losfp
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 25, 2014
Following on from -> http://disboards.com/threads/ptr-2015s-usa-trip-the-disneyest-holiday-ever.3301479/
The time has come!
To start this anyway. This is mostly just copy and pasted from the daily entries I did in my travel blog on Facebook. We did a 38-day trip to the US, taking in Qalt Disney World, Universal, a Disney Cruise, Disneyland and Aulani in Hawaii.
LFMF15 Day 1: Orlando, Florida - It was a long time coming, but finally the day came to grab all our bags and head to the airport for Lee Family MouseFest 2015!
It was a smooth trip to the airport, so we were super early for check in and gave us plenty of time to get through customs and security. We headed up to the Qantas Business Lounge to relax before the flight and made ourselves comfortable in the kids’ room they have there. The kids could make as much noise and chaos as they wanted and we wouldn’t be death-stared by the folks travelling for work.
Before long, we were getting comfortable in our seats on the plane. Qantas flies an A380 from Sydney to Dallas, and I don’t mind it. Relatively quiet, with modern fittings and a fair amount of space in cattle class.
The kids settled in nicely with headphones and whatnot, Bethany even dozing off for a quick afternoon nap. Sadly that was to be the end of the tranquility as to get them to sleep, the 2 kids between them took up 3 of our four seats (actually more like 3 1/4 seats, thanks to Bethany’s kicking legs). This meant that one of us didn’t have a seat at all through a 10-11 hour period. I spent quite a bit of time loitering around the snack bar at the back of the plane and just hanging around looking suspicious.
Clearing customs at Dallas/Fort Worth proved to be a much nicer experience than dealing with LAX, and it was very easy to hand over our luggage for our connecting flight to Orlando.
The plan at DFW was to relax in the Admirals Club lounge, grab a shower and casually amble back to our gate for boarding, but it turned out a little more frantic than I’d like - maybe the 4 hour layover between flights wasn’t such a bad idea after all!
For a start, the AC at DFW Terminal A was all the way down at gate 23, with our flight departing form gate 14. Not super far, but a trial with a sore ankle and two overtired kids.
Wifey took Phoebe for a shower while I tended to Miss Cranky Pants in the kids’ lounge (a somewhat more formal and austere setting than the equivalent brightly coloured room at Sydney). They wandered back about 30 minutes later, gushing about the great shower facilities. They’d left me about 15 minutes before we all had to sprint back to the gate, so I grabbed Bethany and set off in search of one of these mythical wonder showers.
It turns out that you actually have to book a shower room, and wifey and Phoebe had just wandered into a vacant room and hogged it for half an hour. The AC front desk person must have taken pity on me due to having an apoplectic toddler under my arm so she said I could have the next one.
The shower facilities were, in fact, quite good, but due to time pressure I only had the opportunity to slightly moisten myself and the by-now-screaming two year old and then run out of there.
The power walk back to the gate was invigorating and we got onto the plane no worries. Then the damn thing sat at the gate for an additional 20 minutes while they worked on an electrical problem. The check in lady in Sydney had given me boarding passes that appeared to be two seats together in two consecutive rows. No problem right? Well someone stuffed up because each seat was a single seat on a aisle. Technically all four were adjacent to each other, but still. A nice family from Adelaide (who were also on the SYD-DFW flight earlier) helped us out by switching around so that we could have three seats together, and one just across the aisle.
The plane eventually left and true to form, the girls fell asleep in their own seats about five minutes after takeoff, even though they seemed incapable of doing that on the 16 hour flight previously. Brats.
Picking up all the luggage in Orlando was easy as well, and we were picked up by my cousin Jeannie, who I hadn’t seen since 1989 - so a lot of catching up to do! With some expert level tetris, we were able to fit all of our bags into the back of her SUV and get a move on to her apartment in Orlando.
LFMF15 Day 2: Orlando FL - A bit of a restless night, what with all the jetlag and weird timezone differences. Today was all about packing and repacking bags at Jeannie’s place. I’d ordered a fair amount (ok, lots) of online purchases that were delivered to poor Jeannie’s apartment in Orlando, awaiting our arrival. Though now that I’ve visited, I may take her place off my list of Preferred Shopping Delivery addresses - that 3rd floor apartment was an interesting one to get our luggage to!!
