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Old 8 Oct 19, 10:48 AM  
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MrsH070707
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cyclops Schools out, Ghouls out – Halloween Tour 2019

Ahoy, fellow Dibbers! Here we are about to set out on another Florida adventure which will undoubtedly be, as countless others have, packed to the rafters with amusing moments, cherished memories, a few surprises and an empty bank account!

Back in June last year, a mere 5 months after our most recent Florida fix, the Mister and I were shooting the breeze about all things Orlando and hatched upon a plan for our next jaunt to the sunshine state. We, ourselves, have been lucky enough to visit Florida 7 times in the last 18 years (the kids, currently 6 & 8, have been twice) and have seen it in all its glory from springtime and the height of Summer, through Halloween and at Christmas and New Year, all wonderful in their own unique way. That said, we’ve only done Halloween once and that was in 2008 for our honeymoon, where just the two of us indulged in luxury eats, cocktails, rollercoasters, shopping and several nights of running around Halloween Horror Nights getting scared out of our wits – oh, those heady-days of pre-kid freedom, eh?

So, we felt it was high time we head back to enjoy Halloween as a family affair and, in the spirit of Disney magic (and maybe to avoid an hourly countdown from day 500), we have still not revealed to the children that we are going to our favourite place in a little over 2 weeks time. As Doctor Strange would put it, “We’re in the End Game now” and destined to spend our evenings secretly packing and hiding all evidence of our impending trip until the morning on which we leave.

As we have done so many times before, we are staying in a villa in Kissimmee (Indian Creek, to be precise) – the villa life is definitely for me for a number of reasons – whilst we do venture out for the standard gut-busting 2-course breakfast a few times whilst we’re away, I find cereal and toast around the kitchen table works best for the kids and helps get our day started right. We love the space in a villa – having multiple bathrooms (especially a toilet assigned for, ahem,"laying cable" ), private pool; DH and I tend to hang out with a beer or two on the pool Lanai in the evenings once the kiddos have gone to bed, safe in the knowledge they are just indoors. Also, honestly (as sad as this sounds) I love the amazing washing and drying machines – I have managed to return to the UK with fully washed cases on the last 2 trips and it actually makes the world of difference. We have stayed in many different villa areas all with their own pro’s and con’s; we like Indian Creek because, despite being slightly older and not gated, it really it so close to Disney and 192 and its quite quiet as it is fairly residential.

We are, however, doing a couple of overnight stays onsite for this trip which will definitely be a new experience for us – we are staying 1 night at Art of Animation in the first week and 1 night at the Hard Rock hotel in the second week. There was a couple of reasons behind this – the main ones being that we wanted to take advantage of Extra Early Magic Hours at Hollywood Studios (for Toy Story Land and Galaxy’s Edge) and Unlimited Express Passes at Universal and IOA, especially as we are in the peak of Halloween season.

Over the years we have done no planning and over-planning and have finally settled into a decent groove in terms of knowing how much is too much – I like to have an idea of what we are doing/planning to do each day so I can do a bit of budgeting and make sure we know where we’re going but Im definitely a ‘enjoy-the-moment’ type of person and if we miss a Fastpass or decide to ditch a park over villa pool time, you won’t find me quietly rocking in a corner, muttering the word ‘itinerary’ over and over. As ever, with the littles, pace is important and being hustled from one ride to another when you are 6 just won’t cut it so the key for us is a nice steady pace and stopping the smell the proverbial roses. The other nice thing about having been a few times is you start to seek out the little “gems” that you sometimes don’t notice, know about or spend any time on first time round… like Cinderella’s fountain or Pirates of the Caribbean scavenger hunt or making borderline jokes with the talking fountain at Islands of Adventure…

So that’s it. As of today we are T-Minus 17 days and counting…time to spend the next 2-and-a-bit weeks checking the weather at least every 30 minutes, sucking my stomach in to see which shorts still fit, seeing if I can predict perfect timing for Hagrids and Smugglers Run, hoping and praying the ≈≈≈≈≈ doesn’t fall out of the Łto$ rate for my last bit of spending money and, oh yeah, spending hours on the Dibb!
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August 2023 - back to the magic ✨🏰

Edited at 03:03 PM.
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Old 8 Oct 19, 11:36 AM  
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vampiress88
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Sounds good.

Completely agree with you about everything you said about the villa. Only done villa once but it’s gonna be villa everytime now for us.

Good luck keeping the lid on it
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Old 23 Oct 19, 08:03 AM  
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MrsH070707
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It was 4 degrees and pitch dark when I left the house for work this morning... roll on 48 hours, I need me some vitamin D!
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Old 24 Oct 19, 07:12 AM  
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Elsa42
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Great read! Look forward to your trip report! We’ve got our first villa stay next year so look forward to reading about your time there! Also all you get up to over Halloween as it’s the time of year we will be going
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