Fourth Family Floriday - Day 2

FOURTH FAMILY FLORIDAY
CURSE OF THE NO SEE-UMS

2ND OCTOBER 2017
TRAVEL DAY PART 2
****************

I don’t have the time we woke up in my notes, but I think it was about 7am. We turned on the TV and saw on the news that Monarch had gone into administration. I felt sorry for all those people that should have been flying somewhere today. It was a crisp Autumn morning and we all got showered and dressed and at 8:45am, left the luggage in the room and went down to breakfast at the Thyme restaurant. 

We were shown to a table quite close to the buffet and I was amazed that we were probably the youngest family in there. Most of the people in there were elderly. Maybe Saga holidays only fly out on Mondays?  There were lots to choose from on the buffet but I wasn’t feeling up to eating much this morning which is unlike me when it comes to buffet breakfasts! I was feeling very anxious. Paul had already started arguing with Oliver, as he had only toasted his crumpets on one side and were uncooked. I had a chocolate croissant and a cinnamon and raisin bagel which I discovered was also only toasted on one side when I got back to the table, but like Oliver, I couldn’t be bothered to go back up and toast it again. Amelia must have had my share of hunger this morning though as she decided she was having two plates; one with sausage, egg and bacon, and another with pancakes and a mini muffin. Paul had enough hunger for everyone and had a huge cooked breakfast and three mini muffins. Oliver also had sausages, bacon, hash browns and eggs with his crumpets. We all had tea, coffee and juice. The adult breakfasts were £10.50 each, and children under 15 eat free. Although I didn’t eat much, I think as a family we got our monies worth.

When we were finishing up breakfast, and Paul was on his last coffee, I checked my phone for the time and saw that I had a notification from Virgin. My excitement began to peak now, and I couldn’t wait to check out of our room and get to the airport!

We thanked the staff and went back up to the room and got all of our stuff together, ensuring that liquids were in bags, and with one last check under the beds for items we may have left behind, we were out of the room and back downstairs. Check out was as simple as handing our key cards to a member of staff who was next to the lift as we exited which was simple enough.  

We walked over into the hustle and bustle of North terminal and went through to premium security. It was quick but pretty busy and I got a bit flustered trying to get everyone’s belongings together when Paul left me to go to the end of the counter when his bag was kept back for screening (we forgot to take the liquids out of the rucksack in into the tray on their own! ). Oliver was faffing with something or other on one side and I just grabbed our tray and took it to one of the little counters and tried to sort everything out with Amelia. Paul had just thrown everything in his pockets into the tray; wallet, phone, lighter, cigarettes, loose change, his watch… you name it. So I was trying to find somewhere to put all of that, as well as getting the rest of our stuff together. I got our ≈≈≈≈≈≈ together and met Paul on the other side and we regained ourselves and took a more relaxed walk over to duty-free. Paul hates it here so I never feel I can look around without peeing him off, so I didn’t look at much. I did have a sneaky squirt of Gucci Flora though. 

Amelia spotted a Flik Flak watch she really liked with dolphins on the strap. She tried it on and it fit her lovely.

My Nan had given the kids £20 each yesterday before we left, so she decided to spend hers on that. It wasn’t until we were in Florida that we realized the hour hand doesn’t sit on the hour properly so I’m going to see if I can somehow exchange it.

Oliver also had a look at the Superdry watches and found a nice black and orange one. He was undecided until I said it would match his orange magic band, and that was it. He went straight over and paid for it.

From there, Paul found a bench and sat down. I was getting restless though and decided to take Amelia off to look in the shops which is when I spotted Cath Kidston. There was a particular purse I wanted which was in the sale before we came away, but it wouldn’t have arrived in time if I had ordered it online. I searched the shop inside and out and couldn’t find it. We must have been in there for a good 20 minutes as Amelia wanted to look at everything. She found a cute cat purse which she wanted, so I got her that, and just as we were on our way to the checkout, I spotted the purse I had been looking for in a basket on its own at the end of an aisle. Result! 

