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Old 4 Feb 21, 05:09 PM  
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Silvercat
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We're going back to WDW - 2019!

In the spirit of attempting to raise the morale of Dibbers missing trips to Walt Disney World at the moment, and in an attempt to eliminate the shortage of new trip reports on here, I'm going to do something I've never done before, and serialise my latest trip report. Normally I would post the whole thing split between 2 posts, with all words and no pictures, and they are massive!

I usually type these up at work in lunchbreaks and any spare time, ergo my trip report notebook for our 2019 trip was locked in a drawer at work when the country went into lockdown in March 2020. I've only just rescued the notebook, and notice I managed to write up to day 9 of our trip, so here is the first section for your consumption. I hope you enjoy it!

WE’RE GOING BACK TO DISNEY!

KENNEDY SPACE CENTRE, & WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT, FLORIDA

Cast :
Carolyn – happiest when trip planning, or actually on a trip
DH - grateful not to have to do any planning!

Experience :
Carolyn - 17 trips to Walt Disney World, 2 to Disneyland, 9 to Disneyland Resort Paris, 1 to Hong Kong Disneyland, 1 to Tokyo Disneyland, 1 cruise - Disney Dream
DH - 10 trips to Walt Disney World, 2 to Disneyland, 5 to Disneyland Resort Paris, 1 to Hong Kong Disneyland, 1 to Tokyo Disneyland, 1 cruise – Disney Dream

Resorts :
Radisson Blu, Manchester airport
Best Western, Cocoa Beach
Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort

Transportation :
Personal car, aeroplane, hire car

Dates :
Wednesday 27 November to Saturday 14 December 2019

PLANNING
As usual, this trip began life when Disney released their special offers for UK guests in April 2018, for the 2019 trip year. We had already discussed going again in 2019, and decided that we would like to take a trip closer to Christmas in order to fully experience all the wonderful holiday offerings and décor that Disney has from mid-November onwards. We seemed to conveniently forget that when we have done this previously, we have panicked somewhat on our return to the UK, when Christmas is quite close and we are nowhere near ready! In addition, for the first time in almost 20 years, we are hosting a family Christmas lunch at our house this year – and there will be exactly one week between our return from Florida and 25 December …….

So, we decided to book 14 nights at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort. We had been intending to stay there in 2017, but as the refurbishment turned into major rebuilding works, eventually we moved our booking over to the Port Orleans’s French Quarter resort. We really loved the idea of trying Caribbean Beach though, and since the works had finished the resort was getting great reviews, so I duly booked our trip. 14 day tickets for the price of 7, free Quick Service Dining Plan, free Memory Maker photo package, and a $200 Disney gift card, all included. Nice.

Of course, as is usual with me, it didn’t take me long before I was thinking, “that’s an awfully long way to fly for just 2 weeks ….”, plus there was a conversation with DH about how much we loved Kennedy Space Centre, and that led to me booking 3 nights at the Best Western Cocoa Beach hotel, prior to our 14 nights at Disney!

I booked flights at the 11 month period with Virgin Atlantic, and bearing in mind that DH is 6’4” tall, most of which is legs, opted to pay extra for the exit row seats again. We’ve done this before and it was a really great investment. Although I had to choose row 24 this time, as our usual row halfway down the plane was already unavailable. I also booked our airport parking at Manchester airport, with an overnight stay the night before we fly – meet & greet parking, with one night at the Radisson Blu. This was quite reasonably priced, and we much prefer to stay overnight before we get the flight, as the idea of being held up by roadworks or an accident as we drive there on the day gives me nightmares!

When I went to get the tickets for Kennedy, I was surprised not to be able to get multi-day tickets, so I just bought 4 adult tickets, which could be used on any day. DH expressed an interest in visiting the Warbird Museum, which would be only a short drive away from our hotel in Cocoa Beach, so I scheduled this in to our itinerary; tickets for this could be bought on arrival.

The car hire seemed quite expensive this year, so I just booked an intermediate, instead of our usual SUV, thinking this is what we always used to have anyway, so it shouldn’t be a problem for just the two of us. I used the same company I have been using for years, an agent called Rentalcars.com, and we had an intermediate through Dollar.

I was made aware of a new venture this year by the Central Florida Expressway Authority, called a Visitor Toll Pass. This is a pilot of a free to use, electronic tag that you register for, and then you hang the tag in your rental vehicle. This automatically triggers a sensor in the toll pass lane, which puts a charge on the credit card you linked to your tag. It looked really easy to use, so I signed us up and received a confirmation email straight away. This system looked as though it would save the usual frantic scrabbling around for change for the toll booths as we drive to and from the airport!

Next I began to look at the special events taking place during our visit. We decided to attend the Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party event, as we haven’t done this for a few years, and love the way it offers up opportunities to ride our favourite rides with less wait time, plus the special shows and parade too. I had put together an itinerary for our stay this year, and thought that the best date for us to attend the Party would be 05 December, coincidentally on what would have been Walt Disney’s birthday. I also wanted to treat DH to the Fantasmic Dessert Party – Fantasmic is his favourite Disney show, and we have attended the Dessert Party before, really enjoying it, so I booked that too. Behind the Seeds Tour at Epcot is something we have done once before, but we were really interested in doing this again, so we agreed to just spontaneously sign up for a tour one day when we were in Epcot.

As we only have the Quick Service Dining Plan this time, I didn’t need to make any dining reservations. However, we wanted to have breakfast and lunch, (on separate days, we’re not that greedy!), at Be Our Guest, so I booked us a breakfast slot for our first morning at Disney, and then looked for a lunchtime slot. There wasn’t anything available for any of the dates we would be in the Magic Kingdom, so I used a tip I had read about on a Disney fan website, and booked for just one person, hoping I could increase the number to 2 closer to the date.

