Disneymoon with the Besties - May/June 2017 - Day -1 - Overnight stay at the Radisson, Manchester

[tracey1302]

Hello everyone and welcome to my fourth trip report here on the Dibb. Those who have followed my trips before will know I like to bash these things out quickly. It's one of the only things that helps me before I fall into inevitable post-Florida depression. That and, planning the next one!

For those that wish to re-familiarise themselves with me and mine...

Zip a dee do dah - The Bagley/Mollet Family Trip - May 2011
Tracey & Neil's EPIC California Trip - June 2012
Disney with the Dufflers - July 2014

And the pre-trip report for this one is here!

But a brief summary if you can't be bothered to read through all that!

This is mine and Neil's honeymoon trip, on which we visited New York (4 nights), Loews Sapphire Falls Resort at Universal Orlando (3 nights) and Disney's Port Orleans Riverside Resort (11 nights). We had the Deluxe Dining Plan in Disney. We were also joined by our best friends for a week in the middle! Those who followed my wedding planning journal (here) will know that while Neil and I had a magical wedding day on bonfire night last year, it has been the toughest few years we've ever experienced and we needed this break so much!

We got back this morning. I'm a cross between jetlagged (inevitable) overwhelmed (because it was so amazing) and emotional (because it's over!).

Needless to say this was the honeymoon of a lifetime and I'm thrilled to report that we had the time of our lives! So I'm ready to do this, to let it go (does anyone else find writing a trip report really cathartic?), and to capture every moment of our incredible holiday.

Without further ado!

The cast:

Me, Tracey, 30 – full time Dibber, devoted planner, Disney fanatic and now the new Mrs. T, and hubby, Neil, 29 (I'm the much older wife) – Grumpy by nature but my best friend and the best husband anyone could possibly ask for.

Olly, 30 – my best friend and bridesmaid. Olly went to Disney when she was thirteen and so remembered very little!

Ben, 29 (we just love our toy boys) – Neil's best friend and Best Man at our wedding. Complete Orlando virgin!

So here we go folks...

[darsch1982]

Lovely dress

[tracey1302]

Day -1 – Sunday 21st May – Overnight stay at Radisson Blu, Manchester Airport

Neil and I woke up on this day all refreshed and ready to go on honeymoon... not. You see, the night before, we had thought it would be a great idea to go out for a meal with Ben and Olly to celebrate our upcoming trip. Neil had been working on that Saturday and his honeymoon had just begun! We were all so excited! We went to a local Thai place and ordered too much food...

Ben was exercising his America stomach...

And then we had a toast to our upcoming holiday. And then another. Then prosecco was involved, then margaritas, then one more for the road... you know how it goes. So we started our three week honeymoon... hungover! We are shocking and massively regretted it on this day but we downed our own body weight in water, ate a mountain of scrambled eggs and bagels and were soon okay again!

We did some last minute packing and cleaning of the house. Neil's Mum was going to be staying at our house while we were away so we left a note for her, letting her know the basics (bin day, how to work the washing machine and heating etc etc.)

Then, around about 2pm, Neil loaded up the cases and we were off!

We parked up in Jet Parks Ringway, finally finding a space around Bus Stop 19 and waited for bus with all our luggage. We had an extra case as I'd booked us a honeymoon photo shoot at the Poly with Randy Chapman and I wanted to wear my wedding dress and there was no way I was checking it!

We got on the bus in no time and made our way to the Radisson. Neil and I had always wanted to stay at the Radisson Blu. We can't explain it, it's just been a thing. Every time we went to Manchester Airport, we would always look over and think how cool it would be to stay there so we decided that for our honeymoon, we would splash out and book an overnight stay and start the celebrations early. Obviously, since being on the Dibb, I have learned that quite a few people do this and to be honest, I can see why.

We loved our stay at the Radisson. Check in was exceptional, the room was gorgeous and we were able to get a good few hours extra sleep. Now, we've decided that we don't ever want to go on holiday and not do this... so we've just inadvertently made our future holidays more expensive. Whoops!

We checked in and we were absolutely thrilled (having never received an upgrade for anything ever) that we had been upgraded to business class!

This was our room.

Terrible, off focus picture of the shower. I was clearly too excited

And the view.

And god bless the Radisson... this was in there...

Deciding to start the holiday early and make the most of the facilities, we hit the pool and sauna next. I'd heard mixed reviews about the pool and the sauna/steam room at the Radisson but we thought it was lovely and very clean.

We spent an hour or so down there and then arrived back at the room to two glasses of prosecco!

Then, we both had showers in the MASSIVE shower and headed for the crème de la crème, the business class lounge. Wow. This place is amazing. We couldn't believe all the freebies you got – wine and beer on tap, snacks, warm canapes. It was lovely! And the views were just fabulous.

The business class lounge was quite busy when we were there, however, so the canapes went quite quickly and we decided we wanted to chill in our room for a bit, so we ordered some takeaway pizzas and opened a special bottle of Bollinger champagne we had saved from our wedding.

We watched some TV in the room and I kept looking out of the window at the sun setting over the runway, feeling insanely happy and excited. I checked the weather at this point as well. It looked like we were set for some rain in New York but sun for Orlando. We could live with that.

We crashed out by 10pm in the enormous bed at the Radisson, very excited for the day ahead. Our honeymoon had got off to the best possible start.

Day 0 - Monday 22nd May - Travel Day and Arrival into NYC is here

[FLAFantastic]

Everything sounds fantastic!

Looking forward to reading more!

AnnMarie

[Leia77]

Lovely start to your Disneymoon

[EJSakaAnna]

I'm so glad you had such a great time, looking forward to reading the report .

The business class lounge looks great. Love the pizza and Bollinger room dinner haha! xx

[Col&Ali]

I have been looking forward to this 😁 So pleased to hear you had the time of your lives ... was a bit worried at how busy it was whilst you were there and of course the weather had its ups and downs!

I've seen the Radison Blu but did not know about the lounge etc! How much did you pay?

[Goldia]

What a fab start to your honeymoon

[tracey1302]

Originally Posted by Col&Ali

I have been looking forward to this 😁 So pleased to hear you had the time of your lives ... was a bit worried at how busy it was whilst you were there and of course the weather had its ups and downs!

I've seen the Radison Blu but did not know about the lounge etc! How much did you pay?

See more...

We paid £98 but got £13 cash back. The upgrade to BC was free but I think we would pay for it next time - it was awesome.

[collybird]

Congratulations! Your trip sounds fab, can't wait to read about the Deluxe Dining Plan!