So lets go…
May the 4th be with you- Travel Day
Our alarms were set for 3:45am as we excitedly got ourselves packed and into bed for a reasonable hour……WHO AM I KIDDING!? There’s a 145% chance that I didn’t sleep one single bit!
But anyway… We “woke up” at 3:45am and showered and had a light breakfast and cup of tea (of course in a Disney mug). I don’t know about everyone else but I can never eat breakfast so early but I always end up sooooooo hungry about an hour later! Little did I know I would never be less hungry than I was on this holiday ever again…but more on that later!
My partner was driving us to the train station about an hour away so we needed to be setting off at 4:30am in-case there were any overnight road works. This helped us so much so that we didn’t have to leave a car there for 2 weeks but bless him he had to turn straight back round and drive back then go straight off to work for the day!
Turned out we had plenty of time. (We do have a train station in our town however the earliest train out is 7am..I know…Crazy. So we drove to the main city station to get the all night airport train)
We arrived at the station around 5:35am and located our platform and got another cup of tea. If the rest of our group didn’t know we had arrived they certainly did once we had run screaming down the platform shouting “IT’S HERE, WE’RE FINANLLY GOINGGGGG!!!” along with everyone within a 3 mile radius…teehee.
Our train arrived perfectly on time and we set off at 5:55am. The journey was non eventful as we all chattered and napped most of the way. We arrived into the airport station and went to our terminal and through security. Now usually…I’m one of those that goes through security without a hitch whereas every around me bleeps through the scanner but today was my day. Alarms beeping, in and out of scanners, bag searches!! Well I can tell you now I’m one to panic so I am THE worst person for them to do a random selection of for extra checks!!! This involved a very stern lady asking me to tell her exactly the contents of my hand luggage etc etc and she wanted to do extra checks…turns out my curling tong was in there and they didn’t know what it was……STUPID CURLERS!! Anyway…….20 traumatic minutes later we were through and ready for some breakfast- of course, only after we made our way through duty free and had a few spritz of perfume we found one of the only restaurants in our terminal Jennys Spinning wheel??!! I think?! We had eggs on toast (rubber eggs.YUK) and booked our Universal tickets on the Ipad. We were only in there around 20 mins before our gate number was called so we really didn’t have that much waiting around time before we were on our way!!
All I will say after both the journey there and back is I will NEVER fly with Virgin again. Absolutely pathetic planes and food. Now I can usually get comfortable anywhere but there was zero chance any of us would be getting comfortable at any point during either flights. It was out of sheer luck on the way out myself and my sister bagsied a middle row to ourselves and got 2 seats each. No such luck on the way home. Flight was fairly turbulent throughout and had to remain with seatbelts on but other than that was fine. We were just excited to get there!!!!! I watched Florence Foster Jenkins and Moana (love it) and listened to my music for a while and we arrived into Orlando local time 2:10pm.
Security was an absolute farce. Sorry I know it’s important to know who is coming in and out of the countries and make sure its safe for everyone but why on EARTH do you have to go through passport check using machines to then wait another hour for someone to do the exact same thing at a desk?!? Is this only a UK flight thing or is it for everyone?! It was absolutely boiling in that room and there was 4 desks open …..out of 25!!! The mind boggles. However… once we managed to get through the other side we found our way to the Magical Express. It was nice to be using a different queue to the All Star Resorts for once…especially because they were filled with Cheerleaders (which I have nothing against and we didn’t encounter any problems with throughout our stay- I was just very tired and the chanting may have sent me over the edge!) we waited about 15 mins for our bus.. the process seemed very smooth for us and we were on the bus and at Riverside Resort in 30 mins.
Very tired bunnies!
Unfortunately because of the road works we didn't go under the sign so this is my pathetic attempt at getting a photo!!
So after reading this back as I’m typing I have done SO much complaining really but now onto the good stuff. This resort is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! I am in love with it and I don’t feel like I could ever want to stay anywhere else. We were in block 37 of the Alligator Bayou section in room 3704. Initially we thought this would be a little bit secluded and too far from the main block but in reality it was perfect. We had a quiet pool right next to our block which we used daily and the North Terminal bus stop was basically on our doorstep. Very good location for people who don’t use the main pool and only use the food court for breakfast. The other two rooms we had were 3703 and 3753. By the time we were all settled into our rooms it was around 6pm so we decided to have a little mooch around the grounds and head up to the dining hall for a quick service dinner and to get our refillable mugs.
Just a little snap on the way to the main building
My favourite offering was the “make your own salad” bar. They were divine and you got so much of it! It’s nice to know and you can tell other people who haven’t been that you don’t have to eat unhealthily while you’re there. There is so much on offer including healthy options...although the ranch dressing I bathed it in probably had a fair few calories in….! As far as I can remember the rest of the group got 2 x large pizzas to share, 2 x chicken tenders and chips (fries) and some other offerings from the grill and mum got salad with me! Sorry I don't have any pictures from the food this night. Don't worry though there will be plenty food pictures later on! After a long day for everyone we thought a reasonable night would be a good idea so we were in bed around 10:30pm.
Did we sleep? Were we refreshed enough for a full day in MK? Stay tuned!