PudseyChancer
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2007
I don't suppose that it would be too much of a shock to all you seasoned Orlando campaigners to know that due to excitement and anticipation, we beat the alarm by just shy of an hour, waking up at 5am, though there was a bit of coaching involved in making it that far.
Excitement on the kids faces, terror on Caroline's ahead of the 9 hour flight
Despite only taking out the bare minimum from the luggage, it still took half an hour of tidying to sort the room out and we checked out with no bother, getting the seven o'clock shuttle over to terminal one. Past experience had meant that I hadn't pre-booked the seats for our flight over, but since then I'd found out the plane we were flying on was a 3-3-3 formation, no doubt with Biggles at the helm and the red baron in hot pursuit. The thought briefly crossed my mind to ask for three together and a seat with the pilot, but even I wasn't going to push my luck this early in the holiday.
We passed time in the the airport by getting some breakfast (full English, well almost, I was too intimidated by the gargantuan black pudding to complete the job!), and unsurprisingly, when we tally up at the end of the holiday, one of the most expensive when equated to quality, at £37.00 for the four of us - and Bill only had a bacon sarnie!!
We were on the plane and off exactly on time, Shrek four passed the time, Caroline had done the kids a brilliant travel bag, so Isabelle was able to regale us with dastardly deeds from her horrible history book, Billy initiated those around by singing to his Leeds United tape, oblivious to everyone else with his headphones on. We bought some rum and Jack Daniels for some evening medicine from the duty free (if that still exists?), the kids were awesome - we obviously had concerns about the long flight, and despite our constant coaxing neither succumbed to sleep. Upon arrival at Sanford the kids were almost at breaking point, but the wall of heat as we stepped off the plane was enough to bring everyone round, and despite the tiredness, Billy and especially Isabelle, charmed Homeland Security and we were through to hitch up with Marty, who we'd booked our transfer with. His pimped out van was hooked up a plasma in the back and he played clips of the parks and ran through some hints and tips which the kids loved, it was a great way to fill the transfer time to Old Key West.
First impressions of Old Key West were superb, it looks the part with the pastel coloured buildings and the lush greenery, it's a very pretty resort. The kids were caught out by the "Welcome Home!" greetings that we got, but were suitably impressed, even more so when we hooked up with Bell Services who gave us a lift over to our room on their cart, our room was 4126, second floor and the nearest to the Turtle Shack pool. Everyone was really polite and friendly, and recognising of our long day of travel, the kids were fussed over and given badges, stickers and balloons fashioned into flowers and swords, they were really taken aback, but it was a good sign of things to come.
The room was great, don't know if it was recently refurbished or not, but it was really clean, had a flat screen tv, and was generous in size, plenty of room for us four, the dream of having an evening drink on a water view balcony wasn't a goer, partly because it was a view of some shrubbery, and partly because I had underestimated how boiling hot it is, even in the evening! Any moans about the non-view paled into insignificance when the location of the pool was taken into account, we were literally the nearest room to the pool, it was an absolute godsend, especially on the devilishly hot afternoons we were to encounter.
We wandered back over to Hospitality House once we'd settled in to pick up some rations for the room, a loaf, some milk, coke and sprite and some doughnuts, the cornerstone of any healthy diet. We strolled back, and having read some comments about OKW being sprawled out, walking through it certainly gave some perspective, and you get to appreciate the peace and quiet, a fantastic bonus when staying onsite - we couldn't have picked a better hotel for being in the middle of the action, but having the ability to get away from it all at the same time. In essence, we were 10 minutes walk from Hospitality house, if we waited for a bus, there was one stop prior to us returning to Hospitality House, we were also the third stop for buses returning back to OKW from the parks.
We snacked on some of our goodies and then retired for the night at about 10.30pm - the kids had been awake for approx 22 hours and not a complaint in all that time - truly a herculean effort and one both Caroline and I were amazed at. I'd like to say we spent some time drinking our duty free Jack Daniels and putting the world to rights, but I was asleep 1.3 seconds after the kids.... night all.
