"If you can dream it, you can do it" -May 2017 (update 4 parks but we did 5)

[Elsa42]

And the planning begins again.

This is my 4th trip although it’s only my second as an adult. We went in 2015 for a celebration “once in a life time trip” my last trip report can be found Here We loved it so much and couldn’t wait to go back. So here we go again.

Now I know this has been uploaded super early, I pretty much started writing this once we came back from our last trip and knew we wanted to go back. The reason I’ve wrote this so early (730 days) was because I wanted to record all through the planning details and since the planning has already started I’ve just decided to upload it now and keep adding updates as and when they come. As I upload this it is now 465 days so that doesn’t seem as bad…hopefully.

If you haven’t read my last trip report here’s a quick introduction for you.

This is me (Chloe) with my mum Heather. I’m 21 years of age but will be 23 on our next trip. I’m a trainee veterinary nurse although hopefully qualified by the time we go and love all things Disney. I know most people will hate the next sentence but I literally love frozen and it has slightly taken over my life . I couldn’t pick a favourite film as I love them all for different reasons. I’m really looking forward to going back and trying new things as well as repeating some of the things we did last time and thoroughly enjoyed. The water rides are my favourite and I can’t wait to repeatedly go on Dudley do rights at universal.

On to my mum (heather) she is 50 but will be 51 when we go. Loves Disney and is another big frozen fan (sorry everyone) She has been to Disney 5 times. She doesn’t have a favourite film and her ride choice would probably be similar to mine. To say she hates rides, she will give some of them a good go, however I highly doubt she will be rushing to the front of Everest’s queue after our last trip Just for fun ill add in our ride photo from everest.

It will be just the two of us on this trip, mother and daughter bonding time and all that. I think sometimes it’s hard travelling with other people and living with them for 2 weeks. Me and the mother are pretty much on the same page when it comes to Disney and will both follow each other’s lead rather than having other people to think about on the trip. Does that sound harsh? I think the holiday will be completely different with the two of us but we are extremely excited about the whole thing.

Now that's the "who" out of the way i should probably move onto when.

We did think our last trip would be the final “once in a life time trip” the famous Dibb quote. It’s never just the one trip and whilst nearing the end of our last holiday we were looking at prices to determine when we would be returning.

My first thought was let’s go back as soon as we can. We looked at prices and thought we could afford to return the following year (2016) but we soon realised the sort of holiday we could afford, wasn’t what we wanted to do after such a mixed holiday this year so we decided we would wait an extra year so we could do everything we wanted too. We started looking for 2017 and decided that would be the year we return. When was very easy for us to choose. We like the warm weather and tend to go in school terms, it's between may and September but we enjoyed may so much last year that it was decided we would go at the same sort of time.

The plan has taken a lot of twists and turns and a lot of ideas have been thrown around to include:
• A Disney cruise
• Back to the Coronado springs
• The Caribbean beach
• The royal room at the riverside
• Could we spend 2 nights at animal kingdom lodge again as we enjoyed it so much
• Would we do universal?
• Would we swim with dolphins again or leave it this time
• If we did swim with dolphins would it be on the cruise or at discovery dove

You get the idea lots of ideas which we need to think about and plan our holiday around them. Nothing will be being booked until next year so for now they are just ideas but this trip is about doing what we want to do.
I know I know all this writing and not a plan insight. Well my last pretrip report was also my first and wasn’t in as much detail as I would have liked so lucky you lot I’ve decided to write a lot more (obviously) and to update the report more often so even more babbling from me yay!

Index

Whats the plan

The Disney Dream

Accommodation part one

Mini update

Discovery Cove

We've booked

Oooops

Suitcases

Travel insurance

Flights

ADR Wishlist

Snack list

First Draft

Update on ADR's

4 Parks 1 day

Update

A week and 3 days

[Elsa42]

So whats the plan

Ok so onto a rough plan, this has been swapped and changed so much (within the first month of returning from our previous trip I might add) but I think we finally figured out what sort of shape it would take.

First was the Disney cruise, we knew we defiantly wanted to go on the 3 night cruise again on the Disney dream. We have decided no dolphin swim or swimming with the stingrays while in the Bahamas. As amazing as this was we felt a lot of the day was wasted sitting waiting to come off the cruise ship, this time we’ve decided to spend all the time on the cruise without any plans so we can explore the ship as much as possible. The 3 night cruises departs on a Friday in 2016 which is different from when we last went but we will work it into our plan.

