2011 USA trip - aka mice & wizards & pirates, oh my!

[jacs1234]

I'm looking forward to hearing about your trip. I hope you're having an Awesome time. Right now, as I type this, I'm hoping you're having a peaceful sleep on the plane. You're almost there.

 

[WAMUMOF4]

Hope your having a wonderful flight and enjoy your trip

 

[PrincessInOz]

Hope you are safely in the US.

Just use the force and go with the flow. It'll work out , plan or no plan.

 

[alicia1506]

hey all,

so we did it!! our trip has come and gone, and it was an exhausting marathon of 4 cities across the length and width of america in under 2 weeks, and it is finally over. we touched down this morning at 6.40am in brisbane, and i am glad to be home... we arrived home around 7.30am, and promptly dumped our bags, showered, scrubbed and slept. woke around 3pm and am hideously jet lagged. will start part 1 of our trip report tomorrow, once i've uploaded all our photos, but for now am off to forage for food & drinks, then back to bed for some shut eye.

hope everyone is well & life has been treating you awesomely.

we loved our trip & would do it again in a heartbeat... but now to spend some time relaxing & having a vacay from the vacay

take care ~ alicia

 

[aussietravellers]

Welcome home! Can't wait to read your report

 

[PrincessInOz]

Welcome home.....

 

[shushh]

Welcome home!!!

 

[WAMUMOF4]

Welcome home

 

[Mum from oz]

Welcome home! Hope you get over the jet lag soon.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Welcome home. Waiting for the TR

 

[alicia1506]

hey all,

it's back to work for me today, and i don't know if it's the heat or the humidity, or what, but i have been totally drained these last few days. plan on doing the first few days of our TR this evening, so stay tuned for that... the jet lag was a bit of a surprise to me, in that i got jet lagged for every flight we took, even if it was a short little 3 or 5 hr trip... turns out my body really, really does not like flying -- but too bad cause i have a UK trip (and maybe DL Paris included) and a return trip to the USA planned for 2012 or at least, have committed to plan them

hope everyone has a wicked fun Monday -- TR update later tonight, I promise

 

[alicia1506]

so T minus 1 and counting - we wake up on Nov 5 to clear skies, humid weather and a 'to do' list as long as my arm. first stop, doctor's visit for the all important letter showing that we're not smuggling prescription medicine out of the country for profit. next stop, the shops for some last minute travel items (poncho, spare batteries for the back up camera etc). then we decide to have a lazy breakfast out as this is technically the first day of our holiday, even though it's a 'pre-trip day'. woot. Carlo has the breakfast omelette, i have the eggs benny (omg, delicious) and we have yummy indulgent drinks (him, the iced chocolate, me a tropical smoothie that was just right). no food porn of this as i didn't think to bring the camera with me while running errands.

back home, we throw on a load of laundry, and then another, and then another. i'm vaccuming and he's pulling down the luggage and then its housework time. interrupted by friends visiting, so we stop and gab for a few hours, look at the clock and realise it's 6pm. already!!! omg. pull the laundry out, throw it in the pile of 'stuff to take' and decide to grab takeout pizza as we couldn't be bothered cooking & washing up. friends leave at 11pm (omg, where did the time go!!!) and we realise that we have only 7 hrs til we have to leave for the airport and we aren't packed.

in my infinite wisdom, i had already compiled little ziplock see-through folders for the trip. one for the first leg (BNE - LAX with all our passports, ticket info, insurance info, DLR express tickets, DL entry tickets, and our hotel reservation info), one for the second leg (LAX - JFK) and associated tour/reservation paperwork, one for the third leg (JFK - MCO) and associated tickets/reservations etc and one for the fourth leg (MCO - LAS) and it's associated bits, one for the fifth leg (LAS - LAX) and one for home (LAX to BNE). one hell of a lot of planning, and all direct flights as i was paranoid about losing luggage, getting snowed in & missing connections etc. this turned out to be a complete lifesaver, and i plan on doing this for all future trips.

