Trip Report What a horrible start to our best trip :) February 2015 - March 2015

Hey all,

This trip report will follow our 2 week vacation from Ireland to Orlando. We have been back for 2 weeks now so I think it's time to delve straight into a TR. I am going to use this post for all my trip report. I apologize in advance if there is a lack of photos and content near the end, I forgot to take notes and was bored of carrying a camera around by then.

I have a pre trip report if you would like to check it out: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/february-march-2015-for-1st-timers-4th-timers.896109/
 

kmmhdisney

Member
Original Poster
DAY 1 - TRAVEL DAY

We had a 5am wake time and we collected our first timers Jas & Jamie by 5:30am. It takes about 45 minutes to get to Dublin airport, we had parked the car in the blue long term car park & was on the terminal bus by 6:15am.

After checking in with Aer Lingus we went to the food court. Our (Rob & I) tradition is to get a big fry at the airport after we check in so we headed to the breakfast place (no idea of the name) I got 2 sausage, 2 white pudding & toast, Robert got a full Irish breakfast, this cost us €20, mental expensive.

We took these horrible early morning pictures of ourselves, no makeup (scary)

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After flying through security in terminal 2 we did not need to wait long for our flight to London Gatwick, as we were sitting at the gate we completed a survey for the Irish tourism board (i think).

On the first flight I decided to sit with Jas as it was only here second time flying and it was a short flight so our seats were at the back of the plane. Robert & Jamie were seating about 7 rows ahead in the aisle seats. Jas was panicking over everything that was happening, it was very cold and a little sleet so the plane was defrosted as we were preparing to leave, every noise that happened she questioned, once in the air we had a little turbulence so I had to work pretty hard to calm her :banghead::banghead:

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On this flight is where the first near death experience occurred. As we were taking off the overhead compartment over Robert popped open, there was cabin luggage slipping down as we went higher, Robert never noticed his predicament, thankfully as the bag was falling out all the people around him shouted a little and he caught the bag before it could hit his head, he stood up mid take off, shoved the bag back in and shut the overhead. Phew that was a close one.

On landing in Gatwick, we had to change terminal buildings, change our boarding cards Aer Lingus had printed for us to ones from British Airways, the J's (Jas & Jamie) grabbed a Starbucks and Rob & I went to boots for snacks and water. We noticed our flight was boarding then so we headed to the Gate. For the first time ever the guy at the gate asked us if we have proper visas, who we were traveling with and did we have return flights. On this flight we all got to sit together (well 2&2) either side of an aisle. I really hate flying economy, one day I'll upgrade and get a fancy seat!! On the up side myself & Robert got a spare seat so we got to have a little more space, this flight was extremely full so we were happy about the space ;)

We each had the seat back TV with a huge amount of films, tv shows, games and music, I was surprised with the amount of films but unfortunately the selection wasn't amazing.

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On the 9 1/2 hour flight I watched Serena (Jennifer Lawrence & Bradley Cooper) and Testament of Youth. The food that was served was a choice of chicken or sausage & mash, I skipped but Robert had the sausage & mash he said it tasted OK. Before we landed we were served Chicken Caesar Sandwich, I ate half it was nice.

Keep tuned in next post for incident number 2!
 

kmmhdisney

Member
Original Poster
So incident number 2 is: about an hour before landing Jamie woke up from his 8 hour slumber (he took a sleeping tablet) after refreshing himself in the bathroom he said he felt a little ill. We were then served sandwiches and water, I convinced him to get the water as he might be dehydrated. He refused to eat or drink so I left him at it. :cautious: Jas got the sandwich and you could see his stomach turning from the smell, again he refused to drink any water :banghead: he started to feel faint and was turning very white, Jas told him to breath into the sick bag it might make him feel a little better. As the flight was starting to decend I sent Robert up to get more water just as the seatbelt sign went back on. Suddenly poor Jamie started to get sick into the bag and it was filling up very quickly. I rang the bell but no air steward came, thankfully one was coming past on the way to her seat and we asked her for more sick bags, she ran back and brought us about 10 with some tissue. He proceed to get sick the whole way until landing, still he would not drink any water.

On landing we joined the immigration q, Rob & I got to use the self service machines as we have been before but the 2 J's had to wait. These machines are amazing it only took us 10 minutes max to clear, was great. When we arrived at the luggage claim our 4 bags were ready and waiting so we collected and waited for the J's to clear immigration. It took them 20-30 minutes after us collecting the bags to be ready.

We proceeded to the area where you hand the people the customs clearance forms and passports. I got through, Robert got through, Jamie got through but Jas got stopped. :facepalm:

Incident number 3: Turns out the person who she attended for immigration stamped her passport but did not stamp the custom form or sign her passport stamp. We had to wait around 15 minutes for them to sort it out. Eventually she was released. She was terrified they were going to deport her, tempers were starting to flair at this point so I wanted to leave the airport as soon as possible.

