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15 Feb 15, 07:22 PM
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
 Join Date: Aug 09
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Intro-
You might have read one of my old trip reports but if not here's a quick rundown of the cast. It's back to 2 again this year! Aimee (me)  Currently 25 and suffering bouts of age denial! There's a very good chance that I shan't be having any more birthdays and will simply be 25 + a little bit for every subsequent year of ageing!  In reality I will be 26 when we go (darn reality!) it's a good job Disney stops me feeling like a proper grown up! I'm still the same as every other description I've written of myself on here really! Disney addict, list writer extraordinaire, bit of a rollercoaster wimp (N.B conqueror of Expedition Everest circa 2014  ), food lover and owner of more than one sweet tooth! I’m still working as a nanny but for a different family now as the youngest child of my last family went to school. Lauren  Lauren is my little sister. She’s 24 in a couple of weeks and a fellow Disney addict! She’s far braver than I am and is used to having to ride Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ roller coaster alone as I’m such a wimp! Another food lover but would pick savoury over sweet. Lauren is a teaching assistant and works with children with additional needs. This will be our 13th trip! Now I’m not really a superstitious person but the less I think about that the better hehe. I had originally planned to write this on my day off on Friday but I couldn’t bring myself to start the pre-trip report for trip number 13 on Friday the 13th! Felt like tempting fate! (Maybe I’m more superstitious than I thought.  )The trip report name I'm sure a few of you will already recognise where the title of this report comes from! For those that don't I'll give you a clue. We're finally returning to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! We haven't been since 2010! We're huge HP fans so we're beyond excited, especially for Diagon Alley! The title is probably my favourite line in the whole entire Harry Potter series! Although there are a few others, mainly from Deathly Hallows (my all-time favourite book!) Others include- ‘The ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.’ That gave me goosebumps the first time I read it! Also just before the battle of Hogwarts when Harry says "We're fighting". Love it! Part of me wishes that the wizarding world existed in real life! Although if it did it would mean I really was just a muggle which would be a bit depressing  haha. I could go on and on but I think I've given you a pretty good insight there in to what a massive geek I am! Lauren adores the books and films too! I picked this quote over all others though as it really felt appropriate for Disney too! It's been 17 years since Lauren and I first went to Walt Disney World (20 since we went to Disneyland Paris which makes me feel old!) and we still love it just as much now as we did then, maybe even more! And I bet a lot of you face the same questions as we do- Why are you going back again? Aren't you bored of it yet? It's for kids! Etc etc etc! But yes even after all this time we still love Disney and I can't see that ever changing really! I know there will come a point where we won't be able to go so often or go together even but it will always hold a special place in our hearts (complimentary sick bags are unfortunately not provided with this pre-trip report )How the trip came about I suppose I should start with booking the flights which was almost a year ago to the day! Around this time last year we hadn't even discussed returning in 2015 as we hadn't been on our May 2014 trip yet! Going again this year really couldn't have been further from our minds! But then someone posted on the Dibb that they had found a reasonably priced fly drive with Virgin Holidays for August 2015 (reasonably priced by school holiday standards!) Lauren and I have never booked a fly drive before. We both drive but have no desire to drive in the states and in fact won't be collecting the car at all but I'll get to that later! The prices we were getting were around £1680 mark if I remember right (including the V room which was around £22pp). That made the flights around £820 each before adding the v room. As I'm sure you'll agree that's hardly a bargain flight price but for direct Virgin flights in the summer holidays it's not bad! We've paid around £1000 each for August flights in the past! We really didn't know what to do, we hadn't even talked about 2015 yet and there we were considering booking flights! But at the same time we knew we risked paying more if we waited and sure enough the fly drive price did rise! Not by much, maybe £10-20 every day. After a couple of days the fly drive price hit £1711.11 and we decided to just book it before it went up any more! The deposit was £300 and we'd be able to pay off the rest a little bit every month! This was a little risky at the time as I knew that I’d be leaving my job in August and didn’t know how long it would take to find a new one. We decided that if the worst came