boleynbarmy
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- May 26, 2003
- Messages
- 24
I have finally got over the depresssion which surrounds the end of my holiday to write generally about my holiday. So here goes.
There was me Dave : 43
Wife Heather: 41
DD Alice: 17
DD Lucy: 14
Our holiday dates were 7th August to 21st August travelling with Travel City Direct (Sunshine First).
Despite not living more than an hour away from Gatwick I decided to stay at a Travelinn (Crawley) the night before flying, everyday there are travel reports with regards to long travel delays on M25 so to reduce the worry levels thought that £44 would be a small price to pay for the 4 of us. We stayed in a family room despite the eldest daughter being to old to share, but the beds are easily big enough and the room was large enough not to feel to claustrophobic. So we all had a decent nights sleep.
For the last few years I have parked my car for our holidays using APH parking, you recieve a discount if a AA member which appears to be better the further away from your holiday that you book. Their coaches to Gatwick run about every 15 minutes and the journey to Gatwick South is about 10 minutes (depending on traffic) anyway I have never had any problems with their service.
Despite having upgraded to TCD's Sunshine First which allows check-in 90 minutes prior to flight we were still checking our bags in at 9.15, 3-hours before our flight time. Checked our bags in without queueing at their Sunshine First desk and then went for breakfast.
The flight took off about 45-minutes late, this appears to me to be due to the fact that they are unable to load plane load of passengers in the 25-minutes that they allow themselves, but in all honesty I did not notice the delay despite being on the plane for over a hour before it took off, I was far to busy playing with my seat reclining it up and down etc. Now upgrading to Sunshine First had cost me £1000 for the four of us which for me is quite a lot of money, my dear wife is by nature very careful with money and would of not of upgraded if it had been half that price, so I had upgraged without telling her until it was to late for her to say or do anything. So I was really pleased when she said during the flight that it was worth the extra money to upgrade. The flight was good with very little turbulance and arrived at Sanford on time. The in-flight crew were pleasant and it must also be pleasant for them working Sunshine First rather than the main body of the plane. The food was adequate nothing special with no extra choice than economy it is just served in a better way on prper plates. The in flight entertainment although adequate does not match that provided on previous flights with Virgin. But having so much extra leg room, wider seats, very little noise from other people, no children shouting or crying, kicking the backs of your seat, being able for the first time ever to fall asleep for 45-minutes on an aircraft which made so much difference to how i felt on arrival.
This was my 3rd trip to Florida previously travelling with Virgin to Orlando airport which I had found a slow process. Sanford was good there appeared to be plenty of officials checking passports and visa waiver forms which meant passing through was reasonably painless. Collected bags which came almost straight away and away to Dollar cars to collect car which also had no wait. From the time we landed at Sanford to the time we were on the road was 45-minutes.
Travel City did not provide any directions to our apartments I had found them out from the internet so was not to concerned but for a first time traveller without internet access this may have caused some problems.
We had booked to stay at Liki Tiki resort which is on the 192 about 7-miles West of maingate. The resort is a timeshare resort owned by a company called Orbit One. I must admit that I had a few worries having read on this forum that somebody had been moved from this resort but those fears were unfounded. The resort has it appears over a thousands units consisiting of 1 and 2 bedroom apartments and then some townhouses. We were allocated a 2-bedroom apartment as booked, in building 8 which is close to the main swimming pool complex which they have on site. The apartment was large and as described in the brochure and on the internet and I would happily return to Liki Tiki in the future.
Shortly after arriving at the apartments it started to rain and that was the first but not by any means the last of the thunderstorms and rain of our holiday. I decided to check the Weather Channel for the next days weather and they were talking about all the rain they had been having and how it was going to rain a lot the next day in the Tampa area, so I decided to change my plan of going to Busch Gardens on the first day and a trip to Seaworld was planned instead. I mean after all they only get thunderstorms etc late afternoon usually or so I was led to believe.
Enough for now I will report on our theme park experiances, my wife's shopping and the weather later.