We picked up our rental car, a Nissan Pathfinder. Nice spacious car, with tons of boot space… which we will need to fit all our damn luggage! With not much else planned for the rest of the day, we headed down to the Premium Outlets just outside of Walt Disney World. Had lots of fun browsing, and picked up a bit of stuff, mostly from the Disney clearance store, Skechers and Gymbaroo. Even with the exchange rate being awful, we’re still able to pick up lots of bargains.
Later that evening, we went to Disney Springs (the newly renovated and still WIP former Downtown Disney). The place looks like a lot of fun and I wish we had more time to explore it further. Perhaps later in the trip if time allows. We had a great dinner at Planet Hollywood, with the kids literally falling asleep at the table! Jetlag blows when it hits, that’s for sure!
LFMF15 Day 3, Fri 16 Oct: Disney’s Art of Animation Resort - The smaller child was still in all sorts of bother overnight with the jetlag so no one got much sleep. Hopefully it improves!
Today was our first official day in The World! That is if you don’t count last night’s quick trip to Disney Springs for dinner. We headed over to the Art of Animation Resort to check in. The AoA is one of Disney World’s newer value resorts. In terms of comfort, it’s pretty much a standard motel room, but quite alright. The theming is excellent, from The Little Mermaid rooms that we were staying in, to family suites themed to The Lion King, Finding Nemo or Cars.
Chef Mickey’s is a character dining restaurant in Disney’s Contemporary Resort - in character dining, Disney characters wander from table to table for photos and autographs while you eat. Phoebe had experienced it before in 2012 when we went to Disneyland, so she kind of knew what to expect, but it was wonderful to see Bethany’s excitement at meeting Goofy, Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Pluto. The food was typical buffet stuff, decent enough but nothing special. The main attraction is obviously the character interactions.
After lunch, we went back to our room - the decorations and furnishings are all Little Mermaid and very cool. We took the opportunity to check out the various wings of AoA and hopped into the big blue pool at the main building to splash about. After that, we grabbed a quick dinner at the resort food court. It was ok but quite chaotic. Early-ish bedtime for everyone because we had a big day planned for the Saturday.
The time has come!
To start this anyway. This is mostly just copy and pasted from the daily entries I did in my travel blog on Facebook. We did a 38-day trip to the US, taking in Qalt Disney World, Universal, a Disney Cruise, Disneyland and Aulani in Hawaii.
LFMF15 Day 1: Orlando, Florida - It was a long time coming, but finally the day came to grab all our bags and head to the airport for Lee Family MouseFest 2015!
It was a smooth trip to the airport, so we were super early for check in and gave us plenty of time to get through customs and security. We headed up to the Qantas Business Lounge to relax before the flight and made ourselves comfortable in the kids’ room they have there. The kids could make as much noise and chaos as they wanted and we wouldn’t be death-stared by the folks travelling for work.
Before long, we were getting comfortable in our seats on the plane. Qantas flies an A380 from Sydney to Dallas, and I don’t mind it. Relatively quiet, with modern fittings and a fair amount of space in cattle class.
The kids settled in nicely with headphones and whatnot, Bethany even dozing off for a quick afternoon nap. Sadly that was to be the end of the tranquility as to get them to sleep, the 2 kids between them took up 3 of our four seats (actually more like 3 1/4 seats, thanks to Bethany’s kicking legs). This meant that one of us didn’t have a seat at all through a 10-11 hour period. I spent quite a bit of time loitering around the snack bar at the back of the plane and just hanging around looking suspicious.
Clearing customs at Dallas/Fort Worth proved to be a much nicer experience than dealing with LAX, and it was very easy to hand over our luggage for our connecting flight to Orlando.
The plan at DFW was to relax in the Admirals Club lounge, grab a shower and casually amble back to our gate for boarding, but it turned out a little more frantic than I’d like - maybe the 4 hour layover between flights wasn’t such a bad idea after all!
For a start, the AC at DFW Terminal A was all the way down at gate 23, with our flight departing form gate 14. Not super far, but a trial with a sore ankle and two overtired kids.
