How we got it home, it's quite a long story.....get comfy
The day before we came home and I went to the DTD virgin checkin desk and spoke to a VA staff member and said I had bought a present for a friend and that we were under our handluggage allowance so could I take it on

I didn't declare what it was or how big it was - she then told me that the flight had 80ish available seats - this made my mind up - I ran down to World of Disney and I bought it! The next day we checked in at DTD but we left it in the car

and didn't declare it as hand luggage. As I was leaving I told the checkin staff I had bought a present for a friend that I needed to wrap, did they have anything that could help me - she gave me a huge VA branded heavy duty clear plastic bag, lots of official VA tape and a huge address label.
I went back to the car and I wrapped it. It looked like it had been through the official check-in.
DH boarded the plane with it - this box is huge! The cabin staff were pretty miffed, there was no cupboard big enough on the aircraft to hold it for take off so they had to decommission a loo for take off and gave it it's own seat for the rest of the flight.
She better like it!