Writing my 2008 trip report in 2012? Well I never....

[crazy_cremello]

Welcome to the 'Robinson Crusoe' 2008 Trip Report.

This was our 4th trip to 'The World', and was still as lovely as always.

We went for 3 weeks in June/July 2008 and stayed offsite in a lovely villa, with our own pool and a lakeside view. We hired a car so we could get around easily, we went to 'the Dark Side' (we do every trip just to have a change of scenery) as well as Disney, and did almost everything. We also did some serious shopping.

Our 'Cast Members' for the trip include: My Dad, My Mum, My Brother, His girlfriend (they are no longer together) and my good self.

You may wonder why I am writing up my 2008 trip report now? In 2012? In all honesty this wasn't supposed to be a trip report. I did write a diary about our holiday, although I was tired every night when I wrote it, and I was only 14 when we went, therefore, I didn't write anything decent apart from that 'I was tired today'. Useful. However, I am using the diary to write a lot of this, our itinery and pictures from the trip to help jog my memory!

I really hope you enjoy my report. I haven't got pictures of food or anything like a serious DIS'er would, but I can assure you, my trip report for next year will have all of that! So I guess you can just enjoy the pictures from this report. I'm using this to practice for my one next year.

Be lovely to hear some feedback if anyone is interested in reading it.

 

[crazy_cremello]

Day 1 - From Devon to Gatwick...and Beyond!

Day 2 - From Gatwick to Florida!

Day 3 Part 1 - Can we go to Disney yet?...Finally were at Disney!

Day 3 Part 2 - Grim Grinning Ghosts, It's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow...

Day 3 Part 3 - On this magic night....Spectromagic!!

 

[crazy_cremello]

Day 1, Sunday 22nd June 2008

Dad and I took our pets to their holiday homes for the next 3 weeks. We have a cat called Squirrel

And a bunny called Thumper, who has since passed away god bless you

Once we'd finished that, we headed back home and finished our packing. Dad weighed them and said they were fine. Around 1pm, British time, we were ready for the off! Our neighbours waved us goodbye, and headed out of the South West!

We stopped for a McDonald's in a place called Yeovil on the way to Gatwick Airport. We arrived at the Holiday Inn at Gatwick around 5pm (Look how awful this trip report is already, I don't have many pictures of anything, but oh well). We checked in and met my brother and his girlfriend as they were already there.

They live in Brighton, so are only about an hour or so away from Gatwick. We are closer to 4/5 hours away from Gatwick! We had a brief chat about Disney then we drove to nearby Crawley for dinner. We chose 'Frankie & Benny's'. I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, fries and a coke, then had cinnamon waffle crunch for pudding.

You will notice that I have a terrible diet when I'm in the States. I literally live off cheeseburgers lol, I like them P.s - I can't remember what the others had, I'm writing this trip report from a diary I wrote.

The meal cost £73.05, which I'm guessing is around $116.

We headed back to the hotel and my Dad went to watch the Italy V. Spain match in the bar. My brother and I watched Top Gear. We couldn't wait to get there now!! And off to sleep we went

Would we get to Florida with no delays? What would we do once we arrived? Stay tuned

 

[crazy_cremello]

I finished the last post with - We were staying at the Holiday Inn at Gatwick Airport and we had settled down for the night.

I woke up very early with my brother and his girlfriend, around 5:15am. They were catching a different flight than us, with Delta, changing at Atlanta then down to Orlando. They were departing Gatwick at 9am.

We had a brief chat about how nasty aeroplane food is, and how long we have to be on it for from the UK, usually around 9 hours! They left the hotel at 6:10am.

Their plane!

My brother getting an early morning coffee fix!

Of course I couldn't get back to sleep once they had left, I was so excited! I started getting ready around 7am after watching TV for a little while. Mum and Dad didn't get up until 8am. We went down to the restaurant for breakfast, I had cereal, scrambled egg and sausages.

Finally!! We left the hotel and arrived at Gatwick. We parked our car in the long stay car park then caught the shuttle bus to the South Terminal. We checked our bags in, then went to security. Finally we were into the departure lounge, but our flight wasn't leaving until 12:45pm!

We headed off to Gate 32 to board the Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747. It was quite amusing to see that a huge section of the plane on the top was covered in 'duc' tape. Very safe . We were very lucky and were travelling Premium Economy It was positively paradise compared to Economy! We had to wait around 20 minutes on the tarmac before we took off.

*I've just realized my computer has corrupted a lot of our pictures and that's why I can't find them There are a lot from after we arrive though so please stay tuned!*

I watched an awful lot of TV on the flight. I really dislike aeroplanes, they make me feel SO dirty!! (Even though I'd like to be an air hostess... Our flight was otherwise uneventful.

We arrived at MCO at 4:55pm American time. We went through immigration, collect our luggage, then get rid of it again, catch the 'Not as cool as Disney' monorail to the main airport where we waited almost an hour for our luggage to reappear

Dad left me and Mum there whilst he went to sort out our hire car with 'Dollar'. We wanted a BIG car, considering there were 5 of us and a lot of luggage! We needed a lot of space!

