The Toys Are Back In Town 2010

[Kimber03]

The Cast

Me - Steve (36) – Well I’m the walking ATM and Tour Guide
DW -Julie (32) - I will do anything but watch the Tikki Birds again!
DD1 – Kimberley (16) – Her moods are a like a box of Chocolates!
DD2 – Kiera (8) – Birthday Girl – Full of attitude and could easily eat double her own body weight.
DD3- Skye (3) – Tasmanian Devil in a small package


23 Nights June 2010 Trip Intro.

A long time ago (Jun 09) in a galaxy far, far away on ship (well not another galaxy but definitely feels like another planet) off the coast of Angola West Africa I was busy working honest (well ok sunbathing) and got thinking as you do.

It would soon be time for our trip to Orlando in July 2009 but I had already cancelled it as soon as we came home after our visit in 08.

My thinking was that we should revisit Orlando in 2010. Now this wasn’t a straight forward decision as our last visit in October 2008 didn’t go down too well as we thought the Disney Magic wasn’t there compared to our previous trips.

Discussed this with Julie over Skype and we decided that we would wait until I got back home from work and discuss it with the kids.

Well after a few days at home we brought up the subject and the message we got from the kids was mixed. Kiera & Skye the youngest two where all for it but Kimberley our oldest wasn't keen in going on holiday at all not with her parents anyway

We were all set to book for Oct 2010 but Kimberley changes her mind and wishes to go as she said it would be her last trip with Ma & Pa ( I don’t believe her). Now this puts a spanner in the works because Kimberley would be starting her Degree course in Business Administration after the summer in 2010 and an Oct holiday wouldn’t work out with the school and uni dates. After much deliberation we decided to try June / July as this would allow us more time to do the parks, get burned to a crisp by the Floridian Sun and allow me to go fishing for Lightning with my camera and camcorder.

Let the Planning commence! :pop:

The first hurdle was to get my annual leave approved from the office and since I was asking for 28 days leave it wasn’t sure it would be approved but to my amazement HR approved it with 5 minutes of me asking which by our office standards is unheard off.

Well over the 11 months the plans have been slowly coming together as I love the Dibb as an Inspirational channel of ideas and nick other peoples plans to try myself

Fly drive from Aberdeen via Flybe and Virgin cost a small fortune at £3000 with the V-Room included at Gatwick.

Update 54 days to go and Virgin Holidays Indian call center calls up demanding another £150 (£30 ea) for car hire

Virgin Holidays are a joke at the minute especially these foreign call centres where you cant get a straight answer from anyone. Lets hope Virgin Atlantic isnt so bad.

Accommodation proved to be a harder to find than I initially thought as we wanted to go back to the Blue Heron Beach Resort but the prices that were coming back were laughable with some wanting over £3000 for 23 nights. In the end we settled for a reasonable price with Complete Orlando which set us back £1400.

With the flights and accommodation sorted it was time to look at car hire which on first look it appeared rather expensive , I found out about Car On The Drive.Com thanks to the Dibb and was quite pleased with the offer I got back from Peter which was slightly cheaper than my usual supplier (US Rent A Car).

We also booked at night down in Clearwater at the Holiday Inn and 3 nights up at Universal’s Royal Pacific Resort (using the UK Glitch rates).

As for Tours and other attractions we have booked quite a few treats and surprises since Kiera will celebrate her 9th birthday during our trip and have planned a Birthday Surprise at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Castle followed by Dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table and later that night a Pirates Firework Cruise.

Other tours planned and booked for this trip include

Keys to the Kingdom Tour
Hot Air Balloon Flight
Helicopter Flight
Shark Deep Dive
Deleon Springs
Captain Memo Pirate Cruise
Shooting Range visit.
Toy Story 3 Cinema visit.


As for dining out this trip we were very hesitant at the beginning to book any ADRs due to Skye’s behaviour at meal times which always make dining out stressful and also our desire to eat away offsite.

But we felt that we couldn’t come all this way and not sample a few of our favourite restaurants on site

The list of ADRs are mostly Breakfasts and a few Dinners thrown in.

