theDIBB - Imagine, Just One Birthday Every Year ~ October 2018 ~ Pre-Trip Report

"All you need is faith, trust and just a little bit of pixie dust" -Peter Pan

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Well, with only 18 weeks to go, I thought it was time to finally start our trip report. It seems so long since we actually booked it and now, at last, there isn't long to go (although 18 weeks still seems ages :grin:)

Our party has shrunk greatly since our last trips (with three of us on our first trip to Florida Link Here and five on our most recent one Link Here See links if you're interested in reading our trip reports) to just the two of us now.

This time its just me and my daughter, Georgia and we are going to Disney World to celebrate our birthdays. We've decided to write this trip report as a joint report, with both of us adding our own comments and opinions. My comments will be boring black font.

While I, Georgia, will be writing in pretty pink :grin:

Georgia really wanted to celebrate her 18th birthday at Disney and I was more than happy to agree. DH however feels that he's been to Florida for the past two years and as he isn't a big theme park fan anyway, he wanted to sit this one out but was happy for us to have a mum and daughter trip. I considered whether I wanted to leave him behind (for about five minutes), as we always holiday together but as we were all agreed on the arrangements, I set about planning.

So, now to introduce ourselves, briefly.

Firstly me, Sue. In my early fifties Mid fifties and celebrating a birthday in the middle of our trip. I don't work but I volunteer as an adviser at CAB.
Likes: Holidays, planning holidays, reading about other people's holidays, Dibbing, reading, visiting the theatre, my dog (Rolo) and Disney!
Dislikes: rude people, being late and avocados
Favourite Disney films: Mary Poppins, Finding Nemo, Moana, Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3

And now the important one! I'm Georgia, currently in college studying A levels. I'm celebrating my 18th birthday on our first day at Disney
Likes: Disney, Marvel, writing, arty things (painting, sewing, making things), listening to music, Youtube, photography and animals
Dislikes: tomatoes, people who don't stay for the after credits in Marvel movies and having to be on time ;)
Favourite Disney films: (not including Marvel) Moana, The Lion King, Fox and the Hound, The Little Mermaid and Zootropolis

I was so eager to book and was browsing in the Virgin sale at the end of January 2017 and discovered Fly Drive holiday for our October dates at around £600 each. Now, neither of us drive I'm learning slowly and I wasn't sure if we could book a Fly Drive and not take the car but thankfully Dibbers soon told me that we could. So I booked from 21st of October to the 1st of November (11 nights) from Gatwick (never flown from Gatwick before). We then spent months waiting for free dining to open. Thankfully, Disney opened it early for this year and on the day of release we booked Port Orleans French Quarter and upgraded our free dining plan to the full dining plan, so that we can have a table service meal every day, along with our park tickets. Over the next few months we booked National Express coach returns from Wales to Gatwick and Premier Inn at Gatwick North.

Over the next few months, we spent MANY hours looking at all the restaurant menus Twice, as our computer broke and we hadn't saved our lists to the hard drive so couldn't remember which ones we'd looked at. We also booked as a special birthday treat tickets to MNSSHP. Here's our final plan of the parks and ADRs for our trip Expect it to change about six more times before we go

Day to Day Plan:
Day 1: Fly from Gatwick at 11:45am. Arrive at MCO at 4:00pm. Evening at Disney Springs

Day 2: Georgia's 18th birthday. ADR: Trattoria Al Forno breakfastMeeting Flynn and Ariel and Rapunzel and Eric Hollywood Studios morning and afternoon. Magic Kingdom evening.

Day 3: Animal Kingdom morning and afternoon. Disney Springs evening. ADR: Planet Hollywood

Day 4: Epcot all day ADR: Coral Reef. Eat around the world in the evening (food and wine festival)

Day 5: Hollywood Studios ADR: 50's Prime Time Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party from 4pm

Day 6: Morning shopping at Vineland Mall. Afternoon and evening Animal Kingdom ADR: Yak and Yeti

Day 7: My birthday. Morning and afternoon Magic Kingdom. ADR: Be Our Guest lunch. Evening Epcot ADR: Chefs De France

Day 8: Morning rest (pool possibly) Afternoon and evening Hollywood Studios ADR: Mama Melrose Fantasmic package

Day 9: All day Magic Kingdom. ADR:1900 Park Fare Cinderella's Happily Ever After Dinner

Day 10: Morning and afternoon Orlando Premium Outlets shopping. Evening Epcot

Day 11: Morning and afternoon Magic Kingdom. Evening Disney Springs ADR: STK

Day 12: Check out of hotel. Morning and afternoon Epcot. ADR: Biergarten. Flight from MCO at 9:05pm.

So that's our plan for now. We are looking forward to booking our FPs in August (although we don't know what ones we want yet)

Things we're most looking forward:

I'm excited for the DDP (and a few alcoholic drinks:cocktail:), the new Toy Story Land, Tower of Terror uh oh and hopefully being brave enough to try Expedition Everest for the first time (I don't like backwards roller coasters) If I'm going on ToT, you're coming on Everest, staying at Port Orleans French Quarter for the first time in forever, spending time with my daughter, eating ice creams (I love ice creams) and watching Happily Ever After for the first time (Although I don't think it can be better than Wishes) We're still going to cry

I'm really excited for the whole trip in general but some of the things I'm looking forward to most are MNSSHP (especially being able to wear a Disney costume when i can finally decide who I want to go as haha), She's even convinced me to dress up eating at Trattoria Al Forno Yeah because you have a crush on Flynn Rider Who can blame me? Other things I'm looking forward to are pin trading, vlogging (I hate that word) She's going to get on my nerves doing this constantly Fantasmic, Imagination with Figment (I miss Figment), going on Flight of Passage for the first time and shopping at the mall I hope you're taking your own money for this.

I am quite nervous about it just being the two of us, especially as I have no sense of direction so feel we will get lost at all the airports. We've always relied on Rob for directions and I am going to miss him, although I can contact him every day and send him picture of our food (which he's quite envious of) I will also miss him for carrying the bags ;) but I'm sure between the two of us we'll manage to get on the flights

Now we just need to pay all the balances up, book our FPs and make a decision on whether to visit Clearwater or not And I need to decide my MNSSHP costume, which is obviously the most important decision Well, its the one that'll take the longest. We'll update this when we book our FPs and we hope you enjoy reading our trip report it when we start it!