florida sun
Mrs Christopher Eccleston wannabe!
- Joined
- May 2, 2004
- Messages
- 17,635
Cast of Characters:
Sue - 44 - (Thinks she's 24) Chief Planner, Worrier, and Yo Yo Dieter.
Vicki - 16 - (Thinks she's 26) - Emo,Thrill Ride Seeker and Mums Best Friend.
Wake up around 6.30, get showered, quick coffee, and start the ritual of trying to wake Vicki up, I put all the lights on and the tv on, but as usual she is still fast asleep. A few little shakes later she is up and at it.
Pick up our hand luggage and make our way down to reception to await our shuttle bus. Check out and told that the bus would be about another 10 mins and to help ourselfs to coffee in the dining area, so they do sell food here, something to remember should we come back again.
We decided that we would have breakfast over at the airport, so after a quick drink we go outside where "Dan" introuduces himself as our driver and this morning we are his only passengers.
We get to the terminal in about 5 mins flat and take a completly different route to the taxi driver??
The check in desk for my travel is open and about 50 people are stood in line and nobody in Premium Gold line, as we walk up, our passports are checked by ICTS and we proceed to pick up our boarding cards. The lady at the desk welcomes us and gets our boarding cards telling us that would should be boarding at about 3.40pm!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I look bemused as I say "No Im sorry, you must have the wrong flight as ours leaves at 1.20pm. She then checks and informs me that our flight has been slightly delayed. Oh well no point in moaning, we are here, but its going to be a long day as its only 10am now.
First thing I do is phone Kaylee and ask her to phone the Dolphin for us to let them know we are going to be a minimum of 3 hours later than expected, which she very kindly does. Im then very concerned about my friend who works in Florida as he is picking us up and I have no way of getting hold of him. Vicki assures me he is sure to phone Sanford first to check the times, I hope she is right.
We make our way into departures where niether I nor Vicki beep going through the security checks, and the process goes very smoothly, infact we are quite sueprised at how quiet the airport is for the size of it.
We stop first to grab a bit of brekkie, we have a bacon roll each , I have a latte and Vicki has milk.
We then walk over to WH Smith to buy some mags, papers, sweets and Vicki buys a book, cant remember what its called but its some nice light reading about Vampires and Slayers
I'll stick to my hello mag thanks.
Spend an uneventful 4 hours in departures bored out of our heads, reading, eating, phoning people, and checking the departure boards,only to see our flight time go from 4.30 to 4.45 then 5.10 then 5.20 and finally 5.30
At 4.30 we are called to the gate and the flight leaves at dead on 5.30, with an annoucment from the captain that due to some sort of weather problem we are taking a slightly different route and the flight will be a long 11 hours and 25 mins
Quickly trying to work it out in my head, Im thinking we wont get to Sanford until 5am our time, 12 midnight local time, yikes I hope my friend has checked the flight times before he left.
Pre take off the stewerdess comes around with sparking wine and grape juice, I have the wine(of course) and Vicki is given the grape juice (but really would have liked the wine)
Well im not kidding you the flight took 11 hours and 45 mins and I swear I remember every single min of it, it was so long. The seat back entertainment was'nt the best, very old comedy shows, some documentry on cars, a very old episode of David Blaine, (come on My Travel, you should do better than this) the movies were better however and we had Mission Impossible 3, X - Men 3 and Over the hedge, we loved them all. We had about 3 visits from the drinks trolley , which is always a welcome thing and the food was rather nice, we had shepards pie and veg, biscuits and cheese, sponge and custard and a nice glass of Chardonney to wash it down with, so it's not all bad.
Seat Back Tv's
Vicki with her J20
Me with my vodka and diet coke.
Food and Wine has started before we get to epcot!!
Land at Sanford and we are shattered, however as luck would have it our cases are the first off the belt and I cant believe we are the first 2 people that walk into the security check area, I have never ever seen this place empty before and we are directed to a lady officer who was quite chatty and asked me if we had a plesent flight, while she did our fingerprints and photos,and checked our green visa wavier forms, which again we had managed to fill out correctly(I dont think I could fill one of these out without having had 2 glasses of Vodka you know)
Now outside as its past Midnight, we dont get the rush of heat that normally hits you when you land in the day, in fact it was a little bit nippy, but we are delighted to see my dear friend Pablo holding up a big brown card with our names on. He informs me he did indeed check before he left(so I dont feel to bad now). We have a very plesent journey to the Dolphin where we bid farewell and grateful thanks to Pablo, and arrange to meet with him next Saturday when we are going out for the day.
We walk into the Dolphin and wow!!!!This place is huge.
We are given room 9194, on the 9th Floor,West Section. They ask if we need help getting to our room, we decline and start to make our way looking for the west section elevators. 20 Mins later Im thinking that maybe some help might not be a bad idea, this room is miles away!!!Good job they gave us a map of the hotel or I dont think we would have ever found it.
After eventually getting to our room, it was a lovely size with 2 Kingsize heavenly beds which I had heard so much about, a little dissapointed to see that we overlooked the front entrance and car park, but hey, who cares, we are here and about to start our wonderful trip back to the magic.
Dolphin Room
Forgive the unmade beds please!!
Vicki has loads more piccies of the room and lobby of the Dolphin and I will post them when she gets back tonight.
We didnt have the energy to unpack tonight as it was now 2.30am local time which was 7.30am our time and we needed to get some sleep.