so... back to the packing. 7 hrs til the cab arrives and nothing (and i mean literally nothing) is in the bags. so now the stress kicks in, my ulcer flares up and my body wants to lie down, but no such luck. we're going to Disney and we're getting on that plane, so move it soldier!!! Carlo wasn't impressed with my army general impersonation, but so be it. we got stuck into the packing and sometime around 3am we managed to zip the last bag closed, tick off the final item on the list, get our 'personal item' day bags prepared and head up to bed. we showered and fell into bed around 3.30 am and the alarm woke us about 5.30am. bleary eyed, we had freezing cold showers to shock us awake, dressed & got in the cab which arrived right on 6.30am for us. a quick call to my dad, who was driving my sister to the airport from the opposite side of town, and we were on our way.

the airport -- so none of us have flown internationally before, and with no idea where to go, we trusted the cabbies instincts and sense of direction, paid the fare (approx $45 AUD) and got out. called my dad to say we were there, and literally 3 minutes later, my parents pull up, unload Trina's bags and hugs all round, then we're off to the V Australia check in counter -- which hasn't opened yet we're so early we beat the staff. yay. this is trina arriving at the airport, looking all glam and excited:
Trina:

we followed all the DHS and ABP instructions and we plan to allow at least 3 hours at each airport for check in/security/etc. we're first in line for check in and we get great seats (or so we think), towards the back of the plane, just behind the wing, and 2 rows in front of the galley and disabled toilet. plenty of walking around space and decent room to move around etc. yay. my carry on suitcase is just borderline - 7.1kg, but they let me move some stuff from it to my checked suitcase and i'm good to go. we head to the security check point, and we're all prepared there, so it's smooth sailing. no lines, no waits, and we're straight through. a security guard at the end of my row is looking at me so i smile and say hi, how you doing? he says since i'm so nice, he's gonna use me to do a random explosives test he's nice and friendly, and his female counterpart is chatting to me about where we're going and what we're doing... she pats me down (my first of many, lol) and he runs his sniffer wand thing over my clothes and carry on, then puts it in the machine. machine spits out that i'm not a terrorist, and they smile and tell me i've been awesome and i can be on my way. yay for security procedures and clean living then we head to immigration. again, no lines. what the hell? i've heard horror stories of lines and waiting for hours, but nothing... this is awesome. our immigration lady is nice and stamps our passports for us, and educates us about using smartgate when we come back into the country. checks our ESTA approvals, and waves us through. finally, we're through security and such, and ready to head to our gate. we depart from the gate furtherest from our starting point. this is a running theme for the rest of the trip. our gate is ALWAYS the furtherest one away.

tickets:

gate time - so... it's now 7.20am, exactly 20 mins after we checked in, and we're at our gate, playing the waiting game. our flight is due to depart at 10.55am, and they'll board around 10.20am or so.

pilots:

we grab breakfast (a truly sorry excuse for food -- a hard croissant and a weak coffee set me back $12 and i refused to take photos of that ) we sit and chat for a few hours then it's boarding time. as we board, we notice quite a few people in red outfits... turns out some sporting team is along for the ride, and don't they just think they own the place.. this is gonna be fun. we get to our seats, and they're exactly what we wanted. stow our baggage, get buckled in and we're off!!! our trip that we've planned and waited and saved and scrimped for is finally happening. i've got butterflies and i'm sure it's from excitement and not that the plane is bucking & shuddering beneath me.

leaving australia:

 

