The kettle must have woken Amelia up and she came running into the bathroom to see me. We went and knocked on the interconnecting room door to Mum, Dad and Tracy’s room. Luckily they were awake and were up and getting ready. Oliver on the other hand was harder to get moving. He said he hadn’t been able to sleep all night because he was so excited!
I gave Amelia a quick bath; I say quick, but it must have taken 15 minutes to run a few inches of water the tap was so slow. Honestly, I could have peed quicker than that tap. I gave her a wash and washed her hair and we dried our hair in Mum’s room as her hair dryer worked fine. Paul showered and got dressed and we were ready by 7:15pm and made our way back down to the Virgin Holidays desk.
There was only one couple in front of us and three people on the desk so I assumed we would get seen to quickly. No such luck. We waited and waited. I think it was about 35 minutes before the couple in front got their issues with Virgin sorted and we moved forward in line. Evidently the other two members of staff worked on the Virgin Atlantic side and couldn’t help us.
We eventually reached the front of the queue and I feared the worse when the woman said we would have to wait until the ticketing department opened as she couldn’t do anything from there. It came to light that Amelia was never issued a seat from the start. Because Amelia’s middle name is Rose and my Mum’s name is Rosina they put 2 and 2 together and came up with 45 and duplicated my Mum’s eTicket so she had two. I find this incredibly strange as for the past 6 months or more we have been checking on our flights online and on the seat map Amelia’s name was on there and we even reserved her seat with the rest of us! Anyway an hour or so passed and she was eventually issued an eTicket and we checked in without any problem. Still a hassle and we felt we had missed out on an hour which could have been better spent in the V Room getting our fill of breakfast!
We made our way through security and stood behind an American couple in the queue whose trolley bag kept falling over on to our feet. The man was absolutely HUGE and had sweat dripping down his back which was soaking through his T-shirt. Ick. I wanted to watch him so see how he managed to squeeze through the security barrier but got distracted whilst collapsing the buggy and trying to keep Amelia under control and missed him. I assumed he got through as he wasn’t wedged in when it was our turn. I think this is the first ever flight I’ve been on when I haven’t been frisked going through the barriers! This time it was Tracy and Oliver’s turn for a pat down as they went through!
After security we bypassed the shops and the extreme crowds and made our way straight to the V Room. Annoyingly there was no window seats left so we got 2 tables near the centre, still with a great view of the planes landing and taking off. We all got breakfast of scrambled eggs (oh my god it was delicious!), bacon, sausages, toast tomatoes, etc and then went up again throughout the morning for pastries, tea, coffee and juice. The apple juice was out of this world. I think it was Copella and was delicious!
Amelia had an assortment of things to eat and she just picked at it really. She had a croissant and a mini muffin and demolished some yoghurt and some of my sausage. A lovely combination!
Tracy had cocoa pops, a chocolate croissant, fresh fruit, tea and orange juice followed by a full English!
Oliver went off to the games room and parked himself in front of a laptop for the rest of the morning. Amelia played in the soft play area and did some colouring with Paul, who chatted some other daddies in there. Then she played with Tracy on the table football and looked at the planes through the binoculars. Mum phoned Nan to tell her we were almost boarding and Dad and I drank tea, played with my new camera lens and watched the planes coming in and taking off and tried to guess what plane we would be having. We could see four virgin planes parked up on the other side of the building. Two of which were 747’s so we assumed one of them would be ours. We were hoping to have Barbarella having read on the Dibb that it was the latest plane to be refitted with the new IFE and that it had flown to Gatwick from Hong Kong last Wednesday. Throughout the week we kept checking on its status on the V Flyer app on my iPhone and it still remained at Gatwick for the duration of the week. We sat with our fingers crossed that we would be on it.
I went in the games room and found a spare computer and logged in to the Dibb just as our flight was called. We all gathered our belongings and made our way to the gate. Oliver and Amelia were given their free K-ID bags which contained a book, a watch, a hat, a colouring book and one of those interchangeable pens where you can move the different coloured leads from the top into the nib. Nothing really to suit Amelia’s age and the hat was too small for Oliver but he did read the books. Luckily I had packed both of them a surprise bag for the plane.
Unfortunately as we looked out of the window as we waited to board we discovered that we wouldn’t be flying on Barbarella today, but English Rose.
