Florida 2011 - Travel Day

My iPhone?s alarm went off at 3am. Torture. For about ten seconds after it went off I was excited but then total and complete exhaustion set in. The only thing I can compare it to is when you wake up after a drunken night. For a moment you think all is well and you banished the hangover (take that hangover!!) and then as soon as you sit up the dry heaves start. Well, there was no dry heaves but whoa, did I feel awful. I should probably mention I don?t do mornings well. So much so that I actually prewarned Chris the previous night that any horrible comments I made in my sleep destroyed haze the next morning should be ignored. Thankfully he accepted this advice and avoided me for much of the first twenty minutes after waking.

Getting ready was a struggle but the tiny glimmer of excitement that I was going to see The Mouse kept resurfacing and pushing me to go on, rather than crawling back into bed and covering my head with the covers which is what I secretly wanted to do. I should probably mention at this point that my parents aren?t flying with us ? they?re going Continental via Newark and we?re going Air France via Charles De Gaulle. So the taxi that was booked for 4 o clock was purely for us. Sadly the taxi company have minor communication issues (be glad I?m writing this at a later time when my anger has subsided or there would be a lot more hashed out words...) and so the taxi was 20 minutes late. Luckily for him I?ve stopped wearing a watch and rely on my phone to check the time but that was all packed. It wasn?t until I saw Chris at the doorway calling the company to ask where the cab was that I realised taxi man was late. Ugh! When he did eventually turn up, Chris was his normal chirpy self where as I was a bubbling stew of rage. Granted it doesn?t take much but this was a special morning. Don?t worry though, I got the taxi driver back. I slammed his door REALLY HARD and followed it up with a ?humph? look when he glared back at me. Might not have been mature but considering it was either that or all out slaughter, I think he lucked out.

Drive to the airport itself was completely uneventful apart from me trying to set the taxi drivers head on fire from behind with my death stares. The queue at check in was very short and we got through in about ten minutes. Afterwards we sauntered through security, also short queue and were finally airside. My cousin works at the MAC counter in the airport so we?d organised to meet her and for her to give me a free makeover. Actually it was less of an organised meeting and more of a ?please try and change me from the ghoul like monster I?m going to look like at 5am, into a gorgeous brunette beauty?. Well she did the makeover and while I didn?t look the latter, it was better than the ghastly thing that had looked at me in the bathroom mirror a couple of hours prior. Afterwards we popped to EAT for some breakfast. I honestly didn?t think I?d be hungry at this time of the morning but this was proved otherwise when I saw the granola parfaits they had. Yum!!

Boarding came quickly and as we looked at the tiny plane we were about to board I realised two things.
a) Chris knows a LOT about planes and aviation
b) I, on the other hand, like to think of planes as magical machines that get me where I need to go via pixie dust and good thoughts
Now these things don?t actually meld together very well. I like to ignore the mechanics of flying whereas Chris insisted on telling me every single little detail about the engines, layout, what would happen if one engine died etc etc... Not a happy bunny...

Eventually got down to Charles De Gaulle in a zombie like state. Apparently Chris explained a LOT about the different planes we saw as we landed but whether it was the tiredness or the blocking out of anything ?airplane related? I don?t remember much of it. Security at CDG was an absolute nightmare. Everywhere else I?ve flown they only ask you to remove your laptops from your carry on. Nah nah, not the French. We were asked to remove every single electronic item from our bag. Not a problem normally but Chris has an SLR camera with a million lenses as well as a CPAP machine. You?d think they?d never seen one of these before (granted it did look fairly ominous on the scanner...) and inspected it thoroughly.
Luckily the gate at the airport was totally dead so our five hour wait could be met with a little nap. Chris worked during this time but eventually stopped as he kept getting emails from people saying ?oh I thought you were on holiday but since you?re not, can you do X, Y and Z?. So the laptop was shut off fairly quickly.