Dave
There was me Dave : 43
Wife Heather: 41
DD Alice: 17
DD Lucy: 14
Our holiday dates were 7th August to 21st August travelling with Travel City Direct (Sunshine First).
Despite not living more than an hour away from Gatwick I decided to stay at a Travelinn (Crawley) the night before flying, everyday there are travel reports with regards to long travel delays on M25 so to reduce the worry levels thought that £44 would be a small price to pay for the 4 of us. We stayed in a family room despite the eldest daughter being to old to share, but the beds are easily big enough and the room was large enough not to feel to claustrophobic. So we all had a decent nights sleep.
For the last few years I have parked my car for our holidays using APH parking, you recieve a discount if a AA member which appears to be better the further away from your holiday that you book. Their coaches to Gatwick run about every 15 minutes and the journey to Gatwick South is about 10 minutes (depending on traffic) anyway I have never had any problems with their service.
Despite having upgraded to TCD's Sunshine First which allows check-in 90 minutes prior to flight we were still checking our bags in at 9.15, 3-hours before our flight time. Checked our bags in without queueing at their Sunshine First desk and then went for breakfast.
The flight took off about 45-minutes late, this appears to me to be due to the fact that they are unable to load plane load of passengers in the 25-minutes that they allow themselves, but in all honesty I did not notice the delay despite being on the plane for over a hour before it took off, I was far to busy playing with my seat reclining it up and down etc. Now upgrading to Sunshine First had cost me £1000 for the four of us which for me is quite a lot of money, my dear wife is by nature very careful with money and would of not of upgraded if it had been half that price, so I had upgraged without telling her until it was to late for her to say or do anything. So I was really pleased when she said during the flight that it was worth the extra money to upgrade. The flight was good with very little turbulance and arrived at Sanford on time. The in-flight crew were pleasant and it must also be pleasant for them working Sunshine First rather than the main body of the plane. The food was adequate nothing special with no extra choice than economy it is just served in a better way on prper plates. The in flight entertainment although adequate does not match that provided on previous flights with Virgin. But having so much extra leg room, wider seats, very little noise from other people, no children shouting or crying, kicking the backs of your seat, being able for the first time ever to fall asleep for 45-minutes on an aircraft which made so much difference to how i felt on arrival.
This was my 3rd trip to Florida previously travelling with Virgin to Orlando airport which I had found a slow process. Sanford was good there appeared to be plenty of officials checking passports and visa waiver forms which meant passing through was reasonably painless. Collected bags which came almost straight away and away to Dollar cars to collect car which also had no wait. From the time we landed at Sanford to the time we were on the road was 45-minutes.
Travel City did not provide any directions to our apartments I had found them out from the internet so was not to concerned but for a first time traveller without internet access this may have caused some problems.
We had booked to stay at Liki Tiki resort which is on the 192 about 7-miles West of maingate. The resort is a timeshare resort owned by a company called Orbit One. I must admit that I had a few worries having read on this forum that somebody had been moved from this resort but those fears were unfounded. The resort has it appears over a thousands units consisiting of 1 and 2 bedroom apartments and then some townhouses. We were allocated a 2-bedroom apartment as booked, in building 8 which is close to the main swimming pool complex which they have on site. The apartment was large and as described in the brochure and on the internet and I would happily return to Liki Tiki in the future.
Shortly after arriving at the apartments it started to rain and that was the first but not by any means the last of the thunderstorms and rain of our holiday. I decided to check the Weather Channel for the next days weather and they were talking about all the rain they had been having and how it was going to rain a lot the next day in the Tampa area, so I decided to change my plan of going to Busch Gardens on the first day and a trip to Seaworld was planned instead. I mean after all they only get thunderstorms etc late afternoon usually or so I was led to believe.
Enough for now I will report on our theme park experiances, my wife's shopping and the weather later.
Dave
Look forward to reading more
) when the telly goes on. Doesn't feel like I'm on holiday until I've checked that channel out
