It's alright, I'm still alive! a TR -- Day 11: Aquatica-- Updated 27/4

[disneyhockeymad]

Hey! So I've finally got my act together and have started writing my TR from when I went to WDW about a month and a half back! For those of you who have read my PTR then you'll be familiar with th cast, however for those of you who haven't here is the link, my PTR, and here is a quick recap of the cast...

This is me, I'm Laura, 18, love anything Disney and I'm more or less known for it by all my friends. I've just finished my last year of school, so I'm off to Newcastle uni in september which is slightly scary but also very exciting! I plan to disney-fi my room in anyway humainly possible!!

This is my dad, he's pretty much in love with his job (I did work experience with him, I fell asleep I was so bored, but I guess whatever makes him happy!) He loves Disney deep down and had an amazing time when we went, I saw the little smiles of delight

This is my mum, she likes Disney to an extent but didn't get why I was so excited about the trip... that was until about 2 weeks before, then she became like a little kid, was very very funny!

And finally this is my younger brother (16), he's at that age where liking Disney isn't cool, but I know he likes it really. He really relaxed at WDW and had a fantastic time!

So that's my family... I'm going to write a contents page so you can all find my new posts easily... hopefully I'll get a lot of comments!!

Day 1 part 1, Leaving and the plane journey: Pg1 Post 3 here
Day 1 part 2, Arriving in Orlando: Pg2 Post 18 here
Day 2 part 1, Hollywood Studios Star Wars weekend: Pg 3 Post 41 & 42 here and here
Day 2 part 2, Hollywood Studios Star Wars weekend: Pg 4 Post 51 here
Day 2 part 3, Hollywood Studios Star Wars weekend: Pg4 Post 53 here
Day 3, part 1, Epcot: Pg5 Post 65 here
Day 3, part 2, Epcot: Pg5 Posts 73 & 74 here and here
Day 3, part 3, Epcot: Pg5 Post 75 here
Day 4, part 1, Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios: Pg 6 Post 76 here
Day 4, part 2, Universal Studios and Hollywood Studios: Pg 6 Posts 77 & 78 here and here
Day 5, part 1, Animal Kingdom: Pg 6 Post 83 here
Day 5, part 2, Magic Kingdom: Pg 6 Post 90 here
Day 6, Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure: Pg 7 Posts 94 & 95 here and here
Day 7, part 1, Magic Kingdom on 4th July: Pg 7 Posts 103 & 104here and here
Day 7, part 2, Magic Kingdom on 4th July: Pg 8 Posts 113 & 114 here and here
Day 8, Hollywood Studios & Sci Fi Diner: Pg 9 Posts 121 & 123 here and here
Day 9, part 1, Animal Kingdom & Tusker House: Pg 9 Post 133 here
Day 9, part 2, Blizzard Beach, Animal Kingdom & Rainforest Cafe: Pg 10 Post 137 here
Day 10, part 1, Sea World: Pgs 10 & 11 Posts 150 & 151here and here
Day 10, part 2, Sea World: Pg 11 Posts 154 & 155 here and here
Day 11, Aquatica and hitting the Outlets: Pg 12 Posts 166 & 167 here and here

 

[Beth__WDW23/6/02]

Ohh looking forward to reading more

 

[disneyhockeymad]

Right... so our day started off bright an early, the alarm went off at 6:30 in preparation for the taxi coming at 7:15. That being said I don't think the alarm was necessary for anyone, we were all too excited to sleep and already up and about!

We packed up the remaining things we needed and generally ran around the house like mad things, I had a little moment of complete excitement where I stood on the spot jumping but I was soon calmed down and given the exciting job of putting bleach in all the toilets!! :rofl: I also had a mild moment of panic as dad had packed my camera and I feared I wouldn't be able to get at it, but luckily he had packed it in the suitcase that we were pilling all the other stuff into! So he retrieved it and off I went to bleach the toilets!

Our suitcases were all nicely organised when I had finished, so I snapped a photo just before they were loaded into the taxi for our trip to the airport

The trip to the airport was non eventful but smooth and there was no traffic so we arrived at the airport at 8:15 with what we thought would be plenty of time to check in and grab breakfast.

Once we entered the airport however it was a different story, Virgin had 3 Caribbean flights all leaving within about 2 hours, queues out the door, always nice! We were told to go and grab breakfast and come back a little later in a hope that because all the Caribbean flights would have closed the queues would be a lot less! We decided to go and check out Gatwick Village for something to eat and after a ten minute wander around we settled on Frankie and Benny's for breakfast, which wasn't half bad!

