Remember, Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide 2016 Pre-Trip

[66Caunce]

After our first trip to Orlando in December 2014, we returned home on 9th January 2015 and immediately the post-holiday blues set in. We had always said we'd never become like the 'nutters on the Dibb' who return year after year so we set about searching for our next holiday. Yet, nothing seemed as exciting as returning to Orlando. We had a decision to make and...

I was lost without something to look forward to, something to plan to within an inch of its life as I did for our honeymoon. Ian simply missed America; we both did. The return to the drudgery of work really didn't help matters either.

I knew we probably couldn't afford to go in 2015, so I set my heart on January 2016. It was on 30th January 2015 that I was sat at home, eagerly awaiting Ian's return home from work. I'd had the day off and had spent it researching. I put the question to him and immediately got a negative response: "But I'll miss days at Uni" (he attends once a week, on a Tuesday). I countered with, "But one of the Tuesdays this year turned out to be a reading week - if that was the case again and we went early in the month, you might only miss one week..." The cogs were turning but he still wasn't sure. A minute passed by, during which time the disappointment must have been showing on my face as I said, "Well, if that's the case, we can't go until June 2016 at the earliest and then it'll be expensive..." Another minute passed by, during which time I must have started welling up or something because he said, "Right, let's do it. January. Let's just go!"

We're going back!


HURRAY! I quickly garbled that it would mean no holiday in 2015 but as we're moving house in March and Ian has his Uni course AND it gives us a year to save, I was delighted. Since then, Ian has been talking about it as if it's already booked so we're definitely on to return in less than a year.

I've put away £500 from this month's pay into the savings account and will put another £500 in at the end of February. This is thus our budget for the flights. I've been searching every day since to get an idea of prices and the best I have found so far is £465 indirect via Heathrow from Manchester. I hope to get closer to £400 by the time it comes to booking them in 24 days time, so I'll keep hoping.

If we save money on the flights, the budget for the hotels will increase. If we save money on the hotels, the budget for the tickets will increase. And so on and so on.

I'm thinking that this time we should stay for 16 nights, rather than the 14 we spent on our honeymoon at the Rosen Inn, International Drive. I'm also thinking of dividing our stay as follows: 7 nights at a Disney hotel, 3 nights at a Universal hotel and 6 nights on International Drive, probably in that order.

I hope to update this pre-trip on a daily basis but the major stuff should happen something like this:

January - save money! COMPLETE!
February - save money and book flights (budget £1000)! COMPLETE!
March - save money and book Disney hotel (budget £500)!
April - save money and book Universal hotel (budget £500)!
May - save money and book International Drive hotel (budget £500)!
June - save money and book Disney tickets (budget £500)!
July - save money and book other tickets (budget £500)!
August - save money and book hire car (budget £250)!
September - save spending money!
October - save spending money!
November - save spending money!
December - save spending money!

I hope people join in on our journey this year as we save for our return to the Mouse!

[66Caunce]

The Cast

Me, Adam, 30 (at the time of travel)

I'm a huge fan of all things Disney and the USA in general. My favourite Disney films are the Toy Story trilogy and my favourite Disney character is obviously Mickey.

I'm on the right of the picture below.

Him, Ian, 25 (at the time of travel)

A fan of Disney, although I think it's fair to say not as much as me (Ian far preferred Universal to Disney overall), Ian's favourite Disney film is The Little Mermaid.

He loves his iPad and the games within it and TV soaps.

Like me, Ian was fed a diet of Disney films as a child and so we've both grown up dreaming of visiting Walt Disney World.

Ian is on the left of the picture below:



We met in the Spring of 2012, moved in together in the summer of 2012 and married in the winter of 2014, having our honeymoon in the Happiest Place on Earth. We have quite opposite personalities - Ian is constantly on the go, cleaning, tidying and shouting at me for not doing those two things very often. I am much more laid back outwardly, although I'm a true worrier, ardent planner and enjoy nothing more than lazing in front of the telly with my laptop at my side researching our next trip.

We both love travelling so we're both delighted and surprised in equal measure that we both want to return to our last destination so soon after our last trip.

[66Caunce]

Another photo of us on our last trip:



Let the pre-trip report begin!

[tigger48]

Ooh good news 😀. From one 'nutter on the dibb' to another (in the nicest possible way) there's no place quite like it! Looking forward to your plan developing.

[gartland87]

Looking forward to keeping up with your plans

[rinroo]

Looking forward to your updates. It's such a great feeling when you know your going back isn't it!

