Friends Reunited - TRIP REPORT!! - COMPLETE

Sounds like you're all having a great time.:thumbsup2
Looking forward to reading the trippie. I too in the past have gone with the intention of doing live updates but I feel it is time that can be spent doing other things. Also, it's great to re-live the memories when you are back in the U.K.
Enjoy the rest of your trio and post a few more 'snippets' if you get chance :goodvibes
 
Sounds like you're having a ball. Intrigued by your mishaps but I'm sure you'll let us know in time.

Why not pop into Walgreens and see if they can recommend something for your feet. One of the boys had a reaction to the water in the hotel pool years ago and the pharmacist was brilliant. Or you could have a few of these :woohoo:to forget the pain :goodvibes

Enjoy the rest of your holiday Beth.
 
Good to hear from you.
May is usually very wet, Im sure youll still have a fab time. lets hope its a lot better for you this week. :goodvibes

Its a shame about your blisters, I hope they ease up on you soon.
Cant wait to read your trip report :)
 
Sounds like your having a grest time, those drinks you posted on facebook looked amazing! Think i need one of those in Sept!

Enjoy your last week and look forward to hearing about your mishaps :)
 


Great to hear you are having fun (despite the blisters!)

Really looking forward to your TR :)
 
Bethan, you're such a blonde! ;)

Hope you enjoy the second week, looking forward to hearing all about your adventures :thumbsup2
 
Feet are on the mend - yayyyyy! I visited the Walgreens that's around by the crossroads and got a bunch of pads and bandages etc and it's doing much better now! I could seriously open my own first aid station now though :rotfl2:

Last few days have been great - we ended up having a fab night on Saturday at DTD. We were originally planning to eat at T-Rex but at 9pm, we were quoted an 80 minute wait. Instead we wandered over towards House of Blues and Paradiso 37 caught our eye. We sat at the bar so no waiting involved :) Jo and I had a burger each, which really was amazing, and indulged in some small 45oz cocktails... The glasses really were bigger than our heads and we got to keep them. The live music in the PI area was also fab and we ended leaving at around midnight. It was absolutely heaving at DTD, even at that time, and we were surprised at the sheer amount of small children that were also around then!

We've also spent more time in the parks, just wandering around and doing whatever we fancy. Parks are much quieter than in the summer which is what we were all used to. On Sunday, we had dinner at Ohana and we all agreed that it was the best meal of the trip so far. Of course, we had to accompany it with a Lapu Lapu. We tried to do MK EMH afterwards but didn't get very far as we were sooooo full. Space mountain was an absolute no :lmao:

Yesterday we had a lunch reservation in Biergarten in Germany in Epcot. This got our vote as the 'randomest' meal of the trip so far :) loved the band and the theming. The food was right up my street; cold salad items, potato items, meat and apple strudel! What more could you want? The litre of pilsner washed everything down a treat! We spent most of the day in Epcot and made our way over to HS early evening. There were two showings of Fantasmic, and seeing as the line was already quite large two hours before the earlier one, we decided we'd see the later one at 10.30pm. This was the best showing I have ever seen, we were literally in the second row - I had never been that close before! Being able to see the performer's faces was just weird, but amazing! The loudness of the bangs when being up that close also took some getting used to!

Today, Emma and I have headed to Typhoon Lagoon - we didn't know that it didn't open until 10am so ended up being a little early. At least we had a good pick of the sun loungers! I also just received some angry/panicked messages from jo. Tanya had gone to meet a friend for breakfast at AoA this morning, but Jo wasn't feeling well and so decided to just stay in the room and relax all morning. They're doing lots of maintenance/decorating work at OKW at the moment, and as soon as she heard the pressure washers, she went outside to get her bikini in from the fence. That's when she found two of the maintenance workers holding them and swinging them around. Apparently, we've had managers back and forth our room all morning, apologising profusely, and they've asked for our party to head to the front desk this afternoon for more apologies I guess! Not what we'd expect from Disney and OKW but we'll see what happens.

Raglan Road is booked for tonight - we've really been looking forward to this one! Will make sure we have our Irish dancing shoes on!! :)

Am just about to head into the lazy river now, and so shall leave it there!
 


OMG I bet their face's were a treat when they saw her come out. Very naughty of them. Glad the feet are on the mend. Enjoy Raglan Road its very yummy.
 
Sounds like you are having an amazing time. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.

Looking forward to your TR

Tam
 
I know I shouldn't, but I'm laughing at the 'bikini' incident.

I may leave a pair of my old underpants outside next time and see if they get the same treatment! Somehow I doubt it. :confused3

Kev
 
Really enjoying your PTR so far, can't wait to read the rest to help get me in the holiday mood.

Congratulations on the graduation, and the placement in Liverpool. I'm in the next town along, Liverpool has some really lovely areas if you ever get a day off to enjoy them!

