Double the fun : East & West coast Disney & Universal parks - UPDATED 1/14 About This Page:

[Big Sister]

DAY 9: Wednesday, 17 November 2010

WDW - here we come! (LA to Florida)

Please click here to read about our time in Sydney (including our trip itinerary)

Please click here to read about our time at Universal Studios Hollywood (including day trips to Warner Bros Studios and a VIP helicopter tour of LA)

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After days of jokingly complaining about having to get up at times like 7am, 7.30am and 8am, this morning we had to get up at 4.30am ... enough said It was still dark outside, but the lights of the park and City Walk weren't on, which was probably a good thing, as I would've found them distracting.

Only having two hours till the Super Shuttle arrived to take us to LAX, motivated us to get moving quick smart. During that time, we packed out suitcases, tidied the room, and got ourselves ready.

The Super Shuttle people had rang us up the night before, requesting that we be out the front of our hotel by 6.30am. We would've made that time, but ended up receiving a call at 6.20am, saying that they were ready for us then!

With one last desperate sweep of the room to make sure we hadn't left anything behind, we dashed downstairs to checkout, being very conscious of the shuttle driver waiting for us by the concierge desk. Thankfully, the shuttle driver was waiting where he was, to help us with our luggage, not to chide us for being late (despite having moved the meeting time forward unexpectedly - phew!)

Only one other passenger was in the van when Nest and I got in. We stopped just once to pick up one other passenger. He was really caught out by the early pick-up, and took around ten minutes or so to eventually appear. As our flight wasn't due to depart until 10.10am, I wasn't worried in the slightest. The drive to the airport took about an hour. I was surprised to see how much traffic was out and about at that early hour.

Once at LAX, we checked in straight away, then staked out a seat at our gate. While Nest minded my seat, I went and grabbed us some brekkie from the nearby bakery. I returned with turkey, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayo on a sour dough roll, fruit cups, and bottled water for both of us.

After breakfast, Nest seemed to have developed a case of the sniffles and complained about feeling cold, so I went through all the stores looking for either a pair of long pants or a traveller's blanket for him, but drew a blank on both counts. Instead, I came back with some tissues from the newsagents for him to blow his nose with, and a Goofy postcard I was meant to send to work, but never got round to it.

I thought I'd be able to cope with the five hour flight to Orlando, but the conditions we were submitted to meant I was sadly mistaken . As this was an inter-state flight, the plane wasn't as big as that of an international flight - a fact made painfully clear in the way that the flight was totally full. The seating was unbelievably squashy - I was sitting in-between two tall guys. As they were unable to stretch their legs out in front of them due to the rows of seating being so close together, they sat with them spread so far apart, that it encroached on my personal space, and I wasn't able to move at all. The bathrooms were ridiculously tiny also - you would have to be the width of a cardboard cut-out to use them comfortably.

I tried to while away the time by writing postcards (while keeping my arms tucked into my side - LOL! ), and catching a few zzz's. There was an in-flight movie showing on shared screens hanging from the ceiling, but the sound reception from the earphones we were given, was ridiculously poor, so I gave up after a minute or so. It didn't really bother me, as I wasn't interested in the chosen movie anyway (Salt starring Angelina Jolie.) This was followed by an episode of 30 Rock, then Destinations (I can't remember which travel destination it focussed on, but it makes sense that it must've been Orlando ),but I wasn't in the mood to watch those at the time, either.

First Class and Business Class passengers were served complimentary meals, where-as those of us in Coach, had to pay if we wanted to eat Nest and I stuck it out with the bottles of Sprite we had purchased at the last minute before boarding. I do realise that higher class passengers deserve perks due to the amount they pay for their tickets, it's just hard to deal with when you can see this service going on through the useless see-through curtain they draw to separate the classes .

We arrived in Orlando half an hour early - woo hoo! Anything to get off that plane! Even though we had left LAX at 10.10am, and the flight had only taken five hours, it was 5.30pm Orlando time, due to the time zone we had crossed on our way there. I could feel my body clock getting all confused that the sun was already beginning to go down after feeling like we had still only just gotten out of bed.

Orlando International Airport is really nice and very large - I'm thinking because it also doubles as a hotel. Nest and I caught the train to baggage claim. Even though it took a while for our luggage to appear, I still remember being super happy about the WDW part of our trip finally being upon us.