[66Caunce]

4th February

Today, I went through my daily routine of checking the flight prices on Skyscanner. We want to go in January and we're flexible with the dates as long as we return by 31/01/2016. As we want to go for 16 nights this time, it takes a while to go through all of the available dates each day to check for price changes.

This is my fourth time of checking and the prices have remained constant each day. The best day for us to travel in terms of price is Sunday 3rd January, returning on the 20th. The eagle-eyed amongst may well now be saying, "but that's 17 nights", and you'd be right. This option is our best as the outbound flight works like this:

MAN - LHR, overnight in London, Gatwick - MCO the following morning. So, in order to get our 16 nights in Orlando, we'd have to leave a day earlier to take advantage of the return flight price of £465. We'd have a night in London, go to a West End show (probably The Lion King), then fly the next day.

However, I still hold out hope that the flight prices will improve considerably by the time I book in just over three weeks. I'd like them as close to £400 each as possible, as this is what we paid on our first trip. Plus, the more money we save, the more money from the £1000 budget for flights can be transferred to our hotel budget. As it stands, we'd have £70 left over to put in the hotel fund. Not a huge amount.

5th February

My Yoda socks arrived from eBay this morning. I intend to buy one item of clothing a month for the holiday and this was the first purchase at just £2.99. It means I can chuck out a couple of pairs of old socks too (which translates to 'ball them up and throw them to the dog').

I, again, checked the flight prices this morning as part of my daily routine and, again, found them to be the same as the previous four days. It looks increasingly likely we'll be paying £465 each, departing on Sun 3rd Jan, having a night in London, then returning on Weds 20th Jan.

As the prices haven't moved, I decided to put together a rough itinerary of our outbound travel for reference:

Sat 2nd Jan:
3pm - travel to Manchester, spend the night with my mum and dad

Sun 3rd Jan:
12noon - travel to Manchester airport
3pm: flight to London Heathrow airport
4pm: land at Heathrow
5pm: National Express coach to Gatwick airport (£25 each)
6pm: Check-in to airport hotel (£50 budget)
Evening: Hopefully, travel into the West End for a show

Mon 4th Jan:
8.45am - travel to Gatwick airport
11.45am - flight to Orlando
4.25pm - land at Orlando

Assuming the prices stay the same by 27 Feb (our provisional flight booking day), then this will likely be our travel itinerary.

[66Caunce]

Originally Posted by tigger48

Ooh good news 😀. From one 'nutter on the dibb' to another (in the nicest possible way) there's no place quite like it! Looking forward to your plan developing.

See more...

I did mean it in the nicest possible way! I don't think we'll be going EVERY year like some people do, but then again, we didn't think we'd be returning so soon after our last trip either. Nice to see you'll be following each day

Originally Posted by gartland87

Looking forward to keeping up with your plans

See more...

Thank you

Originally Posted by rinroo

Looking forward to your updates. It's such a great feeling when you know your going back isn't it!

See more...

Thank you. I've requested to switch to working night shifts at work as it's the same job I do during the day, but with extra incremental pay, so although we can save a bit more, the update process no longer can happen at work as there's too many people about! Usually, I can update during the day but with these new shifts, the best I can is browse the Dibb, which isn't a bad thing at all.

It is fantastic to know we are going back. Once I'd persuaded Ian, it was like a fog was lifted - the holiday blues disappeared instantly.

[66Caunce]

6th February

A little excitement this morning as I do my daily check of the flight comparison sites. Our previous best was £465 each return which also involved an expensive night in London, costing us probably a further £250 on top of the flight cost.

My search this morning beat our previous best by £29, coming in at £436 each. This has now become my guide price for booking on or after 27 February. The flights are indirect with Lufthansa, flying through Frankfurt before arriving in Orlando. This great price is departing on 5th January and, as such, I've revised our itinerary to reflect this possibly being our departure date:

Mon 4 Jan
10am - travel to Manchester, stay the night at my mum and dads

Tues 5 Jan
6.35am - travel to Manchester airport
9.35am - fly to Frankfurt
12.20pm - land in Frankfurt
1.45pm - fly to Orlando
6.10pm - land in Orlando

I've also altered our saving and spending regime for the year in post #1. We'll still be booking the flights at the end of February but instead of then saving solidly for two months, I've decided we'd be best to book our Disney hotel for the first week at the end of March.

[sheluk]

We are planning for January 2016 too so can't wait to read about your plans 😊😊😊

Hoping to do my first pre trippie too but holding off until we have our flights book as I have my final exams, our wedding and our honeymoon to plan for first!

Good luck with finding your flights!