to the worst then we could always cut back on accommodation costs but luckily I found a fantastic new job after just 2 weeks! We've booked from 17th - 30th August flying from Gatwick. It's only 13 nights but we found the flight prices went up a lot when we tried to book from the 16th! We also had a dilemma as Lauren's school holidays hadn't been announced yet so we had to make sure we came back on a weekend so that she'd be back in time for the start of school! The 31st is a bank holiday anyway but we guessed that her school would be back on the 1st September so didn't risk booking that extra night. It since turns out that she starts backs on the 2nd so we could have flown back on the bank holiday but oh well! We did ring VH to try and add the extra day but they'd sold their allocation of economy seats and wanted £6000 as there were only upper class seats left! Unfortunately the lottery win hasn't happened yet so we had to keep the dates as they were! We’re on the 1pm flight which isn’t ideal as we do prefer to take the morning flight but again that put the price up so we stuck with the later one. If I remember right there are also a couple of other Dibber’s on this flight so I’m wondering if there’ll be a Dibb meet in the bubble hehe. That brings me nicely to the topic of plane seats! As I’m sure you all know Virgin now charge to pre-book seats. I believe that if you booked before a certain date you can wait till 60 days and select them for free at the moment, don’t quote me on that though! Our original thoughts were that there was no way we were going to pay. At £25 per person each way that added an extra £100 to our flight costs! However we went to Italy last summer and didn’t bother to request seats and we ended up being separated. Only by a couple of rows and luckily it’s a fairly short flight but we decided then and there that we would pay to pre-book for Florida as we didn’t want to end up being separated on a 9 hour flight! From what I remember it was around mid-November when the charge came in. I booked our seats that very day. We’ve gone for dibbers row in the bubble both ways! This is a little bit of a risk for us as we had an awful flight home in the bubble at the end of our 2013 trip and swore never again on a night flight! We flew out in the bubble last year though and had a fab experience so fingers crossed the flight home this year will be similar. As we discovered though it very much depends on the people sitting around you! Luckily as we’re in dibbers row we at least won’t have to deal with unsupervised children kicking us in the back half the night! I know you can still be moved even if you’ve paid but as long as we’re sitting together somewhere on the plane that’s all I care about! Ok I've rambled on a lot there! The short version is that we've booked a fly drive with the v room for just over £855 pp plus £100 for seat selection. When we arrive at MCO we just won't collect the car (I've read in here that it's fine to do this- I hope!) Accommodation I have a feeling this section is going to be long as our plans have changed a LOT! I'll do a shortened version in the last paragraph again so feel free to skip through me babbling on and on again! Once we'd booked the flights we started discussing where we were going to stay this trip. One thing that was for certain was that we'd be staying overnight at one of the Universal hotels as we knew we'd definitely be visiting WWoHP! I was also really keen to fit in a Disney cruise as I've read a few trippy’s featuring them now! Our original plan was to spend 5 nights at a Disney resort (Wilderness Lodge to get the DDP), 1 night at Universal (Royal Pacific Resort), 3 nights on a cruise and 4 nights at the Swan or Dolphin resort (we love the location of the resorts around Epcot and S and D work out cheaper than Yacht and Beach or Boardwalk Inn as they're not owned by Disney.) We quickly decided against the cruise as it just took away too many Disney park days from a 13 night trip by the time we'd done Universal/IoA as well. We loved our week long trip in May last year but we knew we wanted to have the luxury of being able to do the parks at a slower pace like we did in 2013. Our next plan was to spend 1 night at French Quarter (room only), 1 night at Royal Pacific Resort, 7 nights at Wilderness Lodge with DDP followed by 4 nights somewhere like Animal Kingdom Lodge by renting DVC points. We eventually decided that rather than booking 2 separate Disney hotels for the end of our trip it actually made more sense to book Wilderness Lodge for the last 10 days of the trip with the DDP as then we wouldn’t have to pay for food on those last few days. We also decided we wanted to stay for 2 nights at RPR to really make the most of the early entry to HP and front of the line passes! Our plan then looked like this- -1 night at Port Orleans French Quarter (the main draw here being that this is one of our favourite resorts and we missed it in 2014! Also being able to use the magical express from MCO) - 2 nights at Royal Pacific Resort - 10 nights at Wilderness Lodge with DDP As soon as the 24th April 2014 rolled around and saw the return of free dining we booked Wilderness