Hello all
I'm back with another pretrippie, and this time, it's to celebrate a very special occasion...I'm turning 30!
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this milestone birthday, I don't quite feel grown up enough yet to have a 3 at the beginning of my age, but I guess this is the price I pay for wishing away years of my life to the next holiday, huh?!
Anyway, what can ease the pain better than ticking off some more bucket list items, and the big one this time is Hawaii.
It's always been up there but it certainly ain't a cheap trip to that beautiful cluster of islands out in the mid-Pacific so what better time to do it?!
We have been discussing what to do for our 2016 holiday for a while and debated whether the big Florida trip which we abandoned this year should just be moved, but we decided we wanted to see more of this small world instead, especially as we are spending 6 days in WDW this October anyway.
Our discussion then turned to cruising, and nothing has been announced to date that is so special that we can't resist, so that left us with the rest of the USA, and I presented three trips - East (New York, Boston, Washington), South (Dallas, Tennessee, New Orleans) or West (Disneyland, Hawaii, Vegas, San Diego), and, well, the West won this time!
Anyway, before I go any further, it's probably time to introduce ourselves. We're Natalie & Matt.
I'm the Birthday girl, long-time Dibber, and Disney & Travel Fanatic, truly living by the mantra that I work to pay for our next adventure!
And here's Matt, my lovely hubby, and better half of 10 years next year! Another reason to celebrate!
He's more than happy to accompany on my adventures, and has come to love my Disney Side...although is a bigger fan of the Avengers than the Mouse, but I'm happy with that, if it means he's willing to tag along!
We got engaged in WDW in 2009 during an amazing trip which we really couldn't afford but paid for on a credit card and carry absolutely no regrets about at all! We then saved hard for 3 years to go back and tie the knot in our happy place!
We are now lucky enough to go on one long haul adventure and a couple of short breaks too, and I normally write a trippie if anyone wants to read (shameless plug
)!
Here we are in DLP for my birthday just 6 weeks ago!
Anyway, back to our big adventure in the planning, and here is the current plan:
On Saturday 10th September (avoiding Labor Day weekend), it's looking like we'll jet off to...
(hoping we can bag some cheap Norwegian flights...and that they will start to fly on a Saturday
)
...LAX where we'll spend 3 nights at the beautiful Grand Californian hotel, and spend two days in Disneyland and California Adventure.
I just NEED to see the Castle dressed in diamonds so fingers crossed the celebrations are still on!
We'll then head back to LAX from where we will fly over to Honolulu, Oahu, to spend 4 nights at Aulani (if we can score DVC points, fingers crossed) and explore the likes of Pearl Harbor, the Dole Plantation, Diamond Head, Waikiki and Honolulu. Ooh, and a Luau of course! It's just got to be done!
I've already got my idea on key wardrobe additions in readiness for the trip!
Next, we'll fly back towards the west coast and spend 4 nights in Las Vegas. We just adored it here when we visited in 2013 and are excited to go back!
I'm hoping to score a deal on the Mirage as we had a perfect stay here last time and think it's a perfectly located hotel on the Strip.
Plans include Penn & Teller at the Rio, the Neon Boneyard, and the Scoot City Tour of Red Rock Canyon (fingers crossed for a Groupon!) as we had the bestest time doing the Strip tour on our last visit!
Our final stop will be 2 nights in San Diego, where we'll do the Old Trolley Tour, and visit San Diego Zoo and La Jolla.
Matt just loves pandas, so he can't wait!
I know we really need more time in San Diego but I don't really want to cut anything else down so whatever we don't manage to do this time, we'll come back for, as I want to return to San Francisco and Hollywood some day anyway!
So that's it for now, our plans are all very up in the air at the moment with nothing confirmed, but it's all looking very hopefully and we will be aiming to book our flights once we're home from WDW in October! After all, the best cure for the holiday blues is to book another one, isn't it?!
Thanks for reading!
