The OMG my husband is so awesome! Trip report, June 14 *complete*

The day before.

This day was spent like every other, me running around cleaning the house, changing the beds etc, Sy was working and he had things to close up so he was working even longer than usual, grrr!

We managed to leave the house about 7:30pm - which was about 2 hours later than I would have liked but there you go! We dropped the cat off with friends down the road and said a teary goodbye to him before heading over to Sy's parents house, they kindly let us stay with them as they live close to the airport (Sy's mum was also getting up stupidly early to take us to the airport the next morning).

We stopped at a services on the way over as it was getting late and we hadn't managed to have anything to eat. There wasn't much choice as lots of it had closed already for the evening so we settled on a KFC (me) and McDonald's (Sy).

Our tummies feeling suitably filled we headed out to the car and finished on our journey, it took about an hour and a half to get there without the stop, unfortunately our friend who was cat sitting lived in the opposite direction so we had to drive half an hour away from where we were headed. It was no bother, just meant that with us leaving late as well, time was not on our side. We arrived at Sy's parents at about 10:30pm. We brought the cases in and had a drink before bed, we had an early start. Alarm was set for 6am ok, I realise this may not be early for some, but this was very early for me!

Travel day

I was actually awake about 10 mins before the alarm went off so I spent it lying in bed and surfing the internet, before getting up and getting dressed and dragging Sy out of bed kicking and screaming (he went to bed after me and he was still shattered). How anyone can need dragging out of the bed the DAY THEY FLY TO FLORIDA is beyond me, but there you go... We were soon heading out the door with Sy's mum playing taxi. We were just under 3 hours ahead of our flight, we weren't able to do online check-in as Monarch don't offer it (who doesn't have online check-in in this day and age?!) so we wanted to make sure we had time to check in and get some food for the flight. Oh boy, this was the queue we were met with...

Jeeeez.... it was loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong. It might not have looked too bad from here, but this was the queue that was OUT of the queue line. There were 2 desks open for our flight. 2. TWO! For a flight that has 358 passengers. WTAF?!?!?!!!! It was horrendous. We started chatting to the family behind though which helped pass the time. We were in that queue for a total time of 1 hour and 45 mins. That's just crazy. We weren't happy campers.

When we finally got to the front they couldn't find us on the system! As we had booked only a week ago we hadn't been added to the flight, so we then had to queue at another desk to get a reference code and go back to the check-in desks. What a PITA! We were at the other desk surrounded by other people who booked within the last week. All they did was give us a number to give the check-in guys, why they couldn't have just called over to get that code I will never know.

We were eventually checked in with about an hour before take off, our boarding time had already started so no time for breakfast and a mooch round the shops we had to settle for running into boots to get me some food for the flight and we did manage to grab a take out McDonald's breakfast as I was starving before running to the furthest away gate from the terminal. We got there once they had already started boarding but they hadn't got to our row yet so we quickly woofed our breakfast down in time for being called. We found our seats, a row of 3 in the middle of the plane and sat down. That's where things went wrong. I get that we are big people but my shoulders were bigger than the seat, I wont even go there with my butt lol but my shoulders aren't exactly wide. It would be okay though, cause the flight wasn't full and we still had a spare seat beside us, as long as that stayed free we could spread out... the flight was almost full now and seat was still empty, it was all going so well, until 2 big beefy guys got on and started to walk down the plane towards us, 1 was sat next to us and the other on the other side of the aisle. It wasn't comfy but there was a row of 3 completely empty a few rows back and a very nice hostess let us move to those while we were waiting for clearance to push back from the gate. It would have been a VERY uncomfortable flight had we not been able to move. To give you an idea, the other airlines who fly to Orlando on this type of aircraft have 1 less seat per row. Monarch are that greedy that they squeeze another seat in and make you even more squished in. I flew with them in 2008 when I was slimmer and vowed never again then, but when we paid what we did, it was a means to an end that got us to Orlando, and it really wasn't that bad once we spread out in a row of 3.

After a few hours I got out my packed lunch, I already knew I probably wasn't going to be eating the food they served, plane food is never good but with Monarch there is no choice of food, well apart from you either eat it or you don't

I was happy with my food though!

My favourite biscuits in the world there I managed to not eat the entire packet on the plane, they only made it a few days into the holiday though...

