Pinky166
<font color=deeppink>a little on the OCD side<br><
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2008
- Messages
- 13,928
Cast:
Me = Claire (33), massive Disney fan, chief planner (a little on the OCD side
) obsessive shopper, addicted to scrapbooking and very impulsive which doesnt bode well for our credit cards!
Hubby = Lee (34), not a massive Disney fan but still enjoys it, adrenaline junkie, easy going and the sensible half of our partnership!
Day 2 Travelling to Orlando.
2nd December 2008.
We woke at 7am, I had slept a little bit better than the previous night but still felt tired. We both watched tv in bed for a while as there wasnt any point in getting over to the terminal before 9am. After a while we got showered and dressed (I had packed an overnight bag with lots of toiletries that were almost empty so once we were ready in the morning we could just bin everything.) We dropped the room key off in reception & got the monorail over to the South Terminal and straight through the security checks (in fact there was only one person in front of us, so we didnt need the fast track you get as part of PE).
Lee was a bit hungry by now and I wanted to try and eat something as I never eat the food you get on the plane. It doesnt matter what food it is or what airline we are on it always makes me feel sick so I have learnt over the years not to even bother trying! We went to Bridges, Lee had a full English breakfast & I had bacon & eggs, both with a pot of tea. (Sorry - I dont know how much this was as I havent made a note. Bear with me it is my first attempt at a trip report.
)
After breakfast I called my mum to see how the dogs were settling in, she said they had been fine. We then had a look around the shops, finishing off in WHSmiths to get the usual magazines, sweets & water. I also got a ham & cheese baguette from Pret a Manger in case I get hungry on the plane later. The screen was now showing our Gate (21) so we wandered over and they were already letting everyone through into the waiting bit that is sectioned off. Our plane was Pretty Woman:
After a while we were boarded and got settled in our seats, of course I had a glass of champagne it would be rude not too, we eventually taxied at 11.45am (30 mins late) and took off at 11.50am.
The rest of the flight was pretty much as follows: I watched Mamma Mia, drank lots of water, read my magazines, listened to a couple of DIS podcasts that I had saved up for the flight, watched Wall.e & drank even more water.
Lee just watched as many films as he could .Indiana Jones 3, Wall.E, Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight & Tropic thunder.
As I was driving when we landed (for the first time) I didnt drink anymore alcohol & Lee was the back up driver in case I freaked out so he stuck to Coke for the whole flight. For dinner Lee chose chicken in a creamy sauce (not sure exactly what it was), mash potato, carrots & broccoli.
We landed at 4pm (local time) after a pretty smooth flight. There was a big queue at immigration as another flight had landed just before us. I used the DIS tip of getting in the queue on the far right to see if we could get through on the US desks but they had a big queue too so it didnt pay off. We finally got through after about 40 mins, collected our luggage and made our way to the Budget car rental desk there was 4 people in front of us in the queue but only one person on the desk and they were dealing with a problem customer.
Eventually someone else came out from the back to help but it was ridiculous
.the queue now had about 15 families in it! After about 45 mins we finally got to the desk and were given the keys and parking lot number for the car. I hadnt even asked the guy what car it was as I had booked the basic Economy, I just wanted to get on my way as I was really nervous about driving and all the waiting around was NOT helping my nerves! 
We went up into the multi story car park and found the parking space number 412 but in it was
..a 2 door MUSTANG!??!!???!! I looked at Lee and said they must have given us the wrong number so I will try pressing the alarm button on the key fob and see if it is one of the nearby cars, so I pressed the unlock button and the Mustang clicked open!! RESULT! 
To be honest it was totally impractical as I had an extra two suitcases packed one inside the other so although we only had 2 cases on the way out we would have 4 on the way back
.oh well i'll let hubby worry about that in 17 nights time when he has to load the car. 
Hubby was very happy as he likes Mustangs!
Here is a pic of Sally (that was taken later on in the holiday):
We loaded the car & got in, I was really scared and I just wanted to get driving but Lee had to figure out the TomTom as it was the first time using the US map and it was struggling to find a signal. After about 5 mins we were off and I was absolutely fine before I had even got out of the car park, I really dont know why I had been stressing over it for the past year!
It took about 25 mins to get to the Hard Rock Hotel, very straight forward using the TomTom but it was dark by now and I think we would have had trouble navigating using a map, especially after the long flight & in the dark. We checked in at the Hard Rock and I asked if they had any rooms with a king bed (rather than the two queens we had booked) as they didnt have any available when I made the booking back in January. He checked the system & they did but it was a disabled room, he explained the only difference is that it has a walk in shower rather than a shower over the bath, well that is fine by us as we tend to prefer showers on holiday anyway so he upgraded us. Woo Hoo!! We were given an information pack/hotel map & keys to Room 5098:
We got to the room & unpacked. I should say that the room was very spacious and clean but we thought it would have a little more themeing than it had, saying that we would return as it was a lovely hotel.
Anyway by now Lee had started to fall asleep on the bed so we decided to get room service as neither of us could face showering, getting changed and going out. I choose a Cheeseburger with beer battered onion rings. Lee had a New York strip steak with mash, carrots & asparagus. We had a coke each & a pot of hot chocolate each $107 (inc tax & 22% service charge). It took about 30 mins to arrive & was just ok, nothing special.
Mine:
Lee's:
I should state now that I haven't got many food pics as I kept forgetting until we were half way through the meal and I didn't think people would want to see our half eaten dinners!
I just had to take a photo of this page of the room service menu as it made me smile:
After dinner we watched Elf on the tv & fell asleep about 10pm, absolutely shattered!
