While Shepherds watch their flocks by night - we’ll go to Florida!

[Pussycat Doll]

Sooooo, here we are again, planning our Christmas trip. Only 12 weeks tomorrow till we go to the airport!

I guess it was around mid February we started looking for flights to Florida. It appears we (I) have let one of our repeat guests book the villa over Christmas so we (I) have decided that we’ll go to Naples for a week first this year till the Villa is available.

Bearing that in mind I started looking for flights to Miami rather than Orlando as it’s much nearer. Virgin Upper Class was coming out at £3000 each... erm nope! As much as I’m not a huge fan of BA I had a look at their website and Club World Fly Drive was coming out at £1700 each, that’s a bit more like it so the button was pressed and the flight booked. The balance isn’t due till November 20th for some reason. I am absolutely not booking seats this time, last time it cost me about £376 to book seats both ways, 😳 this time we’ll take our chances thank you very much and if we’re not sitting together, then so be it!

So far there is plenty of seats available!

We’ve gone for an Intermediate sized car which should be plenty big enough. Last time we flew into Miami we were given a mustang at no extra cost!

So the plan is, we travel to Heathrow, (makes a nice change as it’s not such a long drag back home afterwards) on Christmas Eve after I finish work. We’re staying at the Premier Inn, Bath Road this year for the princely sum of £31 for the night. The Renaissance where we usually stay wanted £80! No thank you.

I’ve booked Heathrow’s own long stay parking for the duration, cost £103.

Our flight is 9.15 on Christmas Day and we have access to the lounge so we will be having breakfast before we board.

At this point in time I have two hotels in Naples booked! The Bellasera where we usually stay and the Ramada which was half the price of the Bellasera! Both are on a free cancellation so we can cancel whichever we want. Are we taking bets on which one we’ll be cancelling?!

We are spending the first week in Naples and will definitely be catching up withour friends Debra and Rhys who will also be there on holiday.

From there we are going to the villa for a week then we have guests arriving so this week is likely to be a very busy work week. I’m guessing there will be lots of visits to every villa owners favourite theme park - Lowes! With side trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Home Goods etc!

The next 5 days will be at my lovely friend Sandra’s villa (Arkvilla here on the Dibb). The last night will be spent back in Naples in a hotel which hasn’t been booked yet. That’s it in a nutshell so far! Nothing else is booked, no parks planned at the moment, no restaurants booked but we do have a couple of meal dates sorted with friends! I’ll keep you posted.

[Gryff]

Looking forward to reading along and meeting if you are still out when I arrive
Helen

[Megandllsmum]

Sounds lovely Selina, I'll look forward to reading about it all xx

[Dizzny Momma]

Sounding and looking good so far
Margaret

[Pussycat Doll]

Originally Posted by Gryff

Looking forward to reading along and meeting if you are still out when I arrive
Helen

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I think we’ll still be there Helen, we leave Orlando on 13th Jan

[Gryff]

I arrive the 9th
H

[PJB71]

Yippee you’ve made a start on your Pre trip report 🎉🎉

Don’t forget to make some time for us to meet up 🥂🥂 were there until the 6th xx

Thankfully managed to get a villa sorted 👍🏻

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Selina. Good price for the BA flydrive, much easier on the pocket than VA!. Just watch the Avis reps as you leave the garage. Been a few gripes this last 18 months about price gouging.
So here's my bet for the day! The Ramada gets ditched!
Have a great trip and looking forward to seeing your updates.
Regards to Richard.

[Pussycat Doll]

Hmmmm! Yes the Ramada is being ditched! Still got to book somewhere for our last night before our flight home, probably be Naples!

The trippie journal has been bought today!

[Pussycat Doll]

Originally Posted by PJB71

Yippee you’ve made a start on your Pre trip report 🎉🎉

Don’t forget to make some time for us to meet up 🥂🥂 were there until the 6th xx

Thankfully managed to get a villa sorted 👍🏻

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Brilliant Paula! We are definitely meeting up! Xx