We left home around 9am on Saturday morning stopping for a quick bite to eat along the way and arrived at Manchester Airport at 10:45.\u00a0 We had arranged for meet and greet and the rep was waiting for us.\u00a0 As we knew we were heading off into the warmth we didn’t really have much to keep us warm, even\u00a0the journey and the short walk from where we dropped off the car into the terminal was bitterly cold and had us both shivering.<\/p>\n
We found the Virgin check-in desk, but decided to see if there were any upgrades available.\u00a0 We were given the option to upgrade to Upper for \u00a3800 per person or we could take the exit seats in Premium for free.\u00a0 Given the choice and despite Cindy quite happily reaching for her credit card we opted for the exit seats which were then allocated for us.\u00a0 We then went to the check-in desk, dropped off the cases and got our boarding passes.<\/p>\n
Manchester T2 has been fitted with a new security system just before X-ray.\u00a0 Rather than have a person check your boarding passes this is now automated, with barriers similar to those found at train stations, that you have to present your ticket to in order for the barriers to open and let you through.\u00a0 There was little or no queue so either the systems works very well or the airport was just quiet.<\/p>\n
We were quickly through security and had a coffee before looking through the Duty Free shops.\u00a0 It was almost time to board but I spotted that the IRIS registration office was open.\u00a0 IRIS is a system to expedite your return into the UK by having your IRIS scanned; you can then go through the IRIS booths on return which scan your eyes and then lets\u00a0you\u00a0through (assuming it finds a match).\u00a0 IRIS is available in most of the UK airports so it should be of use whenever we travel.\u00a0 We registered relatively quickly, Cindy clearly being able to keep her eyes open and still much better then me as she registered in 2 attempts and yet mine took about a dozen!<\/p>\n
We boarded and pushed back on time at 1:30.\u00a0 The cabin crew announced the flight time was due to be 9 hours 30 minutes which is a long flight but also announed there were some issues with heating but it should sort itself out within a few minutes,\u00a0 Well we spent nearly the entire flight shivering.\u00a0 It was litterally freezing (it felt like absolute zero)!\u00a0 The crew offered us an extra blanket but even this wasn’t enought to keep us warm.\u00a0 We donned every bit of available clothing but it still meant we had a pretty miserable flight.\u00a0 The icing on the cake was the crew offering Ice-Cream! – Hot chocolate would have been more appropriate.\u00a0 We’d also forgotten about the dinner service being crammed onto a prison style tray – we missed our table cloth, individual airoplane shaped salt and pepper pots and waitress service for each course!<\/p>\n
We landed at Orlando just after 6:15pm and managed to get off the plane pretty quickly.\u00a0 We had an empty imigration hall so went through pretty quickly.\u00a0 We then had to wait about 20 minutes for the case belt to even start.<\/p>\n
We had car hire arranged at Dollar which had a short line.\u00a0 We opted for the ‘economy’ model so had to endure 20 questions about upgrades and extras.\u00a0 Oh and be warned Orlando Airport has started to charge a mandatory $12.50 plus tax facility charge!\u00a0 It was in the small print of my documents but still an additional charge.\u00a0\u00a0 The car we got wasn’t small, just missing the usual facilities such as central locking and electric windows and mirrors – Still it goes (just!).<\/p>\n
We stopped of at Denny’s for a quick bite to eat and I am glad to say that the outside temperature was warm enough to warm us through by the time we arrived.<\/p>\n
As we were tired we bought the bare minimum groceries and got to the house at around 9pm and hit the sack pretty much straight away.<\/p>\n
We both managed to sleep through to 8am on Sunday and got up, got ready and went over to Downtown Disney for breakfast at McDonalds.\u00a0 We then walked around Downtown Disney and then went over to Millenia.<\/p>\n