So here we are back again. I've just completed my trip report from 2017, if you haven't read it and would like to take a look you can head to the index here
https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1046296
So we have the usual crew...
Myself, Danielle. The one who orchestrates the holidays, plans them and partly finances them
Dave, the one who does what I tell him to do and mostly finances the holidays
Evan, the one who loves the big rides, currently aged 13 will turn 14 on this trip
Jacob, the one who will try anything he is tall enough for, aged 7 and will be for the trip too
Here are a couple of family snaps from our 2017 holiday
MNSSHP
And 2016 picture too
So this trip started to form during our first week in Florida in 2017. I knew I had to work on Dave to convince him to come back in 2018 so I began my manipulation. He cracked after a couple of days and said we could come back in 2017
We loved the villa we were in on Crescent Lakes and messaged the owner whilst we were away for availability in August. He confirmed it was available the last 2 weeks in August so we booked it!
We landed back home on 29th August and a week later after signing up to the thread for cheap deals I secured us a brilliant deal similar to 2017 with BA doing a flydrive again and flying into Miami. Only clincher was it was the first half of August. This actually fitted better for me personally in the sense that it breaks up the school holidays and gives us a couple of weeks either side after finishing school and going back. I therefore had to cancel the villa as there was no availability for the time we were going. But with flights booked I could crack on with different accommodation and sorting some plans.
So what we had so far was flights and car hire booked with BA Man-Phl-Mia outbound 1st August Mia-Lhr-Man inbound 15th August. We flew into Miami in 2017 and found it fine. For the difference in price i would do it all the time. The drive up is fine. We secured the flights and 7 seater minivans for £500 each. Great price for being bang smack in the middle of the summer holidays.
So a villa request was submitted on the dibb to try and secure a dibb villa. We needed ground floor accommodation for our son Evan who has cerebral palsy and is a wheelchair user. I was contacted by Caroline (brownfields) who'd had a cancellation and had our dates available so I asked her to pencil us in whilst I spoke to my husband but we were definitely interested, the villa looked perfect for us and based at Indian creek so nice and close to Disney.
Once I'd spoken with Dave and he told me to do what I wanted, just book it. So I had a little look online sneakily and seen what was available for Disney. We did a split stay in 2016 and really enjoyed it. We stayed at CBR and had the upgraded ddp. We said we enjoyed it but next time would only do qsdp. With cbr going through extensive renovation I was looking for Port Orleans French Quarter and a disabled accessible room. Unfortunately POFQ didn't have any accessible rooms but Riverside did. I went ahead and booked 5 days at Riverside with tickets and qsdp. I contacted Caroline and changed the stay from 13 nights down to 8 nights and this was fine. Plus we will have a night at a hotel in Miami when we land so the plans look like this.
1st August Miami hotel
2-7 August Port Orleans Riverside
7-15 August Dibb villa at Indian Creek.
All despots paid and everything secured. Until... a few weeks later I had been checking a bit looking for an accessible room to come up at FQ and it did! Yay
I phone Disney and ask to have it changed. I wanted FQ mainly because of how small the resort is and will be loads easier with Evan in his chair. We did enjoy CBR but it is a huge resort and I think Riverside is on a grand scale like that too. So Disney said this was fine and will be charged a £50 amendment fee
say what? I was always under the impression this was only charged if the price of the holiday decreased in value, but apparently the policy had recently changed. So £50 out of pocket the accommodation was changed. It all looks like this...
I can't wait to visit Sassagoula factory for food...
The food court looks fabulous!
The plan for the holiday was obviously the Disney tickets as we only did MNSSHP party in 2017 and I really missed Disney. We did plan for Dave and
Evan to go for a day to Busch Gardens and pay on the gate whilst Jacob and I went to a water park as Evan can't do much at waterparks so we never go. However me and Dave were discussing it and we really fell in love with Busch Gardens last year so the decision was made to throw caution to the wind and book us all Seaworld/Busch tickets, they are really good value at only £100 and free parking.
We have booked the premier inn runner lane north at Manchester airport with the meal deal this time as our flight isn't until 10.50am so we'll be able to have breakfast at the airport. We fly 10.50 and land in Philly 1.35pm, leave 4pm and land in Miami at 7pm.
We have meet and greet parking booked at T3 too, we love meet and greet as we find transfer buses too much with one of us having to push a wheelchair.
So the current plans and things paid for are
31st July: check in at the premier inn Manchester airport and have meal at thyme restaurant
1st August: Fly to Miami via Philly pick up car hire from Avis and check into Marriott hotel at Miami airport.
2nd August: Drive up to Orlando and check in to POFQ for 5 nights with qsdp.
7th August: check into villa
8th August: Evan's 14th birthday and has requested to go to Busch Gardens
15th August: travel down to Miami and go to Sawgrass mall before flight home at 9.40pm.
Our 180 days have passed and because we don't have ddp we didn't really have to do too many reservations. We have a couple of reservations at Be Our Guest for breakfast and lunch. Plus we are going to visit Yak and Yeti as we have a Landrys card.
Our ESTAS are still valid from last year so that is all sorted.
Our annual travel insurance has been renewed.
We just need to pay off all of our balances and hope for the dollar rate to keep climbing, still it's a lot better than last year!
Our 60 day fastpass window will open 3rd June. At the moment we only have a bit of a loose plan, because we this will be our 4th time since 2013 we don't really feel the need to have a regimented holiday. I'm looking forward to seeing Pandora and also now toy story land has been announced!
165 to go
Bye for now
