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5 Sep 18, 02:44 PM |
#1
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VIP Dibber
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It's The Greatest Hits Tour August 2018 - Index
Introduction and Index
Welcome to Florida trip report number 5. First up, we are: Me, Michelle, lover of all things Disney, Florida and US holidays. Control freak, holiday planner and trip report writer. Favourite park is Hollywood Studios / Animal Kingdom and favourite ride is Flight of Passage. DH, Mat. Works in Asset Management and his hard work and frequent travelling mean we get to take these lovely holidays. Part time music journalist. Loves Disney and the USA and finally came around to properly loving Universal this trip. Favourite park is Magic Kingdom and favourite ride is Slinky Dog Dash. DD1, Seren, 12 at the time of the trip. Loves Disney especially Stitch, Harry Potter, music, reading, dancing and taking selfies. Seren is the family daredevil and would ride more thrill rides if she could get someone to go on with her. Despite almost entering the teenage years and being known to act like one occasionally, she’s generally happy, funny and shows no sign of outgrowing the likes of character meets and Fantasyland rides. Favourite park is Magic Kingdom and favourite ride is Rock N Roller Coaster. DD2, Freya, 10 at the time of the trip. Loves Disney especially Marie, Harry Potter, gymnastics and running around like a crazy person. Freya is a free spirit with a heart of gold. She’s very stubborn but also hilarious. Favourite park is Magic Kingdom and favourite ride is The Mummy and Space Mountain. The trip: We had an amazing time on the Greatest Hits Tour. This holiday was booked in part before we even went on last year’s Easter trip. The plan was to have a big three week holiday staying our favourite Disney / Universal hotels before having a couple of years off to go to California and / or other places. It would be our first experience of going in the summer holidays which was the reason for making it three weeks. We decided the heat and anticipated crowds would slow us down a bit so we wanted to be able to do everything at a slower pace. We like to start our Orlando holidays at Universal, and this time we decided to stay four nights at the new Aventura hotel, mostly just chilling out and visiting Volcano Bay. When the opening of the Aventura hotel was pushed back a few weeks, our booking there was cancelled and I booked Sapphire Falls again. At the time I was really disappointed because I wanted to stay at Aventura but in the end we loved Sapphire Falls so much I think it worked out for the best. We had two nights at the Hard Rock Hotel booked after Sapphire Falls so we could use the included Unlimited Express Passes for staying onsite. So those three days would be our Universal Park time. We had stayed at the Hard Rock in 2017 and it was a no-brainer that we would go back there in 2018 because we loved it. We knew we wanted to be onsite at Disney for at least part of the holiday, and our first choice was the Yacht Club which had been the first Disney resort we had stayed at as a family, on the girl’s first trip in 2012. We were really excited about returning to the Yacht Club, especially as the hotel had recently been refurbished. We booked 10 nights at the Yacht Club with free Disney Dining Plan. Here are the girls at the Yacht Club on our first trip: And this year: We also wanted to do a couple of nights at The Contemporary to be able to walk to Magic Kingdom (Mat and I had stayed there for part of our honeymoon in 2001 and loved it), and a couple of nights at Saratoga Springs to be able to walk to Disney Springs so that Mat could enjoy a few drinks there without having to rely on the Disney buses. So the Greatest Hits: Hard Rock Hotel Yacht Club Contemporary Resort Plus of course all the parks and our favourite restaurants (Raglan Road, Jiko, Crystal Palace, California Grill, Tusker House) Stuff that was new to us this year that we were excited for: Volcano Bay Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Food and Wine Festival Pandora and Toy Story Land New restaurants: Ale and Compass, Skipper Canteen, Whispering Canyon Cafe Going to see Taylor Swift in concert in Tampa Four parks in one day Here we are at the end of our four parks in one day challenge at a rainy Epcot: This was also our first time in Orlando as vegans (Mat and I.) Initially I was really concerned about the food, especially in the parks, but I did my research. Vegandisneyworld and universalorlandovegans on Instagram were so helpful. I booked the restaurants with the best vegan options, plus made a list of quick service places that would be good for us. By the time we went, I was really confident that we would be able to eat well and we really did. Plus pretty much every server and restaurant were so accommodating and overall our first Orlando trip as vegans was a great experience. I have always steered clear of giving each day of my reports a witty title simply because I can’t ever think of one and so many other trippie writers do it so brilliantly. But I have decided, inspired by what Helen (HelenJNT) is doing with her current report and what Jo (jojo88) did a few years ago, to give each day a subtitle. The subtitle will be a lyric from one of the songs on our holiday playlist which was titled ‘Flo-Rida 2018’. (Everyone else’s suggestion of Florididdypop whatever volume we would be on by now...about 4 maybe, was overridden by the control-freak who put the playlist together. That would be me.) Music is a massive love of all