Florida 2019 - Tell Me This Isn't The Last Time - Pre-Trip

[Mightyfraz]

Welcome to our wonderful Summer 2019 trip; our last time was in 2015 and the trip report for that holiday can be found here.

The reason for the title is that at some point in planning this trip DW said that DDs are getting older and they might not want to come with us on another trip; clearly I don't believe that for one second; if we're paying I bet that they are coming

The index for this trip is here!

Pre-Trip

Welcome to our trip report, the four of us are going for the third time (previously been in 2012 and 2015 but DW and I have been a number of times before). We are Jason (me! Chief planner when I’m allowed to be ) Nikki (DW and Chief planner), Grace (DD1 who’ll be 16 when we go) and Lauren (DD2 who’ll be 14).

I didn’t know whether to write another trippie (our 2015 trip is here); I really enjoyed making notes and writing the last one as it’s great reading it back and we loved sharing it with everyone on the DIBB; but this time………the decision to go ahead was when DD1 said “I take it you’re going to write down your feelings and emotions in another trip report?” so yep here it is

A trip in 2019 was always on the cards and then Galaxy’s Edge was announced and it was “where do I send my money to?”, DD2 and I are huge Star Wars fans and this was an absolute must. Not to spoil the story but………what do you mean it’s delayed until Dec 2019? Now there was discussion on whether to postpone the trip until 2020 so we could visit Galaxy’s Edge, after no more than about 10 seconds we all agreed to go this year and again in a couple of years’ time (writing this in COVID lockdown, that was a fantastic decision!). Again, no more spoilers but Galaxy’s Edge was pulled forward to 29 Aug which meant we missed it by just under two weeks

Firming Up The Plan

We’ve always been lucky and went for 3 weeks each time staying in a villa for the duration and hiring a 7-seater mini-van. The last time we did 1 night in Disney All Star Movie to get the benefit of 60-day FP and then 1 night in RPR for FOLP.

Our friends have been to Florida a number of times and have spoken about staying on site and having DDP; so, this time we thought about doing the same. Pretty much from Jan 2018, we looked out for when free DDP was released. I read a lot about hotel prices increasing when “free” DDP was included so we had 2 or 3 hotels in mind with BC being our preferred. The plan was 5 days in a Disney hotel, 2 in RPR and the 2 weeks in a villa. We planned on using Disney transport and picking up a car when we headed to the villa.

The next thing was to settle on dates as DD1 was receiving her GCSE results so we knew we had to be back before then; that pretty much left us with a 3-week window after DD2 finished school and before the results. This meant we were flying out on 27 Jul, coming back on 17 Aug……now just the easy part of booking everything

Let’s start booking!

DDP was finally released in Apr and we all know that Jan to Apr is a long wait! I’d been keeping my eye on hotel prices during that time and when DDP was released, BC was pretty much the same price so “free DDP” was almost that. I checked the prices on a number of sites and went with Attraction Tickets Direct; I have to say that their customer service was first class and we ended up booking all of our other tickets through them too. As their offer didn’t include the $200 gift card Disney were offering they reduced the cost by Ł150 and then I quoted the DIBB discount and got another Ł50 off……thanks DIBB . So that’s BC and Disney/Universal tickets booked; can’t wait to see this view up close.

At this part of writing the trippie, I was undecided on whether to include the cost of everything or not; I know it would have helped me budget better if the trip reports I read had how much things cost but equally I didn’t want to seem that it was all about the money. I decided to include the full cost at the end of the trippie so those who are interested will see what we spent and yes it was a lot more than I forecasted but hey it’s the last time we’re going

The thing I really liked about ATD was the fact that you could pay amounts off whenever you like without any charge; so, over the course of the year, whenever we were able to, we paid bits off.

Next was to book RPR; the company I work for is signed up to a cashback/discount scheme so I used that to book RPR for 2 nights. It worked out that for the price of the club level with the discount was almost the same price as a normal room, so we went for Club.

We discussed flights a lot and when to book, whether we should wait until late Aug for the likes of BA and Virgin to announce their prices or look at what was available now. Thomas Cook looked a reasonable price at the time, but we decided to leave it to see what prices the other airlines were. That decision lasted about a week and then I booked with TC you’ll see from this trippie that we are slightly impatient when it comes to Disney.

I guess one of the differences booking with the likes of TC is that you have to pay for extras; we booked the flight but had to pay Ł22 each to choose our seats and because I’m 6ft 8in I paid Ł65 for an exit seat. We paid for economy on the way out but strangely it worked out cheaper to fly home premium economy so that’s what we did. The allowance is 23kg for economy and 32kg for premium, but on the basis that our cases probably couldn’t fit 32kg in them, we paid for an extra suitcase on the way home. When checking against BA and Virgin later in the year, TC proved to be good value.

Now on to the villa, the last two times we booked through Ocean Florida (I would thoroughly recommend them but for this trip, the price didn’t work out) and had accommodation assigned on arrival. We had a gorgeous villa in 2012 but it was in Haines City which was too far away and then in 2015 we had a villa in Calabay Parc which was closer but the noise of the air con outside the third and fourth bedroom made them almost unusable. This time we decided to have a look and came across a number of lovely villas on the DIBB but only a couple were available when we wanted. We contacted Debbie at Pine View Villas and it was available…..yippee!

The villa was at Highland’s Reserve and absolutely stunning; it was 2 storey and had a wonderful lounge upstairs, more than everything we could ask for.

