Our WDW adventures & Magical Happy Halloween Cruise: Day 14 completed - 01/2010 pg 19

[anewmac]

welcome home.. i know now where you want to be... I too want to be back on our boat LOL.... cant wait to hear all about your time!

 

[diberry]

Welcome back! I've been thinking about you - wow! those 2 weeks went quickly! I'm so glad you had a wonderful time and I'm really looking forward to hearing all about it and seeing your photos!! Time to start planning the next Disney fix!!

 

[MICKEY'S DREAMERS]

WELCOME BACK Sarah !! though I know you would love to be in Orlando now ...

GLAD to know you all had a terrific time !!!!!!!!!!!

laura


Do "fight" that depression ... post some pics from your adventures !!!

 

[Disneygrl36]

back Sarah. Glad to hear you had a great time. Can't wait to read all about it.
I agree with the above poster.......getting the trip report rolling really helps with the reliving of your adventure & helps fight off the post Disney blahs.
P.S. I've started my pre-trippie....see below in my siggie.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Before I commence what I know will turn into a task of epic proportions, ie. writing my trip report, I feel it is only right to maintain continuity by first of all completing my pre-trip report.

So please press your rewind buttons folks .........

D-Day minus 1 was a day I had long anticipated, as this would be the day that I would be packed and ready to go, everything perfectly organised to the nth degree, leaving me with nothing to do on D-Day but relax and enjoy the ride, arriving at the airport hotel without a care in the world, ready to relax in the spa and the sauna, and enjoy a pleasant evening meal out with my family at the start of our magical vacation.

Somebody pinch me, for I am surely dreaming!

Before I proceed with this sorry tale, advance warning to those with delicate constitutions - the next chapter includes references to bodily fluids and you may want to avert your eyes......

So, needless to say, it was not part of the plan to spend the day on a hospital ward, with a trip to theatre, a cystoscopy, a great deal of pain, 3 hours sleeping off the sedation, and to top it all off an episode of vomiting in my poor mother's car on the way home. Sorry Mum - but let's be forever thankful for that strategically placed plastic carrier bag! Unfortunately my best laid plans had been unpleasantly interrupted by a spanner in the health works - well, actually forget the spanner, there was a whole tool box at work here! The results of the cystoscopy showed that I had congestion in my bladder - a bit of a worry as I had a mental image of heavy traffic, but the consultant thought it likely to be caused by a urinary tract infection and prescribed me a course of yet more antibiotics.

While I am grateful for the sedation I was given which has thankfully wiped out all memories of the investigative experience, and even more thankfully the positions involved, it was not conducive to spending an evening finishing off costumes and packing cases, and in the end I gave it all up as a very bad job and went to bed early.

So D-Day arrived and it was not looking good - I was in a lot of pain following the cystoscopy, and still had so much to do. At this point I honestly felt like crying and just forgetting about the holiday - it was that bad ! But after analgesia and a lot of pulling myself together, I decided to get on with it.

The kids went reluctantly off to school, and my Mum picked me up to go and reclaim the car from the hospital car park. We then popped to Asda where I changed some clothing items which I had bought in the wrong size. We then headed home to continue with the packing, and I still had a pirate shirt to put together. I packed what I could and then realised that we had packing issues yet to be resolved - my mother and my sister had both been unable to locate their suit bags, and just as we we off on a shopping trip to purchase one, some friends rang is up and said that they had one we could borrow. So we then popped around to our friends house to pick up the bag and then we managed to complete the packing.

At this point I was also still altering a few things such as pirate tops and still had one of the lad's shirts to sew together, and I finally realised that not ever superwoman could produce a pirate shirt in about half an hour, so I gave up and hit the internet to find a local fancy dress shop which had a pirate shirt for sale - luckily we found one which would suffice and whizzed over to pick it up. I couldn't finish the FE gifts and in the the end just threw in a lot of them unfinished, with the plan that I could complete the finishing touches on the ship, when hopefully I would be feeling a lot better. The plan to pop to the shops on the way to the airport hotel also flew out of the window as we were running so late, and the back up plan there was to shop for up my formal and semi-formal shoes out in Orlando, as no doubt there would be a much wider choice out there (or not, as it turned out!)

The lunchtime post brought a letter from the Gp which stated that my latest MSU sample had come back positive for infection, and I was to pick up some more antibiotics - so we whizzed out to the pharmacy and sorted that out.

We picked the kids up from school at 3:30, and returned home for them to get changed, and then my Mum popped over to say goodbye. At this point I was trying to print out my door magnets and cover them with clear film, and also trying to print out my cruise documents, but the DCL website was refusing to recognise my reservation numbers, so I just gave that up as a bad job and decided to use the DCL forms which had arrived in the mail. Then my stepkids and their mother turned up to see why we hadn't left for the airport already, and by then I was gradually losing touch with my sanity.

