Welcome folks to a very short report on our recent vaction and the dress rehearsal of the new fantasyland!
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The Dress Rehearsal New Fantasy Land Holiday Report 2012 Ooooo lol
- Thread starter C.FERNIE
- Start date
We left on October 12th for a very long journey to the wondeful world of disney! There was my wife, myself, my big bro (who is no more mature than an 8 year old kid, we would find out!) and my mum and dad!
The holiday would start off with a drunken night out in edinburgh and three hours sleep (maybe not a good start!) to our celebration holiday! It was my wife and I's first anniversary (we disneymooned last year at the same time!), my big brothers 40th birthday and my mum and dads 28th wedding anniversary! So we had a lot to celebrate hence the early start!
So after waking up from three hours sleep we headed to Edinburgh airport to board the first of many flights to WDW. From Edinburgh we went to CDG Paris had a 20 minute stop and on to our next plane to JFK New York (thank goodness for thr bags being checked through!) Funnily enough after the last nights celebration we slept most of the way through from Edinburgh to Paris! We flew with Air France, which for the most part was very good! (see later notes lol!). With Air France my dad had opted to upgrade us to Premium economy, which I would highly recomend, for not that much more you get a seat which is much like most airlines business class with free food and drink and lots of space and an excellent seat which reclines to a very comfortable postion for the flight! There was a choice of a lamb and beef stew or duck which were both very nice! Sadly the travel Karma would stop there....
The holiday would start off with a drunken night out in edinburgh and three hours sleep (maybe not a good start!) to our celebration holiday! It was my wife and I's first anniversary (we disneymooned last year at the same time!), my big brothers 40th birthday and my mum and dads 28th wedding anniversary! So we had a lot to celebrate hence the early start!
So after waking up from three hours sleep we headed to Edinburgh airport to board the first of many flights to WDW. From Edinburgh we went to CDG Paris had a 20 minute stop and on to our next plane to JFK New York (thank goodness for thr bags being checked through!) Funnily enough after the last nights celebration we slept most of the way through from Edinburgh to Paris! We flew with Air France, which for the most part was very good! (see later notes lol!). With Air France my dad had opted to upgrade us to Premium economy, which I would highly recomend, for not that much more you get a seat which is much like most airlines business class with free food and drink and lots of space and an excellent seat which reclines to a very comfortable postion for the flight! There was a choice of a lamb and beef stew or duck which were both very nice! Sadly the travel Karma would stop there....
Well JFK International... Anyone tell them they were an international airport????
Well usually I am super impressed by how well international passengers are welcomed and treated by the US Imigration and Airport staff, but JFK was an EPIC Fail! We have never travelled through JFK for connecting flights in the US but it by far was to show how bad it could get!
We enter immigration by being barked at where to go by staff... which led to a very long queue which being british we waited in (we are meant to be good at queing!) unknown to the US we are scottish or more to the point my mum is lol! My mum isnt in the greatest of health so can not stand for long periods of time (and I am not talking about ride lines she stands for them all or if she thinks she cant, she does not join the queue! lol) and so hence the start of a very long wait. Two hours pass in this queue at least ten planes arrive and guess how many immigration officers are on.... ooo ooo THREE! that includes the one for people who live in the US. Funnily enough foreign and locals were complaining! After about two and a half hours we had had enough and complained (we hardly ever complain but hey we were super tired and we thought mum was going to collapse at this point!) so we complained! And guess what..... we are sorry for the delay but tough crap! and the guy walked away! I have never got soo angry he didnt even let my dad and brother finish so i shouted excuse me, which made the whole queue quiet down (and i thought bye bye holiday) and asked for his name and his supervisors name. Strangley enough we got dragged out took the people behind us also and got placed at the front of the queue and again strangely enough more immigration officers appeared to help (nothing like complaining for eveyone!). After we though that management had seen sense at JFK we got called forward only for the immigration officer to make jokes and say it was always like this! Luckily my bro decided to distract my mum or they would have been one less immigration officer! I am sorry but for one of the biggest airports in the world welcoming guests to the US, this was awful one of the worst experiances we all have ever had in an airport! Thank god we had been to the US before because people waiting said they would never come back..... Finally we left Immigration and headed to our next flight to Orlando! ( woop woop!).......
Well usually I am super impressed by how well international passengers are welcomed and treated by the US Imigration and Airport staff, but JFK was an EPIC Fail! We have never travelled through JFK for connecting flights in the US but it by far was to show how bad it could get!
We enter immigration by being barked at where to go by staff... which led to a very long queue which being british we waited in (we are meant to be good at queing!) unknown to the US we are scottish or more to the point my mum is lol! My mum isnt in the greatest of health so can not stand for long periods of time (and I am not talking about ride lines she stands for them all or if she thinks she cant, she does not join the queue! lol) and so hence the start of a very long wait. Two hours pass in this queue at least ten planes arrive and guess how many immigration officers are on.... ooo ooo THREE! that includes the one for people who live in the US. Funnily enough foreign and locals were complaining! After about two and a half hours we had had enough and complained (we hardly ever complain but hey we were super tired and we thought mum was going to collapse at this point!) so we complained! And guess what..... we are sorry for the delay but tough crap! and the guy walked away! I have never got soo angry he didnt even let my dad and brother finish so i shouted excuse me, which made the whole queue quiet down (and i thought bye bye holiday) and asked for his name and his supervisors name. Strangley enough we got dragged out took the people behind us also and got placed at the front of the queue and again strangely enough more immigration officers appeared to help (nothing like complaining for eveyone!). After we though that management had seen sense at JFK we got called forward only for the immigration officer to make jokes and say it was always like this! Luckily my bro decided to distract my mum or they would have been one less immigration officer! I am sorry but for one of the biggest airports in the world welcoming guests to the US, this was awful one of the worst experiances we all have ever had in an airport! Thank god we had been to the US before because people waiting said they would never come back..... Finally we left Immigration and headed to our next flight to Orlando! ( woop woop!).......
Sarotoga Springs was a lovely resort but as we would find it was pretty far from the parks! But anywho it was a lovely setting. Sadly when we got there we were all so tired and in lala land we didnt listen to the lovely check in CM's and wondered off in the wrong direction to our room.... so walked around for 30mins and then decided to ask a CM and turns out our room was only five minutes from the front desk! The room was lovely and we were closely followed by my surprises that I had arranged from the Disney Florist! For my perfect wife I got Cinderellas Tiara and slipper, my big bro got a chocolate bar birthday cake with a balloon and my parents got champagne and chocolate for them! I got a few others to just to make the holiday start with a very merry micky start!
acrab3t
Active Member
JFK is one of the most unpleasant International airports I have ever been too. Even the domestic services stink. I am sorry you had such a unwelcoming experiance.
ExtinctJenn
Well-Known Member
I second the apology on behalf of the US (LOL) but will add that my father so hates JFK that even if the flight that has to go through it on his way down is the cheapest, he'll pay more or drive 16 hours to avoid that airport!
there is no need to apologise we love travelling to the USA! just a shame for folk who have not travveled before! to be fair as you will read, customs we found is much like travelling through lala land and didnt feel very secure at any point! that counts for JFK, CDG and Heathrow... think they all thought they were in Alice in Wonderland lol