Day 3 to follow tomorrow hopefully ..
Me = Claire (33), massive Disney fan, chief planner (a little on the OCD side
) obsessive shopper, addicted to scrapbooking and very impulsive which doesnt bode well for our credit cards! Hubby = Lee (34), not a massive Disney fan but still enjoys it, adrenaline junkie, easy going and the sensible half of our partnership!
Day 2 Travelling to Orlando.
2nd December 2008.
We woke at 7am, I had slept a little bit better than the previous night but still felt tired. We both watched tv in bed for a while as there wasnt any point in getting over to the terminal before 9am. After a while we got showered and dressed (I had packed an overnight bag with lots of toiletries that were almost empty so once we were ready in the morning we could just bin everything.) We dropped the room key off in reception & got the monorail over to the South Terminal and straight through the security checks (in fact there was only one person in front of us, so we didnt need the fast track you get as part of PE).
Lee was a bit hungry by now and I wanted to try and eat something as I never eat the food you get on the plane. It doesnt matter what food it is or what airline we are on it always makes me feel sick so I have learnt over the years not to even bother trying! We went to Bridges, Lee had a full English breakfast & I had bacon & eggs, both with a pot of tea. (Sorry - I dont know how much this was as I havent made a note. Bear with me it is my first attempt at a trip report.
)After breakfast I called my mum to see how the dogs were settling in, she said they had been fine. We then had a look around the shops, finishing off in WHSmiths to get the usual magazines, sweets & water. I also got a ham & cheese baguette from Pret a Manger in case I get hungry on the plane later. The screen was now showing our Gate (21) so we wandered over and they were already letting everyone through into the waiting bit that is sectioned off. Our plane was Pretty Woman:
After a while we were boarded and got settled in our seats, of course I had a glass of champagne it would be rude not too
, we eventually taxied at 11.45am (30 mins late) and took off at 11.50am. The rest of the flight was pretty much as follows: I watched Mamma Mia, drank lots of water, read my magazines, listened to a couple of DIS podcasts that I had saved up for the flight, watched Wall.e & drank even more water.
Lee just watched as many films as he could .Indiana Jones 3, Wall.E, Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight & Tropic thunder.
As I was driving when we landed (for the first time) I didnt drink anymore alcohol & Lee was the back up driver in case I freaked out so he stuck to Coke for the whole flight. For dinner Lee chose chicken in a creamy sauce (not sure exactly what it was), mash potato, carrots & broccoli.
We landed at 4pm (local time) after a pretty smooth flight. There was a big queue at immigration as another flight had landed just before us. I used the DIS tip of getting in the queue on the far right to see if we could get through on the US desks but they had a big queue too so it didnt pay off. We finally got through after about 40 mins, collected our luggage and made our way to the Budget car rental desk there was 4 people in front of us in the queue but only one person on the desk and they were dealing with a problem customer.
Eventually someone else came out from the back to help but it was ridiculous
.the queue now had about 15 families in it! After about 45 mins we finally got to the desk and were given the keys and parking lot number for the car. I hadnt even asked the guy what car it was as I had booked the basic Economy, I just wanted to get on my way as I was really nervous about driving and all the waiting around was NOT helping my nerves! We went up into the multi story car park and found the parking space number 412 but in it was
..a 2 door MUSTANG!??!!???!! I looked at Lee and said they must have given us the wrong number so I will try pressing the alarm button on the key fob and see if it is one of the nearby cars, so I pressed the unlock button and the Mustang clicked open!! RESULT! To be honest it was totally impractical as I had an extra two suitcases packed one inside the other so although we only had 2 cases on the way out we would have 4 on the way back
.oh well i'll let hubby worry about that in 17 nights time when he has to load the car. Hubby was very happy as he likes Mustangs! Here is a pic of Sally
(that was taken later on in the holiday):
We loaded the car & got in, I was really scared and I just wanted to get driving but Lee had to figure out the TomTom as it was the first time using the US map and it was struggling to find a signal. After about 5 mins we were off and I was absolutely fine before I had even got out of the car park, I really dont know why I had been stressing over it for the past year!
It took about 25 mins to get to the Hard Rock Hotel, very straight forward using the TomTom but it was dark by now and I think we would have had trouble navigating using a map, especially after the long flight & in the dark. We checked in at the Hard Rock and I asked if they had any rooms with a king bed (rather than the two queens we had booked) as they didnt have any available when I made the booking back in January. He checked the system & they did but it was a disabled room, he explained the only difference is that it has a walk in shower rather than a shower over the bath, well that is fine by us as we tend to prefer showers on holiday anyway so he upgraded us. Woo Hoo!! We were given an information pack/hotel map & keys to Room 5098:
We got to the room & unpacked. I should say that the room was very spacious and clean but we thought it would have a little more themeing than it had, saying that we would return as it was a lovely hotel.
Anyway by now Lee had started to fall asleep on the bed so we decided to get room service as neither of us could face showering, getting changed and going out. I choose a Cheeseburger with beer battered onion rings. Lee had a New York strip steak with mash, carrots & asparagus. We had a coke each & a pot of hot chocolate each $107 (inc tax & 22% service charge). It took about 30 mins to arrive & was just ok, nothing special.
Mine:
Lee's:
I should state now that I haven't got many food pics as I kept forgetting until we were half way through the meal and I didn't think people would want to see our half eaten dinners!
I just had to take a photo of this page of the room service menu as it made me smile:
After dinner we watched Elf on the tv & fell asleep about 10pm, absolutely shattered!
Day 3 to follow tomorrow hopefully ..