The rest of the time passed with me watching movies on my iPad and Sy watching the overhead movie for a bit and napping the rest of the time. When the food finally did come round it was pretty meh, it was chicken which was something but it wasn't what you'd call tasty! I did eat some of it though just to pass the time, eating out of boredom is never good but there's only so much one can do on a 9 hours flight. I did enjoy the little fruit pack though, it had a stick of pineapple and mango inside (along with a few red grapes that got cast off to Sy). I may also have eaten his mango and pineapple too...

The flight was pretty uneventful and very smooth until we got to about 45 mins away when the captain came on to explain that it was going to be pretty bumpy the rest of the way due to storms but it still wasn't that bad.

Landing was smooth and we managed to be on time seeing as we had been late to leave. We were soon through immigration and I collected the bags while Sy was taken off an interviewed as per usual... (he has a visa and not a visa waiver so every time they cart him off and ask him why). He was ages in there this time as there were a lot of people having further questioning so I had managed to grab the cases and still had to wait for ages for him to come out and find me. We were soon walking outside and the wall of humidity hitting us in the face, it was grey and muggy. We headed over to pick up our hire car and before long we were driving out of the airport in a Mazda CX5 SUV. It was a very nice car as it happens, I love that with Alamo you get to choose what car you want rather than just getting given one. Sy chose it and the boy did good.

We were soon out of there and on the road, as we pulled out the heavens opened... Welcome to Florida in the summer! It rained on and off the whole way there. It took about 45 mins. My total highlight of the journey was this badboy...

This was the best pic I could get, honestly. It had ears that when it came to a stop that would pop back up, it even had a face on the front that included whiskers! Only in America would you get a car as awesome as that.

As we started nearing the hotel we discovered that we were in fact STARVING so we decided to stop at Popeye's on the way and get some take out chicken Sy got a Po'boy and I got some chicken fillets, they were as good as I remembered... Oh how I wish I could get a Popeye's back home! We munched them in the car while we went in search of the hotel.

We actually found the hotel really easy along I Drive, in fact it was right next to Tony Roma's which could only be a good thing We stopped outside the reception and went in to check-in. I made sure to be really smiley and friendly and drop into conversation that we were there to celebrate my 30th birthday and the very lovely man upgraded us to a suite with a big king bed! Thank you nice man!!!

This was our room...

The room was really nice, very contemporary looking and I liked the laminate flooring over carpet (though I became to not like it over the week as it was dirty and even after asking twice for it to be washed it wasn't).

We unpacked and called home to let everyone know we had got there safe. It was 6pm local time (11pm to us) and we were nearly falling asleep. Oh dear, if we went to sleep now, come 3am we would be wide awake and ready to go! So we decided to go out to MK - where else?? Magic Bands on and off we went...

We decided to get the boat over even though there was a monorail pulling in, I do love the boat its my preferred way to get in from the TTC.

I snapped a few pics while we waited to set off.

Once we arrived I went to get in line at guest services for them to lick up Sy's DVC AP with his band and also get a new Tables in Wonderland card.

Look at the grey sky...

With TiW card in hand we headed into the parks. Wow, I'm totally not set up for WDW in the busy season...

We were expecting it to be busy but it still took us by surprise. It was a bit manic. Still, it beats being at home It might look grey in that pic, but it was still *SO* hot that we decided there was only 1 thing we could do...

We headed in search of something cool and refreshing, it was needed of course We actually didn't have to queue for very long either, there were only a couple of people in front of us - it was obviously meant to be pretty soon we were sharing one of these beauties...

About 30 seconds later once the Dole whip was scoffed we headed towards Jungle Cruise. I had made some Fastpass+ in case we felt up to heading to the parks tonight and it just so happens that it was the right time now, we had no choice really

I was test driving our new camcorder so I didn't actually take any pics on the Jungle Cruise but I did film lots. If the filming is any good I'll upload some and add the link.

Afterwards we were seriously flagging, we would have loved to do Splash and Thunder mountains as I had the fastpasses for but we were wayyyyy too tired so we instead headed out of the park and back to the car.

It took about 30 mins to get back to our hotel, I probably wouldn't stay on I Drive again if only doing Disney, its just that bit too far away.

Back at the hotel we both pretty much fell into bed shattered.