Luggage in tow, we made our way downstairs to catch the Magical Express to the Pop Century Resort. I checked us in at the transport counter while Nest waited with our luggage in the nearby seating area. We were seen to and sorted in time to catch the Magical Express bound for the Pop Century Resort that was already outside and waiting to depart. It was already full of excited guests, yet Nest and I were lucky enough to find the last vacant double seat (red with gold stars) right up the back.

It was so massively exciting to be on our way to WDW after all the years of longing to go. We had so many exciting things planned, which we were busting to experience after having them be just ideas written down on paper for so long.

It was dark once we had gotten to that point, so the bus driver turned off the main lights (they went from bright white to soft greens and blues), and put on a welcome to WDW video as we pulled out of the terminal. This made me even more happy and excited, as the video started off with a montage of people surprising family members at home, revealing that they had organised trips to WDW for them. The one that stuck in my mind the most, was some parents opening up a huge pizza box in front of their kids, to reveal a giant Mickey head painted in sauce under the lid, to which the kids started squealing and jumping about (I think that example stuck in my head the most, as I was very hungry at the time - LOL!) The video had me starting to think about how to go about surprising Nest with our next Disney trip. The journey from the airport to the Pop Century Resort took about half-an-hour, during which time Nest and I kept our hunger pangs at bay by grazing on the lollies we had leftover from the Sydney leg of our trip.

Despite the full bus and being right up the back, by the time Nest and I made it to reception, it was empty and we were seen to right away. Nest was given a first visit badge, and then we were given an information pack and directions to our room, which was number 4162 on the ground floor of building number four in the 1960's section. The building in question was right next to the toddler's wading pool just a short walk from the reception building.

Our room was small, simple, and bright. The features I particularly loved, were the light bulbs lining the bathroom mirror like the movie stars had in the olden days, and the textured carpet. When I first walked on it with bare feet, I thought I had trodden in something, but on closer inspection, I saw (and felt!) that hidden Mickey's had been designed into the carpet at a shorter length than the rest of the carpet.

As we had spent all day relocating to WDW, we were now well and truly ready to have some fun, now that we were settled into our new 'home'. We checked the opening hours of the parks for that day from leaflets we had picked up from reception. Unfortunately, the Magic Kingdom and Epcot were about to close, with the Animal Kingdom and Epcot already having done so, so we decided to go to Downtown Disney to have dinner at the T-Rex restaurant I had read so many great things about.

On our way to the bus stop, we called into Everything Pop, the combined large shopping centre and food court in our hotel's main building. In the shopping area, there were so many great and exciting products to look at, especially with the Christmas season almost upon us. As we were on our way out, I controlled myself with the greatest of difficulty, and just bought some postcards, international postage stamps, and a small selection of emergency snacks for those unavoidable midnight munchies (tiny Mickey head-shaped puffy cheese crackers, Mickey head-shaped pretzels, and two big chocolate chip supreme cookies baked by Minnie.) Nest and I noticed that "Fun to Share" had been written on all the snack packets ... we both hoped that each other hadn't noticed this claim We left exploring the food court for another day.

As Nest is a massive fan of games arcades, we couldn't go past Fast Forward without checking it out. I knew without Nest even saying anything, that he had plans on returning here

We located the correct bus stop out the front of our hotel, and were soon on our way to Downtown Disney - our WDW experience was finally underway! At the time, we didn't realise there were two Downtown Disney disembarkment stops, and got off at the first one we came to, which turned out to be the one furtherest away from the T-Rex restaurant, but no matter, as we had the whole night ahead of us to explore.

On our way to dinner, we called into the World of Disney store. Ever since this holiday was set in concrete, Nest had been incredibly excited about finally being able to expand his intricately designed Disney pocket watch collection, and had saved up long and hard in anticipation. As Nest was so excited about this subject, the excitement rubbed off onto me too, and I was excited about which designs he'd find inside. You can imagine our disappointment when we got inside, only to find that they had been discontinued They had an awesome display of fun-coloured chandeliers though.

In our rush to get going that night, we had inadvertently left our map of Downtown Disney in our room, so to locate the T-Rex restaurant, we kept our eyes peeled for a giant dinosaur - surely there couldn't be that many of them around Having said that, the first giant dino we came across, was made out of bricks and located outside the Lego Store. LOL! No food in there!