This was so not the departure day I had looked forward to for so long, and I felt really stressed and harrassed through most of it.
We weighed the cases, and two of them were over by 2kg a piece, so a bit of reshuffling later we had all four of them down below 23kg
To top everything off, I then dropped one of the heavy suitcases onto my big toe as we were weighing them and the toenail bent right back and then there was blood everywhere (sorry - more bodily fluids), and my toe was throbbing really badly. If someone had said to me, at that precise moment, that I could go to bed, and that they would go on the trip instead of me, I can honestly say that I would have said yes go ahead, because I was beyond the end of my tether with it all.

Finally, about 2 hours later than planned, we loaded up all the bags into the car and set off for the airport for the twilight check in. All the way there I was convinced we had forgotten something important, but this actually went without a hitch, the BMI check in desk was really quiet and we got rid of all the bags and checked in, which meant we could turn up the following day with our boarding cards already in our psossession, and avoid any more hassles, and hopefully enjoy a relaxing breakfast, if there is such a thing as a relaxing breakfast in an airport. All the bags made it under the weight limit, 2 of them by half a kg, so it didn't give us much room for shopping in Orlando, but we could always buy another bag (or two....)

We said goodbye to Stephen and Louise's mother and then I drove all of us to the Holiday Inn where we checked in and went to very adequate rooms to freshen up, before heading out to our traditional pre-holiday dinner at the Romper restaurant. The meal was very pleasant and I actually felt semi-relaxed for the first time in a few weeks. The only problems we encountered here was that we had to send back Tony's steak pie as it was stone cold in the middle, and the waiting staff spent a lot of time just standing our of sight chatting, and needed reminding to do everything, like bring our desserts, the bill etc. Hopefully this would be the last we would see of poor waiting staff for a couple of weeks!

We didn't have time to utilise the hotel's pool or spa facilities unfortunately, and after the meal we just returned to the hotel and went to get an early night. Alarms were set for the following day, and for the first time in a long time I was actually looking forward to tomorrow.........

 

[Disneygrl36]

Oh Sarah...................
What a horrible pre-holiday day. It can only get better from here.

 

[MICKEY'S DREAMERS]

OH Sarah !!! What a day !!!
I'm so sorry that your last hours before the trip were so unpleasant !!

BUT the good news is that your "health" has no MAJOR issues !! I'm so thankful for that !!

and from that night at theairport hotel you should have only WONDERFUL MEMORIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


laura

 

[dismom73]

I do hope it get's better...it will get better right??? Because reading your last installment just stressed me out . Please hurry and post your next one so I can see it got better .

 

[diberry]

Oh dear Sarah, what a horrible way to spend the last day before your long-awaited trip! I'm so sorry it was such an awful day for you - you must have felt really fed up to say the very least. How on earth did you manage to do dressmaking as well as packing on departure day? - you're a star!! I really really hope everything from then on went fantastically!!!

 

[dvc4life]

Sarah - It was nice meeting you at the dis meet on Saturday when we arrived on the ship. I seen your family at CC on the beach both days, because we were not that far away from where you were sitting on the beach.

So sorry to hear your day was so rotten before you finally left. By seeing you on the ship, I never would have realized. You looked great.

Can't wait to hear more about your trip. And I hope all is well with you and your family.

 

[Disneygrl36]

 

[TotallyAngelic]

sorry about the delay - I have been very preoccupied with very important things.......such as being very impulsive and booking our next Disney Cruise!
I am just waiting for DH to come home from work so I can break the news to him......

I am hoping to complete the next installment tomorrow - so I'd go easy on the popcorn.....

 

[diberry]

sorry about the delay - I have been very preoccupied with very important things.......such as being very impulsive and booking our next Disney Cruise!
I am just waiting for DH to come home from work so I can break the news to him.

WOW!!! You little devil!!! Where and when????????????
Love the new sig pic BTW!

 

[anewmac]

oh no you poor thing... I read more and more who are NOT ready for vacation then are LOL. You would think after all this time planning we all would have our act together LOL.

Hoping the rest of the trip went off without a hitch for ya!

 

[MICKEY'S DREAMERS]

sorry about the delay - I have been very preoccupied with very important things.......such as being very impulsive and booking our next Disney Cruise!

WOW !!! THIS is a fantastic news !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Something WONDERFUL to dream about during the next months !!!!
WELL DONE , dear Sarah !!!!!!!!!!!!!

laura

 

[wilma-bride]

Sarah, I cannot believe I haven't read this before now. It is great, though, as I was able to read ALL of your pre-trip report in one go, leaving me totally ready to hear all about your fantastic trip.