Hope the rest of the trip was brilliant, and that Disney gave you something nice by way of apology regarding the Bikini incident


Gill x
 
Absolutely cannot believe that we fly home this afternoon :sad1: coming back here, it felt like it would be for three months again so it's a bit of a shock to go home after two weeks. There's so much stuff we haven't managed to do, but that's what keeps us coming back :)

What with moving to Liverpool and starting work, I have no idea when I'll be back... Hopefully no later than 2015! Hopefully I'll be able to treat my parents to a trip this time; they haven't been since 2009 - they loved it then, and they would probably love it even more now.

This has certainly been a trip to remember, and I can't wait to share it all with you! I'm really not looking forward to the flight to Gatwick and then my four hour drive home; I forgot to check-in when online check-in opened yesterday and so we don't have great seats! Nevermind though, will just use the time to start sorting out photos and writing the TR.

Having a bit of a lie in this morning before I pack my last few bits and pieces (gee, Goofy Candy weighs a tonne!) and then head on the ME at 1.50! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh :sad1:
 
you're probably in the air by now so hope your drive home goes quickly
can't wait to hear all about your trip :goodvibes
 
Just saw you've checked in at LGW on Facebook :) Have a great flight! Look forward to reading all about it xx

Can't believe how long ago that feels now :( it just went way too quick!!

Sounds like your plans have all come together perfectly Beth.
Looking forward to a mixture of live and trip report updates :goodvibes

Sounds like you're all having a great time.:thumbsup2
Looking forward to reading the trippie. I too in the past have gone with the intention of doing live updates but I feel it is time that can be spent doing other things. Also, it's great to re-live the memories when you are back in the U.K.
Enjoy the rest of your trio and post a few more 'snippets' if you get chance :goodvibes

Sounds like you're having a ball. Intrigued by your mishaps but I'm sure you'll let us know in time.

Good to hear from you.
May is usually very wet, Im sure youll still have a fab time. lets hope its a lot better for you this week. :goodvibes

Its a shame about your blisters, I hope they ease up on you soon.
Cant wait to read your trip report :)

Sounds like your having a grest time, those drinks you posted on facebook looked amazing! Think i need one of those in Sept!

Enjoy your last week and look forward to hearing about your mishaps :)

Great to hear you are having fun (despite the blisters!)

Really looking forward to your TR :)

Bethan, you're such a blonde! ;)

Hope you enjoy the second week, looking forward to hearing all about your adventures :thumbsup2

OMG I bet their face's were a treat when they saw her come out. Very naughty of them. Glad the feet are on the mend. Enjoy Raglan Road its very yummy.

Sounds like you are having an amazing time. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.

Looking forward to your TR

Tam

I know I shouldn't, but I'm laughing at the 'bikini' incident.

I may leave a pair of my old underpants outside next time and see if they get the same treatment! Somehow I doubt it. :confused3

Kev

(I have to be honest, but that was my initial reaction too! Will explain more in the TR, but it was so surreal!)

Really enjoying your PTR so far, can't wait to read the rest to help get me in the holiday mood.

Congratulations on the graduation, and the placement in Liverpool. I'm in the next town along, Liverpool has some really lovely areas if you ever get a day off to enjoy them!

Hope the rest of the trip was brilliant, and that Disney gave you something nice by way of apology regarding the Bikini incident


Gill x

Safe journey home x

you're probably in the air by now so hope your drive home goes quickly
can't wait to hear all about your trip :goodvibes

Thanks for the comments :) I've finally made it back home - booooooo! The flight was so, so bumpy coming home, including a bit of a sudden drop at one point in the night. I'm sure I'm bigging it up more than it was in my head, but seeing as I already hate flying, I was not in a good place lol! It's definitely put me off flying in the immediate future, but as it happens I'm flying up to Glasgow in two weeks time! Not ideal lol!

Now that I'm home though, I'm finally sorting through all the photos and am about to make a start on writing the TR!!

Coming soon, I promise!!
 
Glad to hear you made it home safey :thumbsup2

Congratulations on your exams Dr Beth!!! & really looking forward to the full TR:surfweb:
 
Just a quick WELCOME to the TR; I hope you'll all read along!
I've just decided to add this to the PTR, keeping it all in one place! I'm looking forward to going through all 14 days again :)

26/4/2013 - 27/4/2013: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!​

Firstly, this:


Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! :cool1: :cool1:

Anyway, back to it! As mentioned in the PTR, we had booked the Travelodge Central Gatwick for the night before our departure - I'd hate the thought of travelling over to Gatwick at stupid o'clock in the morning, so an airport hotel the night before departure is always going to be the way for me! As many of you say, it's when the holiday begins! :)

Before setting off for the hotel, I spoke with Emma who was going to be sharing the room with me that evening. I just wanted to check that she had the address for the right Gatwick Travelodge (seeing as there's two!). Lucky I did, as they were totally going to head to the other one!

