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Old 4 Jan 19, 02:13 PM  
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#31
Lisa29
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Originally Posted by Kat11 View Post
What gorgeous kids! They all look so close together in age by the look of them too. You are so lucky. Congratulations.

Kat

Ps, yes I did manage to sort out return flights and they are now all sorted. 😃
Thank you Kat! We are very lucky with all the kids and they are close in ages - 10, 10, 7, 6, 5, 4, nearly 2 and then baby Cole.

Glad you managed to get your flights sorted. x

Originally Posted by Pumba75 View Post
Congratulations Auntie Lisa! So cute.

The cousins are going to have an amazing and magical time together in WDW!

M x
Thanks Melissa! I know, I really can't wait to go.x

Originally Posted by DISNEYNIC View Post
Firstly, congratulations on your new nephew … adorable!

Looking forward to following along with your planning and you will be going just before us so look forward to seeing what you think of POR. It looks fab xx
Thank you! We are really looking forward to staying at POR.x
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Old 4 Jan 19, 02:29 PM  
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Lisa29
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Our Plans, Version Three

Back onto the accommodation plans.

Ok, so I did have three hotel bookings - 14 nights at POR, which has now been cancelled (more on this in a bit), 10 nights at POFQ for our new, preferred dates, which I will be keeping and 4 nights at All Star Sports, which I will also be cancelling.

Going back a few months , I spent some time on David's DVC rentals and priced up the dates we needed. Animal Kingdom Lodge was coming out the cheapest but I realised that on an exchange rate of $1.30/£1, four nights at the Boardwalk would be less than £100 more than our booking for Sports already was! Staying at the Boardwalk, Yacht Club or Beach Club has been a dream of mine and Phil's for years as we love this whole area. We decided that we would prefer to book through David's DVC Rentals and hopefully have someone book for us at the 11 month mark, rather than wait for someone on the dibb to offer some points, even though that would have worked out cheaper. The plan was to do this closer to the 11 month mark.

In the meantime, my Mum had found a house that she really liked at Windsor Hills and wanted to try staying in a villa again, something we haven't done since Christmas 2008. The location and price were really good so she booked this for the second week.

She asked if we would consider staying here for the last four nights, rather than renting DVC points and asked us to look at the villa she had booked. Our first thought was that it would be a no, we wanted to stay onsite and we really wanted to stay at the Boardwalk. I have already said previously that a villa has never won for us when it came down to a villa or free dining, as we feel that what comes with free dining and staying onsite outweighs any saving that can be had by staying offsite. But this was now a different scenario - this wasn't onsite with free dining vs offsite, this was now onsite with no dining or offsite, which did make us start to look at this option differently.

The house was beautiful, it was really close to Disney being in Windsor Hills and was really well located within Windsor Hills. It would be unlikely that we would use them, but the facilities at Windsor Hills looked incredible too.

A couple of pictures of the villa, courtesy of the owners website.


Obviously the major upsides to a villa over a hotel room were the space, multiple bathrooms, laundry facilities and a private pool, all of which we are used to with our last trips being at DVC resorts in 2-beds, and would NOT be having for the first 10 nights at POR (not the private pool part). There was no location issue as it was so close to Disney so what we thought would originally be a no, was actually becoming a possibility.

We had already talked through what we would need to pay for over those last four nights, with no longer having a dining plan, so had already factored these costs in, so it was now how much of a saving staying in the house would be compared to renting DVC points. This was working out to be a saving of around £300 so we didn't listen to our hearts, we went with our heads and told my Mum that we would love to stay in the villa for our last four nights.

So our plans at this point were:

October 3rd to 17th
10 nights at POFQ in a garden view room with free QSDP
4 nights in the Mickey Mouse Villa at Windsor Hills

Since first typing this up ages ago and now, we have made one other change. As we really wanted to stay at Riverside, I kept checking to see if it became available again for our dates on ATD and at the end of November, it did. I emailed them, along with Val Ramsey (Vickie, loves2plan, gave me her email address as she works there now), asking if it was possible to swap, while still keeping the free dining and gift card. Val replied very quickly to say they would see if it was possible and if they could, would change it for me. I didn't have to wait long to find out that they could change it and I soon had a new invoice showing our booking for POR.