I resisted the temptation of the Tinkerbell saddle bag and left to go back to the bench where Paul and Oliver were previously sitting, except Paul had now disappeared to find a smoking area. Oliver was glued to his phone and Amelia was getting bored, so we had a look in Accessorize. Paul still wasn’t back when we came out of there and Amelia was thirsty, so I told Oliver to wait there for Paul and tell him we’re going over to Boots and then to the kids play area just adjacent to it. You could see the play area sign from where he was sitting. I bought both the kids a drink, some travel bands for Amelia and some cold relief tablets, tissues and halls soothers for Oliver who woke up with a cold this morning. Then we walked over to the play area. There was a sign saying the area was for under 7’s, but there were a few bigger kids in there, and parents sprawled out over the soft play shapes, so they could hardly moan that Amelia was 7. It was really for toddlers, but she had fun jumping across the shapes and playing with some babies. Two minutes later my phone rang. It was Paul and he sounded peed off, asking where we were. Obviously, me telling Oliver to pass on the message had fallen on deaf ears. Apparently, I had been gone ages. How he could assume that when he wasn’t there himself, I don’t know. But he went off on one of his stroppy moods. They met us at the play area with Starbucks in hand. Amelia played for a few more minutes and then we got her out and waited around the corner on some chairs for our gate to be announced as it wasn’t due to be confirmed until 12:05pm. 

We did a bit of vlogging and Paul took Amelia back into the play area for a bit while I checked Instagram and Oliver continued to look at his phone.
Before long the board read our gate number which was the opposite side to where we currently sat, so we hot-footed it over to where we were supposed to be, taking obligatory aeroplane photos on the way. We were flying on Pretty Woman this time, which coincidentally, is the same name as the model aeroplane that I put in Amelia's reveal bag!

It only seemed like five minutes later and our row was being called! We were upstairs in the bubble again on row 77.
We settled in our seats, Amelia in the middle of Oliver and I, and Paul on the other side of the aisle. He was sitting next to a couple who were going to Orlando for 10 days which explains why the seats next to him were showing as empty on the way back. I wonder if they’re dibbers? 

Amelia was getting a little impatient while everyone was boarding as the seatback TV’s weren’t operating yet. She got her princess earphones on ready. I let her look through the Vera entertainment guide and she picked out what films she was going to watch. Boss Baby was her top pick. Then the cabin crew came around with our menus and we picked out what we wanted. 

To be honest, nothing on there took my fancy, but I decided on the pesto pasta.

We were soon up in the air. Amelia wasn’t keen on the taking off part. She must take after Paul in that respect as I love it! It’s the best part of flying!
The flight was good. Really smooth other than a few bumps and didn’t feel as long as it usually does. Some of the views were amazing. We could see snowcapped mountains and Islands and clouds that went on for miles and miles. We had to take a northerly route just south of Iceland and Greenland and down the Eastern Seaboard due to strong westerly jet streams which was not a direct route, but we took off early, making it an exact 9-hour flight.

Amelia kept herself busy watching films, building the Lego set that was on the front of her magazine, doing crosswords in her Quiz Kids book and decorating mouse-keeping envelopes. We also had a few games of Guess Who but the travel version was very fiddly! I did have to keep a close eye on her as she wanted to play some of the games on the screen, but every time she pressed the screen, the woman in front kept turning around looking disgruntled so I had to tell her she couldn’t play them. Instead, she watched Boss Baby, Captain Underpants, The Secret Life of Pets and also listened to some music. This was different to previous flights and I was actually able to watch some films myself! I watched Rough Night, Gifted and Baywatch which was hilarious! Oliver watched Spiderman and some episodes of Riverdale, Modern Family and American Dad. Paul watched Despicable Me 3 and can’t remember what else!

Before long, Amelia’s child’s meal was given to her and the adults’ followed shortly after. Paul and Oliver had the sausages, but unfortunately, they were demolished before I got my camera out as I was still helping Amelia butter her roll when they were brought round. Here’s ours though.

Amelia’s penne pasta with tomato and mozzarella…

I had a taste and it was lovely. And here’s my Chicken pesto pasta…

I’m not a fan of pesto usually, but this was really nice. I polished off the lot! The menu says we were given a red velvet cake, but I’m 99% positive mine was a lemon pudding of some description. It was really nice.

There’s not really a lot more I can say about the flight. It was pretty uneventful. I was starting to get a bit restless a few hours before landing. I watched the flight map for a bit before going back to a film and took some photos of the view out the window. At one point, I saw another plane not too far away from our own which was pretty cool.

Fab lollies were brought out later…

And then afternoon tea an hour before we landed. I was getting really hungry at this point and ate all of the sandwiches, despite the fact that I don’t usually eat cheese unless it’s melted. They were quite nice. I was also REALLY thirsty, so was glad of a cup of tea. I wish their cups were bigger!

