arieljasmine
<font color=magenta>Who says these things pass you
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2004
- Messages
- 6,098
A quick word of warning before I get started with the trip report - we have been back three weeks and I have only written up one day so far! Expect there to be a gap between postings!
Laur's & Andy's Spring Break
Me - Laur's - 27 - nervous wreck
DH - Andy - 27 - cool and collected
Day One
Well, I didn't write a pre-trip report because it would mostly just have consisted of me panicking! Here are a few of the things I ws panicking about:
Flying, Easter crowds, flying, being able to control a segway, flying, spring break (I blame American TV for making me believe that this was a euphemism for naked US teenagers running around everywhere!) and flying.
As you may have gathered from the above, I am not the best flyer.
Also, this time we decided (call us crazy) to only make a loose plan as we really didn't know what to expect from the crowds and thought that we may have to change things or dismiss them altogether.
So, that out of the way, on to the first day. We were up at about 5.30am as the taxi to take us to Manchester airport was due at 6.15am. It's a great firm who are very reliable and, as predicted by me, they arrived to pick us up by 6am. Of course we were not ready (also predicted by me). If anyone is looking for a airport taxi firm in the South Cumbria/North Lancashire area, PM me and I'll give you their details.
The journey to the airport was uneventful (we did manage to be in the taxi by 6.15am) and amazingly, I wasn't panicking too much at this stage (probably because I hadn't woken up yet). Also, had managed to do a quick check that we had everything before we set off to give me slighly less to worry about.
On arrival at the airport, checked in with Virgin, Premium Economy rocks and I am so lucky that we can afford it - I think we had to wait for one person in front of us and that was all. After check in we went to look for some breakfast, and I got a strawberry and orange juice from LoveJuice (cue much childish giggling from us both) to ward off plane germs. We grabbed a ham and cheese panini from some cafe whose name escapes me, and chilled out there for a bit. Had a quick look round the duty free and then it was time to board.
We were sat in the upstairs cabin which is always exciting, and I love the way they have the little storage bins at the side to put your stuff in. I was most disgruntled to note that there were no comfort packs on the seats and complained about this to poor Andy about every two minutes until (much to his relief I'm sure) the stewardess brought them round. We also had a welcome drink, orange for me ( I have to have valium to get me on the plane - whoever said facing your fears made them easier was wrong!) and champagne for Andy.
After we'd taken off and put on our rather fetching free yellow Virgin socks, I gave Andy his lyrics quiz, which is a bit of a holiday tradition with us. We are both big music fans, and I love making up these quizzes for Andy, and seeing him struggle! We got drinks - Stella for Andy and Diet Cola for me (mmm, Virgin cola is nice) and yummy pretzels.
Lunch didn't seem to take long to come round and I am one of those strange people who enjoy plane food, so that made me happy. I think I like the fact that it makes the time pass quickly with all those little packets of stuff! We had sausage and mash with pickled red cabbage (slightly odd combination, I thought but anyway), some strange pasta salad with mozarella cheese (and yes, I did say I liked plane food - I did eat it all!), a bread bun, cheese and crackers, chocolate profiteroles, water, tea and a glass of white wine. I had a couple of sips of mine and gave the rest to Andy. Sadly, after the meal they came round with glasses of brandy or baileys - and I couldn't resist the baileys.
I attempted to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but the alcohol combination sent me to sleep before the end. (Luckily I have seen this film twice before!) When I woke up, I played Tetris pretty much until teatime. I love this game, there's just something totally addictive about it.
I was very excited about the tea, not so much the chicken and herb sandwich, but the bar of Dairy Milk Bubbly chocolate - wow! I was jumping up and down happy about this! (Strange what a little chocolate can do for a tired woman!)
When the plane finally landed (eight and a half hours!), we had the usual "you've filled the form in wrong at customs" (seriously, is this just me? We've been four times now and not gotten it right yet. I think they are purposely worded to catch you out. I understand the importance of these forms, I just think they could be made a little simpler to fill in). After that, picked up the cases, dropped them off again and ran outside for a cigarette before we murdered each other! That seen to, we went to check in for the Magical Express. We had decided not to bother with a car this time as we were only doing Disney, so this was the obvious way to go. Neither of us had any clue what we were doing, luckily the CM at the desk did! The trip to the Pop Century didn't take very long, and we were lucky to be the first drop off.
I should have been calm by this point, but I had ordered Andy a gift basket as a surprise for our wedding anniversary that was coming up (six years) from Peggy's Sweets and More. This was my first time using Peggy, and have to say that she is just great! She's a fellow Diser who lives in Florida and makes up gift baskets for delivery to WDW hotels. Her user name is feralpeg and seriously, I cannot recommend her highly enough. Anyway, I was panicking in case the CM forgot to give Andy the basket, or if it had been delivered to the room, and what if they sent it to the wrong room, and did I mention, I'm a panicker?!
