Just back from WDW so here is the first part of my trip report.
Background:
Me/Paul - DH,36 and cheif Planner
Sharon - DW,32 big Disney fan
Callum - DS,7 Power Ranger mad
Aimee - DD,almost 4 and Ariel fan.
We booked with First Choice leaving from Bristol on Sat 14th Feb. Originally booked into the Rodeway Inn on I-Drive but had second thoughts and rented a private villa I found on ebay for £500 for 2 weeks! Car rented via usrentacar.co.uk (Alamo) and got a free upgrade to a SUV.
We actually live in Kent but could only go for the 2 weeks from 14th and the LGW FC flights are only on a thursday. I decided to drive down the day before and stay overnight in the Holiday Inn 2 miles away. They also did a package with the airport parking so I thought that would be easy.
After a manic and unexpected 6 hour drive to Bristol we finally arrived at the Holiday Inn about 8:30pm. We had booked a family room (NS) and was told that they did not have any family rooms and all they could offer was 2 interconnecting smoking rooms. We also found out they had not booked the car park for us so we was unable to drop the car off that noght and would have to do so the following morning (check in opens at 6am for 9am flight.)
We had to accept the rooms and to be honest I didnt notice any smoky smells and it was like a normal room. I am still going to complain however.
Day1
------------------------------
Dropped car off and arrived at terminal about 6:30 to find the queue massive for the 2 desks open. They had 2 men with laptops who you had to see first and give passports to before getting to the actual desks. This cause huge delays as they seemed to be having technical issues with the laptops and each family was taking about 15mins to clear. Often the checkin desks were waiting for people to be sent to them and alot of passengers were getting restless. We eventually got through and happily had 2 pairs of window seats as the seat config was 2-3-2. We eventually got airside and within 10 mins the started boarding our flight.
Once onboard I was very happy with the seat pitch(33') and comfort in the standard cabin. We then found out that we had to fly via Manchester as the runway at Bristol was not long enough for the fully fuelled plane so we needed to refuel at Manchester. We spent an hour on the plane there and what annoyed me was they IFE could not start until we took off from Manchester so there was almost 2.5 hours of boredom for the kids.
The rest of the flight was pretty uneventfull and we landed in Sanford about 40 minutes late. Unfortunately for us 3 other flights landed at the same time and the immigration queue was all the way to the back off the hall. This took about 2 hours to clear and was horrendous for the kids.We eventually got to the desk and it took about 10 mins to process us.
I went over to the Alamo office and was in the SUV within 10 mins so that was a refreshing change. We then headed out of the airport and off to our villa in Lake Davenport which we found easily an hour later. We popped back out to Publix to get groceries before hitting the beds about 11pm.
I appreciate we had alot of plain bad luck but getting there was a total nightmare, at least the plane was comfortable!!
Day 2
================
Animal Kingdom
We used the busy day guide from the Brits Guide and today had planned to visit AK as our first WDW experience.
We immediately went to the charachter signing and got Stitch, Minnie and Donald autographs and pics, Mickey had a much bigger queue.
We then went on Dinosaur and The Safari. The wateride had a 90 min queue so we bypassed that. The Lion King show is brilliant aswell.
Baby Rhino..........cute
This character scared my DD
Background:
Me/Paul - DH,36 and cheif Planner
Sharon - DW,32 big Disney fan
Callum - DS,7 Power Ranger mad
Aimee - DD,almost 4 and Ariel fan.
We booked with First Choice leaving from Bristol on Sat 14th Feb. Originally booked into the Rodeway Inn on I-Drive but had second thoughts and rented a private villa I found on ebay for £500 for 2 weeks! Car rented via usrentacar.co.uk (Alamo) and got a free upgrade to a SUV.
We actually live in Kent but could only go for the 2 weeks from 14th and the LGW FC flights are only on a thursday. I decided to drive down the day before and stay overnight in the Holiday Inn 2 miles away. They also did a package with the airport parking so I thought that would be easy.
After a manic and unexpected 6 hour drive to Bristol we finally arrived at the Holiday Inn about 8:30pm. We had booked a family room (NS) and was told that they did not have any family rooms and all they could offer was 2 interconnecting smoking rooms. We also found out they had not booked the car park for us so we was unable to drop the car off that noght and would have to do so the following morning (check in opens at 6am for 9am flight.)
We had to accept the rooms and to be honest I didnt notice any smoky smells and it was like a normal room. I am still going to complain however.
Day1
------------------------------
Dropped car off and arrived at terminal about 6:30 to find the queue massive for the 2 desks open. They had 2 men with laptops who you had to see first and give passports to before getting to the actual desks. This cause huge delays as they seemed to be having technical issues with the laptops and each family was taking about 15mins to clear. Often the checkin desks were waiting for people to be sent to them and alot of passengers were getting restless. We eventually got through and happily had 2 pairs of window seats as the seat config was 2-3-2. We eventually got airside and within 10 mins the started boarding our flight.
Once onboard I was very happy with the seat pitch(33') and comfort in the standard cabin. We then found out that we had to fly via Manchester as the runway at Bristol was not long enough for the fully fuelled plane so we needed to refuel at Manchester. We spent an hour on the plane there and what annoyed me was they IFE could not start until we took off from Manchester so there was almost 2.5 hours of boredom for the kids.
The rest of the flight was pretty uneventfull and we landed in Sanford about 40 minutes late. Unfortunately for us 3 other flights landed at the same time and the immigration queue was all the way to the back off the hall. This took about 2 hours to clear and was horrendous for the kids.We eventually got to the desk and it took about 10 mins to process us.
I went over to the Alamo office and was in the SUV within 10 mins so that was a refreshing change. We then headed out of the airport and off to our villa in Lake Davenport which we found easily an hour later. We popped back out to Publix to get groceries before hitting the beds about 11pm.
I appreciate we had alot of plain bad luck but getting there was a total nightmare, at least the plane was comfortable!!
Day 2
================
Animal Kingdom
We used the busy day guide from the Brits Guide and today had planned to visit AK as our first WDW experience.
We immediately went to the charachter signing and got Stitch, Minnie and Donald autographs and pics, Mickey had a much bigger queue.
We then went on Dinosaur and The Safari. The wateride had a 90 min queue so we bypassed that. The Lion King show is brilliant aswell.
Baby Rhino..........cute
This character scared my DD
still you are there 
still it got you to the magic! so all is well
