[minnie moomoo]

Summer 2022

Our first WDW trip was September 2018. We knew we wanted a revisit before the two youngest both left for college but with SATs and GCSEs, along with a pre-booked French trip this meant 2022 was the first year we could go.
July or August 22 was always the aim for our second visit.
I dreaded the heat, our son especially found the heat hard to manage in September but it's the only time in the year we can do a decent length of stay. I'm not sitting on two 9 hour flights for a week away.

Photo of heat hating son.

As mentioned, with our son sitting his GCSEs we originally thought we would leave mid July, right after his prom. This would mean pulling our 14 year old daughter for the last week of term but this wasn't an issue. Rightly or wrongly I am not concerned about her missing the last week. Nothing educational is done in that week anyway, at least from our experience.

I thought this would mean cheaper flights, less crowds etc.
Once I actually started to look into it though I fast realized that the flights were mental no matter what due to covid. Accommodation was actually more expensive in July, at least it was for off-site. I cannot remember if on-site was different.
July and August were both mental crowd and heat wise so we decided on the last two and a half weeks of August, not wanting to come back too late.

The sh*t show of 2020 and 2021 was horrible to live though with a severely disabled daughter. When she isolated I had to isolate with her. Months on end, I don't need to explain this as I think we all know just how hard it was. Anyway watching Florida Vlogs and planning ahead was such an anxiety easer for me.

Brooklyn, enjoying dlp.

I had made lists, lots of lists. I had planned out our whole trip.
We would be onsite at Disney for 5 nights then have around 12 night off-site in a condo.
Getting Universal day tickets for just our Harry Potter mad daughter and one parent to keep costs down.
OR
5 nights onsite, 8 nights in a condo and 4 nights in a Universal value resort.
Getting Universal day tickets for everyone and saying sod it.
I know you all know how this story ended.

So, May 2021
Disney bit
First part booked was 5 nights at CBR with the 50th anniversary booking offer.
14 day Ultimate tickets
$200 gift card
$61 per room per night dining credit
Memory maker
Anniversary gift basket.
£3535 deposit of £250 paid
As excited as I was to book, I wasn't really feeling this booking as I had wanted to book POR. The skyliner in August weather doesn't seem reliable to me. I also really wanted to use the Springs boat.
As soon as POR reservation's opened I moved my booking over and added 2 days 😀
Adding the two days was tactical, I didn't have flights yet and I may need wiggle room. Also I may just want more nights 😉
£4093 an extra £558 for additional 2 nights.

Photo of Thomas Cook flight 2018.

Flights were next.
I hunted and stalked the websites.. all of them for weeks. Looking for patterns and trying to understand the schedules for all carrier's.
We had been looking at anything between 16 and 19 nights.
And dates leaving around the 8th to maybe the 25th.
We didn't want to get home too late as our son will be moving on to college and we wanted him to have a few days to sort himself out. He said he wasn't bothered about missing results day.

Everything was so expensive. I priced up hand baggage only and other ways to keep costs down.
I did find a custom trip flight and hotel with BA for the exact dates we wanted 8th to the 25th, I had seen them appear a few days running but they were more than I'd have liked to pay for indirect from London so I held off. The night I was about to book them we actually found out the GCSE results day. For definite. Before this two days were in the table, to be home for both days would mean leaving in July, something we had decided not to do. Because of this our son said he wasn't bothered and would just get his results emailed while we were in Florida. Now knowing the official date, he decided he'd rather be home for the results.
Results day is August 25th.
I am happy he wants to be home, it will make his next steps arrangements easier.
So the latest we can fly home is the 23rd, this will mean we land in the UK in the early morning of the 24th. We can then get ourselves home, have a good sleep ready for the 25th.

