Day One- Travel Day
Well here we are, travel day for our long awaited and long planned holiday to Orlando, to the land of Mickey Mouse. I awoke early, well I do every day but today was a special day. We were off on holiday and all those plans will hopefully fall into place. I had booked the taxi to collect us at 7am as Martin wanted to make full use of the BA lounge. We had taken our luggage down to Gatwick last night so this morning all we had to do was just walk through security and fast track security at that! No movement in the rest of the house. Weren’t they excited? Oh well time for a cuppa before the mayhem followed. So peaceful at this time of the morning, 5am. Time to have a last look at the Dibb, see if I can fine anything else useful to add to my collection of facts. Sarah and I have been on there virtually every day since January or even before. We had to laugh at the airport last night when the check in man asked us if we had completed our ESTAs and Martin was totally mystified! Nothing changes. He has left everything to us and Daniel told us he is just going to go where we go, do what we do.
Finally at 6am there is movement and Martin is up and moving. Better wake the kids so they can get themselves sorted. Well to cut a long story short, the taxi was early, Martin wasn’t ready, well not even fully dressed and the rest of us were sat waiting............. and they say women are always last to be ready.....not when we are off on holiday.
At last we arrive at Gatwick just carrying our hand luggage and fly through security. Now normally every year Sarah sets off the beeper and needs to be frisked..... not this time even though she was wearing her beepy jeans as she calls them. Straight through to BA lounge and very pleased. Find a nice table with a view over the hardstandings and in sight of the runway. I love looking at planes and imagining where they are off to.
Boarding relatively quick and find our seats and prepare for the 9 hour journey ahead of us. Nice glass of champers to settle in with. Cannot believe the amount of leg room, in fact have to get out of my seat to even read the brochure on safety. The children are thrilled and enjoying the experience. Daniel is virtually cocooned in his seat and when he puts his divider up, we can’t even see him. Sarah happily chats to me across the aisle. Soon we taxi around the airfield and we are off, up, up and away to Mickey Mouse land. Shame we are on the other side of the plane to where we live as I could have done a last check on the house.
After a nice cooling drink, lunch is served. Starter of crab salad and a warm bread roll, followed by fillet of beef with various vegetables and then washed down with chocolate cheesecake on a flapjack base and vanilla ice cream. Very tasty for airline food. Children happy now they have been fed and watered. Daniel said his salmon and haddock fishcakes were “very fishy”, wonder what he expected.
Bit of a problem with the entertainment system but at least we have had some films to watch although Sarah and I swapped seats half way through as hers was stuck on the same film. I was fine as I had my kindle to hand and a favourite book to read. Soon we were approaching Floridian airspace and on our descent to a wet, wet airport. Now I had read the horror stories of Orlando immigration, the long queues etc. Well we landed at 3.15 and we were through security and ready to get picked up by Peter, from Car on the Drive at 3.50pm. Amazing or what? Peter had not even arrived but we followed instructions to the letter, for once they all did what they were told, well Martin still didn’t have a clue what we were doing but he just followed on. Peter arrived about 4pm and we were soon through the underground car parking area and off to Sunset View. He was so helpful on our way to the villa, giving lots of advice about short cuts to Disney etc. Soon we pulled up outside this lovely looking villa, got through the door, with the alarms beeping etc....... they always make me nervous but we survived. Hopefully by the end of the holiday they will be second nature to me.
Beginning to feel a bit jaded now though but determined to keep going long enough to do some shopping and settle in. Too tired though to eat very much, after our visit to Wallmart, Daniel and I hopped into the pool and relaxed for a while. Well we did once we worked out the alarm for the pool doors etc. Very safety conscious over here. Soon enough it was 9.30 and definitely time to try out that bed upstairs. Night night.
