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Old 27 Sep 14, 01:21 PM  
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fleur_charms
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The Year of the Mouse - Day 15 Saturday 17th May - Downtown Disney and Going Home!

Day 15 – Downtown Disney and Going Home – Saturday 17th May

Apologies if today is a little vague… I didn’t record any notes for obvious depressing reasons!

I’m not sure what time we did end up getting up but the mission for today was to pack up the cases and sort the hotel room out. It didn’t take too long to pack. Liam only had one bag and I had two as I’d booked an extra one. I’d already nearly packed one of them before this morning.

When we were all done we had tons of food left over from Walmart which we hadn’t touched at all. We left it on the side in the kitchen, Liam can’t stand wastage so we hoped the maid’s would take it. We left a little note explaining none of it had been touched so feel free to take it, or if not, put it in the bin. We also left about $6 in the envelope for them. They only clean every 3 days at the Enclave so we left $2 each day we knew they were coming.

With the room all spick and span I took some final parting photos. For anyone interested in booking a studio at the Enclave Suites, here are some pictures. It really is not bad at all, and incredibly cheap. We got exactly what we expected, cheap and cheerful. We had no issues what so ever as if we had any problems they would send maintenance to come and fix it straight away. It was cleanly though the bathroom was a bit dated. The view and balcony were perfect. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the place to someone that wanted a cheaper Florida holiday. In fact, we loved it, it was perfect for us. We now think of it as our place, the place we want to go back to!











We lugged everything down to the car, with a great struggle. There’s two lifts next to eachother. We got in one and it went down and then wouldn’t shut its doors. The maintenance man came and said it had been playing up and to use the other lift. So we got in the other and that wouldn’t move for ages! Luckily it did eventually work, as it would have been a right game lugging 3 suitcases and all of our hand luggage down the stairs from the fifth floor!

We loaded the car up and I went and checked out, while Liam drove up to outside reception. Check out was easy if I remember correctly I just signed a couple of things and authorised them to take the money for the safe from my credit card. The safe was $1 a day, so $14. I got back in the car and we drove away from the hotel for the last time, feeling sad. I should add that by this point I’d already been in tears several times. Once in the car I let rip, I was crying so much.

We had discussed going to IHop on our final morning, and I wish we had, but it was 11 something now already and we needed to get to Downtown Disney or we wouldn’t have time to go at all. Our flight was 4:35pm if I remember correctly, so we needed to be at the airport for 1:35pm or around then.

Pulling up at DD, we were lucky and managed to get a space fairly quickly. We parked closest to the end with the shops this time, as we had no interest in the end closest to Cirque du Soleil. We headed into World of Disney and I brought some presents for my niece as I still couldn’t find the Dinglehopper. We also picked up a new photoframe, as we had brought one last time. In 2012, we hadn’t lived together but had been planning on finding a place and had brought a lovely wood Mickey Mouse photo frame thinking we’d put it up in our new place. Well I actually hadn’t ended up getting it out of the box until March of this year! We now have another wood photo frame, which says Walt Disney World, along the top. I paid on my credit card again. Liam also grabbed some last minute presents.



Next it was over to the Christmas shop. It’s a tradition of ours to get a new Christmas tree decoration every time we visit. In 2012 we had gotten a lovely green bauble with Mickey and Minnie on top, and it read, “Our Christmas Together”. It was perfect because it was to be our first Christmas living together. This year we picked up a red bauble in the same design, with Mickey giving a bunch of flowers and Minnie kissing him on the cheek. No words on it this time though. Liam paid for this as I’d brought the photo frame.

Once we’d made our purchases we headed out but not before stopping at Ghirardelli’s. One last ice cream was calling. I had the Salted Caramel sundae and Liam had a double scoop of chocolate. My god this was one of the best sundaes I’ve ever had and I will most definitely be getting this again.





We headed across the car park, the whole time being flanked by slow moving cars following us to try and get our space! It was a little unnerving. Once we got there we opened up the boot and knew we’d be a while packing our new purchases away. A car had stopped to wait for us but Liam shouted to them that we weren’t leaving yet. We managed to pack everything away but it took a good while! I, of course, was in constant tears again! We were incredibly late and didn’t end up leaving until gone 1pm.

We still had to stop for fuel so we did this at the station closest to the hotel as this was one we knew and trusted! Then we headed to the airport, Liam paranoid all the while they’d say there was something wrong with the car! I don’t know why he worried, they barely even look at it. We pulled up at Alamo into the huge line of cars and unpacked all our bits. We struggled with all our suitcases to the check in desk. Since it was about 2pm by this point there wasn’t much of a queue. There was a little confusion at the desk when the check in lady tried to charge us for the extra bag, but obviously we had already paid. It seems as though at the airport it wasn’t Thomas Cook check in staff, but random airport staff?

Anyway we got in and headed to the food court before security. Liam had some plain noodles from Panda Express. He said the server looked at him like he was mad haha. We then looked in the Disney and Universal stores. I saw a lovely Thing photo album but I literally came home with no money! Well, $6 and that wasn’t nearly enough to buy it! Sitting around with our noodles, I came up with the last fun idea of the holiday. We should get through security and eat at the Outback since we hadn’t managed to elsewhere.