Crystal Palace (BK) 1900 Park Fare (BK)
Cape May (BK) 1900 Park Fare (Dinner)
CRT (BK) Le Celier (Dinner)
CRT (Dinner) Garden Grill (Dinner)
Chef Mickeys (BK) Princess Storybook (BK)
Hollywood & Vine (BK) Ohana's (Dinner) Mama Melrose (Dinner)
Donald's Safari Breakfast


My ADR list has changed quite a few times over the months and had upto 23 at one point but slowly it has been getting chopped down and now down to 14 mainly due to the fact I dont think dining at Disney is as value for money for off site guests since the introduction of the DDP

Away from Disney we have a Character Breakfast booked at Universal and Dine With Shamu at Seaworld.

However Dine with Shamu has been cancelled so we will now eat at the Sharks Underwater Grill instead.

We also want to try a few new off site places to eat such as Texas De Brazil, Outback Steakhouse , Bahama Breezeand Applebee’s along with a few of our favourites such as Tony Romas and The Cheesecake Factory.


So as you can see it should be an eventful 3 and a bit weeks and to be honest we all clocking watching wishing the time would come round quicker

UPDATE: With 4 weeks to go a spanner is thrown into the works as whilst at work I take a tumble and end up injurying my back. This is painful enough to stop me working and I end up missing my trip up to Greenland which will put a strain on finances just at the wrong time but hey ho I'll worry about that later

Hopefully my back heals itself before our trip beacuse I hate to go to all this planning and end up missing out on stuff.

Under 2 weeks to go and everything is more a less sorted , my back is feeling alot better now. Just the Hire Car balance to pay for and I'm expecting the call from Peter any day now for that.

5 days to go and still no sign of the Tickets from Virgin but Virgin Bollydays has assured me that they are in the post though that doesn't exactly fill me of confidence as they are a shower of (Enter in your own swear word here):angry:

My mood is lifted though by the staff at the Blue Heron Beach Resort, I enquired about the possibilty of reserving a high level condo as the view is superb the higher you are. Unfortunately the Blue Heron has realised this and have started to charge a $20 per night surcharge for High Level Condos and $10 per night for Mid Level Condo's.

Well I wasnt to keen in forking out another $400 odd dollars purely for a view but I was prepared to do so but the manager emailed back and said dont worry we will pick up the surcharge this year since we are returning guests.

4 days to go...Paid the balance for our car hire with Peter at Car On The Drive, all set now... WAIT A MINUTE what's missing? That's right still no flight tickets from Virgin so we might still be sitting here next week at this rate.


3 days to go...Virgin phone about our forthcoming trip with bad new and good news.

First our flights with Flybe to Gatwick have been cancelled and we are now booked on the 20.00 BMI flight to Heathrow. We have the Hilton booked for our overnight stay so had to cancel that and try and find accomodation near Heathrow. Not so easy at this late stage but we eventually get 2 rooms booked at the Sofitel.

We are no longer flying on VS027 via Gatwick but now flying to Miami on VS005 from Heathrow. Not happy with this change but the upgrade to Upper Class soon changes that

Virgin did want us to pick the car up in Miami and drive up but I told them that I wasnt keen in driving up to Orlando. The rep said that we dont do transfers but will ask her manager..5mins later we have connecting flights between Miami and Orlando via AA.

They did say we would have to pay for luggage on the AA flight but Virgin refunded £200 to help with the cost.

Quick email to rearrange pick up and hopefully that's the last of the surprises before we travel.

Less than 48hrs to go and the tickets arrive from Virgin, checked to see if the upgrades are for real just in case it was a wind up

To pass the time I've started doing some prep work for the trip report and this may include some video if I can get my head round Adobe After Effects, Julie and the kids have packed/unpacked/packed the luggage sevral times now

Today is the day, at long last !

[chaffey]

Hope you all have a fab trip

[sarahewoods]

Brilliant pre-trip report, looking forward to reading full trip report. Hope you have a fantastic holiday xx

[Guest]

Loved your pre-trip report, the Tikkibird thing made me laugh, it's so bad!

[joanna23]

Sounds like it's going to be a great trip, I love the Toy Story bit in your signature.

[JoJoBell]

A great start, looking forward to reading you Trippie

[pluto66]

Great start I am looking forward to your trip report already!

[tink3]

Wow, sounds like you are going to have an amazing time and I hope you find the disney magic again.

Looking forward to reading your trip report.

[mossyflossy]

Really enjoyed this, Steve. Love the title and the pic in your sig, but can't believe that number of ADRs when you're not on the DDP! Enjoy them all, have a fantastic time!

[Alyson]

All sounds fantastic!