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Old 28 Apr 19, 09:27 PM  
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DollyDimples
Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Jul 16
Location: Fife
Almost the Whole Shebang - July 2019 - Pre-Trip Report

So I wasn’t planning on doing a pre-trip report but I had some time free time today and rather than doing the sensible thing of picking up my laptop and doing a bit of extra work to try to start getting on top of things before being off for 3 ½ weeks I have decided to give this a go instead.

I have decided to do this pre-trip report mainly to document all the decisions that we have made about this trip for my own memory and also because I have found reading other people’s pre-trip and trip reports so useful in our planning. Hopefully somebody will benefit for reading this, even if it is just to say I wouldn’t do things that way!

Let’s Start With The Cast

Me, Laura.



I am 40, a work as a consultant civil engineer, mostly doing hydraulic and hydrological modelling for river and sewer networks. Most of my spare time is spent running around after DS. I love watching crime dramas, watching rugby, camping, baking, drinking gin with friends and do quite a lot of parent volunteering with DS’s primary school fundraising group and his Scout group. I love theme parks, normally fairly nervous of big rollercoasters but generally enjoy them when I am on them. Not so keen on waterparks.


DH, Graham.



Graham is 41. He is a principle teacher in a secondary school. He loves Star Wars and Marvel, Rubgy, video games, camping and most of his job. He is spends lots of time running after DS too, playing in our local rugby clubs veterans (old peoples) team. In addition to his teaching job he does a lot of extra work for the qualifications authority writing exam papers and assignment papers and marking. Between now and when we go on this trip just about all of his evenings and weekend will be taken up with marking which means we will have bonus holiday spending money. Graham loves theme parks, rollercoasters the bigger the better and also a big fan of waterparks.

DS, Evan.



Evan is 11, he will be 12 a few weeks after we get home from our trip. Where to start! Evan LOVES video games, in particular at the moment Fortnite. He also loves reading, playing rugby (not so keen on watching it or any other sport) and is always keen to try new things. He loves theme parks and not being the tallest of kids has loved the big roller coasters that he has managed to do so far. He is also a fan of waterparks and is looking forward to doing a few types of slides that he hasn’t been tall enough to do so far.



Disney, Florida and Us

Graham and I got married in 2003 (it is our 16th wedding anniversary in the middle of our trip) and after lots of trips to the travel agents where we almost booked a variety of package holidays we ended up booking a DIY trip and visiting 4 European cities, the last one being Paris. We decided, neither of us having been to Disneyland Paris or and other Disney park that one of the days we were in Paris we would visit Disneyland and we both fell in love.





Roll on a couple of years and DH had a job interview for a promoted post in the school he worked in at that time. He didn’t expect to get the job being fairly new into teaching and joked as he left the house that morning that if he got the job we were going to Orlando for our summer holiday. Roll on 8 hours or so and he got the job and that weekend we were at the travel agents booking our first (and only to date) trip to Orlando.

We knew next to nothing about what we were booking. We booked a 14 night package with Thomson, flew from Glasgow to Sandford, staying in a HoJo on I Drive (near Sand Lake Drive/International Drive Junction). We had a basic hire car and over the two weeks fitted in the four Disney parks, both Disney water parks, Wet ‘n’ wild, Universal Studios and Island of Adventure, Seaworld, Busch Gardens and Kennedy Space Station, Cirque du Soleil and a few shopping trips. We can only remember having a couple of sit down table service meal at Disney (Mama Melrose and House of Blues), ate at city walk a few times (def Margarritaville and NBC but possibly more) and then a few places on i-drive around the hotel. We LOVED it but the trip was exhausting. We landed home on the Sunday morning and I was back at work the next day leaving all of the holiday washing for DH who, being a teacher still has a few weeks of summer holiday left.
We vowed to go back but to wait until we had children and to wait until they were tall enough to ride anything that we would want to ride. One of the things (each to their own) that we didn’t like was people standing in queues for big rides with kids who were far too little to ride the ride for themselves so said we wouldn’t do that.



