Squitty's Christmas & Birthday trip Dec 2005 Day 1

[squitty]

Sorry they are late

Day 1 - Monday 12th Dec

Online check-in was done at 10:25am the morning before,(exactly 24hours) I was really nervous in case I did something wrong. But I received my confirmation email saying everything was ok. We were given seats 59 H,J,K not the ones that we had requested but I was excited!
Dogs were taken up to the kennels and I set about cleaning the house again! At least there would be no more housework for a few weeks

After not being able to sleep, I got everybody up at 2am. Had to wait for DD to use her straighteners before I could shut the cases.
Eventually everything was packed and the cases were down in the hallway ready to go;

Transferred everything to the car and we left the house for the drive down to Manchester airport at 3am.
Tom Tom was programmed to find the off site parking we had booked and off we went.

Uneventful drive down to Manchester airport well except that I could not distinguish between left and right when the Tom Tom lady was telling me! We made it though and in good time. Got the car sorted, very smoothly and we were sitting on the bus waiting to go to the airport at 6am.

The bus dropped us off at T1, Virgin fly from T2. What a hike over to T2, especially with the cases, good job the cases have wheels. The moving walkways were good.

In T2 we found the bag drop off with virgin no problems. There was hardly any Q’s for economy check in. We were the only ones in the queue at the online check in desk, the sign said Premium Economy & online check-in, so looked like we were checking in for PE! I wish!
We were given our visa waiver and customs forms to fill in.

Into the departures straight away, had to stop off at Dixon’s as we had pre ordered a surprise Christmas present for DD.
Then it was breakfast time as we were starving. DH had full English which cost £8.35…DD and I didn’t like the look of it so we went to Burger King and had Chicken Royal Meals, £9.98

Content, well as content as you can be on what we ate, we decided to have a wander round the shops.
DH and I didn’t fancy anything, but DD on the other hand had money in her pocket and it was starting to burn a hole in it.
I sat and filled in the forms, hoping I did them all correctly!
Magazine’s purchased for the flight we were all sorted.
Spotted our plane:

At 9am they announced the flight gate 300 c which of course was miles away from where we were sitting. So off we went.
Once at the gate we had to be bussed out to the plane, which didn’t take long.

Into our seats:

We didn’t actually take off till 10:55, don’t know why! We were already at 10:25am!
Taxing down the runway:

Then up, up and away:

The seat back TV’s were working when we got in the seats, but alas through the flight they wouldn’t work at all. Which was so annoying as we had games aswell as movies….grrrrr. We had to have portable dvd players and the choice of films for that was naff, to say the least. Then they only had 2 dvd players left, so DD said that I could use it as she didn’t like the films, she ended up sleeping nearly all of the flight.
First we were served:

I then started to watch Hitch and DH Robots, thats how bad the choices were.

 

[squitty]

I have to say the last time we flew with Virgin the meals were quite nice, however this time we were not impressed with them, neither was DD.
DD's childrens meal:

My meal: Chicken Pasta

DH's meal: Sausage n Mash

The flight was ok until we hit turbulence, which was bad, even for me, it really knocked DH and I sick. He says it lasted for 4 hours, which was a slight exaggeration; it must have been awhile but not that long.
For tea we got:
DD's: She only ate the crisps.

DH & I got: We both just ate the fruit.

Then we had the Farting Family in front of us who must’ve been really excited to be going to WDW as all they did was trump and it was bad!!!! We just had a really smelly flight.
Our first view of the coast, we flew over the space coast.

Just coming into MCO

Landed on time, flight was 8 hours 55 minutes; local time was 2:55pm

 

[squitty]

Off and into MCO and into the customs area, DH wouldn’t listen to me and go right, he went left! We were in the slowest queue. Never mind the luggage hadn’t even started to come round yet. We could see the carousel from immigration hall.
Eventually we got to the desk, where I had indeed filled the forms out correctly, no problems there. DH pressed too hard on the finger scan machine and had to do them again. He was told he had good finger prints!

