thegirlyarwood
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2005
- Messages
- 57
Day One - 8th February 2006
Firstly i will introduce you to the family:
Me - 29 (very apprehensive re:flying)
DH - 34 - OVER excited!!
DS - 5 (6th b'day 10th Feb)
DS - 2
Grandad
Everyone was looking forward to today obviously, getting up at 4.30am even seemed ok! All bags had been packed a few days before so there was nothing left to do apart from waiting for Grandad to arrive and get the kids up and dressed.
We drove to Manchester in our own car (seemed a good idea until we tried to force all the suitcases in the boot, but we managed it - thank god we have ordered an 8 seater in the US) and parked at APH just a few minutes from the airport. Everything ran pretty smoothly here and we arrived at the airport in plenty of time, that was until we saw the queue for check in.
We flew with Virgin and I don't know what experience everyone else has had with them but I have to say now that I don't rate them at all. Check in took 45 minutes, this may seem short but we were initially put to the front of the queue as we agreed to have one of our suitcases checked by security, so we were waiting for 45 minutes for Virgin staff to check in 2 other groups of passengers. NIGHTMARE!!!
After this we didn't have a great deal of time in the airport before boarding which was a good thing as I tend to be a tad nervous about flying (so much so i went to a Chinese Doctor for herbal treatment for stress and anxiety for this trip costing £80).
I was not looking forward to the flight, i knew my eldest son would be fine but the 2 yr old, well I had no idea. Mostly he was good but only slept for 1 hour during the flight. The kids both got goody back packs from Virgin which were pretty good and kept them amused for a bit but they did have a load of stuff which i had pre-packed already.
The Virgin staff on board were a miserable lot, I don't know whether they do this on purpose or whether all 19 of them were having a bad day. You would expect that a flight to Florida would have lots of excited kids and parents on and a smile once in a while would have gone a long way. I was sternly informed by one to 'sit down' as the seatbelt sign was on when my 2 yr old needed a 'wee wee'. I don't think she understood the concept of 2 yr old boys and their bladder control.
Nevertheless we got there in one piece, picked up the car and set off to find our villa, let loose for the first time in the USA.
The villa we were given was fab!!! Through Thomas Cook Signature on behalf of Florida Choice this was an excellent quality villa and I have no complaints about the standard, location or facilities - 100% on all counts!!!!
By the time we had settled in it was 6pm so no time left to do much today. Kept the kids up until 9pm in the hope they would adjust to the time difference and had the obligatory MCDONALDS for tea!!
Great start, am looking forward to reading your next one 
