Three Generations do a Split Stay! Pre-Trip Report

[nothingless]

So! I'm FINALLY feeling up to doing a pre-trip report, because I finally dare to believe this may actually be happening.

------ THE CAST

Me - I'm Micah, just turned 40, and have loved Disney parks since forever. I visited DLP with my mom and brother as a kid & teen around 6 or 7 times, and this will be my 5th time going to Florida. (and I've just realized I have no recent photos of myself without my kid in it also haha!)

Myla - my amazing daughter. She'll be 5.5 when we go, and is a pretty typical girly-girl. She loves everything glitter, unicorn, pink, bright colors, princesses, and Disney. Frozen is still her favorite movie, she knows the soundtrack off by heart! She also loves Goldfish snacks, and is starting to slowly discover the fun of faster rides - I think she might try 7DMT this time! She's been to DLP 5 times and this will be her third time to Florida. The last time we went, she was 3.5 and just a touch too short for any of the bigger rides!

Hetty - my mom. She turned 70 this past summer, and has loved Disney parks since she visited Disneyland California in 1980. She took us kids to DLP the year it opened, and saved up to take as many times since. This will be her second time to Florida, as she also joined us when we went in December 2018.

Honorary mention for my husband, Michael. He was supposed to go on this trip, but he won't be now - see below where I'll talk about this a bit more.

------ THE PLANS

Like nearly every other pre-trip report right now, this trip is a rescheduled and completely changed trip from 2020. We were supposed to go to Florida for 4 weeks in September 2020 as a last hurray. My daughter turned 4 in that month, and she'd start school when we got back. We had booked the first 2 weeks of September onsite at Disney with DVC points; 1 week at Bay Lake Tower and 1 week at Boardwalk Villas and I'd booked BBB for her on her actual birthday. Then for the last 2 weeks we'd pick up a rental car, drive to Atlanta and stay there for 2 nights, do some sightseeing and the Aquarium, and then head on into Smokey Mountain National Park. I had 2 great cabins booked on different sides of the park for 4 and 5 nights so we could explore the natural beauty at our leisure and had also planned to visit Dollywood.

Needless to say that all got cancelled, and the owner we bought the DVC points from very kindly let us re-use them at no additional cost, so we loosely planned to book the same thing for September 2021. Needless to say, THAT also got cancelled - in fact, I determined in March 2021 that I didn't believe September was going to happen, and cancelled the trip there and then.

Instead, I checked with my DVC owner, who is SO brilliant and changed my booking for the THIRD time, this time for May 2021. The Disney dining credits offer had come out, and I booked 5 nights at CBR to take advantage of that, followed by using my points to book an additional 5 nights at Bay Lake Tower, and 5 more nights at Boardwalk Villas. I then decided I wanted a few days of rest before we hit the parks, and tacked 2 nights Old Key West onto the front of that.

So our itinerary is:

April 22 - Myla's last day of school before her May break, and if still needed, we'll go and get LFTs done.
April 23 - fly to MCO and check into OKW
April 24-25 - at OKW all day, we have no park tickets yet so we'll go swimming and hit Disney Springs!
April 26 - checkout at OKW and check in at CBR, will visit either MK or Epcot
April 27-30 - at CBR
May 1 - check out at CBR, check in to BLT
May 2-5 - at BLT
May 6 - check out at BLT, check in to BWV
May 7-10 - at BWV
May 11 - check out at BWV, head to MCO and fly home
May 12 - land back home on a Thursday and have a few days of rest before normal life starts again on Monday!

Myla will miss 1 week of school (she's technically due back in the 9th), but seeing as we had a whole month off approved for September 2020, I'm just doing it anyway. She's only 5, I doubt she'll miss that much!

------ CHANGE OF CAST

At this point, we were still 100% planning to go as a family of 3, with myself, my husband, and our daughter. Then in November the US borders re-opened... and they had a vaccine requirement. Aaand... my husband has chosen not to get vaccinated. He has serious concerns about safety and about all the covid regulations, and wants nothing to do with 'cooperating' with these types of measures. So to my devastation, that meant he would not be able to come on this trip. I had to do make some difficult decisions for myself: would I continue to keep putting my life on hold for HIS choices, as that meant we could not do fun things (where we live, there's a covid passport and you need vaccinations even to enter a coffee shop, go to a zoo, go to an indoor playground, even go to the swimming pool! All things we haven't been doing because of my husband's choices); or would I do my best to respect his decision, but not let it stop ME. I decided on option B in the end. His choice is his own, but I've made mine too (I am fully vaccinated), and I STILL want to go to Florida - with or without him. My daughter will be only be 5 once, and I KNOW I'll regret it in the future if I don't take these opportunities now. In turn, he's doing his best to accept my choices, and we'll see what happens in the future. Yes, it's been a very difficult 2 years.

