Woohoo! Welcome to my Trip Report!
We've been home just over 3 weeks now sob sob! But we had probably the best trip yet.
In case you forget what we look like, this is us below - taken on our last night on the way out of the park at 1am. Sniff sniff!
I'm Robyn at age 31 and hubs is Sy, aged 33 (old fart!). We were super lucky and got to spend an amazing 24 nights in Disney!
We are DVC members so we used our points to stay 1 night in Old Key West, 6 nights Club Level in Animal Kingdom Lodge, 13 nights in a value room in AKL with the remaining nights in the Grand Floridian.
We arrived on the 19th of November so got to experience our first ever Thanksgiving (and Black Friday!), and our first time seeing Disney at Christmas (and it was AMAZING!).
If you'd like to read my pre trip for a more in depth look at our plans, here it is.
A quick summary of highs and lows can be found here.
http://www.wdwforgrownups.com/forum/our-verry-merry-24-nighter-highs-and-lows
The day before
Of course I had to take a screen grab of the weather just to rub it in to friend and family before we went hehehe.
Wednesday afternoon we travelled the hours drive to Sy's parents house as they live 15 minutes from the airport. They are really good and never mind us staying with them the night before our flight, we sleep in Sy's old bedroom that he and his brother shared growing up, both in single beds hehe.
We stopped in at their house first for a cup of tea before heading over to the airport. Virgin offer twilight check in where you can check in and drop off your bags the night before which is really handy as it saves time in the morning, it's also pretty much always empty.... (A stark difference compared to the morning).
I won't say what the cases weighed but let's just say the girl took pity on us and didn't charge any overweight fees! Thank you nice Virgin lady <3
Gatwick airport was already starting to look Christmassy and pretty.
We stopped by the Travelodge right next to the airport to meet Lea who was staying there the night before, we had met over facebook as we were both going to be on the same flight. She had brought some Disney tree ornaments over from Denmark for me and I had picked her up some things here so we were making the switch now so I didn't have to take the ornaments to Orlando with me.
We went back to Sy's parents and had dinner and grabbed an early night (well I did, sy came to bed after I was asleep).
Day 1 travel day
As always the night before the flight I didn't sleep all that well, but this time it wasn't so much to the worry of oversleeping but instead down to the cat not leaving me alone all night. Poor Zizzi just wanted to be loved.... While all I wanted was some sleep. She was kissing me, nudging me, pawing my face... She eventually got shut out at some ungodly hour (sorry Ziz!).
We were flying on 1pm flight which is a new one for us as we try to go for the morning flight (usually Virgin have 2 per day), so the alarm didn't go off until 8:45am. We both had showers and got ready before Sy's dad dropped us at the airport. We arrived about 10am and checked in my scooter before heading through security, picking up some duty free Clarins stuff for my mum on the way. We stopped by Boots to get a sandwich in case I wouldn't eat any of the plane food and then went in search of brunch. We decided to go a bit out there and have a Nandos at 11am. (For those who have never heard of it, its a chain restaurant which serves peri peri chicken, not exactly brunch material hehe).
We were told the gate number when we checked in the scooter so we went straight to gate 19 as soon as it was announced and were second in line. My scooter was taken straight off and put on the plane, the lady who dealt with it was so nice, I told her what BA did to it when I went to Paris so she even came back up and told me where she put it and that it was all secure. (BA didn't put it on the plane and trashed it).
Chatted to Lea for a bit while we were waiting to board and Sy went to the bathroom. We had only been sat there 10 minutes when they asked me to board... So off I went with all the hand luggage by myself as Sy had only just gone to the bathroom lol.
Virgin staff really are fab, stood chatting with the girls while the plane started to fill up. They were so friendly and welcoming, offering to help me with my bags. Sy came on not long after and we took our seats. The flight wasn't full and we had an empty row of 3 beside us so once in the air we moved over to get a bit more room. We were sat in the middle on a row of 4 with 2 people next to us.
