Carol & Sue Sept 2014

[miss lumpy]

HI I'm sue writer of these trip reports 48yrs old and this will be my 5th visits to disney




This is carol 49yrs old (wont thank me for telling you this) also her 5th visit too



We are best friends have been for over 20yrs now things in life has happened and we share a house work at the same place have lots of the same interests one being DISNEY we are more like sisters .


She cant help herself



It was time to book our next holiday and long ago we had decided on going back to Disney, kinda waited till now so some of the major refurbs would be finished , although there is always something going on in Disney. We have also chosen to do things a little differently this year

Firstly the time of year we are going its normally the beginning of may but it can be quite hot and tiring and we wanted a different perspective so we are going mid sept to see what Halloween looks and feels like...
We like to book our flights first and had been checking out prices for quite some time. changed dates a few time to save a few £££'s but it still wasn't cheap in the end we used our virgin air miles that we had both been saving carol had too many and I didn't have enough. So we paid to transfer some and paid to buy some to be able to basically get 2 free flights just had to pay the taxes and carrier fees of £430.86 for us both. So that turned out to be quite a saving, good idea collecting those air miles from our credit cards..

So fly out sept 15th economy with virgin, not paying to pre book our seats we will just have to hope other people are waiting to do the same so we have a fair chance of sitting together, would like a window seat if poss but not essential, I don't think we have ever sat at the front of the plane either and wouldn't mind sitting there. But whatever.

Airport car parking
Carol is forever surfing the web and looking for offers and came across one for parking at the airport from MANCHESTER AIRPORT back in Jan, 15 days with fast track £56.99 so booked that.

Accommodation
We once did a twin stay 1 week on idrive 1 week at all star sports and after that don't think of staying anywhere other than Disney now if its within budget, why not..

So planned on going with the American site to book because they offer free dining if you stay at the value hotels but you can only purchase there 10 day park hopper & more tickets (which suited us at the time cause we wanted to have 2 full days at universal) with there package it cost £100 more than WDTC
But you got free dining ( counter service meals) for your whole 2wks stay. .. But then Walt Disney travel company had a sale and it was too good to miss so booked with them instead

2weeks all star sports (again)this will be our 4th time at this hotel, when people say it doesn't matter about the accommodation your not in your room long enough to notice I think it does matter about location though.
Every resort has some perks wether its close to your favourite park or water park or the outlets we like this hotel for a number of reasons the first reason being that whichever block your in your never far away to walk to the food hall after a long day at the parks with your refillable mug to get a cool/hot drink, we love the theming of all the value hotels there bright fun and colourful and no matter what time we have always manage to find a quiet area around one of the pools . It goes without saying the staff are always friendly and helpful.

So 2wks accommodation with x2 14 day ultimate tickets £1,221 plus $150 on a gift card another bargain

So now to the little things...
A few weeks later we booked our places on the magical express bus

Booked a character breakfast at tusker house(first time here) in animal kingdom for our first morning , because you know you'll be awake at the crack of dawn what with the time difference

This fast pass+ is a bit of a spanner in the works for us, I understand its benefits but it does tie you down to doing an itinerary because you kinda need to know where your going to be on certain days, so we are currently waiting for our F/P+ window to book them one of them will defiantly be for the new mine train

We normally drive to man airport and stay overnight at the crown plaza and shop in the Trafford centre, it makes your holiday last longer, but because we travel on a Monday shopping on a sun with the shops closing early didn't appeal to us so we said we will drive to the airport in the early hours on the day of travel... Soon changed our minds ,what if there's an accident or a diversion anything that would jeopardise our journey is too frightening a thought so looked for a cheap one night stay, always wanted to try the Radisson so again carol got a good deal on a room £78 so has this was a holiday of firsts we booked it

We have done IOA & Universal before but missed out lots of rides so we were going to spend 2 separate full days doing these parks again, looked for tickets and found some great deals on undercover tourist
£105 each for a 2day park to park ticket , now because there's more to see in potterland we looked at maybe staying in a universal hotel and getting FLP , so we booked 1 night at the RPR in the middle of our holiday going on the mon 22nd -23rd costing us $229 for the room £131 another first.. To get here we will use our hire car
Our tickets came the other day this photo below is from 2011



CAR HIRE
Now last time we stayed in Florida at Disney we hired a car for 2 days just to see how I coped on the roads because we want to do a road trip in a few years from Vegas to LA
We dreaded when the time came to pick the car up.



