The McBancwitt's Magically Mad Trip - October 2018 Pre Trip Report

[DisneyFreak3]

Pre Trip Report October 2018

Welcome to my 3rd trip report!

It's been a while since I last wrote a trip report so I might be a little rusty, please bare with me but if you're interested in getting to know the family a little better I'll link my other two reports below;

The Disney Freaks Go Back To The Magic 2013

The McBancwitt's Heigh-Ho Holiday 2015

I know it's still about 5 months away (or 135 days! ) so why not get started early?

Now, let's get down to business...

The Cast

Me- I'm Caitlin I'm 19 (at time of writing) and will be turning 20 two days before we go! I am absolutely obsessed with all things Disney or Shawn Mendes related!
I will be your trip report writer so ˇPor favor manténgase alejado de las puertas! and enjoy!


(Me & Mum)

Dad(Gordon)- The chief trip planner! He does everything from searching for the best deals on flights to finding the perfect villa, he should really be a travel agent he's just that good! He's also our designated driver for the trip.

Mum(Isabella)- She's the researcher, Mum will find new things for us to do from restaurants to experiences in the parks. She loves milk duds and twizzlers so makes sure to stock up when we get to Walmart!


(Dad & Mum)

Kieran & Nirvana - My brother and his girlfriend.
Kieran is crazy about all things Star Wars or craft beer related. This is the first time he'll be able to drink while we're there so he's excited to try the beers around the World Showcase at Epcot.
This will be Nirvana's second trip and I think it's fair to say she's hooked. She'll be spending most of her money on the Disney pandora charms! She also love, love, loves Harry Potter so is super excited to go to Universal and IoA.


(Kieran & Nirvana)

Lisa, Peter & Luca - My auntie, uncle and cousin.
Lisa is a huge Disney fanatic! She loves a good selfie or snapchat filter so she normally remembers to take photos of everything for the trip report! She's just hit a special birthday and got treated to a Keys To The Kingdom Tour.
Peter loves good food and Hooters! He's the joker of our group, he's forever making everyone laugh.
Luca's mad about Star Wars and Harry Potter, he can't wait to go back to Diagon Alley and cast all the spells!


(Peter, Luca & Lisa)

Grandma(Doreen) - She's a big Tinker Bell and Winnie the Pooh fan. Grandma is by far the serial shopper of the gang, she's just a sucker for a handbag!


(Grandma & Queen Elsa)

Dave, Lynn & Lily - My auntie, uncle and cousin.
Dave's a big kid. He loves going on all the rollercoaster, multiple times.
Lynn is a huge Tigger fan and will jump at the chance to meet him!
Lily is all about Minnie! This is her first trip and she'll be two when we go, we like to start them early.


(Dave & Lynn)


(Lily)

Disney Trip Counter
(including this trip)

Caitlin - 9
Gordon - 10
Isabella - 10
Kieran - 9
Nirvana - 2
Lisa - 5
Peter - 5
Luca - 5
Grandma - 10
Dave - 2
Lynn - 2
Lily - 1

Flights

We'll be flying out on October 5th and fly home October 25th, but we don't like to talk about going home. Our flights are with American Airlines, we will be flying from Aberdeen International Airport to London Heathrow with British Airways. Then from London Heathrow we'll fly to Philadelphia and from Philadelphia we'll fly to Orlando



Van

Our van is being hired through Alamo, we're getting a Ford Transit 15 seater for the full 21 days and like I said Dad will be our designated driver for the whole holiday. The trip from the airport to the villa is always a cramped one! What with 12 people, 12 suitcases and 12 hand luggages...



Accommodation

So our main place of residence will be the Sun Haven Villa in West Haven. The process of choosing villas to fit all of us in and that has certain requirements that we need is a hard one. We spent many nights looking at villas that Dad had found and eliminating the ones we didn't like! But in the end we all agree on how much we love this villa!




We're also gonna be staying at the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal for 1 night. We stayed there for a night on our last trip and couldn't resist the opportunity to do it again. The perks you get with the hotel also swayed our decision, who could say no to FOTL passes or early entry to the park?