Food was butter chicken for both of us which wasn't too bad actually, it came with a key lime pie which was yuk lol. Flight passed as they normally do, I watched a load of films and did some of my new art therapy book - Disney princesses 
I watched inside out, pitch perfect 2, trainwreck and the second best exotic marigold hotel. I spent time chatting with Lea too 
Afternoon tea followed later. I was okay.
Sy got a couple of pics of us coming into land, and then of the weather once we did - it looked awfully reminiscent of what we left in London :-\
Flight time was good, we were about half an hour late taking off and arrived half an hour early so we didn't do too badly! Sadly immigration was full so they kept us on the plane for another 20 - 30 minutes.
We waited on the plane till most people had left and got off to the scooter being brought up, perfect timing. I hopped on and we made our way through to the immigration hall. We only had to wait for 15 minutes but we were the first of the wheelchairs from the flight, had we been at the back I think it would be more like a 35 min wait. Sy went to sort out his visa for 20 mins while I grabbed the cases and waited.
Sy back, we made our way to the tram.
This was a weird one for us, when we arrived in the main terminal it was dark! Not used to the sun setting as early as this when we are in Florida!
We headed to Alamo where we were met with a HUGE queue so we decided to pick up the kids eat free vouchers from the Virgin holidays rep first (we got them free with our booking and had promised them to other people). There was another Alamo desk right behind the Virgin desk and we were told we could go there instead of joining the other big queue. Sadly there was only one guy working there and between serving people he went off for a good 5 minutes without saying anything leaving the rest of us bewildered as to what was going on. He came back in the end and carried on like nothing had happened haha.
When we got to the garage they hadn't got any mid size SUV's left so we ended up with a massive black Chevrolet. Sy was happy! Bonus of being on the last flight. No trouble at all to get everything in.
We did the half an hour drive to Old Key West, our home for the night. To get us there I used the satnav on my phone with trepidation, I'd recently got one of the 3 mobile contracts with 'feel at home', the sole purpose being that I could use it in America for free, but it still felt crazy and I was terrified I was running up a mahoosive bill! (It's ok, I came home and it was fine!).
OMG WE'RE HERE!!
It chucked it down the whole way and was still chucking it down when we arrived so I went to check in and Sy waited out front in the car. No queue at the check in desk and I was soon back out and in the car with Sy heading towards our room, block 42 room 4216. Turns out it was an accessible room, but it didn't matter for one night, and I liked the big shower as always the first thing we did was dive into the shower to wash the plane off.
We were really tired so didn't want to go too far for dinner, we ended up getting take out from the crossroads. Sy went for McDonald's and I had a Taco Bell. They were both really good! Probably had something to do with the fact we were both starving and the last meal we had was on the plane lol
Back to the hotel and managed to stay awake till 10:30pm which was quite an achievement lol.
Our Very Merry 24 nighter Nov/Dec 15
Watson's go West May 15
The one with all the birthdays Oct 14 4 Big Birthdays and a Vow Renewal thrown in
The OMG trip June 14 30th Birthday present from the hubs
Girly trip March 14 A last min cheapy week
September 13 our first all DVC stay
TR May 2013 the last min bargain trip offsite
Oct 2012 TR with a cruise!big family trip featuring the beach club, AKL, the dream and a villa offsite
TR on a budget May - June 2011offsite condo
TR Sept - Oct 2010 big family trip in an offsite villa
Now that I've done the math, I'm officially jealous. Twilight check in for your flight sounds like a fantastic idea! I would do that in a heartbeat if it were available. How did water not leak all over the bathroom floor with that roll-in shower? I have a hard time not getting water all over with a shower in a full-sized tub.
so off we went to the check in desk. We were called forward right away and I gave our names, well the lady asked me to wait there and before we knew it the manager came out to shake our hands and personally take us upstairs! He sat us at the desk with Andrea to check us in and insisted on getting us some drinks, Sy had a mimosa (or what they do like it as they don't technically do it anymore) and I went for a Diet Coke. I wrote in my notes how awesome the CM was (this was before I had caught her name) <3
haha 
oops! Clearly the last few days were catching up with me.
