Live report - sticking to a budget, Universal and offsite
 

Good morning Dibbers! Welcome!

Day 0 - Travel Day - Premier Inn Gatwick North - Thyme

Day 1 - Travel Day - Thyme, Virgin Economy and Perkins

You may remember me from my food trip report back in October of last year. You may remember that I failed miserably at finishing that report... well, I’m back!

This time I’ll be better prepared and I’m sure I can do it!

We are flying TODAY (yay) with Virgin & staying in Orlando for 10 nights; the first two at the Rosen Inn International and the last 8 nights at Cabana Bay Beach Resort. We will have a car and we have a 3 park annual pass for Universal. We’ve visited the parks many times, so we don’t need to ‘do it all’ and have time to relax. I’m really looking forward to pool hopping around the resort.

‘We’ are myself and DBF - we’re a couple in our early 30’s and have been on many holidays together. I believe this will be the 12th time we have holidayed in Orlando together, DBF has been there many times before we met too!

This is a ‘bonus’ trip so we should be sticking to a budget really. The idea was to stay at the Rosen for the whole holiday but I just couldn’t get that view of Volcano Bay out of my mind. We ended up getting an alright rate (it ended up at just over £130 a night) to stay there - I really couldn’t resist. Of course we have a volcano view room & we are going to check in super early on the day to ask for the best view possible. Let’s see what we get!

Onto the important stuff; food! We are going to try to stick to $85 a day (on average) for the two of us. If we go over, it’s ok, but I would like to stick to that price. I think my biggest challenge will be that I want to make the most of staying onsite which means prices are higher than they would be offsite. Let’s see how we go!

Day 0 - Travel Day - Premier Inn Gatwick North

After a very stressful day at work we both managed to wrap things up and leave a little bit early today. We got home around 5:30, packed the cases into the car, kissed the dog goodbye (this is the worst bit! She definitely knows what’s happening! ) and started the drive to Gatwick.

We had a pretty smooth run and got to the Purple Parking car park at 7:30 in the evening, which was a full 30 minutes before what we expected. We parked up, dropped off the keys and got on the bus that was waiting for us. The drive to the north terminal (second stop) took about 10 minutes. We checked in with the Virgin twilight checkin, maybe 5 minutes and took the lift to the ground floor, crossed the road and checked into the Premier Inn (Gatwick north). Honestly this is the most convenient and easy pre-flight hotel stay I’ve ever done. Our hotel room was exactly as you’d expect and a real bargain considering we only paid £60 for the room which includes breakfast! It is so close to the terminal!

We (I) faffed about with our hand luggage then made our way downstairs to the restaurant. There isn’t a lot land-side in the airport so thought it would be convenient to eat at the restaurant in the Premier Inn, ‘Thyme’. My expectations were really low but I was blown away. No, the food wasn’t gourmet but it was actually quite delicious and the service was incredible! The staff seemed to be so happy like they genuinely were enjoying their jobs, it made for a really nice surprise.

I ordered a large white wine spritzer, some olives & Feta and the Texan BBQ burger. I failed at taking a photo of the olives, but you all know what olives look like right?!





The burger was really nice; tasty but not too sloppy. There were two patties in there (I must start reading the menu properly! ) which I don’t really like for some reason so I took one out. I got sweet potato fries with mine. The coleslaw was crunchy and really fresh too.



DBF got a couple of beers and the ribs & wings dinner. He said everything was really tasty, the wings were a bit spicy but not too much.



So, no, this wasn’t the cheapest of dinners but for convenience it was absolutely worth it.

I would stay here again in a heartbeat. We had a nice quiet night and slept well. I was awake at 6ish, but our flight isn’t until 1pm so wrote this up for a bit then I’m going to try to doze off again.

Hope you’re up for following along and that I can be forgiven for not finishing the last one. I can do it this time!

Have a safe journey and fab holiday :)

Have a great holiday - looking forward to reading your reports :)

Can't wait to see your view at Volcano Bay - it's on my bucket list. Safe journey.:thumbs-up:wave:

Have an awesome holiday. Will be following along.

Know what you mean about hotels. We want the best value but some are just too tempting to miss out on

Following along, have a fab time😀

Have a fantastic time:cool2: looking forward to your opinion on Rosen Inn as thinking of booking 1 night when we fly down from Newark airport before booking in at Port Orleans for 2 weeks. Margaret

Looking forward to your report. We love Cabana Bay - especially the food court. I enjoyed the burger meal there so please can you give me some photos to drool over! Have fun.

Great start- have a wonderful time