The Land, Sea and Wedding Trip - October 2015 Pre-Trip *Updated 26th Sept - 2 Weeks To Go Update*

[DiddyDan]

That breakdown of the cost makes OKW sound like a bargain!

Can't wait for the next update! x

[Guest]

All caught up on your plans Lisa. As others have said, the girls look so different already, it's quite scary how quickly they grow up isn't it? Congratulations to Michelle and Jamie on their new arrival.

What an amazing trip you have in store. I know it wasn't the original intention, but I really think you'll all enjoy the 4 night cruise even more as (as much as we loved it) the 3 nights went by in a bit of a blur! The extra night should hopefully give you some time to relax and make use of some of the (many) facilities on board. There's enough of you going that you might even be able to sneak off to the adults only section for a bit? You are all going to love Castaway Cay, it's probably one of the best days we've ever spent together as a family.

Looking forward to reading more as your countdown ticks by.

[Lisa29]

Originally Posted by DiddyDan

That breakdown of the cost makes OKW sound like a bargain!

Can't wait for the next update! x

See more...

It is when it is split between 3, I wouldn't like to pay for a two bed just us!

I have some updates written up already, think I might post a couple tonight. xx

Originally Posted by TheBeast

All caught up on your plans Lisa. As others have said, the girls look so different already, it's quite scary how quickly they grow up isn't it? Congratulations to Michelle and Jamie on their new arrival.

What an amazing trip you have in store. I know it wasn't the original intention, but I really think you'll all enjoy the 4 night cruise even more as (as much as we loved it) the 3 nights went by in a bit of a blur! The extra night should hopefully give you some time to relax and make use of some of the (many) facilities on board. There's enough of you going that you might even be able to sneak off to the adults only section for a bit? You are all going to love Castaway Cay, it's probably one of the best days we've ever spent together as a family.

Looking forward to reading more as your countdown ticks by.

See more...

I know, the time just goes so fast. Thank you for the congrats. Saxon is lovely and is already nearly 10 weeks old now and getting very big!

We are so excited about the whole trip but we are all mostly excited about the cruise. Phil doesn't think the kids will want to go in the kids clubs but I think they will and that is when I hope to at least have a wander in the adult only areas.

I am ridiculously excited about Castaway Cay!

Hoping to have some more updates later today.

[Lisa29]

Flights

I think that researching and booking flights is the most stressful part of a DIY holiday. My budget for flights was £2600 for the 4 of us and I really didn't want/couldn't stretch to much more than that. I asked for opinions on the dibb and was rather concerned when some responses said I had under estimated how much the flights would be as our fly home date was the end of the rest of the UK's half-term (ours is the week before).

We (mostly Dan! ) were obsessively checking flight prices and fly drive prices for weeks and weeks. Virgin fly drive prices were obviously available first but the prices were absolutely crazy, coming out at over £4300 for our family of 4! No way on earth we were paying anywhere near this amount! Then, fly drive prices for our dates were no longer available and we started to get a bit concerned.

We looked at BA as they came out before Virgin and they were still really expensive, over £800 each, though with a fairly good £100ish discount on the kids price. I saw a thread on the dibb about their fly drive prices being good so looked at them but they were still coming out at a lot more than I wanted to pay. We also all really wanted to go from Manchester which did kind of rule out BA as they just go from Gatwick.

We checked Thomas Cook and I could get flights for 8p under my budget, but that was flying to Miami. Mum and Dad flew to Miami this year and said they didn't want to do that again.

We decided to wait it out for Virgin to release theirs and had our fingers crossed that they would not be too expensive and also have some miles and money fares available.

Finally, our return flight was released and it was a price I was more than happy to pay. I was logged into flying club and selected the outbound flight and then the inbound flight and just kept getting a message come up saying that fare was no longer available! I tried and tried and tried and the same price kept coming up but would not go through. I called Virgin and they told me that it may be that they were still loading the fares and that was why I couldn't book.

(As a side note, I had mentioned earlier in my report that if the price was the same I wanted to fly out on the Saturday but they were coming up at £40 pp more so I gave up on this idea! )

I kept checking all day but the cheap price had gone up to over £500 for the inbound flight alone so we all had to wait it out until the next day.

The next day, I was up early , went onto the Virgin site, logged into flying club and put my dates in, 2 adults and 2 children, selected the miles and money option and clicked on find my flight. The outbound flights were the same price so I selected them and the inbound price was the same as the previous morning so I selected them and clicked on Next Step……….to get the same message saying fare no longer available! The page reloaded and the outbound price had gone up a bit, still at a good price, so I clicked that and it went through to the next page, hooray!

Of course, I then had another problem….my iPad froze on me, grr! :angry: I rushed downstairs, panicking that the price was going to go up, and turned the computer on and quickly completed the same process. Thankfully, the prices were still the same and after double, triple checking and making Phil check I had entered the correct details, I was finally able to part with my money and book my flights, YAY!



Phil sent a whattsapp letting everyone know



And I was so happy that we finally had the flights we wanted booked!