Bring it on girl

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Before I embark upon my trip report I just want to say that as this was a holiday at both WDW and our first cruise on the Disney Magic, that I will be including both destinations in this trip report. For those of you who are only interested in reading about the cruise (understandable as this is a cruise trip report board) then unfortunately you will have to wait a wee while longer until after I have written up the week in WDW, and I hasten to add that I am by no means a quick trip report writer - sorry. For those people, I will see you sometime after Christmas! For those of you who are along for the whole journey - fasten your seatbelts and prepare for take-off. You will get to know my family along the way, as I will be throwing in lots of photographs, and hopefully the whole thing will be a pleasant and enjoyable experience.

So here goes..........

It would be nice to say that I woke up on the morning of departure feeling rested, relaxed and raring to go - once again this was not to be part of the plan. This was basically down to the fact that DH and I had to share a room with DS Daniel, as the Holiday Inn basically didn't have 4 bedded rooms, only 3 bedded rooms, of which we had booked two. Daniel had drawn the short straw and was sharing with his parents, although that short straw was definitely aimed at me! Daniel was so restless, he was up and down to the toiket about fifty times, moving about in the bed all the time, moaning that it was uncomfortable. At one point I swapped beds with him, and then after another hour he wanted to swap back. The TV had a digital clock and I saw it say 02:05am, 02:30am, 03:00am, 03:30am, 04:15am, 04:30am and then I must have finally fallen asleep as I next saw 05:45am. At which point I gave up trying to sleep as the alarm was set for 06:30am. Next time we will stay at home, get up early and travel to the airport the morning we fly - the idea of a relaxing pre-flight night in an airport hotel is a myth as far as I am concerned!

So the alarm woke everyone else up at 06:30am, and we showered and got ready to leave. I sorted out the overnight bag and took it to the car, put the car in secure parking, paid the bill of £140 for the 2 rooms and the car parking, and then we caught the shuttle bus to the airport at 08:00am. Here are the kids looking wide awake, bright eyed and raring to go on the shuttle bus:

We arrived at the airport about 10 minutes later and decided to head straight through security. This was painless and quick, although Daniel ended up getting searched, after the security had asked Tony for permission first. First stop was breakfast, so Tony grabbed the full English, Stephen a cajun wrap, Louise and Taryn chocolate muffins and Daniel and I had Danish. With coffees and juice this gave us no change from £30 - ouch! We struggled to find a table as it was really busy around the breakfast bar, but mainly because
there were a lot of tables crammed with uncleared trays and used plates and rubbish, and many people were resorting to taking the used stuff off the tables and just piling them up in corners on the floor. It was incredibly messy and not typical of Manchester airport, but obviously there were staffing issues, as I never saw anyone clearing the tables while we were there.

After breakfast we wandered about, browsing in Boots and WH Smiths, and the kids bought magazines for the flight. After that we just waited at the Gate, and I took a few photographs:

This is what I was going to be trusting our lives with for the next 8 hours:

waiting patiently at the gate:

Eventually it was time to board, and this was a ver efficient process for once. On the way onto the aircraft we were given bottles of water and free magazines, which was a nice touch. We were also given more bottles of water during the flight. The flight was uneventful, thankfully, as I am always relieved to get off. I missed the meal as I was in the bathroom, but when I saw what Tony had on his tray I wasn't too bothered. No worried - I had bottled water and chewy peardrops and that was to ensure my survival!

The aircraft (an airbus something-or-other) had seatback TV, and apparently Nintendo and other games, but the games bit wasn't working in our row, much to Daniel's disappointment, and he had to make do with the movies, TV and his own DS. I did mention it to the flight attendent, but he said we should be grateful that the movies bit was working as some passengers didn't even have that working - so it was like it or lump it! The flight attendents didn't really seem to be enjoying their job that day, as they were all very moody and disinterested (we have since heard that BMI are stopping their long haul service from Manchester in January and maybe they were a bit preoccupied and worried about their future)

Here are the kids enjoying the flight:

I watched a film called "Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging" which was actually quite entertaining, and then I listened to Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks on my MP3, as I find this particularly relaxing. I didn't manage to get any sleep, and before long it was time to land at Chicago.

We disembarked the aircraft and then went to pick up our baggage, clear customs and loaded them back into another check in area. We had a long line for immigration, and they asked lots of questions about our jobs, where we were staying, when we were leaving the USA - and then they did the finger scan and the photograph. We then had to find our way to another terminal, via a airport transport system, and we eventually found ourselves in the correct place for our flight to Orlando. At this point the kids, most of whom hadn't eaten any aircraft food, were hungry so we invaded the nearest food counter to our gate which sadly happened to be McDonalds - and our first meal in USA. T think I just had a cinnamon bun and an iced coffee.

