh fruit. We went back to the room to brush our teeth and get the case to put in the boot of the car.

The driveway leading up to the Hard Rock Hotel was impressive. We had booked a night at Hard Rock so we could get two days of Express Passes. We had stayed at the Royal Pacific Resort at Universal for a couple of nights on our first family trip to Florida in 2008. We went back to Universal in 2011 without Express Passes and it became pretty unbearable in terms of getting on rides after mid-morning. While we were checking in a guy from outside came in to ask if we had a white Impala. It turns out Alan had parked in the Manager’s parking space. That’s Rock Stars for you! Alan went to move his car to the hotel car park. We were given temporary hotel cards at this stage and were told they would text when our room was ready. The girl checking us in explained that we would receive a text that would either let us go straight to our room or give us new cards. She asked if we wanted to set up charging to our room. Once we gave credit card details she said that we could now use our cards to charge things to our room. Alan asked if they would be doing anything special for the 4th Of July. She said there wasn’t anything special happening at Universal but told us there were other things we could go to. She gave us a sheet that gave details of other things in the area. She told us about the fireworks at Lake Eola. We then went over to the kiosks in the lobby to print out our express passes. Each person puts in their hotel card and gets a photo taken. Hannah’s photo was so dark it could have been anyone. The lobby didn’t look like it should have as a large section was screened off with an ‘Excuse our Dust’ notice.

We walked the short walk from the Hard Rock Hotel to Universal Studios. This was truly an onsite hotel. At the end of the path there was a security officer who did the bag check prior to entering the park. I issued the paper park tickets which needed signed and then we entered the park. After that we were asked if we needed lanyards. I asked whether they had Harry Potter or Minions ones but was told they had all sold out. I later discovered them at lots of other locations. I chose a Mother of All Things and a Father of All Things lanyard. The girls shared a lanyard and the boys shared the other one. I gave my room card over to pay but it turned out it was not activated for charging...Let’s bring out the wallet then. We went straight away to pick up our Star photo connect card. We had purchased the 3 day consecutive card. The plan had been to pick it up the previous night. We were given another lanyard to put round my neck.

We spotted Agnes and Edith from Despicable Me. There wasn’t a photographer with the characters so we needed to get my camera out.

Our first ride was Minion Mayhem. Last time we are at Universal it was Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast which I noted we went on 8.49am. Don’t worry I haven’t noted the times of all our rides but was just interested to see how our timing worked out that first morning. We really enjoyed the ride and felt it was well done. On the way out we met a Minion. It could have been Tom. I wish I had taken some photos on my own camera as the ones they took are a bit blurry.

Peter had been really looking forward to doing some of the roller coasters. We haven’t been to Universal since 2011 when Peter was only 6. In 2013 we went to Sea World and Peter loved Kraken and Manta. This morning Rip Ride Rockit was his priority. Alan is not a fan of big coasters. He prefers the Disney offerings. Peter was keen for Dad to try it once if just for the ride photo. We agreed that Alan, Hannah and Peter would ride first and I waited at a bench within the entrance of the queue. It wasn’t long before they returned. Pete said “It was fun!” to which Alan responded “Was it? I didn’t notice.” Alan seemed a bit traumatised by this experience. I asked if they had got the ride photo but they weren’t able to locate it. I left Alan recovering on the bench so I could take my turn on the ride with Hannah and Peter. This time we found the photo and watched the ride video. At Rip Ride Rockit you need to go to a counter where they give you a receipt with a code to enter online to add the photo to your account.

The weather was sunny and incredibly hot. We were ready for a drink. We had done our research and had decided ahead of time that we were going to purchase Coca-Cola Freestyle mugs. We purchased these at Mel’s Drive In. Peter had been looking forward to trying all the different flavours of drinks.

It’s Competition Time – What is Alan doing in this photo?

Soon it was time for more refills. You are able to refill your mug every 10 minutes. At first it was fun to try some strange concoctions.

Close your eyes and see what you get!

We walked on round to the Springfield area, stopping along the way for a couple of photos.

It was great to be able to wear summer clothes again. We haven’t been in shorts since last summer which is probably pretty obvious from the paleness of our skin.

The Theme Parks, the Dining & Compeed..nailed it! (4/10) Life Update

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