Disney themed flight

[ajp]

That's fantastic Jo, glad you had a great trip. The weather certainly did help with the rides though didn't it. Walking onto Fantasyland rides and Space Mountain as well was rare but well enjoyed.

I'm not surprised that Kris was struck down with asthma. There was alot of pollution in the air and that added to the cold and heavy air as well was no pleasant. Our Emily suffered bad as well, and she still is bronchial now, but slowly clearing. Hope Kris recovers soon and gets home to report on her trip as well. I assume V Australia have looked after her in the flight department.

[Mel]

Welcome home Jo! So glad to hear that you had a truly magical time in spite, or maybe even in part because of, the weather -/

I'm sorry to hear about Kris, I hope she still had a wonderful time until she got sick

I'm glad you're thinking like us now... wondering how and when you'll be able to get back If the flight times are the biggest worry you have about going back to Disney, maybe you should think about Tokyo or Hong Kong They're the little bit closer

[jojozep]

An update on Kris: she is still in hospital but off oxygen and now doctors have decided it is pneumonia. Disney are picking up the hotel costs and the boys have open tickets to the park which is nice of them. Hopefully her travel insurance will cover costs.

My sister is off to HK Disneyland with my neices in April, we might have to work out how we can tag along!!

Thanks for the warm welcome home. We all slept well at the right time and it is nice and cool in melbourne today so hopefully will keep the jetlag at bay.

Time to unpack the souvenirs!!!

[Mel]

Thanks for the update on Kris, glad to hear that she's off oxygen, although it might be some time before they allow her to fly home Sounds like Disney has done well to help the family out though.

[KeithS]

An update on Kris: she is still in hospital but off oxygen and now doctors have decided it is pneumonia.

She's the second person I know with it at the moment - one of the guys here at work is just getting over it. I wonder if she got it before leaving Australia? I'm so glad that Disney are looking after the family so well - Well Done Disney!

we might have to work out how we can tag along!!

Oooh...I think the bug has bitten

Time to unpack the souvenirs!!!

And telling us what you got! hehe

[mushu mama]

Oh wow... poor Kris getting sick in the US is not a inexpensive part of the trip. I really hope she has good insurance.

Glad to hear you didn't have too much drama with jetlag. I don't seem to get it either - its a real blessing. My best friend arrived home from DL today too and has slept all day and will be going out with us tonight. She takes AGES to adjust back to 'normal' time.

Really looking forward to hearing about the loot... love that Disney shopping -/


Lisa. */

[ajp]

How will we ever top this holiday for her??

I've just been re-reading this thread, and I've got an idea how to top this holiday for your 3 year old Jo. Go again when she's taller so she can ride even more rides!
-/ -/ Couldn't resist, sorry.

Good news that Kris is off the oxygen, but pneumonia, hope she comes through soon from that. That's great that Disney is helping out, but when I read that I wasn't surprised. It seems that they always come through when you least expect it to help out.

[KeithS]

Hi Jo - have you heard any more from Kris? Did she and the family make it back home okay or are they still in the US?

[jojozep]

Kris is home and recovering, she got back on Monday 1st Feb - so a quite a few days in hospital. They changed her diagnosis to pneumonia.

She said the care she received was great and the crew at Paradise Pier did a fantastic job of looking after her family. I will let her know you guys were asking after her, I know she will really appreciate it and she can give you some more of her trip report.

I wrote a long post about our Disney goodies and unfortunately lost it before it went up, and have been meaning to re-do it. I was thinking about it today because my daughter and I made Mickey shaped choc-chip cookies with our Mickey cookie cutter! We bought alot of great stuff for the kitchen that we use all the time: bowls, placemats, Mickey pancake mold ...it's a nice way of remembering. We told the kids they could choose one thing to take home but look in the shops as much as they liked and they bought it, probably because it was right after Christmas and they got a tonne of Disney stuff for Christmas and before the trip! My son chose a light sabre after he took on Darth Vader in Jedi training session and then my daughter decided she would have the Mickey sabre/torch type thing too. We also bought alot of random stuff like a baseball, hairclips, stationary, pens, pins, taffy, photo frames... we were spoilt with our embroidered Mickey ears by the promoters and of course the autograph books with so many signatures are fantastic souvenirs for the kids.

