A fleeting trip to Edinburgh - #1

Wow, it has been a lifetime since I last wrote a post but I have got a load in the pipeline which will be coming out in the next few months with extremely exciting trips and posts coming up. But let's leave them a secret for the time being and talk about my most recent trip, only a short trip to Edinburgh Scotland, but I can tell you now I will be returning back to Edinburgh as soon as possible. I had never been to Scotland before and we were dying to go and when I found £15 flights from London Stansted which was an airport I had never been to before and didn't even know where it was before (turns out it is in Essex). I went to Edinburgh with one of my best friends Anna and I had high expectations from the sheer amount of pictures I had seen prior due to social media such Instagram and Pinterest, and without a doubt, I can tell you it did not disappoint.

The Flight:

We flew with Ryanair, cheap and cheery and absolutely nothing wrong with them especially when you're a poor student. I have flown with Ryanair many a time and never had an issue with you, and would recommend them to anyone. 

Airbnb:

We stayed in the most beautiful Airbnb, this was our first time staying in an Airbnb so didn't have much to expect but Selby was amazing giving us a lovely breakfast for the two mornings which we were there as well as offering to dry off our soaking wet clothes after we were caught out in the rain all day. The flat was located in the new town, approximately a fifteen-minute walk from Princes street meaning the location was perfect!

Here is the link to the Airbnb which we stayed in https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/16628739 ALSO at the bottom of this blog post will be a discount code, to give you £15 off your first trip over £55. 

What to do:

Despite the pouring rain we still braved the outdoors, as we only had one full day in Edinburgh and knew we wanted to make the most of it so we started off the day by heading to the botanical gardens which were only a fifteen-minute walk (at most) from our Airbnb. The botanical gardens were beautiful and worth a trip if you're interested in arts or plants or even the outdoors, and we enjoyed it even if we didn't get to see if its full glory. From here we headed to Princes street for lunch before heading into the old town and spent the rest of the day wondering around the old town of Edinburgh from the castle to Greyfriars Kirkyard. The old town was my favourite part of Edinburgh as I truly felt like I was blasted back in time. 

Overall:

Overall I loved Edinburgh and am already looking at going back this time for longer, and possibly doing a day trip to either the Highlands, Loch Ness or Glasgow but this will all be released when I get the chance to return hopefully sooner rather than later. 

Until the next month,

Ashleigh xx

Here is the discount code, to give you £15 off your first trip over £55. 

www.airbnb.co.uk/c/ashleighh1808

Flordia Diaries #4 - The Enclaves

Florida has such a vast array of hotels to stay in but I would highly recommend where we stayed as although it was a tiny bit out dated, the hotel I couldn't fault. Although it felt like you were stepping back into the 1970's with the floral curtains and the fat TVs, the viewers from the room where completely worth it. Also you're in Orlando, Florida you don't need to watch TV or worry about how modern the room is as we were hardly in the room. The view from our balcony most certainly made up for the unmodernised room as the view left you in awe.
The location is prime being just off International Drive it gives you a vast choice of restaurants and places to visit other than the major parks which Orlando has to offer, as across the lake from the hotel which I stayed in was Wet 'N' Wild which sadly is in it's final year this year but give you more variety than just Disney and Universal. Although don't get me wrong they are amazing, but some people may fancy a break away from the major tourist attractions. One of the highlights of International Drive is the a ray of food choices, as no matte what you are in the mood for whether it be Chinese, pasta, or even Mexican food. You have such an arrange of food which you could ever want, which allows you to have so much choice as at first we went overboard with the whole burger scene in America with places such as the Hard Rock Cafe, Game Changers and McDonalds (they have all day breakfast over there!!)
Being just off International Drive, isn't just great for food it also means you're not too far away from universal as our hotel offered a transfer to universal which was literally a five minute drive away. Also we were only around a twenty minute drive away from Disney and it was a relatively easy route, as it was mostly on the I4.
Overall I would recommend The Enclaves and staying on International drive, as there is so much variety and you are not limited to a set list of restaurants as you are close enough that you can drive such as Disney Springs (previously known as Downtown Disney) as go to restaurants such as the Rainforest Cafe. I could rate the hotel higher.

Ashleigh

Also here an AirBnB credit to get you a small discount off your next booking
www.airbnb.co.uk/c/ashleighh1808

Florida Diaries #3 - Seaworld and Discovery Cove

Sea World
I know Seaworld is an iffy place to talk about right now, and I do not agree with how they keep their animals but I really wanted to ride the rollercoasters which they have so we decided to go. Out of the four rides which they have there sadly we only got to ride two of the four, due to Florida's temperamental weather which was heartbreaking, as we were way into our second week at this point so knew we probably wouldn't be coming back. The two rides which I rode were Mako and Manta, and they were worth it Manta reminded me a lot of Air at Alton Towers (if that helps anyone) but was much more intense. And Mako where do I even start, Orlando's tallest, longest and fastest rollercoaster which was insane, with a massive 200ft drop I was surprised I went on it. But boy I was happy I did. I was heartbroken that we were unable to do all the rides, as there is only four, that should be easy but nope typical Florida.
Discovery Cove
Discovery Cove, somewhere we were only meant to spend a day but ended up spending two days but we will get on to that later. The reason we wanted to go to Discovery cove was because I wanted to swim with Dolphins and my dad was sold by the idea of free food and drink, also unlike places like Disney they have a limit of the amount of people who they can let in on a day. This means you actually have breathing room, which was amazing! I did the Dolphin swim on my own as my sister is terrified of Dolphins and my parents weren't fussed, this was fine I felt slightly awkward but it was not something which I wanted to miss. I was extremely lucky as I got to do my swim almost as soon as we got there, this would be about the only thing which we got do to as I went to have some food, after not having any breakfast around 11, and until 2 we were in the middle of a storm. Shortly after the storm had blown over we got to go swimming with the rays only to be greeted by another storm this one seemed to blow over quiet quickly so again we started to swim to have yet another storm warning. This time we were just sitting on our sun chairs, it wasn't raining just over cast when all of a sudden I kid you not lightening strikes the tree directly behind where we were sitting and the rain came thrashing down. The Lifeguards rushed out onto the beach screaming "Everybody get off the beach" as we were rushed off the beach into the tiny little beach hut as then the lightening struck the top of the stop restaurant in between the strikes they moved us into a larger hut which involved us all running through the trees and hoping for the best. Around an hour later the storm had passed leaving very little of the day left as we came out of the shelter it looked like a war zone with trees everywhere. We were stressed and scared so decided to call it a day after picking up my photograph of my dolphin swim we went to reception as they were calling taxis for people due to the storm when we got offered a second free day, which we took as we didn't really get a day out of it. We wanted discovery cove to be a relaxing day when it was far from it. The second time we went it was a dream we got to do everything which we wanted and so much more, also that was the day I discovered falling asleep to Led Zepplin, Stairway to Heaven was pretty dreamy.

Ashleigh x
Also here an AirBnB credit to get you a small discount off your next booking
www.airbnb.co.uk/c/ashleighh1808

Florida Diaries #2 - Disney

The Walt Disney World is spilt into 4 main parks and 2 water parks, and I was lucky enough to visit all 4 of the main parks and 1 of the water parks. The parks which I visited were the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Typhoon Lagoon.

Magic Kingdom
The Magic Kingdom is an amazing park, with rides which are certainly worth the trip. But I found the whole experience very underwhelming, this is somewhere which I had been dreaming about for as long as I can remember and I found myself sweltering in the mid day heat and constantly looking for a water fountain or the smallest piece of shade.  This got worse while queuing for rides, for example the worse I found was the queue for Big Thunder Mountain probably the worse I encountered as we queued for it around 3 o'clock and the queue time said 30 minutes, we thought that was fine but it seemed like everybody else also had this thought as around 5 minutes into the queue to jumped up to 50 minutes, but at this point we were already snaked in too far just to leave and we wanted to go on the ride. The queue then got difficult as there was very limited shade, so we were constantly being pushed forward into the person in front of you's sticky sweaty back. I can safely say that it was not a fun experience. But it was our first time at Disney we were going to make mistakes, like we had fast passes but we didn't know where things were going to be so, didn't really book anything as what if things were over the other side of the park and we were late? We had so many things to worry about just because it was new. The second time we went things ran much smoother and the rest of the Disney parks were fine.
The rides at the Magic Kingdom brilliant, my favourite was probably Splash Mountain or Peter Pan's flight which was just my childhood and the queue's for these were fine, we queued for around an hour for Peter Pan's flight but the queue for this was worth it. The queue was all themed like the children's bedroom in Peter Pan it magical! like me and my sister were in awe.

