Booknut
<font color=green>I couldn't figure out why people
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2005
- Messages
- 2,544
To say that DH and I were very excited on the morning of 17 September would be an understatement! We got very little sleep and had to be up at 6am as the taxi was coming to pick us up at 7am for our drive to Gatwick. Although the driver was 15 minutes late (and I was having a semi-heart attack whilst yelling at the taxi firm over the phone - why do they always say the car is 5 minutes away???) we got to Gatwick in plenty of time. We had checked in online the day before so knew where we would be sitting. We flew with BA and can't really complain, the flights were pretty cheap and the flight was pretty non-eventful, even went by pretty quickly (or maybe it was just our excitement?!). 
We got to Orlando Int'l and were amazed at how organised and quick everything was. We went through customs (that was quite fast as well), picked up our bags, dropped them off again (strange but it seemed to work quickly), picked the bags up again and went off to the car rental place. At this point I was feeling quite relaxed and confident that all the planning I had done for this trip was not in vain.
This feeling of confidence lasted a whole 15 minutes. When we went to collect our suitcases my DH asked me to go get a cart and you have to pay $3 for them. I didn't have $3 in quarters so it lets you swipe a card. No problem, I open my bag up, look inside the money pocket and realise that I had left every single credit and debit card at home!!!
I was absolutely sick to my stomach, I thought I was going to be ill. How would we rent a car? We would need a credit card and I was sure that my DH had left his wallet at home...when he came looking for me and saw the look on my face he knew something had gone terribly wrong! I was almost in tears at this point. Luckily, he had brought a card with him just in case but it was an emergency card with very little credit on it. It was all we had so we gave it a go.
We went to the Avis desk, checked in to get our car and were told that the card had been declined...I was absolutely devastated...no idea what to do. DH kept cool head, we sat down for a few moments to analyse our options. And then we noticed the car rental phone booths at the airport with various advertisements on them and one said 'cash rentals'. This was our only hope. We rang them up (USA Car Rentals - they are fab!) and told them the situation and they said no problem, as long as they could authorise $200 on the card we could rent a car. We were pretty sure we had at least that much so we caught their shuttle to the car rental place (only waited 5 minutes too which was good), filled in the forms and 30 minutes after the phone call were in our car, woo hoo! It was a bit bigger than we had planned but a nice drive. Crisis averted.
I'd like to say at this point that I was so embarrassed at my incredible stupidity at having left one of the most important things at home that even as I typed that out I can feel my cheeks warming up
We drove off, tired, and slightly stressed yet relieved and it only took us 10 minutes to get lost! We stopped at a 7-Eleven to get petrol, buy a map and get some coke slurpees as I hadn't had one in years and I love them - coke slurpee machine was broken...I started laughing because it just seemed like this was the kind of day I was meant to have
Finally found the 192, drove to the Villa place to pick up the keys and stopped at the Wal-Mart to pick up basics. At 7.00pm (almost 4 hours after landing!) we finally got to our villa just off the 192 and it was AMAZING!!
We dropped the bags off, grabbed the swimsuits from the carry-on (at least i'd planned that much right!) and jumped into the swimming pool, it was absolute heaven
We managed to be able to laugh at my incredible stupidity around 8.30pm before we collapsed into bed. Tomorrow...WDW!!!
We got to Orlando Int'l and were amazed at how organised and quick everything was. We went through customs (that was quite fast as well), picked up our bags, dropped them off again (strange but it seemed to work quickly), picked the bags up again and went off to the car rental place. At this point I was feeling quite relaxed and confident that all the planning I had done for this trip was not in vain.
This feeling of confidence lasted a whole 15 minutes. When we went to collect our suitcases my DH asked me to go get a cart and you have to pay $3 for them. I didn't have $3 in quarters so it lets you swipe a card. No problem, I open my bag up, look inside the money pocket and realise that I had left every single credit and debit card at home!!!
I was absolutely sick to my stomach, I thought I was going to be ill. How would we rent a car? We would need a credit card and I was sure that my DH had left his wallet at home...when he came looking for me and saw the look on my face he knew something had gone terribly wrong! I was almost in tears at this point. Luckily, he had brought a card with him just in case but it was an emergency card with very little credit on it. It was all we had so we gave it a go.
We went to the Avis desk, checked in to get our car and were told that the card had been declined...I was absolutely devastated...no idea what to do. DH kept cool head, we sat down for a few moments to analyse our options. And then we noticed the car rental phone booths at the airport with various advertisements on them and one said 'cash rentals'. This was our only hope. We rang them up (USA Car Rentals - they are fab!) and told them the situation and they said no problem, as long as they could authorise $200 on the card we could rent a car. We were pretty sure we had at least that much so we caught their shuttle to the car rental place (only waited 5 minutes too which was good), filled in the forms and 30 minutes after the phone call were in our car, woo hoo! It was a bit bigger than we had planned but a nice drive. Crisis averted.
I'd like to say at this point that I was so embarrassed at my incredible stupidity at having left one of the most important things at home that even as I typed that out I can feel my cheeks warming up
We drove off, tired, and slightly stressed yet relieved and it only took us 10 minutes to get lost! We stopped at a 7-Eleven to get petrol, buy a map and get some coke slurpees as I hadn't had one in years and I love them - coke slurpee machine was broken...I started laughing because it just seemed like this was the kind of day I was meant to have
Finally found the 192, drove to the Villa place to pick up the keys and stopped at the Wal-Mart to pick up basics. At 7.00pm (almost 4 hours after landing!) we finally got to our villa just off the 192 and it was AMAZING!!
We dropped the bags off, grabbed the swimsuits from the carry-on (at least i'd planned that much right!) and jumped into the swimming pool, it was absolute heaven We managed to be able to laugh at my incredible stupidity around 8.30pm before we collapsed into bed. Tomorrow...WDW!!!
