Welcome to another one of my trip reports.
I love writing about our plans for holidays and what we get up to and I’m lucky that some of you enjoy reading them and are prepared to give advice and tips.
We will once again be off to Orlando in the summer and the full details will unfold in this and later posts. As many of you know it takes me a while to tell a story and I don’t think I’ll be able to give all the plans for our summer 2019 trip in this post, but I will set the scene. This is going to be a pretty special trip. I'm very excited
Firstly, the title of the trip report. Goodness it seemed like there were many potential titles…
I ended up thinking about Disney songs and maybe using them for the title. I really liked the idea of ‘Go the Distance’ as Kate loves the Hercules movie and we do seem to clock up some miles on our holidays, but this is already a trip report title, so I moved on to other ideas.
I thought about using ‘I just can’t wait to be there’ as who doesn’t like the Lion King and the countdown always seems to take forever.
I then thought of ‘Almost there’ from The Princess and The Frog, a fantastic movie, plus themed to the resort where we will be staying so a double tick for this title.
But, in the end I landed on ‘The Bare Necessities Trip’. Now each time I think of this trip I will have that brilliant song going round in my head, perfect!
So, what are our Bare Necessities for an Orlando trip, here are just a handful in no particular order:
1. Over-eating
2. Setting the alarm for earlier than we do for work
3. Characters
4. Fireworks
5. Cocktails
6. Not being able to fit in everything we want to do
7. Walking, a lot of walking and then some more walking
8. Torrential rain
9. Planning everything to the nth degree and then throwing the plan out the window
10. Freezing cold air con
11. Getting frustrated with the buses
12. Laughing (ok more like screaming) on rides
13. Making more magical memories
Anyway, I’m distracting myself…I haven’t even introduced us all!
Who will be going?
We have been to Orlando 4 times now, but always just the 4 of us.
This year we have 2 extra additions to the cast. My parents will be coming with us. I’m excited to share Orlando with them, but also worried about the fact they may not like it. I have tried to explain to them that not enjoying themselves isn’t an option.
There will be me, Abby.
This will be my 2nd Disney trip of the year as I’m also off on a quick DLP jaunt with DD!
Ha, ha that sounds good, it’s not often that I’ve been able to say I’ll be on my 2nd Disney trip of the year (in fact I’ve never been able to say it!) so I will be making the most of that this year. I love all things WDW and find it really difficult to settle on a favourite park or attraction as they’re all my favourites. I think that if pushed I would have to say MK is my favourite park and that Splash Mountain is my favourite attraction. It was our first ride last summer.
My favourite night time show is Fantasmic and my favourite day time show is the Lion King.
My DH, David, has definitely had his fill of WDW and Orlando and would probably be happy to never return again, but he is not in charge of booking the holidays!
His favourite park changed to AK last summer, we did end up having a few brilliant days there. I doubt he would be able to give a sensible answer for favourite attraction or show or anything. He most looks forward to the food.
Max is now 14 and was 9 on our first trip to the mouse. He loves all the thrill rides. His favourite park is TL. Hopefully he will be able to make it onto Summit Plummet at BB this year as he’s never quite plucked up the courage before (nor have any of us and I certainly have no desire to). He likes not smiling in all the photos (unless he is being mean to me).
This photo was taken when he was spinning me on the tea cups.
His favourite ride would be RnR or Expedition Everest, he doesn’t like the screens at Universal and much prefers actual rides. He went on Rip Ride Rockit multiple times as a single rider, once was enough for all of us.
Kate is 12 and this will be her 2nd trip to a Disney park this year.
She still loves to get an autograph book and meet all the characters, which is great as I don’t think the boys would tolerate it otherwise. She also preferred AK last year. I think her favourite ride is Splash Mountain, but this does change. Her favourite show is probably Monsters Inc Laugh Floor. Both the kids think this show is hilarious and they would happily go every time we visit MK. She is looking forward to getting back to Universal and seeing all the Harry Potter areas over there.
But then you know all of us already. You don't know my parents, Jac and Tom. It's been pretty tricky finding photos of them when they aren't surrounded by grandchildren. Here they are when Max was just a baby.
