Parks, Pins, Puke, Pennies...Not Enough Planning - April / May 2017

[moosha]

Originally Posted by I <3 Disney xxx

So excited to see you back! Amazing update, your trip sounds fab. Looking forward to hearing more when you get the next bits booked.

Mega exciting about the potential move! I use to live in New York a while back, some of the best years of my life. Xx

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Aaw, thanks for reading and for the lovely comments . Great to hear that you loved living in New York...we certainly can't get enough of the place . xx

Originally Posted by EllieP

Wow what an amazing update. Not sure why but thought a move to US might be on the cards, not sure why I don't bought that may be the exciting news though 😉. I'm sure NYC would be an amazing place to live and such an experience for all of you.
Your plans sound great too and although it probably feels ages away, time flies so it will be here before you know it.

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Hi Elaine

Thanks for the lovely comments, how funny that you psychically predicted a US move for us...even I didn't see it coming .

I know what you mean, I love that I can already say we're going back to Florida 'next year' now. The first few months of the year always go quickly, so it's not long until I can book the Disney bits and flights in April, and then it will only be a year away .

Originally Posted by Lisa29

Wow, what exciting news! I hope the next 6 months fly by and you get to make a decision either way on moving to the US. It must be so tempting to just keep looking on property websites and at schools and stuff.

Your plan for next year sounds amazing so far. I really hope you like DCL, we loved it and hope to do another cruise one day.

You can't turn down Club Level if it is cheaper than standard rooms, that would just be madness!

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Hi Lisa

Thanks for reading and for the lovely comments. I am tempted to look at US property websites and schools but I am trying to stay away and keep an open mind for the next few months while we wait and see how things pan out. I'm throwing myself into finishing last year's trip report instead .

So glad you all loved DCL, can't wait to read all about it .

I am very excited about club level at the HRH after seeing Mimosas in the club lounge at breakfast in Amanda's trippie. A little cocktail at breakfast sounds perfect x.

[moosha]

Update June 2016

Before I begin with the update, I thought it might be an idea to add in some recent photos since it is so long since I started the pre-trip report and the girls have grown up so much since then. I was uploading some photos into my 2015 trip report this morning when I thought 'that doesn't look like Seren at all anymore' so I thought it was time for some new ones here. These were taken on our holiday to New York three weeks ago, which was fab and hopefully once I finish 2015's Florida trip report and then start 2015's New York photo trip report, I might get around to a 2016 New York photo trip report too .













So on with the long overdue update. It's all changed again. Six months after we started re-booking for 2017, we have cancelled the Universal hotel bookings we made, and are no longer staying onsite at Disney.

We decided back in January not to pursue the moving to America thing. With a bit more distance from our 2015 trip to New York, we realised we're not keen on the massive upheaval of emigrating to the US. We really didn't fancy 'starting from scratch' when we're all so settled here. Mat's just got a promotion, and while he technically could still do the new job from the US, the new job has kind of 're-energised' him and made him a lot more satisfied with working in the UK. I am much happier with the idea of staying here than moving to the US now. Seren will start secondary school next year and we're really happy with the school options we have here as opposed to the complete unknown that is the US public school system.

We also cancelled our Disneyland Paris trip which we were due to go on at Easter just gone. Mat and I are not big DLP fans and we were doing it this year with the idea that going to Disneyland Paris if we lived in the US would be more difficult. So it was kind of a 'one last time' thing. Knowing that Big Thunder Mountain (the best ride there, IMO better than the Florida version) is closed for refurb all year this year, as well as a couple of other major attractions that would be closed during our time there (Star Tours, Peter Pan) made us even less enthused about the idea of going. The girls were disappointed that we weren't going, but we're now full steam ahead to Florida 2017. And I know it will be here before we know it.

I had been feeling a bit down over Easter time, knowing that we would have been in Florida had we not cancelled. I know feeling like that is to be expected. In a way I regret cancelling the holiday because we did it when we thought we'd be moving to New York, and now that's not happening, I'm disappointed that we lost the holiday. But there's no point looking back and having regrets. It's been a very 'up and down' year with all these twist and turns, plans made and plans changed. I am really excited already about next year's holiday, and we've said that this time we will stick with the plans, no more chopping and changing. I'm really happy with what we have planned now.