From the cruise it will be onto an onsite Disney hotel for the remaining of the 2 week holiday. The hotel is yet to be decided but we have plenty of time to consider our options before we decide to book anything.

This is a rough idea of the holiday taking shape and what we thought was the plan until…

We changed our minds again. Originally it was going to be for 11 nights in a Disney hotel to make up our 14 day holiday but we enjoyed staying at more than one place so much last year as it was such an adventure that we decided we would stay for 9 nights after the cruise and stay somewhere else before heading onto the cruise. So 9 nights at a Disney hotel. Still yet to be decided but minus Coronado springs we just feel as much as this is a beautiful hotel that it would be nice to try something new. So the hotels left are:
Caribbean beach
Port Orleans French quarters
Port Orleans riverside the royal room

So now before the holiday we knew we wanted to stay a deluxe resort for the first two days. We loved animal kingdom lodge but felt we missed out on exploring around due to wanting to go to the parks, so booking the days before the cruise we’ve decided to have no park time and give our full attention to the hotel.

So fly on the Saturday stay at the animal kingdom lodge hotel for 2 nights, onto the Disney dream for 3 nights and then onto a moderate hotel for 9 nights. Sorted.

Not quite, we then decided that we wanted to try new places and we wanted to give up on night at the animal kingdom lodge in favour of staying at another deluxe hotel. People may think we are crazy staying one night and moving around but it’s what we like doing. We loved having 3 different places to go on our last holiday as it made it like 3 little adventures so why not add one more and have 4. So we had decided that either the grand Floridian, the Polynesian or the contemporary would be our final port of call this holiday.

So flights on Saturday 1 night at the animal kingdom lodge, 1 night at another deluxe hotel which is yet to be decided, 3 nights aboard the Disney dream and 9 nights at a moderate hotel. Sounds like a plan.

Well the planning is never finished in a dibbers world. More ideas were exchanged and more changes have been made. We have decided how much we loved universal, we took 3 days out of our Disney time to visit the parks and we loved it the only downside was it cost us $90 each day to get there in taxi fares so roll on research for another hotel…(the holiday is basically hotel jumping, we want to test them all!) We looked at the cabana bay but decided for the extra money and the FOLP and early entry it made much more sense to stay at the hard rock hotel. Although I’ve read rumours that front of line passes may be being stopped so this could all change. This also means we are now going for 16 days yay.

So 2 nights at the hard rock, 1 night at the animal kingdom lodge, 1 night at another deluxe hotel which is yet to be decided, 3 nights aboard the Disney dream and 9 nights at a moderate hotel. DONE.

I promise you that’s it, well it’s not, there’s plenty more planning I can fit in to the 2 years I have to fill but no more hotels and a rough plan of how we will be spending our time.

We still need to decide on our second deluxe hotel although I’m pulling more towards the contemporary and we need to decide where our last 9 nights will be spent. We are deciding to leave this blank until its nearly time to book and make a decision then.

Nothing can be done now until 2016 when we can start booking the holiday so I can’t wait until then. It will feel slightly more real that we are returning when we’ve booked. I’m going to leave the planning there for now. I don’t want to bore you all too much (I say all there’s probably 1 person reading but I don’t want you to be bored) Next post is about the first thing to be booked! I also promise there will be more pictures! Until next time

[Guest]

We're looking to go May 2017 as well. Glad I'm not the only one planning already! :-)

Great report so far

[Elsa42]

Originally Posted by lks3615

We're looking to go May 2017 as well. Glad I'm not the only one planning already! :-)

Great report so far

See more...

No defiantly not, we already have some things booked. That's why ive started this so early, that and i couldn't wait any longer

Thank you for reading

[Elsa42]

The Disney dream

We’ve only gone and booked the dream for 3 nights! In October I noticed a post on the Dibb saying that the dates have now been released for May 2017 and as soon as I saw this I was on the laptop looking at what dates suit us best and prices. I was trying to convince mum to book there and then but she wanted a firm plan and dates before we committed. Which is probably the sensible thing to do but I just wanted something booked. I spent the next week working out how we can fit the cruise into our holiday. We went onto the Disney cruise line website as we prefer booking direct through Disney, we knew we would prefer to be nearer the middle of the ship as you can’t feel the movement as much or near the room we were in last year. we liked deck 8 from last year so we were hoping for a room around this deck.