Day 1 - Animal Kingdom

As per usual we were up stupidly early on our first day, I gave up trying to sleep at 6:30am. We decided to get ready early and head out for breakfast. We left the hotel by 7:30 and went straight to Bob Evans along the 192. We've been to Orlando in June before, it's BUSY. We've had to queue for restaurants for ages, so we weren't prepared for the place to be EMPTY. Like, totally empty! There was one other table with people on, and us.

We had the same waitress as when we were here in September, she seemed pleased we remembered her when we told her. Our food was yummy and plentiful but somehow we managed to eat it all... I dunno where we put it... (I do really, in our fat tummies!)

Breakfast over in record time we then headed over to animal kingdom. We were here before opening (a first for us) and boy were the queues big! We had about 15 mins to wait before they let us in.

Once through we headed straight over to the safari, which given that we were among the first in the parks, was a walk on. If you have never been on the safari first thing - YOU HAVE TO! I've been near park opening and near close and never seen the animals so active! I took about a million pics so here are just a few for you to skim past

Safari done without the need for fastpass I quickly rearranged our fastpass+ for another attraction. We decided to head to rafiki's planet watch while the park was still quiet, we were secretly hoping to get a few pics with some characters u there without massive queues... We were the only ones on the train up there, we took this as a good sign?

We wandered around like we were the only people in the park - we certainly were the only people at Rafiki's planet watch! We went into one of the little green rooms that has headphones and goes dark, don't ask me what it's called cause I've blocked it from my mind... here's an inside tip for you about that... Don't waste your precious park time! There went 3 minutes of my life I will never get back!! Ah it was so bad, it was worse than Prince Caspian in HS. We couldn't stop giggling at how bad it was. We wandered around for bit, watched a pig thing get operated on in the vets before popping outside to say hello to the goats - like we don't get many of them back home

Killing time outside...

We did all that and went back inside to see there still were no characters! I had to pull out the times guide I had picked up on the way in while doing my speedy Gonzales impression (as in, Sy didn't even see me leave him and return with the guide!). Turns out the characters wouldn't arrive until 10:30am, dammit! It was nearly time though so we lulled around making it look like we were really interested in conservation and weren't just there to shamelessly meet Disney stars... One guide even came up to speak to us about bees! Our impression must have been good as he went into great detail explaining to us how bees keep elephants away from crops in Africa... Rafiki soon made an appearance so we said goodbye and dived on him for some pictures... And he made us pose like this...

Yup. We waited around for that picture. We listened to bee talk, for that picture. I wasted 3 minutes in that godawful room, for that picture. That was our one and only picture. Yeah. Good job we don't look like total plonkers or anything

Slightly deflated we headed outside to see if any other characters had made an appearance and we were happy to find chip and dale... Only they were playing with loads of children and not posing for pics it was fun to watch them play for a bit though so it wasn't all bad.

Just as we got on the train back the rain started to come, it wasn't too bad at first so we headed off to dinosaur. We stopped on the way for the obligatory pic outside with the massive Dinosaur. It was still raining but it wasn't too bad at this point.

The ride was brilliant, I really love it and think it's such an underrated ride! Not that I'm complaining though cause it means less queues we managed to get a row of 4 to the 2 of us right at the front, I can't believe Sy left a space between us though! I was so upset big meanie leaving me alone to escape scary dinosaurs on my own, pffft.

After the ride we tried to exit the shop but the rain had turned torrential we stood inside for about 20 minutes hoping the rain might subside slightly however it didn't look like it was going anywhere so we decided to make our way to restaurantosaurous for something to eat and drink. We were met with a huge queue think everyone had the same idea as us escape the rain we queued for an age to order, time was passed slightly by a worker talking to us all with his pet dinosaur in his hand (the Dino was called Ralph but don't remember the man's name). Finally we ordered and Sy left me to find a table. I waited for our food, and I waited, and I waited. People behind me got their orders and off they went, it was just me stood there waiting. I mush have been there at the front waiting for a good 15 minutes. Sy sent me a text to see if I was okay! Eventually the food arrived though and I went to find Sy.

Chicken breast nuggets for me (shocker!) and Mac and cheese hot dog for Sy.
Mine was good, hot and fresh. Sy said he wasn't sure about the hot dog, he said it was nice but they didn't really go together.

We ate and Ralph came back around and sang happy birthday to me which totally made my day

Lunch finished we went over to the door to see what the weather was doing... It was pretty much the same as before, bucketing down Booo! We decided to call it a day for now, we didn't have the ponchos with us so we were gonna get drenched walking out as it was. So off we went back to the car and headed back to our hotel.

