Crikey!! I made it to the World!!!

[hjd0411]

Hi and welcome to my trip report. I am going to do it a little differently – rather than a day by day, blow by blow, I’m just going to review everything that we did. (Once we actually get the the WDW part, anyway!) As we were there for over 2 weeks (10 Disney days), we visited each park more than once!! I will also be adding photos – lots, probably, as I took lots!!!!
So, onto the cast:
There is me – Heather – turned 50 in the World, and enjoyed the planning as much as the doing!! Then, Marg, who is almost 50, and enjoyed the trip as much as I did – but not so much of the planning! We were joined by a friend Ian for a few days in the middle, too.
Now, where to start – I guess the beginning is good!


Getting there.
As we had to fly from Australia it took us a couple of days to get there! Flying from Australia was about 12 hours, and that flight landed us in LAX about 11am on Thursday Nov 1. Yay, we were in the US!!

Don’t forget to NOT smile for the picture and make sure you use both index fingers for the scan at Immigration (getting us ready for Disney already!) We stayed overnight in a hotel there, then caught a direct flight with Delta the next morning. No problems with them – the flight was on time, the food (we were lucky enough to fly First Class) was good, and we landed early. What’s not to like!!

(Florida coastline - I'm guessing that it's Tampa)

We had a car booked through Alamo so after the bags arrived we made our way downstairs to join the line to collect our car! I have never seen so many agents leave the counter as I did whilst standing there for oh, about an hour! One minute there would be 8 of them, next 3!! Anyway, we did get the car (RAV4) and went slowly on our way out of the parking garage.

Now, not only was it dark, but I was driving in a strange city on the “wrong” side of the road!! How I wish I had GPS!!! We were on our way to Windsor Hills, via Villa Direct to collect our door combo etc. I had diligently printed out directions to get there (on US192 in the vicinity of the Celebration turn off), but, unfortunately no buildings had numbers on them, and the Villa Direct sign was about the size of a handkerchief and not on the main road! So, after asking directions at a few restaurants and shops I finally found where I had to go!! (If you ever have to find it, look for the big Nike store or Arabian Nights and you will be very, very close!!)

Next – finding Windsor Hills – yes we did eventually get there!!!

 

[hjd0411]

OK – yes you guessed it (no pulling the wool over your eyes, is there?? ) – we did get to Windsor Hills! After landing at MCO at around 6pm, we finally made it to our condo at around 9pm!!! Home (for the next 16 days) Sweet Home!!!

I was very impressed with the condo and the resort, and if anyone is considering staying here, I would highly recommend it. Space to spare, plus a kitchen and laundry. I would stay here again in a heartbeat!

The next day (Sat Nov 3) we used as a rest/get to know the area/stock up on groceries day. Oh, and we visited DTD for a couple of hours until I started to feel sick! Nothing serious – but enough to want to go back home instead of exploring!

Now, on to my impressions of Walt Disney World:
Overview
As I am not a frequent visitor, I certainly didn’t notice that it is any much worse/better than the last time we were here (May 2002). My only real feeling was that Epcot Future World seemed a little “neglected”, what with the empty buildings etc. Don’t get me wrong – I loved visiting there, but it just had a slight feeling of “decay” about it. Nothing that a refurb of some of those empty buildings wouldn’t fix.
The other parks seemed quite up to date and spruced up for the holidays – wow those decorations are great! And they go up in the blink of an eye! Kudos to Disney and the CM’s for all their hard work!
Transport/Parking
As you know we stayed off site. Windsor Hills is about a 5-7 minute drive to AK, and about 15-17 minutes from MK. Once I got used to the directions driving around was a cinch. I will say, though, that the purple signs with yellow lettering are very difficult to read at night! Once I got my head around that I was fine. (Did I mention that I was designated driver for the whole 2 weeks?? I travel with wimps who don’t want to risk driving in the US!! )
Parking was so well organised (did I think it wouldn’t be? NO!!). Always plenty of CM’s to help and direct. Trams from the carparks to the park entry were always waiting for us – we had so much luck with transport over our vacation – we hardly ever waited more than about a minute for anything to turn up!! Of course sometimes we were early enough to just walk to the park entries, which was even better!!
Parks are next!
Heather

 

[danalee]

Very Nice! Cant wait for more.
Dana