DS first experience of Disney was a trip to Disneyland Paris when he was 5. We surprised him that he was going for his birthday in August and were so excited for the trip. It ended up being a total disaster for me and more hard going for DH as we discovered my passport was missing the afternoon before we were due to go. We literally tore the house to bits and it was nowhere to be found. DH and DS went without me and had an amazing time and I was gutted.





As a result we ended up (all with passports) having a surprise trip to Disneyland Paris the following July, tagging it on to the end of a trip to the Vendee and not telling DS we were going. He didn’t have a clue until we arrived. We all had an amazing time.



Since then DH has been to Disneyland Paris twice on school trips (the next one is already being arranged for December 2020) and me and DS gatecrashed the second of these trips (We knew DH would be allocated a standard room in the dismay hotel). This was again a surprise for DS who didn’t know he was going. We sent DH away the night before whit a suitcase for us on the coach with the school kids and I woke DS up the next morning at 3.30 so we could get to the airport for the 6.30 flight to Paris. We had a day in the city and then got to train out to Disneyland by which time DH had arrived by coach. We had a brilliant couple of days and then packed saw DH off back on the coach, had another day in the parks and then flew home and still got back before DH!

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Old 28 Apr 19, 09:28 PM  
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DollyDimples
Thread Starter
Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Jul 16
Location: Fife
Why now?

As I said earlier we knew after our 2005 trip that we would be back to Orlando but that we would want all our children to be tall enough for all the rollercoasters. Roll on lots of years and DS is our only child and he was getting close to reaching the magic correct height. We had a bit of a discussion and considered going in 2018 and ended up pushing the date to 2019. This was for a few reasons, firstly would DS be quite tall enough, secondly we would both have had our 40th birthday but then, Star Wars might be open by then (we were having this discussion around the end of 2016 when the date was just a straight forward 2019), it would give us an extra year to save and finally DS would be in his summer holiday between Primary School and Secondary School and it just seemed right to do a holiday that we had waited so long for at such an important change point for him.

How long?

As I mentioned before our only previous trip was for 14 days. We knew that we wanted to Do almost the whole shebang (hence the title of this report). The only main attractions which we aren’t fussed about are Discovery Cove and Legoland. Discovery Cove just seems like a lot of extra money on top of the other park tickets and Legoland we have been to Legoland and Windsor a few times and DS has loved it but has now outgrown it a bit. This left us with the following on our list:
Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios, Volcano Bay, Seaworld, Busch Gardens, Aquatica and Kennedy Space Station.

So 13 places in total! We knew if we really wanted we could get round them all in two weeks but we also knew that sometimes things don’t quite go to plan, the parks are bigger and busier than when we went 14 years ago and also we are 14 years older and will also have a child with us this time. All this quickly made us realise that we needed to go for three weeks rather than two. This also made the next choice for us.

What Time of Year to Go?

DH is a teacher so whether we would be tempted to take DS out of school to allow is more flexibility on the time of year to go or not doesn’t matter. The only time DH can be off for 3 weeks is during the school summer holiday so that was that decision made. DS and DH both finish up for the summer holidays at lunchtime on Friday 28th June and DH goes back to work on Monday 19th August. So those were the dates that we had to work between. We tend to go away closer to the start of the holidays (before the English School Holidays) as availability and prices tend to be a bit better for us in those first couple of weeks. As DS finishes primary school this year we were unsure if we would be doing anything with his friends on the last day of school (we still are) so we decided that we set a departure date sometime between Sunday 30th June and Sunday 7th July.
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Old 28 Apr 19, 09:31 PM  
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DollyDimples
Thread Starter
Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Jul 16
Location: Fife
Where to Stay?

Around the time that we were deciding when to go I found The Dibb and after lots of reading realised that this trip would require lots more planning and strategy required than for our 2005 trip. Our planning for that trip had pretty much involved one page of guide book which was a busy day guide table and a couple of hours doing a list of what parks to do on what day. The main reason being that we knew if we didn’t have a plan to stick to then we would waste time trying to decide what to do when we got up each day.