Here is a photo of the menu:

I just had toast, I never eat very much before going on a journey, I always find I'm too excited to eat! Mum had cereal and toast, Dad and Mark had a fry up, how they managed to eat it all I will never know!

Apparently I took a picture of my toast!!

After breakfast we made our way back down to the check in desks and managed to walk past all of the queues to another seperate queue for the online check in bag drop-pers, arrived at one end 9:15 and out the other by 9:40, we were suitably impressed. That didn't however leave much time to go shopping in the duty free, an absolute essential for me, so we hurried through to make the most of it. Both my brother and I headed straight for Dixons and HMV to look at the Nintendo DS's, I bought a lime green one, which I absolutely love, and my brother a black one. They were/are well worth the money! They did however take forever to come because we went for a DS deal, half of which was in their stock room, so they had to run down to their stock room to retrieve all the items, which took far long than we anticipated and led to a mild panic!

After a stop in a few other shops we made our way to the gate, spying the plane on the way...

This is one thing I have ALWAYS found with international flights, they are ALWAYS late, we were at the gate in plenty of time, our flight was due to leave at 11:15, it didn't however board until 11:30, leaving eventually at 12:30 slightly annoying!

We settled into our seats and the flight ahead, within half an hour we were given a drink and pretzels, I could see this flight was going to be great!!

The movie choice was average, I chose to watch Horton Hears a Who first, I was in a childish mood, but to be honest the movie was a bit odd, I didn't really understand it, but then I've never really understood Dr Suess books!

I took some photo's from the flight screen showing where we were in the air at any current time... I thought they were interesting!!

We were given lunch about 2ish (UK time) which was some beef stew thing, my brother liked it, apart from that we were non fussed. However the pasta salad, bread and pudding was immense!

I sat and watched 27 dresses through lunch and then some Simpsons, Family Guy, Gavin and Stacey and Futurama!! As well as playing on lego Indiana Jones on my DS!

We saw some amazing views from the plane over America, I was in complete awe, everything looks amazing from the air!

We eventually landed at 16:20 an hour late and headed through security to register at the car rental place!

-to be continued-

 

[Tammy Stringer]

A great start - can't wait to read more.

Love the pictures out of the plane window - I love seeing the land from so high up too

Tammy

 

[Dimplenose]

Love the pictures. Looking forward to reading more about your trip.

 

[mandymouse]

A great start Laura, I look forward to reading some more

 

[jjk]

excellent start, great photos of view of america from the plane

 

[jockey]

Great start

 

[Pinky166]

Great start.

I too love taking pictures from the plane. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Claire L]

Great start, glad to see someone else takes a piccie of the skymap

Claire

 

[irongirlof12]

fab start, your piccies onflight bring back some memories

 

[DisneyB2B]

Fantastic start Laura, love all your piccies you are getting me in the holiday mood!

 

[CHEK]

Great start can't wait to read more

 

[Snowy-girls]

Count me in .Great start to your trip report,can't wait for more.
I love Horton Hears A Who.I love those pretzels you get on the plane,although i could eat about 5 packets of them .Love the piccies.x.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

oooohhhhhh - brilliant! I have been waiting for this trippie after your exceelent PTR - as my holiday is getting closer and closer it is just what I need to build up the excitement! Great photos of the in flight meal and the skymap and the amazing view!

 

[mark&sue]

Great start. I always spend ages looking at the skymap. It hardly seems to move. Always so good to arrive


susan

 

[disneyhockeymad]

A great start - can't wait to read more.

Love the pictures out of the plane window - I love seeing the land from so high up too

Tammy

It's amazing isn't it. I stood there for so long watching it, I built up a queue behind me of people who wanted to know what I was looking at!

Love the pictures. Looking forward to reading more about your trip.

A great start Laura, I look forward to reading some more

excellent start, great photos of view of america from the plane

Great start

Great start.

I too love taking pictures from the plane. Looking forward to reading more.

Thankyou! I will hopefully be able to write a bit more today!

Great start, glad to see someone else takes a piccie of the skymap

Claire

You've got to take a picture of the skymap!!

fab start, your piccies onflight bring back some memories

Fantastic start Laura, love all your piccies you are getting me in the holiday mood!

Great start can't wait to read more

Thankyou!!!

Count me in .Great start to your trip report,can't wait for more.
I love Horton Hears A Who.I love those pretzels you get on the plane,although i could eat about 5 packets of them .Love the piccies.x.

Haha those pretzels got a bit much after the first few, they weren't my favourite, think I handed most of mine to mum!

oooohhhhhh - brilliant! I have been waiting for this trippie after your exceelent PTR - as my holiday is getting closer and closer it is just what I need to build up the excitement! Great photos of the in flight meal and the skymap and the amazing view!

aww thankyou, I promise I'll update more regularly!