Start again with my flight tracking.😑

I found that flight prices from London for our new dates stayed about the same for 18 to 23 day returns.
Some were cheaper for 20, 21 or 22 night trips than anything shorter.
I was keen to book the 18 day return not wanting the kids to be away for most of the summer hols or the husband to need to ask for too many days off.
This was up two nights on our last 16 night stay.
Husband said the longer the better. I booked 21 nights cos 22 and 23 are taking the wee.
2nd August to 23rd August 💪🏻
Is going to be red hot and we will only do half park days so the length of the trip will actually really help us fit things in.
I did say that if we are adding an extra 3 or 4 days to what we planned then those days need to be beans on toast days.
Eating cheap and taking pack lunch to the parks. Agreements were made. Hubbie said he's happy eating crushed sandwiches in the park for a few days if we could stay longer.
We'll see how that goes.
£4150

Photo of Vi, happy with her shopping in dlp.

My BA booking included 6 nights at Cabana beach Universal in a family room.
I had originally wanted 4 nights at Universal but after reading the DIBB, I noticed a few people recommended playing with nights. Some people found a sweet spot (different depending on dates and accommodation) that meant you could book more nights cheaper or for the same price as less.
I cannot remember my whole hacking session 😀 but from what I remember Cabana bay went up a lot between 1 night, 2 nights and 3 nights. 4 nights went up only a small amount.
I think this was 260 extra for the 4 nights (when booking a custom trip BA automatically adds a cheap hotel, in my case it was a Rosen. So it was £260 to change that over to the Cabana Bay)
5 nights was way more I think hundreds more, then 6 nights was £255 more. Or very close. Bargain. So our 6 night stay was very slightly less than a 4 night stay.

I priced up the cost of the 6 night stay at cabana bay and the cheapest I could find online was £950.

So that was our flights, and the last few nights accommodation booked.
I had official dates to plan around. 🍷🍷

I kept looking, as you do once you've booked a flight. I kept mentioning to my husband how the flights from Edinburgh were ok. I had also brought up Edinburgh flights originally but he always said nahhh I don't mind driving to London.
Now we are in the north east, Newcastle is the closest then Manchester and Edinburgh are almost neck and neck. London is bloody ages away.
We have been to France often and always drive so I just assumed he fancied a nice long drive.
He was adamant that if we couldn't get Newcastle (TUI now fly into a different airport and we could only get flight prices for a max of two weeks)
Or Manchester (so expensive, both direct and indirect)
That we would fly indirect from London.

Anyway, I kept mentioning it. He eventually said,
👨why is it much cheaper than London ?
👩Um no it's a tiny bit more
👨Then why do you keep going on about Edinburgh ?
👩Because it will be much easier, I don't think well fancy that long drive.
👨Edinburgh is further.. bum end of Scotland.
🤦I just laughed, in his face.
He obviously googled then said, well yeah, why did you book London. Edinburgh is closer than Manchester. 😑😑😑
What a plonker. I will point out that he is not usually this crazy and he felt like a bit of a dafty for a few minutes.

I knew I could use BAs refund/voucher scheme.
The following day I cancelled my original booking.
I waited 2 minutes then booked EDI to MCO via PHILADELPHIA (cannot remember the code for this one)
The change was £69 more. We would have spent that on road snacks and extra gas.

New flights £4220


Disney again
As soon as flights were settled I called WDW and amended my booking to fit my new dates. I had been keeping an eye on availablity via the website and all pool view has gone but garden view which was also in the 50th booking offer was available.
I made the change without issue and added my Bluelight card discount to the booking as I hadn't been aware of the offer when I booked.
Disney hotel and tickets total with discount.
Booking now at £3888 with deductions.


Off-site accommodate
We need 8 nights..
Prior to booking flights I had booked all kinds of Lake Buena vista accommodation. Willy nilly dates that I ended up changing a few times. Now with a proper plan I could go in and clean up the bookings. (Cancel all of them. Travel republic £15 returnable deposit)
I had booked Blue Tree Resort but reviews are horrendous
Blue Heron, I had booked this for our 2018 trip but ended up canceling as stayed onsite for our whole trip instead.
We again cancelled as I couldn't get the new dates I wanted for a decent price.
Lake Buena Vista resort, looks nice but not close enough to walkable restaurants for us. Cancelled.
Grande Villas Resort 2 bedroom suite booked and we are sticking with it. Resort looks beautiful, plenty in the area, even with the crossroads now gone. I had to cancel and rebook new dates but we are happy with this location.
£880 this includes the $150 payable at resort