When we have done our visits to Disneyland Paris we have stayed in either Cheyenne or Santa Fe. We have made use of the EMHs in Paris as well as the transportation. We have always just booked one of the value hotels our logic being that you get the perks of staying on site but there are only three of us so space isn’t too much of an issue and we are only in the room to seat and wash so no point spending any more.

My reading of the Dibb and a few other sources of info quickly made me realise that as well as the transportation and EMHs that there was a possibility of ‘free’ dining if staying on site and also the 60 day fast pass booking access which could both make a significant difference to our trip.

We also had to decide if we wanted to spend the whole of the trip in Orlando. My Sister has owned a house in Sarasota for about 10 years and until her children started school use to spend about half the year there. Now they spend most school holidays there. We have considered visiting in the past but with being restricted to school holiday times we have never seen cheap flights on dates that work and we also wanted to wait and do a big Florida holiday with all the parks for which their house is just too far away to use as a base. Now that we were defiantly going to be in Florida we need to decide if we were going to spend a few days at their house.

This is when my planning spreadsheet was started.

We spent lots of time discussing how many days we thought we wanted to spend at each park to be able to do as much as possible in them.

After LOTS and LOTS of going round in circles we decided that we did want to stay on-site at Disney and out of our planned 21 nights we would spend 12 nights there. After lots more reading we also decided that is Disney did offer ‘free’ dining for 2019 we would book a moderate hotel to get the free QSDP and if they didn’t we would book a value hotel.

Lots of decisions about where to stay for the rest of the trip we based largely on what offers Disney had for 2019 and how much it cost.

We had decided that this trip was going to be a bit of a blow out for us and whilst the budget if most definitely not unlimited we were willing to spend money to make the trip as good as it could be and if that meant spending a bit more for extra benefits that was ok.

We were looking at maybe booking a condo/townhouse for the rest of our trip and had a few ideas about where we might book. I had also, courtesy of The Dibb picked up the added benefits of staying in one of the three more expensive universal hotels but kept that idea up my sleeve until after we had our Disney stay booked.

As we were unsure exactly what we wanted to do for the rest of the trip we decided we were going to do a DIY trip and not book a package and to book the Disney hotel directly with Disney if they had the same offer as previous years.
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Old 28 Apr 19, 09:45 PM  
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DollyDimples
Thread Starter
Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Jul 16
Location: Fife
What We Booked When

We had decided by that stage to book a Moderate hotel, first choice being a standard room in POFQ, second choice being a preferred room at CSR. We had also decided that we would upgrade the ‘free’ QSDP to the DDP.

We had also decided that we wanted to travel on Monday 1st July as we had been tracking flight prices and seen it was slightly cheaper to fly Monday to Thursday and also meaning we would arrive home on Tuesday 23rd July. I could then have a three day week at work making it enough days to make it worthwhile going back but not to many to get through before the next weekend after what we know will not be a restful holiday.

The trip became a reality on 19th April 2018 which was the day that Disney released ‘free’ dining for 2019.

I work from home two days a week and was able to arrange that day as being one when I was at home. It was 12pm that the free dining offer went live and I spent a frustrating few hours trying to get access onto the Disney site and book our hotel. Thankfully once I got access to the website properly I was able to book exactly what we had planned.

12 nights in a standard room at POFQ, 21 day Disney tickets and upgraded QSDP to DDP and the $200 gift card. I also tacked the booking through Quidco and we had cask back of around £180 tracked. I think that it ended up costing about £200 more than I had thought it would, the price went up slightly when they released the ‘free’ dining offer but I decided that I was happy to pay that much extra to get the hotel we wanted. The total for all this was £4,557.





Just 438 days to wait until it was time to go on holiday!

We chose POFQ largely because the smaller size of the hotel appealed. Building work was also underway at CBR and CSR and whilst it was all supposed to be finished before our trip it seemed to be a risk that we didn’t want to take.

