The Rovers Return - 20 years and counting - Part 3

[BONZO]

Thursday 7th August

Florida at last - All Stars

Cast List

Me: No introduction required, I suspect most of you know me by now!
DW: Long suffering DW of the above
Alex: 15 - Coaster and Disney freak
Laura: 13 - Style queen


Hoorah for us as we’re first off the plane because they off loaded from the front exit immediately in front of us, so immigration forms at the ready (Alison here – Shaun’s not kidding – we had to sprint to keep up with him!) and we’re very proud to say that we were the very first people in a deserted immigration hall. We were directed to a desk where the lady was quite chatty and friendly but was having a few PC problems

Time passed by and eventually she got the problems sorted and we were the second group through to baggage reclaim.(Grrrr – wanted to be the first there too ).

Luckily the Star Class Premier luggage was already off the plane and on the carousel. Pretty impressive – could have only been a matter of minutes since we got off the plane – I think Gatwick has a bit to learn!

We said our farewells to our friends and legged it to the Alamo car hire place. (Alison here – yes we really did leg it – we were all running to keep up with Shaun!) A wee bit of a trot past the Dollar place but there was no customers in Alamo and so no queue at all!

It only took a few minutes and we were handed the paperwork to pass over to one of the guys outside who would show us to the sort of cars we’d booked :thumbs-up

We’d decided not to go for a 7 seater minivan this time because we’d fancied a change so went for a 4x4 7 seater SUV (Dodge Durango or similar they’d said). The lady at the desk told us to tell the guy that we had a Full Size SUV – which we did.

He took us to a couple of possible cars – but neither of them were 7 seaters :confused2 We interrupted his spiel to point out that we’d booked a 7 seater SUV and he hummed and hahed a bit before saying, ‘Oh, is it a full size SUV then?’ Erm, well yes – we told you about 30 seconds ago. He scratched his head a bit and said he wasn’t sure what he had (not the sharpest tool in the box!).

Eventually he saw one lone SUV a bit further down and took us to it. It was one of the dreaded Jeep Commanders. We had a look and it was OK – 7 seats but absolutely no luggage space at all, maybe a small carrier bag but that’s about it!

I’d feel very sorry for anyone trying to travel with 7 people plus luggage in this thing! It wasn’t too important for us as we could lower the back seats for the journey from the airport. We asked what others they had in this class but he said absolutely nothing – it was this or a smaller SUV. So we took it anyway, too tired to argue the toss.

Jeep thingy

Having used it for the fortnight it made a change from the usual 7-seater but it’s not that great I must admit with its post-box style windscreen or widescreen TV look. The girls didn’t mind have to clamber over folded seats to get to the back seats but Alison and I weren’t impressed really, either with the car or the Alamo service (more of that pops up in the holiday later) so we’d definitely go with Dollar next time.

I must admit to agreeing with Jeremy Clarkson on this one – a couple of his views are as follows: -


“You’d need to be legless to fit in the back and the only dog that would fit in the boot is one that had been run over”

“You also get three headrests for your deformed rear passengers, the middle one of which obliterates all traffic in the rear-view mirror”.”

“Climbing inside is like climbing into the wrong end of a pair of binoculars”.

The not-so-spacious boot

So we finally headed out of the airport at 4.50pm – a grand total of 40 minutes after touchdown!

Not too shabby at all. We could have done it in less than 30 minutes if we hadn’t had the messing around with the car.

 

[BONZO]

So off to Disney we headed….our first stop was All Star Movies, which Alex was particularly looking forward to (Pop Century is one of her most favourite Disney resorts). We pulled up in the check in parking area at about 5.40pm and headed in.

We were impressed with the theming already!

There were no queues so we were called over to the next free check in lady.

Check out the check in


This is where things started to go pear shaped! The lady was sweet but totally inept! She smiled and welcomed us, then said we only had one room booked (we had two), so once that got sorted, she told us what there was to pay (she got that wrong as she’d missed off the fact we’d paid a deposit) then finally she couldn’t get the computer to accept it. She looked around for help and called over someone else who was standing at the back of the checkouts, who eventually came over, tapped some keys and then told us that they were full at the Movies and were moving us to Sports

I have to say we were disappointed but it wasn’t a massive deal for us – we were only due to stay for 3 nights anyway. The girls weren’t too impressed, but we were all hot and tired and Alison didn’t have the stomach for an argument (I bow down to her superior skills in this area!) so we just accepted it. They said they could do all the check in for us here at Movies so we didn’t have to queue up again at Sports (gee, thanks!).