Onto get the luggage, for the first time!
They had 2 carousels going, one for PE and Crew and the other for Economy only. Everybody was crowding round the Economy one. You couldn’t get moved.
We split up here DH stood in the Econ and I went over the PE one, guess where our cases came from, yep PE
Into another queue to hand in the customs form and what a queue it was…luckily we didn’t have to go through X-Ray machine this time. Through to the other bag drop off.
Then up the stairs to the baggage reclaim! Finally!! Our cases came through pretty quickly. We didn’t bother with me getting the cases and DH going to get the car as we had filled in the direct to road from on U.S.Rentacar’s website and also had a card.
So we had our cases and went down to the next level to get the car. There was no-one there! It was empty…

Lovely we were at the desk that fast that we never even had the time to get the voucher out of the bag!
The usual do you want a SUV for $10 per day was kindly refused. We actually took the car that we’d booked….this was very rare for us, we usually always end up upgrading at the airport.
So off we went to look for the full size 2 door. There was absolutely rows and rows of Luxury cars, Intermediates and 7 seater cars. Right at the top of the car park there was about 8 cars in the Full size category.
We found a lovely one:

DH said no and we settled on this one:

Pontiac, grand prix GT
It was lovely inside.

We were on our way to check in to the hotel, it was 4:30pm local time, so that was not bad going.

I text messaged DD to say that we had arrived. She had left the UK on the 10th Dec. She was in Pointe Orlando and then going to eat at Pizza Hut
I then rang her, saving time as it takes awhile to text..made arrangements to meet her at her hotel at 5:30pm .

We found the Comfort Inn, no problems.

Checked in very easily, room was ready, we were given room 503, this is the view:

The only fault was the bed size, it’s only a double and we have a super king at home!

 

[squitty]

Anyway dropped the cases off and headed to checkers for some long awaited hot dogs and chicken burgers. Drive In here is always an experience! Anyway we eventually got our order done and $7 later we were happily eating our hot dogs and chicken burgers.
We found DD and her DBF sitting outside their hotel QIP, we said our hello’s and we were on our way to Wal-Mart. We decided to go to the new on the SR 535
Got the essentials and $60 later we were out of there and on our way for a look round DTD
We weren’t that impressed with the new Wal-Mart, the only plus point that it has was there was no huge Q’s at checkout.

Into DTD and we had to park over near PI
Walked over passing Mc D’s and all the new Lego structures AHHHH we were here! There were Christmas decorations and a place to go see Santa:

Looked round the shops. Resisted buying anything!
We were getting tired by now. So we decided to head back to the hotel. Took DD and DBF to their hotel, then back to ours.
Fell into our single bed! And that was it, fast asleep!

 

[fizz13]

Wow, I can't wait to get stuck in to all these reports! great first part with lots of lovely photos. I'm off to read more,

Claire xx

 

[Strommie]

Brilliant so far, love it when there's lots of pics

 

[mandymouse]

Brilliant start Michelle, your photos are great too. I'm off to read the next installment

 

[wilma-bride]

Great start Michelle Really looking forward to reading the rest.

 

[florida sun]

Great start Michelle, Off to read more

 

[Lisash]

Fantastic start Michelle can't wait to read more

 

[ely3857]

Amazing report Michelle, off to read the rest!



Jodie

 

[Cyrano]

Brilliant start Michelle. Off for another installment

 

[Minniespal]

Excellent start Michelle ~ Can't wait to read more

 

[wils]

Thanks Michelle - just what I need today On to the next one

 

[Disney owl]

A great 1st report, looking forward to all the others

Unlucky you sitting behind the "farting Family"!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brill photos

 

[sharon78]

Wow Michelle what a great first instalment,loved the photos there fantastic,you must of taken loads.
I know im a bit late reading these,but im catching up on what ive missed over the last few months.Yours was on my must read list.
Thanks for the "{{{hugs}}}" on the other post very much appreciated

Of to read part two....

 

[wicket2005]

Lovely start Michelle. I was particularly interested in it when I realised you were flying with Virgin from Manchester because that is what we are doing next year. I just shown one of my sons the picture of the moving walk way between the terminals. Thanks for posting.

 

[Spook]

Had to laugh about the farting family This morning talking to my uncle on the phone I had a blonde moment and said it doesn't bother me when there's a bit of flatulence and I meant turbulance. He screamed with laughter. Poor you - you had them both

Jan