Cabana Bay - No Parks

[Emma & Lloyd]

Day 1 Manchester - Sanford 10:25am
Emma, Lloyd, Brody (3) and Bo (1)
Tui Dreamliner extra legroom
Cabana Bay Beach Resort - Family Suite Courtyard Poolside
7 Day Full size Car Alamo (only doing 7 days as Cabana Bay charges $17 plus tax for parking per night! )
Land at Sanford - Hotel. Check in Cabana Bay.
Dad - Quick food run to Supermarket for overnight essentials
Milk, cereal, US IPA, Wine, Bagels, Peanut butter, Pringles
Mum- Buy 2 x length of stay unlimited drink mugs
Day 2
Up at 'stupid O'clock', Big shop at Walmart Supercentre as we have kitchenette and fridge
Hit Premium Outlets Vineland for opening. Quick shop in Disney character warehouse and Ralph Lauren.
Rest of day, Cabana Bay Pool
Dinner at Marketplace
Day 3
Morning - Disney Springs. Afternoon - Pool. Dinner - City Walk
Day 4
Morning - Animal Kingdom Lodge. We'll park at Disney Springs and get the resort bus over. The boys can see animals from viewing spots, lunch at The Mara. We still fancy buying into DVC so we'll have another look around Kidani.
Day 5
Monorail Loop - Park at Disney Springs then head over to a MK resort by resort bus. Brody loves trains, so the monorail will be a great free morning out. Lunch at Gasparilla Grill. Rest of Day - Pool, Onsite dinner then movie by the pool.
Day 6 Ohana Character Breakfast. The boys can get their Mickey fix. We've booked 11:30 so as to use the meal as our big meal of the day as a kind of brunch.
May follow breakfast with a quick monorail loop depending on mood of the boys.
Over to either Boardwalk or Celebration for an ice cream depending on where we park. (Disney Springs or Poly)
Day 7
Premium Outlets (Vineland) for opening, then off to Clearwater about 11:30am. Little toot toot for Dolphin watching. $25 each, boys free! Chilled meal out. One night in hotel.
Day 8
Morning on Clearwater beach, lunch, drive back to Orlando.
Dad to drop off car at Four Points International Drive about 3pm, then jog the 1.5 miles back! (Marathon four weeks away so various runs needed to be incorporated into this plan, most likely at 6am)
Day 9
Universal Hotels Pool Hop Day. We'll take the boat between each one, have a look around and a swim, maybe a drink if after 12 , and try some snacks.
Chilled evening at Cabana Bay. Pizza delivery to lobby. Film by the pool.
Day 10
Spare Day, maybe excursion.
Day 11
Minion Breakfast at Royal Pacific Resort 10:30am
Afternoon at RPR pool
Evening - dinner at either Sapphire Falls or RPR
Day 12
Pool Day
Dinner Onsite
Day 13
Uber to Premium Outlets International Drive
Disney character warehouse, Ralph Lauren and Bag from Kate Spade / Michael Kors for Mum.
Afternoon by Pool.
Dinner - Millers
Day 14
Visit to Universal hotel that the boys enjoyed most. Swim.
Late afternoon into evening at Citywalk. Dinner then boat back to RPR.
Day 15
Pool morning, late checkout, TUI transfer back to airport for flight home.

[loves2plan]

Sounds like a good trip. Will be interesting to hear if you actually miss the parks or if visiting resorts, Disney Springs etc will give you enough of a fix. Ours love pool time too, so would be happy with having plenty of that included. Tickets are so expensive now, that they add over £2.&k for us if we want to do both Disney and Universal. More if you then include DC and SW. I've often wondered about doing a trip without tickets, but then figure we might as well go somewhere else completely, so really interested to read your experience

[Emma & Lloyd]

We can't wait. It is working out about the same as two weeks with a nice hotel in the Canaries.
A pool holiday will be very welcome by the time it rolls around!
The pools at Cabana bay are great.
We looked at adding Universal tickets for approx £700, but not really worth it for the boys at their age.
DH has looked at a HHN possibility. There is an offer for two nights for about £80. Gives him the park fix as he can get in from around 6pm. He's not fussed about the 'Horror houses;, so will just ride what he can. Kids will be in bed so minimal impact and he gets to do two visits for £40 each.

[loves2plan]

We've got a night at Cabana Bay in October that I'm really looking forward to. Husband, daughter and her boyfriend are doing HHN, but my son and I are team wimp, so will be relaxing, maybe do the mini golf at City Walk. He's part fish and loves a good pool, so I chose Cabana Bay as it gets good reviews and has a lazy river. I agree that your children are really too young for Universal, so might as well save the money. Plenty of time for theme parks as they get older, plus you'll still be getting a bit if a Disney fix by visiting the resorts. Have you thought about visiting AoA as that has some great Disney theming for the children? If the Skyliner is open by then, you could always take a trip in that too

[OB1LukeLucas]

Looks great, I always think about doing this but then I start to talk myself back into Universal tickets. I could do Disney resorts without the parks no problem but I’m not sure I could resist the need to be on the steps in Diagon Alley with a Butterbeer-obviously a very expensive one if that’s all I need tickets for! Hope you have a fantastic holiday.

[Emma & Lloyd]

Good idea for AoA, the skyliner may be a bit of fun too.

[Emma & Lloyd]

Just realised we are 5 days from double digit dance!
Yay

[martyn321]

Maybe less shopping and spend the money on a day in a park, Our kids would die being that close to disney and not properly visiting.

I write this out of interest and not to be argumentative or rude, but how comes you didnt go for 2 weeks in the canaries as it seems you like a lot of pool time?

[Guest]

I tend to agree with previous poster. This itinerary makes me feel really sad, I am picturing you traipsing round looking at hotels and in Disney shops. Book some tickets!

[Smilesonfaces]

I think it sounds ok as an adult holiday but not one with young children. I cannot imagine my children at that age enjoying all that shopping and traipsing about. If it were me I wouldn’t eat onsite and cut out the shopping which bores me to death anyway. Money saved buy some park tickets.