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Summer in a villa? Who are we?! July/August 2017
The Index
Prologue. As my current trip report draws to a close, it’s time to tell you about our next trip. We feel extremely fortunate that we only have 96 days until we’re back at Walt Disney World! We hit double digits last week and Isabella celebrated with a double digit dance! https://i.imgur.com/7D0qsD9.gif Double Digit Dance Before I get into planning details, here’s a very brief who’s who:
https://i.imgur.com/V2EkggY.jpg Stewart https://i.imgur.com/ZBoP3sA.jpg Joanne https://i.imgur.com/WTeiT55.jpg Isabella Chapter 1: Annual Passes. Regular readers may recall that we still have the Annual Passes that we’ve used on the previous trip and a half; they’re valid until the end of November, so no park tickets needed to be purchased for this trip. However, in a similar vein to our cheeky offsite New Year trip, this one will also be a little different to previous #TeamSear WDW adventures for the following reasons…
Let’s explore each of those points in turn… https://i.imgur.com/4vHPiKv.jpg Annual Passes Chapter 2: The summer. It has been a really long time since Jo and I were in Florida in the summer - 2009 in fact. Having gotten used to slightly cooler but still quite hot weather, we now have to think about braving the Floridian summer heat, not to mention crowds. This will probably require a different approach to how we attack the parks, at least our recent trip has given us a taste of how busy the parks can get - in case we’d forgotten! The reason for this summer trip is that Isabella is now 5 and we need to contain our trips within school holiday times. Summer seemed the best time for a longer trip and it also works better for Jo as it’s her quietest time of year for work - she’s a Science and Psychology tutor. So now that we knew the time of year the next step is to work out where to stay… https://i.imgur.com/QXaaUEy.jpg Epcot 2009 Chapter 3: The villa. An offsite villa was not the original plan; that plan saw us staying for 16 nights at Caribbean Beach with the usual deal package - free dining plan, gift card etc. - and a cheeky 4 night Bahamian Cruise on the Disney Dream (which we’d booked onboard the Disney Magic during our Norway cruise in May) tagged on the end all finished off with a final night renting DVC somewhere to make an epic 3 week holiday at the end of summer. Once it was all booked we immediately began to reconsider; it was becoming too expensive and the idea of a holiday to end all holidays was becoming less and less attractive for a variety of reasons. It was then that the oft considered but never realised idea of a villa holiday resurfaced. Once that idea took hold we then decided on upgrading our Ultimate Tickets to Annual Passes on our October trip. So we had our tickets sorted and the idea of the villa was, if not the villa itself (more on that in a bit). https://i.imgur.com/hXs2utX.jpg Norway Cruise Chapter 4: The flights. Sometime in September fellow Dibber Mouse Mess, aka Soph, shared with our WhatsApp group (#DADC) that British Airways had a flydrive sale on. Jo jumped straight on it and we ended up with a really cheap fly drive: £1280 for the three of us, via Philadelphia with an American Airways codeshare; car hire with Avis - we’re now Avis Preferred members, whatever that means. There was a slight catch though: the flight was from Manchester, but we did that drive on the way home from our Trans-Atlantic Cruise/4 day Universal holiday so we weren’t too bothered. Besides, we’ve thrown in an overnight, pre-flight stay at the Premier Inn Manchester Airport (M56/J6) Runger Lane North hotel (catchy name) and have booked airport parking at T1/3 Long Stay which included free security fast passes - our first of the holiday ;). So we’ve got our flights which means we now have some dates… https://i.imgur.com/cnlo5WY.jpg Looking forward to seeing this again…. Chapter 5: The dates. When booking the flights the dates of the holiday changed, the original Caribbean Beach holiday was booked from the 12th August, the new holiday was now beginning right at the very beginning of the summer holiday - 22nd July. Isabella finishes school at 12:00pm on the 21st, so the plan is to pick her up and head straight up to Manchester. Returning home on the 7th August, that’s 16 nights in total and now we needed to sort that villa out… https://i.imgur.com/1WqkP0X.jpg She’ll be ready! Chapter 6: Booking the villa. When it came to booking a villa another Dibber and member of our WhatsApp group (#DADC) JoJo88 aka Dinks recommended The Retreat at Westridge. It’s located at The Manors South, Davenport and seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Fortunately the dates we wanted were available and after booking it we got a courtesy call from Jason the villa owner - a really nice touch. We could now go ahead and cancel that Caribbean Beach holiday…. except we didn’t. Instead we moved it. And then we changed it. We still have those Annual Passes until November remember? All of this is for another Pre-trip report, watch this space! The cruise did get cancelled though, which was quite a sad moment. Disney Cruise fans