Laurafoster
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2005
- Messages
- 4,911
Day 1 WooHoo were on our way!!!!
Monday 10th Sept
The alarm goes off at 7am but im already wide awake! I jump out of bed and head into the bathroom to have a shower and wash my hair. The bathrooms in the deluxe room at the Hilton were fab! Feeling refreshed I put on their dressing gown and slippers and go back into the room, turning the light on as I go much to Garys annoyance as he was sill lying in bed. Obviously just me thats over excited at the moment!! I put the kettle on and make a cup of tea and start to blow dry my hair my hairs really thick so it takes ages to dry! Whilst im doing this Gary finally gets up and dressed and puts on sky news so we have something to watch. My hairs finally dry around 7:40 so I get dressed and put on a bit of makeup. When we stay at the Hilton the night before we always pop to primark and buy a cheap T Shirt each, we wear these down to the hotel and use them to sleep in and then we throw them away in the morning along with the cheap toothbrushes and toothpaste that way we dont have to carry them all day!
Toiletries chucked away and we head off to meet the others in the lobby. We all head straight over to the pub for breakfast, I was being greedy so I had a full fry up! I dont eat them usually so I thought as im on holiday why not! Breakfast eaten and sufficient caffeine drunk and everyone else starts to get as excited as I am! (well almost anyway).
It was about 9:15 by the time we had finished breakfast so we headed through to departures ,as always one member of my family gets searched this time it was my mums turn. The xray lady seemed to be particularly concerned by my crocs and she put them through the machine twice!! Once through we headed straight for the duty free shop, my parents couldnt decide between the vodka, brandy or Bacardi so as I dont drink spirits I used my allowance to get one of them. We had a wander through some of the shops before it was time to head down to the gate. Once down at the gate we went to WH Smiths and picked up some water, crisps and magazines for the flight.
We then sat and had a drink at the bar near the departure gate. Before we knew it they were calling our flight, so we dashed to the toilets and nearly had the skin blown off our hands by the insanely powerful hand dryers they have in there! By the time we were all ready the queue was pretty small so we didnt have long to wait before getting on to the plane. We found our seats and settled down and in no time we were taxiing off to the runway. I cant remember what time we took off but I think we were pretty much on time. I must be lucky as I dont remember ever having more than a 30 minute delay with Virgin!
Off on our way, I settled down to watch Oceans 13. The choices for lunch sounded quite good this time, I had chicken tikka massala which was lovely (well for aeroplane food anyway!). After lunch I sat and read my magazines for a while and watched Shrek 3, before I knew it we were starting our decent to Orlando. We landed at 2:15 and I could see the gorgeous sunshine outside! Yippee!!!!!
It always seems to take forever to get off the plane and get through immigration, pick up the luggage etc but this time was surprisingly quick. We were straight off the plane and through immigration in next to no time (for once there was no queue!). Luggage was just coming off as we got to the luggage belts ours came out really quickly. We headed through to where they normally take your cases off you again but they said we could keep them if we wished so we did and headed off to the baggage claim area downstairs where we would be meeting our FL Tours driver. He was already sat there waiting for us! We headed outside the door and were hit with the lovely heat and that Florida smell! Once in the taxi it didnt take long to get to the hotel we were staying at the WDW Dolphin as we had gotten a great rate and we love the boardwalk area! We checked in, and were assigned our rooms floor 8. So we headed up and we went in to our rooms. The rooms were fine but 2 rooms had rubbish views, we thought we would try our luck and called the front desk the said they could move us Thursday to a room over looking Epcot so we agreed to that.
Although we were tired im always full of energy when we arrive, so we unpacked and freshened up before heading over to MGM so we could pick up our APs. APs collected we headed over to ESPN for something to eat - I had the ESPN dingers (chicken tenders in hot sauce) and they were lovely! We picked up a bottle of wine and some beer from Screen Door on the boardwalk and headed back to the hotel. We sat out on the balcony playing cards with a few drinks and watched the fireworks from our balcony (we cold just about see them) before deciding to call it a night and heading to bed ready for the first full day tomorrow!!!
