Mon 13th June
Rob’s birthday!
We had breakfast in our room – toast and muffins and I had some coffee but the polystyrene cups that they provide in DVC units now do not taste good.
We headed to Animal Kingdom for the morning and decided against trying to ride Flight of Passage because we had as normal arrived later than you should if trying to minimise queues.
Instead our first attraction was Dinosaur, we have a friend who used to work on it and so we always make a point to ride it. We waited around 30 minutes and saw parts of the queue that we had never been to before. Despite the fact that we were “not going to make it”, we did once again make it!
We continued around to Expedition Everest and I think we waited around 30 mins again, although the queue was much longer when we got off the ride.
It was again really hot so we bought some ice cream, I had a sundae the name of which I have forgotten. We experienced some not very Disney service here as we attempted to pay using our magic band and were told off by the Cast Member – apparently you have to tell them or they press the wrong thing! Who knew?!
Our last attraction of the day was the Maharaj Jungle Trek (or the trail where you can see the Tigers), although disappointingly they weren’t out when we went through so no Tigers 
We headed out of the park, along the way we saw one of the mini river parades and also Kevin!
We popped to Disney Springs to for a slightly late lunch where we got an Earl of Sandwich. I am pleased to report that it was as good as always and we have really missed them since 2020.
We went back to Bay Lake for a rest and to have a shower and change before dinner.
We had a reservation at Yachtsman Steakhouse at 1930 and arrived a few minutes before and checked in online again.
We waited at least 30 minutes past our reservation time again….I was starting to get the sense that this was the norm now at Disney.
We were finally seated and were brought drinks and bread rolls. We ordered our mains and waited…..
It took ages before our food arrived, I felt bad for our server as she was doing a fab job but there must have been an issue in the kitchen because all the tables seemed to have long waits.
After what felt like forever our mains arrived – my photos say 20:50!
I had the filet mignon with fries (they aren’t the truffle fries anymore) and Rob had the New York Strip with potato gratin.
We both really enjoyed our food but it was now much later than we would normally start dinner and whilst I really wanted dessert I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat it so we declined.
We did see a few of the Epcot fireworks from our table and whilst our meal was enjoyable I was disappointed with how long it took this time.
Sun 12th June
Woke up a couple of times in the night but managed to stay asleep until 7.
Due to the time difference we watched F1 while we got ready. We then went in search of breakfast, Boardwalk Bakery had hardly any options so we decided to see what was available at the Swan.
Got there and they had a few more options – we did both end up with breakfast sandwiches plus Rob had a muffin.
We were only at Boardwalk for 1 night so we sorted out our bags (having not properly unpacked) and checked out before driving across to Bay Lake Tower where we left our bags with Bell Services and quickly did mobile check-in.
Next stop was Magic Kingdom where we didn’t follow any touring rules, we arrived in the park around 11 am and it was already mega busy.
We had decided against purchasing Genie+ and thought we would just soak up the atmosphere and get a few rides in before our late lunch reservation.
As it was so busy our first attraction was Carousel of Progress, all of the other Tomorrowland attractions had really long waits (even the Peoplemover!) I am a big fan of the classic attractions and always like a bit of air conditioning as it was already very hot (I think I forgot how hot June is).
We then headed into Storybook Circus where we had a drink in the Big Top where they have added some tables inside.
We continued along to Fantasyland passing lots of attractions with extremely long waits so I next selected Philharmagic – more air con and classic Disney magic.
We continued around picking up a couple of pins in Frontierland, I bought my 50th anniversary pin as Rob correctly highlighted that I normally defer a decision and then can’t find what I wanted…so we avoided that issue!
We decided to brave the line for Pirates of the Caribbean, it was a 40 min wait which was not ideal but again I was drawn to being inside in the relative cool 
We then headed across to The Plaza for our lunch reservation at 1405, we were frustratingly left waiting at least 20 mins past our time…to the point that it disappeared from our MDE account. We asked at the podium as we weren’t sure what would happen to the notification and stunningly our table became available (not sure if we got missed off?)
