The First Trip Of Many - Pre Trip

[neilhd]

For some reason it's taken me months to post this, despite writing it all just after we got back... still better late than never I suppose!

Okay, here goes!

Cast Members:
Neil (Me) - 30. Head of the family, man of the house. What I say goes (yeah, right!).
Eleanor (Ele) - 31. beloved Wife and chief shoe-buyer.
Jessica - 11 (now 12, going on 16). Loves rides and clothes.
Joe - 2 (and three-quarters). Cutest boy the world ever did see.

Departed on: 8th August, 2008.
Returned on: 23rd August, 2008.

This was our first trip to Florida, and our first trip to the States. We're no strangers to the far-flung holiday having been to Malaysia, Thailand and Australia before. We first thought of going in 2004, but ended up going back to Kuala Lumpur. Since then we had Joe which set us back a bit. However, finances have recovered so the idea was reborn.

A friend of Ele's has a timeshare in Kissimmee which they offered to us to use at a good rate, so we decided to take that. It is in a lovely resort called Oak Plantation, just off of I-192, quite near to the Medieval Times place. Originally we were going to just book a private villa, but decided on this as it was a) a bit cheaper, and b) had other kids around for Jess to play with.

Whilst searching around for flights and realising it was going to cost about £3000 for the four of us, my boss at the time mentioned to me that he had once gone there, and had flown into Atlanta, Georgia as it was a lot cheaper, and then driven down. So I started looking at alternatives. I could get us to Miami for £2500, or to Atlanta for £2200 - a saving of £800. I could also find non-direct flights for about that price, but we really didn't want the hassle of doing that - especially with a 2-yr old - so we decided to fly to Atlanta a day earlier than originally planned, stay by the airport and drive down the next day. Car-hire was arranged, park tickets were purchased, the Brit's Guide was read, Mapman's map was poured over and we were ready to go!

In the run-up to the holiday I had some major projects on at work (I'm a Software Engineer), and there was nasty talk going around at the board level of cancelling leave. I made it quite clear to my boss that although they could cancel my leave, they couldn't physically stop me from getting on the plane! Fortunately it didn't come to that, but it did make the last couple of weeks at work quite stressful - leaving me even more ready for the break. To compound matters, Ele was really ill the week before we left. Apparantly whilst I was away the CEO was demanding that I be called back to the UK! Such a pity they couldn't get hold of me!

I took 2 cameras (a DSLR and a point-and-shoot) and a video-camera with us. Unfortunately the memory card in the point-and-shoot became completely corrupted, so I haven't always got pics of everything to post with this. Plus, a lot of the time I was walking around with my jaw hanging down in amazment, rather than taking the thousands of well-considered, beautifully composed and interesting pictures that I imagined myself doing. And we hardly used the video-camera either. Ah, well!

I'm sure I've forgotten some of the details of our trip as so much happened, but I'll try to put in as much as possible.

On with the show!

[TinkTatoo]

Great start and I'm looking forward to reading more

[Guest]

Lovely start... looking forward to reading more.

[Tinkers]

Great start, can't wait to read the rest.

[spencem]

I do hope you have got a pay rise out of them since they cannot cope without you? Oh yep right, there's a recession on. :angry:

[Joshie1]

I love the title! Shows you already know what you've let yourself in for

[neilhd]

Originally Posted by Joshie1

I love the title! Shows you already know what you've let yourself in for

See more...

Yeah you got that right!

Won't be this year though, but we're looking at DisneyLand Paris instead!

[2waterford]

Great start. Looking forward to reading some more.

[Guest]

What a great start! I cant wait till theres more!

[disney owl]

good start