Day 3: Epcot,Riding Upfront on the monorail and a wonderful night at the California Grill.
Sue - 44 - (Thinks she's 24) Chief Planner, Worrier, and Yo Yo Dieter.
Vicki - 16 - (Thinks she's 26) - Emo,Thrill Ride Seeker and Mums Best Friend.
Wake up around 6.30, get showered, quick coffee, and start the ritual of trying to wake Vicki up, I put all the lights on and the tv on, but as usual she is still fast asleep. A few little shakes later she is up and at it.
Pick up our hand luggage and make our way down to reception to await our shuttle bus. Check out and told that the bus would be about another 10 mins and to help ourselfs to coffee in the dining area, so they do sell food here, something to remember should we come back again.
We decided that we would have breakfast over at the airport, so after a quick drink we go outside where "Dan" introuduces himself as our driver and this morning we are his only passengers.
We get to the terminal in about 5 mins flat and take a completly different route to the taxi driver??
The check in desk for my travel is open and about 50 people are stood in line and nobody in Premium Gold line, as we walk up, our passports are checked by ICTS and we proceed to pick up our boarding cards. The lady at the desk welcomes us and gets our boarding cards telling us that would should be boarding at about 3.40pm!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I look bemused as I say "No Im sorry, you must have the wrong flight as ours leaves at 1.20pm. She then checks and informs me that our flight has been slightly delayed. Oh well no point in moaning, we are here, but its going to be a long day as its only 10am now.
First thing I do is phone Kaylee and ask her to phone the Dolphin for us to let them know we are going to be a minimum of 3 hours later than expected, which she very kindly does. Im then very concerned about my friend who works in Florida as he is picking us up and I have no way of getting hold of him. Vicki assures me he is sure to phone Sanford first to check the times, I hope she is right.
We make our way into departures where niether I nor Vicki beep going through the security checks, and the process goes very smoothly, infact we are quite sueprised at how quiet the airport is for the size of it.
We stop first to grab a bit of brekkie, we have a bacon roll each , I have a latte and Vicki has milk.
We then walk over to WH Smith to buy some mags, papers, sweets and Vicki buys a book, cant remember what its called but its some nice light reading about Vampires and Slayers
I'll stick to my hello mag thanks.Spend an uneventful 4 hours in departures bored out of our heads, reading, eating, phoning people, and checking the departure boards,only to see our flight time go from 4.30 to 4.45 then 5.10 then 5.20 and finally 5.30
At 4.30 we are called to the gate and the flight leaves at dead on 5.30, with an annoucment from the captain that due to some sort of weather problem we are taking a slightly different route and the flight will be a long 11 hours and 25 mins
Quickly trying to work it out in my head, Im thinking we wont get to Sanford until 5am our time, 12 midnight local time, yikes I hope my friend has checked the flight times before he left.Pre take off the stewerdess comes around with sparking wine and grape juice, I have the wine(of course) and Vicki is given the grape juice (but really would have liked the wine)
Well im not kidding you the flight took 11 hours and 45 mins and I swear I remember every single min of it, it was so long. The seat back entertainment was'nt the best, very old comedy shows, some documentry on cars, a very old episode of David Blaine, (come on My Travel, you should do better than this) the movies were better however and we had Mission Impossible 3, X - Men 3 and Over the hedge, we loved them all. We had about 3 visits from the drinks trolley , which is always a welcome thing
and the food was rather nice, we had shepards pie and veg, biscuits and cheese, sponge and custard and a nice glass of Chardonney to wash it down with, so it's not all bad.
Seat Back Tv's
Vicki with her J20
Me with my vodka and diet coke.
Food and Wine has started before we get to epcot!!
Land at Sanford and we are shattered, however as luck would have it our cases are the first off the belt and I cant believe we are the first 2 people that walk into the security check area, I have never ever seen this place empty before and we are directed to a lady officer who was quite chatty and asked me if we had a plesent flight, while she did our fingerprints and photos,and checked our green visa wavier forms, which again we had managed to fill out correctly(I dont think I could fill one of these out without having had 2 glasses of Vodka you know)
Now outside as its past Midnight, we dont get the rush of heat that normally hits you when you land in the day, in fact it was a little bit nippy, but we are delighted to see my dear friend Pablo holding up a big brown card with our names on. He informs me he did indeed check before he left(so I dont feel to bad now). We have a very plesent journey to the Dolphin where we bid farewell and grateful thanks to Pablo, and arrange to meet with him next Saturday when we are going out for the day.
We walk into the Dolphin and wow!!!!This place is huge.
We are given room 9194, on the 9th Floor,West Section. They ask if we need help getting to our room, we decline and start to make our way looking for the west section elevators. 20 Mins later Im thinking that maybe some help might not be a bad idea, this room is miles away!!!Good job they gave us a map of the hotel or I dont think we would have ever found it.
After eventually getting to our room, it was a lovely size with 2 Kingsize heavenly beds which I had heard so much about, a little dissapointed to see that we overlooked the front entrance and car park, but hey, who cares, we are here and about to start our wonderful trip back to the magic.
Dolphin Room
Forgive the unmade beds please!!
Vicki has loads more piccies of the room and lobby of the Dolphin and I will post them when she gets back tonight.
We didnt have the energy to unpack tonight as it was now 2.30am local time which was 7.30am our time and we needed to get some sleep.
Day 3: Epcot,Riding Upfront on the monorail and a wonderful night at the California Grill.
The Dolphin room looks lovely 