You might be interested to know a journalist that was on the trip has asked us to contribute to an article about the trip for a parenting magazine, so I will let you know when it is published!

I was suffering Disneyland withdrawls badly last week, so we worked on our Photopass order on the weekend and my husband has been putting a few little videos together for the family to see so that has helped a bit

I'm also starting to help mys sister with her trip to HK in April so that will be good (until they go without us!!!) In the meantime, entering LOTS of competitions and hoping we haven't used up all our luck!

Jo

[KeithS]

Kris is home and recovering

That is great to hear - I can't imagine what that flight home must have been like for her - uncomfortable I bet! Disney seemed to have really have come to the party and looked after them well.

We also bought alot of random stuff

Yes - that happens a lot

I was suffering Disneyland withdrawls badly last week

Ahhh - welcome to our world. I never forget returning from my first trip in May 2005 - boy, how depressing was it returning to winter conditions here and traipsing into work. Then I discovered Amazon.com and started buying up as many Disneyland books & music that I could - anything to remind me of that holiday. Oh yeah, sorting through the photos, park maps, tickets, and anything else you collected on the way helps to...as well as planning the next trip

[bigam]

Hi everyone! Thanks for all your well wishes and concern over my little "adventure" and thanks to jojozep for letting people know what happened to me.

We had an absolutley fabulous time at Disney - it was everything we hoped for and more. The boys hit the ground running and displayed little anxiety or stress as queues generally weren't long thanks to the weather and when they had enough, they just popped over to the hotel for a swim then came back. Even thought they bolted from Martin and me every day, they always found us when it was time for food, drink or churros (which were wonderful). Sometimes we'd bump into jojozep who'd tell us she just saw our boys at certain places. The only problem we had came in the Tower of Terror where a group of yobs - no other word for them - yelled and screamed so much they severely agitated Christopher who clung onto me in what he called an "ASperger Attack" - moment ride finished a young lady flung open the doors and yelled there were no photos becasue of the obscenities done by the yobs and they were barred from the ride after that. Christopher settled down after a Belgian waffle!!!

Our hotel looked over the California park and at night the lights were wonderful - puncutated by screams from the rides!

We would bump into jojozep and her family and we went together one night to the Block outlet mall and i bought shoes shoes shoes after I saw they were a quarter the price of the same brands in Aus.

On Monday afternoon - we were leaving Tuesday - I was complaining to Martin that I'd caught a cold from when someone had sneezed on me in the California Screaming. We went to Coco's for dinner after 10pm walked to the 711 for sudafed and on the way back I had to ask everyone to slow down. At just after midnight, while packing ready to depart in the morning, I told martin I needed to see the Hotel nurse because I was havng trouble breathing. I have a bit of a wheeze when I do lots of exercise so i had bought a puffer for the trip - also concerned about the pollution so I thought that maybe the puffer was broken. He came very quickly, said I was having an asthma attack and called in the paramedics and ambulance! I thought that was overreacting a bit so said I was fine - I had a plane to catch that afternoon - also Christopher looked frightened so I didn't want to worry him.

But 2 hours later, I had to admit to martin I was in trouble and needed to go to the hospital. Disney staff had security regularly check on the boys and reassured me that they would be ok and not abandoned.

On arrival, I was initially treated for asthma but after 5 treatments and no improvement and a serious smokers hack - and I kept telling them I don't smoke - I was told I wasn't going anywhere and if i flew out they would refuse to be accountable for my survival!!! I sort of twigged then that I was really ill after all - plus I was hooked onto machines, had 3 IV's and was on oxygen. I was diagnosed with severe pneumonia and ended up in hospital for an extra 4 days. Thankfully I had very good travel insurance - I paid extra to enter a comp attached to that travel insurance (CGU through Defcredit) and that extra saved us tens of thousands! All up we're looking in excess of $30,000!!!!!!!