Tickets
Wdw tickets booked at the point of booking accommodation.
14 night Ultimates.
Universal 14 day tickets are booked via Attractions Tickets on deposit only.
Booked when AT had good covid cover and I was happy with the price. We used AT last time for our Universal tickets and found them to be fantastic. £1430

We did think a lot about booking Discovery Cove over the black Friday sales but decided against it in the end. Our family dynamics mean it couldn't be the relaxing long day we would want it to be so we are giving it a miss.

Food, quick outline. A proper plan will be added later
We won't be booking fancy meals at all, it's just not our thing in WDW. At dlp we enjoy a nice sit down dinner, we have been so often dlp is so easy for us to manage and the hotel is only a 10 minute walk away for a quick rest.
We have only done wdw once before and every minute we have in the park we want to use it to explore and get on attractions.

Our plan is when onsite at Disney we will use the dining credit for our daily park snacks and drinks.
We will be eating QS meals in the parks, Resort and Springs.
Having looked at the menus on the app and with our experience from last trip I know I want to eat everything in Animal Kingdom. Everything.
Food and wine will be on again at Epcot. I'm in two minds about this. I do like the idea of picking a couple of options each in place of a full QS dinner but the world showcase was always so busy last time we went. We actually had so many To Dos in the pavilions that got missed because it was so busy. We just kept getting swept around by the tide of people and forgetting to head further into the countries. I was looking forward to having a good, quiet mooch around this time. We will just have to remember to step back from the crowds and remember what we want to do

While Off-site we will be getting a larger Walmart delivery. More water and snacks. My daughter has a list of absolute rubbish she wants to try.
Eggos, HotPockets etc. I have had a look on Walmart's website and we will probably order ready made salads, sandwich and cereal things. Mostly food that we can have as a cheap breakfast or a light and easy light meal if we get back from the parks hungry.
This is the time we should be having homemade sarnies in the park but it's so warm that maybe we have sarnies in the room pre or post park instead.
My daughter has a long list of places she wants to try, either eat in or Uber eats. This again is a list of rubbish 😀 Steak n shake, taco bell, Twister treats. We also have Miller's, Twin Peaks, IHOP, The cheesecake factory and Fords wrote down. We will have to see what fits in with our days.

For Universal I am a bit lacking in ideas. I definitely want to go to Cowfish as we loved it last time.
We will probably have breakfast at The Leaky Couldren. Kids waffle breakfast each, great value.
While we are at Hard Rock we want to get poolside Nacho's as we loved these at Royal Pacific
Other than that I have no idea.

UPDATE

Soooo. In December I found out online that my flights were cancelled. All American Airlines flights from Edinburgh infact.
I'd had no information from BA.
I called and called. Phone lines were crazy busy.
I emailed and called for a couple of days. I eventually got though to a person that could fix my booking.
Staff may be limited at BA, most at this point we're still working from home, but they are so helpful.
Nothing was too much, the female advisor made a few offers of what she could do. I'd looked online and checked out my options myself so I knew what was available.
I asked if she'd put us on the direct flight from Manchester to MCO. Yep no problem. 😃😄
Now I will say, this advisor did make an error in our booking and I did need to call back to get it fixed.
I did leave it a day or two as long phone waits were driving me mad.
By this point I think I must have worked out the phone lines as I got though quite quickly once I build up the stamina to call back.
It was easy fixed, the woman I spoke with actually knew the lady who had made the error and we had a little laugh at her expense.