With all the to-ing and fro-ing, we're still a little 'unsettled' financially and made the decision a few weeks ago to scale our plans right back so that we can enjoy a (relatively) cheap and cheerful Florida holiday next year. We're not in the position to go crazy with Disney on-site and we also decided that around £3000 for a three night Disney cruise was not worth it for us. We've both kind of 'gone off' the idea of the Disney cruise as time has passed since we first booked it for 2016 and we're just not enthused enough about a Disney cruise right now to spend that sort of money on it. Maybe we'll change our minds another year.

Before we cut the cruise, we had booked a lovely villa at the Shire at West Haven and we were going to do 25 days there, with a one night onsite at the Hard Rock to get the Universal Express passes somewhere in the middle, and three days out to go on the cruise. The villa was the March update I never got around to posting. We had got quite excited about the idea of trying a villa, thinking this might be the way forward for us. But it was still a lot of money, especially since for four of those nights we'd technically be paying for two sets of accommodation (villa and cruise / Hard Rock.) We just couldn't justify that. The villa was going to be around £3500, with another £3000 on top for the cruise and around the same again for flights. Not to mention the amount of spending money we'd need for such a long holiday, plus 14 day Disney tickets, Universal tickets...

It got to the point six weeks ago where we were talking about cancelling the whole thing again, and the thought of losing our Orlando holiday two years in a row was not something I could take lightly. I told Mat that I would have a play around and see what I could come up with for another 'budget trip'. A proper one this time, as 2015's didn't really turn out that way .

The cruise absolutely had to go, so we cancelled that (I'm not even going to mention losing two cruise deposits in a year) and I decided we'd have to cut the length of the holiday to closer to two weeks. As much as I'd love to stay longer, if it's 16 days or not at all, I'll take the 16 days thank you very much. We'll be back for three weeks another year, that I'm absolutely positive about.

I asked the villa owner to quote for the 16 days and it was still too much money to justify for this trip so sadly we had to say goodbye to that lovely villa for 2017. Again, I do like the idea of trying out a villa, with the girls getting older, and I would definitely choose this one again when we do go back. For 2017, I had another idea though and I knew that all of us would be completely happy with it.

I wanted to keep our onsite night at the Hard Rock (it was already paid for) as those Express passes are well worth the money. I decided to extend the booking to two nights so we'd have longer with our Express passes. We love Universal, we love Harry Potter, we love CityWalk and I knew two nights there would be well worth the money for us.

For the rest of our Orlando stay, it was a no-brainer. For anyone who's read my 2014 trip report, you may know how much we loved our week at Cabana Bay Beach Resort. We still look back at that week as our favourite time in Orlando in all our trips (our first trip with the girls in 2012 when we stayed at the Yacht Club is up there too). Our week at Cabana Bay was much better than our time last year at Portofino Bay and the Hilton at Bonnet Creek. It was also much better than our stay at the Wilderness Lodge, where we went straight after Cabana Bay in 2014, and which felt like such an anti-climax.

We did stay at Cabana Bay when it was in soft-open in April 2014 so it was quieter than it is now, and all shiny and new. So I know it'll be a little different. We did pop back there on the bus from CityWalk one evening last year to see the new Towers and pool, and we still very much loved it so I'm sure we're still going to feel the same. We love the style and theming, the location, the pools, the cocktails, the food court, the bowling, the Starbucks...just all of it is so special to us. And they could do 13 nights in a Tower family suite for $1700 so we were sold. Last time we stayed in the courtyard suites (the tower wasn't built) so we're excited about trying the hotel style rooms with indoor corridors to rooms rather than the motel style, exterior corridor room we had last time.

