Our First Trip 2009

Our first trip to Orlando was on 25th June 2009 for our Honeymoon.  We decided that we could not go to a place like Orlando without my Son, Oliver, Honeymoon or not, so he came with us.  He was sooooo excited!  For months and months we told him that he was coming on holiday with us, but we were only going to Skegness.  He was excited about this as he loves the beach there, so you can imagine how excited he was about going to Florida!!

My Dad took us to Gatwick airport that morning.  He came in with us and we had a coffee.  Dad couldn't helkp but notice how tense Paul was!  He really hates flying and i've never seen him so quiet! We then said or goodbyes to Dad and went and checked in and headed straight for the V Room.  We loved it in there.  Unfortunately we missed the hot breakfasts, but we have lovely croissants, fresh fruit, prawn salad and freshly squeezed orange juice.  Oliver loved it in the kids room and spent some time on the computers on the Pokemon website while Paul and I watched the planes landing and taking off.  It was a lovely build up to the holiday.

Paul in the V Room

Oliver on his favourite website

Kids fridge in the V Room

Our flight was delayed by an hour and we eventually took off at 15:50pm. We flew with Virgin Atlantic and our plane was Ruby Tuesday.  I was so excited to find out the name of our plane! Here is a view from our window.

Florida strip

The flight wasn't great to be honest. We had constant problems with the in flight entertainment and I had no seat back TV for half of the journey.We landed at Orlando International airport at about 8pm EST.  Customs was a bit daunting.  We had to go to a desk separately and show the officer our passports.  I went to stand at the side of the desk and got told off!  He made me stand in front of him where he could see me.
Then we got to another desk where we could all stand together.  We had to give them a scan of our eyes and were asked what out intentions were in the United States.  We said we were on our honeymoon, expecting him to say congratulations or something, but he didn't.  He was very blunt, and focused on his job which I guess is understandable considering the hightened security since 9-11.  He wished us a happy holiday and we went off through some double doors into the main airport to collect our luggage.  As we got through the doors ANOTHER guy jumped on us and questioned us about our intentions whilst in the USA.  We must have looked dodgy or something!!

This picture of MCO was actually taken on our way home as I forgot to take photos when de arrived in Orlando.

MCO airport (Orlando International)

Getting our cases was relatively straight forward, although ours were the last ones off!  We were all shattered by this point and Oliver and I were almost asleep in our seats/on the floor whilst we waited for Paul to sign the paperwork for our car hire at the virgin desk.  We were booked to have a standard car since there was only 3 of us, but when Paul saw that we were due to have an American equivilent to a fiat punto, he decided to spend $300 to upgrade to a luxury car! I was annoyed at forst, but have to admit, the car was LUSH!  We had a silver Chrysler 300.  The first time I went to get in it I opened the driver's door which was a little confusing!  It took Paul a little while to get the hang of  driving an automatic car AND on the left hand side of the car, and on the right hand side of the road!  We managed to get out of the airport  in one piece....

Our hire car for the fortnight

However.... Half way on our journey to the hotel our SAT NAV gave up.  We tried plugging it in to the cigarette lighter, but it just would not stay on for longer than a second at a time.  We were panicking, it was dark, we were all tired, poor Oliver was asleep in the back of the car... then something terrible happened; We were driving down a highway in the pitch black night and wondered why passing cars were swerving into the outside lanes and flashing their lights at us.... we then realised we were driving on the wrong side of the road!  My life flashed before me and I felt physically sick.  I really don't know how we are still here to tell the tale!  I guess we were lucky that it was late at night and the road wasn't too busy!  Oliver didn't know anything about it when we told him when he woke up.

After lots of stops to different shops and hotels to ask for directions we FINALLY found the hotel.  We also found that we had actually driven past it  about 4 times!  It was located just beyond Arabian Nights dinner show.
The resort was absolutely huge and we got lost trying to find our appartment block! We were so tired when we got there that we fell straight into our beds. It had been a loooong day!