So we got this

James arrived soon after to help us with our luggage when it appeared. They arrived around the same time as we did, and they had a change!! We all got to the hire car, packed it with our bags and headed off to Target for our 'bare necessities' and Tracy (brother's girlfriend) needed some more clothes.

As soon as we had finished, it was finally time to head to our home away from home for the next 3 weeks!

It was a nice villa Unfortunately the one we wanted (that we stayed in in 2004) wasn't available.

Some more pictures of our villa

We were very tired when we arrived, so we splashed our feet in the pool for a while and then headed off to bed. On every other trip we went into Magic Kingdom that first day for some 'Pixie Dust' but for some reason we didn't this time

I don't think many people are interested in my report but please do keep reading, it get's better

What happens next then? Where do we go? What do we do?

 

[crazy_cremello]

We woke up around 6am as our body clocks were all confused. We dipped our feet in the pool as we watched the sun rise.It was beautiful, sadly, no pictures to be found. When we were ready, we headed off to Wal-Mart. Tracy found some nicer clothes there than she had at Target. We brought some lunch then headed back to the villa again.

Mum and Dad headed back out, (I'm keeping the reason for this a surprise until I get to it in the trip report so you have something to look forward too...I hope) so me, James and Tracy slept in the sun for a while. Gotta love catching the Florida rays!

When Mum and Dad returned from 'mystery place' we were finally ready. to hit the Magic Kingdom!! Wahoo!

Me and Tracy excited in the car

WALT DISNEY WORLD!

Eeeeek Magic Kingdom!

Our first day in Disney, and were parked in Happy. What could be better!?

My wonderful Mummy and Daddy in Happy

We always catch the Ferryboat in on our first day, not the monorail.

We saw this beautiful hotel, The Grand Floridian

And then this one, Polynesian

And then Magic Kingdom was almost within reach!!!

After a very excited exit from the ferryboat, we were finally here. The place we had been waiting for, in all it's glory and general beautifulness (that is now a word by the way!)

And of course we couldn't forget the usual Castle picture, could we

Which land would we hit up first? Which rides did we manage to go on? Where did we eat and what did we do as well as the rides? Stay tuned

 

[crazy_cremello]

Not sure if there's much point in carrying this trip report on, I might just do one more update and leave it since it appear's nobody's really interested. Oh well, I tried.

Okay so we decided to go to the Haunted Mansion first. It's such a brilliant ride I love the thought that has been put into it, and can't wait to see the new queue when we go next year! Here are a few pictures we took!

I love this one! It amazes me how they've made it stay like there is actually horses in it still!

We timed this just right!

Are these walls actually stretching?

After a fabulous ride on Haunted Mansion, we moved on to Philharmagic! We absolutely loved this ride, my brother's favourite character is Donald as well. I absolutely love the smells too! It's just perfect!

Here is a few pictures of us goofing around in Philharmagic!

Me and my brother, repping the 3D glasses.

Having a 3D glasses overload!

I absolutely love this one

After that we rode Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain, People Mover, Carousel of Progress, Stitch's Great Escape and Monster's INC Laugh Floor. My Dad was 'Randell' in Monster's Inc, it was very funny! It was the first time we had done it and we liked it.

We had lunch at my favourite place to eat - Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe. Yeah that's right, I had a cheeseburger

We went shopping down Main Street, I brought 2 necklaces and some Goofy Candy. We got a few pictures whilst it was getting dark.

We got ready to watch Spectromagic (pictures on the next thread, I couldn't fit them all on here!) It was brilliant as always.

We popped back into the shop after Spectromagic, and messed around with some hats, I'm read a lot of trip reports, and almost everyone does it! Of course we had to do it too!

And we managed to get a beautiful shot of the train station on the way out of the park

After a busy day, we were really tired. We decided to head back to the villa and get to bed. We had another busy day coming up tomorrow!

Which park would we go too tomorrow? What would we ride?
Hope someone is reading and enjoying

 

[crazy_cremello]

Wahoo! Here are the Spectromagic pictures for ya'll

By the time we had finished shopping, it was time for Spectromagic. My all time favourite parade. *Please bring Spectro back by the time I go next year!!* It was brilliant as always.

Hope you enjoyed looking at those

 

[megan926]

Hi! I have always feared of doing a trip report b/c I didn't want no one to comment or read it! I feel your pain!

Your trip report looks great so far!!! Looks like a great time and you do have lots of nice pictures!!!

 

[crazy_cremello]

Hi! I have always feared of doing a trip report b/c I didn't want no one to comment or read it! I feel your pain!

Your trip report looks great so far!!! Looks like a great time and you do have lots of nice pictures!!!

Thank-you so much for having a look! I didn't think twice about the fact that nobody might be interested, hopefully more people will start to have a look. I don't think it helped that I didn't use a particularly interesting title for the report, so it hasn't attracted many people Oh well, it gets better!

Thankyou again for taking the time to read it x

 

[Armando625]

I think they were catching a different flight than us, with Delta, changing at Atlanta then down to Orlando. They were departing Gatwick at 9am. well Thanks for the great opinions.

 

[crazy_cremello]

I think they were catching a different flight than us, with Delta, changing at Atlanta then down to Orlando. They were departing Gatwick at 9am. well Thanks for the great opinions.

What?