As it turns out, I didn't have to worry at all. It had come up on the computer that there was a gift basket for us, the CM went to get it, and Andy was completely surprised as I had managed to tell no one about this. I got him an Easter Minnie Mouse (she is his favourite), a Spectromagic CD, a happiest celebration keychain and some soda, chocolate and pretzels. It was really beautiful. Got all our check in stuff, and went up to our preferred room in the 60s building with Andy making me spill how I got the gift basket for him.
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After showering and freshening up as best we could without the suitcases, we went down to the Pop food court for tea. I had been dreaming of their Nachos Supreme since the last time we were here in 2004, so I couldn't wait any longer! Bought some mugs too for the free refills.
We wanted to go and get our annual passes after tea, but I wasn't sure if the ticketing windows at the parks would be open this late (it was 7 pm by this time) so we checked with the front desk who confirmed that they would be. After nipping back to the room to check if the cases had arrived (they had, hoorah!) we headed out to our traditional first day/last day park MGM.
Hit a worryingly large hurdle when we went to the window to buy our annual passes - no passports, no driving licences!! Despite all the advice I had taken from the Dis about buying these, we still forgot our ID! I couldn't believe it, and the thought of bussing it back and here again was way too much after such a long day. Luckily, after a lecture about how it is the law in Florida to carry ID (we've been here three times previously, and didn't pick up on this?!) the CM kindly used Andy's credit card and our room cards as ID and sold us the passes. We are now proud owners of Premium Annual Passes and can't wait to get into the park. Only one more hurdle now, the pesky fingers machine. "Only two fingers" is I think the phrase I heard most often during the week!! Why can I not get this to work for me - do I have freakishly faint fingerprints?!
Anyway, finally we get into the park and hit Great Movie Ride (I love this ride, but we always get gangsters. Only once have we seen the cowboy one, and we have been on this ride about a gazillion times) and Star Tours which I totally love and know all the words too (yes, how sad am I?)
After this we decided we'd better call it a night, so headed back to the Pop for a well earned beer for Andy and frozen Pina Colada for me (mmmmmmmm, dreamed about these almost as much as the nachos), watched a bit of TV with our drinks and then were in bed for 11 pm.
ArielJasmine
Laur's & Andy's Spring Break
Me - Laur's - 27 - nervous wreck
DH - Andy - 27 - cool and collected
Day One
Well, I didn't write a pre-trip report because it would mostly just have consisted of me panicking! Here are a few of the things I ws panicking about:
Flying, Easter crowds, flying, being able to control a segway, flying, spring break (I blame American TV for making me believe that this was a euphemism for naked US teenagers running around everywhere!) and flying.
As you may have gathered from the above, I am not the best flyer.
Also, this time we decided (call us crazy) to only make a loose plan as we really didn't know what to expect from the crowds and thought that we may have to change things or dismiss them altogether.
So, that out of the way, on to the first day. We were up at about 5.30am as the taxi to take us to Manchester airport was due at 6.15am. It's a great firm who are very reliable and, as predicted by me, they arrived to pick us up by 6am. Of course we were not ready (also predicted by me). If anyone is looking for a airport taxi firm in the South Cumbria/North Lancashire area, PM me and I'll give you their details.
The journey to the airport was uneventful (we did manage to be in the taxi by 6.15am) and amazingly, I wasn't panicking too much at this stage (probably because I hadn't woken up yet). Also, had managed to do a quick check that we had everything before we set off to give me slighly less to worry about.
On arrival at the airport, checked in with Virgin, Premium Economy rocks and I am so lucky that we can afford it - I think we had to wait for one person in front of us and that was all. After check in we went to look for some breakfast, and I got a strawberry and orange juice from LoveJuice (cue much childish giggling from us both) to ward off plane germs. We grabbed a ham and cheese panini from some cafe whose name escapes me, and chilled out there for a bit. Had a quick look round the duty free and then it was time to board.
We were sat in the upstairs cabin which is always exciting, and I love the way they have the little storage bins at the side to put your stuff in. I was most disgruntled to note that there were no comfort packs on the seats and complained about this to poor Andy about every two minutes until (much to his relief I'm sure) the stewardess brought them round. We also had a welcome drink, orange for me ( I have to have valium to get me on the plane - whoever said facing your fears made them easier was wrong!) and champagne for Andy.