I left home at around 2:00pm, aiming to get to Gatwick for around 5:00pm. However, I completely forgot that it was in fact a Friday evening. That equals traffic, and it took a little longer. Emma was also planning to get there for 5:00pm - I contacted her whilst I was stuck in standstill traffic to let her know I'd be late, but she was pretty much in the same situation travelling from Birmingham. Just by pure chance though, as I was parking my car, Emma and her Dad literally pulled up next to me. I chatted to Tony (Emma's Dad) for a while as I hadn't seen him in such a long time! After goodbye hugs we then checked in. The room was fab considering we only paid £17 for it! Very clean and tidy!


We had also booked a meal with our night's stay; for around £10 each, we had a main course with either a starter or dessert plus a drink. We shared chicken goujons and cheese bacon potato skins to start, which I followed up with a burger and a Corona beer. Food was OK, just your standard frozen fare, but it certainly filled a hole!


We headed to bed after watching the Graham Norton Show, excited to start our holiday!

We were up bright and early on Saturday morning. After getting ready, we loaded my car with the luggage and left around 7:30am. I had booked the Gatwick Summer Special Parking for the next two weeks... the directions were not great (or they were, and I was just terrible at understanding them!), and we soon found ourselves completely away from the main airport and in some freight-ish/industrial area. I turned the car around at the next roundabout, and headed back towards the Gatwick signs. The directions said something about following signs to the North Terminal, and before I knew it, I was blocked into a barrier, forced into getting a ticket and finding ourselves outside Departures. I felt like we were in an episode of Mr Bean - again we were in the wrong place! I drove straight back out through the barrier on the other side of the terminal and luckily we weren't charged. As we were leaving and still uber-confused, Emma spotted this tiny yellow sign:


(This is about 20x actual size :lmao:)

Finally we knew where we were going!

I checked in the car, and the shuttle was waiting outside to take us back to the North Terminal. After a short journey we made our way to the back of the hall for the BA desks. The previous day, at exactly 24 hours before our flight, I checked in online for the flight. It let me check-in Emma no problem, however, it wasn't behaving for me. It kept telling me that there was an "important message" that I needed to collect from the airport. The area was extremely busy, but I managed to hunt down a BA assistant. She took me to a computer and looked at the screen with a somewhat quizzical look. She asked me if I actually lived in the UK... ummm yes... she then showed me something on the screen that said something about my US residency. I WISH!!! All I could think of was that it might have been something related to my old work visa that I had for WDW in 2011, but she sorted it and printed my boarding card.

After dropping our bags and clearing security (which, for me, had been strangely uneventful thus far), we had a mooch around the shops and restaurants. First was Duty Free for the usual cigarette run for my friend and a few squirts of perfume! We were now getting a bit peckish so headed upstairs for breakfast - we sat in the EAT area where I had a ham and cheese croissant, and Emma a pain au chocolat. We gave Jo a quick ring at around 9am to see if she had managed to check in at Manchester for her flight, and she informed us that she had already started on the rosé! That's our girl :rotfl2: I also grabbed a coffee from Starbucks (always a skinny caramel macchiato :cloud9:) and one of those lime and hibiscus "Refresher" drinks - these are my fave!


It was now time to head down to the gate - as we showed our passports to go through, I was told that I had been chosen for extra security checks. It's not embarrassing at all to have your brand new M&S undies which you have literally bought on the way to the airport and thrown in the hand luggage, whipped out in front of the queue! They searched my bags very thoroughly, pulling everything out and inspecting it! It was a strange experience; the security staff were lovely and quite comical. Probably not appropriate, but it made it all a bit less cringey :) At one point, the lady pulled my external hard drive out from my laptop case, held it up and asked me what it was.

Me: It's just a big memory stick for my computer.
Security lady (loudly): So it's not a bomb is it?!
Me: :eek: (did she just say that???)​

I had no idea how to respond as that's not a question I was expecting to be asked, but I managed to squeeze out a "no" before it got too awkward :) After the bags, it was then time for the pat down (or the free massage as they tried to sell it to me!). There was an awful lot of rubbing around the bra area, and seeing as I had a thick wooly jumper on at the time, I asked whether she would have liked for me to have taken it off. That's when she replied: "whoa Miss, calm down! No one said this was a strip search!" She was laughing whilst she said it, and I thought it was funny too, but the people in the line that I was next to definitely heard the words "strip search" and turned around. Eventually it was all over and I caught up with Emma who had been wondering what on earth trouble I had gotten myself into this time! I promise it was just random selection! :)

Continued in next post...
 

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