carolfoy
<font color=cc6633>One has Ones hat and One's orf.
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2005
- Messages
- 8,288
day 1 sat 12th November
Starring…. Me! Carol (34) been twice before but always off site, can’t wait to stay on-site
Liz (my mum 59) loves It’s a small world and made me ride it 7 times in a row in DLP a few years ago
Callum (my DS just 10) loves Disney completely, wants a light sabre more than anything else
Reg Patterson (71) never been on a plane, has been gobsmacked by the idea he’s going to WDW since booking
Ruth Patterson (50) has been Disney mad since a wee girl, also can’t believe she’s going!
Daniel Patterson (09) has been looking forward to the mini bus ride to Gatwick the most
Saturday 12th november has finally come round, we’ve been counting since 235 days so its taken an age, managed online check in yesterday so looking forward to it all being straight forward once we get to gatwick.
Woke up at 2 am (yuck!) but surprisingly bright and breezy, Brian – the – bore is the taxi driver picking us up and arrives promptly at 2:45, called the Pattersons and we’re at their house within 10 minutes, a bit sad saying goodbye to Dad who refuses to come to Disney with us. Very uneventful taxi journey, stopped halfway for a ciggie, loo and coffee and arrive at 07:15 – great timing.
Funny enough there are Virgin reps everywhere stopping people go into the terminal. I explained that we’d done online check in but they insist that ALL check in desks are down due to a complete computer failure so everyones on a manual check in and we have to join the back of a mile long queue. An hour passess and we’ve moved forward three feet so decide to take a relay to get coffees/breakfast/loo breaks and more ciggies.
At 10:00 am we’re still queueing and realising the 11:15 flight isn’t going to be so!. A virgin rep moves along the line telling everyone who ISN’T booked on the Tobago and Barbados flights to go to the back of the queue, obligingly we move out and then realise that there are at least a hundred more 11:15 Orlando passengers who are still in the queue!, of course nobody is going to let us back in so I marched off to the Virgin desk to speak to the space controller (God I love that job title!) A lovely lady called Cheryl takes us down to the upper class check in so then it only takes another half an hour to get to the front. I jokingly say to the girl on the desk that the computer failure is all my fault as I finally managed to check in on line, BIG MISTAKE I should have kept my gob shut, she says I still have to go to the online desk, I explained that I’d been told that it was down and we still had to check in ‘normally’ We move lines yet again and finally check in at 13:30!!! Rumour has it that the flight will take off at 14:30 so we shrug and go to departures (the poor Pattersons believe this is all normal as they’ve never flown before so I have to explain that this entirely extraordinary) of course they are the ones to get stopped and searched at security which makes them believe that they’ve done something wrong.
We rush through departures (so much for the shopping we’d had planned) and all got seated on the plane by 14:15 breathe a big sigh of relief – why are there all these people just standing around??? Why don’t they sit down so we can get a move on??? Ahah! Of course due to the manual check in about a dozen people are assigned seats that don’t actually exist, ie they are the bulkheads or stairs, after about an hour there are some people bumped out of upper and premium (no doubt with huge pay offs!) so finally everyone gets seated.
The crew now decide they’ve gone over time so we wait (AGAIN!) for them to all say their goodbyes and we get new crew.
Its now 16:30 and we taxi off down the runway, a huge cheer goes up when we’re finally airborne and we have a lovely smooth flight.
Arriving MCO at 19:30 local time and its pitch black, breathe a sigh of relief that I decided against a car and after a lenghy immigration queue we emerge to meet D.C. our lovely Limo driver, we had a beautiful black stretch limo to take us to the ASMo (what a shame we weren’t awake enough to enjoy it) and he fills us in on lots of Disney detail on the drive through. I knew most of it already thanks to the Dis Boards but didn’t let on and ruin everyone elses enjoyment.
Chacked in and in our rooms at 23:30 local time, estimate we’ve been travelling around 27 hours at this point so are all rather shattered, we’re in Woody section rooms 9956 and 9957.