For anyone interested, the breakdown of our flights is as follows:

HOW MUCH

2 Adults:# GBP 324.00 each
2 Children:# GBP 194.00 each
Taxes, fees, charges and Carrier imposed surcharges: GBP 1,357.92
Credit card fee GBP 35.90
Total: miles 8000 +#
GBP 2,429.82

This worked out as £663.48 per adult and £533.48 per child, so a bit steep for the adults but a good saving of £130 each for the kids compared to the adult price.

Below is the breakdown of the surcharges added per person:

Taxes/Fees/Charges/Carrier Imposed Surcharges YQ213.00#GB71.00#XT55.48#

As there has now been the ruling about scrapping the APD for children, I am waiting to find out what I need to do to get the £71 each for Madison and Kaley refunded bringing the cost down even more to £2253.92, excluding credit card charge, wahoo!

Within an hour or so, everyone else had booked their flights with the exception of the Wedding couple! They are flying back two days later than us so had to wait another two days to be able to book which Dan was not happy about! (Edit, they have now booked their flights. )

I know you shouldn't check the prices after you book but I have been back on the VA website and when searching with our requirements, this is what shows up:

Sorry - there are no flights on Friday 30 October 2015
The closest date we fly on is#Saturday 31 October 2015
You can see available dates below, or#search for different dates.

, I am so happy we booked when we did! The flights on the Saturday also only have PE available!

Of course, with the flights being under budget, we had to decide whether to pay to pre-book our seats or not………..!

Sorry for such a long, rambling post!

[juliab]

So glad you've got your flights booked Lisa, I know how stressful it is looking for them and it's such a good feeling when they are finally booked xx

[Lisa29]

Originally Posted by juliab

So glad you've got your flights booked Lisa, I know how stressful it is looking for them and it's such a good feeling when they are finally booked xx

See more...

Thanks. I had been so worried that the price on the Friday would be too expensive and that we would have to cancel the cruise so I am extremely happy that they are now booked! xx

[Lisa29]

Pre-Booking Seats

With flights now booked, the next decision was whether to pre-book our seats or not.

I mentioned to Phil that you now either waited until online check in to choose your seats, and risk being separated, or pay £25 per person per seat to choose your seats in advance.

He said that he would rather pay to choose our seats so we knew we were sitting together and that as the flights were under budget, we could choose our seats and still be within budget. He said he would leave it up to me to decide. (This was also before the APD ruling and before we knew we would be getting some money back.)

We flew on the airbus last time



But this time would be back on a 747



(Photos from google)

This meant that we had the option of choosing seats in the famous Bubble if we wanted to! I logged in to my booking and saw that most of the bubble was still available including both 'Dibbers Row' seats on rows 79 and 80.

Now I will admit, I have seen so many threads about this and never got why so many people wanted these seats but when I saw them available, all of a sudden I really wanted them! Even though it meant we would sit as a 3 and 1 rather than a 4 in the middle, I just wanted those row 79 or 80 seats!

My Mum, Dan, Madison, Kaley and I were going to Meadowhall for the day to do some Christmas shopping so I left choosing there and then and got ready to go out and woke the girls to get ready.

As discreetly as we could in the car, and while Madison and Kaley were occupied with their Kindles, we were talking about our flights and whether to book the seats. Mum thought it would be good if we did all choose our seats and all got to sit together in the Bubble.

I logged in again and row 79 on the left had been taken. I texted Phil to see what he thought and he said to go with whatever I wanted so I booked Madison, Kaley and I row 80 and the aisle seat on row 79 for Phil



£100 for the privilege of being guaranteed (hopefully) to sit together, to have no one behind us to recline if we want, have less people in the cabin and be one of the first off the plane ended up being too good an opportunity to miss.

We then booked Mum and Dad two of the exit row seats at £35 each and Dave booked his parents and brother the other three exit row seats. Not long after, Bethany booked theirs on row 78 in front of Phil.

Two days later when Dan booked her flights, she was able to book the two seats next to Phil on row 79 on the outbound flight.

We were at Mum's the next day and were talking about whether to book seats on the return journey. I was thinking that a row of 4 would be better for us so that the girls could lie across us to hopefully sleep. We looked at the seat map and most of the seats in the Bubble were still available and we got to thinking that those seats may be better as there would be less people and hopefully less noise.

Dave had already booked the exit row seats again for his parents and brother and Mum booked her and Dad two of the other exit row seats. She then suggested that rather than going with row 80 again, we book Phil the exit row seat next to them and us the row behind, as most people would be reclining anyway and there would be no desire to rush off the plane. So that is what we did



£110 this time as the exit row seat is £35. Ryan, Bethany and Piper booked the row behind us.

So for us, a total of £210 to choose our seats on both journeys, which excluding the credit card charge, still keeps the cost under the £2600 I had estimated for flights.

[gartland87]

Yay you've got them booked! I believe you will be coming home on the plane we arrive on hehe, we've also booked this week and have managed to reserve seats in the bubble on row 79

[DiddyDan]

Yay! I'm so glad we can finally say we are going! So exciting that we are all in the bubble too

[dolphinlou]

Booking flights is so exciting isn't it, it all becomes real to me when you have a definite way of getting there