Welcome Home, Now Relax ~ Day 1 - The Journey

wickesy

<font color=royalblue>Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love y
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Apr 2, 2006
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Wednesday 25th March 2009

After a fairly restless night I finally gave in and got up at 6:20. We got washed and dressed and left the room at 7:05 to make our way back over to the South terminal.

I could see there was quite a queue for security so we went upstairs and through the security checkpoint there where there was a lot less people. Dad and I had gone through separate entrances and as my stuff came through the security officer said that he needed to swab my laptop for explosives. As he was doing that we were chatting about where I was going and he asked if we had been to Gatorland. I said that I hadn’t but planned to go there this time and he told me it was well worth a visit. Once he had finished I saw a security officer talking to Dad who was putting his shoes back on. It turned out that, without realising, Dad had dropped his mobile phone just before the scanners and luckily somebody had spotted it and handed it in.

We reclaimed Dad’s phone, had a quick look at the DS games in HMV and then made our way up to the Lingfield Servisair lounge which I had booked us into.

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The view from the lounge

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Part of the seating area

We were in the lounge by 7:40 and started off with an orange juice each, Dad had a croissant and I had a chocolate muffin. We then went on to have some more drinks each before leaving the lounge at 10:30 to make our way to the gate.

The plane was leaving from gate 13 which meant that, I think for the first time ever, we did not have a long trek to get to the gate. We already knew that the plane was delayed until 12:00 and then when boarding started we were told that because the front of the plane was still being catered they would be boarding economy first and upper class and premium economy would have to wait. We were finally allowed to board at 11:40 and made our way to our normal seats - 80H & K upstairs at the back.

We pushed back just under an hour late at 12:10 and were in the air by 12:40. Once the seatbelt signs had gone off the drinks run started followed by lunch, which was a choice of beef stroganoff or king prawns. We both had the beef with Dad having red wine while I had white.

I watched Madagascar 2 and then switched to my Archos to watch some of Tim Vine live. Once the films started again I watched Sex Drive and then went back to my Archos to finish watching Tim Vine, then Song of the South, Sleeping Beauty and two episodes of an American sitcom called Gary Unmarried. During all of this we had the brandy/Baileys run, ice cream and afternoon tea which was a choice of a ham and mustard roll or a cheese roll. I had the ham and mustard and Dad had the cheese.

We landed at 5:00 and once all the Upper Class and downstairs Premium Economy passengers were off we were allowed off ourselves. We made our way to the far right at Immigration and were soon called over to one of the officers at the US citizens booths who had nobody else to deal with. Our cases arrived on the carousel around 5 minutes later and having taken our cases on the monorail we were soon at the Alamo desk.

There was no really hard sell on the ‘extras’ so we made our way over to the garage and picked out a metallic blue Ford Focus from the Intermediate aisle.

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Just to jump ahead for a moment ‘Lost’ style. I actually took these photos on day 2 when we were at Downtown Disney. The Ford Focus doesn’t have a button on the lock on the boot and instead it is released using a button on the key fob. When I went to take the photos I put the car keys down in the boot, took my camera out of the boot and then decided that to get a clean shot of the car I would shut the boot… Then the time came to open the boot so I could take a photo of the luggage space, so where are the keys? A couple of seconds of panic followed before rational thought kicked in and I realised there must be some way of opening the boot from the driver’s seat so I had a look and sure enough there was a button down where the driver’s left leg would be so luckily I was able to open the boot, retrieve the keys and spare myself a lot of embarrassment and expense!

continued
 
There was very little traffic about and so we were through the arch and on property by 6:35

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and at Saratoga Springs 10 minutes later. Our keys were ready for us but the cash reservation hadn’t been linked when I did online checkin so the keys had to be re-programmed to cover the whole length of our stay. We were allocated room 4532 in the Paddock section.

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continued
 
It was a ground floor room which meant the view wasn’t that great

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But the location more than made up for it:

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That is the door to our room

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And, taken from the same spot, this is the parking area. It was just like parking the car outside your front door at home! It made it so easy to bring stuff in from the car and if I left something in the car by mistake it was no hassle to go and get it unlike if we had been a few floors up, or in a hotel where the car park is miles away from the rooms.

After dumping our luggage we wandered over to the Turf Club lounge for a beer each and then went into Artists Palette for a flatbread and root beer each. We then went back to the studio where I typed up the trip report and watched Lost before going to bed at 10:00 ready for our first day in the parks tomorrow.

Day 2
 
Great arrival day David - we had a similar location to you when we stayed at OKW last year - we literally parked right outside the door to the villa.

Looking forward to reading more :)
 

Great start to your trip report - glad you managed to retrieve the car keys using a bit of lateral thinking! Looking forward to Day 2! :)
 
you must have had a right panic when you locked your keys in :scared1:

your room looks really nice.
 
David what are you like locking the keys in the boot! (not that i've ever done anything like that..! :rolleyes1 :rotfl2:) What a convenient location your room was, i'm wondering how many miles away we'll end up parked at CSR this year as it's such a big resort!
 
David what are you like locking the keys in the boot! (not that i've ever done anything like that..! :rolleyes1 :rotfl2:)

The silly thing was I didn't learn from it, I must have done it three or four more times during the trip. :sad2: It really was a heart-stopping moment that first time though.
 
The Key situation is definately something I would do, but I would get myself in an absolute panic about it :rolleyes1, so glad you managed to sort it :goodvibes

Your room look's lovely :)
 
The Ford Focus doesn’t have a button on the lock on the boot and instead it is released using a button on the key fob. When I went to take the photos I put the car keys down in the boot, took my camera out of the boot and then decided that to get a clean shot of the car I would shut the boot… Then the time came to open the boot so I could take a photo of the luggage space, so where are the keys? A couple of seconds of panic followed before rational thought kicked in and I realised there must be some way of opening the boot from the driver’s seat so I had a look and sure enough there was a button down where the driver’s left leg would be so luckily I was able to open the boot, retrieve the keys and spare myself a lot of embarrassment and expense!


Glad it's not just me! I did exactly the same last year, also in DTD. Was so glad there was a button inside. ;):laughing:
The location of your room is fantastic. Makes unpacking really easy.
 
Thanks for the pics of the gateway, they warm my heart! I can't wait to watch Madagascar 2, hope it was good. Wonderful room location and it looks really nice inside too.

Laur's xx
 












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