PoohBears#1fan
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2002
- Messages
- 730
Well, here's the first few days, it's taken me over 2 weeks so far to decipher my notes and type out something legible, and I hope to eventually finish it, so I'll post what I have so far..............................
Friday 16th May and we're all very excited, it's DH's 34th birthday and we're off to Gatwick today, for those of you who don't know, there's myself, Jo - 32, ex-nurse now full time mum and I run a jewellery franchise while DD's at school and DS is sleeping. DH, Simon 34 who claims he absolutely isn't a computer salesman but we all know better, DD Rachel - 7 , known to us as 'Rads' and DS Zak 5 months old (affectionately know as Zakky, Zaks, niknakzakkywak etc. you get the
drift).
Rads if off to school although I can't forsee much work being done, infact her teacher said all she'd talked about all day was WDW, funny that!
This gave us plenty of time to pack and intermittently change diapers - oh sorry, that's nappies now, we're back home. I picked Rads up from school while Simon loaded the car and we're off to the station, still wondering if we're insane for trying to negotiate the train with 2 suitcases (with a third empty one inside the larger one), 1 buggy, 1
baby, 1 car seat, 1 7 year old and 3 backpacks. The train journey wasn't as hard as I'd anticipated with the only awkward moment being a very bumpy nappy change on the train floor as the toilet door was broken! I just hadn't planned to change a nappy on the trainn but I guess Zak didn't check the schedule first.
We arrived at Gatwick and checked into Le Meridian in the North terminal, lovely hotel but it took them 3 attempts to get our room right! We'd booked a family room (1 double bed, 1 single and 1
travelcot) the first room just had a double and the travel cot, no bed for Rads, the second was the same again, annoyingly the bellboy had told front desk this before we'd gone to it as he knew the room number but they'd insisted it was a family room and even sent him back to double check after we'd been in it before allocating us another room, leaving us all tired, standing outside the room for 20 minutes. So none too impressed with that particular hotel I'm afraid. Eating at Gatwick w as
a problem also that night (where did they put Garfunkels?????) Pizza Express in the south terminal didn't have any hot food as the ovens weren't working, Garfunkels in the North term isn't there yet so we ended up eating at macDonalds which Rads very happy but not exactly my first choice for Simon's birthday meal!
Off to bed after that to try and sleep through some of the excitement.
Saturday 17th May
Checked in to BA which could have been a very frightening experience as the queue was enormous, but fortunately they opened more desks which made a huge difference so that didn't take long at all, they did seem to take all the people with buggies, toddlers and wheelchairs out of the queue to go into the new one so that was great for us. Breakfast at GArfunkels through security and on to the plane. As we were travelling with an under 3 year old we got to board first after first class passengers. I have to say that BA were excellent, we had bulk head seats and a bassinet for older babies which was like an overgrown Britax carseat which reclined or sat up so Zak happily poked his tongue out (big thanks to Grandma for teaching him that on the day we go!!! lol) and smiled at people for most of the 9 hours, when we hit turbulence they let him stay in it as apparently it wasn't too bad, they said they'd tell us if we had to take him out but that didn't happen. One thing I would point out though is that we were the only family who were altogether in the bulk heads with a baby, there was one woman across the aisle (who went to school with H - on plane reunion!) with a 20 month old but she was away from her family, there was another couple with a baby but only one of them had a bulk head seat and across in the other window seats were a family of 3 with no infant at all although there were a few people with babies who didn't have bulk head seats. Simon has BA executive club membership, we don't know if that had anything to do with us getting lucky with the bulkheads seats.
Arrived at Tampa airport around 4pm I think if memory serves and off to look for the Alamo desk (after going all the way back to first point luggage collection as we'd forgotten to pick up the car seat - LOL )
Alamo isn't in the airport here but there is a curtousy bus that takes you there, we waited in a queue for over an hour for the car although all the other car hire desks at the airport were empty! They tried to talk us into upgrading from our intermediate to a full size for $9.99 a day but we resisted so they dropped it to $7.99, wills of steel though we held out until they offered us a mini SUV for $7.99 at which point we caved! It was a Mitsubishi Outlander which I loved and Si hated._ Off to
WDW we head through a dreadful storm which everone was was stopping their cars for. Got to BCV at around 7pm ish and completely forgetting about the fact that we get complimentary valet parking we self parked and checked in.
We were on the third floor, studio number 376 which overlooked the lake (and resident aligator) and the pool if you craned your neck, balcony was very small but we weren't intending to spend any time on it and we were very near to the stairs down to the car park, which suited us fine with having to carry lil'un in hs car seat. We hadn't requested an Epcot view, so very happy with our room, I was really impressed with the studio on first sight despite seeing loads of pictures beforehand. Now getting close to 9pm and we're all shattered, according to shipping there's no parcel for us there (I'd ordered all my nappies, wipes & babyfood from Netgrocer) so just a tad stressed to say the least, there's also no kettle or cot bedding in the studio. I had phoned the front desk before leaving the UK so that we could bring these things with us if we needed them and was assured they could be [provided by them, I phoned housekeeping for these but they brought another bottom sheet for the travel cot as they don't have any top bedding for them(???!!!) and a stove top kettle, great but there's no stove in the studios. Rang my dear brother (Tony)who was staying near Universal and he promised to buy one and bring it along in the morning when we were meeting up with him and SIL (Sharlene), we had to refashion a sheet to cover Zak with otherwise he'd have been far too cold at night with the air con. I'd thoroughly recommend taking your own grobag which is something I was prepared to do but was told it wasn't necessary. Housekeeping brought us a couple of bowls to boil water in for Zak's bottles. Ordered pizza from room service which was close on being the most expensive meal
we had in Orlando! although it was all too much for Rads and she fell asleep waiting for it.