Our final accommodation plans are:

October 3rd to 17th
10 nights at POR in a garden view room with free QSDP
4 nights in the Mickey Mouse Villa at Windsor Hills

The girls know about the holiday and Wedding, we did a reveal for them not long after booking, which I will share soon. They DON'T know that we are now going a week earlier, nor do they know we are staying in the villa for the last four nights. We are going to keep this a surprise for them until the night we travel to the airport. There are two reasons for this:

1. I don't think we would ever be able to keep an entire holiday a surprise until the night before so this is the perfect opportunity for us to do this.
2. We will now be there for their 11th and 8th Birthdays! This is the main reason we want to keep it a secret from them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Going back to cancelling the original 14 nights at POR; I emailed Val and ATD on Sunday asking them to cancel the booking as I had changed dates and made a new booking with them. The next day, I checked my emails and I had three from them - an invoice for the original booking showing a zero value, an invoice for the new booking that all looked the same and one from Val, explaining that they had cancelled the booking and had been able to transfer my deposit over to my current booking, so I didn't lose out on that £100 as I thought I would. I am so pleased with this, and the service from Val and ATD, they have been incredible and really have gone the extra mile.

I have a couple of others things that have been booked or ticked off the to-do list, so will be back with them soon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I do need to add that since booking, I saw that 1- and 2-beds at OKW and SSR became available (for the summer) but with no discount being offered here now, I don't think it would have been affordable for us to stay at SSR anyway. This had been our original plan and really threw a spanner in the works when we realised it wasn't an option but it is nice to know that it wouldn't really have been an option for us anyway.
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Edited at 02:30 PM.
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Old 5 Jan 19, 10:23 PM  
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collybird
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That's amazing service from ATD, very impressive.

I am quite sad that you won't be staying in the Crescent Lake area after all, maybe someday, but I do think that the villa was the right decision.

How lovely for the girls to have their birthday in Florida again. How can Madison bei turning 11!? That's insane.
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Old 17 Jan 19, 06:53 PM  
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Your plans are coming along nicely Lisa. Great that you've got your flights it's always a big relief to get those sorted and you did so well with the price.

lovely photo's of the kids, so nice that you'll all be going away together.

Looking forward to hearing more of your plans xx
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Old 17 Jan 19, 09:14 PM  
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ely3857
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You’re worse at changing holiday plans than I am 🤣
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Old 6 Feb 19, 12:44 PM  
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Lisa29
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Originally Posted by collybird View Post
That's amazing service from ATD, very impressive.

I am quite sad that you won't be staying in the Crescent Lake area after all, maybe someday, but I do think that the villa was the right decision.

How lovely for the girls to have their birthday in Florida again. How can Madison bei turning 11!? That's insane.
It was amazing service and so unexpected.

I am disappointed we're not staying there too, we are hoping that the next time we go we will be able to stay there.

I'm so excited for their birthdays being there again. And I can't believe that Madison will be 11, time goes so fast!

Originally Posted by juliab View Post
Your plans are coming along nicely Lisa. Great that you've got your flights it's always a big relief to get those sorted and you did so well with the price.

lovely photo's of the kids, so nice that you'll all be going away together.

Looking forward to hearing more of your plans xx
Thanks Julia, I was so pleased to finally have the flights booked.

Thanks, we are looking forward to all being away together again.xx

Originally Posted by ely3857 View Post
You’re worse at changing holiday plans than I am 🤣
Oh, I know! x
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Old 6 Feb 19, 01:44 PM  
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Lisa29
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Things Booked and Ticked off the To-Do List

If I had been more organised and posted quicker, these would have been in separate updates! Anyway, I have been busy and have a few things to report on.

Car Hire

I had been looking at car hire for quite a while, since the prices were first released for October. We weren't sure whether to go with the intermediate SUV, standard SUV or 7 seat minivan. We don't need a car this size but like the space you get with this and it was definitely Phil's preference.

We wanted to have at least the standard SUV so stopped looking at prices for the intermediate SUV. I wasn't sure if the prices for the standard and 7-seat were high - around £400 and £480 respectively. I spoke to Danielle and she said these prices were about right compared to her last few trips.

