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Old 28 Jun 21, 03:41 PM  
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Mrstenberge
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Join Date: May 14
Into the Unknown-May/September 2022

Hi all!

Here we go again…I’m so happy to be writing another pre-trippie

My last trip report was my 40th birthday 3 years early, now it’s 3 years later and I’m actually going to be 40…what better way to celebrate than at Walt Disney World!?!



We are a party of 2, me (Kelly) and Mum (Maxine). I will turn 40 during our visit, Mum will be 65 later in the year. I do most of the planning and present Mum with a spreadsheet before we leave, I have learnt my lesson from our very first trip and now give her rest times interspersed with the regiment. Mum was about to retire before our last trip and was looking forward to enjoying some nicer relaxing beach holidays before we embarked on another Disney trip, but alas…

If you’ve read our previous trip reports you will know that every single time, Mum says ‘last time, I mean it’ and, I believe, at the time, she really does mean it, she invariably changes her mind when ‘The World’ has drawn her in! it’s never that she doesn’t enjoy our trips or that she really doesn’t want to go, she does, she just worries that she’ll slow me down as she gets older, we’re all getting older Mum!

I was struggling to think of a title until an adhoc conversation on Saturday afternoon. Mum said she was apprehensive about the trip, naturally I panicked and asked what she was apprehensive about. ‘Just the unknown’ she says…enter Kelly with a ‘rousing’ rendition of ‘Into the Unknown’ and so we had a title for our trippie!

Ooh I’ve waffled a lot, apologies, onto the actual plans…like everyone else, the C word has meant that what we originally envisioned for this trip has evolved into something else, but hopefully something bigger and better.

So, rumours were swirling re a 50th Anniversary offer for 2022, this prompted many a conversation between ourselves, WDW Holidays and Virgin Holidays.



To begin with, the plan was 3 weeks at Animal Kingdom Lodge (dreams) with a mid-holiday 2-night stay at Hard Rock Hotel so we could include all the excitement of Universal Orlando (this is our last ever trip remember!)

Once the offer was released, this was looking unlikely for 2 reasons, the Disney offer applied for a stay up to 2 weeks, could we sacrifice 3 days in the Disney bubble to go to Universal? Would it be worth it? And secondly, and more importantly, AKL was closed to bookings

AKL being closed prompted me to price up various other WDW hotel options, more or less settling on Coronado Springs, but we also wanted the option to move this to AKL if it later became available. After phoning both Disney and Virgin, it looked like the best option would be to book with Disney as they were offering free amendments whereas Virgin were charging £50 per person. Although I will say the last call I had with WDW Holidays gave me a clear indication of what was to come 4 days later 😉

Because we wanted to book a package (to be on the safe side) we needed to wait for Virgin Atlantic to release flights to Disney, so for the time being, this was on the back burner.

Meanwhile, what were we going to do about the Universal issue? Well, way back in 2017, when Mum was turning 60, she decided she wanted to do 8 nights at Hard Rock Hotel in addition to our 17-night Disney trip…guess what!?! 8 nights at HRH in September 2022 booked!



16th June comes around and what do you know, AKL was indeed released for 2022 bookings. Virgin Atlantic had still not released flights for bookings through WDW Holidays, so, in a decision I would come to regret (when it became clear that it would have been cheaper to book with Disney), we booked it.



If you’re still with me, this is the plan…

May 2022 (when I turn 40)- 14 nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge with $200 gift card and $950 dining credit.
September 2022 (when Mum turns 65)- 8 nights at Hard Rock hotel Universal.

This new dining credit thing has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works with regards to trying new restaurants (it’s very easy to get used to DDP) but there are some definites that we’ve done before but love, these are Yak & Yeti, Garden Grill, Akershus, Hollywood & Vine, Grand Floridian Café, Be Our Guest Breakfast, Jiko, Boma and the epic California Grill Brunch. That dining credit has disappeared in the blink of an eye!





All our park days are booked, so I’ll be able to start my spreadsheet soon, but what will happen regarding rides is a mystery…fingers crossed we get to ride all our favourites at least once.

We’ve booked the hotel and parking (thanks to Charlangela) and the plane seats are booked, no bubble either, times are changing.

Universal plans are pretty basic at the moment, the only thing we know for definite is that we want to eat at Bubba Gump’s, Margaritaville and the epic Toothsome. We haven’t booked parking for this yet (too spendy at the moment) and the seats are not released until later. There is a possibility that we’ll do a night at Mickey’s Not So Scary, if it’s back to get a Disney fix, but that’s about it.

Thanks for reading 😊


Edited at 07:42 PM.
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Old 2 Jul 21, 09:16 PM  
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katebush95
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Wow twice in one year that's amazing! And at two such lovely hotels as well 😍 Looking forward to reading along with your planning x
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Back to the magic take two! November 2022 Pre-Trip report
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Old 6 Jul 21, 12:40 PM  
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pinkandfluffy
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Looking forward to seeing how things unfold. I’m going with a friend in Sept 22 - we have booked 2 nights at the HRH in the middle of our ‘budget’ trip
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