Before long we began our descent into Orlando and our excitement peaked once again. After 18 months of waiting, we were finally here! I’m not sure if it was swampland or flooding (as a result of Irma maybe?), but there was a lot of water as we flew into MCO. You can see it in the video below.  

Some bloke in front of Paul thought it would be clever to immediately get out of his seat when we landed, before the seatbelt sign had gone off and took himself downstairs where he waited by the door to the plane. The cabin crew told him to sit back down but he was having none of it. It was ages before the doors opened. 

Being upstairs meant we were some of the first off the plane too. We hot-footed it down to immigration and was amazed to find it was completely empty! That’s a first! I don’t think we were in there longer than 10 minutes. The officer who checked our passports was nice enough. He wasn’t chatty at all but got us through quickly with very few questions. We did our fingerprints and mugshots and were soon on our way to baggage claim. Ours took a little while to come out, but not as long as it took Mr “I’m too good to sit on the plane”. Paul said he was still standing there waiting for his luggage after we left. Getting off the plane first and being rude to the cabin crew really didn’t work in his favour!
We skipped the second bag check and took our own luggage up the escalator which was a bit of a fast. It was so busy at the top to get on the monorail and nobody was moving down the platform which resulted in a big pile-up at the top of the stairs! A woman managed to push her way in between Paul and Oliver and Amelia and I and at the top, she fell into Oliver, and then I piled on to her! It was a nightmare. There was no way around it. Paul and Oliver literally couldn’t move as there was no space to move in to. She saw the funny side thankfully, but she did hurt Oliver’s ankle. We were sensible and moved down to the end of the platform in order to get on the front of the monorail, which was already sat there waiting for us. We really were lucky with transport so far. 
We made our way over to the B side and down to Magical Express Transportation. Again, our bus was waiting for us. However, it was a good 30 minutes before we set off. It was only us and two other couples on there!

Paul and Amelia sat in the front seats and videoed some of the journey while Amelia took photos with her camera.

Around half an hour later, we rolled up at Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was now dark, but really hot and humid as we stepped off the bus. I almost had to pinch myself. I couldn’t believe after watching so many YouTube videos on the resort over the past 18 months, that we were finally here! It felt like a dream. As we walked through the lobby I think I let out a little gasp. It was absolutely beautiful. I couldn’t believe we would be staying here for two weeks!

We set the luggage down next to a group of sofas where the kids sat down and waited for us while we went to check in. I asked the cast member if there was any chance of a partial savannah view room and she said that there were none left as there was a conference on and the resort was booked to capacity. I went on to ask if we would have the bunk beds I requested and she confirmed that we did. At least that was something. I did feel a little deflated that we wouldn’t have a nice view and had images going through my head of the car park. However, my spirits were lifted somewhat when I saw her circle the room we were in on the map. Surely this would have a partial savannah view? 

She explained the map to us and gave us directions to reach our room. She gave us our magic bands (Paul put his on straight away!)

She gave us a resort activity guide and a leaflet explaining the dining plan which had the number of credits we had to use. She told us to get the best value out of quick service credits, order adult meals for Amelia and we could split them, that way we’d have credit over at the end and could spend them on candy etc. as 1 quick service credit = 3 snack credits. Then she asked us to wait one second and was busying around under the desk and came out with two ‘buttons’ for us with “10 ears” written on them! This photo was taken later on in the trip... 

It really cheered me up. We thanked her and we went over to the kids and each took a suitcase and made our way to our room. We had to make our way to the far side of the lobby on the left and walk up a long winding corridor and then take the lift up one floor to the fourth floor. We found out the next day that there was a staircase just before the corner which was a lot quicker than waiting for the lift. We then had quite a walk to our room, but it was worth it when we walked in and saw it. The kids were delighted with their bunk beds. Amelia quickly claimed the top bunk which she thought was hilarious.  

Getting one over on Oliver had her in stitches. When they’re in a good mood, they really bounce off one another and this was one of those moments! They were both in hysterics, winding each other up with playful banter. The latest to amuse them was telling each other they smelt like obscure objects. Oliver would say “Amelia, you smell like eggshells” or something to that extent, to which she’d respond with “Oliver, you smell like elbows!” Fits of giggles would ensue and soon they were having an insult-off (there must be a word for this?!). A moment later, Oliver was looking in the drawer in between the beds and found a bible. And thus brought on a whole new level of obscure religious-based insults which set seed for the remainder of the holiday. 