Now that we knew how much money we were spending on the Disney part of the trip we turned our attention to accommodation for the rest of the trip. We decided that we did like the idea of spending a few nights in one off the universal hotels which give FOLPs and that we would do this for 3 nights at the end of the trip.

As we only then had 6 nights in-between Disney and Universal, and we might spent at least one of those at my sister’s house we decided to just book a Rosen Inn and after reading lots of trip reports the Rosen Inn at Points seemed to be a fairly safe bet.

We also decided that we would make use of the Disney transportation system, including the Magical Express and we therefore only really needed a hire car once we left Disney. Most of the time it would likely sit unused while on-site at Disney if we collected it from the airport on arrival and if we do need to get somewhere off site or between places quickly we will just use Uber. This will work out cheaper than a hire car.

We decided not to book anything else until we had our flights arranged. We were expecting to book indirect flights, most likely Edinburgh or Glasgow to Orlando via Gatwick with BA but we were open to other ideas or flying direct from Manchester if we saw a good deal.

We had a figure of £600 each in our rough budget for flights and direct flights from Glasgow and Manchester had been sitting at around £800 each.

A week or so after booking the Disney hotel I noticed that the Thomas Cook flights which were available for our dates from Glasgow had dropped in price and were coming in at just over £700 per head. I spoke to DH and even though it was a bit more that what we had budgeted it was worth going into a Thomas Cook store to see if there was any scope to book them cheaper than that.

The short answer was no, the airline part of the business is separate from the travel agent part of the business and the travel agents cannot do anything to bring the price of the flights down. The travel agent did ask if there was anything we still needed to book as part of the trip (we had explained we had already booked the Disney hotel directly with them).

We listed that as well as flights we needed 9 days car hire (intermediate SUV), collect from Disney and drop off at the airport, 6 nights at Rosen inn at Points and 3 nights at either HRH or RPR. The travel agent had to phone a central part of Thomas Cook as we weren’t looking for a standard package. After lots of too-ing and fro-ing between the call centre and the travel agent and the travel agents and the branch manager we ended up with a price of £3999 for what we had asked for. RPR rather than HRH as that was slightly cheaper, and also go seat reservations on the plane included as RPR is classed as a signature hotel for which seat reservations are included. We had £4000 in or rough budget for all of the above but that was based on in-direct flights so we signed on the dotted line and booked.
All of this was on 29th April so only 10 days after we booked the Disney hotel.




428 days until the holiday!

That left us with all of the key parts of our tip booked and only universal tickets, Seaworld/Busch Gardens/Aquatica tickets and Kennedy tickets as big outlays left to book.
On the 19th July I put down a £30 deposit for universal and Seaworld choice tickets which came to a total of £954, the balance due 8 weeks before our travel date.

Our next booking was the cattery for our fur babies Thor and Logan.




We have then booked into the cattery that we always use from the morning of Sunday 30th June (the day we fly) until the afternoon of Tuesday 23rd July (the day we get back). This is a cost of £299.

This is one of the only two aspects of the holiday I am not keen on. It has to be done but we haven’t had them in the cattery for any longer than 15 nights before and this is a booking for 23 nights. They are both outdoor cats and we have a cat flap so they can come and go as they please so it does always make me feel bad that they are restricted to a small space while in the cattery.

Next up was a booking for a hotel the night before we fly. We booked this at the end of August 2018 and have gone for the Premier Inn at Braehead. This cost £31. We fly at 10.30 in the morning and live around 1 ½ to 1 ¾ hours drive from Glasgow airport so the choice was stay the night before or leave the house at around 5am which would have meant getting up at 4am at the latest. I like the idea of having the house properly clean before we go, bedding washed and beds made up again and no dirty washing left behind and so stay the night before won the day. The Premier Inn we have booked is only a few miles from the airport and there are a couple of routes from it to the airport. It was around £10 cheaper than the onsite airport premier inn and there are a few food options close by so we went for it instead of the airport one.