Since arriving home and checking the V Flyer, it seems Barbarella has done a lot of Gatwick to Orlando routes since we flew out
My Dad held Amelia and I gave in her pushchair at the gate which I put inside a buggy bag from Kiddicare to keep it clean. Just as we queued to get on the plane, Amelia fell asleep on my Dad’s shoulder. She didn’t wake up for just over an hour so she missed the take off which disappointed me a bit as it’s my favourite part about flying. She sat in between Paul and I in seats 26 H, J and K. Oliver sat next to the window behind me with my Mum and Dad in Row 27and Tracy was in an aisle seat in row 29. Unfortunately we couldn’t get her a seat any closer to us.
When the seatbelt sign went on ready for take-off, a stewardess came over and told us that Amelia couldn’t sit on my lap. She had to be seated in her own seat with her seatbelt on, even though she was fast asleep. I thought this was a little unfair. I have flown on other airlines when Oliver was a toddler when he had to sit on my lap the whole journey and he had a seatbelt which attached to mine. Not sure if Virgin do these but we weren’t given the option. We sat her up the best we could and propped her head up with a cushion. She didn’t even stir!
Take off was exciting as it always is for me! I love the thrust of the engines and watching the blades of grass rush in the wind and then all the little cars and people getting smaller and smaller below
The flight was OK. I didn’t get to watch much on TV. It annoyed me that you can’t watch a film from the beginning and it can’t be paused. One of the reasons we were hoping to fly on Barbarella. Hopefully next time we travel all the planes will be updated.
Amelia woke up and was a little confused when I showed her out the window of the plane. All week we’ve been telling her we’re going in an aeroplane and she points to the sky. Now we were actually in the sky and I don’t think she knew what to make of it! She was SO good on the plane. She played on my DS for a bit on her Peppa Pig game, played with the mini playdoh tubs I brought with us, jigsaw puzzles, colouring, etc. She watched some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse without sound as she wouldn’t keep her earphones on and had another sleep on me a bit later on. She never kicked the seat in front or cried or anything. I was so proud of her.
The in flight meals were bearable and tasted a lot better than they looked.
The smell of the hard cheeses in the pasta as they were being cooked made me feel a bit queasy though, which is strange as I love parmesan, which I assume is what it was.
Paul, Mum and Tracy had the penne pasta in a creamy sauce with roasted Mediterranean vegetables and hard Italian cheese. They said it was nice. I apologise for the quality of the next few photos. They were taken on my phone.
Oliver and I had the sausage and mash with what was supposed to be green beans, but it actually came with carrots which I preferred anyway.
Dad had the chicken in a creamy leek and mustard sauce with broccoli and potatoes (sorry no pic).
And Amelia had a childrens meal which consisted of a pasta bolognese, squeezy peach and apricot puree, a low fat strawberry yoghurt, a kit kat and orange juice with no straw. We did ask for one though and they brought her one. She didn’t touch the pasta which is strange as it’s her favourite at home, but devoured the yoghurt, puree and kit kat.
We were all pleased with all meals. Sure it was no dinner at the Ritz, but we were flying 38000 feet in the air and didn’t expect anymore. The best bit though was the Uglies chocolate caramel dessert. OH. MY. GOD! They were delicious! I could probably eat my weight in them!
When Amelia had a nap I watched the end of Woman in Black which I couldn’t get into having missed the first half and an episode of Modern Family which I’d already seen. Paul and I both watched Jack and Jill which was really funny.
When she woke up, afternoon tea was served which was nice. It consisted of cheese and onion finger sandwiches which I don’t like and a scone with clotted cream and jam which Paul doesn’t like, so we swapped and he had my sandwich and I had his scone.
The kids version was a cheese and chutney ciabatta roll and a scone and jam. I thought this would have been better for the adults with the finger sandwiches for the kids, but it wasn’t the case.
We also had a skinny cow ice cream; kind of like a mini milk covered in chocolate. I wasn’t keen on it and you can imagine the mess Amelia’s clothes were in as we prepared to land. She was COVERED! And silly mummy forgot to put spare clothes into her Trunki. Doh. If there’s one tip I would give parents travelling with toddlers is to pack spare clothes! I do this whenever we go anywhere, so I don’t know what made me forget today. I’m one of those people who care a lot about how my children look and I can’t stand them being dirty. I tried turning her t-shirt inside out but it was just as bad on the other side.
We flew over what I assume was Daytona beach...
The only time Amelia did cry was when we were coming in to land. When the buckle up sign came on, she refused point blank to have her seatbelt on, having spent the last few hours playing with the buckle there was no way she was having it done up.