might be pleased to know there’s been recent interesting development for us on that front for next year… stay tuned! So everything had finally come together and now we needed to think about what we would be getting up to… https://i.imgur.com/zFEaLjH.jpg There will be other cruises…. Chapter 7: The Plan. Obviously staying offsite means there’s no dining plan but we’ll be spending a lot of time in the parks and with our Annual Passholder discount it shouldn’t work out too expensive to sneak in a few ADRs - more detail in a minute. One thing definitely off the table is a visit to Universal. We looked at 2 day tickets, 1 day per park and the price had risen to almost £500 post-Brexit so decided it definitely wasn’t worth that. A few months ago we heard about the 7 hour Star Wars Guided Tour that was coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios this year. Well, it’s arrived, it sounds amazing, we’re doing it and I cannot wait! Another tour we’ll be booking up while we’re there will be the Behind the Seeds tour at Living with the Land in Epcot. Jo and I have done this a couple of times in the past but it will be Isabella’s first time and we’re sure she’s going to love it as she enjoys finding out about things and loves plants. Talking of Isabella, we’ve got another morning planned for her to complete her Wilderness Explorer Handbook in Animal Kingdom. Now on to the food… https://i.imgur.com/JEhIodQ.jpg It’ll be good to catch up with some old friends Chapter 8: The food. As previously mentioned, despite not being on the dining plan we do get Annual Passholder discount in some Disney Restaurants and there are some places that are arguably better value NOT on the dining plan - specifically the 2 dining credit signature restaurants. We also have our favourites that we absolutely have to do and there’s a brand new breakfast at Trattoria al Forno, BoardWalk featuring characters from Tangled and the Little Mermaid. So here’s what we’ve booked:
That is actually quite a few, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two were culled before we go; we’ve already gotten rid of Garden Grill and Le Cellier. Outside of the parks there will be some offsite restaurant visits. Places on the list so far are:
We’re open to other suggestions, so if you’ve got any please let us know :) https://i.imgur.com/xRMN3nt.jpg Looking forward to going back here Epilogue. So there you are, that’s our plan. We’ve talked about a villa ever since Isabella was a baby and we’re excited about actually doing it. We used to chill out in the evenings with beers and American TV back in the pre-Isabella days so it’ll be nice to do that again. Isabella will love having her own room and a swimming pool to play in during the day! Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll enjoy reading along. https://i.imgur.com/b8r9k13.jpg See ya real soon - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - All of my trip reports in one handy place |
That all sounds wonderfully exciting and like everything has fallen into place for you. We've dropped Universal as well for our summer trip - I paid for 5 of us to go for a day in February and worked out that with Express Passes it cost me an eyewatering £1200! We've had our fix for this year and don't feel like we'll be missing out in the summer. Happy planning!
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Just finished your new years trip report, Thanks for sharing again!
Love the fact that 1 trip report finishes and another starts immediately. |
Another fab trip ahead! Will be interesting to see how you find the summer heat as Rich refuses point blank at the moment to go back when it's 'summer' (luckily May just about made the cut!).
We haven't done a villa for years but do love how relaxing it is :) especially in the evenings xx |
Ooh exciting stuff! My very first Florida trips were staying in villas and they were so lovely, a little home from home and having your own pool is brilliant isn't it.
The Trafford centre in Manchester is great for shopping and/or food options if you wanted to eat somewhere apart from the premier inn, it's like our second home :blush: haha, mainly due to its brilliant baby facilities and free parking! The 7 hours star wars thing sounds like my husbands dream come true, sadly it will not be coming true for him with a 17 month old in tow! |
You arrive back the day we drive to Gatwick. I won't wish your trip away though, it'll be very exciting to follow on Instagram knowing we're soooooo close!
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Exciting! Looking forward to hearing all about your experience at the villa. Does make sense to have a bit more room and pool for Isabella to splash about in after a long day at the parks. Hope you've all had a nice long weekend! Lizzie
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Looking forward to this one. :grin:
Looks like you're heading home on the day we arrive. Intrigued about the moved/changed CBR trip! :pgig: |
All looking good Stewart:spin: I'm sure you will all enjoy a villa holiday :grin:
Joan :wave: |
Sounds a great plan
I'll look forward to reading along |
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