[alicia1506]

the flight -- this is the fun part of the trip, except, oh wait. i lied. big time. this is the horror part of the story. so v australia provide everyone with headphones, blankets and pillows on your chair when you first sit down. we had our backpack/daybag/handbags under the seat in front of us, and now we had a blanket & pillow to stash somewhere as well, so our little row of 3 was looking a little crowded. i decide to store them in the overhead bin when the plane levels out so we had some space to read/watch tv etc without all this 'stuff' in our way... the minute the plane levels out, i go to stand up and the the guy in front of me thunks his chair back to the recline position, crunching my knee between the chair back and the arm rest of my seat. there's an awful grinding sensation in my knee, my bad one, and i have a bad feeling about it, but it doesn't hurt and i tell him that he's smacked me in the knee.. he stares at me for a few seconds, then goes back to what he's doing... ooookay then. so he's in his seat, his 3 yr old is in the middle seat, and his wife is in the window seat, all cozy and asleep. the 3 yr old starts screaming and doesn't stop, and he does... nothing. doesn't even acknowledge she's there. the flight crew come along and ask if there's anything they can do... he wants a drink. a double. and to keep them coming. fabulous. flight crew tell him he can have one alcoholic drink per hour, but no more than that.. so he pages them every hour for more booze. still, the kid is screaming and jumping around, mum is knocked out by sleeping pills (i can only imagine) and dad is oblivious to it all. he persists in leaving his chair reclined for the whole trip, not evening raising it for meals. i end up eating my meals using carlo's tray for my food. fun & games, kiddies.

the bourbon and coke i resorted to:

the sports team eat all the snacks on board the plane and drink all the soft drink & water from the snack station. we run out of snacks and drinks on the plane by hour 7 of a 13 hr flight. kid in front of us doesn't sleep at all, so consequently neither do we. we vow to win big in vegas and fly home first class, or hire a pilot and a plane. we're all pretty even tempered, but by the time we touched down in lax, we were prepared to render all kinds of damage to those in front of us... the joys of flying economy on a promo fare

some snacks and meals from the flight:

teeny tiny cans of soft drink (that camera case beside it is 5cm tall, so i figure about 7cm tall (?)

LAX - we land in LAX earlier than anticipated. flight was due to touch down at 6.05am but we arrive at 5.40am, due to good tailwinds or some such. yay for VAustralia and the weather. then the pilot tells us that LAX won't open the terminal until 6am and their ground crew won't let us deplane until 6am due to union restrictions. welcome to the usa!!! by this time, we've been awake since 5am on sat nov 5, so awake for 43 hrs at this time without sleep, and our plan is to ditch our bags at the hotel and hit disneyland for the whole day. we're exhausted, but not tired, so we think we can do it... they let us deplane and we head out of the chute and into the terminal. and we walk through all of these back corridors for what seems like miles but in reality was only about a 15 min walk til we arrive at customs. hand over our passports and entry forms, wait for about 10 mins, and get our passports stamped and welcomed to the usa for our vacation. yay. we're on us soil. we head down, grab our bags and then line up to pass through the secondary checkpoint. they have 2 people manning the counter, and one of those is strictly for pilots & flight crew. 2 other flights have come in since we arrived, and the line is now about a 20 min wait. this is the longest we wait in line all trip, which is pretty good, but since we're so exhausted we think of coffee and disneyland and that pulls us through. we're getting a little grumpy at this point, and a little fed up, but we hold it together. finally, we're free and we turn the corner and the exit is right in front of us... we eagerly drag our bags outside and it's ... raining. freezing cold, miserable, non stop, overcast, rain. in sunny california. well, phooey.

DLR express. we find the 'green sign' for the shuttle buses and we wait for the DLR express to pull up. an imposter with the words 'Disneyland Express' in a small white van pulls up & offers to take us. we decline, knowing that they're a different company. shortly after, the big bus with tink & the gang on it pulls up, we get on and pick up a few others & we're on our way. our driver is lovely, with a gorgeous accent, but we're freezing (it's about 18 degrees C outside with a wind chill factor) and all our photos so far are of rain and parking lots. grump. we pull up at the DL hotel, they check our paperwork and we get our return slip. i'm cautioned not to lose it, and to call back the day before we leave and book our return journey. it's all prepaid, but to ensure they know to expect us. sure, not a problem. it was only us 3, a father & son & a mother, MIL and 2 small kids on the whole 40-foot bus. lots of space to hang out & spread out on the 20-30 mins it took us to get from LAX to DLR.

our empty bus:

our paperwork checks out so we're on our way & we get dropped at the Desert Inn & Suites which is where we have our booking. it's right across the street from DLR and we check in, hand over our card and we leave our luggage in their lockers. $1 (in quarters) will buy you a locker for the whole day. each locker will hold a large suitcase & a small backpack/day bag, or up to 2 small suitcases & backpacks etc. for 3 of us, we only needed 4 x lockers, 1 for each of the big suitcases & 1 for the assorted small luggage and backpacks etc. it's 8am and it's time to head over to disneyland.