She threw a bit of a tantrum but I distracted her with the sky outside as we flew through the clouds... lots of clouds. As we made our descent there was a lot of turbulence and it occurred to me that we must be flying through a storm cloud or something as the clouds were now dark grey. I could hear people oofing and crying out with each bump as we got thrown about and the echoes of small children screaming all the way down the plane. It was pretty bad. Amelia didn’t react too badly to it though. I kept on a happy face and kept saying “oooh look at all the clouds! Bumpety bump through the clouds!” She was easily amused by it.
Soon enough we had landed in sunny Florida half an hour ahead of schedule. Woo-hoo!
The heat hit us as we walked through the airbridge into MCO. It was so humid.
As we were seated close to the front of the plane we were one of the first ones off. We all managed to get out of our seats apart from Tracy who was still seated and had to get her bag out of the overhead compartment. Everyone who was standing in the aisle was glued to the spot and wouldn’t budge or let her out of her seat. We got off the plane and Paul grew increasingly edgy as he wanted to get in the immigration queue. He detests waiting for anything and I’d say he has OCD when it comes to time. He HATES waiting around and HATES being more than a minute late for anything. To make matters worse, the Manchester flight arrived at the same time and more people were getting in the queue. We waited for about 5 minutes, although it seemed a lot longer and Tracy came out. We got into the snaking queue of people and within about 30 minutes we were at the front.
On the plane we were told to fill out a separate declarations form for each family with a different surname in the same household. As Oliver has my Maiden name and the rest of us are Cliftons we were undecided what to do, and when we asked the Virgin flight attendant she said to be on the safe side, do a separate form for Oliver in his name.
When we got to the immigration officer he asked why we had two families and two forms as it was one family at a time. We explained our situation and he was really nice and told us we didn’t need two and ripped Oliver’s up. He was LUSH (sorry Paul!). Tall, muscley, tanned with dimples (not that I was looking obviously)
He asked what Paul and I did for a job and he grinned when I said I was a childminder and said “You MIND children??” Then he started talking to Oliver about Harry Potter and said he was a fan and told him the best things to buy in the airport shop. I told him about the teabags, coffee, super noodles and marmite we were smuggling in our cases as I was unsure if I had to declare it. I ticked the yes box on the declarations box and Mum did the same. However the officer said we would be fine and didn’t need to declare it. He signed something on my boarding pass and told me that I was to give it to the guy at the end with my passport, however when we got there he didn’t even look at it and waved us on. We got the monorail to the other side of the terminal to baggage claim. We found our luggage easily enough, although we completely forgot about Amelia’s pushchair. We weren’t allowed to go back through so a Virgin rep went and got it for us. Although even she was unsure where the large baggage came out of. We certainly didn’t see anywhere.
10 minutes later it was found, Amelia was strapped in and off we went. More confusion as Mum and Dad faffed about not knowing whether to put their cases on the belt and collect them the other side or drag them up the stairs with them. No one seemed to be listening to me when I tried to explain where the bags were going. We put ours on and they followed suit. It seemed a bit of a fast really as they only went upstairs. Surely it would be more efficient to just charge less for trolleys and use the lifts. They wanted $5 for a luggage trolley and you only got 35c back for its return!
We left Mum, Tracy and the kids with the luggage outside and planned on meeting them at the kerbside with the car after we collected it. However when we left them we realised only buses and taxis could use that stretch of road. We crossed over to the garages and went to the Alamo building who then redirected us to the Virgin Alamo building. We had already checked in online and assumed it would be as straight forward as everyone on the Dibb had been saying. However, because Paul doesn’t have a credit card in his name and he was the named driver, they couldn’t let us have the car. They wouldn’t take my Dad’s card, even though he was to be the additional driver on the booking and they wouldn’t accept a debit card. I told them that we had used our Cash Passport currency card online which had gone through fine but she wouldn’t accept it. In the end I asked if we could put Dad down as the named driver and use his credit card and put Paul down as the additional driver. She said yes, that’s no problem. Why she didn’t suggest this in the first place I don’t know. Good job I was awake!
So with that sorted and paperwork signed, we were told to go to the third row and choose any car we wanted. I chose a nice shiny black Toyota Sienna. I’m sure it was brand new as it was pristine inside and out and had that new car smell.