FastPass booking date arrived and I had chosen to work from home that day, in order to give myself a full hour of uninterrupted time to get the bookings we wanted. I managed to successfully get everything we wanted, although I had to juggle some times around on some days. I was lucky enough to get two separate FastPass slots for Flight of Passage – DH has ridden this before and loved it, but I was too chicken on our last visit, (and also, if I’m being honest, too fat to fit!), and I was determined that this year I would experience as many new rides as I could, so I really wanted to get on this. I have lost a considerable amount of weight since our last visit to Walt Disney World, and was looking forward to being able to fit on more rides, more comfortably, this time around.

I was looking at the free Magic Bands offered by Disney, and at the time there were no new colours on offer – we had most of the original colours. So I decided to buy us one of the upgraded designs on offer, keeping this as a surprise for DH until we got there. I got myself a red & white polka-dotted band themed to Minnie Mouse, and ordered a light grey one for DH, with a Pirates of the Caribbean design on it. These would be waiting for us on our arrival at Caribbean Beach.

I suddenly realised about 2 weeks before the trip that I had forgotten to apply for a temporary disabled parking placard this year – I have degenerating discs in my back that make walking for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time rather painful, and for the last few visits to Florida I have been able to get a parking placard that enables us to park near the front of the car parks, which is really helpful. I quickly emailed the Tax Collector department, sending them copies of my UK Blue Badge and also my passport, and in less than a week I received the parking placard in the post. They do give an excellent service!

I discovered that one of our packing cubes had a broken zip, so I ordered another set, which was quite useful as that meant we now have 2.5 sets, giving me a few extras to use. These are a great innovation, I wish I had discovered them years ago. I am able to pack one cube with toiletries, one with medicines, and one with electrical chargers and sundry items, then the clothes all go into one cube of socks & pants, one of shorts, one of t-shirts etc. I also scheduled our Owner’s Locker storage box to be delivered to Caribbean Beach on our day of arrival there, although that meant we would be without the bits in it for the first few days of our trip, so I had to take some stuff such as adaptor plugs, charger cables, etc., something I don’t normally have to bother taking any more. I did ask them if they could deliver to the Cocoa Beach area, but they don’t deliver that far away from Disney, unfortunately. Perfectly understandable though, and I wasn’t too bothered about this.

A couple of days before departure, I printed off all the info, tickets, directions etc. that we would need, and organised them by date order in a folder. I also added travel insurance details, a shopping list for Walmart, opening hours of all the Disney parks, a list of FastPass dates and times, and a copy of the itinerary. We were ready to go!

DAY MINUS 1 - Tuesday 26 November

Plan : Last minute packing, sort car, get ready to go

Actual : I had arranged to work from home today, and logged on by 8.00 a.m. so that I could finish early, before our drive to Manchester airport. In between work, I managed to do the last minute packing while DH took our bearded dragon, Zelda, to the reptile boarder’s that we use – he was going on his holidays, too! I packed overnight things into our hand luggage so we didn’t have to open the suitcases until we got to Florida, and also put together a hotel picnic, having bought a couple of meal deals the day before. I did the usual things of bleaching the loos, making the bed, ensuring the fridge was emptied of anything perishable, unplugging the kettle and toaster, and emptying the dishwasher, before logging off from work and helping DH to load the car. 3.00 p.m. and we were off! We had a good journey from Birmingham to Manchester, but some roadworks and several sections of motorway with very heavy rain meant that the journey took us twice as long as it would normally do, and almost 3 hours later we pulled into the Meet & Greet parking area at the airport. This was as easy as normal, and the staff there are very helpful and welcoming – as we walked up to the desk in the airport, having parked the car in the lane marked, the guy behind the counter was very smiley and chatty! We handed over our car keys, took the slip of paper he gave us and tucked it away safely in my purse.

We walked the short way through the airport and across the covered skyway to the hotel, and were checked in very quickly. By 6.30 p.m. we were in a lovely room, tucked up in bed with our hotel picnic! We watched some TV, sent some emails and texts to family and friends, I checked us in online for the flights the next day and also paid for one extra suitcase going out, and we finally turned the lights off at about 11.00 p.m.

Next day is here
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Edited at 04:28 PM.
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Old 4 Feb 21, 05:21 PM  
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ChoppyGirl
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Woo hoo - a new trip report!
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Old 4 Feb 21, 05:38 PM  
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Kat11
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Great start! You’ve got a bearded dragon? That’s a really cool pet to have!

Kat
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Old 4 Feb 21, 06:05 PM  
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Silvercat
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Originally Posted by Kat11 View Post
Great start! You’ve got a bearded dragon? That’s a really cool pet to have!

Kat
Thank you! We adore him, his name is Zelda and this is what he looks like ……

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Old 4 Feb 21, 09:04 PM  
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Kat11
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Originally Posted by Silvercat View Post
Thank you! We adore him, his name is Zelda and this is what he looks like ……

He’s gorgeous my dd would love him!

Kat
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Old 5 Feb 21, 07:55 PM  
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Thank you for starting your trippie 😃 I enjoy reading them so this will be great to read along



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Old 5 Feb 21, 10:18 PM  
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Thanks for this. I really enjoyed the anticipation of getting ready for a Florida holiday. Looking forward to the rest..
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Old 17 Feb 21, 08:34 PM  
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kadypants
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Yay! A new trippie! This is massively exciting!

We have just moved our summer 2021 holiday to 2022 with a cheeky upgrade to CBR... so i'm looking forward to your report. Thank you.
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