Luckily our food was really good, we both had burgers and sundaes and despite our server trying to get me to order dessert while I was still eating my main it was overall a positive experience. Total cost with DVC discount was $80 inc tip.
At this point we left the park as we had our room notification, we got our bags and unpacked as we were now home!
Our next task was to go shopping so we headed to Target and got ourselves all the key items – bread, muffins, cheese, sandwich meat, drinks, some bottles of water and some proper milk for my coffee.
We had planned to go back to the park but we were just too lazy so we watched HGTV and then the fireworks from our balcony.
Sat 11th June
Alarm set for 0615, we got ourselves ready and walked to T3 via the walkway having done express check out (our room was free with Hilton points so nothing to pay).
Check in was easy as we had done fly ready; we did have to wait a few minutes but no big issue.
Although a man in the queue behind us (I think a Gold member flying PE) moaned and went back to the PE queue because it was taking too long! I might have been slightly pleased that we were sorted out before him.
With our bags gone we headed to the Virgin security; much quieter than the main area although there was a short queue for this too.
Once through security we headed to the clubhouse where it was quite quiet on arrival.
We both had a full English breakfast plus I had a fruit salad, we also had tea and coffee. We were repeatedly offered champagne and there was much surprise when we politely declined as neither of us really drink alcohol.
After breakfast I had a second coffee and we both had water plus I think Rob had a cookie. It was much quieter here and a nice start to the day and even if not flying Upper Class I might well consider a paid lounge on future trips.
We headed to the gate where there was a short queue but we boarded quickly, we were offered more drinks, and unsurprisingly we both stuck to water.
There was apparently a bit of a kerfuffle whilst I was in the restroom - there was a couple with a young baby who was upset and another passenger was apparently annoyed.
Rob says there was a brief confrontation where the one guy told the other to stop looking at his wife and child and then some seat shuffling (the UC cabin was full but there were other family members on board so they were moved around to get the man away from the baby (shocked emoji)
In other news Toff from ‘Made In Chelsea / I’m a Celebrity’ was on our flight and sat across from me in the aisle, I didn’t bother her so no pics but we later discovered she was in Disney doing some TV work for This Morning.
We had a pack of little pretzels plus drink service and then at about 1300 they started serving lunch.
Warm rolls were delivered ahead of the main meals along with our tables being set up with table cloths etc. It’s definitely a different experience than in economy where you get a tray handed to you!
I had pre-ordered pork meatballs (which I assumed effectively meant spaghetti bolognaise and it was pretty similar). This was pretty good, could have done with slightly more sauce.
Rob had breaded chicken and said it was good, his only criticism was that the bread coating could have been a bit crispier.
We both had the passion fruit and chocolate dome for dessert and I then had the cheese and biscuits (and forgot a photo)!
We slept for a couple of hours, Rob took full advantage of the bed feature whereas I just stretched out and put my feet up.
I watched West Side Story and then afternoon tea arrived not long before landing. I had scones and Rob chose the pulled pork; both were good – the scone was huge!
We landed on time and as usual walked into immigration to see a massive queue, this is the worst part about Orlando airport for me and if we hadn’t had reward flights would have chosen any other airline into any other airport to avoid it.
We think 2 or 3 flights had landed just ahead of us and they had very few immigration officers so it took 1 hr 15 to get through (sad face)
At least our bags were waiting so we collected them and mono-railed across. We went to Budget car hire and luckily there was not too long a wait. We collected our visitor toll pass and oddly had to go back to B side to get our car.
We had barely left the airport and were driving toward Boardwalk and some woman almost crashed into the side of us! Luckily Rob spotted her and took avoiding action.
Arrived safely at Boardwalk and headed straight to our room, used phone to open up as annoyingly our magic bands didn’t work (we had done mobile check in).
Next job was to find food, pizza on the Boardwalk was an hour wait so that was a big no, we walked around to Yacht/Beach and ended up at Hurricane Hanna’s where we got lukewarm burgers which were ok but not the best.
We walked back to Boardwalk and watched a little of HGTV until we couldn’t stay awake any longer.
Fri 10th June
After lots of waiting pre-travel day was finally here!