We had our car hire with Alamo and I got to skip the q and go straight to the garage which is amazing, I highly recommend this. The guy at the garage told us we could upgrade for free to a mini van but we passed on this as I did not fancy driving it. We chose a Nissan Altima in black was very comfy and spacious for the 4 of us and our bags.

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Finally we made it out of the airport and were on the way to our hotel for the next two weeks Rosen Inn at Pointe Orlando.

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As we turned onto International Drive I had a panic moment as I couldn't find Jamie's passport, I searched everywhere, when we pulled up at the hotel I hopped out and searched everywhere for it but I could;t find it. I was freaking out and in a pretty snappy mood. Jamie got in the front seat and looks in the centre console and what did he find, his passport. Phew another incident passed!

We checked in with Ivan, who we found hated his job, he spoke really low and did not want to repeat himself when I said "pardon". We were allocated Block A (which I asked for by email in advance) rooms 1614 (the J's) & 1616 (Rob & I), these were on the 6th floor pool facing.

We dropped off our bags and ran over to Millers Ale House as we were starving.

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kmmhdisney

Member
Original Poster
We got seated and ordered.

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I had 1/2 rack of ribs with fries, was really nice

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Robert had 35 Shrimp & loaded fries

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The J's both had 1/2 rack of ribs with loaded fries

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We all really enjoyed our meal. It was decided that myself and Jas would head to Dollar Tree & Walmart to pick up shampoo, shower gel etc. We hopped into the car and eventually made it to Dollar Tree, it was way further than I expected, I have never been to Dollar Tree so I goggled it on my iPhone and followed the directions. It brought us to this store: International Drive Value Center, 5295 International Dr #400, Orlando, FL 32819, United States.

After getting what we need and driving to Walmart at the opposite end of the road is where incident 4 happened.At 9pm on Saturday 21 February traffic was stop/go and on approaching the grand national dr junction on international drive I was braking and someone ran into the back of me. It was so surreal, it honestly felt like it didn't happen, we were so surprised that it took me a while (probably 10 seconds) to pull over. We pulled off into the car park and thankfully the person who hit us came with us. We got out checked the car and it seemed that only our rental was damaged, The back bumper was cracked and coming away from the body also the plastic on the back lights was also broken. I opened the boot/trunk and when I went to close it, we found out it wouldn't close.

I rang Alamo and they advised we get a police report. Thankfully the guy who ran into me was extremely nice and rang the cops. He was advised that it could be 1 hour before a car could come to us. It turns out at fun spot (which was a block away from us) there was a double shooting and they needed to attend to this before getting to us.

In the meantime Robert & Jamie got a black taxi (which cost $20) and arrived to us. To turn a long story short we waited until 11pm (2 hours after the fender bender) and a really nice cop turned up. After explaining the situation he gave me the police report number after drawing up paper work and advised us as tourists to stay away from the area we were currently standing in across fro the Brazil center, he said some choice words but the message was received. I got back in touch with Alamo to relate the report number and we decided to keep the car, we got the trunk closed with force.

As it was after 11pm and we had been awake nearly 24hours we headed back to our hotel and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Our travel day was extremely stressful the J's both wanted to go home :cry: and I just wanted to sleep. :arghh::arghh:

Next up a much better day, some may say the best day yet ;)
 

Dwarful

Well-Known Member
Oh my goodness. Talk about bad luck overload. Let's hope it all turns around....and I hope your friends don't give up on International Travel.
 

FlaggNL

Well-Known Member
I was waiting for this report! But sad that the start turned out to be so bad!! Looking forward for the rest of the report! Following along!
 

mrdrift

Well-Known Member
Sorry to hear about the accident, the important part is that nobody was hurt. Cars can be fixed. Hopefully you got the insurance so this won't cost you. Keeps your heads up a fun time is around the corner.
 

kmmhdisney

Member
Original Poster
Day 2 - Magic Kingdom

We woke at 07:28am and headed to IHOP for breakfast. I am a huge fan of IHOP so could not wait to eat here again. :) The first table we were seated at had ants at the wall so I asked to be moved to another table.
To eat I had 5 stack of pancakes with bacon, Robert had some omelette thing, Jasmine had Double Blueberry pancakes & Jamie had Chicken and Waffles.

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After a delicious breakfast we headed to Magic Kingdom. The carpark entry was packed, there was so many people heading in at the same time as us. It took us 1 hour from leaving IHOP to parking in Cruella carpark. We headed to the park by the boat which I love, it is slower but totally worth it :)
 

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