Wednesday 13 April 2016

Orlando

Well day 1 in orlando (day 4 of the holiday)

We went to blue lagoon in iceland, and it was lovely. Spending the morning just floating about and relaxing drinking some krap (slushes, but the kids found the name amussing).
Then onto the plane. Again we traveled with icelandair and again the service was excelent. The kids meal was very tasty (danny didnt want it) and ee settled back to watch movies.
Finally we landed in orlando at 8.45pm, and went through the dreaded security. The lines were long and john started to play up. After an hour in the queue andy went and spoke to security and we got flung through quickly after that. (note for next time - bring doctors note and go straight through the assistance queue).
We grabbed our car (alamo) and headed to our appartment at vista cay.

WOW! We are in love, could we just not leave? Its stunning. We flung our things in and headed to the big new mcdonalds and then to wallmart to grab some suncream,juice and cereal. Then we came back climbing into bed at 2am orlando time (23hrs after we woke up) by then john was really playing up - hoping he has a better day now he has rested.

Not sure what we are doing today,probably have a relaxing day and a nosy before heading to universal tomorrow




posted from Bloggeroid

Sunday 10 April 2016

Day 3

We got up early this morning and packed our bags. The kids were sad that the had to leave the cottage.
We stopped off again at vik for food and to see the sea stacks before going on.
Andy and dan went to see the abondond plane while i stayed behind to watch john, and then on to see 2 stunning waterfalls.

We had fun getting wet while we went behinf one of them. It was magical, and dan enjoyed seeing it making rainbows. Unfortunately due to the amount of time it took for andy to walk to see the plane, we ran out of time to fully enjoy it.


So we left in a hurry to get back to Reykjavik. The sky driving back was stunning, and my phone does not do it justice.


We have now just arrived at our apartment for the night. Im sat here half asleep doing the past few days posts, and ready to turn in for the night. Tomorrow we will be at blue lagoon and then flighing to orlando.

I cant wait to get the good photos off the camera and show everyone, but alas it will need to wait. I have loved Iceland. It really makes you arop and think, its so quiet with few people about and gives you peace ro reflect along with stunning landscapes that take your breath away and hope i can get back again soon, as their is much to see which we never managed this time.
posted from Bloggeroid

Day 2



Up bright and early and the sun is shinning. We laze about for a few hours at the cottage having breakfast before heading out further east to see the sites.




We visited loads of various places (which i will get better pictures up of once they can be taken from the camera) with several above taken on my mobile. My youngest seemed to have a fantastic time, and even my eldest came out for a peak at diamond beach.

Then we headed back, put the 3ds on charge and headed to vik for dinner. Luckily we found somewhere just before they closed for the night. It was a lovely meal, and filled our tummies nicely.


Afterwards we returned home, and i sat watching the aurora and dozed off. Luckily hubby managed to get some lovely pictures of it, so i will upload them when we get them off the camera.
posted from Bloggeroid

Flights and day 1.

Everything went smoothly with our first flight. We flew with icelandair and the service was great. The kids got free headphones,food and we all got complementary drinks. When booking we also got to choose our seats for free and got 2x 23kg baggage plus 10kg hand baggage each as standard. So i would highly recommend.

Here is my eldest enjoying himself. We are looking forward with flying with them tomorrow.


We got off the plane (arriving 20 min early) straight through security to find our bags already waitinv on us. Then we walked out to find a man from the car company waiting for us, 10 minutes later we were off.




Above are a couple of pictures from our first stop Smaralind. Here i grabbed my pandora charm, then we grabbed some shopping for the cottage, and finally some dinner from pizza hut which we hurried down and then ran back to our car to get to the cottage.

The drive to the cottage took 3 and a half hours, but was well worth it. With all of us loving the cottage, howver with arriving so late at night we dumped our things and headed atraight to bed.


posted from Bloggeroid

Thursday 7 April 2016

Last minute packing

So today is the day we fly out.
Its 1.55am at the moment and i am still up washing and packing and getting ready. 2 boys in their bed and hubby at work, so its fairly peaceful.

My nerves have been playing up over the past few days making it hard to sleep. So hoping to finish packing soon so i can catch a little before heading out to the airport at 11.

I hope you dont mind short and sweet posts. I geel if i dont writeit down i may forget and im sure once im actually on holiday my time to sit and do a post may be greatly reduced.

posted from Bloggeroid

Tuesday 5 April 2016

Panic mode

So i can now say i have less than a week to go, and boy am i running about mad.
4 work orders to get out, a birthday party to get to, house to clean, cases to finish packing,dog to take to my mums and to see my dad before i go.
I also need to print off all my bits and pieces, blue lagoon tickets, car, flight, hotel info etc.

So yes panic mode has truely set in as i only have 3 sleeps to go. Hubby is working right up untill the holiday, he will be coming off night shift catching a few zzzz and then going to airport, so its left to me to organize everything. Oh well i usually do better under pressure anyway. Catch you all on friday for take off.



posted from Bloggeroid

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Countdown

I wont up this morning and its hut me that their is not long to go untill the holiday. Suddenly i feel nervous, that sick feeling that i usually only get if going to the dentist is their and making me feel queasy.

I have so much to do and so little time to do it.Hubby has been mapping out places he wishes to visit in iceland. Last minute tickets are being bought, cases to pack,house to tidy.... I have lists galore and im dreading i will forget something.

Also the exchange rates have dropped again :( with the low 1.38 exchange rate i will be lossing out on quite a bit of money (about $1620 worth compared to rates at christmas), but im sure we will still make the most of it.

John seems to be coming around to the idea of the holiday and is looking forward to going to mcdonalds on our first night their to make his own pizza or burger, so that at least is a step in the right direction.

posted from Bloggeroid

Sunday 20 March 2016

Planning and telling the kids

Planning the holiday is fun (for me at least), going on holiday is exciting, telling the kids and watching their faces is ment to be priceless. Not here its not.

So after talking long enough about going on holiday at the end of 2015 we finally took the plunge.

To start we visited the travel agent, but we couldnt get the dates we wanted (had to be specific dates due to hubby's work) they wanted £3300 for the 4 of us for 2 weeks in Orlando. So we left it with hubby saying he would see what he could do at work.
That night it kept niggling at me and i went to see the roster, and noticed that his time of was the very end cycle of the winter holidays. So with renewed confidence hubby went into work to ask collegues if he could get the first summer cycle off, and after a week or so he finally got a yes from everyone.

I was ecstatic, this meant 23 days holiday, but what to do? Well i got planning!
I knew hubby hates theme parks, so 3 weeks at orlando was out of the question so after remembering places he would like to photograph the dates and places were set.
Iceland - 2 full days there (plus travel days)
Orlando - 13 full days
New york - 4 full (plus the better part of our travelling days also.)

After lots of searching we got great prices for everything, costing us only £300 more for the 24 days in 3 locations than the travel agent wanted for 2 weeks.

We decided almost straight away to tell the kids. John has asd so we knew he would need knowledge of it before hand. So we sat him and his younger brother down and told them.
Kids we have just booked to go to Orlando!
John's face fell. "I'm not going to Orlando" he said "I will get sunburnt".
We turn to Danny "You want to go don't you? It will be your birthday when we are there"
"No" he says, "I want to stay here and get a birthday cake"

:( what happened to the screaming and excitment and the happy faces?

Since then neither have seemed bothered with going, John has declared that he doesnt want to see or here about it, Danny however seems to be a little more enthusiastic. Only time will tell if they enjoy themselves when we go.

posted from Bloggeroid