☘️So that's us, flying direct, no date change so no fannying with accommodation bookings. No extra cost. 💪🏻✈️⭐🎉

17th December. I needed to call Aer Lingus to book our seats. That was a whole other thing. The woman sounded like she just walked into the office and picked up the call not knowing a thing.
I had to talk her through the booking categories, telling her my booking was a Smart booking and it included pre booked seats. She kept saying some seats were not on that plane.
I was looking online (via a dummy booking) and could see the layout and seats live, as we were speaking.
That call took ages, I was so frustrated once I got off. Got myself in a right huff 😬
So I got confirmation and it was only bloody wrong.
She had our daughter booked in an isle all on her own. Why ?!

I honestly couldn't face another phone call, I would just be cross during the call, which I do not like to do or I would have cried from frustration.
So I sent them a DM on Facebook.
Honestly this is the best way to contact Aer Lingus. I got a bloke respond within an hour and our seats were amended. Easy.


Transfers
30th December. I decided to get on and book Skippy Transportation.
I'd been looking at a few different ways to get to and from the airport. I had priced up Lyft/Uber and because we are a family of five we would need two vehicles each time so we could fit our luggage and our daughters wheelchair.

Missing Magic Express

Lyft is coming up between $42 and $85 per car per trip. I don't mind paying $85 per trip plus tip.
$170 total there and back, plus tip due to needing two cars each time.
I don't fancy risking it being $170 each trip. $340 total, there and back, plus tip.

The new version of Mears was coming in at $80 each way for the multi stop shuttle service. Total would be $160 plus tip. For both journeys.

$305 each way for the express service. Making that option $610 No thankyou.

I booked a private transfer with Skippy for $184 for both trips including tip. It could have been less if I wanted to pay in advance but this is payable in cash to the driver.
The way things are I am much happier paying deposit only or on arrival. When booking you choose your tip and add it to the balance. I added a 15% tip on one booking but only 10% on the second in error so I will end up paying slightly more to the driver as Ill likely just round up and then add a bit more.

Photo from Skippy's website. We are not pictured.

2022

That was that. No additions or changes until now.
February.
I've booked one night at Hard Rock Hotel midway through our Cabana Bay stay
My daughter Vi and myself mulled over booking during her February half term. Son was not interested in mulling with us as he was far too busy pretending to revise in his room while playing Xbox.
It shouldn't be too busy as it's later in August but crowds have been crazy lately and I don't want to risk it.
We were choosing between Royal Pacific and Hard Rock. We did a night at RP last trip and loved it. We actually made that night a holiday on our holiday. Checked in to RP early hit the parks (didn't make early entry) back to resort for a dip in the pool which turned into nachos, cocktails and a pool movie night. Bliss.
This booking is 100% just for the express passes, we have 6 nights at Cabana Bay, well I guess now 5 for a more relaxed chill part of our trip.
But Vi decided on Hard Rock to try something new. The thing is she loves the look of the resort and the pool. This one has a slide and she's giddy. We can walk to Volcano bay from Cabana bay but Hard Rocks slide is calling her. She wants to see all the cool music stuff at the resort and we now also absolutely need a nacho cocktail pool movie night. Hahaha.
Hard Rock £51 booked with Clubcard points so only paid tax. I have no clubcard points left.
I'll see how I can fit in down time at a hotel we are not meant to be wasting time at. Express passes are the only goal.

Photos of our Royal Pacific night.

I have mulled over Genie plus a few times. I am still on the fence.
I am sure we will add it for 2 or 3 days once there so we can hit a few rides without long queues.
We will have the DAS for our daughter.
Brook is severely cognitively disabled and also now has significant mobility issues.
She will ride all the smaller rides but is a chicken 🐓 We obviously queue for the other rides. I am actually really nervous about this. I have IBD it's worsened quite significantly over the last few years. I think I'll make myself a drs appointment to see if there's something I can take while away so I am not worried about my issue while away. With covid, and doctors doing phone appointments only for the longest time I put this off. I was stuck at home anyway so I managed ok.

If Fastpass plus was around this wouldn't be an issue. I would book FPs for the rides I wanted to go on that maybe Brook wasn't keen on. Will see how we go.

Left to book
Airport Parking. I want the drop off type, dead easy no messing about. I am putting off booking it for some reason.