Through all the planning me and mum have looked at different prices and what we would prefer to pay for a room. We did look into having an indoor room as they are cheaper but we really enjoyed having a veranda last time so in the end we decided to have one again. We didn’t use it as much as we could have but it was nice while in the room to sit outside for a while. I did however look at the prices for an indoor stateroom and this would cost £1039 between the two of us.

While on the website I went onto choosing a room we wanted and there we hardly any available, I wondered if this was because they only released a few at a time as it’s so early. The only room available at this point were right next to the stairs and elevators which we weren’t so keen on so mum decided to ring up and see what room she could get. After speaking with the cast member she was told that only a few rooms has been released and he wasn’t even aware that they were due to be released and was surprised id already found out. He should never have underestimated the people of the dibb She ended up getting the room we had last year which was just perfect, it was a nice position on the boat on deck 8 with a veranda and there was slightly more space in the corridor when you leave your room. We were so so happy they offered us the same room and booked there and then. For the deluxe stateroom with a veranda it cost £1139 just £100 more for the veranda which in our case we think is totally worth it.

I’ve just looked on other websites for prices booking the cruise for people that don’t go direct and virgin wanted £1176 for the same room? So sometimes it’s defiantly worth going direct and they are so helpful.

This time round we aren’t booking excursions so all we need to do now is pay off the balance of the cruise. We swam with the dolphin is Nassau last time but we ended up waiting around 2 hours between getting of the ship and actually getting to the place to swim with the dolphins, we just felt this wasted a lot of our day when we could have been exploring. We do however want to order some champagne for the room on the first night so we can sit chill and drink on the veranda. We will add this later on when we next ring up and the cruise side of things will be sorted. We’ve picked the later meal again as it was quieter and most of the children go to the earlier sitting and because we will be at a Disney hotel before and after we will use the ground transfer, we will need to book this once our hotels have been booked.

Now we have been on a cruise before we know what to expect. We have decided we would like to explore the ship more, use the veranda and definitely have a few cocktails which we somehow missed last time. It will be a whole different experience from last time and I just can’t wait to go back and of course i'm super excited to be visiting castaway cay once again

The only other thing we need to do is either buy/make some magnets for the stateroom doors. We noticed quite a few rooms doing this when we went last so we are hoping to join in with this and decorate our door too.

Things to do for the cruise:
-pay the balance
-Add the champagne to the cruise
-Make/buy magnets for the stateroom door.
-Add on ground transfers

[Elsa42]

Accommodation part one

The accommodation part of the planning will come in more than one part. We will be booking two nights in a Disney hotel at the start of the holiday and then we will be waiting to see if the dining plan will be released in April. As we are booking just two nights in Disney hotels to start with we can book these as soon as the dates are released. From the start of January I have been checking the Disney website daily waiting for the May dates to be released. Half way through January I was sure they were being released soon but it took until the end of the month and the dates were finally released.

When we first started planning we had already decided on one night at the animal kingdom lodge. This has been pretty much set in stone and we knew we wanted to stay here again. We also decided that we would spend the extra money and have a savannah view. We stayed in a savannah view room last year and it was beautiful to wake up to the view we had in the morning. With that decided we just needed to decide which other hotel we were going to spend a night in. When we first started planning I was pulling more towards the contemporary whereas mum was thinking more about the grand Floridian. After a lot of research between the hotels we settled on the Polynesian. This hotel wasn’t really in the running to start with but the theming of the hotel won it for us and we were ready to book.

As soon as the dates were released mum was on the phone ready to book. This was quick and easy and the cast member was extremely helpful and managed to get the rooms we wanted or the dates we wanted.

So we now have a savannah view at the animal kingdom lodge room booked which i'm extremely excited to stay in again. It will be nice to stay in this hotel and explore the area without us wanting to go to the parks. so one nights stay will be here:

As well as that we've also booked a theme park view at the Polynesian. The theming looks lovely and its somewhere we are also really happy to have time to explore without wasting any park time. So another night of the holiday will be spent here:

I’m so glad we have something else booked and these dates fit in well with the plan I’ve created and with the cruise.

I just need to link this reservation to my Disney experience which it won’t let me do at this moment in time. I’ll give it a couple more days and then I might ring up. In regards to the days while we are here at these hotels we won’t be making any plans so all there is to do on this part is pay the balance.