As I am a crazy person I had signed up to do a challenge for Cancer Research riding 300 miles during June. As we were away for 2 weeks I needed to complete my miles in 15 days (for those of you who are good at maths that’s an average of 20 miles per day).
So first task of the day was to do my cycling…..I started at about 0615 and completed 25.11 miles in 1 hour 35 minutes, meaning I had completed 230.15 miles in my first 10 days.
Next up after showers was our Covid tests at 0930 with Qured (we were I think the last day that this was needed as the rules changed just after); the lady did us both at the same time as they were having issues.
Thankfully we were negative so we uploaded our results and headed to town to collect some dry cleaning and pick up a Father’s Day card.
Rob also got a quick haircut at the barber’s as his appointment had been cancelled due to staff illness.
Back home to do fly ready and online check in which all went smoothly and we soon had our documents printed so next up was ironing and finally packing.
We were about ready to leave at 1500 and squeezed our 3 cases (plus hand luggage) into our Skoda Citigo EV and headed off, dropping off the Father’s Day card on our way.
Unfortunately, there was an accident on the A303 just where we would join, we hit a short queue and then took a small detour before joining further along. It appeared to be a bad accident as the road was closed to oncoming traffic.
The rest of our journey was super smooth, we stopped at our regular Starbucks near Fleet for about 30 mins to top up our charge on our car and got a little snack as we realised that we hadn’t had any lunch!
We travelled the remaining 20 miles or so to Heathrow long stay where amazingly we got to park in Zone A which never happens! We got a nice space right by a bus stop!
It was warm and sunny waiting for our bus, which was good preparation for Florida.
Quick bus ride to T2 and we walked across to the Hilton Garden Inn. We popped our bags in our room and then went to M&S to get more food.
We had a little room picnic and then watched TV before bed!
Mon 21st into Tues 22nd
Today was the end of our short trip – we were flying later in the evening so were making the most of our time.
For breakfast we had some more of the muffins and Jen tried the same one that I had eaten yesterday. She agreed with me that it was in fact not chocolate but agreed that it had fruit and nut included.
We decided we had to solve this puzzle and so consulted the sprouts website. Through a process of elimination, we were able to determine that it was in fact vegan super fruit! Possibly the furthest option from chocolate that it could have been!
A final day wouldn’t be complete without some shopping and Rob wanted to buy a new notebook – a Rocketbook which you can erase and reuse. We hadn’t found them in Best Buy so we thought we would try Staples. We found what he was looking for and got a mini version so that we can use it for our shopping list each week.
We also visited Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma and another new supermarket called The Fresh Market.
We bought a chicken and sides deal for lunch – I think it was $18 for the chicken plus 2 sides which was amazing value. We really enjoyed this and I think we finished off the remaining cake before we left.
At some point Rob and I did our packing (I think we did most of it in the morning and then finished it off when we got back from the shops). We spent the rest of our afternoon playing on the Switch and watching HGTV.
Sadly, the time arrived for us to leave, we had a short drive back to the airport where we dropped off the car and caught the bus to the terminal.
Check in was quite quick but we had a long wait for security which was a shame. I had hoped to find the Earl of Sandwich located at the airport but it closed at 7pm and by the time we had checked in it was too late 🙁
Once we were finally through security we decided on pizza (I forgot the photo), we accidentally ordered a pizza with white sauce but it was actually quite tasty.
We bought a Philadelphia magnet (and when we got home realised we already had one!) to add to the one we had got at Purebread earlier in our trip.
We had a short flight home due to a strong tail wind, our flight time was under 6 hours. Neither of us had any of the food options as we wanted to sleep so I’m afraid we can’t compare premium economy food to economy.
We arrived back at heathrow at around 9am I think and in exciting news I got through the e passport gate with ease (normally taking my glasses off causes an issue and I had the mask to deal with too this time).
We got a bus to the long stay car park where we successfully retrieved the car. We drove to our Starbucks just off the M3 to add some charge (and take a short nap). I got us muffins and I picked up a coffee (I think a mocha).
Once we had added enough charge we headed home where we continued our napping for a short while longer before we made ourselves get up and have dinner so that we could try and get back onto UK time.