“Amelia you smell like God”
“Oliver, you smell like Jesus’s beard!
“Amelia. You smell like the New testament”
“Oliver, you smell like a stable”
“Amelia, you smell like the 9th commandment”

You can imagine how tedious this got over time.

I went over to the patio doors, and in her excitement, Amelia ran ahead of me in an effort to get out onto the balcony first and ran face-first smack into the glass doors. I couldn’t believe it. We’d only been in the room for a minute and already she’d injured herself! Luckily there was no blood or anything and her ego was bruised more than her nose. I gave her a cuddle and she stopped crying and we opened the doors to discover the best view we could have hoped for! Granted it was very dark at this point, so the actual view wasn’t great… but I could make out trees… and grass…. Not a car park in sight! We had a savannah view!   
We were given room 4230 which is the floor above the one I requested through Touring Plans. It is right over the top of what I’ve heard people call the “people pen”. I’m not sure what they use the pen for as it was never occupied while we were there. Certainly not for herding people! The view was probably not what you’d get if you booked a savannah view, but seeing as we only booked a standard, we were chuffed to bits. I got my camera out and took a photo to see if it picked anything up. I didn’t expect it to as it was pitch black, but I was astounded to find there were actually giraffes right outside our balcony! 

We looked around the room a bit more and discovered that we had Disney toiletries. There was speculation before we went that the resorts were eradicating them in favour of wall-mounted dispensers like you might find in Premier Inn. I was pleased to see this wasn’t the case.
We decided to leave the unpacking until later and go and explore the resort a bit more and get something to eat. We went out onto the savannah and also took a look at the pool. It was very dark, so we couldn’t see much, but we were excited about staying here. It was a beautiful resort.

Amelia really wanted to go in the pool but I said we’d see how she felt after some dinner. We headed over to the Mara and got our first quick service. First of all, we picked our resort mugs. Purple for me, red for Paul and pink for Amelia which all matched our magic bands. They didn’t have an orange to match Oliver’s magic band, so he picked up a blue one. At the Mara, we had to go up and order our food and were given a receipt and a pager. Then we had to show our receipt and pay at a checkout and wait for the pager to go off when the food was ready. So after ordering our food, off we went to pay. You’d think we’d be used to the Dining plan by now, but it seemed that three years away from Disney had turned us back into amateurs as we couldn’t get it right. We thought we could only get an entrée and a drink now that the dining plan had changed to 2 snacks, but when we went to the checkout, the CM said we also needed to have a dessert each. So, we went back over and picked desserts, then back to the CM who said that Amelia had to have a drink and a dessert from the kid's section, so back over we went. We must have gone backward and forwards about three times. Luckily there was no one behind us. I joked that he must be able to tell it was our first day and he smiled and said we were fine. 
So finally, we were paid up, and our pager went off before we’d finished paying/using our dining credits! It was quiet in the Mara, being so late we had the whole restaurant to ourselves, save for a couple of people. The kids picked a table over by the window and we scoffed our food, now starving after our long travel day. I had a turkey sandwich which was HUGE and crammed with turkey. Paul had an angus cheeseburger, Oliver had a pepperoni flatbread and Amelia had chicken tenders and fries. Unfortunately, I only manage to snap pics of my sandwich and you can see Amelia’s below too. The boys had already started to demolish theirs before I had a chance!

Turkey sandwich


Amelia with her chicken tenders.

For dessert, we had zebra domes and Oreo cheesecakes and Amelia had a yoghurt drink. The zebra domes were amazing and I can see why everybody on The Dibb raves about them!

After dinner, we decided we’d take a slow walk back to the room. Thankfully Amelia had now forgotten that she wanted to go swimming and after getting back to our room, she helped me unpack while Paul went to find a smoking area and Oliver went to explore the arcade and to see if he could find the movies around the pool area. Once I’d found the case with her pyjamas on the top, I got her ready for bed and she climbed up into her top bunk and fell asleep almost instantly. I continued unpacking and was almost finished when Paul and Oliver returned. How convenient! We had a drink on the balcony and listened to the strange sounds coming from the savannah. I have no idea what made those sounds! I backed up today's photos and videos on to my hard drive, put the camera batteries on charge and we all went to bed, excited for what tomorrow will bring!

*********************
The Mara
4 Quick service credits | Tax & Gratuity $ 0
Would have cost $133.64 (including resort mugs)
Steps today: 4963
*********************

If you’d like to see this day in video form, you can watch today's vlog: