[NYC 2013] Day 1: Malaysia - NYC - Orlando

DAY 1 (26 Oct 2013): Malaysia - NYC - Orlando
- Malaysia to NYC
- NYC to Orlando (Orlando Point Resort)

Honestly I tend to procrastinate a lot when it comes to doing this whole blogging thing, but at least I'm starting now. Still can't believe that the actual trip was around 3 - 4 months ago! It still feels like a dream!

Anyway, this trip wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my two friends, Zsa and Hana, both of whom are living in Aussie for now. It was their initial plan to go to Orlando & NYC and they've been planning it for quite some time now. Another friend and I decided to tag along because it would be fun, plus it'd be an awesome year end trip.

We did have some misgivings about it when we heard about the bombing attack at Boston Marathon in early 2013, especially since we were planning to be in NYC when the NYC marathon takes place! (We eventually decided to use that day to go for a one-day trip to Troy, Albany in order to avoid any unwanted problems.) So yeah, amidst all the fear with the bombings and with tighter security, we still made our plans, and when the time came, we set off to NYC :)

Since my friend and I were coming from Malaysia, we took Qatar Airways (which had the cheapest price amongst its competitors at the time) to NYC (with a transit in Doha). The flight itself was okay, although we spent almost 23 hours in flight come to think of it. And the sucky part was that our Doha - JFK flight was delayed, and so we had to rush from immigration to our next departing flight to Orlando, MCO. 

Originally we had allocated 4 hours in between our arrival time and our domestic flight to Orlando, and I thought that was ample time, since we'd be arriving in Orlando pretty late at night otherwise. But with the looooong queue at immigration, we waited for at least 2 hours until we couldn't take it anymore and practically begged the women who was manning the immigration line to let us through first on account of our connecting flight. She was awesome enough to oblige, so we ran and made it to our connecting flight.

And so we basically lost one day in transit, and arrived in Orlando around 11pm. We took off to our hotel, Orlando Point Resort, and met up with our two friends who came in earlier from Aussie and had time to shop around ahead of us. 

All in all, a pretty uneventful flight and a hectic transit to Orlando. The trip was just beginning. 

Go to Day 2 (Orlando)
NYC 2013 Masterpost