The flight:
We had an insanely long flight to get to the US. The first flight left Ballito at 7:10 on Sunday morning so we had to be at the airport at 5:40am. That meant leaving the house at 5:30am. I barely slept the night before and the morning was super rushed.
The first flight was only to Johannesburg so pretty quick at only 50 minutes. 4 hours later we got on the first international flight from Johannesburg to Dubai. 8 long hours of a very bumpy flight we landed in Dubai at 11:30pm.
DUBAI AIRPORT NB.... Leave lots of time to get to your next flight. It took us about 30 minutes to transfer to the next terminal and the security is very tight. You have to take out and switch on every electronic device in your hand luggage. If you are a gadget geek this can take ages.
The 16-hour flight to Orlando seemed to take 40 hours. The flight was very turbulent and we had to stay seated for large sections of the flight. The food was excellent and the kids channels are great. I highly recommend Emirates as an airline for anyone flying with children.
Day 1
A tip for Orlando airport is, don't use the trolleys for your luggage. You get to push them about 50m before they are taken from you and you are told to carry your luggage up the escalator.
A tip for international visitors to the US. Hire your car through a UK agency or an agency in your home country. We hired through Thrifty directly and they don't include basic insurance in the rental. That was a bit of a shock to us. We have always hired through Rhino.com and the insurance is included. This time I went through Thrifty directly. That won't happen again. They quoted us $4000 for insurance and tried to push us into taking it. Luckily we had annual car hire insurance from Worldwide Insurance. I am not sponsored by the company in any way but after using them on multiple international journeys, I highly recommend them.
Tip for US travel. Buy something at the airport to make sure you have small change. We hit a toll booth soon after the airport and only had a $100 bill. Whoops. The simple solution is a SunPass. Don't pay the insane fees charged by the hire companies. Just pick one up for $25 at a supermarket and link it to your credit card.
Our first night was Disney All Stars Music resort. We loved this value resort. The beds are super comfy and the kids had so much fun exploring the resort theme. They got rid of energy playing on the playground before we all crashed at 6pm.
Day 2
In a moment of crazy, we went to the Magic Kingdom while still zonked on jet lag. The kids loved it. The park was pretty quiet so we managed to go to on just about every ride in the park and enjoy a yummy lunch at Pecos Bill before 4 when the park closed for the day. Kids hated The Barnstormer and Big Thunder Mountain. I guess Rollercoasters are out for the next few years. They loved Peter Pan, Pirates, and Buzz Lightyear. My favourite ride is still the Haunted Mansion. Dinner was a light snack at The Pop Century food court. Yes, we moved resorts to see as much as possible. Kids didn't like Pop Century as the theming doesn't continue into the rooms. No Disney characters.
I would suggest going to Pecos Bill for lunch or dinner. The fixings bar is enough to create another whole meal so it is one of the best budget meals in the park.
The next blog will include Legoland, Disney All Star Movies, and Animal Kingdom.
BIG NEWS
I am running a competition!!!!
Subscribe to this blog and comment on this post to win a special prize from Disney for your kids. The prize is gender neutral and will work for kids aged 3 - 9. Winner will be announced on Sunday. All offensive comments will be deleted.
