Thank goodness, we’re finally here. 11 months after I begrudgingly handed over an extortionate amount of dosh to Fly Thomas Cook (as ranted about here) we’ve started our much needed holiday. 2013 has been an emotional year: Our first grand-daughter, Miley-Rose, arrived in June, then on October 21st, 30 years and 4 days after I started the job, my employer announced that in April the Outside Broadcast division of the company would close down and we were all to be made redundant. This took the shine off the year somewhat.
We still had the holiday to look forward to, but it seemed rather strange that I would go on holiday as an employee with a job that I love, then the day after we come home I’ll be unemployed! So my countdown to the holiday has been rather unwelcome as I could only associate it with looming unemployment. The last few months have been quite stressful and I’ve been dreading coming over to Florida with no positive outcome, work wise. Thankfully the last few weeks have been a whirlwind culminating in me signing a contract the day before we took off, and I’m going home to a week off then starting a new career at the brand spanking new ITV Studios in Media City, Salford. To say this is a good result is massive understatement!
So, happy and smiling we get to Manchester Airport at a very civilised 9am on Saturday for the 12.15 MAN-MCO direct with Fly Thomas Cook. It went so smoothly it was surreal. Check in was easy, we actually got the seats we’d booked, we took off bang on time, the veggies got their veggie meals, this was, to us, a totally unique experience. In-flight entertainment was adequate, although I didn’t make use of it myself having loaded some stuff onto my tablet to watch – the unusual film “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and a couple of episodes of “Shetland”. I can’t say for sure what films were on the seat-back TVs but I do know Disney’s “Frozen” was showing as I think Kayleigh watched it 3 times during the flight! Our littlest passenger, Miley-Rose, was as good as gold and either slept or smiled for the whole flight.
The seat back TVs aren’t “on-demand”, they use the system whereby all the films, and I think there were 3 or 4 to choose from, start at the same time, you have no control over start/stop/pause etc., the films just run until the longest film has finished, then they all start again. Whilst I’m doing a review of the flight, in flight meals were: a lilliputian serving of bangers ‘n’ mash or an equally minute roast chicken dinner, and the veggies got some kind of soufflé thing with leeks. A tiny chocolate and banoffee mousse dessert followed by 2 crackers with 2 different cheeses. Several hours later we got one cheese and pickle roll and an egg roll, both equally tiny, and a delicious scone with jam and clotted cream (so it claimed on the tub). Only tea+coffee were included, all other drinks had to be paid for, as far as I could tell.
So, about 9 hours later we touch down at Orlando International, and appear to take the airport authorities by surprise. There’s a bit of a delay whilst negotiations seem to be taking place over why 300 people have just arrived in the USA. We wait a while then once off the plane scoot over to immigration where thankfully we are soon being processed by a lady who informs us that the airline messed up. Obviously you don’t get much info out of these people, but I got the impression she was having to type an awful lot of details into her computer about us all, the sort of stuff I had submitted as Advanced Passenger Information a couple of weeks earlier. Thankfully we had been sat very close to the door on the plane so we were soon through. I think the people at the back of the plane may still be there!
We’ve never arrived at Orlando International as international passengers before, having always previously arrived as domestic passengers from a hub, so we were a bit confused when we were told to put our bags back onto a conveyor belt, having only just recovered them all from the carousel. Seasoned MCO users will know of course that this is to save us having to lug them around for the next few miles between the arrival terminal and the airport exit, most of which we travelled by monorail. We were reunited with our bags once more at another carousel, situated rather conveniently opposite the Alamo Car Hire counters. Now, I had filled everything in on the Alamo “Save Time” website, and was armed with a bar code to scan into a machine. I can only assume I found the wrong machine! It was tedious, there was no bar-code scanner on the machine I was using, I had to re-enter virtually every bit of info, and more. Eventually it spat out almost a toilet-roll of paper and told me to go to the garage and pick a car. By car it meant of course a bloomin’ big minibus. For the first time we step outside into the heat. Whoa, THIS is Florida baby, yeh!!! It’s HOT, and SUNNY, and so unlike Manchester it is unreal. We go hunting for huge vans, and after almost no deliberation at all we unanimously decided to have a white one, and for the simple reason that it was on the end of a row we chose a Chevrolet Express. The alternative model was a Ford 350 I think, and in case you didn’t get the joke, they are ALL white.
Half an hour later we’re pulling up at my friend’s villa at Bridgewater Crossing in Davenport. This is the 3rd time we’ve stayed here, and we love it. As we’re hauling all the stuff into the house the property manager guy comes over to say hello (he lives rather conveniently in the house opposite) and unfortunately he has to tell us that the pool heater, which is literally brand new this week, has gone bang and emitted smoke. This is a familiar occurrence to us having seen a previous pool heater go bang at this house a few years ago. It must be us! We tell him not to worry, we’re sure it will be fixed ASAP, and having thrown everything in the house we shoot off to Walmart to buy a Minnie Mouse stroller for Miley-Rose, some essentials for the fridge, pick up some Papa John’s pizza on the way back for supper and then finally collapse into bed.
Tomorrow the holiday really begins.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Philomena
Bookmarks