After we'd taken off and put on our rather fetching free yellow Virgin socks, I gave Andy his lyrics quiz, which is a bit of a holiday tradition with us. We are both big music fans, and I love making up these quizzes for Andy, and seeing him struggle! We got drinks - Stella for Andy and Diet Cola for me (mmm, Virgin cola is nice) and yummy pretzels.
Lunch didn't seem to take long to come round and I am one of those strange people who enjoy plane food, so that made me happy. I think I like the fact that it makes the time pass quickly with all those little packets of stuff! We had sausage and mash with pickled red cabbage (slightly odd combination, I thought but anyway), some strange pasta salad with mozarella cheese (and yes, I did say I liked plane food - I did eat it all!), a bread bun, cheese and crackers, chocolate profiteroles, water, tea and a glass of white wine. I had a couple of sips of mine and gave the rest to Andy. Sadly, after the meal they came round with glasses of brandy or baileys - and I couldn't resist the baileys.
I attempted to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but the alcohol combination sent me to sleep before the end. (Luckily I have seen this film twice before!) When I woke up, I played Tetris pretty much until teatime. I love this game, there's just something totally addictive about it.
I was very excited about the tea, not so much the chicken and herb sandwich, but the bar of Dairy Milk Bubbly chocolate - wow! I was jumping up and down happy about this! (Strange what a little chocolate can do for a tired woman!)
When the plane finally landed (eight and a half hours!), we had the usual "you've filled the form in wrong at customs" (seriously, is this just me? We've been four times now and not gotten it right yet. I think they are purposely worded to catch you out. I understand the importance of these forms, I just think they could be made a little simpler to fill in). After that, picked up the cases, dropped them off again and ran outside for a cigarette before we murdered each other! That seen to, we went to check in for the Magical Express. We had decided not to bother with a car this time as we were only doing Disney, so this was the obvious way to go. Neither of us had any clue what we were doing, luckily the CM at the desk did! The trip to the Pop Century didn't take very long, and we were lucky to be the first drop off.
I should have been calm by this point, but I had ordered Andy a gift basket as a surprise for our wedding anniversary that was coming up (six years) from Peggy's Sweets and More. This was my first time using Peggy, and have to say that she is just great! She's a fellow Diser who lives in Florida and makes up gift baskets for delivery to WDW hotels. Her user name is feralpeg and seriously, I cannot recommend her highly enough. Anyway, I was panicking in case the CM forgot to give Andy the basket, or if it had been delivered to the room, and what if they sent it to the wrong room, and did I mention, I'm a panicker?!
As it turns out, I didn't have to worry at all. It had come up on the computer that there was a gift basket for us, the CM went to get it, and Andy was completely surprised as I had managed to tell no one about this. I got him an Easter Minnie Mouse (she is his favourite), a Spectromagic CD, a happiest celebration keychain and some soda, chocolate and pretzels. It was really beautiful. Got all our check in stuff, and went up to our preferred room in the 60s building with Andy making me spill how I got the gift basket for him.
After showering and freshening up as best we could without the suitcases, we went down to the Pop food court for tea. I had been dreaming of their Nachos Supreme since the last time we were here in 2004, so I couldn't wait any longer! Bought some mugs too for the free refills.
We wanted to go and get our annual passes after tea, but I wasn't sure if the ticketing windows at the parks would be open this late (it was 7 pm by this time) so we checked with the front desk who confirmed that they would be. After nipping back to the room to check if the cases had arrived (they had, hoorah!) we headed out to our traditional first day/last day park MGM.
Hit a worryingly large hurdle when we went to the window to buy our annual passes - no passports, no driving licences!! Despite all the advice I had taken from the Dis about buying these, we still forgot our ID! I couldn't believe it, and the thought of bussing it back and here again was way too much after such a long day. Luckily, after a lecture about how it is the law in Florida to carry ID (we've been here three times previously, and didn't pick up on this?!) the CM kindly used Andy's credit card and our room cards as ID and sold us the passes. We are now proud owners of Premium Annual Passes and can't wait to get into the park. Only one more hurdle now, the pesky fingers machine. "Only two fingers" is I think the phrase I heard most often during the week!! Why can I not get this to work for me - do I have freakishly faint fingerprints?!
Anyway, finally we get into the park and hit Great Movie Ride (I love this ride, but we always get gangsters. Only once have we seen the cowboy one, and we have been on this ride about a gazillion times) and Star Tours which I totally love and know all the words too (yes, how sad am I?)
After this we decided we'd better call it a night, so headed back to the Pop for a well earned beer for Andy and frozen Pina Colada for me (mmmmmmmm, dreamed about these almost as much as the nachos), watched a bit of TV with our drinks and then were in bed for 11 pm.
ArielJasmine
Great report, off to read more,