This passed the time until our next flight was called, and we boarded the aircraft - the airline was "TED" which seemed to be a budget airline along the lines of Easyjet. There were free soft drinks and water but all food was charged and there wasn't anything inspiring on offer so I was glad we had gone for the McDonalds in the airport. This was a 2 and a half hour flight, and we were all split up, but the girls managed to sit together and I sat with Daniel, while Tony and Stephen managed to cope on their own! I tried to sleep, but couldn't, and before long we were landing in Orlando, and although I was totally shattered and aching and very sore in the bladder dept I felt that euphoria immediately wash over me as we touched down in Orlando - it felt like I was coming home!

It was great to land in Orlando and have no immigration, but we were once again to be thwarted by the dreaded Car Rental. I left Tony and the kids to wait for the baggage, while I headed off in search for Budget Rental. Last time in Orlando we had major problems with Dollar, so this time I had opted for Budget, When I arrived at the Car rental area - guess what - no line at the Dollar desk, massive line at Budget! Looks like the whole of the flying population had switched alleigance! So once again a long wait in the line, and Tony and the kids arrived with thankfully all of the baggage, always a moment of relief when it all arrives safely. About half and hour later we made it to the desk, and surprise surprise there were no 7 seaters available and we would have to wait - had I just gone back in time 3 years ....this was exact same problem we had with Dollar in 2005 - talk abour deja vu.

This brings me to a question: exactly what is the point in booking your car in advance - when they never have the category of car you ordered waiting patiently for you to arrive - surely it's not rocket science in these days of advanced communications technology to co-ordinate reserved cars with arriving passengers. Obviously it is rocket science, or something equally mentally challenging.

Suddenly the car rental guy had a solution - he said he had an SUV, which would seat all of us and would have more room for the baggage than a 7 seater - so he sent us off to get the keys for this SUV. But when we arrived at the vehicle it only had 5 seats - spot the deliberate mistake - 6 passengers and only 5 seats - it just wasn't going to happen, so back we went to the little booth in the parking area and told the assistant - who was more than a little bit miffed that her colleague had basically fobbed us off to get his line down and must have known that the SUV had only 5 seats.

At this point she gave us the keys and bay number for another vehicle, which she said would have enough seats, and off we went to find it. But the bay number she gave us had a vehicle along the lines of a small coach sitting in it - must have seated about 10-12 people, and no way could I drive THAT. I went back to the booth and once again queried it, and she realised she had given me the wrong bay number, so a new bay number was allocated and I set off on my way once more. Finally, we came upon a white seven seater Dodge, and after we managed to get the luggage into the boot of the car, and the kids settled in the seats, I jumped in the front and we were ready to head off into the night. Only one problem - the layout was very different to my 2005 vehicle and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out where everything was. It was very strange having the gear shift up on the dashboard somethwere. Eventually we were out of the parking lot and we managed to get on the right road to Lake Buena Vista. The roads were quiet as it was by now 11pm US time. It was about 30 minutes to our resort - Cypress Pointe resort just off Apopka-Vineland Road, and we found it no problem.

We parked up and checked in, and went to find our apartment. It was really lovely and spacious, on the ground floor. It consisted of a two bedroomed apartment and a studio apartment which had an adjoining door. The only off-putting feature in the studio was that the bathroom and the toilet was open plan off the bedroom ( no door to the toilet ) which meant you had to get everyone out of the bedroom if you needed to use the loo! It also had a big kitchen with all appliances, a dining area and a sitting room with sofas and an enormous TV. This is the studio part of the apartment where Tony and I lived:

Once we arrived in the appartment Tony and I headed over to the resort shop and picked up some bottled water and then we all decided to go to bed, ready for an early start tomorrow for The Animal Kingdom, and our first ever ride on Expedition Everest!

 

[wilma-bride]

Woohoo, you're finally in Orlando - home, sweet, home The apartment looks nice, although I'm not sure about the whole 'bathroom int eh middle of the bedroom' thing

Looking forwar dot more - now I've started reading, I'm totally hooked so if you wouldn't mind writing a tad faster, it would be much appreciated

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Woohoo, you're finally in Orlando - home, sweet, home The apartment looks nice, although I'm not sure about the whole 'bathroom int eh middle of the bedroom' thing

Looking forwar dot more - now I've started reading, I'm totally hooked so if you wouldn't mind writing a tad faster, it would be much appreciated

It was a bit bizarre, especially as if you were in bed, when you looked in the mirror above the wash basins you could see the person sitting on the toilet.

fortunately there was an enclosed "normal" bathroom in the two bedroomed side of the apartment, and one in the girl's room, although they also had a bath in the bedroom.

I will try and get it done as fast as possible - unfortunately I do need to give the computer to the kids for schoolwork when they are home, so that will interfere somewhat with the trip report writing!

 

[wilma-bride]

I will try and get it done as fast as possible - unfortunately I do need to give the computer to the kids for schoolwork when they are home, so that will interfere somewhat with the trip report writing!

You need more than one computer, my friend