DISNEYLAND - it's gently drizzling now but we can tell it's been pouring all night as the ground is wet and soggy and there are huge puddles everywhere.

wet disneyland:

like the good Queenslanders Trina and I are, we're in jeans/long pants and thongs, and our feet & bottom of our jeans are quickly damp, then wet, then soaked. wet thongs...maybe not the greatest of ideas, but better than wet sneakers like Carlo. we enter Disney and some of the magic is lost in trying to huddle under the available shelter from the rain that's now bucketing down. the park isn't busy and we decide that we can handle a little rain, so head off to our right, into Main Street. we take pics of the floral arrangement outside the main st railroad -- pretty, but wet

wet flowers:

We ooh and ahh and decide to come back and do some of the main street attractions, but we want food and something hot to drink. we wander up to Carnation Cafe, but the tables are packed, so we continue on to RiverBelle Terrace. Due to the rain, they have closed outdoor seating, and only have enough room inside for the Minnie & Friends breakfast reservations, and they won't take us. Damn. so we wander over to Tomorrowland and wind up at Tomorrowland Terrace. for us, it's about 9pm at night, body-clock wise, and we want burgers. They politely inform us that they're serving breakfast only for the next hour or so... we settle for hot chocolate for Trina, a disgustingly weak coffee for me and a giant coke for Carlo, then head to the Monorail. our plans are to ride around til we can get dry & grab a map and figure out a revised touring plan, as a lot of the rides/attractions have been closed due to the weather. We discover the monorail is shorter than we would have liked and wet inside from all the others with the same idea

monorail:

,

the lines for some rides such as Star Tours and Nemos Submarine are now insane. all the indoor rides had massive lines as everyone is trying to dry off. we figure we'll head over to the other lands and figure our way around. we head back through main street & over to Adventureland. walk right past Tiki Room & head for Jungle Cruise. rode that, took photos and bypassed Tarzan's treehouse & Aladdin as they're both closed at the moment due to weather.

aladdin's courtyard:

wandered around Adventureland, then back to main street, partner's statue then into Fantasyland. Teacups was closed but got some pretty photos.

teacups:

Lines for Alice & Mr Toads and Snow White were huge, so we headed into Frontierland and rode SM, BTMRR and did the Riverboat cruise around the river. that was cute, and a nice way to spend some time.

cruisin':

our energy levels were flagging so we headed back to tomorrowland terrace for the burgers. i got the beef & bacon burger, carlo the fish burger/sandwich thing.

my burger:

carlo's burger:

just missed one of the jedi training academy sessions, but snagged darth maul on the way past. did some shopping, bought our first lanyards and some pins, shopped in Star Traders and then wandered down main street. we did some character meet & greets with pluto, goofy and donald.

took this one of the flag just before retreat:

Decided we wanted to ride the omnibus back to the castle, so did that then walked back down main street to the railroad. our plan was to ride the railroad round to toontown and new orleans square, and explore those lands, but we noticed people camping our for the parade so decided to sit on the benches outside the railroad station. camped out ourselves and got some fabulous shots of the soundsational parade.

soundsational:

by this stage our energy had all but gone and we had on hour til we could officially check in. rode the railroad around all the stations but didn't get off, landed back at main st station, did some final shopping bits then dragged our jet-lagged butts across the street, checked in, grabbed our luggage and headed off to bed. the DI&S is literally visable from the pedestrian entryway to disneyland, and we were so grateful it was so close by

we had a 2 x bedroom suite at DI&S which could have slept 10, but fit the 3 of us really comfortably. carlo and i had a whole room to ourselves, trina had her room right through the connecting door, so privacy but with the added bonus of being able to communicate if we needed to.

