On the road to Celebration(with a bit of Disney thrown in!)March/April Pre-trip

[tearling]

Good evening everyone! I cannot leave this pre trip much longer or else it will be too late, and I'll have to back track, that's too hard. So I've bitten the bullet and here goes...
I'm typing this on my phone which is awkward for my thumbs and I can't use our iPad as it has no pictures of mine on there. So this may or may not be brief.

THE FAMILY

ME (Vikii)

I'm 39(big four oh next year &#128561 and work in retail. I have to confess, I'm not a life long Disney fan like most of you on here. It wasn't until we went to DL in 2015 that I got infected with the bug. The planning, the "bubble", the food, so much to love that I can't imagine going on holiday anywhere else now!

CHRIS

My darling husband; now he IS a super fan! Well, his main love is Star Wars, but as with me, Disney allows us to escape from the pressures of work and enjoy time together as a family.
Now that Star Wars "thing"?
I must say it's more than a love, it's now his life! He's in the 501st legion which is a worldwide costuming organisation for fans. Every costume is screen accurate and I know I'm probably biased, but he's amazing at it 😍.
We have been to lots of SW conventions and the official SW Celebrations which have been happening almost yearly.
This is how our first Disney trip came about.

Celebration in 2015 was hosted in Anaheim, so obviously we tagged on a DL ticket! Well our 3 day ticket ran out and we HAD to upgrade to a 4 day! It was the best holiday, I cried on our last day. I thought that was it. It hadn't been a cheap holiday and I just didn't think we would be able to justify another...until we returned a year later to WDW... and fast forward to this year, we are lucky enough to make it three!

I'm digressing. There are another 2 to introduce, our Jawas, William and Alexander.

WILLIAM

Turning 10 in March, has an excellent memory and remembers the tiniest details from last year. He has firm favourites(EE, Spash, BTMRR) but cannot ever EVER be persuaded to go on TOT or Mission Space. Haunted Mansion will happen this year as I've discovered we can bypass the Stretching Room! He will also be my Cinammon Bun partner 😉

ALEXANDER

Celebrating(for the third time!) his 8th birthday while we are there. This boy is so jammy, his third Disney birthday! How many can say that I wonder? A little bit more confident than his brother. Tried TOT twice last time, but will not again. Saving my arm from being squeezed. Struggles with the early mornings poor thing. Looking forward to seeing Town Square Mickey on his birthday as he talks!

After last year, the plan was to return once the new Star Wars land was done. We heard that 2019ish was the finish date and looked forward to then( but I really wanted to go back &#128542 2018 was also a possibility to go sooner, but would have been awkward with school dates and William in year 6. What actually nailed the date in the proverbial calendar was a Star Wars moment!On May the Fourth(star wars day) the next Celebration 2017 was announced- it would be in Orlando 😁😁 This was the best news ever! An excuse to go much much earlier than planned, Chris bought the Celebration tickets before we'd even booked the rest of it! 🙄

So our dates were set, for the end at least, and we could work back.
Now I had to research where, how long and how much we could spend.

[codym]

Looking forward to your trip report

[tearling]

I'll add a little bit more tonight and I'm going easy on my thumbs as I'm typing this on the ipad, however that means no pictures unfortunately 👎
Our holiday is booked through Virgin and this will be the 3rd year in a row we have decided on a package with them. I know a lot of folks save money doing it all separately. Believe me, I spent months pricing all the variables and costings. In the end I had a price in mind and TBH it was a matter of £ 50 or so between the options.

FLIGHTS
We flew indirect last year which was: LHR-ATL-MCO then MCO-JFK-MCO. We have the reverse this time around! I'm actually surprised we're doing indirect this time as last time was a nightmare. I'll keep the tale as short as possible(promise)
DH was detained for secondary screening in ATL on the way out, something we'd had a taste of in 2015 when there had been a reluctant guy in LAX who took an age to finally wave us through.No luck this time. We had a layover of 1hr 55. We were in the waiting area and interview for 1hr 40.Can you imagine the race to get our bags, check them again, go through security and sprint from one end of Atlanta to the other? I think I died from stress and exercise. We reached the gate and recognised passengers from the LHR flight so thought - great, it's been delayed! When in fact the flight had left without all 50 of the Virgin passengers because the wrong gate had been displayed😱.So all 50 of us had to go on standby for the next flight. This meant relocating to another terminal again. I see my story is far from short...we got to Disney, a few hours later than scheduled and it didn't ruin us!
DH is now equipped with a redress number after we applied on the TRIP website. I'm hoping this will be the fairy dust to get us through JFK. Watch this Space!

RESORT
Last time we stayed at CBR and we all loved it here. I requested Jamaica and were were given building 21 in Martinique. It was a terrific location, in between pools, 5 min to the food court and the busses were empty in the mornings as I think we were the 2nd stop? The huge 2 year refurb doesn't start until May although I wonder if we will see a glimpse of it? Price was a factor, oh and free dining of course! I compared POFQ but couldn't get it as cheap as CBR. We are looking forward to returning home! Strange that we will know our way around. we've never stayed in the same place twice.

[Jaynew]

Ooh fab, there are loads of trip reports for people going the same time as me. Looking forward to reading along. X