The 5 (+1) of us do Florida (+2) - Take 2.1 - August 2021- CANCELLED

[Milpston]

I have decided that it is time for an early start on our August 2021 pre-trip report. I am going to stay positive as this trip WILL happen! Whilst the whole Pandemic is bound to get plenty of mentions I am not going to dwell on it.

introduction

I am the main planner of our trips and will now be 42 by the time this trip happens. I am the only dibber amongst us. Sally is the long suffering Wife and manages every other part of our lives. She will be 41 for this trip but looks a lot older than me.

Chloe is our eldest Daughter who will be be 19 by the time we go. She is fully aware this is the last freebie big holiday she will be getting out of us! She was to have done her A’ Levels this year but they were obviously not to be due to the whole Coronavirus lock-down. Her boyfriend Sam will be joining us for the whole trip too.

Emma and Benjamin are way overdue another Disney trip now!

Emma will be 6 and a half by the time this trip comes round. Still loves Disney and seems to remember so much from our October 2018 trip. She is turning into a lovely caring little girl (completely biased opinion there), she hasn’t enjoyed the lockdown and has been much happier since she has been able to return to school a couples of days a week for the last few weeks.

Benjamin will be 4 by the time this trip happens. He is a nutter. He is just like his sister with never shutting up for two minutes and makes me feel like my ears are bleeding most days.

We are desperate to take them both on another US adventure.

Background

Sally, Chloe and I have been to Florida a couple of times and a couple of cruises from Miami and Fort Lauderdale too.
Our only family trip to Florida was in October 2018 and we all absolutely loved every minute of it.
We had planned to be back there in 2020 but Coronavirus has out paid to that much like most other holidays this year. We should actually be there now as I write this pre-trip report
My previous trip report and the doomed pre-trip report can be found in my signature. I will add links etc and tidy things up at a later date but I’m currently using an IPad (which I hate) as my laptop did not survive the pandemic and I haven’t got around to replacing it as yet.

The Post Covid blow-out plan

So once we took a fairly early decision to cancel 2020 I started to formulate a bigger, better, longer and more complicated plan for 2021. It was the best way I could think of to banish the disappointment of this shocking year. (We also lost out on Sally’s surprise trip to Prague for her 40th - I bought her a new hoover instead ). We are gutted that the kids have got to wait another year to return. However, I am clinging to a couple of positives. We think Benjamin will get so much more out of it being another year older. He will actually be about 5 months older than Emma was on our 2O18 trip. Both of them are little but we would like to think he will be tall enough for the majority of the rides like splash mountain that he would have just missed out on this time. Emma could well be tall enough for the likes of Flights of passage and Everest.

This is the ultimate trip we could come up with by putting our heads together for a few days. I am enough of a realist to know that the world could conspire against us again. I am also realistic enough to know that I may not manage to save enough to do exactly what we want but I am hopeful. As such these plans are going to remain fluid. My plans have always changed as they develop and I’ve never started a pre-trip report this early before. Anyone that has read my previous 2 trip reports will know it could become a bit of a rollercoaster .

Flights are obviously not booked yet but the plan is to fly out to MCO / TPA / MIA on 4th August 2021. I plan to have a Chevy Suburban through a BA fly drive. Sally and I have our annual leave authorised and sorted.

I have booked a one week stay on-site at Disney. Obviously there is currently no DDP. We need 2 rooms due there being 6 of us this time. The prices are eye watering! With no offers I have ruled out the deluxes this time. I am fully aware that staying on site just isn’t really worth the cost at the moment... but we want to If offers change then we will review things as it’s a relatively small deposit paid. We nearly went for this place for the doomed trip before finally settling for Yacht Club.

We are excited to give this a go and the skyliner is a big draw for us. It will give Sam and Chloe lots of freedom for the first week. We have booked two rooms with a water view. One of them has a5th sleeper just in case there are any teenage relationship break downs
We have 14 day ultimate tickets and that is the only Florida theme parks we are looking at for now.
We have booked our park reservations. Let’s hope that is a thing long forgotten by then! However, we were not huge park hoppers last time so we will just wait and see. I will only post out theme park reservations much further down the line as they are a bit meaningless at the moment.

That’s all we have booked for now!

After our 7 nights on site we are planning an 8 night villa stay. Our favourite dibb villa is not available this time so I have spent the last week or two villa hunting! I don’t know if I love villa hunting or hate it... I think it’s the latter. Did a request on the Dibb and nothing offered that took our fancy. I am trawling home away, Airbnb etc. My trouble as usual is champagne taste and a lemonade budget. I really fancy one on Windsor Hills but all the once I like are £2k + for 8 nights. I may just have to suck it up but am dithering on paying out fairly hefty deposits on them at the moment. We will obviously find one so I am just sitting tight at the moment.

The rest of the plans are still to be booked, firmed up but are fairly well set in my head. I will note them now as it will be interesting to see if and by how much they change over time.

After our 15 nights in Florida we will fly to Las Vegas for 4 nights.

Yes, I have been to Vegas before. Friends are all saying we are mad taking the kids there. However, I have read up and have found much more that will interest, stimulate and keep them amused than I can for SAN Francisco which was pretty much what we chose between. Too early to book our hotel. I have a desire towards The Venetian but will have to see what comes up.

We will then drive from Las Vegas to Anaheim with an early start. My plan is 4 nights at an offsite hotel within walking distance of the parks and Downtown Disney. We will then get 4 day hopper tickets (this is something I know I need to keep an eye on to see how things develop).

After our first ever Disneyland visit we plan to move on again and spend a final 6 nights in a villa somewhere close to Beverly Hills / Hollywood Hills. I have my eye on a perfect one on Airbnb but villas here make the Florida equivalent look like the bargains Of the century and I’m just struggling to get myself to part with a fairly hefty deposit for that at the moment too.
We would use this as abase to do all the LA sights as well as some downtime and beach visits. We are also likely to do 2 days in Universal Studios Hollywood and May look at a whale watching trip.

I have lots of reading to do and I have no idea if this is how our final trip will look but I think it will be pretty close.

It will be 29 nights away and then fly back home from LAX.

It’s written down now o it has to happen. Covid can do one!

For anyone that would like to follow along for the ride, WELCOME. It’s going to be a long one.