Back at the hotel the rain was still coming down so we did the only thing we possibly could - we had a nap! What we planned to be a half hour nap turned into a few hours I had set an alarm just in case but it left us rushing around a bit as we were meeting Carrie and Mark in Tilted Kilt for dinner. Once we were ready we headed out to the car to find that the rain had stopped! YAY! We arrived at Tilted Kilt a little early and parked the car, as soon as I opened the door to get out the heavens opened, we got drenched walking in

It was a Friday evening and a world cup football match was on so we were expecting it to be busy, however there was no one else in there. Not one table. What was going on?? We weren't complaining though. I have to admit, I had my reservations for going to Tilted Kilt. Hooters is one thing however the women in there weren't really wearing more than you'd see at the beach. I'm no prude (haha!) I just don't see the need for it, to me less is more - and I don't mean less clothing, I think sometimes wearing a little more is sexier than having all the flesh on show... That being said I'm all for women's choice so if those girls wanna work there, then go right ahead and power to ya!

We didn't have long to wait before Carrie and Mark arrived. Our waitress came to take the order a few times cause we were too busy chatting and not looking at the menu. I had a chicken burger and Sy had a normal burger while Carrie had fish and chips and Mark had an app as a main but I don't remember which - damn me for not taking any notes all trip!! Our food was seriously delicious, I was very pleasantly surprised. I'd definitely go there again if anyone suggested it. Someone came round to us half way through our meal to offer us all a free drink that they were promoting, as it happens it was just Sy who accepted. It was a Redd's apple ale. He really enjoyed it and they asked for him to have a pic with the beer and the hot girl promoting it. Dunno where that pic ever went, probably floating around on the net somewhere!

At the end of our meal we asked our waitress to get a few pics of us together.

Love spending time with Carrie and Mark, Carrie is the wonderful lady who has arranged our vow renewal - she has a wedding planning business in Orlando. This was the only time they could meet us on this trip as they were going away the following week and Mark's mum was flying over from the UK to see them so we were very pleased we could make it work. We already have plans to meet for dinner a few times in October, out for dinner just the 4 of us and they are hopefully coming to our vow renewal too!

We carried on chatting all the way to the car and then stood in the now dry car park still chatting when a woman came up to ask us for some money as her car had run out of gas... only we remembered her asking us on the last trip and Carrie had seen her asking people before too. Just a warning to others who leave Disney not to fall for it.

Finally we said goodbye and got into the car. We still felt energised from our nap so we decided we would head to Disney for a bit, maybe head to the Boardwalk for a bit however we weren't prepared for the I4 traffic. We sat in the car for an hour and went 1 junction, drove back up international drive and went back into the hotel haha.

We watched TV for a bit but sleep soon came and we were in bed by 10:30pm.

whoops! double post!

Awww thank you, day 1 now added

Awwwwww thank you re the dresses! I actually bought a new dress pattern and some new fabric on Monday - watch this space hehe

Your wish is my command xxx

mmmmmmm dole whip......

It is a long flight but its worth it I think I cope better with it than Sy does. Luckily for me Sy is almost as Disney crazy as I am... in 2008 I was orlando'd out (I know, I blame it on a fever that lasted a year) however Sy had never been and wanted to go on our honeymoon so I relented and said lets do it. He fell in love with it, and with his new love for it, it recaptured mine

More on its way

I'm working on day 2 today!

its coming, but for now read day 1

Awwwww you know how to make a girl feel loved

I gotta agree, for someone who doesn't have 100% health, that humidity was HARD. So hard. But you had very good reason to go in the summer

Day one is now us Amy, more to come hopefully today!

I do go a bit stir crazy, but its worth it when I get there You have missed the pre trip (its knocking about on here somewhere!) but I wont hold it against you We stayed on International Drive in a hotel called Avanti, a very nice mid range hotel.

HA! You say that, but I feel like it too! I'm always convinced people are gonna know it's homemade too, you know what I mean, there's making your own clothes and then there's making your own clothes but they look rubbish and out of shape etc. I always worry people will think the latter.

Believe it or not, I'm not very good at sewing, I'm pretty much a straight sew kinda girl, the dresses I make have to be simple or I don't make them and it's all done with Jersey fabric with a straight stitch