The next booking made was during black Friday sales and was for a 5 day universal photo package. This cost $59 so around £50.

Next up was our ADRs which I will cover below.

I booked our airport parking at the beginning of March this year. Normally we book on-site airport parking but as this trip is longer that normal, and I got a discount code we have opted for offsite parking this time. This was £57.

I applied for our ESTAs at the beginning of March too. I needed to get a new passport for DS and finally got round to sorting that out in February. The ETAs were approved when I checked back a couple of hours after making the application and cost $42 altogether.

I booked our tickets for Kennedy at the beginning of March through Attractions Ticket Direct. These were £101. These are the only tickets for which DS (11) is classed as a child.

Somewhere around March time I also booked the Magic Express for when we arrive in Orlando too.

We have also booked a few extras at Disney and Universal but I will pick up on those below too and include them in a summary of costs below.
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Old 28 Apr 19, 09:54 PM  
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DollyDimples
Thread Starter
Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Jul 16
Location: Fife
Itinerary and ARDs – Disney

I have read lots of trip reports and dining reports here on The Dibb. I have joined quite a few FB groups and watched the odd YouTube video so I had a fairly good idea. DH and DS did none of that.

We had quite a few family discussions about what type of meals we wanted to do. Whether we wanted to try to stick to the dining credits we would have included in out package or pay out of packet for a few things and most importantly what whether we wanted the choice of places we wanted to eat to dictate our itinerary or vice versa. The decision was made, mostly by DH, who tends to go with the low and accept what I think unless he feels strongly against it, that time in the parks was the most important thing and where we ate on the whole came second and should fit in around that.

We knew we wanted to plan early starts over the first part of the Disney stay and later starts over the second half of the stay and where possible we wanted to make use of EMH on our first visits to each park and if we ended up being there for EEH on a second visit that was a bonus but vital.

We also knew that we wanted at least one visit to each of the two Disney waterparks, two days at Epcot, two days at Animal Kingdom, a day and a half at Hollywood Studios and 3 days at Magic Kingdom. That takes us up to 11 days in our 12 night stay.

There were a few ADRs which we decided we were keen to secure because of the added benefits that go with them and a few more that we decided to do for the experience. By the time we had got to serious ADR planning we had already started to consider when we might next do a trip to Orlando and as I mentioned before this trip is a bit of a blow out for us so we know that staying onsite with the DDP, free or otherwise, for as long as 12 nights is highly unlikely to happen again so a few choices have been made with that in mind.

Something else we had to consider was that we are on-site at Disney on 4th July. I was very keen to not go into any parks on the 4th July. DH and DS have other ideas. When planning our itinerary and ADRs we were pretty sure that any future trips would be in October when DH and DS have a two week school holiday. They are both of the opinion that we should embrace the crazy to an evening in Magic Kingdom on 4th July is planned (I know it is crazy but I have been out voted!)

Since making our ADRs we have also booked a few extras and I have included these below and will include to costs in a summary at the end.

Day 0 - Pre-Travel Day (Sunday 30th June)
Overnight at Premier Inn Braehead

Day 1 - Travel Day (Mon 1st July)
Fly Glasgow to Orlando (depart 10:35, arrive 14:35),
Magical Express to POFQ,
Quick Service at POFQ or Disney Springs.

Day 2 (Tue 2nd July)
8:05 Garden Grill (pre-park opening),
Morning and early afternoon at EPCOT,
Late afternoon/evening POFQ and/or Disney Springs.
QS dinner at either.

Day 3 (Wed 3rd July)
7:30 Toy Story EMM at Hollywood Studios (breakfast included at ABC, eat after 9am park opening)
15:00 Late Lunch Mama Melrose Fantasmic Package
21:00 Fantasmic
Note: Toy Story EMM is a fairly recent addition. We will see how the day goes and may go back to the hotel for a while late afternoon before returning for Fantasmic.

