West To East 3 week (and a bit!) Birthday Bash! July 2022

[Leyfy]

Hellooo! I've started to tentatively book a few things for July/August 2022 and I am holding out hope that this trip WILL happen! So I thought it was time for a trip report for this slightly MAD plan that I have for 2022

If you've not joined us on our previous adventures, we are Kim and Phil. You can find our previous Florida/WDW/New York/DLP adventures here.

Phil is known for this:

Pointing at a pint and making a list of all the new beers he's tried!

We were planning on going on to the Mouse in 2020 to celebrate a big birthday for Phil, but this pesky thing known as covid19 derailed everyone's plans

Next year is a big birthday for me (30 plus ten! ) and I've always wanted to visit the original Disneyland. So the plan is to fly into LA, spend a week there, then fly across to Florida.

On the back of many cancelled plans was a cruise to Russia we were supposed to go on this summer with Carnival cruise lines. We got a $600 on board credit note to spend and Phil said he wanted to visit Key West again as it's one of his favourite places. We did a lot of umming and ahhing as I've done the drive many times from Key West to Orlando and as he doesn't drive (and it's the best part of 400 miles and 8 hours of driving!) so we decided to put a little 4 day cruise in. I found a bargain trip on the Carnival Conquest (which we've sailed on before) to Key West & Cozumel leaving on August 1st. Deposit has been paid for that, and I started putting together a tentative itinerary:

So far I've booked:

- Deposit for the cruise
- Flights with AVIOS points into LA (waiting for the return to become available so I can add them)
- A night in Miami at the Beacon Hotel (We've stayed there before) using Tesco vouchers for hotels.com as I had vouchers that were about to expire!
- Disney tickets for WDW so I can make park reservations
- Universal Orlando tickets (paid for from our 2020 trip)
- Car hire for the short time we need it

Still got quite a few things to book but I'm waiting to see what happens with prices etc.

That's it for now

Update: https://DIBB.in/15376177

[jorm35]

Looks a fantastic plan

[yellowrose78]

Looks like an amazing trip, happy planning

[Leyfy]

Originally Posted by jorm35

Looks a fantastic plan

See more...

Thank you - hoping it all comes off to plan!

Originally Posted by yellowrose78

Looks like an amazing trip, happy planning

See more...

Thank you

[Goldia]

Wow, West and East Coast with a cruise thrown in for good measure. It looks like a fantastic trip and I can't wait to see all your plans come together.

[Leyfy]

Originally Posted by Goldia

Wow, West and East Coast with a cruise thrown in for good measure. It looks like a fantastic trip and I can't wait to see all your plans come together.

See more...

Thank you, couple of small changes already happening!

[Leyfy]

Okay I am starting to let myself get a TEEEEENY bit more excited with the opening of the boarder next month! I have secretly been booking away as I've seen decent deals and now our plan looks like this:

Fly into LAX on the 24th of July.
Straight to Best Western Park Plus Inn (closest to the gates of Disneyland) for 6 nights. Skipping staying at Universal LA and instead I will brave the traffic and hire a car for a couple of days! Eeeek! Saves a hotel change and we might get to see a few other things in the LA area as well.

Sunday 31st July:
Fly to Miami. Stay at the Beacon Hotel on south beach. We've stayed there before and it's lovely! Turned out I had a tonne of club card vouchers that needed using up, so a night there for the two of us (including breakfast) has cost £40! Bargain! We're not that keen on Miami, but the hotel was night and it is very close to the cruise terminal, so it'll do for a night

Monday 1st August
Off on a four night cruise on the Carnival Conquest. Phil wanted to go to Key West and I just couldn't make it fit, plus we had a loads of on board credit to use from our cruise last year being cancelled. We've sailed on the Conquest before and also done the same itinerary, but on a different ship! It's Key West, Cozumel, day at sea, back to Miami.

Friday 5th August
Back to Miami, hire a car to get us to Orlando (all hired with Virgin holidays). Also reserved with Expedia/TopCashback 4 nights at the Hyatt Place on Idrive. We've stayed very near there before and love the location. It'll be a base for visiting KSC, going shopping, Volcano Bay and all the restaurants we love on the south of Idrive!

Tuesday 9th
Check in to Royal Pacific at Universal. Phil loves this resort but it is very pricey, so just two nights there to get the express passes and spend some time at Universal. I've paid a deposit using ATD and the Dibb money off/TopCashback so it was an okay price for two nights in the end.

Thursday 11th
Through David's Vacation rentals I have booked a studio with a preferred view at the Boardwalk Inn. I booked bang on 11 months out, but they didn't have any of the standard view left. So we made the decision to upgrade as we love the Boardwalk! Will be onsite at Disney until the following Wednesday, so all the Disney stuff will happen then!

I've paid deposits or in full for a lot of bits now, but I still have to pay for:

Disneyland tickets for California
Internal flights from LAX to Miami - alerts set up on Skyscanner and Kayak
Airport hotel and parking at Heathrow

That's about it though! So here's hoping everything carries on getting back to normal and we will be sat on the plane on the way to LA on the 24th of July next year!

[Leyfy]

Okay, we are in 2022 and tentatively all systems go... !

Since my last update I've booked two more things - our internal flights to get us to Florida. After searching Skyscanner and Kayak for a few months and tracking prices I finally decided on flights into Fort Lauderdale (which were much cheaper than Miami) with JetBlue. We've flown JetBlue before from New York to Orlando and they were great, so I was happy to book with them. Also, because of the time difference I wanted to leave LA reasonably early so if there were any delays etc we would have at least an evening in Miami to chill before the cruise. I saw flights for £217 for the two of us (including baggage and seat choice) leaving LA at 7.30 and arriving in Fort Lauderdale at 3ish, so they were perfect! They are all booked and sorted

I also had a voucher from Holiday Extras which I'd totally forgot about! They sent me a £15 off email, so I had a quick look on their website for airport hotels and parking. As we are going for nearly 4 weeks parking the car was looking quite expensive! However, I liked the look of the new Premier Inn with Blue Circle meet and greet parking. It was £175 for the hotel and parking, but with my voucher it came to £122.

So, the only thing left now to book is Disneyland California tickets. I've been keeping my eye out but as you can't book the parks until a bit closer to the date I haven't yet purchased them.

Like most of us at the moment though, I wont believe we are really going until we are sat on the plane!

[Cutiepie]

Loving the updates We are heading to the West Coast for the first time in July. I can’t wait

[Leyfy]

Thank you, I can’t wait either!

Keep looking up plans of LA and Disneyland. I’m really glad we decided to just stay in one place as well, even though it means a bit of driving for me and car hire.