The next item on the list was to hire a car, we checked out a number of websites and they all seemed to be much more expensive since the last time we went. In the end we settled for the old favourite, a 7 seater minivan and found Holiday Autos to be the cheapest as I booked through the cashback scheme at work…..although there was a story about payment after we returned home which I’ll get to later

So that was it, the outline plan was formed; fly out on 27 Jul and back on 17 Aug, staying at BC for 5 days then RPR for 2 days and the villa for the last fortnight. Disney transport and taxis for the first week and a hire car whilst we are in the villa. Happy days just need to plan each day

Choosing things to do

First things first, let’s dust off the 2015 planner and see where to start

We didn’t really think of things to do in the first week as we were in BC and RPR so that really takes care of itself. We were too far out for ADRs and FPs so really left them until after Christmas waiting for where EMH was on each day and plan around that; needless to say, we had a list of rides we want to go on and restaurants to eat in.

There was also a lot of new things since our last visit such as Toy Story Land, Galaxy’s Edge (wait…what do you mean it’s not going to be open? ), Pandora, Hagrid, Downtown Disney turned into Disney Springs so they were all a must.

We also had a list of things we wouldn’t do again, and if you read through this trip report, we had a list of things we planned on doing last time but didn’t do them, so they rolled into this trip.

We’re always looking for other things to do, some in Disney and some outside of the whole bubble; the last trip we went on the “Pirates and Pals Voyage” from the Contemporary which was fantastic. Likewise, we went to Seaworld and Aquatica which we weren’t fussed on going back however we didn’t go to KSC last time so that was on the plan for this visit.

Needless to say, that we’ll do the outlets and Florida Mall, probably give Mall at Millenia a miss unless we fancy The Cheesecake Factory; there is the thought that if we go north of Orlando, we might hit Altamonte Mall but that’ll be on the day decision rather than planned.

We have three cats at home and DW noticed that there was a Cat Café opposite the Walmart at Cagans Cross; so, we decided that would be a nice, chilled morning so that made it on to the plan. They ask that you book in advance so we ended up booking it May (I think).

As mentioned, we loved the “Pirates” voyage last time, so DW found something similar. We booked to go on the “Fireworks Cruise” which goes from the Contemporary, the main difference from Pirates, is that you have the boat to yourself and skippered by a cast member. It’s quite expensive but it’s based on it seating 8 people; however, drinks and snacks are thrown in. This is booked by phoning Disney direct and can be booked 180 days from the date you want to go.

One of things we planned to do on the last trip but never did was to take the boat trip around Winter Park. As you cannot book in advance, we put it in the plan but could decide on the day if we wanted to go or not.

For birthdays, we have taken DDs on outdoor adventures such as Tree Runners or iFly so DW looked for something similar. DW found Forever Florida which has zip wires courses and drop zones; we thought DDs would love it so we booked it.

The last thing we booked was MNSSHP; it feels weird that it starts in Aug as that feels too early. We always try and do MK on our last night to watch the fireworks, so I was checking EMH in Feb where it said that MK closed at 1800 and there was a ticketed event. After reading up that it was MNSSHP, it was almost perfect that the first event would fall on our last day it ended up being a fantastic surprise for DDs.

What to do with DDP?

We’ve never had DDP before and wanted to maximise the use of it; so, another planner was formed to understand how many of what type of credit we had per day; with DDP you receive 2 snack credits, 1 Quick Service credit and 1 Table Service credit per person per day. For the length of time we were at BC, it looked like this.

We wanted to try new restaurants but torn between doing something we’d ate at before and knew was good, or try a new place but risk it being not to our liking. We thought about Le Cellier, which we went for my 40th and it was amazing; but in the end we went for different restaurants especially those with 2 credit as they are expensive and normally off of the list.

Although DDs would be 16 and 14, there were a lot of restaurants that when we looked at the menu, they wouldn’t have had much choice. Places such as Hollywood Brown Derby, Tiffins, Coral Reef, Spiced Road and The Wave were all looked at but decided against them.

In the end we decided upon Biergarten as it would be our first proper day, we could book an early time in case we were all tired and being at Epcot was a short walk from BC. Then California Grill primarily for the fireworks; this is a 2 credit TS per person, but we knew DD1 would have something off menu so it would be 6 TS credits. Teppen Edo was on the list from the last visit but we never got to it; DW wanted to go and we had been to a Hibachi Grill locally and loved it. Finally, what to do with the remaining 6 TS credits; definitely a 2-credit restaurant but which one? We watch a lot of YouTube vlogs about Florida (Tim Tracker, Adam Hattan, Gary C, L&R dreaming to name a few) and they all had recommended the Boat House at some point; steak and local beer…. what not to love so that was the final restaurant.

One of the perks of being in BC was that we could book all four restaurants 180 days before our first day, so for us that was 28 Jan 19; if you’re not staying in a Disney hotel, you have to book 180 days before the date you want to go.

The plan was finalised

Here is the final plan for the holiday. The different colours are for the parks; we also had a Red/Amber/Green marking on days so we could see where the really busy days were so that we could plan in quieter days around them. We also had a countdown under the date for -180 days (ADR), -60 days (FP whilst in BC) and -30 days (FP); ADRs turned green when we booked them

Now guessing like all of you, the final plan is never the final version; ours was tweaked here and there right up to the holiday and you can still see there is some question marks over some of it. Anyway it’s the plan we started day 1 on and we will stick to it rigidly……..well it might stand up for the first day

Travel Day is here

[Sunshinekid]

Great pre-travel. We’d love to stay at BC one trip. We stayed at RPR in 2018 for 2 weeks and had a great time at Universal & Seaworld. No Disney tix that trip although we did have a night at Swan & Dolphin due to our flight home being cancelled by TC. 38hr delay. Yikes.