Final thoughts (Day 21)

A few words on today’s events (which now happened yesterday) and some final thoughts about the holiday to come.

It’s time to go…

Sitting on the plane ready for take off. A slight delay, for some unknown reason and the kids were getting a wee bit restless but they now have their iPads and headphones and are zoned out in their own little worlds.

This morning we packed the last of our hand luggage and we kept finding things we had to take so they were more than a little full by the time we finished. I wasn’t looking forward to the airport checkin - that was for sure! As we drove round to reception we spotted a minivan with the name Remy on it - could it be the same Remy that taxied us around last time we were here two years ago? That would be a little surreal :) Couldn’t see anyone about but as I came out from reception Ann wasn’t in the car but outside it and had her arms wrapped around this guy! It WAS Remy! :) He came and seen the kids and said he remembered us too, it was bizarre. What are the chances? He used to play Bob Marley - Legend in his taxi all the time so once we got back on the road, we stuck on No Woman, No Cry, live at the Stanley Theatre (one of my favs) for some nostalgic beats :)

Golden Corral for lunch before hitting the airport, which was probably a better choice than the over-inflated prices of an airport Burger King and Grace are loadsa fruit (as well as marshmallows) so that was pretty good. I stuffed my face with chicken, rice, pizza and salad - too much really but it’ll be the last time before the detox starts on Saturday (maybe Sunday or even Monday. MONDAY! EEEK! O_O).

As we’d already had a trial run to the airport getting there was a piece of cake. Dropped the car off then had our bags (5 large cases & 6 hand pieces of hand luggage in total) transported to the looong Thomas Cook check-in line to await our fate. Patrick the oldest and strongest boy of our little clan suddenly developed a complete lack of strength and couldn’t even manage the lightest bag… apparently. Like packhorses, we struggle to the front of the line and then put our cases on the scales.

1st case… over.

2nd case… over.

3rd case… on the line.

4th case… under.

And the 5th case with one eye closed… Not just over but over the max!

Oh dear. I remembered that we put my laptop in the last one so I asked if I could take that one as hand luggage, she agreed and that then brought it close to our overall limit, which after a second or two she accepted. Next the hand luggage and the first came in at nearly double the allowance but we convinced her that the other bags were really light (which they so weren’t) and she gave us a pass. Aaaand relax! Through security with no real issues and into duty free to get some goodies! :) Or not. Their card machine was broken so it was cash only - still managed to grab a bottle of Gentleman Jack. There were more than a few unhappy Scottish folk though! :P

And so here we are again. Two hours to go until we land and after the kids tossing and turning, any sign of sleep is now a lost cause. Grace is so disorientated with the time that she asked why we were doing ‘backwards eating’ after getting breakfast on the flight, not realising it was a new day! :’) I think it’ll take a while to cycle back into a proper routine - I don’t have that luxury however, I’ve only got two days until I’m back to the grind. My work login expired a while back too so I haven’t had any work email for about a week - not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing!

Woody’s Round-up!

Collected some info from everyone just like last time about favourite things from the holiday which I’ll now disclose. I’m going to make sure I put together a video of all the photos and clips we took too, though it might take a while to produce (well I do have a spanking new PS4 to play now, don’t I? :)

Dad

Favourite Day: Universal (first time)

Favourite Rides: Harry Potter, Spider-Man, The Simpsons & Canyon Coaster (Wonderworks)

Favourite Food: Oriental Chicken… AND pitchers of Margherita! (Millers Alehouse)

Least Favourite: Typhoon lagoon storm and RTC afterwards

Famous Last Words: Fantastic holiday with the family in Florida!

Mum

Favourite Day: Too many to choose

Favourite Rides: Too many to choose

Favourite Food: Fish & Chips (Friendlys)

Least Favourite: The storm after The Simpsons Ride at Universal

Famous Last Words: Had the most fantastic time, I just loved every minute of it. Just lovely for all the family to be together.

Ann

Favourite Day: Magic Kingdom (first time)

Favourite Rides: Escape for Gringott’s, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

Favourite Food: Dine with Shamu

Least Favourite: Packing, too many toys purchased!!! :)

Famous Last Words: Loved it, now looking for our next adventure!