some room shots - comfy bed, with high mattress (this is important, as i'm 5'10 and carlo's 6'2 and we hate low beds)

while our first day in DL was magical in it's own way, it wasn't the all out awe & wonder we were expecting, mostly due to the rain & wind chill, which we just weren't acclimatised to. the jetlag kinda hit us more than we could have anticipated, and since Carlo and Trina are fans of 'make your own plans on the day' rather than 'pre-prepared touring plans' our first day ended up being a pretty lazy one where we mostly just walked from area to area, but didn't do much. once we checked into the hotel, it was a quick shower to wash off the travel grime, then sleep for the next 10 hrs. we planned to be up early at 8am to line up for the park's 9am entry.

 

[alicia1506]

have started editing to add photos and food porn, so please stick with me.. the photos are loading in a larger size than i would prefer, so again, please excuse the in-your-face of it all. we took 2 x cameras, the good one and the p&s little digi. hence some photos are totally rockin and others are a wee bit blurred/noisy in darker conditions. i should mention the first thing we did when we entered main street was head to city hall and get our 'first visit' buttons. these were awesome and really made our trip, and the CMS were magical. more on this later.

so day 2. our pow-wow before dropping off to bed the night before was to get up at 8am, have breakfast, review our park map and consolidate our touring plan. we were wasting no time and we were going to hit up everything. the sun was shining, the park was just across the road, and we were going to go commando and get all up in its grille

so..... the alarm goes off, and we snooze. snooze allows you to sleep in for another 10 mins, right, then the alarm goes off again... except when someone turns the alarm off, rather than hitting snooze. so...i roll over, blearily check the time and sit upright, cursing. carlo comes awake, we rush over to trina's room... it's 9.30 and the parks are already open. time's a-wasting. we rush through getting ready, skip breakfast and are out the door by 10. we hit the parks and we're all grumpy now, bleary eyed and ready to stab anyone until they give us coffee. we're not always like this, i promise. we're really rather mild mannered, but the jetlag has hit us hard and we want our caffeine & sugar hit and we want it now. we stumble into carnation cafe, and sufficiently fueled up, hit up the shops for some goodies. i'm decked out in my new DLR tshirt, we're accumulating Disney pins (my faves are the villains like evil queen, red queen & malificent) and badges like you wouldn't believe. one day in DLR and we're all merchandised up, yo.

pics at the start of our merchandise foray:

our plan was to hit tomorrowland first, then work our way around the worlds, anti-clockwise. tomorrowland is carlo's favourite land, as seen here:

loved the theming in tomorrowland - a rocketeer popcorn assistant:

first up is star tours, carlo was our runner for fastpasses for a ST return, and we would wait in line. we got a return time of 11.20, which was not so bad. our first time through, we loved it. trina had no idea what the ride was about, but we all loved it.

star tours:

fastpass gonk droids:

outside & some stormies tried to arrest us, but we were having none of it:

went off to FL and did teacups, alice, snow and mr toads (there were no lines for snow and the line for teacups and alice were only 3 mins long). trina is not a fan of things that move fast, spin or go off the ground, so teacups had her feeling decidedly glad to be back on solid ground. king arthur's carousel had no line, so on we went. loved the finials at the top of dumbo and the topiaries:

storybook land canal boats were cute

sword in the stone was one thing we were able to tick off our list and the evil queen came out to say hi:

then bibbidi bobbidi boutique and the castle walkthrough, then out the other side to snow white's grotto and the wishing well. we tossed aussie money in all the wishing wells/fountains around the US, spreading a little Aussie karma with us, we hoped

trina met the fairy godmother and was dubbed a princess then back to ST for our fastpasses. we waited til 12 to return to ST so we could grab another FP for ST before handing in the old ones, and our return time was 4.20pm. after ST, we bought pins in Star Traders, Carlo bought Grievous' double bladed lightsaber and some disney star wars pins (he's collecting pins of the disney characters dressed as star wars characters). i bought him and trina lanyards and then trina decided to collect disney princesses and her favourite disney characters. i decided to collect whatever appealed to me. lol. about $100 later, we had the start of our pin trading collection but didn't put it to use just yet.