Some photos of our 2014 stay at Cabana Bay:









So it's two nights at Hard Rock followed by 13 nights at Cabana Bay and I've managed to bag us a little freebie on the front of the holiday too. We are flying into Miami with BA on a flydrive. It was about £700 cheaper to do it as a flydrive than book flight only, and a good few hundred pounds cheaper than flying to Orlando too. I don't particularly like flying with BA (said two days after flying back from New York with them) but it is a given that they are cheaper than Virgin (I always say that's partly because you get a lot less food and drink with BA.) Also, as Mat is a Silver executive club card holder with BA from all his work travels, we do get the benefit of priority check-in / boarding etc so I can't complain (too much). Anyway, for the purpose of this 'budget trip', the prices were very good so we were always going to choose them over Virgin. In five years when we're rich, I'll book upper-class with Virgin (a girl can dream...)

So back to my freebie. I have BA to thank for that too. Mat had run up quite a good Avios balance, and because I couldn't use the points as part payment for our flights (because it's fly-drive rather than flight only), I had a look at hotels in Miami Beach for our first night on the Avios site and managed to bag us a beautiful room with hot-tub on the patio / balcony at the very lovely looking Anglers hotel at South Beach for 63,050 points. Thank you very much BA. So the plan is to chill out there (specifically in the hot tub) after our flight lands at around 3pm, and then set off for Orlando the following morning. Hopefully fitting a quick walk on the beach in there somewhere too.

(Photos borrowed from the hotel's website):





I think our room will have an outdoor space like this:





While we're in Orlando, we're obviously going to have a good few days at Universal so I'll be buying 14 day tickets for the Universal parks. Unfortunately it doesn't look like Volcano Bay (their new water park) will be open by then. We'll have a few days of chilling out by the pool, and will probably go to Clearwater for a day as we loved it there in 2014. We'll definitely visit Disney Springs a few times, and I should think the Disney mini golf (Winter Summerland and Fantasia Gardens) too, paying as we go. At the moment, my plan is to probably go to each Disney park for one day each so we'll be looking at 3 or 4 day tickets. I haven't looked into that at all yet, but I'm pretty sure we won't be buying Ultimate tickets as we will be spending a very limited amount of time at the Disney parks. And I'm fine with that. As I said, it's a budget trip or no trip for 2017, and a budget trip has to mean less time at Disney. With all their price increases and cost cutting in the past few months, I'm happy to spend less money there right now.

So our dates are confirmed as Saturday 22nd April to Monday 8th May, arriving back on Tuesday 9th May. Seren's birthday is 6th May and I wanted to give us another full day after her birthday so that her special day wasn't spent with the 'last night blues'. Going at the end of our Easter holidays, and taking the girls out of school for five days means that we're not travelling at peak time which works in our favour cost wise. They are at an independent school so we are able to take them out, and as next year will be Seren's last year before secondary school, we're happy to do so (particularly as Seren has a stressful few months leading up to the holiday with her 11+ in September, back-up school entrance exams in January and finding out if she gets her chosen school place in March.) We'll all definitely need the holiday by then, especially Seren, and I'm so happy she gets to spend her 11th birthday in Orlando (and that at the moment, she's still choosing Magic Kingdom as her park of choice for her birthday.)

Thanks for reading and bearing with me, with all these twists and turns .

[EllieP]

Excellent update and glad to hear about all your plans. The girls have grown up so much, it's scary. My eldest is starting comprehensive in September and it's frightening to think about how quick the time is going! Your new plans sounds amazing and I loved the look of cabana bay in your 2014 report.

[snowdrop100]

wow so many changes but it sounds like you're organising a lovely trip. i'm totally with you on the whole "if its no trip or some compromises..." attitude as i'm sure you'll make fantastic memories. plus, this means you still get to plan an "ultimate super duper perfect" trip another time (and we all know that the planning is part of the fun).

looking forward to reading more plans

[dixonsontour]

Lots of changes but i'm sure you will have a fantastic time. We've stayed 3 times now at Cabana, last time in May in a tower suite.

My Dd is 10 and sitting her 11 + next month too.

This is our last 2 week October half term, have been every October since she started school. Unfortunately the secondary schools only have a week. I pushed to do onsite disney as it's our last time.