Alamo picked us up from the hotel to the car care centre and we sat in the car for a while too scared to move ( in England I love driving and I'm a confident driver) finally pulled out into oncoming traffic by the time we reached our hotel I LOVED IT and didn't want to give the car back , so this time we have decided to get one for 10days last time we drove to Florida mall and lots of other malls and universal, so looking forwards to that, think we will probably go with holiday autos has they are coming out the cheapest at the mo .

Cant wait to sample more of these too














So we are just up to speed now still lots of things to do like
CAR HIRE
HOLIDAY INSURANCE
ESTAS
TICKETS FOR MNSSHP
PAY OFF REST OF ACCOMODATION (due mid July)
BOOK F/P+
CARRY ON DIETING
PRINT OFF MOUSEKEEPING ENVOLOPES

We are now into double digits too

Thanks for reading I will update has and when



UPDATE


Well we have come a long way since june

CAR HIRE- DONE holiday autos 10 days for £165
HOLIDAY INSURANCE DONE- coverwise £46 eac
ESTAS- DONE $14
TICKETS FOR MNSSHP-DONE for fri 19th
ACCOM-ALL PAID UP
FASTPASS+-DONE thank god still could do with a bit of tweakin
DIETING- NOT DONE we have tried & tried and it wont budge ( maybe we could name our trip 2 fat ladies )
DONE ALL OUR PRINTING OFF TOO

Doing those things brought up some other things still to do like

go on ITUNES to make a holiday CD , we like to play disney songs on our journey there and defo put HOLIDAY RD on there too

GET OUR CURRENCY we are waiting a little longer for that- we have had a tip off that T/COOK will be having a promo after the euro one has done the $$$ one will start again offering $50 & $75 if you buy a certain amou nt... Hope its soon our time is nearly here

SATNAV- still to update our satnav with USA maps £35 realised we needed a micro sd card so went to asda today to buy one £4.50

SUITCASES-our suitcases weigh too much when empty and we want to be able to bring has much back that our allowance will let us , so we have been on the lookout for some lighter luggage bought a suitcase type bag from primark for £15 we have had one like this before a little small but lighter BUT THEN
We saw these in TK MAX ...



Lovely and light and very identifiable a snip at £***

So we are 21 days away seriously cant wait. Please dont let there be anything to put a spanner in the works like ... A VOLCANO

[Emma2288]

Thanks for sharing, you only go a few days before us so if I see you i'll give you a wave
That burger looks amazing! Where is it from?

When the countdown is in the double digits it makes it all the more real!

Looking forward to updates

[vanlou]

Great plans. We had a lovely breakfast at Tusker House in 2011, I'm sure you will enjoy it. Have to say that the strawberry cake looks rather yummy - where was that from? Might have to try that when we are there in August

[miss lumpy]

Thanks Emma & Vanlou
It's coming thick and fast now , started to buy things to put away
Good to see the dollars going up rather than down
Sorry can't remember exactly where the burger & nuggets meal was from but it's pretty standard fare from most places in the parks. It was yummy though

I know the strawberry shortcake was from sunshine seasons at Epcot again that was yummy

Hope you both have a great holiday x

[sophsters]

Great pre-trippie, we go just before you but its our first time

Food looks AMAZING i cant wait to try everything! Hope you have a great holiday x

[lfc_sarah]

Great Pre-trippie! I would love to have a close best friend who's like a sister!

We go for our first time a few months after you do. All of the food looks amazing and I can't wait to try it all!

[WileyCoyote]

Sounds like a really fun trip, got some great deals there and omg, what is that strawberry dessert, it looks delicious and enormous !

[vanlou]

Originally Posted by miss lumpy

I know the strawberry shortcake was from sunshine seasons at Epcot again that was x

See more...

Will definitely be going there then

[miss lumpy]

UPDATED

Not long now

hope everyone going in the next few days has a brilliant time

[Gillz121]

Sounds good, have a great time ladies