Lodge! The cost was £2,982 for a woods view room including 14 day ultimate tickets and the free Disney dining plan plus the $200 gift card. We’d been tracking the price before the free dining offer came out and it had gone up by about £100. We put this down to the fact that before free dining they offer a small discount for booking hotel and tickets together through their website but obviously with the free DDP you don’t get that discount anymore which explained the slight rise. We were happy with this and paid the £100 deposit! This plan changed once again in to what is now the final plan! We were discussing one day whether we really needed to do the first night at French Quarter. We absolutely adore FQ, we’ve stayed there 5 times including our first ever trip to WDW. We were planning on getting the magical express there but we decided we could skip the night here and head straight to RPR on arrival day. It was a tough decision as we missed FQ so much in 2014 and it would have been lovely to have spent our first day chilling out there! To make up for not staying though we’ve decided to go and visit one morning on our trip! Obviously we won’t be able to use the pool or see the rooms but it’ll be lovely to walk around and visit the food court (there are some beignets with my name on! ) It meant we'd have to organise our own transfer from the airport but we figured we'd have had to pay for a transfer between FQ and RPR anyway so it didn't make a huge difference cost wise. It also left us with 1 spare night but a quick call to Disney to add the extra night on to our Wilderness Lodge booking sorted that! This took the balance up to £3170 but it also meant we now had 11 table service/quick service/snack credits to play with! Just after Christmas we also booked Royal Pacific Resort for the first 2 nights of our trip! We booked through Expedia at a cost of £352.84. I went through quidco (forgot about this with the Disney booking!) which should give me £42 cashback hopefully! Since booking RPR we’re found out that the early entry to Harry Potter has now changed from Diagon Alley back to the original Hogsmeade area in IoA! This is really annoying to be honest as we obviously wanted to use the early hour to see DA and hopefully ride Gringotts with a shorter wait like many other Dibber’s I’m sure! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they might change it back for the busy summer season but I’m not holding out much hope! It’s unfortunate that they’ve changed it but our current plan is to head to IoA for the early hour, ride Forbidden Journey (if I’m not still scarred for life after the last time I went on it!  ) then queue for the Hogwarts Express to hopefully make it over to Diagon Alley for opening once they start running the train. It’s not the ideal plan we had in our heads but still we feel lucky to be going and staying onsite at all! So the final plan is- 17th-19th August- Royal Pacific Resort  (Photo borrowed from Google) 19th-30th August- Wilderness Lodge    (Above photos borrowed from Google) A much simpler plan I’m sure you’ll agree! I think that’s it for the accommodation section! We’re super excited to stay at both of these resorts as they’re both brand new to us! We’ve always wanted to stay at WL and it still doesn’t feel real that we’re actually booked in there. I just can’t wait to walk in to that beautiful lobby! Tickets We have our 14 day Disney ultimate’s booked as part of our Wilderness Lodge package as above. We’ve also booked our Universal tickets as well. We booked them with Florida Tix who we’ve used before when booking Discovery Cove. We booked during one of the 5% off offers. I’ve heard rumours that they put the price up before so the 5% isn’t really a discount but we were happy with the price. We’ve booked the 2 park bonus tickets for £237.50 so just under £119 each. We may have been able to get them cheaper but we were happy with that price. Plans We’ll be driving up to Gatwick on travel day again this year. As our parents are staying home this time they’ll drive us up on the day so we’ll save money on parking at the airport for the whole trip! We (read- Lauren ) have decided not to travel up the night before and stay overnight at Gatwick. We only live 30-40 minutes from the airport so it’s not really necessary on the 1pm flight. I’d love to stay the night before at the airport as to me it means the holiday starts a day earlier! Lauren hates it though as doesn’t like sleeping in a strange bed (despite the fact she’ll be spending 2 weeks sleeping in hotel beds and never has a problem then hehe). It would be a nice treat and takes away the pressure of driving there on flight day but as I said it’s not necessary!When we arrive at MCO our plan is to use Florida Magical Tours to book our transfer over to RPR! It sounds really sad but we’re so gutted that we won’t get to catch the Magical Express and watch the video! Although saying that they changed the video last year and it’s not as good as it used to be but still. We’ll be getting the ME back to MCO at the end of the trip but it’s not quite the same when you’re going home hehe. It will be nice to have a private transfer though! We’re planning to use FMT again for our journey from RPR to WL! In terms of parks we’re just focusing on Universal/Islands of Adventure and the 4 main Disney parks this year plus a visit to one of the Disney waterparks, most likely Typhoon Lagoon as we did Blizzard Beach back in 2012 (we’re not huge waterpark fans so don’t go every trip). We’re also hoping to spend a bit more time at Downtown Disney (how long before we have to call it Disney Springs?  ) this trip as we didn’t spend a lot of time there in 2014. I know the building work is still on-going but we love DTD so didn’t let it bother us last year!We don’t currently have any plans for any offsite shopping at the moment but that could change as Lauren and I always seem to tweak our plans before we go! Mind you we probably won’t need to as I’m already thinking about all the merchandise I want to buy from the Universal parks and if you’ve read my previous trip reports you’ll know I’m partial to a bit of Disney merch too! In fact I’m considering paying to bring back an extra suitcase on the way home as I’m worried my Harry Potter merchandise consumption might fill up a small suitcase alone!  Tour-wise we’ve decided we’re finally going to book the Wild Africa Trek this trip! We’ve wanted to do it for years but the cost has always put us off. Also the fact that you have to walk over a rickety (although completely safe) bridge gives me the heeby jeebies! I know you’re attached by a harness but I’m still a little nervous it’ll be like something out of I’m a Celeb hehe. Think it can be booked from 6 months out so will update more then with the cost etc. We did consider doing the Keys to the Kingdom tour too but I think with the cost of WAT and the fact we’re only at Disney for 11 nights might mean that 2 tours will cut in to our park time a little so that’s something to save for a future trip I hope! I think that’s it really. Obviously we have a plan in place for ADR’s etc but I’ll leave that for the next update once we’ve booked them! So there we have it! I hope I haven’t bored you all with the start of this pre-trippy as I do tend to go on a bit! Apologies for the lack of photos too! As I said there will be an ADR update, I’d imagine in a week. I’m also planning a shopping update in the coming weeks as I’ve already bought a lot for this trip! Hope you enjoy reading along! Edited at 08:14 AM. |
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15 Feb 15, 07:28 PM
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Very Serious Dibber
 
Join Date: Sep 08
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Yay - another pre-trippie! Your plans sound fab - we are hopefully staying at Wilderness Lodge in 2016 for our Honeymoon, so I look forward to seeing lots of photos
 . We will also be in WDW in August so may see you around! x
__________________
 Next Trip - Pop & Endless Summer - August 2024 |
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15 Feb 15, 07:40 PM
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Imagineer
 
Join Date: Apr 12
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Sooooo exciting, can't wait to read along again.
Your plans sound brilliant.
__________________
  1997/1998 Quality Inn.2006 Villa.2007&2008Fairfield 2013 LBV Resort and Spa 2015 Sheraton Times Sq.NY. 2016 Barcelo Teguise Beach 2016 Trump Int Toronto 2016 Xmas in NY.2018 LBV Resort And Spa 2019 Croatia Venice and Boston |
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15 Feb 15, 08:11 PM
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VIP Dibber
Join Date: Jun 13
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Yay! A new one
. As usual, your plans sound fab! Can't wait to read more 
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15 Feb 15, 10:05 PM
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Imagineer
Join Date: Aug 13
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Yayyyyy another trippie
Am so jealous of both of your hotel stays! They both look beautiful and the WL just have that WOW factor. Happy planning! Xx |
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15 Feb 15, 10:57 PM
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
Join Date: Aug 09
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15 Feb 15, 11:31 PM
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Excited about Disney
 
Join Date: Jun 13
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Made my night seeing you've started this
 Can't wait to read more! x |
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16 Feb 15, 01:51 AM
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VIP Dibber
Join Date: Apr 09
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Fantastic, the start of another Trippie. WAT is ace, the bridge is fine, honestly but it is exciting.
Can't wait for an update already. Pam |
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16 Feb 15, 09:25 AM
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Apprentice Imagineer
 Join Date: May 11
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Sounds amazing!
__________________
Dreaming of our next trip to the magic! |
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