theDIBB - How many cocktails!?! And a little bit of food Disney DDP

We're nearly off and so I thought I would let you all know what you can look forward to in my food report.

First off, introductions. There are four of us me (Abby), DH (David), DS (Max, 13) and DD (Kate, 11). We've been to WDW before and on previous trips had QSDP and DDP. We like the sit down table service restaurants and so have gone for DDP again this year.

Last year was a year off from Disney and we went to NYC and Orlando (doing everything apart from WDW) and it was my first attempt at a dining report. Here is a link for that report in case you want to check out the quality of my photos (poor, when I remember to take them) Did you save enough room for dessert? Apparently a few of you enjoyed the report even with blurry or non existent photos, I did remember to take photos of all the drinks, but occasionally forgot about some of the food!

So, this year we are off to Old Key West on Tuesday 31st July. YES! 2 days and counting. In fact, tomorrow is pre-travel day and we we will be checking in to the Premier Inn at Gatwick's North Terminal (I think we could probably win a Premier Inn bingo for Gatwick as we have stayed at a few of these).

I have written a pre-trip report for this summer that is rather rambly and goes into lots of detail about my plans for this trip. Click if you dare - it's not for the fainthearted It's all about the mouse This pre-trip should certainly only be tackled by those who have a spare few hours, I don't blame you if you don't fancy wading through the full 27 pages :omg: how did I manage to ramble on that much?

A brief (ha, ha - I will at least try to be brief :pgig:) outline of what our trip will entail. We are flying Aer Lingus indirect so the 1st flight from Gatwick is a quick hop over to Dublin and then we do pre-clearance and land at MCO without having to do the dreaded immigration! According to OB1LukeLucas I will be picking my bags up at precisely 7.50pm and so expect to be on the Magical Express shortly after.

We will then have 14 days of the DDP, where we will likely drink more Starbucks frappes than we should. The kids totally adore the double chocolatey chip milkshake. I will be trying to eat all the snacks I've seen on the DFB videos. We have lots of ADRs booked up (a couple too many so will have to get the kids to order off the kids menu and pay OOP for their meals once or twice). Plus, of course, the most important part COCKTAILS. Now, this trip was booked way back in April 2017 prior to the announcement that alcoholic beverages would be included in the DDP this year, when I discovered that I was pretty happy :spin:

After our 14 days DDP we then move resorts for 2 days before coming home. There is an overly long explanation to this in the aforementioned pre-trip. Suffice it to say, I found bargainous flights that meant we could extend our stay by 2 days ;), the money I saved on the flights then went straight into Disney's pocket as I decided to book up the Royal Room at POR as a surprise for my DD. Much to my own surprise this is still a secret (I have nearly caved in many times), in fact it is a secret from all the members of my family as DH doesn't like to take an interest in the planning of a holiday and only ever wants to know the day before what the plan is for the following day, so he is also in the dark! The DDP will be behind us at this point and the last couple of days will be all OOP.

I hope to be back later to update what restaurants are planned, but as I still haven't packed a single thing I better get on with that really.

Before I go, to whet your appetites I'll quickly post a photo of last night's cocktails which were had in the garden. Margaritas, yummy!

More cocktails will follow!