Wifey took Phoebe for a shower while I tended to Miss Cranky Pants in the kids’ lounge (a somewhat more formal and austere setting than the equivalent brightly coloured room at Sydney). They wandered back about 30 minutes later, gushing about the great shower facilities. They’d left me about 15 minutes before we all had to sprint back to the gate, so I grabbed Bethany and set off in search of one of these mythical wonder showers.
It turns out that you actually have to book a shower room, and wifey and Phoebe had just wandered into a vacant room and hogged it for half an hour. The AC front desk person must have taken pity on me due to having an apoplectic toddler under my arm so she said I could have the next one.
The shower facilities were, in fact, quite good, but due to time pressure I only had the opportunity to slightly moisten myself and the by-now-screaming two year old and then run out of there.
The power walk back to the gate was invigorating and we got onto the plane no worries. Then the damn thing sat at the gate for an additional 20 minutes while they worked on an electrical problem. The check in lady in Sydney had given me boarding passes that appeared to be two seats together in two consecutive rows. No problem right? Well someone stuffed up because each seat was a single seat on a aisle. Technically all four were adjacent to each other, but still. A nice family from Adelaide (who were also on the SYD-DFW flight earlier) helped us out by switching around so that we could have three seats together, and one just across the aisle.
The plane eventually left and true to form, the girls fell asleep in their own seats about five minutes after takeoff, even though they seemed incapable of doing that on the 16 hour flight previously. Brats.
Picking up all the luggage in Orlando was easy as well, and we were picked up by my cousin Jeannie, who I hadn’t seen since 1989 - so a lot of catching up to do! With some expert level tetris, we were able to fit all of our bags into the back of her SUV and get a move on to her apartment in Orlando.
LFMF15 Day 2: Orlando FL - A bit of a restless night, what with all the jetlag and weird timezone differences. Today was all about packing and repacking bags at Jeannie’s place. I’d ordered a fair amount (ok, lots) of online purchases that were delivered to poor Jeannie’s apartment in Orlando, awaiting our arrival. Though now that I’ve visited, I may take her place off my list of Preferred Shopping Delivery addresses - that 3rd floor apartment was an interesting one to get our luggage to!!
We picked up our rental car, a Nissan Pathfinder. Nice spacious car, with tons of boot space… which we will need to fit all our damn luggage! With not much else planned for the rest of the day, we headed down to the Premium Outlets just outside of Walt Disney World. Had lots of fun browsing, and picked up a bit of stuff, mostly from the Disney clearance store, Skechers and Gymbaroo. Even with the exchange rate being awful, we’re still able to pick up lots of bargains.
Later that evening, we went to Disney Springs (the newly renovated and still WIP former Downtown Disney). The place looks like a lot of fun and I wish we had more time to explore it further. Perhaps later in the trip if time allows. We had a great dinner at Planet Hollywood, with the kids literally falling asleep at the table! Jetlag blows when it hits, that’s for sure!
LFMF15 Day 3, Fri 16 Oct: Disney’s Art of Animation Resort - The smaller child was still in all sorts of bother overnight with the jetlag so no one got much sleep. Hopefully it improves!
Today was our first official day in The World! That is if you don’t count last night’s quick trip to Disney Springs for dinner. We headed over to the Art of Animation Resort to check in. The AoA is one of Disney World’s newer value resorts. In terms of comfort, it’s pretty much a standard motel room, but quite alright. The theming is excellent, from The Little Mermaid rooms that we were staying in, to family suites themed to The Lion King, Finding Nemo or Cars.
Chef Mickey’s is a character dining restaurant in Disney’s Contemporary Resort - in character dining, Disney characters wander from table to table for photos and autographs while you eat. Phoebe had experienced it before in 2012 when we went to Disneyland, so she kind of knew what to expect, but it was wonderful to see Bethany’s excitement at meeting Goofy, Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Pluto. The food was typical buffet stuff, decent enough but nothing special. The main attraction is obviously the character interactions.
After lunch, we went back to our room - the decorations and furnishings are all Little Mermaid and very cool. We took the opportunity to check out the various wings of AoA and hopped into the big blue pool at the main building to splash about. After that, we grabbed a quick dinner at the resort food court. It was ok but quite chaotic. Early-ish bedtime for everyone because we had a big day planned for the Saturday.