OKWe're going when - pre-trippee

[chaffey]

Hi and Welcome aboard for our new countdown to disney

Paul – DH – OutbackAddict – 44 when we go, Loves everything America, likes all the big coasters and has even suggested that he will try a vertical drop this time erm. This will be his 4th trip



Might kill me for adding this photo of him dressed as Alf Garnett but it was a very good new years eve party

Me – Chaffey – Will be 41 when we go - gets a complete buzz by just being on American soil. This will be my 7th trip and still learning. Will carry on going back until I have perfected the art of everything Disney


This was taken last year at Buckingham Palace celebrating my 40th birthday

DD – Millie – will be 7 when we go – she’s our bookaholic girly girl and loves Princessess and often tells me I’m the best Mum in the world. If only she knew what we have planned. This will be her 3rd trip

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DD – Olivia – will be 5 the day before we go. She’s still our bull in a china shop still fond of the odd tantrum or two but loves her kissess and cuddles. There's never a dull moment when she's around. Adores anything Disney and Barbie. This is trip number two



So how did this come about?

After our last trip May/June 2009 we had a mental picture that we wouldn’t be able to go back until 2012 due to finances, but we never lost the wish to go back earlier. A few months after our return our mortgage came off fixed rate and we learnt that we were to be £200 better off a month. Instead of ploughing this is into finishing the house we decided that we would save the money and head back to Florida a year early. After all we had bought the house as a long term investment why rush to get it finished. DH really had the post holiday blues and the thought of waiting 3 ½ years was just too much.

I was floating around on cloud nine and did question DH a couple of times to make sure that I wasn’t getting excited about nothing, but he assured me that we would definitely be going back in oct2011. This mood then lead to pure guilt as it would mean that we would have to take DD’s out of school for seven days. Don’t fret though this feeling soon passed when I realised that we were going to be spending halloween in our magical place. My mood then turned to OMG when can we get this booked? Impatient I know but I just wanted things to be confirmed.

We knew in our minds that we wanted to stop at OKW but knew that we could only afford it if they offered their 42% discount again. Now on reading previous threads we thought that we would have to wait until much later in the year to be able to book this but decided we would book our fly drives with Virgin as soon as they became available and take a chance that the offer would come to fruition later.

You can imagine my joy when we saw the offer from Complete Orlando offering the discount for our Oct11 holiday way back in mar10. DH was soon emailing Complete Orlando asking for a price for 15 nights from 20thOct11 til 4thNov11. Emails exchanged and we are booked in a studio with free DDP and 14 day park tickets.

Now all we had to do was wait patiently for the Virgin Holidays to update their website with our dates. It seemed to take forever for them to update but then one afternoon sat at work DH calls to inform me that he has looked and the dates have been updated but the dates we want are not available. What do you mean not available there’s still 18months til we leave. Didn’t matter what we did the only way we could get there on our given date was to fly PE. (not an option) I know lets go for 16 nights I say expecting DH to discount it but to my shock he said ok and booked us on to the VS027 leaving Gatwick on 19thOct11. We decided that if CO couldn’t give us the extra day then we would just book ourselves into a cheap hotel for the first night.

[chaffey]

DH called CO and asked if we could add another night onto our booking, absolutely no problem and no admin charge as the booking was now more money. At the same time he also asked for a price for a one bedroom studio. Barry and Caron’s pictures were showing us just how much space we would have with a one bed. Another £720 to upgrade so we decided to wait and see how the next few weeks and the dreaded budget panned out before committing ourselves. We had also been spoilt by the amount of space we had had at the Sheraton Vistana resort on our last trip and were slightly worried how we would cope this time with so little space.

The Budget was quite kind to us so no major changes to our monthly bills so I finally persuaded Paul to call and change us to a one bed villa. Also at the same time he upgraded our Disney tickets to 21 days so that we could go to a Disney Park on our first and last days.

So now all we had to do was wait and decide if we are going to tell the girls before we go. To date they are still blissfully unaware that we are going away. I very nearly caved in over Christmas but if asked they both still firmly believe that they have to wait until they are 8+6.

[chaffey]

So we are booked for 16nights at OKW in a one bed studio

We will try and do twilight check-in and give the girls some story about going on Uncle Mark's plane(he works for BA but I don't think they will notice the difference) before heading back home in the hope we can sleep

We are booked into the Vroom so the girls will be able to use up as much energy as possible before our flight which will be

Leaving Gatwick on 19th October 2011
On VS027

Returning on 4th Nov 2011
on VS016

I will be back to update this as we plan more but will leave you with a couple of pictures

[hintycinders]

Hi There
Great pre trip and well done you for not caving in and telling the girls over Christmas, the look on their faces when they finally discover will be priceless.
Happy Planning

[oh_darling]

Aww brilliant pre-trip! We will be out there the same time as you When are you going to tell the girls? Love your Minnie costume btw!

[bella9]

So many things worked out in your favour how could you not go? A great pre-trippy, I bet you're sooo excited. Looking forward to the updates.

[ROO]

Fantastic pre-trippie, have subscribed so look forward to any up-dates. Will look out for you in October, as we over lap by a couple of days. x

[tink3]

Great start, sounds like you have a great trip planned and I am looking forward to hearing more.

[karalma]

We will be at OKW at the same tome. We're going from 16th Oct for 9 nights. Looking forward to hearing more.

[chaffey]

Originally Posted by hintycinders

Hi There
Great pre trip and well done you for not caving in and telling the girls over Christmas, the look on their faces when they finally discover will be priceless.
Happy Planning

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Thank you, it took a lot of will power but am so glad that I found that little bit of courage not to tell them. Hopefully they will be stunned

Originally Posted by oh_darling

Aww brilliant pre-trip! We will be out there the same time as you When are you going to tell the girls? Love your Minnie costume btw!

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thanks, think quite a few dibbers will be there then. We are hoping not to tell them until we get to the airport on our flight day but guess only time will tell Wanted to do my 40th in sytle and what better way to than to pretend to be Minnie

Originally Posted by bella9

So many things worked out in your favour how could you not go? A great pre-trippy, I bet you're sooo excited. Looking forward to the updates.

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Just love it when a plans comes together. Excited is not the word

Originally Posted by ROO

Fantastic pre-trippie, have subscribed so look forward to any up-dates. Will look out for you in October, as we over lap by a couple of days. x

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Aww thanks, Are you staying at OKW or else where?

Originally Posted by tink3

Great start, sounds like you have a great trip planned and I am looking forward to hearing more.

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Thanks for you kind comments

Originally Posted by karalma

We will be at OKW at the same tome. We're going from 16th Oct for 9 nights. Looking forward to hearing more.

See more...

Make sure you say hi if you see us. We won't be in fancy dress unless it's MNSSHP though