Disney and the comp promoters were fantastic. Disney covered the extra nights at the hotel (5) and gave my boys day passes so that they were entertained the whole time - apparently the only incident that happened came when Pluto touched Jonathan. the comp promoters rang Martin everyday to check that I was ok, the boys were fine and had us booked everynight onto a flight to Sydney in case I was deemed fit to travel. When I was dishcarged I was so weak, martin tried to get me into a wheelchair for the airport but there was no way that was going to happen! I just walked really really slow and told them I'd be there eventually but martin adn the boys were very protective of me and stayed near me always. If anyone suffered it was martin who had to stay in the hotel room to deal with the travel insurance people, Disney, comp promotors, V Australia and panicking relatives - my mother bought her funeral dress!

The flight back wasn't great as the part of the plane we were in (economy) was too hot and I had to request temperature be lowered and oxygen levels raised as I was just recovering from pneumonia. They did rectify this for half and hour but then raised the temp again and some of the passengers got very angry over this and there was an altercation over it.

But as much as I loved our trip to Disney, I was very glad to be back on Australian soil and to have a slice of bread that didn't taste of sugar!

I f the comp is run again this year, I still intend to enter it!

[ajp]

Wow Kris, I thought the snow near LA on our drive was a bit of excitement. You certainly know how to make a holiday extraordinary . But glad you got through it ok and got home safe and healthy in the end. The fact that everyone including Disney and V looked after you all so well must have given you and your husband 1 less thing to worry about through the ordeal. It is comforting to know that if/when something goes wrong that support is there.

I was very glad to be back on Australian soil and to have a slice of bread that didn't taste of sugar!

Haha, yes some of the food certainly takes some getting used and the is definitely different. The other thing is the scones (known as biscuits, go figure). My wife loves scones and makes a pretty good one herself but just can't come at theirs, there is way too much salt in them.

Did you enjoy Cocos? It's one of our favourite spots to eat. The first night we were in Anaheim wen went to Cocos for dinner and bought a whole Banana Cream Pie to take away, they are just devine.

where a group of yobs - no other word for them

Not sure if they were the same people but we saw a few Australians that were a little embarrassing to say the least. I feel that when visiting someone else's "home" (country in this case) that you treat it and them with respect. That is one thing we did notice from East to West. Obviously far less Australians on the East, but they were all "decent" travelers. I must admit there was one time that I didn't adhere to that philosophy, but the guy deserved it, and he was French anyway.

it sounds like the whole V Australia trip and package was a successful venture. Hope that they continue ti and make a regular thing of it, because it would be worth doing one day for the experience. And really glad you enjoyed Disneyland as well. More converts the better I reckon.

[Mel]

So glad to hear you got home safe and sound Kris! Sounds like your little misadventure didn't affect your enjoyment of DL

[KeithS]

Welcome back Kris! -/

It is so good to hear from you around here again - Jo was keeping us up to date but that didn't stop us worrying. Glad you arrived home safely.

We had an absolutley fabulous time at Disney - it was everything we hoped for and more.

Brilliant! You did so much preparation - I'm glad it paid off and the boys had a great time too. It also sounds like you've become a churros addict which will make Lisa and Beth here very happy

I was told I wasn't going anywhere and if i flew out they would refuse to be accountable for my survival!!!

Wow - those doctors really know how to instill confidence! Still, their advice was pretty sound and you are here to tell us all about it - which is good

All up we're looking in excess of $30,000!!!!!!!

So the moral here is to not leave home without travel insurance!

We are glad you are back with us and had a wonderful time - despite all the dramas towards the end. And it sounds like Disney did a great job of looking after the family for those days you were laid up and I think that is a great advertisement for the organisation.

Now, aside from shoes, churros, shoes, a packet of sudafed, more shoes, and $30,000 worth of medical treatment, what else did you buy over there?

[churros]

mmmm churros!