Have you done the clearwater aquarium? My daughter is loving Dolphin's tale 1 and 2 at the minute and is asking to go back.

[collybird]

Oh Michelle, I really feel for you, trip planning this time has been a stressful experience for you!

We have also cancelled our DLP trip for this year. It was due to an issue with annual leave but I'm not too disappointed. As you say, there's so much closed right now. And I can't say I was looking forward to Paris in November weather!

Funnily enough I have also cooled on the idea of DCL. (I'm frustrated about the amount of time it takes away from the parks and I'm not one for relaxing). If my mum hadn't been looking forward to it so much I'd have cancelled too.

Your pictures of sunny NYC are making me very jealous. We were there in April and weren't so lucky with the weather.

[Lisa29]

Gosh, it sounds you really have had a busy, possibly stressful few months.

Your new plans sound really good though and I'm sure the time will go so fast.

[Dissie]

Gosh, what a lot of twists and turns for you all but at least you are getting next year and it sounds like it will be a fab holiday. How lovely for Seren to spend her birthday in Florida. I know how you feel missing out a year. We went Nov 2015 and I think it will be 2018 or possibly even 2019 before we get back. I feel like crying every time I think about it. It's everyone's trip reports that keep me going so keep writing them. Yours are great.

[moosha]

October 2016 Update:

A couple of updates now that I finally have my 2015 trip report finished and can concentrate on planning the next holiday... yay!

Our holiday was due to start on Saturday 21st April and as it is a serious 'budget' trip this time (unlike the last which was supposed to be of the budget variety, but didn't really end up that way ), we had decided not to stay at Heathrow the night before. Our flight time is 10.40 am on a Saturday so the early morning traffic shouldn't be too bad. We have flown to New York from Heathrow twice in the past year on a Saturday morning and those flights have taken off around 9 am. We've managed to get there in plenty of time for both of those flights, and on a good run it only takes 45 minutes to get to Heathrow from our house. So there's really no reason to stay at the airport overnight. Does it feel like there's a 'but' coming?

After booking our hotel in Miami for 'free' using Mat's Avios points, and also booking a cheeky 'free' night in a London hotel which Mat and I enjoyed last week while the girls were away on a residential trip with school, it occurred to me that I could just have a little look at whether we had enough points left to stop over at the Sofitel at Heathrow the night before our flight. We had stayed there in 2014 when our Florida holiday started in New York (and so we had also flown from Heathrow) and we'd really liked the hotel. I really liked the idea of making this holiday a bit longer, and since our flights are already booked, this is the only way to extend our time away from home.

I spoke to Mat and he was on board. We decided it was a case of 'if we have enough points, and that particular hotel is available, we'll go for it'. When I checked, I was very happy to find we could book a Club Suite with Business Lounge access for 56,300 Avios points. I think the cash price (which they quote as a cancellation price when you book but doesn't appear on the confirmation) was between £200 and £300. Last time we'd had the Business Lounge access too and had enjoyed a continental breakfast in there before the flight which was very handy. But I'm pretty sure we had a deluxe room or similar rather than a suite, as the new confirmation quotes a dining area in the suite which we definitely didn't have last time. I know this because we had to eat our M&S picnic dinner one at the desk, one in the comfy chair and two of us on the bed . This sounds much more civilised!

Some photos of the hotel from our last trip:

A very tiny Seren in our room at the Sofitel Heathrow:



Some tiny children playing around on one of the lovely chairs in the lobby (I can't believe they were ever that small now ) :





A deserted business lounge when we arrived for our early morning breakfast:





So our holiday now begins a day earlier on Friday 21st April. Not sure yet whether Mat will be working in London, working from home or off, but the girls will be off school and the three of us will very much be in holiday mode on that day (or probably even earlier than that!)

My other update is that a friend of mine, Sandra, who is another mum from the girls' school (her son James is in the same class as Seren) has asked me if we'd like to meet up with her, her husband Ed and James while we're in Orlando. We are all quite excited about the idea as we've never met up with anyone in Florida before. Our holidays only just match up as they are going for Easter weekend and the beginning of our school's holidays whereas we are going at the end of the holidays. Their last full day is the day we drive up from Miami to Orlando.