It took a week but these reservations have now been linked to MDE. It now feels more real. eeeeeek

Things to do:
-pay the Polynesian balance
-pay the animal kingdom lodge balance
-wait for the dining plan offer.

[Guest]

Yay more report! Love it love it love it...

The Poly looks amazing. I'd love to do a Disney cruise but have an irrational fear of falling overboard maybe on trip number 2

I'm thinking of starting my PTR later... I fear all my ramblings about Florida are starting to get on my other half's nerves but I neeeeeed to let it out, there's so much to do and research and find out about, it's part of the fun

Looking forward to the next instalment

[Elsa42]

Originally Posted by lks3615

Yay more report! Love it love it love it...

The Poly looks amazing. I'd love to do a Disney cruise but have an irrational fear of falling overboard maybe on trip number 2

I'm thinking of starting my PTR later... I fear all my ramblings about Florida are starting to get on my other half's nerves but I neeeeeed to let it out, there's so much to do and research and find out about, it's part of the fun

Looking forward to the next instalment

See more...

I know I'm so excited, it's only one night but hopefully we can just spend the day exploring and hey there's always the next trip for a longer stay!

The cruises are amazing. I wouldn't worry about the fear of falling overboard, the barriers are high and I think it would be extremely difficult to fall over there's so much to do I think you'd forget your fear! Something for the next trip!

I say get it started, I find it keeps me up to date and I know what's left to do and what's been booked! I will be looking out for it

Thank for reading

[Elsa42]

Mini Update

Hi again,

Not so much an update about the holiday as such just an overall update. We are still waiting until April to see if the free dining offer is going to be announced. When i say waiting, I'm being very impatient about it! I just want to book it now We think we have decided on where we want to stay but will update you on that once its booked because it could all change.

I emailed the Loews company the other day asking them when their dates for next year will be released. We are wanting to see what prices they offer before we book a room. The email I got back basically said just keep looking they will be released at some point so that's helpful.

I also noticed that the discovery cove dates will be out for our holiday within the next month. We decided we wanted to try discovery cove this time instead of swimming with the dolphins on the cruise so i will again be impatiently waiting for these dates to come out so we can spend the day there.

Lastly we've decided to keep us going from now until our holiday we are going to watch every Disney movie. We started a week ago and managed to watch two of our personal favorites Dinosaur and the little mermaid

[Elsa42]

Accommodation part two

Back again with another update in regards to our accommodation. As I said in the previous update I had emailed Loews asking them when their 2017 dates were going to be released and didn’t really get the response I looking for. They told me to keep checking the website as they will be released by summer time.

So last week I was doing just that, I clicked on our dates and all of a sudden rooms started to become available. I was shocked and did it 3 times to ensure I wasn’t making it up. Once I realised this wasn’t a mistake the first thing I did was text mum to ring me, she only just got the message as it read “ OMG DISNEE NEWD CAN YIU RING ME” I was excited, I’m sure everyone texts like that on the Dibb when dates become available.

Anyway we waited until that evening, I showed mum all of the universal hotels again and we added up prices to make sure the hard rock was the place for us. I had also checked another couple of websites to make sure the deal I was getting was a good one. I had budgeted for £500 for the two nights going off last year’s prices.

We decided that we defiantly wanted The Hard rock hotel so continued to book. We have now booked 2 nights here at the start of our holiday with it costing £230 a night. I’m quite happy with this price, I know people have got it cheaper but it’s under budget so I’m happy. The deposit was one nights stay so we only have one night left to pay for. Can’t believe we will be staying here for two nights:

Now that’s booked it means the first week of the holiday is sorted bar flights. We have 2 nights at the hard rock hotel, followed by a night at animal kingdom lodge with a savannah view, 1 night at the Polynesian with a theme park view and 3 nights on the Disney dream. Just waiting until April now and all the accommodation will be done. SUPER EXCITED.

Things to do:
-Pay off the remaining balance
-Book transfers from the airport to the hotel


In other news we have continued to watch Disney movies and added another two to the list. This time it was lion king which was mothers choice and I picked Tarzan which again I think is another film that doesn’t get enough credit and great film and I love singing all the songs (well trying too).

I think that’s everything for this update, as always if anyone has any tips or experiences they can share they are all welcome. Until next time