Doc
14-06-2004, 16:54
Earlier this year, my family and I took our first trip to Florida.
My wife and I, our six month old baby girl, and my wife's parents.
It really was a last minute decision to go, we only booked the flights in January, a real spur of the moment thing. We chose the US primarily because we thought it would be clean, different, everyone speaks English, and we wouldn't have to sit on a beach all day. Our usual holidays include places like Thailand, Bali, Vietnam, so this would really be something very different.
Living in Scotland, we picked up the first flight on the Saturday from Edinburgh to Gatwick with BA. This was the start of our misadventures. On arrival at the airport, we found we had left a bag at home! A carefully packed bag with all the baby's things (nappies etc) lay in the bedroom at home.
After much arguments, 'you left it', 'no I didn't, you did' etc .....we decided we didn't have time to go back for it, and had to fly on to London.
Arriving at Gatwick we collected our bags (for some reason BA don't provide connections for bags to Virgin at Gatwick), and plodded up to the Boots chemist for some supplies. Over to the other terminal we checked in for the later Virgin flight to Orlando. Checked in okay and the flight left on time.
But to continue the theme, our prebooked seats had a broken skycot, and the man sitting next to my wife in the centre, was at least six foot tall, 25 stone, and spread over two seats. After getting very upset with the stewardess (over the broken skycot), we managed to get moved to another bulkhead seat.
Virgin gave the couple that moved for us, a bottle of champagne, but I think they needed more that that. The look on their faces when they saw the gent sitting next to them was priceless, we felt so sorry for them.
Flight was okay, but the plane seemed a bit old, and I really didn't think much of Virgin at all (poor service, poor food, and the old 'stewardess's need a rest, put the seatbelt sign on' trick)
So arrival at Orlando...... I guess my first impression of the US was rather clouded by our experience of the airport. What's with this pick up /drop off /pick up /search your luggage all the time ?
By this time baby was very upset, having not really slept on the plane at all. I mean, could you sleep in what looks like a coffin?
Down to collect our van from Dollar, and surprise surprise, they had no vehicles ready. I should have guessed by all the angry people besieging the desk. TWO hours later we finally managed to get the car, and set off towards our villa at Cumbrian Lakes, whereby we then proceeded to get lost! After landing at 6pm we finally got to the villa at 10pm.
During the next nine days we did all the usual stuff -
Epcot - nice but very large
Animal Kingdom - our favourite - plenty of shade and not many queues
Univeral Studios - long queues and rain
Shopping and more shopping
Winter Gardens - different
All you can eat breakfasts every day - and some great food in the evenings.
We loved it
So on the 17th of March we drove down to Miami for three nights. Note the date here, it made the first night very interesting!
Of course, on arrival at South Beach we found the hotel didn't have a booking for us! For some reason Expedia hadn't sent the reservation to the hotel, and at 7pm, with a small baby in tow, we had to take the only room left.
So we all crowded into the room, luckily it had a king bed, a single bed and a cot. After some food, we settled down for some sleep, and all hell broke loose outside.
Our room was right on the beachfront, and the St Patricks day celebrations started early, and continued right through till 6am.
We may as well have slept in the road.
The next day all was fixed, and we moved to two rooms at the back of the hotel.
For the next two days, we checked out the ZOO, Little Havana (where we got a little lost) and trekked and shopped around the SoBe area.
Once again we loved it .
All too soon we were at Miami airport on our Virgin flight to Heathrow and then hom
My wife and I, our six month old baby girl, and my wife's parents.
It really was a last minute decision to go, we only booked the flights in January, a real spur of the moment thing. We chose the US primarily because we thought it would be clean, different, everyone speaks English, and we wouldn't have to sit on a beach all day. Our usual holidays include places like Thailand, Bali, Vietnam, so this would really be something very different.
Living in Scotland, we picked up the first flight on the Saturday from Edinburgh to Gatwick with BA. This was the start of our misadventures. On arrival at the airport, we found we had left a bag at home! A carefully packed bag with all the baby's things (nappies etc) lay in the bedroom at home.
After much arguments, 'you left it', 'no I didn't, you did' etc .....we decided we didn't have time to go back for it, and had to fly on to London.
Arriving at Gatwick we collected our bags (for some reason BA don't provide connections for bags to Virgin at Gatwick), and plodded up to the Boots chemist for some supplies. Over to the other terminal we checked in for the later Virgin flight to Orlando. Checked in okay and the flight left on time.
But to continue the theme, our prebooked seats had a broken skycot, and the man sitting next to my wife in the centre, was at least six foot tall, 25 stone, and spread over two seats. After getting very upset with the stewardess (over the broken skycot), we managed to get moved to another bulkhead seat.
Virgin gave the couple that moved for us, a bottle of champagne, but I think they needed more that that. The look on their faces when they saw the gent sitting next to them was priceless, we felt so sorry for them.
Flight was okay, but the plane seemed a bit old, and I really didn't think much of Virgin at all (poor service, poor food, and the old 'stewardess's need a rest, put the seatbelt sign on' trick)
So arrival at Orlando...... I guess my first impression of the US was rather clouded by our experience of the airport. What's with this pick up /drop off /pick up /search your luggage all the time ?
By this time baby was very upset, having not really slept on the plane at all. I mean, could you sleep in what looks like a coffin?
Down to collect our van from Dollar, and surprise surprise, they had no vehicles ready. I should have guessed by all the angry people besieging the desk. TWO hours later we finally managed to get the car, and set off towards our villa at Cumbrian Lakes, whereby we then proceeded to get lost! After landing at 6pm we finally got to the villa at 10pm.
During the next nine days we did all the usual stuff -
Epcot - nice but very large
Animal Kingdom - our favourite - plenty of shade and not many queues
Univeral Studios - long queues and rain
Shopping and more shopping
Winter Gardens - different
All you can eat breakfasts every day - and some great food in the evenings.
We loved it
So on the 17th of March we drove down to Miami for three nights. Note the date here, it made the first night very interesting!
Of course, on arrival at South Beach we found the hotel didn't have a booking for us! For some reason Expedia hadn't sent the reservation to the hotel, and at 7pm, with a small baby in tow, we had to take the only room left.
So we all crowded into the room, luckily it had a king bed, a single bed and a cot. After some food, we settled down for some sleep, and all hell broke loose outside.
Our room was right on the beachfront, and the St Patricks day celebrations started early, and continued right through till 6am.
We may as well have slept in the road.
The next day all was fixed, and we moved to two rooms at the back of the hotel.
For the next two days, we checked out the ZOO, Little Havana (where we got a little lost) and trekked and shopped around the SoBe area.
Once again we loved it .
All too soon we were at Miami airport on our Virgin flight to Heathrow and then hom