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Old 26 Jun 16, 12:11 PM  
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floridafan101
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If this is the last time……..



subtitled Five go wild on the West Coast

As you may presume we are a family of 5 DH, my good self and 3 DS's aged 16, 8 and 7.

In terms of the title our eldest son has informed us that this is probably the last time he will deign to join us on holiday although if we can manage to find 2 weeks in the summer holiday that don't clash with camping trips, Leeds Fest, parties etc then he might not rule it out - maybe!

In terms of the subtitle - well thats the plan!

We have been lucky enough to go to Florida a number of times over the past 10 years. We are fans - no doubt about it. Love the weather, the beaches, the food, the theme parks. We've been down to the Keys, Fort Myers, Sarasota, spent quite a bit of time in Miami which we all really like, St Augustine and have recently discovered Anna Maria Island - perfect.
So we've seen quite a bit of the state and when we go now there's a wonderful sense of almost coming home - if you know what I mean? However what we've lost to some degree is the sense of adventure of discovering new places, not knowing what to expect, excitement I suppose.
We've talked about California for years. I went in 1995 so read Geoff's trip with interest as in those days I didn't make notes or take pictures of food etc. I did a trip from LA to San Diego over to Las Vegas, onto Yosemite and flew out of San Francisco in 2 weeks. It can be done but it was a taster of everything. Also pre internet so not quite sure how we managed to find our way round but we did without any disasters apart from driving out of the airport into some very scary neighbourhoods where we clearly had no place being on our way to Beverley Hills! We only had an afternoon, evening in Disneyland too - thought that would be enough lololol!

DH and DSs weren't about in those days and have never been so they were keen to go and I've wanted to return for 21 years - so about time really.

Anyway back we came last September from our last Florida trip and as you do i was back on the Dibb looking for cheap flights for 2016 back to florida when I saw a thread about some cheap flights in August to Lax. Hmm I thought I'll have a look and yes they were still there, flying from Heathrow early in the morning via Frankfurt with Lufthansa out and Air Canada via Toronto coming home BUT the prices were fab and for all 5 of us it would be £1700! Booked same day and we were off to California yippee kay ay!

Or not.

A few days later I started looking at booking seats when I noticed a problem. In all the excitement it appeared I had booked youngest son in with the correct D.O.B but the wrong name in fact I'd put my name in twice. No idea how it had happened, booked loads of flights etc over the years never done anything like this. I felt this terrible sinking feeling and felt sick. Straight on the internet to find out about changing names and felt immediately worse. My initial sense of gloom defended into horror when I began reading how some people hadn't been able to change names AT ALL!
I emailed GoToGate to tell them begging for help. Response came - no nothing we can do. I emailed CAB - no nothing they can do. I rang the airlines who were more sympathetic and didn't see an issue with changing names, at a cost, but the travel agent had to sort it out. I rang GotoGate and they said they would look into it. They rang me back and said we would have to book a new flight for my son - it couldn't be changed. I checked the online price it was now over £1,000. The bargain flights no longer were a bargain.
I looked at other flights and saw alternatives for around £400 that would be cheaper for me and my son to buy rather than book another flight as the rest of the family so decided thats what we would do.
Then a miracle! I was checking the original flights when I saw the flights home had been changed and the return flights were now to have a 21 hr layover in Toronto so we would be getting home a day later. Unacceptable with young children - surely?
I nervously rang the travel agent who confirmed the new flight details. Can be done I said the children have to be back at school.
Hmm said the travel agent well we have alternative flights leaving LAX at 4pm instead of 9pm that would get you an earlier connection and have you home the same time as before.
Errr no I said we are travelling back to LA that day won't be able to make the 4pm flight.
Well then we would have to cancel the flights he said!
Ok then I said please do that!

So in short (sorry long winded or what) thats what happened. We got our money back bar £50 admin costs. We then booked with Ethiopian Airlines for the same dates but this time flying from Dublin for £1860. We had to pay for flight to and from Dublin but in total its cost us about £2300. More than before but the flight times are better, we have no hotel to sort down in London for the night before and no long drive back up north when we land. So we are happy.

Anyway taken longer to do this than planned so will pause for now before going through our plans for the 3 weeks.
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2017 Two Countries and Eleven States Trip Report

2006 1st trip to Florida 2008 The return 2009 Its Florida again 2010 Florida again! 2011 Yes! Florida 2013 Florida please! 2015 Back to Florida 2016 California! 2017 New York (and beyond) 2018 East Coast Road Trip 2019 Florida one last time ... again!
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Old 26 Jun 16, 08:48 PM  
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charly77
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Oh no, what a nightmare. At least you got it sorted!
What's your itinerary? I've found booking to stay in more than one place quite stressful by making sure all the dates add up. I'm worried I've made a booboo somewhere...
Looking forward to reading more :-)
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Old 26 Jun 16, 09:00 PM  
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eleele
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What a nightmare, you got there in the end though
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Old 27 Jun 16, 04:28 PM  
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Originally Posted by charly77 View Post
Oh no, what a nightmare. At least you got it sorted!
What's your itinerary? I've found booking to stay in more than one place quite stressful by making sure all the dates add up. I'm worried I've made a booboo somewhere...
Looking forward to reading more :-)
Yes it is a bit of a stress making sure you end up where you need to be on the right date! We have 10 hotels in 3 weeks which is enough!
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2017 Two Countries and Eleven States Trip Report

2006 1st trip to Florida 2008 The return 2009 Its Florida again 2010 Florida again! 2011 Yes! Florida 2013 Florida please! 2015 Back to Florida 2016 California! 2017 New York (and beyond) 2018 East Coast Road Trip 2019 Florida one last time ... again!
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Old 27 Jun 16, 04:29 PM  
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Originally Posted by eleele View Post
What a nightmare, you got there in the end though
yes have to say am SOOO careful now when I book anything! We had a lucky escape. Well kind of… we had more problems after this!
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2017 Two Countries and Eleven States Trip Report

2006 1st trip to Florida 2008 The return 2009 Its Florida again 2010 Florida again! 2011 Yes! Florida 2013 Florida please! 2015 Back to Florida 2016 California! 2017 New York (and beyond) 2018 East Coast Road Trip 2019 Florida one last time ... again!
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Old 14 Jul 16, 07:51 PM  
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Pre Trippee cont.

So there we are all booked and then bam suddenly flights are changed with us now departing a day earlier and back a day later due to the change in flight schedules with the airlines. My online TA did notify me by email after I had already heard from another Dibber mind you! :angry:

As we had booked connecting flights with Ryanair to get to Dublin unfortunately they were no good and didn't think I could do anything about it until Lovinit told me about a method to apply direct from the airline rather than the TA. This worked! We had the costs of our new flights paid by Ethiopian Airlines - thank you!

Since then we had had a couple of more minor changes to the schedule going out and we now get to LA 2 hrs earlier but all been quite for the last few months. Hope that isn't jinxing it?!

So looking positively we are now out there for 21 nights

We have booked an extra night at our first hotel and an extra night near the airport the night before the flight home but lets not think about that.

Four weeks on Saturday seems close now!
__________________
2017 Two Countries and Eleven States Trip Report

2006 1st trip to Florida 2008 The return 2009 Its Florida again 2010 Florida again! 2011 Yes! Florida 2013 Florida please! 2015 Back to Florida 2016 California! 2017 New York (and beyond) 2018 East Coast Road Trip 2019 Florida one last time ... again!
floridafan101 is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
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