We decided that the price jump to the bigger car was too much of a difference so when I saw the standard SUV on Alamo Brits for £399.90 in late November, I decided to book it. Ideally I would like the price to be cheaper than this but Alamo offer free cancellations so if I see the price cheaper, I will just cancel and re-book.

So, we have the Standard SUV booked for 2 weeks, no extras, but we do get the free extra driver included.

Since booking, I have checked daily but the price has only increased. I will keep checking and will be cancelling and re-booking if there is a saving to be had.

Airport Lounge

About a week after booking the car hire, I was reading the Money Saving Expert newsletter and they had a code to book discounted airport lounges. This was something I liked the look of after reading other trip reports, especially with our flight being at 1pm, so possibly having more time at the airport. I had a look and decided to go with (I think, the less fancy) My Lounge at the North Terminal in Gatwick.


Pics from google

With the discount code, the cost of this for the four of us was £52.80. This is for three hours before our flight and also includes complimentary premium security access. I don't remember what the percentage discount was but I have just looked today and full price for us is £72 so this was a good saving.

I'm really excited to try this, I love being at the airport so will still get there early enough to look in the shops first but then take full advantage of the time we can have in here.

Passports

All four of our passports expired at various points during 2018 so we all needed new ones. I wanted to get these done sooner rather than later so sorted photos for the girls, completed everything online, had a friend from dancing countersign the photos and sent them off at the start of December. Phil and I did ours online and just took photos on our phone and uploaded them, again at the start of December. These only took about a week to come back. So, £294 later(!)(includes renewal cost, photos and secure postage), we have all four new passports.

ESTAs

I also wanted to get our ESTA's done and out of the way, just in case of any issues . I did these when I was at home on my own and could focus on them and it didn't take too long and they were done. With the exchange rate at the time, these cost £45.64 for the four. They weren't approved immediately but when I looked a few days later, they were all approved.

A week after doing these, the threads appeared on the dibb about needing to include middle names if they are included on your passport. Me, understanding that First (Given) Name means Lisa, didn't click on the question mark next to this so didn't realise that First (Given) Name actually means first and middle names, ugh! Typically, we all have middle names. I haven't re-done them yet but I more than likely will. It's just so frustrating that it is £46 wasted because their website isn't clear and they have made an unpublicised change.


So that is what I have booked so far. I am checking daily on the Premier Inn website to book the night before but the price is expensive and hasn't been included in their cheap room rate offer so I am still waiting to book this. I will wait a couple more months I think but then maybe look elsewhere. I have seen there is a Travelodge that was a good price.

Until I have the airport hotel booked, I can't do the airport parking as ideally, I'd like to stay at the North Terminal PI so would want the car parked from that night. If we stay elsewhere, the parking would then be from the following morning.

I'll be back when I have more updates.
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Old 6 Feb 19, 02:21 PM  
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I had no idea about the ESTA middle name drama until reading this, so just had a mini panic! Did a search in the forum and someone has posted an official response which says don’t worry if you don’t have middle names in there. So...I might risk it!

You can see the post on pg 3 https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...+nam e&page=3

I might keep an eye on it and decide the nearer the time.
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Old 7 Feb 19, 12:30 PM  
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So annoying about the middle names on the ESTA's. I haven't done ours yet - must remember this.

I also keep checking premier inn prices for the night before we go - it seems expensive compared to previous years - think I may have booked it earlier and have left it too late. I need to book a Thursday night too and it's £50! Have booked for £29 before.
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Old 7 Feb 19, 10:56 PM  
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Ouch the car hire was pricey! You’ve reminded me that I haven’t sorted out ours yet.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy the lounge, and you’ll definitely get the benefit of it with a 1pm flight.

I have to sort out a new passport too, I am waiting for a day when I look semi-decent to take a picture haha.

Thanks for the heads up about the middle name on ESTA issue, I’d be tempted just to leave them as they were, £46 is a lot of money! But I suppose the peace of mind is worth more.

Argh, you’ve also reminded me we need to book the airport hotel. MONEY MONEY MONEY!
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