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Old 18 Aug 15, 11:37 AM  
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abiknox
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It's another 30th birthday trip! Florida March 2016



As is now habit, here I am starting another pre trippy before we even take off on our next trip (43 days and counting! ).

This trip will be another 30th birthday celebration, this time for Aaron and we will once again be heading to the sunshine state!

A quick reminder of the cast...

Me, Abi - 30 at the time of this trip! Eeek

Planner, note taker, trippy writer, Instagram-er, bootcamp leader and lover of everything US holidays have to offer (mainly the food! )

Aaron, husband - Turning 30 during this trip!

Generally go's with the flow, loves the food, cocktails, outlets, theme parks & sun of Florida. Likes an occasional lie in on holiday.. whaat!?



So the reason for this trip is in the title. Aaron will be turning 30 and therefore the holiday destination was his choice. Bearing in mind that we would be in Florida for my birthday only 5 months before, we did consider a few other options.

A return to the West Coast was high on the list of possibilities, as was a road trip through Nevada / Georgia & the Carolina's. It didn't take much time to count those options out though as being in March the weather just wasn't going to be warm.

Yosemite & the Smokey mountains would both likely be snow covered which Im sure would be a beautiful time to visit but it just wasn't practical in a hire car. So we went back to the drawing board. In May, I was just pursuing flights (I blame Emma2288 for mentioning a BA sale) I found good pricing for Orlando. A quick look over at Virgin (our carrier of choice) and they had the same pricing. I popped home at lunch to tell Aaron of my find and he beat me to it having seen the same flights himself. He said there was not place he would rather be on his birthday than in Orlando so it was settled.

Flights

We played with dates to fit in as long as possible with our remaining annual leave (Aarons runs April to March) and settled on 11 nights from the 28th February to 10th March. We secured the leave from work and booked the next day! We are flying with Virgin, direct from Manchester. Total price was just under £1000.00 for the two of us.




General plans


At present, the flights are the only thing we have confirmed. We have a few ideas of where we want to stay, mainly Idrive, at least one night at Universal and 1 or 2 nights on the Gulf Coast depending on pricing (we seem to be in Spring Break period & pricing is extortionate)!

We have already secured an annual pass for Universal so we know we will have unlimited access there and we will most likely upgrade our 14 day ultimate Disney tickets on our October trip too.

We would like a bit more down time away from the parks though for this trip, the outlets will be hit hard & we would love to try some different things, maybe an airboat ride or a manatee swim!




So that's all we have for now! We will probably wait until after our October trip to secure any accommodation unless I find some really good deal



Updates

Accommodaiton
Initial food choices
Daily Plans
Uk Hotel, Beach Hotel, Car Hire & Manatee Swim
Hotel dates switch up
Hotel amendment & final accommodation plans
Food plans
Busch / SeaWorld / Aquatica tickets - Booked!
Snack Plans
Wild Florida - Booked!

Edited at 11:22 AM.
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Old 23 Aug 15, 11:45 AM  
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Omg more plans lucky suckers !
Best go catch up on the other countdown now too lol 😂😂😂
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Old 23 Aug 15, 09:13 PM  
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mrsdjh
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How nice to have another trip already in the planning stages! Look forward to hearing more about your plans after your October trip.

Diane
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Old 25 Aug 15, 03:12 PM  
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Originally Posted by Hodgy28 View Post
Omg more plans lucky suckers !
Best go catch up on the other countdown now too lol 😂😂😂
Yep, we are very fortunate! Making the most of spare money before we move to a bigger house / consider a family!

Originally Posted by mrsdjh View Post
How nice to have another trip already in the planning stages! Look forward to hearing more about your plans after your October trip.

Diane
Thanks for reading, it will make the flight home a bit sweeter knowing we are headed back after a few months
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Old 25 Aug 15, 03:15 PM  
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Check you! Lucky thing Exciting! xx
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Old 25 Aug 15, 03:25 PM  
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Originally Posted by Redrach1903 View Post
Check you! Lucky thing Exciting! xx
I know! This ones gonna be a cheapy though... honest!
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Old 29 Oct 15, 06:57 AM  
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Originally Posted by abiknox View Post
Yep, we are very fortunate! Making the most of spare money before we move to a bigger house / consider a family!



Thanks for reading, it will make the flight home a bit sweeter knowing we are headed back after a few months
Snap,we get back on the 2nd November and will have a DD countdown for our January trip it's such a great feeling isn't it
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Old 29 Oct 15, 08:15 AM  
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Exciting!

We got back in August but have booked a short but sweet visit for January
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Old 29 Oct 15, 10:00 AM  
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Originally Posted by florida girl View Post
Snap,we get back on the 2nd November and will have a DD countdown for our January trip it's such a great feeling isn't it
Now that's a nice short countdown!

Originally Posted by Laura_<3 View Post
Exciting!

We got back in August but have booked a short but sweet visit for January
Lovely, its so nice to know you're going back isn't it!
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Old 23 Dec 15, 12:34 PM  
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Update: Accommodation

Well this trip is coming around fast! With a countdown standing at 70ish days, we started looking seriously into accommodation.

The initial plan was to leave booking as long as we could, but having recently committed ourselves to a house move (and a much larger mortgage to go with) in the coming months, we decided to get some bookings confirmed so we could budget properly & know what the trip was costing us.

As is tradition now, we will be hotel swapping a few times, actually 5 times, on an 11 night holiday! I know that's some people idea of hell, but we quite like it, it breaks up the holiday and lets us spend some time in each of our favourite spots.

First up was a hotel in the Pointe Orlando area. For our October trip this year we managed to secure the Rosen Plaza for £45 a night. This trip, that wasn't happening. They wanted over £4000 for a 6 night stay! I presume there is some mega conference on over the weekend of the 4th / 5th March as even the Rosen @ Pointe is sold out on those dates too! . In the end, we settled on the Rosen @ Point for the first 5 nights, checking out on the 4th March. We have stayed here numerous times and for us it'd fine. A great price and a fabulous location!

Rosen Inn @ Pointe Orlando - 5 nights @ £55 a night.







Next up, we wanted something else on Idrive but only needed two nights (we would have stayed at the Rosen if there was space for us)! After a bit of Google-ing, we settled on the Quinta Inn, International drive. It was cheap, its got good reviews and its but the Orlando Eye which was an area we really liked on this years trip!

Quinta Inn, International Drive - 2 nights @ £45 a night





Our next night is Aaron's 30th Birthday & so I have coincided that with out 1 night stay at Universal. We have chosen the Royal Pacific Resort again as we loved it on our last visit, the refurbished rooms are gorgeous! The prices for March are ridiculous (damn you Spring Break)! But with a lot of searching I have managed to secure a rate of £230 with Hotels Combined. I've only ever paid about £185.00 before so this pains me! It will be worth it though, we plan to spend a lot of time by the pool & at City Walk.

Royal Pacific Resort, Universal - 1 night @ £230








The last booking I have made is for the Clarion Inn Lake Buena Vista! We are not doing Disney this trip but a few visits to Disney Springs will be in order and this hotel is a 30 minute walk away, allowing for a few drinks! It comes highly recommended by Libby (Oh_Darling) which is good enough for me.

Clarion @ Lake Buena Vista - 2 nights £50 a night (includes breakfast)





That leaves us with one night which we want to spend at the beach! This is proving difficult as hotels that normally charge about £80/ night are coming in at £250+ because of the time of year We have a maximum budget of £120 for this nigth & if the nice hotels don't drop nearer the time, we might be at a motel
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