Friday 16th May and we're all very excited, it's DH's 34th birthday and we're off to Gatwick today, for those of you who don't know, there's myself, Jo - 32, ex-nurse now full time mum and I run a jewellery franchise while DD's at school and DS is sleeping. DH, Simon 34 who claims he absolutely isn't a computer salesman but we all know better, DD Rachel - 7 , known to us as 'Rads' and DS Zak 5 months old (affectionately know as Zakky, Zaks, niknakzakkywak etc. you get the
drift).
Rads if off to school although I can't forsee much work being done, infact her teacher said all she'd talked about all day was WDW, funny that!
This gave us plenty of time to pack and intermittently change diapers - oh sorry, that's nappies now, we're back home. I picked Rads up from school while Simon loaded the car and we're off to the station, still wondering if we're insane for trying to negotiate the train with 2 suitcases (with a third empty one inside the larger one), 1 buggy, 1 baby, 1 car seat, 1 7 year old and 3 backpacks. The train journey wasn't as hard as I'd anticipated with the only awkward moment being a very bumpy nappy change on the train floor as the toilet door was broken! I just hadn't planned to change a nappy on the trainn but I guess Zak didn't check the schedule first.
We arrived at Gatwick and checked into Le Meridian in the North terminal, lovely hotel but it took them 3 attempts to get our room right! We'd booked a family room (1 double bed, 1 single and 1
travelcot) the first room just had a double and the travel cot, no bed for Rads, the second was the same again, annoyingly the bellboy had told front desk this before we'd gone to it as he knew the room number but they'd insisted it was a family room and even sent him back to double check after we'd been in it before allocating us another room, leaving us all tired, standing outside the room for 20 minutes. So none too impressed with that particular hotel I'm afraid. Eating at Gatwick w as
a problem also that night (where did they put Garfunkels?????) Pizza Express in the south terminal didn't have any hot food as the ovens weren't working, Garfunkels in the North term isn't there yet so we ended up eating at macDonalds which Rads very happy but not exactly my first choice for Simon's birthday meal!
Off to bed after that to try and sleep through some of the excitement. Saturday 17th May
Checked in to BA which could have been a very frightening experience as the queue was enormous, but fortunately they opened more desks which made a huge difference so that didn't take long at all, they did seem to take all the people with buggies, toddlers and wheelchairs out of the queue to go into the new one so that was great for us. Breakfast at GArfunkels through security and on to the plane. As we were travelling with an under 3 year old we got to board first after first class passengers. I have to say that BA were excellent, we had bulk head seats and a bassinet for older babies which was like an overgrown Britax carseat which reclined or sat up so Zak happily poked his tongue out (big thanks to Grandma for teaching him that on the day we go!!! lol) and smiled at people for most of the 9 hours, when we hit turbulence they let him stay in it as apparently it wasn't too bad, they said they'd tell us if we had to take him out but that didn't happen. One thing I would point out though is that we were the only family who were altogether in the bulk heads with a baby, there was one woman across the aisle (who went to school with H - on plane reunion!) with a 20 month old but she was away from her family, there was another couple with a baby but only one of them had a bulk head seat and across in the other window seats were a family of 3 with no infant at all although there were a few people with babies who didn't have bulk head seats. Simon has BA executive club membership, we don't know if that had anything to do with us getting lucky with the bulkheads seats.
Arrived at Tampa airport around 4pm I think if memory serves and off to look for the Alamo desk (after going all the way back to first point luggage collection as we'd forgotten to pick up the car seat - LOL )
Alamo isn't in the airport here but there is a curtousy bus that takes you there, we waited in a queue for over an hour for the car although all the other car hire desks at the airport were empty! They tried to talk us into upgrading from our intermediate to a full size for $9.99 a day but we resisted so they dropped it to $7.99, wills of steel though we held out until they offered us a mini SUV for $7.99 at which point we caved! It was a Mitsubishi Outlander which I loved and Si hated._ Off to
WDW we head through a dreadful storm which everone was was stopping their cars for. Got to BCV at around 7pm ish and completely forgetting about the fact that we get complimentary valet parking we self parked and checked in.
We were on the third floor, studio number 376 which overlooked the lake (and resident aligator) and the pool if you craned your neck, balcony was very small but we weren't intending to spend any time on it and we were very near to the stairs down to the car park, which suited us fine with having to carry lil'un in hs car seat. We hadn't requested an Epcot view, so very happy with our room, I was really impressed with the studio on first sight despite seeing loads of pictures beforehand. Now getting close to 9pm and we're all shattered, according to shipping there's no parcel for us there (I'd ordered all my nappies, wipes & babyfood from Netgrocer) so just a tad stressed to say the least, there's also no kettle or cot bedding in the studio. I had phoned the front desk before leaving the UK so that we could bring these things with us if we needed them and was assured they could be [provided by them, I phoned housekeeping for these but they brought another bottom sheet for the travel cot as they don't have any top bedding for them(???!!!) and a stove top kettle, great but there's no stove in the studios. Rang my dear brother (Tony)who was staying near Universal and he promised to buy one and bring it along in the morning when we were meeting up with him and SIL (Sharlene), we had to refashion a sheet to cover Zak with otherwise he'd have been far too cold at night with the air con. I'd thoroughly recommend taking your own grobag which is something I was prepared to do but was told it wasn't necessary. Housekeeping brought us a couple of bowls to boil water in for Zak's bottles. Ordered pizza from room service which was close on being the most expensive meal
we had in Orlando! although it was all too much for Rads and she fell asleep waiting for it.
Looking forward to the next !