Excitement on the kids faces, terror on Caroline's ahead of the 9 hour flight
Despite only taking out the bare minimum from the luggage, it still took half an hour of tidying to sort the room out and we checked out with no bother, getting the seven o'clock shuttle over to terminal one. Past experience had meant that I hadn't pre-booked the seats for our flight over, but since then I'd found out the plane we were flying on was a 3-3-3 formation, no doubt with Biggles at the helm and the red baron in hot pursuit. The thought briefly crossed my mind to ask for three together and a seat with the pilot, but even I wasn't going to push my luck this early in the holiday.
We passed time in the the airport by getting some breakfast (full English, well almost, I was too intimidated by the gargantuan black pudding to complete the job!), and unsurprisingly, when we tally up at the end of the holiday, one of the most expensive when equated to quality, at £37.00 for the four of us - and Bill only had a bacon sarnie!!
We were on the plane and off exactly on time, Shrek four passed the time, Caroline had done the kids a brilliant travel bag, so Isabelle was able to regale us with dastardly deeds from her horrible history book, Billy initiated those around by singing to his Leeds United tape, oblivious to everyone else with his headphones on. We bought some rum and Jack Daniels for some evening medicine from the duty free (if that still exists?), the kids were awesome - we obviously had concerns about the long flight, and despite our constant coaxing neither succumbed to sleep. Upon arrival at Sanford the kids were almost at breaking point, but the wall of heat as we stepped off the plane was enough to bring everyone round, and despite the tiredness, Billy and especially Isabelle, charmed Homeland Security and we were through to hitch up with Marty, who we'd booked our transfer with. His pimped out van was hooked up a plasma in the back and he played clips of the parks and ran through some hints and tips which the kids loved, it was a great way to fill the transfer time to Old Key West.
First impressions of Old Key West were superb, it looks the part with the pastel coloured buildings and the lush greenery, it's a very pretty resort. The kids were caught out by the "Welcome Home!" greetings that we got, but were suitably impressed, even more so when we hooked up with Bell Services who gave us a lift over to our room on their cart, our room was 4126, second floor and the nearest to the Turtle Shack pool. Everyone was really polite and friendly, and recognising of our long day of travel, the kids were fussed over and given badges, stickers and balloons fashioned into flowers and swords, they were really taken aback, but it was a good sign of things to come.
The room was great, don't know if it was recently refurbished or not, but it was really clean, had a flat screen tv, and was generous in size, plenty of room for us four, the dream of having an evening drink on a water view balcony wasn't a goer, partly because it was a view of some shrubbery, and partly because I had underestimated how boiling hot it is, even in the evening! Any moans about the non-view paled into insignificance when the location of the pool was taken into account, we were literally the nearest room to the pool, it was an absolute godsend, especially on the devilishly hot afternoons we were to encounter.
We wandered back over to Hospitality House once we'd settled in to pick up some rations for the room, a loaf, some milk, coke and sprite and some doughnuts, the cornerstone of any healthy diet. We strolled back, and having read some comments about OKW being sprawled out, walking through it certainly gave some perspective, and you get to appreciate the peace and quiet, a fantastic bonus when staying onsite - we couldn't have picked a better hotel for being in the middle of the action, but having the ability to get away from it all at the same time. In essence, we were 10 minutes walk from Hospitality house, if we waited for a bus, there was one stop prior to us returning to Hospitality House, we were also the third stop for buses returning back to OKW from the parks.
We snacked on some of our goodies and then retired for the night at about 10.30pm - the kids had been awake for approx 22 hours and not a complaint in all that time - truly a herculean effort and one both Caroline and I were amazed at. I'd like to say we spent some time drinking our duty free Jack Daniels and putting the world to rights, but I was asleep 1.3 seconds after the kids.... night all.
We're really chuffed, and can't wait to look at what we're going to do for our next Disney holiday!!! 