I grabbed a car seat from a little block, however when I went to fit it I realised it was rear facing so I took it back and exchanged it for a forward facing one. This area wasn’t manned at all and there was no one to ask. All the car seats were wrapped in plastic bags, clean and well looked after. I fitted it into the car and went back to tell the others that they would have to make their way over with the cases. It was only a short walk across the road. I took Amelia and a suitcase and then Dad went over and brought back the others with help from Mum, Tracy and Oliver. I think it took us 2 trips over the road with 7 cases and hand luggage. Paul is a Tetris master and managed to stack all the cases in the boot. We had to have some hand luggage on our laps and Amelia’s pushchair across the back under everyone’s feet. It wasn’t far to go though so it wasn’t a problem.
We made our way out of the car park and used our villa owner, Joanne’s instructions to find our villa in Lindfields. Amelia got a bit ratty in the car and we realised she must have been thirsty as she none of us had had a drink since we’d been on the plane. We stopped off at a Walgreens on the 192 and bought a case of water, some milk, some cokes, a horrible bottle of stuff for me which tasted like marzipan (its name escapes me) and the only fruit-shoot type bottle of juice we could find for Amelia which happened to be illuminous! At least the E numbers would keep her up until the evening!!
We all felt much better after a drink and Amelia resumed to her usual happy self. We marvelled at the sites and Tracy came up with the crudely named “Wizards Sleeve” for the huge wizard gift shop on the 192 which stuck for the rest of the holiday! Every time we drove past we all shouted Wizards Sleeve! Those of you who watched the most recent series of One Born Every Minute will know what the term means!
To add more stains to Amelia's top, she was sick all down herself and in Grandad's hand. Nice. Don't think the illuminous juice agreed with her! At last we found our villa after driving around the block a few times. The roads in Lindfields were all in loops and it took us a while to find the right one. At last we found it. The key was left in a box which Joanne had given us the code for and it took us a while to find it before I spotted it around the back of the pillar on the porch. I got the key out with no problem, but it took us ages to actually get throught the front door as it was to stiff. I think it just needed some WD40. Eventually it opened and we all went inside to check it out before getting the luggage out of the car!
Some obligatory villa shots...
Living room
Dining room
Our bedroom
This bed was sooooo big and comfortable! I wish I could have taken it home!
Mum and Dad’s room
Tracy and Oliver’s room
Paul unloaded the car and we started to unpack our cases after having a good look around. Joanne really had thought of everything! A huge box of toys, ponchos, swimming nappies, bottles, highchair... everything we could possibly need and the pool was great!
Oliver dug out his swimming shorts and was in like a shot. Amelia really wanted to get in too so I sat on the side with her and we dipped our feet. There was no stopping her though. She wanted to get in and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I didn’t even have time to get a swimming cozzy out of the case. I found her armbands and a swimming nappy and she was in like a flash (with Daddy). She loved it. Bearing in mind it was now 12:30am UK time, I was amazed she was still awake, let alone swimming in the pool!
Oliver did some stunts off the side and I tried to get some action shots, although they didn’t come out too well.
They all got out and dried off. Amelia got in the highchair and had some spaghetti hoops and sausages on toast that I had bought with us. Paul, Oliver, Dad and I decided to go out and bring back pizzas for everyone via Downtown Disney. I wanted to get the kids an autograph book and an ears hat each. It was packed down there and it took over an hour to get to World of Disney and out again (Paul parked in West side instead of marketplace!) I bought Oliver a Disney baseball cap, an autograph book and pen and a POTC ears hat, and a pink ears hat, princess autograph book and a pen for Amelia. Think it came to $81 including tax. Paul had a mild heart attack!
Before we came away we'd made a pact not to eat anywhere that you can get in the UK. However we got back to the car and as it was so late we decided to go to McDonalds for a takeaway as it was closest and we didn’t really know where to go for pizzas. It took forever!!! There was a massive queue that didn’t seem to go down at all. We were starting to get tired now and Paul told us to sit in the car while he got the food. He eventually came out about 15 minutes later. So much for fast food! We pulled out of the car park at 10:35pm.
Mum was in a huff when we got back and didn’t want anything to eat as she was too tired, but still ate the chicken nuggets we got her.
Oliver finished his happy meal, brushed his teeth and fell into bed at about 11:30pm. He did so well to stay up so late as really it was 4:30am UK time and he didn’t sleep on the plane.
Mum Dad and Tracy followed him and Paul and I quickly unpacked the rest of our cases and climbed into bed at about 1am. When I say climbed I meant that literally. That bed was so high and I’m only 5’1”!
I think I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow...
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