Day 1 – shopping fun

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This being the first day of the vacation, we decided to nip out and get some essential shopping done – water, drinks, drinks cups,circuit and general snacks for the week.

So, following a nutritious breakfast at Denny’s we head out to target just a little north of Orlando itself – located handily next door to the Mall at Milenia 🙂

We had literally only just arrived and had picked out the fruit that we needed. the boys were playing up as they just wanted to go in search of the toys that they knew were in existence in this particular store. Poor Olly however, had a different urge and need that he could not hold back any longer…. The poor mite stood just next to the raspberries and strawberries, having delivered a small raspberry of his very own that ended up with him in a bit of pain and lots of gooey brown stuff in his shoes and down his legs… :-(. Simon picked him up, held him sideways (so as to prevent any more from seeping out) and took him straight to the toilets which were thankfully not far away. The clean up operation commenced although ended up in his getting a brand new pair of shorts from Target and new shoes later in the day – the faucets and paper towels together with the hand soap in the labs were not getting the, clean sadly. Poor Olly seemed ever so embarrassed by his little accident and Elliot was quick to blame too much chocolate on the unfortunate incident.

Anyway, mummy and Grandma spent a couple of hours in Nordstrom rack while daddy, granddad and the boys head into the Mall to do some electronics shopping :-). A little later Simon turned up with a shiny new Apple IPad (not called the iPad 3 even though that is what it is).

We managed to get to wander around the premium outlet mall down by the hotel and then went to Chuck E Cheese’s to play for a while, and finished off with dinner at a small pizza place on International drive.

Hopefully the boys will get a good night sleep tonight as tomorrow we are heading out to Busch Gardens over in Tampa 🙂

Finally arrived

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Well, what a day 🙁

We got out of the hotel room in Manchester for 7am so that we could get checked in for the new flight emailer than most – this was successful although it scored us some seats right at the back of the plane – more about this later 🙁

We enjoyed a nice leisurely breakfast in Manchester Airport’s Terminal 2 lounge and then Simon and the boys head off to look in the shops. a couple of small purchases later (headphones for the boys and a couple of sleeping pillows – Olly’s naturally a pink cat), and we had a small 2 hour wait to find where the plane would depart from.

Olly managed to get around 3 hours sleep on and off, with Elliot watching a couple of movies on the fancy on demand system on the Virgin flight and also a bit of obligatory Pirates of the Caribbean on the iPad.

All was going so well, until we landed and disembarked the aircraft in Orlando. we joined the back of a queue to get thought immigration that actually took just over 2 hours to pass through :-(. By this time both the boys were very tired and getting very short with each other and others. Thankfully, the car was ready once we got all the way through and we were able to relatively quickly get out of the airport and over to the hotel. A stop off at McDonald’s was requested for a burger / nugget stop (incredibly we managed to resist getting any for ourselves) and we then checked into the hotel.

It is now 21:25 local time and all bar Simon are asleep – although 45 minutes ago you would not think that they were going to sleep as they were absolutely full of beans.

The calpol and ibuprofen does appear to have kept Olly’s temperature at bay – let’s just hope it stays away for the remainder of the trip…

shopping tomorrow and then onto parks etc… 🙂

Great start….. NOT

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We arrived at the airport with plenty of time so that we could get our seats sorted and ensure that we were all sat together.  we were greeted by a very tall chap who advised us that our flight was cancelled and that we would be rebooked onto a flight tomorrow 🙁

Bummer

It turns out that some poor sould has suffered in a pretty big way on their way out to their holiday destination of Barbados yesterday, culminating in the plane needing to land in the Azures for the chap to make his way post haste to the nearesthospital :-(. he knock on effect being that the plane was not in Manchester for our fight and no other plane could be commandeered for the need of our flight 🙁

So, hre we sit in the Radisson BLU hotel on the Manchester Airport grounds to stay overnight prior to a departure tomorrow at mid day. The kids are not amused and Olly is adamant with his question asking – WHY features VERY highly in the questions 🙁

So, we have had a very decidedly lower than average meal in the hotel and a short walk to locate some refreshments and breakfast items for the boys for the morning, as we will an needing to queue with 1200 people in the morning to check in. there are usually two flightsleaving for Orlando, but tomorrow there will be 3 🙁

On the plus side, Simon called the hotel and the car rental folks and managed to get some cash back from the fact thatwoe will not be needing the various items today and would like to collect them tomorrow instead 🙂

Hopefully the next blog item will be a little more interesting and more holiday specific….

Florida tomorrow :-)

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We are starting to get ready – it is at this time that frustration kicks in as you can’t locate all the chargers for a foreign country for all your electronic items… We LIVED in the US for 18 months only 6 months ago – yet all the US chargers for things like iPhones/iPads seem to have hidden themselves here in Fork Hall 🙁

At least the search for said items uncovered the missing floating swimsuits for the boys 🙂 AND better news – they both still fit 🙂 = RESULT

The boys are once again enjoying a morning consisting of a little chocolate and a little XBOX 🙂 They have played really nicely together all morning 🙂  Poor Elliot appears to have been blessed with his father’s stomach with reference to chocolate and finely tuned liquid manure spraying 🙁  At least it causes him to self regulate chocolate intake 🙂

13:45 tomorrow we will be sat onboard a Virgin Atlantic plane in Manchester, preparing to head out to Orlando – YAY!

Will try to blog while we are away – we have out 5 day Disney park hopper tickets including 5 accesses to the water parks etc – we also need to do shopping on Day1 (of course 🙂 ) and then head over to Tampa for the Busch Gardens visit etc.

See you soon…