It was second time lucky for us, with the next giant dinosaur we spotted. We sped up to the podium, and requested a table for two. We were seated straight away, much to our surprise, as we didn't have a reservation and the place looked quite busy. We were seated in the Coral Reef section, which was totally awesome, as it was such a bright beautiful area, and reminded me of one of my favourite songs, Under The Sea, which I had stuck in my head for the next couple of days as a result. The back wall I was facing, was a brown rock face covered with all different types of coloured coral. There was three foot of space where that wall met the ceiling, which had a blue moving water effect on it.

There were brightly coloured and lit up jellyfish hanging from the ceiling, the most impressive one being to my right - it was huge! It was cream and pink in colour, and decorated with fairy lights - I thought it was awesome, and thought the family sitting under it were so lucky - I wonder what it looked like from underneath?

If I twisted round that little bit further, I could see a fantastic fish tank, featuring my favourite ‘nose’ fish.

Directly behind me, was the absolutely awesome-looking ice cave seating area, as well as another seating area with a dark prehistoric desert feel to it.

To my left, was the bar area. Presiding over it, looked like what must’ve been the world's largest octopus.

Every fifteen minutes or so, the lights would dim and a meteor shower would ensue (mainly in the prehistoric desert area), causing the dinosaurs and woolly mammoths to roar and trumpet.

The meteor shower also caused the blue walls of the ice cave to change to a reddy orange colour, and the octopus in our section to wave his legs about (just in a subtle fashion - not flailing about - LOL! That would be something!)

Our waitress was fantastic, and brought us an appetiser of her choosing for Nest and I to share, as we were having so much trouble deciding what to have for dinner, as there were just so many fantastic dishes to choose from. Our surprise appetiser turned out to be Megalosaurus Mozzarella - crumbed and deep-fried creamy marinara and mozzarella fingers served with a little pot of mild tomato salsa. They were absolutely delicious, and left us wanting more.

Eventually Nest decided on T-Rexadillas for his second appetiser. These consisted of chicken, peppers, green onions, Monterey Jack and cheddar cheeses, grilled in flour tortillas and served with pico de gallo, sour cream and guacamole.

I skipped a second appetiser, and went straight to a main course of Bronto Burger - a beef patty with a huge onion ring, pickles, lettuce, tomato and Swiss cheese, with a side of waffle fries. Despite being terribly hungry, I was unable to eat it all - it was so big!

Nest had no trouble polishing off his main course of Fire-Roasted Rotisserie Chicken accompanied by sides of waffle fries and coleslaw - it must be because he's so much taller than me, therefore he has more empty spaces to fill

We had Cokes with free refills throughout our meal ... though Nest’s first drink was an apple juice, and my first drink to celebrate finally making it back to WDW, was from the cocktail menu. I chose a cotton-tini The cocktail was mixed and brought to the table in a blue dinosaur cocktail shaker I got to take home, accompanied by a martini glass stuffed with blue cotton candy. LOL - very sophisticated!! (That's me for you! ) The cotton candy immediately dissolved once the waitress poured in the mixture. It was a lovely sweet concoction.

There was no way we could entertain the thought of dessert after all the food we had eaten This was disappointing, as we had so been wanting to share the Chocolate Extinction dish - a huge chunk of chocolate fudge cake served with ice cream, whipped cream, and drizzled with fudge and caramel sauces, with Butterfinger crumbs sprinkled over the lot for good measure. I believe dry ice must've also been present, as when I saw it delivered to other tables, smoke had been pouring from the plate. Nest and I enjoyed our experience here so much, we couldn’t wait to return. Unfortunately though, this turned out to be our only visit

I wish I could say that we continued on to do more exciting things after dinner, but instead, reality had us return to the Pop Century Resort, where we spent what felt like the next 100 hours, doing a weeks worth of washing and drying in the laundry room, getting to bed at 3am as a result - nooooooo! Universal City Hilton didn't have facilities for us to do our own laundry, hence the backlog of washing. I swear that next holiday, I'm allowing for funds to get someone else to do our washing, in the budget!

Next entry: 17 hours straight in the Magic Kingdom!! (Includes our first Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, and a Dreaming of a Disney Christmas surprise for Nest)