Knowing that we have to make that long drive up in the morning, and that we're staying at Universal, she has kindly suggested that they come over to us at Universal in the afternoon, we do some rides and then go for a meal at CityWalk, probably at the Hard Rock Cafe. James is a massive roller coaster freak and has absolutely no fear. He's been on all of those huge scary rides at places like Six Flags that you see on Insane Coaster Wars on the Discovery Channel such as both this frankly terrifying roller-coaster, Kingda Ka, and the just as hideous red drop towers you can see inside the huge drop, both at Six Flags Great Adventure :



(photo courtesy of Six Flags Great Adventure via google.)

He apparently wanted to drag Seren on Rip Ride Rocket and the Hulk which she was not exactly convinced about. He has now downgraded his plan to The Mummy which is a ride she loves. We'll see what she actually ends up going on by the time we actually go, maybe she'll surprise us and choose those more intense rides.

Having that semi-planned means that I feel like there is at least some structure in place for the holiday as so far, I haven't actually started planning which is unheard of for me with just over six months to go. That is partly because I didn't want to begin until my last trip report was complete. And secondly, because we're not staying on-site at Disney and not having many Disney meals, I don't need to plan out each day right now ready for our 180 days next week. It's going to be a more relaxed holiday than we're used to with more chilling time and less booked-in-advance restaurants. Knowing that we are very nearly at the point where we do need to book any Disney restaurants has got me thinking I need to get on it with the planning however, so I'm going to get started over the next week or so and will update again soon once we've decided on (and booked) our Disney restaurants.

I have also now bought the odd thing for our trip.

The girls and I happened upon this Elsa t-shirt in the sale in Tesco for Seren which she really liked. For something like £4 I couldn't have exactly left it there, could I, especially since Disney character clothes for older girls are less easy to come by than for little ones.



A couple of weeks ago I managed to get my hands on some of the Cath Kidston / Disney limited edition Winnie The Pooh items to give the girls for Christmas. A cosmetic bag for Seren:



….and a smaller zip bag / pencil case (whatever she decides to use it for) for Freya:



I also have another zip purse that will either be for Freya's teacher for Christmas or for me if I can't bear to part with it .

Also a couple of weeks ago I decided to check the Boden sale for maxi dresses. I love Boden maxi dresses and have four, the last two of which were purchased in the sale for our 2014 and 2015 Florida holidays respectively. They have gone a bit faded and bobbly through excessive wear throughout the last couple of summers, so I thought it was time to see if I could get a new one. The dresses cost £85ish when not in the sale so I do make a point of checking whether they have any in stock when their sales are on as they come down to around half price. When I checked, they had only one design left in smaller sizes, so it may not have been my first choice of colour / pattern, but the dresses are so flattering and comfortable (plus they don't crease in the suitcase) that I had to go for it anyway. Pretty pleased with my purchase at half the original price.



My trip report notebook. I bought this from Muji and I'm really pleased with it. My trippie notebooks have to be A6, they have to be ring-bound and I prefer them to have a plastic cover / protector so they're weather-proof as they're carried around all the time. This one also has a plastic zippy pocket which I thought would be ideal for receipts and any other useful bits of paper that I accumulate during the holiday. The only downsides are that it isn't lined (but it does have dots to guide where the lines should be), so I'm currently working my way through the book adding in lines. And also, it's very plain so I may need to 'pimp' it with some Disney stickers or something between now and the holiday.





Note my newly drawn lines :



Back soon with some proper plans . Thank you for reading.

[moosha]

Originally Posted by EllieP

Excellent update and glad to hear about all your plans. The girls have grown up so much, it's scary. My eldest is starting comprehensive in September and it's frightening to think about how quick the time is going! Your new plans sounds amazing and I loved the look of cabana bay in your 2014 report.

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Hi Elaine, thank you so much for reading and commenting. It is scary how quickly the girls have grown up . Hope your eldest is settling in well to secondary school. Can't believe that's going to be Seren next year .

