Trip Report - Day 1 - Last minute holiday

[dave7819]

Trip Report - Day 1 Saturday 15th June - Last minute holiday

I am new to the dibb forum and thought I would share these reports that I shared on trip advisor, I'm just starting week 2 out here in Orlando.

Background info: me (34) and wife (35) with no kids, I have been to Orlando many times, mainly≈ when I was a child but have been about 5 times as an adult.
I took my wife when we had not long been dating for her 1st visit back in January 2012 and that was also the last time we done the Disney parks, we then visited Orlando in March 2014 and again in October 2014 both visits touring Florida East and West coasts, doing no parks.
I've always visited during the winter and have done every month from October to March, with October and January being my favourites.
I've stayed in a mixture of villas off the 192, to hotels on I-drive, they both have there positives and negatives and whichever we chose we still get a hire car for flexibility.
Since those holidays we have been traveling Europe and doing cruises, Florida was always brought up in conversations of it being a special place but we hadn't talked about revisiting it.

That was until a couple of weeks ago, it was Monday 10th June and we both had some time off work and we had plans to have some days out close to home and spend time in the UK, and my Mrs out the blue asks if I want to go to Florida this weekend?! After questioning her asking if she was feeling ok she said yeah why not?! So off we went to the travel agents to see if there was anything available, Thomas Cook had a flight that Saturday from Manchester and to my surprise they had 2 seats free in the extra legroom row, bonus for me as I'm 6'5.
ESTAS where still in date from our Caribbean cruise from Miami in January and we got a hotel on I-drive, the avanti palms.
We bought the 14 day ultimate Disney ticket and I eventually got a Disney reference code emailed to me on the Wednesday to be able to link the tickets to the mde app and make fast passes (yes 3 days before travel) lol.
I bought car hire via trip wheels with Alamo, got insurance and was good to go.
So with regards to the fast passes I really didn't have high hopes of getting what we wanted, but we did pretty much, we're both not early risers when on holiday so we planned to arrive in parks at mid day and have 2 days in each park.
We managed FP's for all the main rides apart from Avatar Flight of Passage, which we did do via the standby queue which will be covered in another TR, so last minute planning worked a treat for us on this visit.

We stayed the night before the flight at the Britannia Country House Hotel as it was cheap and could leave the car there, it served its purpose but was a dump, we wouldn't stay there again.

The flight was fine, couldn't fault it and the extra leg room was worth the £45 each, we were the front row in economy so was also let off first once premium got off.

Arrived into MCO around 3:15 pm and was on the road about 4:30 after picking up hire car, arrived at the hotel with no problems but was feeling quite tired, we had a short walk down to Denny's just to get something quick and headed back to get showered and had an early night.

Tips - although I'm fairly confident getting my way around Orlando I downloaded the map of Florida on Google maps to enable me to use my phone as a sat nav without it having to be connected to the internet, I just brought with me my car phone holder and it's nice to have that backup incase I'm unsure.

I'm almost a week into my holiday as I write this and I can honestly say June has been difficult weather to be in but it has been quite doable and although it's very hot if you plan your days it is enjoyable and fun, we find the ride lines are much quieter later in the day as people struggle with the heat especially kids and head out of the parks early, we like to get to the parks after lunch and stay until closing, if you are traveling without kids it might be an option.

[Jules32]

ha ha love the spontaneity this is something I would do

[mick]

Good travel day

[Palm trees]

That's a spontaneous trip! It's interesting to hear that you could get all your fast passes at such short notice. I'm looking forward to reading more

[flo-tinka]

Have a great time👍

[belfastbabe]

Sounds like a great last minute trip Dave- enjoy your second week

[walt4it]

I would love to just have the opportunity to book it, pack and jet off

Sounds a great start and hope you have a great time

Flight of Passage is also a good one for park opening - much shorter queue time first thing in the morning

Enjoy your second week

[OB1LukeLucas]

I love a spontaneous trip, I look forward to reading along.