of ours and as the report title is music related too, I thought this was a good time to try this out. And I have about 100 songs on the playlist to choose from. I think that’s enough rambling for now, so let’s just get on with it... Pre-Trip Report Highs and Lows Day 0 - Travel to Gatwick, Giraffe and Bloc Hotel Day 1 - Flying to Fort Lauderdale, Driving to Orlando and Checking into Sapphire Falls Day 2 - Volcano Bay and Hard Rock Cafe Day 3 - Sapphire Falls, Blaze Pizza, CityWalk Golf, Voodoo Donuts and Bob Marley's A Tribute To Freedom Day 4 - Volcano Bay, Sweet Tomatoes, Florida Mall and Taylor Swift Concert in Tampa Day 5: Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure Day 6: Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Mythos and Sal's Market Deli Day 7: Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, The Cowfish and Antojitos Day 8: Universal Studios, Checking into Yacht Club, Ale & Compass, Epcot and Sunshine Seasons Day 9: Animal Kingdom, Tusker House and Blaze Pizza Day 10: Hollywood Studios and Jiko Day 11: Four Parks in One Day Challenge Day 12: Ale & Compass breakfast, Winter Summerland, Disney Springs and Magic Kingdom Day 13: Epcot EMH, Hollywood Studios and California Grill
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Michelle Instagram: michelle_smith7868 All My Trip Reports Are Here **Including New December 2021 and August 2022 Trip Reports in progress and 2020 Trip Report Now Complete. New Los Angeles / Orlando August 2023 Trip Report In Progress** Edited at 03:26 PM. |
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14 Jan 19, 02:33 PM |
#2
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Thread Starter
VIP Dibber
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Day 0 is now up .
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Michelle Instagram: michelle_smith7868 All My Trip Reports Are Here **Including New December 2021 and August 2022 Trip Reports in progress and 2020 Trip Report Now Complete. New Los Angeles / Orlando August 2023 Trip Report In Progress** |
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18 Jan 19, 06:47 PM |
#3
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Thread Starter
VIP Dibber
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Just posted day 1 .
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Michelle Instagram: michelle_smith7868 All My Trip Reports Are Here **Including New December 2021 and August 2022 Trip Reports in progress and 2020 Trip Report Now Complete. New Los Angeles / Orlando August 2023 Trip Report In Progress** |
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19 Jan 19, 09:13 AM |
#4
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Very Serious Dibber
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Hi Michelle,
We are hopefully returning in October with my DD who is vegan. Will be following with interest to get ideas of places to eat. Xx
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Kate Disney All Star Movies Feb 03 & Feb 05 Disney POFQ/Virgin Villa Feb 08 Dibb Villa - Oct 2010 Dibb Villa July 2012 Dibb Villa Sep 2013 Dibb Villa Sandy Ridge March 2015 |
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22 Jan 19, 02:00 PM |
#5
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Thread Starter
VIP Dibber
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Thanks for following along Kate . We were so happy with our first experience at Disney and Universal as vegans. We ate so much great food and everyone was super helpful and accommodating. I would definitely recommend checking out Vegan Disney World and Universal Orlando Vegans on Instagram in advance..doing lots of planning really helped us xx.
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Michelle Instagram: michelle_smith7868 All My Trip Reports Are Here **Including New December 2021 and August 2022 Trip Reports in progress and 2020 Trip Report Now Complete. New Los Angeles / Orlando August 2023 Trip Report In Progress** |
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22 Jan 19, 09:09 PM |
#6
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Imagineer
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Great start. Always enjoy your trip reports. You put so much detail in. It must be hard work but lovely for you all to look back on.
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JackyH |
23 Jan 19, 03:57 PM |
#7
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Apprentice Imagineer
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Great report so far, looking forward to the rest
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25 Jan 19, 08:56 AM |
#8
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Imagineer
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Looking forward to this.DD and I are Veggies use the websites you mentioned...DIsney do cater well for us!
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27 Jan 19, 01:17 AM |
#9
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VIP Dibber
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Enjoying this already. Subscribed!
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28 Jan 19, 06:32 PM |
#10
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Trainee Dibber
Join Date: Feb 15
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So excited to find a vegan trip report! Its my first trip as a vegan this year I'm nervous about it I think Disney will be OK but universal and off site options appear to be trickier from what I've read. Looking forward to reading about your experience!
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