We are the Millers + 1, our first trip with Edith - January 2018

[abiknox]

Hello everyone!

I didn't think I would be writing a pre trip report so quickly after having our daughter, but having just booked for us to visit Florida in January I had better get a wriggle on.

Cast:

As usual, there will be me Abi & husband Aaron. I think this is our 9th visit to Florida together and my 10th as I also visited way back in 1995! We love everything Orlando has to offer, the parks, the weather, the food, the shopping & so much more. Ages on this trip, 32 & 31! Lord we are getting old

In addition, we have Edith, currently 6 weeks old but will be 13.5 weeks when we travel. This is one of very few family photos we have so far, how cute is her little smiley face! Sorry about the poor quality, its a cropped phone image from selfie mode!

The plan:

What started in my mind as a 2 week trip in April is now a 12 night trip in January. The main reason I bought it forward was that I started to worry about the heat in April, last time we visited at that time of year in 2016 it was HOT!

We have been in January 3 times previously, its a lovely cool month with quiet parks and pretty reasonable flight prices. I asked here on the Dibb about taking a 3 months old as I wasn't sure if she was too young, but after lots of reassuring advise I decided to look into it a bit more. How tempting to go so soon and to have something amazing too look forward to in what is always the bleakest month of the year.

We knew we wanted a suite hotel room with full kitchen to enable us to sterilise bottles, make up formula ect and even have a separate room so at least one of us can get some sleep if she does have restless nights. Touchwood, she is a pretty good sleeper so far, she stayed down for 6.5 hours straight on Tuesday night! Dream baby

I have looked on here for any trippys with a 3 month old baby or similar age but I haven't managed to find any, please point me in the right direction if you know of any!

Bookings so far:

Pre flight hotel / Post flight hotel:

As we are flying from Manchester, I have gone with our normal routine and booked a Premier Inn at the Trafford Centre for the night before we fly. My normal preferred one (West) was coming up at £85 so I have booked the South on instead at a rate of £55.00. We will probably add breakfast when we get there as it's much better value than anything you can get at Manchester airport.

After we fly back, we would normally jump in the car and drive straight home. This is always a bit of a dreaded drive, having been awake for most of the overnight flight and with us having Edith I want to make sure we are well rested so I have secured another Premier Inn. This time the Runger Lane north location near the airport. I have actually booked 2 nights so we can check in at 9am ish when we land and sleep for most of the day before trying to get back onto UK time & going to sleep there again before driving home the next day. This cost £62 in total.

Flight & Car Hire

I got a good deal booking both of these together via Expedia.

We are flying with Virgin, direct from Manchester to Orlando. Edith will be on our lap although I have requested bulkhead seats with sky cot, fingers crossed we get these.

Car hire is with Budget, intermediate SUV.

Cost for both was a total of £1278.41 (£98 Quidco cash back). Flights on their own were coming in at £938 so car hire has cost £340.41. I normally book with Alamo Brits to make use of the free additional drivers but they wanted over £700 I have read that Budget includes a free driver too but maybe not if I book 3rd party, I guess we will find out, Worst case is $60 extra I think. It seems I can cancel the car hire part of the booking so I will keep an eye on Alamo pricing.

Accommodation:

After asking on here for suite recommendations on I Drive, we have booked the Sonesta ES Suites. It looks great for the price and the recent TA reviews are really good. We are paying £1078.37 (£118 Quidco cash back) for bed & breakfast.

So that's all for now, all I need to do is sort park tickets (fingers crossed for another 25% off deal from Disney), book fastpasses if there are any left, figure out how to feed Edith when out and about in the parks, buy a pushchair, oh & hope Aarons passport comes back in time...! Issue date given of 22nd December, we fly 14th January! Tense.

That's all for now.

By the way, this pre trip that would normaly take me 10 minutes to throw together has taken me 4 hours to get written! Who said babies were time consuming... well, everyone actually. I just didn't belive them

Bye for now!

Updates

Airport parking booked
Tickets booked

[LRMD]

Sounds great, how exciting taking along your new baby too! We go January too, not long now... we are doing universal and then weeks Caribbean cruise. Yay!

[penguin19]

Sounds lovely! Excited for you to have your 1st trip with Edith

[Beaker's Fluff]

Hi Abi.
Edith is beautiful, what a sweetie. Her passport will be well used I’m sure with all your wonderful trips.

[mobeckwith]

aww congratulations on the birth of edith she is a beaut,hope you get to do a trippie,have a fab time mo x

[HelenJNT]

Yay! Super excited for your new adventures. Sounds like a trip. Good call on bringing it forward, the weather will definitely be mire bearable xx

[JoS]

Yeh Ediths first trip to Florida. What a lovely picture of you all,...she is gorgeous. I can imagine it will be different but how exciting for you to introduce her to Mickey and friends. I think January is a perfect time for Ediths first trip.

[Rockycat]

Congratulations on the birth of Edith she is beautiful 😊. I'm sure you will have a lovely time. I always enjoy your trip reports so looking forward to reading this one. X

[yellowrose78]

Sounds fab, Edith is beautiful, congratulations!

[jocat]

How lovely to have your first trip as a family planned so soon after Edith’s arrival. I’m sure you’ll all have a fab time on your first Disney holiday together.