So we headed through security, the queue was huge as ever so it took forever. Once I got through, I was selected for the full body scanner. I did then and my bag was then taking over to the side. I started to get really worried as I had no idea why. Luckily we had a friendly security officer. He rescanned my bag but it was still setting off alarm bells. In the end he was like, “Do you have a big bag of coins in here?” I was like, “Omg, yes! I’m so stupid and sorry!” Yes. I had a giant bag of change in my bag. We hadn’t gotten around to putting it in one of those coinstar machines as the one in Walmart had been out of service so we were taking it home to bring on our next trip!

Luckily that was over with but we only had 30 minutes until the flight started boarding. Feeling a little crazy, Liam went up and asked the host at the Outback, “If we just ordered a bloomin’ onion would we be done in 25 minutes?” Haha. He said yes so they seated us. Well it was a real rush but we managed to get 2 cokes and a lovely bloomin’ onion. We left quite a bit of it as we realised how crazy we were being, and that our flight was about to board in 5 minutes. We paid hastily and ran down to our gate!





Luckily we arrived about 2 minutes before we got on, we really did push it. But unluckily we didn’t have time to pop into the shops so we had no water or magazines. Ah well! We were in the same seats and had the same couple in front of us from the way here. We thought it a really strange coincidence; it’s not that often you see the same people on your flights I suppose.

The flight was mildly passable compared to the flight over there. However, I kept bursting into tears. Liam was a little embarrassed by me and said it wasn’t normal as no one else on the plane was crying lol. He was down in the dumps too though. We did have a talk about how we seem to be different to everyone else… We used some friends as an example – it just seems as though our friends, and mostly everyone else we come across, is happy to trundle through life, working, they are grateful for a holiday but when they come back home well that’s it, and they don’t mind going back to work, because they got a holiday. Our problem is, although we’re grateful, we don’t want to go back to work. We want to holiday forever. We want to keep going on adventures. Neither of us like being told what to do by the man! So going back to work after a Florida holiday was the worst fate imaginable!

Anyway, my crying persisted despite Liam’s embarrassment. I watched the rest of the episodes of the Kardashian’s I had on my tab that I hadn’t watch on the way out. Later on we watched the Lego Movie together, not long before landing. Unfortunately because we hadn’t had chance to go in the shops and had no water, we were in quite the state. We also did not have any English cash, so couldn’t buy any. Liam popped to the back of the plane to ask if we could pay with dollars, but the stewardess informed him we could but would get a bad exchange rate so end up paying over the odds. So she handed him a bottle of water for free, and told him not to tell anyone! Thank god for that water, we had to ration it out though.

The moment we landed I switched on my phone and messaged my mom immediately. Her and my dad were waiting for us to land to take us home, and I asked her to get us water ASAP! We got through the border no worries. Nothing to declare is a laugh – even if you wanted to declare, there was no one around to declare to! I’ve now come to the conclusion that they really couldn’t give a toss about tourists coming home from Florida. I’ve since heard that they apparently swarm round flights landing in from places like Dubai – I never knew this but apparently they have tax free shopping over there? So people go mad buying stuff over there.

We waited about half an hour to an hour for our bags. We were getting more and more infuriated by one family in particular. There’s clearly a big yellow line in front of the baggage carousel, and signs saying not to cross the yellow line. Well their kids kept sitting on the carousel while it was moving! And the dad was actively encouraging it. Grrr. Anyway we were a couple of the first out again. Our suitcases are so distinguishable and we had tied ribbons to each one.

We stepped out and there were my mom and dad and they took our cases off of us. They had arrived something ridiculous like 2 hours early as apparently they couldn’t sleep! I think they said they left home at about 4am! But because they’d been in the car park for so long it cost them about £10. We piled the suitcases in and had one between us in the back seat. We talked of all the things that had happened during the holiday.

By the time we got home we felt comatose! My dad brought our cases in and we immediately sorted some bits out, got changed and got in bed. We set an alarm for in 2 hours as we needed to be able to sleep tonight. Unfortunately when the alarm went off we were still half dead so went back to sleep for about hour. We woke up at about 12pm.

I sorted everyone’s presents out as we would be seeing my family later. I also put all of the pictures onto several USB sticks so we could show everyone. Later that day we went to my parents to see my family. Presents were handed out and pictures were viewed but unfortunately no one was that interested!

I can’t remember the evening but I know I was in bed very early, between 8 and 9pm.


I ate some Funnyuns in bed haha. We had to buy these as we are big Breaking Bad fans!

I was then awake about 2am, as was Liam. We needed to be leaving the house at 4am to get me to Birmingham Airport. Either way we were both in the dumps so we stayed awake and talked for an hour. We had another hour’s sleep before getting up and trudging into the car. Liam had the Monday off work so he dropped me off at the Airport. Then I said bye bye to the UK and flew off to Denmark.

I couldn’t do this again. I had a work meeting and kept nodding off in it! I kept having to excuse myself, splash my face with water and have some fresh air quickly before going back. Luckily my manager let everyone know I was jetlagged! I got the longest sleep in the hotel and was a bit better on Tuesday. I was glad to be home that evening and had a day off Wednesday. I didn’t start feeling normal again for ages after though. That amount of air travel is NOT advisable!

Up next… High, Lows and Plans for the Future!

Edited at 01:30 PM.
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Old 28 Sep 14, 09:47 PM  
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shirley
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Poor you having to work away so close to your return journey. xx
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Old 12 Oct 14, 12:35 PM  
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fleur_charms
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Originally Posted by shirley View Post
Poor you having to work away so close to your return journey. xx
It was a killer! Thanks for reading
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