Day 4 (Thur 4th July) – INDEPENDENCE DAY
QS/snack breakfast at POFQ
10:00 Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon to do slides
Late afternoon Magic Kingdom
17:00 Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern
21:15 (?) 4th July Fireworks

Day 5 (Fri 5th July)
EMH at Magic Kingdom, stay until late afternoon
10:00 Breakfast at Crystal Palace
17:30 Diner at Art Smith’s Homecomin’

Day 6 (Sat 6th July)
EMH at Animal Kingdom, stay until late afternoon
Snack for breakfast
13:00 Lunch at Yak and Yeti
QS dinner at AK, POFQ or DS

Day 7 (Sun 7th July)
Long Lie/Pool time at POFQ
Snack/QS breakfast at POFQ
Afternoon/Evening at Magic Kingdom
13:15 Tony’s Town Square Parade Package
15:00 Parade
20:15 After Fireworks Plaza Garden Dessert Party
21:15 HEA then desserts

Day 8 (Mon 8th July)
Snack/QS breakfast at POFQ
10:00 Typhoon Lagoon
Late afternoon/Evening at Hollywood Studios
16:30 ABC Commissary (we might cancel this if we see a better option on our first visit)
20:00 Star Wars Dessert Party

Day 9 (Tue 9th July)
Long lie
Snack/QS breakfast at POFQ
Epcot from 11am ish to evening, World Showcase
18:00 San Angel Inn
21:00 IllumiNations

Day 10 (Wed 10th July) – Long lie
Snack/QS breakfast at POFQ
Afternoon/Evening Animal Kingdom
18:00 Tusker House ROL package
21:00 Rivers of Light

Day 11 (Thur 11th July)
Probably Typhoon Lagoon/Crazy Golf/Pool day
Currently have two ADRs for dinner not sure which we will keep, if either:
16:00 Paradiso 37 (through Disney)
19:00 Boathouse (through Open Table)

Day 12 (Fri 12th July) – 16th Wedding Anniversary
EMH at Magic Kingdom, stay all day
10:15 Breakfast at BOG
17:35 Dinner at CRT
Possibly stay for HEA

Day 13 (Sat 13th July)
May book some fastpasses for this morning
Collect Hire Car from DCCC at 13:00
Check out or POFQ
Check in to Rosen Inn at Pointe

I am writing this up 64 days before our arrival date at Disney so a few days before our fastpass booking day so will follow this up with the fastpasses we book and if we make any changes to our ADRs as a result.
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Old 28 Apr 19, 10:01 PM  
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DollyDimples
Thread Starter
Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Jul 16
Location: Fife
Itinerary and ARDs – The Rest of The Trip

After we leave Disney our itinerary is much looser (deliberately so) and the plan is to stick to this rough plan but we may change things round depending on the weather. We also only have one meal booked for this part of the trip.

We (or mostly I if I am honest) have a list of the following breakfast places to try – Ihop, Dennys, Keke’s, First Watch, Cracker Barrel and will read up on a few more places before we go.

I have also got Miller’s Ale House, Joes Crab Shack, Longhorn Steakhouse, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and Maggiano’s on my list of potential places to eat dinner while staying on I Drive.

I think for while we are at Universal we will mostly just wing it and eat on site, mostly on citywalk.

Here is how our itinerary is looking at present:

Day 13 (Sat 13th July)
Check in to Rosen Inn at Pointe
We have a few ideas for this evening which include going to universal, going to SeaWorld and shopping. We are just going to see how we all feel on the day.
Dinner will be dictated by where we end up.

Day 14 (Sun 14th July)
Breakfast on I-Drive
Kennedy Space Centre
Dinner on I-Drive

Day 15 (Mon 15th July)
Breakfast on I-Drive
Aquatica Morning/Early afternoon
Evening Seaworld/Universal/Shopping
Dinner will depend where we end up.