This will be their 2nd trip to a Disney park (not this year). In 2000 my grandma was 80 and she booked a family holiday for us all to Paris and we went to DLP for the day. I don’t think my parents enjoyed the rides so much (I daren’t ask for fear of the real answer).
They do however enjoy holidays, a lot, in particular cruise holidays. So, I’m hoping the food and shows will be similar enough for them to enjoy. My dad said they will do all the rides we do, but I’m not so sure they will go on all the Universal rides as some of them are pretty intimidating. At least at WDW the track of RnR and Space Mountain is hidden so you don’t have time to worry about it while waiting in line. I hated looking up at the Hulk track and then having to get on the ride. We will see what they end up doing, I’m hopeful they will try out all the WDW rides. Fingers crossed they will come away loving WDW as much as we do, or at least be somewhere on the scale between tolerating it like Dave and loving it like me.
We have been on holiday with them before, this photo was from 2010 when we went to Belgium. That's Max aged 6 and Kate aged 4! How cute are they?
How did the trip come about?
The idea was born in January 2018. On Saturday 13th January 2018 my mum, Max, Kate and myself went to London to meet up with one of my brothers to go and see the Aladdin show. On the train up to London mum asked if I’d booked a holiday yet for this year. Had I?
Of course I had. We were going back to WDW and staying at OKW. I was very excited as that very morning I’d just booked our flights to Orlando for the summer of 2018. Then I may have sort of suggested she should go to Orlando sometime and she said she’d love to but how would we feel if they came with us? Well, that was it the idea snowballed in my mind.
Mum said Dad would probably end up staying at the resort the whole time. What?
I did not like the sound of that. He can’t go all the way to WDW and NOT go to a park. Mum asked how Dave would feel, er yes?
So, we didn’t arrive home until after midnight, which is not the best time to announce (I mean ask one's partner about) another WDW trip but this time with my parents too.
Fast forward to Sunday morning and here’s how the conversation went. To help set the scene Dave was cleaning the oven hob and I was hovering about the kitchen trying to pluck up the courage to ask him about the holiday.
Him ‘You look like you have something to say’
Me ‘Er, yes, funny you should say that’
Pause
Me ‘I may have accidentally agreed to go to WDW with my mum and dad’
ok so you and I know that I offered to go and that it was basically my idea, but he doesn’t need to get bogged down with the details, plus introducing the idea I find it best to gloss over the gory details and sometimes actual facts do tend to cloud the issue
Him ‘Right’
Me ‘Well, mum and me were sort of talking yesterday on the train and I said to mum they should go some time and she said what about next year’
Him ‘2019?’
Me ‘Yes’
Him ‘What about the rest of the world?’
Me ‘Er’
Him ‘But we’re going this year’
Me ‘I know’
Him ‘Right’
Me … Just wait, hold your breath, no need to speak, be silent, be patient, let the idea take hold
Him ‘I have one stipulation’
Me
silently YAHOO! That was it in my mind it was a done deal, he’d agreed it and we could sort out the details later
Me
out loud ‘Just one?’
Him ‘Well, one that I can think of now.’
Me ‘Ok’
Him ‘I am not wearing a family name T shirt’
Me ‘That’s fine’
So, as you can imagine I was pretty excited. I may have blown my previous cover story about it all being mum’s idea with my next statement…
Me ‘Maybe the year after we can convince one of my brothers to come with us’
Him…nothing just silence and apparently the hob was clean as he left the kitchen. I decided to quit while I was (not) ahead and promptly let my mum know it was a go-er…so now it was just my dad to convince.
I then went into a planning overdrive and tried desperately to think of which resort and how to convince my dad that we should stay in a hotel as I was pretty sure he would want to stay in a villa (obviously I’d already decided he would end up giving in).
Well, of course he gave in, but that, including all the details about when and flights is another story and I think this is enough for the introduction. I will be back with further updates about how the trip came about shortly.
This trip began with a countdown of 564 days and now later this month we need to start ADRs. I can't quite believe it, I really do need to crack on with the story as I badly need some advice on what to book up as I have a list as long as my arm for the ADRs.
Happy new year to everyone
I hope you all get to make more magical memories in 2019.