holiday highlights - including travel city collapse!!

hi all,

got home this morning after a great 2 weeks spent in orlando, just thought some of you might be interested to know how the CAA is dealing with the sanford-manchester route following the XL problems. we were actually very lucky - we ended up making better time and on a much nicer plane than we%26#39;d paid for (thanks, thomas cook!). the only problem was how little info we were given. i%26#39;ll start at the beginning:

the 4 of us (me, my boyfriend and parents) flew out with TCD on wed 3rd sept with no problems except a 2 hour delay at manchester airport. flight was pretty standard - we%26#39;d paid around 拢400 per head for fly drive and have flown with TCD many times before so didnt have high expectations of leg room!

we were woken by a text from my uncle at 2.30am orlando time on the day XL went bust (was it thurs or fri? either way we had plenty of time before our return flight, wed 17th). to be honest, the worst case scenario for us would have been checking into a hotel for a few days until a flight became available so we werent too worried.

a few days later the ATOL site told us that our XL flight had been replaced by a Monarch flight at the same time on the same day, so we thought ourselves lucky that our plans hadnt changed. we checked the site on my iphone (which came in very handy!) every now and again to be on the safe side. good job we did - my bf checked yesterday (wed) morning, and found our flight had been changed to a thomas cook service at 4.45pm, not 8.30 as planned! it was close to lunchtime at this point so we hastily packed and headed straight to the airport. slightly gutted that we didnt get to stop at the cheesecake factory en route! i do think that the authorities should have made a slight effort to publicise changes better tho.

anyway, the result was a shorter travelling day (although still hellish - 7hrs 20mins in the air, followed by 2 hours waiting round manchester airport for a train which took 3 hours to get us back to durham!) on a much comfier plane with better inflight entertainment, so we were actually really lucky, bar the panicked dash to the airport!

it didnt spoil our holiday one bit, thank god we were already out there when XL collapsed and thanks to my iphone, we could keep our eye on the ball. i%26#39;ve read a few posts and have every sympathy for those whose holidays have been cancelled, and i bet many people missed their replacement flights through lack of info.

so my highlights included:

- bahama breeze. we%26#39;d never eaten here before, despite coming to orlando nearly every year for the last 15. the chicken in red pepper sauce was amazing

- universal studios. hadnt been here since i was a kid so jaws and ET were a real blast from the past, and the simpsons ride is great!

- the weather. only 2 incidences of rain getting in our way all fortnight!

- prime outlets. they werent completed during our last trip and i found some real bargains (juicy, true religion, rock and republic etc) there.

- my bf buying me a tiffanys bracelet

- toy story mania (big queues, but worth hanging around with a fast pass for!) and fantasmic. thanks to whoever gave me info on the fantasmic dining package, we all enjoyed mama melrose.

- frozen cokes, dole whips, peanut butter m%26amp;ms, chocolate fudge, brownies, honey BBQ chicken crispers from chilis, banana cream cheesecake factory cheesecake... i could go on.

didnt mean to write a novel - i can summarise by saying the airline collapse didnt mean ruined holidays for us all, thank god! can%26#39;t wait to go back next year. hope we can afford the non-TCD prices!!

holiday highlights - including travel city collapse!!

You sound like you had a fantastic time and glad to see you didn%26#39;t let the bad news spoil your holiday.

holiday highlights - including travel city collapse!!

Hi

Glad to hear you had a great holiday despite the upset with TCD. (Which we too have been effected by, although we have managed to rebook and go on 21st October)After reading your holiday highlights you mentioned about thanking someone for giving you info for the Fantasmic dining package. What info was this?

Thanks, Catherine

glad you had a great time were you on the free dining plan its out now for next years dates

Welcome Home

Really Glad you were able to get home without too much Worry

Mama Melrose, YUM !

Love Novels, Thanks for sharing your Holiday with us :)

the info i was given regarding the fantasmic package was basically that it exists and that you need to book well in advance, just call the dining reservations number given on the disney site and ask to reserve a table on the fantasmic package at either brown derby, mamma melrose or the buffet restaurant (can%26#39;t remember its name). we ate at mamma melrose at 4.20 - bit early for dinner but it was the only time available when we rang to reserve. the food was great, they have a set price of $32 pp for any 3 courses from the menu and your waiter/waitress signs a ticket for fantasmic. you take this ticket to a different entrance to the amphitheatre around half an hour before the show starts and are taken to preferred seating (the view is great wherever you sit, the ticket just means you are guaranteed a seat without waiting for hours beforehand).

we werent on the free dining plan as we stayed offsite at a friend%26#39;s villa, but my dad is very intrigued by the concept and we%26#39;re looking into it for next year!

What I would like to know is, and you might not know the answer.

If you had not an I Phone and did not have any Internet facility available how would you have know about the Monarch and Thomas Cook flight arranged for you.

Was there any general information given out on TV, And did the TDC staff in LBV and I Drive stay in post to help the stranded passengers.

As we go to America without any Mobil phones Etc just wondered how we would have got such information

Youngcouple~~~~hello!

I%26#39;m not from U.K. but enjoyed the read. Glad you had such a nice time,and... Tiffany bracelet..whoo hoo!

I would KILL for a Dole whip right now. YUMMM-MEEE!

I always give my mobile no to the airline/ferries for just this type of thing.

I bring it with me, w/o the intention to use except for text msgs, but they can call if need be in an emergency. We have been called on the M6 and told our ferry was cancelled and to go to an alternate port in the UK.

But I also do not have an I phone. In fact, at todays prices I wouldn%26#39;t use one, or any 3G due to the roaming prices. But glad it helped the poster out at the price.

I do these days bring a wifi laptop though. Wifi is easy to come across in the USA (and mostly free), but dire in france/UK IMHO. Esp free wifi.

XR759 - as i said, we were really lucky to have the iphone with us because if we hadnt, we would have been in trouble. no one official got in touch with us. we tried to ring sanford airport to confirm the situation but couldnt get through - i guess lots of people had the same idea. had we not had the iphone, we personally would have checked the night before at an internet cafe, but i doubt whether we%26#39;d have gone back that morning to double check and the change of plans obviously took place overnight. getting someone at home to keep an eye on the site and text us would not have been possible because everyone we know would have been at work.

there were a few reports on the local news but no helpful info, just footage of angry stranded passengers.

to whoever mentioned the roaming charges on the iphone - i agree with you 100%, i would never go online while abroad normally. but in this situation we thought we%26#39;d better be safe than sorry and thank god we did! not looking forward to getting the bill tho!

we also called in at the TCD office at LBV on the day we heard the news, it was empty with a sign on the door explaining what had happened and that we should check the ATOL website. that was the closest we got to any instructions from the authorities.