Osborne lights one last time... oh and quite a lot of shopping too!

So, I'm a crazy lady and decided I needed to see the Osborne lights one last time before they leave Hollywood Studios. 

After much debating (mostly about price) I booked this trip about 2 weeks before we left.

In the end I decided to only buy a 1 day Disney ticket and so as a result we spent quite a lot of our time at the shops...! The first couple of days will be light on photos I'm afraid but there will be many in our Hollywood Studios day :)

Pre-travel (Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th Dec)

So, this was an unexpected trip and required 3 additional days of annual leave from work over my planned Christmas break. As a result (and the fact that work is on the way to the airport) we decided to drop the dog off at kennels on Monday evening and leave for the airport after work on Tuesday.

After we had dropped the dog off we headed home to make dinner and then did some cleaning (we had done most of it over the weekend) and packed our bags. 

Up the next morning for work as usual but it would be a good day in the office as once we were done….we were going to Florida!

We finished at around 4.30 and we headed off towards Gatwick. We stopped for McDonalds at Fleet services and I think we arrived at the long stay car park at around 7.20, we parked the car and got lucky with a bus just after we got there. We used the machines to get our boarding passes and to label our bags before dropping them off with BA. 

We took the shuttle across to the South Terminal and checked in at the Hilton. We decided against going to the lounge for drinks and snacks and watched tv before bed.

Wed 16th Dec

This morning we got up and headed over to North Terminal via the shuttle, once across we headed though security which didn’t take us long at all. We decided to have breakfast at Armadillos again after enjoying our food here last time. 

After eating we had a quick look around the shops and it wasn’t long until our gate was announced.  We boarded mostly on time and eventually took off about 20 mins late, the flight itself was fine although the last couple of hours dragged for me. The food was surprisingly good, the hot choices were: Sausage and mash, chicken curry or a veggie pasta; Rob had the sausage and I had pasta and they weren’t bad at all. 

The sandwiches later on were odd though, we were initially offered egg and tomato (just yuck!) and in the end I think we had checked salad which had way too much tomato in for me.  I continue to be puzzled by the sandwich fillings - I mean who thinks egg is a good choice on a plane? And tomato in both options?!

We actually landed about 20 minutes early in the end, although unfortunately at the same time as the Virgin flight from Manchester. Thankfully we were just ahead and so were off the flight before most of them. 

The line behind us was massive, we were also allowed to use the kiosks and so that speeded things up for us. This time we were told that Rob and I should only complete 1 customs form - I explained that we had been told the exact opposite on our previous trip and the guy looked very puzzled….we’ll see what they say next time!

We collected our bags within about an hour of landing but then had to wait about 20 mins for our car at Avis as Rob had chosen a 7 seater SUV (suburban or similar) and they didn’t have any ready.

The drive to Shingle Creek was easy and we were quickly checked in, although the elevator didn’t want to work so we got a room on a different floor!

We got pizza across the way from NYPD pizza before returning to unpack and then we were off to bed relatively early - I think I lasted until 9pm!