Epcot
Epcot was probably my favourite out of the all the Disney Parks, this might be because it represents so many different countries in the world and by the nature of this blog I like to travel, but it was just ever changing and each different country was just so memorizing. There was nowhere near as many rides at Epcot as that is not the main function of Epcot but one of the rides which we went on was the Mission:SPACE, with this ride you get to decide your intensity orange being the more intense and green being less intense. We decided to go for the orange version in my own words at the time 'we're not scared' the inner Midlander came out and boy it was intense, when we came out of the ride me, my sister and my dad all had to sit down for around 20 minutes after as we left like we were going to be sick, and we like rides it just gives you so much vertigo and I cannot deal with that. We were all given rolls and mine was the pilot (big responsibility I know), which meant we all had stuff to do which may have been one of the reasons why it was so intense. Another ride which we loved was the ride in Mexico (I cannot remember it's actual name), it wasn't a fast ride or an interesting ride, it was just so cool inside like we were sweltering outside before the ride and when inside it was so cool and dark and just different to the outside world.

Hollywood Studios
The Hollywood Studios was probably my least favourite out of all of the Disney Parks, but also had one of my favourite rides, makes no sense I know. But I found the layout of this park the most confusing and constantly found myself getting lost and one of the main selling points of the park I thought was all of the Star Wars stuff and I hadn't seen ANY of the Star Wars films at this point (I know I'm terrible). I feel like we missed a lot the Hollywood Studios as the weather was crap and it limited what we could do but I did go to a sing along Frozen screening which was magical. But my favourite ride here was certainly the Aerosmith Rocking Rollercoaster, which I had been waiting to ride since I was around nine when we went to Disney Land Paris but sadly I was not tall enough, although I haven't grown much since then, I've grown enough and I am so glad I waited as I do not think that 9 year old me could deal with the speed of the ride.

Animal Kingdom
Probably my favourite park, much like Epcot the focus wasn't so much on the rides but the experience again and of course the Wildlife which is a huge selling point!! but from a photographers point of view I wasn't a huge fan of the Kilimanjaro safari as it felt like we never stopped long enough to get decent photographs, like a I got some decent photographs but it felt like we were only ever stopping for a few minutes if that. One of my favourite rides was at the Animal Kingdom and this was the expedition everest ride which was amazing! Me and my sister were front row and behind us was our dad and this little girl who we thought would be terrified as she looked about 6, but she told us that this was were third time on the ride and that we would find it really scary, and even told my dad to close his eyes at one point as it was the scary part. Like look how into she was (the girl in the purple Supergirl top)

Typhoon Lagoon

We sadly only got to spend half a day at Typhoon Lagoon as we simply just didn't have enough time, as although we spent two weeks in Florida, there just simply isn't enough time to do everything, sometimes you have to cut corners but it gives you plenty of stuff to do when you return as I know full well I will return to Florida as soon as I have the money. And I didn't do anything other than go in the wave pool at Typhoon Lagoon as I had a little too much sun the day before and didn't feel that well. But oh boy even the wave pool was amazing. I swam out quite far with my dad as the shallows were crowded and I'm only little so kept being thrown into everyone but the force of the wave out in the depths basically pulled me back into the shallows they were so strong and trying to keep yourself a float is also so tiring and i'm quite a strong swimmer but i'm also only 5ft1 so I was nowhere near the bottom of the pool. I would recommend it to any strong swimmer going out int the depths as it was so much better there just make sure you're a strong swimmer as I struggled.

Overall the whole Disney experience was amazing and I can see why people go year on year as it is such a magical place, I would just say always carry a drink on you and enjoy it. Don't worry there is no need to!

Next time I'll be writing about Sea World and Discovery Cove

Ashleigh x 

Florida July 2016 - The Florida Diaries #1

In the summer I was lucky enough to spend two weeks in the beautiful city of Orlando Florida. There is far too much to write about in a single blog post so I will be making this out into a little series of posts telling you about all of my favourite things and some of my least favourite things about Orlando.
To start off with I'll give you the ins and the outs we flew from Manchester with Virgin, although I found their choice of on board films rather boring I would still recommend flying with them as overall the flight service was amazing.
We stayed with The Enclaves suites, which I would 100% recommend, the location is prime being just off International drive so you always have options for food, some of the places which I would recommend eating on International Drive would be:

• Game changers
• Denny's 
• TGI's (Was just off International Drive)
• McDonalds

This is just a handful of the options which are available but it gives you an idea of what to expect. One of my favourite meals was TGI's, this may have been because we were coming to the end of our holiday and I was kind of getting sick of having chips and burgers and having pasta was the best decision I had ever made.

See you next time for the Disney selection 

Ashleigh x