I woke up and walked around the gates for a mosey. Nothing majorly exciting other than a little spa shop selling a massager called a Jack Knobbler. Teehee. What can I say? My lack of sleep was adding to my normally easily amused state.

After a little delay at CDG we took off around three thirty and although we initially had someone sitting next to us at the window seat, he moved to one of the million free seats when we were airborne. Resulted in me seriously stretching out and trying to have yet ANOTHER nap. I also won about 1200 fictional dollars playing Blackjack on the onboard entertainment system but despite my protests, the cabin crew declined to hand over my winnings...
Food was server after about an hour of being in the air. Any complaints I may have had about Air France were totally quashed at this point (not that I had many). The food they served us was excellent. Chicken and pasta with camembert, rolls, salad and a gorgeous little custard tart. Nomnom. Between that and some episodes of Simpsons, Sex and the City and typing up trippie notes, the flight went quite quickly. I did notice about half way through that while I realised how to get out to Poinciana from the airport, I wasn?t really sure where the villa was there. It?s at Eagle Pointe but since I?ve never done much of the driving to villas in previous holidays I wasn?t sure. I drove the full year I worked at Disney though so winging it didn?t seem like it would be that big a deal.

Watching Hop steadily counted down the last two hours of the journey and soon we were being served little rolls with cheese to munch on just before landing. The captain announced we?d land at 6.30pm local time and that the weather forecast was scattered thunderstorms. No biggie ? they?d been having that every day I?d been checking the weather. As we started to descend though I could see the skies were clear and there was no rain to be had. Win.

After we landed we all herded forwards into the immigration hall where panic set in. Panic with absolutely no foundation whatsoever but in my tired state I started to worry about whether we?d filled in the right form (the cabin crew assured us we did), whether Chris and I should go up together or separate (as technically we?re not married, just living in sin), whether we were in the right queue (again I was sure we were but a lot of French folk from the plane seemed to be heading into the US line...) and whether my previous US visa would prompt any issues (I?ve been again in 2009 since coming home from working at Disney so I?m not sure why that particular little nugget of fear was there). Needless to say none of those things posed problems and after a little chat with the immigration officer we joined the huge crowd waiting for luggage. About an hour later there just seemed to be a group of very narky Scottish people hanging around so it was clear the luggage from Edinburgh to Charles De Gaulle was in the very back of the hold. I was fearing for my cute cupcake luggage tag and whether it would be destroyed (what can I say, it was about 1am UK time at this stage and I may not have been thinking rationally...) but eventually our suitcases popped out and we made our way to the Dollar desk. Where I got royally, um cheated, for fuel that wasn?t covered in the agreement I?d paid. But since it would appear I?d got an upgrade from a compact to a full size car, I wasn?t complaining too hard. Plus I?m pretty sure my ?airplane bed head hair? frightened the man a little bit as he kept glaring at me.

Eventually got to the row of cars to choose and saw a Jeep in there. Whether it is really considered a full size or it was just parked in the wrong row, who cares? At this stage poor Chris was just standing with the luggage at the beginning of the row, desperately hoping I?d make a quick decision. But since I have a list of criteria the length of my arm (must not be white, must have non Florida plates, must be able to see out the back if you?re a shortarse) it did take a smidgen more time than it could have.

Made our way to the villa without incident. I made the airport run quite a lot while I worked at Disney since I was one of the few CMs with a car so knew the route pretty well. Even managed to find the villa estate on Ponciana. Emi ? 1, Disastrous Holiday ? 0.

Dropped our cases and headed to Walmart for essentials only and came back just as parents were arriving from their flight from Newark. Apparantly they?ve changed how immigration works there and their layover wasn?t as smooth as they?d hoped. But in the grand scale of things, nothing to worry about for we were FINALLY on holiday.

At this point we very quickly unpacked and headed to bed. Exchausted!!
Tomorrow: Chef Mickeys, Downtown Disney