I can't quite believe I am
a) writing another pre trip report and
b) have taken until now to start it!
Firstly, the obligatory link to my last pre trippie attempt..
https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...d.php?t=928665
This hopefully also goes some way to explaining my current title and the reason behind both title choices being that I love Carousel of Progress, I just can't help it! That darned song gets me every time
I didn't get round to doing a full trip report when we got back, but did get inspired to at least try a Photo Trip Report - split over two parts - and you can find those here
https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1078784
and here
https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1078799
only if it floats your boat of course!
So onto the task at hand - how did this trip come about? I blame DH entirely (naturally). We were always going to leave it until DD was 9 or 10 for her second trip but she will actually be 7 on this trip so that went out the window!
This is us on our last summer holiday when we went to Fuerteventura (first time staying in an Iberostar and highly recommended👌 )
Myself, fast approaching a number I do not want to think about, DH who passed that milestone 2 years ago! and DD who is 6.
When we started researching this non-Florida trip neither myself nor DH could believe the prices now we were booking within school holiday periods...
This led to my DH uttering those fateful words, 'Well how much more would it cost to go Florida?' - ah, you foolish boy, a schoolboy error if ever there was one!
So immediately the seeds were sown for 2019 being the year we may return to Orlando and like most, I settled down for that looooonnnnnggg wait until the (hopefully) free dining packages were released by Disney. Our last two trips we had stayed at AKL but with August prices I had discussed with DH perhaps staying at POR or POFQ. My very first trip to WDW was staying at POR (although back then it was Disney's Dixie Landings!) and I remember it being lovely. So April came around and hooray, free dining was indeed on the menu - excuse the pun - so the pricing up began in earnest!
Our last trip we had used Charter Travel for the Disney hotel, tickets and Virgin flights but getting the quotes for an all-in package was making my eyes water, especially as flights were economy return. As DH is 6"4" we have always opted for PE when going long haul for comfort reasons so was hoping for at least Economy Delight if we were flying Virgin again.
In the end we (or rather I - DH very much leaves the initial planning to me, he has learnt 😂 ) decided to just book hotel and tickets with free dining now and worry about flights later. ATD were giving us the most favourable rates, so quotes duly emailed to me for POR and POFQ.
I had also spotted these rooms though -
DD's favourite princess is Tiana so thought this would be perfect, so got a quote for this to show DH, then thought why not get upgrade price for full DDP as we enjoyed our buffets and waiter service meals last time and definitely got our money's worth?
Anyhoo...Can you guess where this may be leading?! For interest (!) I asked for price to stay at AKL again and with the room and dining upgrade, it was about £400 more than POR. Armed with this mountain of information, I mentioned to DH I had all the quotes and how AKL was 'only an extra £400' - the result?
Welcome home! 🤩