Monday 10th Sept
The alarm goes off at 7am but im already wide awake! I jump out of bed and head into the bathroom to have a shower and wash my hair. The bathrooms in the deluxe room at the Hilton were fab! Feeling refreshed I put on their dressing gown and slippers and go back into the room, turning the light on as I go much to Garys annoyance as he was sill lying in bed. Obviously just me thats over excited at the moment!! I put the kettle on and make a cup of tea and start to blow dry my hair my hairs really thick so it takes ages to dry! Whilst im doing this Gary finally gets up and dressed and puts on sky news so we have something to watch. My hairs finally dry around 7:40 so I get dressed and put on a bit of makeup. When we stay at the Hilton the night before we always pop to primark and buy a cheap T Shirt each, we wear these down to the hotel and use them to sleep in and then we throw them away in the morning along with the cheap toothbrushes and toothpaste that way we dont have to carry them all day!
Toiletries chucked away and we head off to meet the others in the lobby. We all head straight over to the pub for breakfast, I was being greedy so I had a full fry up! I dont eat them usually so I thought as im on holiday why not! Breakfast eaten and sufficient caffeine drunk and everyone else starts to get as excited as I am! (well almost anyway).
It was about 9:15 by the time we had finished breakfast so we headed through to departures ,as always one member of my family gets searched this time it was my mums turn. The xray lady seemed to be particularly concerned by my crocs and she put them through the machine twice!! Once through we headed straight for the duty free shop, my parents couldnt decide between the vodka, brandy or Bacardi so as I dont drink spirits I used my allowance to get one of them. We had a wander through some of the shops before it was time to head down to the gate. Once down at the gate we went to WH Smiths and picked up some water, crisps and magazines for the flight.
We then sat and had a drink at the bar near the departure gate. Before we knew it they were calling our flight, so we dashed to the toilets and nearly had the skin blown off our hands by the insanely powerful hand dryers they have in there! By the time we were all ready the queue was pretty small so we didnt have long to wait before getting on to the plane. We found our seats and settled down and in no time we were taxiing off to the runway. I cant remember what time we took off but I think we were pretty much on time. I must be lucky as I dont remember ever having more than a 30 minute delay with Virgin!
Off on our way, I settled down to watch Oceans 13. The choices for lunch sounded quite good this time, I had chicken tikka massala which was lovely (well for aeroplane food anyway!). After lunch I sat and read my magazines for a while and watched Shrek 3, before I knew it we were starting our decent to Orlando. We landed at 2:15 and I could see the gorgeous sunshine outside! Yippee!!!!!
It always seems to take forever to get off the plane and get through immigration, pick up the luggage etc but this time was surprisingly quick. We were straight off the plane and through immigration in next to no time (for once there was no queue!). Luggage was just coming off as we got to the luggage belts ours came out really quickly. We headed through to where they normally take your cases off you again but they said we could keep them if we wished so we did and headed off to the baggage claim area downstairs where we would be meeting our FL Tours driver. He was already sat there waiting for us! We headed outside the door and were hit with the lovely heat and that Florida smell! Once in the taxi it didnt take long to get to the hotel we were staying at the WDW Dolphin as we had gotten a great rate and we love the boardwalk area! We checked in, and were assigned our rooms floor 8. So we headed up and we went in to our rooms. The rooms were fine but 2 rooms had rubbish views, we thought we would try our luck and called the front desk the said they could move us Thursday to a room over looking Epcot so we agreed to that.
Although we were tired im always full of energy when we arrive, so we unpacked and freshened up before heading over to MGM so we could pick up our APs. APs collected we headed over to ESPN for something to eat - I had the ESPN dingers (chicken tenders in hot sauce) and they were lovely! We picked up a bottle of wine and some beer from Screen Door on the boardwalk and headed back to the hotel. We sat out on the balcony playing cards with a few drinks and watched the fireworks from our balcony (we cold just about see them) before deciding to call it a night and heading to bed ready for the first full day tomorrow!!!
you are there 
