Mrs Dazzle
<font color=009900>Florida-mad (well, mad full sto
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2002
- Messages
- 3,045
Well, we're back home 
flew in 8.30 yesterday morning. Managed to stay up until 9pm last night and slept (mainly) through till about 7.30 this morning, so feel reasonably recovered from the usual no sleep on the plane 
Tescos was a bit of a rude shock this afternoon after Publix 
We had a great 2 and a half weeks
Boy was it HOT HOT HOT 
All sorts of heat records were broken whilst we were over there and for the best part of two weeks the average daily temperature was 96 - 98 degrees.
We stayed our first night at Le Meridien at Gatwick to take advantage of twilight checkin, rather than the Hilton. Personally, I much preferred the Meridien. As a paranoid about other people's noise in hotels kind of person, I thought the Meridien was so much quieter than the Hilton was, unless we just struck lucky. Bit of excitement when we got up to our room, we were looking over to one of the plane parking stands, with the car park entrance just down the road. 8 vans of armed police suddenly arrived and set up a roadblock right opposite our room. We got settled in to watch the fun, but they only stopped about 4 cars, took details from each of the drivers/passengers, checked the boots and engines, sent the sniffer dog
in and then packed up and off they went again, Bizarre 
One comment I have to make is how totally miserable Virgin's check-in staff were - both at Gatwick and Downtown Disney 
Flights - both legs - ok, except on the way home there was already people sitting in our seats who should also be in them
, so we had to wait around in a crowded doorway like billy-no-mates whilst they found us some spare seats. This seemed to happen to 6 other groups, so obviously the miserable one on the check-in desk at Downtown Disney earlier that morning had reaped her revenge
Both planes were not the old junk buckets we've been used to before on the Orlando route, but nice newer types (Barbarella and Tubular Belle). Coming back yesterday we even had the new V-port entertainment system, which was fanastic. I really hope we get this on our flights to San Fransisco next Easter, that will really help time fly.
Well, this holiday was different to any of our previous Florida trips. Other than Le Meridien, we were not staying in any hotels - a week and a half at our friend's fantastic condo in Fort Myers was superb and as for the villa for our week in Orlando, dream come true type stuff. We didn't really feel we did the villa justice since we spent so little time there, but when we did it was (in my DD Katie's words) lush
We had a great time in Fort Myers, visited the beach (unfortunately for us we found out later that evening when we were all glowing red that we'd chosen THE hottest day
, toured Edison and Ford's summer retreats (fabulous, including a river boat trip), twice did trips around the Everglades, doing our worst ever airboat ride (don't ever use Woottens - dreadful).
Given this was our first trip in August, the parks weren't as bad as I had feared they would be, with the exception of Magic Kingdom our first night in Orlando - it was horribly heaving. We even had to Q for over an hour to get the riverboat to ride back to the TTC (never before). We gave up queuing for Splash when the 80 minute wait time seemed to be even more, so went back to MK one morning and it was fine. Didn't get to ride Soarin', as again the wait time was 120 mins and all the fastpasses for the day were gone. I think Disney need to rethink their fast pass system for afternoon visitors. We got to Epcot after a morning/lunch in Animal Kingdom around 2.30 pm and went straight to Soarin'; they know it's going to be a popular ride and the park is open till 9pm, so why not hold back on some fast passes?
Universal was great - our favourite parks. The Mummy ride is just awesome
, I think it's my fave.
Big shock of the holiday is DH Darryl - he's become an adrenaline junky (before this year he wouldn't even consider going on anything more than Goofy's barnstormer or the Flying Unicorn). He is in love with Hulk, Rock 'n Roller Coaster and the Mummy. I even went on Tower of Terror this year OMG, never
ever 
ever 
ever 
ever again 
. Give me Hulk any day!
I could go on, but won't bore you any more. Got a few threads to catch up on now
flew in 8.30 yesterday morning. Managed to stay up until 9pm last night and slept (mainly) through till about 7.30 this morning, so feel reasonably recovered from the usual no sleep on the plane Tescos was a bit of a rude shock this afternoon after Publix We had a great 2 and a half weeks
Boy was it HOT HOT HOT All sorts of heat records were broken whilst we were over there and for the best part of two weeks the average daily temperature was 96 - 98 degrees. We stayed our first night at Le Meridien at Gatwick to take advantage of twilight checkin, rather than the Hilton. Personally, I much preferred the Meridien. As a paranoid about other people's noise in hotels kind of person, I thought the Meridien was so much quieter than the Hilton was, unless we just struck lucky. Bit of excitement when we got up to our room, we were looking over to one of the plane parking stands, with the car park entrance just down the road. 8 vans of armed police suddenly arrived and set up a roadblock right opposite our room. We got settled in to watch the fun, but they only stopped about 4 cars, took details from each of the drivers/passengers, checked the boots and engines, sent the sniffer dog
in and then packed up and off they went again, Bizarre One comment I have to make is how totally miserable Virgin's check-in staff were - both at Gatwick and Downtown Disney Flights - both legs - ok, except on the way home there was already people sitting in our seats who should also be in them
, so we had to wait around in a crowded doorway like billy-no-mates whilst they found us some spare seats. This seemed to happen to 6 other groups, so obviously the miserable one on the check-in desk at Downtown Disney earlier that morning had reaped her revenge Both planes were not the old junk buckets we've been used to before on the Orlando route, but nice newer types (Barbarella and Tubular Belle). Coming back yesterday we even had the new V-port entertainment system, which was fanastic. I really hope we get this on our flights to San Fransisco next Easter, that will really help time fly.
Well, this holiday was different to any of our previous Florida trips. Other than Le Meridien, we were not staying in any hotels - a week and a half at our friend's fantastic condo in Fort Myers was superb and as for the villa for our week in Orlando, dream come true type stuff. We didn't really feel we did the villa justice since we spent so little time there, but when we did it was (in my DD Katie's words) lush
We had a great time in Fort Myers, visited the beach (unfortunately for us we found out later that evening when we were all glowing red that we'd chosen THE hottest day
, toured Edison and Ford's summer retreats (fabulous, including a river boat trip), twice did trips around the Everglades, doing our worst ever airboat ride (don't ever use Woottens - dreadful).Given this was our first trip in August, the parks weren't as bad as I had feared they would be, with the exception of Magic Kingdom our first night in Orlando - it was horribly heaving. We even had to Q for over an hour to get the riverboat to ride back to the TTC (never before). We gave up queuing for Splash when the 80 minute wait time seemed to be even more, so went back to MK one morning and it was fine. Didn't get to ride Soarin', as again the wait time was 120 mins and all the fastpasses for the day were gone. I think Disney need to rethink their fast pass system for afternoon visitors. We got to Epcot after a morning/lunch in Animal Kingdom around 2.30 pm and went straight to Soarin'; they know it's going to be a popular ride and the park is open till 9pm, so why not hold back on some fast passes?
Universal was great - our favourite parks. The Mummy ride is just awesome
, I think it's my fave.Big shock of the holiday is DH Darryl - he's become an adrenaline junky (before this year he wouldn't even consider going on anything more than Goofy's barnstormer or the Flying Unicorn). He is in love with Hulk, Rock 'n Roller Coaster and the Mummy. I even went on Tower of Terror this year OMG, never
ever ever ever ever again . Give me Hulk any day!I could go on, but won't bore you any more. Got a few threads to catch up on now
ort - it's soooooo good! 
Sounds like you had a great time. Well done for doing ToT!! I NEVER will!!!!