I'm so excited about going back to Cabana Bay .

Originally Posted by snowdrop100

wow so many changes but it sounds like you're organising a lovely trip. i'm totally with you on the whole "if its no trip or some compromises..." attitude as i'm sure you'll make fantastic memories. plus, this means you still get to plan an "ultimate super duper perfect" trip another time (and we all know that the planning is part of the fun).

looking forward to reading more plans

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Aaw, thank you for reading and for the lovely comments. Glad you're of the same mind, and you're right...there will be another (bigger) trip to plan for another time. I do love the planning .

Originally Posted by dixonsontour

Lots of changes but i'm sure you will have a fantastic time. We've stayed 3 times now at Cabana, last time in May in a tower suite.

My Dd is 10 and sitting her 11 + next month too.

This is our last 2 week October half term, have been every October since she started school. Unfortunately the secondary schools only have a week. I pushed to do onsite disney as it's our last time.

Have you done the clearwater aquarium? My daughter is loving Dolphin's tale 1 and 2 at the minute and is asking to go back.

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Thank you so much for reading and commenting as always Stephanie.

Hope Anna's 11+ went well, I'm so glad it's all over. Seren gets her results at the end of the week so my fingers are firmly crossed as I type .

Gosh, losing your two week October half term is going to be a bit of a shock isn't it? I feel for you having to do things really differently in the future. I think I've been trying not to think about how Seren's school holidays are going to be different to Freya's after next summer, and that we're probably not going to have the opportunity to have our lovely long Easter trips anymore where we can usually avoid the most busy school holiday week(s) / Easter weekend .

I'm going to have to catch up on your recent Cabana Bay trip report to remind me how fab the resort it is. So glad you love the hotel enough to have stayed there three times.

No, haven't been to the Clearwater Aquarium, will put it on the list to investigate. Thanks .

Originally Posted by collybird

Oh Michelle, I really feel for you, trip planning this time has been a stressful experience for you!

We have also cancelled our DLP trip for this year. It was due to an issue with annual leave but I'm not too disappointed. As you say, there's so much closed right now. And I can't say I was looking forward to Paris in November weather!

Funnily enough I have also cooled on the idea of DCL. (I'm frustrated about the amount of time it takes away from the parks and I'm not one for relaxing). If my mum hadn't been looking forward to it so much I'd have cancelled too.

Your pictures of sunny NYC are making me very jealous. We were there in April and weren't so lucky with the weather.

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How funny that you have also cancelled DLP and are not feeling so excited about DCL anymore too. Hope as you're getting closer to your hols some of that excitement for the cruise is coming back. I'm sure you'll have a fab time once you're actually on-board.

Hope you had a great time in NYC despite the weather not being good to you. It was really hot when we went in May, and also when we went last year at the beginning of September. Too hot at times (hope that makes you feel a bit better .) But having experienced freezing weather in April 2012, I know it can be pretty unpredictable in the spring. I'm already craving another trip to the Big Apple I have to say, having been five times in the last five years I really want to go again next year. Keeping fingers crossed .

Originally Posted by Lisa29

Gosh, it sounds you really have had a busy, possibly stressful few months.

Your new plans sound really good though and I'm sure the time will go so fast.

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Aah, thank you so much Lisa. I feel like we are finally back on track after a stressful few months, thank goodness, and I'm so excited about the trip already xx.

Originally Posted by Dissie

Gosh, what a lot of twists and turns for you all but at least you are getting next year and it sounds like it will be a fab holiday. How lovely for Seren to spend her birthday in Florida. I know how you feel missing out a year. We went Nov 2015 and I think it will be 2018 or possibly even 2019 before we get back. I feel like crying every time I think about it. It's everyone's trip reports that keep me going so keep writing them. Yours are great.

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Aaw, Lesley, I know what you mean...it's rubbish when you know your next trip is a long way off. Glad you are finding reading other people's reports helps, I've definitely found that too. Hope the time until your next trip goes quickly for you. Thank you for such lovely comments .