The will it/won’t it trip...

[Mummymagic]

Well this is my first attempt at a trip report. I figured now is as good as time as any - if our holiday goes ahead it’s going to be a very different one.
We’re two sisters age nearly 41 and 35. We’ve been lucky enough to go to Florida many times since early childhood and it’s truly our happy place. We’re both married with 3 children. V is a carer and I’m an administrator in the school my children attend. I started my job in January this year after spending the previous year working nights at a local supermarket. Despite having numerous Florida holidays whilst we were growing u we’ve never been on holiday just the two of us. We’ve been with parents, husbands and children but never just us. Not to Florida, not to anywhere.
Sometime in early 2019 we started talking about the idea of going away for my 40th (June 2020) - a bucket list style trip, just the two of us. I had just over 100,000 air miles with virgin and my sister payed a balance of around 1700 and we booked a week in Dubai for a week over my 40th. Florida had been our first choice but with the extra cost of spending money, park tickets etc vs all inclusive where we didn’t have to find any extra spends - Florida missed out and we looked to somewhere else that could offer sun, water parks and theme parks and found Dubai.
Needless to say a global pandemic hit and our plans were scuppered. We decided there and then that whilst our holiday couldn’t go ahead as planned it didn’t mean it was cancelled altogether. By this time we were both working tirelessly in keyworker jobs (my sister in nights at a care and home and me at the time nights in a supermarket) - husbands were furloughed and kids were all at home too. On my actual 40th birthday we all met for socially distanced drinks. It was surreal - a few too many cocktails were consumed and after some Googling and lots of whatsapping we started looking at holidays. As you do. In our slightly inebriated state we started to think we needed more. We needed rewarding for working through this madness. For attempting to home school children ranging from toddlers to teenagers and ending up with them learning nothing but all hating you. For not murdering husbands that despite being paid to stay at home and keep everyone safe - still couldn’t see a pile of laundry or a sink full of dishes... we needed something to look forward to. We looked for holidays with business class flights and luxury hotels and ended up booking a week in the Dominican Republic for April 2021.
Lockdown life carried on and we got through it by spending hours on the phone bitching daily about kids, husbands and life in general. And counting down to a week of escaping and luxury.
Christmas came and went and so did new lockdown announcements. Our holiday was cancelled again. I’d started looking for a new job as nights were starting to really affect my health - In January, after a long and stressful interview process - I got offered the job of administrator in the school my children attend. It’s my perfect job - I’m good at admin and accounting, I have the chance to progress - it’s term time only and school hours and I finally have a job that I love going to.
When our trip to the Dominican Republic gets cancelled we were given a cash refund - we spoke about it and agreed that we should rebook something to make sure we still do our trip away together and the money we’ve set aside for it doesn’t get swallowed up in everyday life! We start looking again for holidays - our cash refund was 2500 - we now have the added criteria though of only being able to travel in school holidays.
We look at all kinds of options and try and second guess which countries will be safer to travel to - we finally find a bargain for Dubai the day after schoolo finishes in the summer - business class flights, all inclusive and a bit leftover to pay for passes to the theme parks and water park. We start planning, watching every YouTube video there is and the idea of the holiday kept us going.
Around 3 weeks we found out that the time off for the holiday went possible for my sister - if there was need to isolate it would be violating company policy and although things could change no one could say if the company’s policy would differ from government advice.
We started searching again and as always came back to florida. May half term became an option although we were aware it was a big gamble. International travel can only start at the earliest from may 17th and we’re booking the 29th May. We started looking at Florida again - we found a deal with flights and hotel (doubletree sea world ) for £1200. We realised if we amended with BA we would get a refund for the difference. We bit the bullet and changed— the plan now is we travel to Gatwick straight after school on Friday 28th May and spend the night at the Hilton Gatwick (£89 refundable up til midnight the night before arrival) fly out of Gatwick on the 10.50 arriving in Orlando at 1510. We’ve then booked a night at hrh at universal and 3 park 14 day ticke6ts through virgin using the airmiles and £275 - the £1800 refund that we got paid for the Gatwick hotel, cash addition to universal hotel and tickets and £300 booking non swim discovery cove tickets/seaworid/aquatica and is covering spending money when we’re there.
We’re well aware the holiday might not go ahead - we’re both vaccinated due to our jobs and being carers for children. The US is looking good with vaccines too. If we don’t go everything’s refundable. If we do get to go we get to have our dreams come true for what we consider a bargain!
Coming soon - the plans we hope will happen!

[lfc_sarah]

Crossing everything for you!. Sounds like you definitely deserve it x

[Frankie & gang]

Mummymagic I really hope you and your sis get to go on your holiday. It sounds fab.
I’ve holidayed with my own sister but the DH’s came too! I’d love to go just with sis x

[jools1302]

Oh I really hope this happens for you and will look forward to a trip report 🙏🏻🤞

[cornishfrogboy]

Hoping that it all works out for you!

[anji]

So hope you get to go! You certainly deserve it 💜 and you've done such a great bit of writing here 😀