Great start. I always spend ages looking at the skymap. It hardly seems to move. Always so good to arrive


susan

I agree, but then all of a sudden it does move and you're like wow we've flown far!!! (or is that just me?!!)

 

[disneyhockeymad]

Ok so when I left you I had just got off the plane... but I found a few more photo's so we're back tracking slightly!!

The last 2 hours of the flight were agony... we were so close yet we still had 2 hours to go! It didn't help that we were late and knowing that we should have landed by now was a real killer! I occupied myself by watching the Virgin guide to WDW, a lot of fun! Definately got me in the mood!!

They also brought round one of my favourite desserts ever! I love choc ices and was in a real need of a chocolate fix, so I'm so glad that they apparently heard my whines!!!

The last half an hour whizzed by, could be something to do with the fact I was listening to disney tunes on my ipod, but I definately don't know where it went, I was so excited!

By the time we had got through security, grabbed our bags and made our way to the car pick up place I was uncontrollable.... im my mind I was home!!

(and now back to our regular programming!)

So we made our way to the Dollar check in desk to pick up our car, when I spied this...

I wanted to be able to get on one of these so badly, I've never stayed in a Disney hotel at WDW so it would have been amazing, but unfortunately I had to make do with this instead

We waited in line for what seemed like ages, well I say we waited in line, it was more my Dad and Brother, Mum and I stayed out with the cases listening to the security announcements that came across the tannoy and marvelling at the amazing way Americans say the word orange!!

Our car was really nice actually, I don't remember at all what it was only that it was a black Chrysler!

We manouvered our way out of the airport to the car and almost as soon as we left the airport the immense humid heat hit us, it was phemonimal, like a wall of heat suddenly cascading upon us, a definate contrast to Britain!! Unfortunately the heat brought thunderstorms with it and like clockwork as soon as we stepped in the car the heavens opened and a thunderstorm ensued! Nice! So this was the first site to greet us once we left the airport... our first site of Orlando...

The drive to our hotel was a mixture of complicated instructions and squinting in the rain at the road sides, so I have no pictures. I did feel sorry for Dad, his first drive in a car he didn't know was in the pouring rain going to a place he had no idea about!

We did however arrive at our hotel and as we had been informed reliably by Dis, requested a room in building 5 on a top floor.... we were placed in room 5805, it was definately worth it. The view was spectacular, we could see DTD, the Contempory, a bit of the castle, The Tower of Terror, Space Mountain, and the Swan and Dolphin, as well as Kraken from Sea World, and a bit of Universal!!

This isn't the best picture due to the appalling weather conditions but I have better ones coming!

Our condo itself was outstanding, it had everything we needed and more, we were really at home there, every room was a perfect size, my parents had a king size bed and my brother and I a double bed each, it was amazing! I figured a picture montage would be better than explaining it, so here we go...

The living room

Complete with wide screen TV

The kitchen

Mine and my brother room

My parents room

Our amazing bathroom!

(does this photo show up... it was looking a bit wierd on photobucket!)

So we didn't have towel animals... but we did get these wicked little towl bag things which I thought were quite cool!

After exploring the hotel we decided to hit Walmart for some much needed food, both for current consumption and for breakfast tomorrow, my first Walmart experience was definately something I will remember! It's huge!!! After that we made our way back to our condo/hotel thing (I was never sure how to refer to it because it was more than a room!) and watched Illuminations from our balcony. Unfortunately I had misplaced my camera and I didn't find it again until tomorrow morning so I have no pictures from now on!

After watching the fireworks we made our traditional first evening trip to DTD to immerse ourselves in the Disney spirit, it was amazing, all lit up it looked fantastic! I was in complete awe, it was so much better than I remember it being! We were hungry but also shattered so we needed something we could eat quickly, and I have to say McDonalds just called to us, so we headed there to grab whatever we fancied! By this time it was 3am UK time and we were suitably shattered so chose to head straight to back bed rather than wander around DTD anymore.

As you can see this concludes our first day at WDW. It was truely amazing to be back there again, despite thunderstorms!! Hopefully I'll be able to write the next installment soon, although my results come out tomorrow and then I'm away at V festival all weekend! But I will try! I promise!!

 

[Lizzybear]

Great start! Where did you stay? It looks lovely and sounds like a great location too

 

[Dimplenose]

Lovely report. And I love the look of your bathroom.

Why do the plane arrivals always have to coincide with a thunder storm? We had soaking wet clothes one year when our case had been abandoned ourdoors while a storm subsided.

Good luck tomorrow, (DS has to collect his AS results then.)