Day 16 (Tue 16th July)
Breakfast on I-Drive
Busch Gardens all day

Day 17 (Wed 17th July)
Breakfast on I-Drive
SeaWorld all day

Day 18 (Thur 18th July)
Volcano Bay Morning/early afternoon
Universal in the evening

Day 19 (Fri 19th July)
Check out of Rosen Inn
Early Check Inn at Royal Pacific
All day US/IoA

Day 20 (Sat 20th July)
All day US/IoA

Day 21 (Sun 21st July)
Morning/Early afternoon at Volcano Bay
Afternoon US/IoA
17:00 Marvel Character Dinner
19:00 Blue Man Group

Day 22 (Mon 22nd July)
Morning is US/IoA to do favourite rides
Check out of RPR
12:00 Lunch
Travel to airport and return hire car
17:35 Fly home from Orland to Glasgow

Day 23 (Tue 23rd July)
06:00 Due to land
Collect the cats
Start the holiday washing!
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Old 28 Apr 19, 10:03 PM  
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DollyDimples
Thread Starter
Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Jul 16
Location: Fife
Spending Money

We have sorted ourselves out with a Revolut card and we are also going to take a credit card with us for back up. We will probably leave the credit card linked to our room at Disney and clear the balance off with our revolut card every 3 or 4 days.

We also have around $400 dollars in cash that we have been given for Birthday/Christmas by family since we booked. Not sure yet if we will bother with any more cash than that.

We have also sorted out a post office travel card which is in my name but has DS money on it. He had around £480 so we have changed half to dollars and left the rest as pounds at the moment. He is usually pretty good at managing what he spends when he is paying himself (doesn’t care quite so much is mum and dad are paying!)

Summary of costs

12 nights POFQ, 21 nights Disney tickets, upgrade to DDP - £4557
Direct Flights, 9 days Intermediate SUV car hire with insurances, 6 nights Rosen Inn at Point, 3 nights Royal Pacific Resort - £3999
Universal 3 park and 14 day and Seaworld/Busch Garden/Aquatica 14 day tickets - £954
Cattery £299
Pre-travel night hotel - £31
Universal photopass - £50
Airport Parking - £57
Kennedy Space Station Tickets - £101
ESTAs – ($42) £35
Universal Marvel Character Meal – ($49 each) - £125
Blue Man Group Tickets – £123
Happily Ever After Plaza Garden after firework dessert party – ($59 each I think) - £147.50
Star Wars Dessert Party – ($79 each I think) - £197.50
Toy Story Early Morning Magic – ($79 each) - £197.50

Total to date - £10,873.50

Still to pay for – Tips and other spending at Disney, all food and drink on days 13 to 23, fuel and road tolls, parking at universal, possibly express passes at Busch Gardens, possibly preferred seating or equivalent for 1 day at Disney waterpark, 1 day at Aquatica and 1 day at Volcano Bay. Any shopping we do.

What Next

Keeping my fingers crossed that Fast Pass booking goes to plan on Thursday and we can get everything we want.

And if you have managed to make it to this point well done, It is long!

I am not sure what type of actual trip report I will end up doing. I will definitely come back after our trip and do a highs/lows what we got right/what we go wrong type of thing but not sure about anything in any more detail…time will tell!
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Old 1 May 19, 10:54 PM  
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Michyloulou
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Wow, what an absolutely epic trip you’ve planned! I’d love to go for a longer duration (2 weeks just isn’t long enough in Orlando anymore is it?). We absolutely loved RPR & the FOLP - I’ll definitely do this again when we go (not for a few years sadly). I can’t wait for your trip report!
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Old 2 May 19, 06:14 AM  
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Mortie
Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Feb 15
Good luck getting FP today hope you get everything you want
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Old 2 May 19, 08:37 AM  
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DollyDimples
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Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Jul 16
Location: Fife
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Originally Posted by Michyloulou View Post
Wow, what an absolutely epic trip you’ve planned! I’d love to go for a longer duration (2 weeks just isn’t long enough in Orlando anymore is it?). We absolutely loved RPR & the FOLP - I’ll definitely do this again when we go (not for a few years sadly). I can’t wait for your trip report!
Thank you. We are all very excited! Fast pass booking day so fingers crossed we get everything on our list.
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