Check in got slowly completed, with a big delay when they couldn’t get the card printer to work. Alison was slowly losing it by this point especially as the lady kept giggling when things kept going wrong. Alison finally said – we’re really tired, we’ve been up for 24 hours, we just need our rooms please. (She said it nicely, but I’m not sure if the message got through). We asked for all 4 of us to have charging privileges on the cards, to which she smiled and said of course. (She drew on the map where she thought we had to go to get to Sports – which predictably was totally the wrong way! We ignored her advice and went the way we thought!)

Alison's underwear arrived seperately!


So, she finally handed the room cards to us, saying it was the best she could do. What a bizarre thing to say, we thought. Until we looked at the cards as we were walking to the car – she obviously couldn’t manage to give the girls charging rights on their cards!! We gave up at that point and just drove straight to Sports!

We were in block 5 (centre court) and did have the connecting rooms that we’d asked for, but on the ground floor, rather than the high floor. No energy left to do anything about this though!!

Strangely placed snow shoes


We quickly dumped stuff in the rooms and the girls and I went to the food court to buy the refillable mugs while Alison unpacked quickly, then we all went for a quick swim.

Bathing beauties

The rooms were great – very efficient air conditioning, nicely themed and it was lovely having separate rooms!

Our first impression of the resort was good – we weren’t sure that we’d like it as much as we did, but the theming was excellent, it was spacious – and we were in Disney!

Bedroom

Desk and table

Bog standard view

View towards door


We got dressed and pottered off to Walmart for some essential supplies (beer, crisps, peanuts – you get the idea!) and trac-phones (we ended up buying 2 Net 10 phones for $30 each, which included 300 minutes).

As everyone was flagging a bit we just stopped in McDonalds for a very dinner and went back to crash out ready for the next day’s proper onslaught


Hints have been taken so from here on in each "part" will be a full day report

 

[irongirlof12]

wow, what a palava to check-in the thing is after a long flight you are just too tired to argue ! nice rooms tho.

 

[raph_b]

Hotel looks lovely

Sorry to hear what a nightmare it was checking in!! Glad you eventually got sorted

 

[mandymouse]

OMG, what a nightmare at check-in. I hope the rest of your holiday runs smoothly

 

[natalielongstaff]

im impressed you all kept your cool at check-in !

 

[SusanEllen]

What good natured travelers you are. Less than the best car rental "service" (nearly an oxymoron in this case) and ending up with a car you didn't really want could have spoiled the day, but you all seemed to rise above it. The real test for you was the list of check-in SNAFUs you encountered at Disney (!!!)--from the fumbling CM to the unexpected change from Movies to Sports and the mistake about the charging privileges for the girls--that was not the usual Disney Touch! However your praise for the rooms (once you got in them) and the smiling faces of the girls in the pool tell us everything was finally all right.

 

[suzycute]

Really enjoying your trip reports! Looking forward to hearing about your next adventures but hope they aren't as exasperating as your first day!

 

[Giddy Kipper]

love your sense of humour, on your photo captions....cant wait for more

 

[mark&sue]

I am really enjoying reading your reports. Wonderful photos of your room and your "bog" joke had me giggling


susan

 

[Pinky166]

Loving the photo captions.

What a nightmare you had...it can only get better now surely.

 

[florida sun]

Im still laughing at your photo captions, brilliant

 

[Tartan Tigger]

What a nightmare at check in. I can just imagine the scene if that happened to us.

 

[Snowy-girls]

Oh what a muck up-the rooms looked nice though.May i ask what you thought of the phones you bought.I have these for next year(someone got them for me a couple of weeks ago).x.

 

[wicket2005]

Lovely report again. What a nightmare with the car and hotel especially when you are all feeling a bit brain dead after the long journey.

We bought a couple of those tracphones in July and I thought they were excellent, basic phones but allows you to find each other easily if you do want to separate. They hold their charge really well if you turn them off. I last charged mine back in August and every now and then turn them on and they are still almost fully charged. I am going to try and top mine up in December over the net as the service runs out on 11th.