Patrick

Favourite Day: Magic Kingdom (second time)

Favourite Rides: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

Favourite Food: Asian Salmon (Perkins)

Least Favourite: Nothing

Famous Last Words: I loved it from the first min to the last minute and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world

Robert

Favourite Day: Orlando Eye, Ripleys, Aquatica & Hollywood

Favourite Rides: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

Favourite Food: Breakfast buffet (Hotel)

Least Favourite: Not spending enough time at Typhoon Lagoon because of the weather.

Famous Last Words: (TBC)

Grace

Favourite Day: Wonderworks

Favourite Rides: Canyon Coaster

Favourite Food: Chocolate Frog

Least Favourite: Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

Famous Last Words: Does it go down? Does it go fast?

And finally…

Yeah it’s been a fantastic holiday and the extra week really made a big difference, even though we were still running about manic for most of it. Here are some little thoughts and bullet points about our time here.

The Family. Wouldn’t really have been the holiday it was otherwise and having my mum and dad has been amazing again. Yes there were arguments, tantrums, tears and the rest but that all par for the course aint it? :) The aim was to create some really special memories for us and the kids and I think we accomplished that. So grateful to be able to give them the opportunity to experience that, just like I did :)

The Car. Or should I say, The BEAST! Probably the best purchase of the holiday really. It made things so much easier and the driving although a little daunting at first was actually really simple to understand and the roads are well signposted to all the parks (though GPS did sometimes help). Kudos to Ann though, she did a majority of the driving and she was great with it (it also allowed me to have a few beers when we drove to places at night :). There was more than the fair share of maniacs on the road though and even some pedestrians didn’t seem to notice or care about our behemoth of a vehicle.

The Food. It was great as always and I didn’t have put any restraints on myself this time around (unlike last, where I was keeping at least one eye on what I was consuming). Due to this I’ll need to put in a few extra runs and eat a little better over the next few weeks :) The price of food was also largely different from last time and we found it a whole less cost effective this time around, with a few exceptions (Millers being one). Still cheaper or about on par with the prices in the UK though and we did have a great deal more variety in terms of both restaurants and food, so its still a big plus :). Favs included Snow Crab in Millers and the Mahi burger in Hooters.

Parks and To-do Lists. We had a schedule and stuck to it… mostly. This meant we got to do a lot of the stuff that was recommended by other travellers and things we had never done. It was a richer experience for it, so all those weeks of planning made a big difference. The only thing we couldn’t manage really was the train in Magic Kingdom, even though we were there 3 times. My favourite is still Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey though, I caught myself smiling uncontrollably more than once, so Im glad we got to do this a few times while we were here. In fact, the whole of the Harry Potter experience, including Hogwarts Express and Escape from Gringott’s was really magical (excuse the pun). Other notable mentions included Seven Dwarf Mine Train, Fantasmic & Wishes Nighttime spectacular shows. Those shows where the cherry on top of the icing on the cake for the holiday really :)

The Blog. I found that I didn’t have as much time, this time around to write the blog updates, so most of it hasn’t been proof read and contains glaring and horrific spelling and grammar issues. I was up very late some nights trying to get my updates done, but glad I did. I will go back at some point and amend the previous posts too, so I can then start mocking people about their own grammar issues once more :P

The Internets. Another part of the problem above was due to really poor data and Wifi coverage. It’s been poor and SLOOOW and the only disappointing thing I encountered. It’ll be good to get back to proper High Speed Wifi and Ill never say a bad word about my Three connection ever again! :)

Tea. I haven’t had a single cup since I got here. Not one. So Ill be glad to get back home and get a good cuppa, in fact I might just have tea exclusively for a while (haha, who am I kidding???).

Gaming. With a PS4 and a multitude of games and The Witcher to get back in to (with my sparkling new game guide Patrick bought for me), Im looking forward to finding some time to pick up a controller again :).

Work. Dreading Monday. Its really going to take some time to adjust back into a routine of any sort, but Im glad the kids are on summer holiday now though.

I think that’s it for now. As I write the final words I’m currently at home on my lovely Mac that I’ve missed with its super fast internet and everyone else is sleeping soundly downstairs. It’s truly been amazing. That’s Walt Disney World officially done for a second time and there are now other parts of the world we need to go and explore, but we’ll be back again someday… I just know it! :)