returned to ST again for our third time through, and in love with the whole FP system at this point as that line was fierce by this time. made plans then and there to return to DL soon so we can experience this again and again. had plans to do DCA today, but changed our plans to focus on DLR today, then DCA tomorrow, on our last day. some more souvenirs, shirts and disney merchandise later and we did the castle tour

rode the fire engine (loved the mickey key ring in the ignition), fell in love with the statues around the partner's statue like this little guy:

saw the candle left burning for walt and did the great moments with mr lincoln show at the opera house. loved some of the original concept art:

did some penny pressing & despite an aussie 10c piece being the same size as a us quarter, they were on to us, and the machine wouldn't take it

we stopped for sandwiches and the bakery & gibson girl ice cream parlour on main st. maybe it was the jetlag, but we found the meat and salad tasteless and the bread to be cold and rock hard. not impressed. in fact, we found a lot of food in the usa to be rather tasteless compared to what we can get here in aus.

ham and cheese on wheat:

carlo's tuna salad:

sundaes:mint choc chip something or other - carlo's

sundaes: mocha almond fudge something - mine

we debated doing WOC in DCA or staying for the soundsational parade in DLR again... and we chose soundsational. we just loved the theming and pageantry of it all, so we nabbed our chosen spot on the benches at the top of the railroad station, set up our cameras and waited for the parade.

after this, we wanted to head to toontown, but with IASW closed for refurbishment, we decided to shop/explore a little more and then head home for the night. we discovered penny pressing today, and pressed a bunch of pennies, including the ones in the opera house, which were lovely and different to those we found over the rest of DLR. we plan on trying to collect at least one of all of the various pennies. didn't make it to all the penny pressing machines, but managed to press pennies in all of the various locations, so a fabulous souvenir from the trip

shopped for souvenirs for family & friends, then headed back to the hotel for dinner. got chinese take out which was delicious, then bed, with plans for an early wake up for our only EE morning.

takeout - fried rice with veges and sweet and sour pork - trina:

fried rice with sezchuan shrimp and dumplings - me:

fried rice with lemongrass & ginger fish - carlo:

 

[alicia1506]

so before i head into day 3, i want to mention, we got pixie dust everywhere.. our first visit buttons meant that every CM we ran into asked us where we were visiting from, how our visit went and were just lovely and kind and gracious to us. i know it's their job, but we were just bowled over by how gracious everyone was. When we rode the horse drawn cart down main street, our walker, Aleks was lovely and joked and laughed with us each time we rode, telling us we were her favourite people all day long. again, i know it's part of their role as a CM, but it helps to make the experience. when we visited BBB on day 2 (sorry, i left it out, we hit it up at the end of our castle tour), the CMs inside told us that since it was our first visit, they'd share some special info -- on the top shelf of BBB is the actual tiara that anne hathaway wore in the princess diaries. it's under glass, and it's the actual diamond/pearl one she wore during the movie. such a cute piece of trivia that they whispered to us and helped make the experience one we'll never forget

the tiara:

One CM gave us free buttons, and another gave Carlo a free Star Wars pin cause he could see he was a huge star wars fan.

free starwars pin (the vinylmation r2d2 one)

we just loved the courtesy and the generosity of spirit we saw everywhere. there were people who would go out of their way to help others take up pictures, or hold other visitors back so a shot didn't get ruined. with my busted knee, i had difficulty getting up a stair and a gentleman kindly offered his hand as assistance. the disney magic was alive and well, and we fell in love.