All to bed dreaming of long lines, and Toy story.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Starring…. Me! Carol (34) been twice before but always off site, can’t wait to stay on-site
Liz (my mum 59) loves It’s a small world and made me ride it 7 times in a row in DLP a few years ago
Callum (my DS just 10) loves Disney completely, wants a light sabre more than anything else
Reg Patterson (71) never been on a plane, has been gobsmacked by the idea he’s going to WDW since booking
Ruth Patterson (50) has been Disney mad since a wee girl, also can’t believe she’s going!
Daniel Patterson (09) has been looking forward to the mini bus ride to Gatwick the most
Saturday 12th november has finally come round, we’ve been counting since 235 days so its taken an age, managed online check in yesterday so looking forward to it all being straight forward once we get to gatwick.
Woke up at 2 am (yuck!) but surprisingly bright and breezy, Brian – the – bore is the taxi driver picking us up and arrives promptly at 2:45, called the Pattersons and we’re at their house within 10 minutes, a bit sad saying goodbye to Dad who refuses to come to Disney with us. Very uneventful taxi journey, stopped halfway for a ciggie, loo and coffee and arrive at 07:15 – great timing.
Funny enough there are Virgin reps everywhere stopping people go into the terminal. I explained that we’d done online check in but they insist that ALL check in desks are down due to a complete computer failure so everyones on a manual check in and we have to join the back of a mile long queue. An hour passess and we’ve moved forward three feet so decide to take a relay to get coffees/breakfast/loo breaks and more ciggies.
At 10:00 am we’re still queueing and realising the 11:15 flight isn’t going to be so!. A virgin rep moves along the line telling everyone who ISN’T booked on the Tobago and Barbados flights to go to the back of the queue, obligingly we move out and then realise that there are at least a hundred more 11:15 Orlando passengers who are still in the queue!, of course nobody is going to let us back in so I marched off to the Virgin desk to speak to the space controller (God I love that job title!) A lovely lady called Cheryl takes us down to the upper class check in so then it only takes another half an hour to get to the front. I jokingly say to the girl on the desk that the computer failure is all my fault as I finally managed to check in on line, BIG MISTAKE I should have kept my gob shut, she says I still have to go to the online desk, I explained that I’d been told that it was down and we still had to check in ‘normally’ We move lines yet again and finally check in at 13:30!!! Rumour has it that the flight will take off at 14:30 so we shrug and go to departures (the poor Pattersons believe this is all normal as they’ve never flown before so I have to explain that this entirely extraordinary) of course they are the ones to get stopped and searched at security which makes them believe that they’ve done something wrong.
We rush through departures (so much for the shopping we’d had planned) and all got seated on the plane by 14:15 breathe a big sigh of relief – why are there all these people just standing around??? Why don’t they sit down so we can get a move on??? Ahah! Of course due to the manual check in about a dozen people are assigned seats that don’t actually exist, ie they are the bulkheads or stairs, after about an hour there are some people bumped out of upper and premium (no doubt with huge pay offs!) so finally everyone gets seated.
The crew now decide they’ve gone over time so we wait (AGAIN!) for them to all say their goodbyes and we get new crew.
Its now 16:30 and we taxi off down the runway, a huge cheer goes up when we’re finally airborne and we have a lovely smooth flight.
Arriving MCO at 19:30 local time and its pitch black, breathe a sigh of relief that I decided against a car and after a lenghy immigration queue we emerge to meet D.C. our lovely Limo driver, we had a beautiful black stretch limo to take us to the ASMo (what a shame we weren’t awake enough to enjoy it) and he fills us in on lots of Disney detail on the drive through. I knew most of it already thanks to the Dis Boards but didn’t let on and ruin everyone elses enjoyment.
Chacked in and in our rooms at 23:30 local time, estimate we’ve been travelling around 27 hours at this point so are all rather shattered, we’re in Woody section rooms 9956 and 9957.
All to bed dreaming of long lines, and Toy story.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
what a nightmare start to the holiday tho
(Carol and I were on a travel agents visit to St Lucia last year and we suffered a 24 hour delay followed by a manual check in on the return flight)
What a nighmare at the airport. Look forward to reading more but I have to give DD a turn on the " 'puter " now 
.
