Well, after all that planning ahead we hardly did any of it…..but still had a fantastic time
Day One-Christmas Day
Taxi at 5am for our 8.55 flight from Manchester to Sanford…due to arrive 1.15pm ..or so we thought!!!!
Departed over 1 hour late…told some gobbledegook about being given a different flight path due to strong headwinds and that the flight would take 11 hours!!!
As we came into land after a very long day we were told that the company had decided that to conserve fuel they had left behind some luggage(50)….form first queue before immigration to find out if you were affected. Two young kids with lists as long as your arm asked for your name…as I had made the booking I gave our surname…yes we were affected they said…gave us a form to complete and we had to see someone in the luggage area to get $50 compensation per person affected….now you tell me where you can replace your belongings with that on Christmas Day evening????
Form next queue to immigration, then third queue to baggage compensation woman.
We then found out that our surname was not listed so went to luggage carousel…guess what…one bag missing…ALL our bags had been listed under 13 year old friends name!!!!!so back to compen ladies queue where we insisted on 3 times the compensation. We were then told that our bags should arrive at 7pm the following day and be delivered the day after that. We also had to come into International Drive for a further $100 per person on the Tuesday (day 4)…we got 3 times that after a very long call to the area manager.
So, by the time we got to our villa, after calling at the local Hess garage for a few supplies, we were all very much ready to have a beer and relax….pity it was too cold to get into the pool …but the villa had everything and we were determined to have a good time. We ordered a Chinese to be delivered whilst we were at Champions Gate (Hess) and it was with us within half an hour. After having one meal (no choices, just chicken or lump it) and having to pay for water on the plane, we were now relaxed, well fed, and looking forward to our holiday, even without the Chrimbo pressies in the bag still in Manchester. We put up the tree and other decorations and just chilled.
I lent one of the two OV t-shirts I had to 13 year old friend to use as nightwear as hers was in Manchester….see if I didn’t come on here she would have been stuck!!
Day Two-Boxing Day
Breakfast at Cracker Barrel then shopping at Premium Outlet Mall and Mall of Millenia….Publix on the 27 near us…..followed by a meal in Roadhouse on the 192, as the boys wanted steak and plenty of it.
Day Three - following phone calls to find out if our bag had arrived the previous evening (we were promised a call that never came) we went shopping again, this time to Florida Mall and Point Orlando…followed by a lovely meal at Olive Garden.
Day Four – decided by now having seen the number of people around and the volume of traffic we would not bother with the them parks as we had all been in September…I was a bit put out as I wanted to see the Christmassy things but went with the majority vote. We went to Ice at Gaylord Palms, which was beautiful and the hotel was lovely, would like to have stayed there and tried it out. I had a slight accident when I went down the slide and hubby came down quickly after me and slammed straight into my hip. Tears and a good glare followed. We then went to City Walks for an afternoon meal at Hard Rock Café and a wander round followed by a cigar at bar over the cinema…we always call there. I have never seen as many people during the day around city walk – there were as many people coming away as we’ve normally seen at the end of the day, which confirmed our fears of the parks being full. One party told us they had walked all the way found Universal and not got on one ride so went to IOA and only got on one water ride. Those of you who know about my visit to HRC in September will know we had a bad experience---it’s amazing what a difference a letter form the General Manager and $100 dollars in vouchers does to improve the
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