so, anywho... day 3. plan was to get up for EE (our only EE), run into DLR for an exchange on a set of trina's pjs she'd bought on day 1, grab a few pins, buy a few souvenirs, do pixie hollow M&G, see Jedi Training Academy, then head over to DCA and explore.

healthy breakfast of applejacks/fruit loops a la polystyrene cups & various caffeine/sugar hits:

so we walk down main street and we see the horse drawn cart up to the castle. we'd ridden the omnibus, the railroad, the monorail and we'd walked, but we wanted to try them all. spontenaity rules!!

omnibus:

fire engine:

horse-drawn carriage:

monorail:

so we joined Danny (our horse) and Aleks (our walker) and off we went. fun and games. we waited for the horseless carriage from the firehouse, but it wasn't running. while we were standing there formulating our next plan, mary poppins and burt came running by, and we stayed for their impromptu show, then headed to pixie hollow for our meet & greet.

pixie hollow:

grabbed dole whips (god, we love those things)

and went to pick up our name cards (in fantasyland, near the face painting is a booth where you can get your name on a card, framed and matted in glitter with disney characters. they are truly gorgeous and i had ordered one for each of us as a surprise.

mine:

carlo's:

got those, took another horse drawn cart (with Lee as our horse and Aleks as walker again) back to main street, shopped then headed out to pin trade & explore DCA. we hadn't had much luck trading in DLR but a kind CM told us about the pin boards in the hotels.

DCA:

The minute we hit DCA (pic taken the night before of the new sucky sign) there were CMS all over the joint with lanyards and hip pockets and we went nuts with the trading. we bought new starter sets so we could trade them away for all these fabulous pins the DCA CMs were sporting. I snuck us into GCH (love the woodwork in the lobby)

and we asked to see their pin board, and we were able to trade 2 x pins each off the board. yay. Trina told Carlo there was a funny Daisy pin she thought he'd like.. turns out it was Daisy dressed as Aura Sing, so he was really, really impressed as it added to his disney characters as star wars characters collection. then we decided to skip DCA and head back to DLR to explore some more, as DCA wasn't all we thought it would be. More pin trading on the way out, and Trina spotted another pin she thought would be cool for Carlo. Turns out it was donald dressed up as Han Solo. she knows nothing about star wars, but managed to find all these little pins Carlo really wanted that he'd overlooked. she's our pin guru now. they headed back to DLR to pin trade some more and to check out HMH, poohs corner, new orleans square etc while i went back to the hotel to send emails home, check out and take care of the luggage. shuttle was due to pick us up at 4.40pm for our 9pm flight, and Trina and Carlo walked into the hotel at 4.30pm. good thing we were organised.

DLR express bus pulled up and it's wrapped in Star Tours promo material with a giant Vader on the side.

Vader Bus:

Vader-bus pulled out with us on it and we were on our way back to LAX. checked in with JetBlue for our flight to JFK, had burger king for dinner (served cold, which really threw me off) and then 5 hrs later we were in JFK, it's 5am and we catch a cab to our hotel. Luckily they had one of our 2 rooms ready so we dumped the luggage and crashed into bed for a quick nap.

more later

 

[battymum]

I read your PTR and thought your plan was ambitious - but hey, you're young, not travelling with kids you can do it -

But thats holidays, you have to roll with the punches sometimes

Sounds like you had an amazing / exhausting time, how great to get on so well with your sister.

 

[Travel Mum]

Wow, this is shaping up to be a great TR and I feel exhausted already after reading the first couple of days. I have NO idea how you could go from that long haul flight, having had no sleep for the last two days to do a day at DL!

