The Unexpected Festive Family Trip

[Rescuer]

The Unexpected Festive Family Trip

Please be gentle with me as this will be my first attempt at a pre and full trip report, I have only dabbled with food reports until now!

Cast

Me – 45. Disney addict. Lover of all things Disney and Universal. Chief planner. This will be my 10th trip to Florida.

DH – 46 – pretends he’s no too bothered but secretly loves these holidays as much as I do as long as he doesn’t need to be too involved in the planning or listen to me wittering on about the fine planning details too much. This will be his 9th trip to Florida.

DS – 11 – Loves it all, the parks, the resorts and especially the food! Likes to dabble on the planning and costing front and is currently enjoying playing around on the touring plans website. This will be his 6th Florida holiday.

Mil – 78 – Loves the Disney bubble, sharing the excitement with ds and the monorail resorts. This will be her 2nd Disney trip. She came on Ds’ first trip in 2013 but fell ill on the first day and ended up stretchered out of MK due to a combination of reasons and was taken to Celebration Hospital. She was ok and still enjoyed the rest of trip. It also put her off travelling with us again in the heat of the summer.

Background

So, this truly is an unexpected trip. In April when free ddp was released we booked 15 nights at POFQ for summer 2019 for me, dh and ds.

Following lots of Florida type discussions with one of my friends, we then decided that during the Easter holidays in 2019 we would have a trip to Universal studios with ds, no Easter holidays for dh though.

This seemed ideal as we (ds, dh and I) were doing an offsite/Universal stay in July 2018 so if we upgraded to annual passes these would cover July 2018, April 2019 and July 2019.

After all this I was feeling pretty pleased with myself and excited with the prospect of more than 1 trip in the same year.

Fast forward to the middle of August and a Saturday morning breakfast with my Mil. Christmas came up as the topic of conversation and she suggested it might be nice to do something different this year. We are a small family and these days there is only ever the 4 of us at Christmas. I was expecting her to suggest a Chinese or a local restaurant but no! Would we consider the 4 of us going to Disney?

Dh and I were pretty speechless, ds, however, was horrified, yes horrified!

Later on, he admitted that he was worried his friends might think he was extremely spoilt and be mean to him about. To my knowledge the few select friends he has told have not been mean to him. To be honest though dh and I totally understand where he was coming from as I’m sure plenty of you on here have listened politely to the judgements of ‘there are other places in the world you know’, ‘you are going there again’, ‘you must be rolling in money’ or my personal favourite from those who have never been ‘oh, I couldn’t stand doing ‘the shows’ or being around people dressed up as silly characters.’


Mil suggested either DLP for a few days or WDW if we could fit it in in the school holidays. All perfectly fine for me and ds as we both have school holidays and Mil is retired. Another story altogether for dh. He initially thought he should be ok asking for Christmas holidays in August, but someone else had also asked so we had to wait until everyone decided what they wanted to do and it looked like there would not be enough cover but after a couple of weeks of back and forth it turned out ok.

Planning to follow:

Christmas Food report

[Rescuer]

The Plans

So, what does every obsessed Disney planner do when a ‘last minute’ trip is suggested. PANIC!

I say last minute as I normally have my trips books around about 14 months in advance with my dining all done at 180 days. So not only was the trip 4 months away but it was during a season that I knew nothing about in terms of Disney, first world problems I know!

While waiting on Dh to find out if he was getting his holidays I went ahead with costing accommodation and flights and researching all things Disney at Christmas.

Accommodation

Firstly, we were tempted by AOA family suites, lots of extra space and a resort we really enjoy. At that point there was only Cars Suites available which wouldn’t have been my first choice.

Then we thought about Wilderness Lodge, this seems to be a big favourite over the holidays, only club level was showing as available and we thought a split stay with WL would be great. It turned out that although WL was showing as available online it actually wasn’t available at all.

Next, we looked at the Grand Floridan, my Mil’s favourite resort and thought that this combined with the Beach Club would be a good choice in terms of getting parks. We were set with our choice or so we thought.

Finally, on the day DH got the go ahead for his holidays we decided to do one final check of availability before reaching a final decision. The Contemporary was showing availability for a theme park room in the main tower at a lower price than the standard room in the outer buildings at the GF. We went round to give Mil the good news that the holiday was a go and asked which monorail resort she would like to stay in for the first part of the trip. The Contemporary won, it was the thought of watching wishes from our balcony on Christmas night that swung it I think.

Final decision: Contemporary 5 nights and Beach Club 6 nights.

[Gill247]

Wow, your trip sound amazing! Cant wait to hear more about your plans!

[Dizzny Momma]

NOT JELOUS AT ALL sounds good so far
Margaret

[nadya]

Sounds like an amazing trip-have a fantastic time

[pad406]

Looking forward to the report, we'll be there same time

Your DS sounds like mine. When we did 'Lunch with an Imagineer' they went around the table asking people to introduce themselves, where they were from, favourite attractions etc. usual answers, TOT, RNR, Soarin etc. Then they got to DS

His answer: The restaurants

Have a great trip.

[kansaskitty]

What an amazing trip! Two stunning resorts! Your MIL sounds wonderful by the way, I bet you’ll all have a blast!

[sheluk]

Wow sounds like an amazing trip! Can’t wait to read more about it xx

[eleele]

We did a last minute trip last year and the organising of it was a bit panicked especially as it was just me doing it! You'll be fine though, we're all pros on the Dibb

Disneyworld is amazing at Christmas, I'd love to go again, you'll have a brilliant time!

[Rescuer]

Originally Posted by Gill247

Wow, your trip sound amazing! Cant wait to hear more about your plans!

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Thanks. It is all very exciting. Not as exciting as going in 4 days though! Have an amazing trip.

Originally Posted by Dizzny Momma

NOT JELOUS AT ALL sounds good so far
Margaret

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Your trip will be here in no time and I can be jealous as we will have no trips to plan.

Originally Posted by nadya

Sounds like an amazing trip-have a fantastic time

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Thank you.

Originally Posted by pad406

Looking forward to the report, we'll be there same time

Your DS sounds like mine. When we did 'Lunch with an Imagineer' they went around the table asking people to introduce themselves, where they were from, favourite attractions etc. usual answers, TOT, RNR, Soarin etc. Then they got to DS

His answer: The restaurants

Have a great trip.

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Thanks. I've read your review of Christmas trips and your helpful responses full of advice to those travelling at this time of year.

Any advice on clothing for that time of year?