Then we're ALSO staying at Disney's Port Orleans Riverside for 1 night! This is a first for us because of all the times we've been to Disney we've never stayed onsite, it was always a 'one day we'll do it' thing.
So for Christmas I planned to pay for a room for Mum & Dad.. oh and myself because I wasn't paying and not going! Then my brother decided to go halves with me for the room. It's fair to say they were surprised but we couldn't pay for Mum, Dad and me to go and not Kieran and Nirvana so for both their birthdays, Mum, Dad and I, paid for a room for them.
Since then Dave, Lynn, Lily & Grandma have gotten a room together and Lisa, Peter & Luca have plans to stay with some friends who are there at the same time!



Restaurants

There's a few restaurants that are just a must for us when we go that list includes Manny's, Cracker Barrel, Golden Corral, Denny's and of course my absolute favourite Taco Bell!

Since we're past the 180 day mark we've started booking ADR's. The night we stay at POR we have an ADR for Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' at Disney Springs, we also have another reservation at Hollywood & Vine at Hollywood Studios.

Theme Parks

We have plans to go to Universal and Islands of Adventure the day we check into HRH and the day after that as we get the FOTL passes with our hotel stay.



A big part of our holiday is obviously Disney so we have a 14 day ticket and have plans to go to all the parks, both the water parks and one of the mini golf courses.



Some of us have plans to go to Busch Gardens for a day and some of the others would like to go to SeaWorld.




Shopping

Since the Columbus Day sales start the weekend we arrive we're going straight into shopping mode when we arrive and doing three full days of shopping We'll be hitting up Altamonte Mall, Premium Outlets International, Premium Outlets Vineland, Florida Mall and Lake Buena Vista Factory Stores.
We love shopping in Florida and I think this picture from our last trip proves that point...

... and that was just one day of shopping

Overall, we are all very very excited to go again. We've made a rough itinerary for the trip and have scheduled another Florida meeting with the whole family on June 17th to finalise some decisions. So until we go I guess this is it

Well that's the pre trip done, I do hope you've enjoyed getting to know the family and all the information for our trip and hopefully the trip report will be full of laughs, magic and of course food!

Thank you so much for reading!

Caitlin

[caitlinsmummy]

Wow your serious shoppers (I love it!) That's my idea of shopping heaven!

Not sure I could plan a holiday for that many people, I've had numerous breakdowns over just planning our trip :d

I'm really looking forward to following your trippie! X

[Cloggy37]

Looking forward to reading the rest.

We are staying at POFQ when we go in Oct too

[DisneyFreak3]

Thank you so much for reading!

We definitely love our shopping, we've already planned to dedicate our first three days of the holiday just to shopping!

I'm honestly not sure how my dad manages to plan all of this for us!

I'm looking forward to writing this trip report as we've got some exciting things planned!

Plus it's officially less than 100 days until we go!

[caitlinsmummy]

Originally Posted by DisneyFreak3

Thank you so much for reading!

We definitely love our shopping, we've already planned to dedicate our first three days of the holiday just to shopping!

I'm honestly not sure how my dad manages to plan all of this for us!

I'm looking forward to writing this trip report as we've got some exciting things planned!

Plus it's officially less than 100 days until we go!

See more...

Happy double digit day! x

[disneyme]

Love your plans! The villa looks beautiful

[Goldia]

Oh wow, that is an awesome cast list for your trip. It sounds like you are going to have a great time.

[DisneyFreak3]

We've hit the 30 day mark!

So I thought I'd give you all a little update with everything.

We had the FINAL 'Family Florida Meeting' at the weekend with the whole cast (including two special guests that'll be joining us through the holiday).

So here are some things that have happened since the original post:

• Our chief planner(aka dad) has booked ALL of our fast passes, which includes FOP AND Slinky!

• Our itinerary has been finalised after a lot of juggling around.

• We've booked to do the Frozen dessert party at Epcot.

• Who gets which bedroom at the villa has been decided.

• We have checked in for our van hire.

• Mum, Dad and I booked our Busch Gardens tickets the other night

• And I've even started packing today!

We still have a couple things to do before we go, i.e. changing money to dollars, packing our bags and binge watching as many disney films as possible

Other than that there's not a lot to do but count the days down! I'm so excited to go and cannot wait to write my trip report up for you all but until then thank you for reading, see ya real soon!

Caitlin