Also, your packing story is honestly my worst nightmare No kidding, leading up to oru trip, I would have dreams about having to pack quickly and think fast as our flight was leaving soon. I would wake up feeling all stressed and panicked

 

[alicia1506]

I read your PTR and thought your plan was ambitious - but hey, you're young, not travelling with kids you can do it -

But thats holidays, you have to roll with the punches sometimes

Sounds like you had an amazing / exhausting time, how great to get on so well with your sister.

we had a total commando-style plan and we knew, just knew it was gonna get screwed with, but we figured, that's where the fun in travel is, as that's gonna be the story you tell and the part of the trip you remember forever, and we were right we're never gonna forget the flight from hell... but you know, thinking back on it, it's become an experience to remember and not such a bad thing, although at the time, it was horrendous also, to anyone who travels with kids... you have my undying respect. seriously. i cannot even imagine how much extra stress we would have had if we had've had kids with us... i'm sure DLR would have been magical, but the flights and the luggage and the sheer stuff we had with us... migraine territory

Wow, this is shaping up to be a great TR and I feel exhausted already after reading the first couple of days. I have NO idea how you could go from that long haul flight, having had no sleep for the last two days to do a day at DL!

Also, your packing story is honestly my worst nightmare No kidding, leading up to oru trip, I would have dreams about having to pack quickly and think fast as our flight was leaving soon. I would wake up feeling all stressed and panicked

i know -- truly not the smartest idea we had, but we wanted to pack as much in as possible, and we probably should have taken time to sleep, rest and then go commando-touring style, but we know better for our 2012 trip now i'm OCD about ... well, everything including packing, and carlo just kept putting it off and putting it off... never, never, never again. we ended up packing stuff we didn't need, and never used, and put some stuff in super secret places we couldn't remember the next morning and didn't find until we unpacked. NEVER again!!! when i go to europe in 2012 and back to DLR for xmas in 2012, we're packing like.. 3 mths in advance

 

[OziJo]

Wow. What a start. I'm exhausted just reading about it. Ah to be young again. I'm now happier than ever that I set our first day aside to recover from the flight. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[alicia1506]

so.. when last we caught up, we were checked in to our hotel (the funky Pod Hotel in Midtown Manhattan)

and we had booked 2 x rooms, a single for katrina and a double bunk bed for me & carlo. it's tiny, but NYC rooms are tiny, and we wanted a modern, quirky twist with NY so... why not. so.. they had the bunk bed room ready for us which was really convenient as it was not yet 6am, and again... no sleep for close to 24 hrs straight. carlo and i were on the bottom bunk, trina on the top and the luggage was stashed in a corner. air con on nice & cold and we slept for about 5 hrs straight. had set the alarm for 10.45 and we had tickets for unlimited tours on the uptown/downtown loop, a tour of brooklyn, and a night tour, with an included ticket to the top of the rock, empire state & harbour cruise. we decided to shower, get refreshed, have breakfast in their onsite cafe, and then we were going to head out and paint the town red.

during my shower, i felt decidedly unwell. headed back to the room and announced we might want to hold off on heading out just yet. trina & carlo headed out for bagels while i had a little lie down. she got ham & cream cheese, he got cream cheese & lox. one bite of the cream cheese & lox (which normally i find just yummo) and it was all over for me.

the pretty marble shower where i spent most of my time:

the rest of the day was spent horrendously sick, vomiting every hour, at almost hourly intervals. i couldn't stomach water, nor the anti-nausea pills, nor my usual medication. carlo and trina went out to explore, saw some sights and had a bit of fun, but returned to the hotel room to look after me. we didn't know why i'd gotten so sick as trina and i had eaten the same food the previous day, but mayhap my stomach was more sensitive

all i know is i wanted to be anywhere but there, and i think i expressed the treasonous thought that i wanted to go home

my view for the next 2 days:

day 2 was spent in exactly the same position - prone on the bed, in between bouts of illness - with carlo and trina going and doing some small explorations but nothing fabulous. they had maccas for dinner, nothing fancy as they didn't want to venture too far out, but by nightfall on day 2 i was hideously dehydrated, weak and about 5 kilos lighter, but managed to keep down water during the night and by day 3 morning i was determined to get out of that bed and into the world around us, especially as it was our last day in NY before we head off to Orlando for the WWOHP celebrations.

(sorry these are a little shorter, but condensing due to writing at work during break times )

this is some icecream we found in a vending machine in times square on our last night (more in the next update). very, very yummo.