But, I'm still happy with the decision I made, hard as it was, and have asked my mom along on this trip. It was booked for 3 people anyway, and she is very close with my daughter; I know we will have an amazing time and make memories we'll cherish forever.


------ TO DO LIST
So accommodation and dates are all sorted. Here's what I have left to do and book:

- Renew Myla's passport (it expires in March) DONE!
- Book ESTAs
- Flights DONE!
- Finish my rough draft of our daily schedule and finish making Park Pass reservations
- Book transportation from MCO to OKW DONE!
- Book a stroller with Kingdom Strollers DONE!

In the past few days, I have already sorted out travel insurance and made my room requests! Next on my priority list is Myla's passport, and then the ESTAs and flights!

I can't wait - April can't get here quick enough.

[Goldia]

Gosh that sounds like a tough decision for you, respecting your husbands choice but not wanting to limit your experiences because of it.

It sounds like you found a great person to rent DVC points from and you've got a fab trip planned, with lots of hotels. I bet you will have a fab time with your mum and daughter. It will be a special girls trip. I hope you manage to get flights sorted at a reasonable price.

[Hmr89]

Itinerary looks fab! I'm sure you'll have an amazing girls trip x

[nothingless]

Thanks guys! Yes, it was indeed a hard decision, but it feels like the right one. You only live once, and with my mom being in her 70s now, who knows how often we'll get the chance for a girls trip like this!

I mentioned in my first post that I got all my room requests sorted and just wanted to list them here. I used TouringPlans for this, we did the same for our trip in March 2020 and all the rooms we got at the time were very close to what I'd requested (or even better) so I don't mind paying for the TP subscription for this.

My main concern with requesting rooms was to limit walking distances. My mom is in decent health but her physical fitness has definitely declined in the past few years, not helped by all the lockdowns and eventual closure of the gym she used to go to twice a week for 50+ fitness classes! When I travel with my husband, it doesn't matter so much as we're both fit and he can carry Myla anyway; now it's more important because I can't carry her and I want my mom to enjoy everything and not be so tired from walking she can't, for example, walk to the pool or something! Also a ground floor room is a high priority for us, so I don't have to lug the stroller up any steps, and we don't need to wait for elevators (noise doesn't bother us - heck, with the 5 year old we could be the ones making the noise LOL).

Old Key West
I requested just anything in building 62, this is very close to Hospitality House and the same building we were in in March 2020. Loved this location, and we loved the main pool and playground so hopefully we'll get in there again!

Caribbean Beach
I requested a ground floor room in Jamaica, if possible in building 44. That seems like a good in-between spot for not too far from the Skyliner and not too far from the bridge to Old Port Royale and the pool.

Bay Lake Tower
The is the only hotel I didn't bother with a ground floor room with. We couldn't get a Standard view room and had to upgrade to a Lake view; however I know several of the Lake view rooms have partial Theme Park views! So I requested one of those, like for example 7708, 7608, 7508, or 7408. Fingers crossed!

Boardwalk Villas
Here we also couldn't get a Standard view, so it's a Pool/Garden View studio. I did request a ground floor one again, close to the lobby and the pool; I gave room 2080 as an example. I don't think we'll end up walking to HS much, it's probably a bit too far for my mom but we'll definitely use the Friendship boats; so a close lobby location is the best option!

It put me in SUCH a good mood checking out the resort maps and putting in these requests - I know we were super lucky last time, but I'm hopeful we'll get some of our requests met this time as well. Fingers crossed!

[nothingless]

Update time! I discussed the different flight options with my mom to try and work out together what the best course of action is.

At the moment, the Netherlands has one of the strictest set of travel rules in the EU, and flying to the USA means testing before you go, testing before you come back, plus 10 days quarantine at home after you land back. I was really toying with the idea of flying via either London or Frankfurt, to circumvent some of these rules. However, it'll be just me with my mom and my 5-year-old, and in the end we decided we needed the travel day to be as hassle free and short as possible. So no lengthy train rides to Frankfurt, and a connection in London, which we've done before, really doesn't suit us as well as a connection already in the USA. Plus, by not bringing another country into the mix, it simplifies things a little bit as we only have the 1 set of rules for Netherlands-USA to look at and not some third country to take into account as well!

We also chatted about who to book through, and both agreed that, since we wanted a USA connection, United was our airline of choice and when I checked prices, booking directly with United was nearly the same price as through some of the third-party sites like lastminute. We reckoned it'd be easier to change or cancel flights if needed if we could do it direct with United, so since there wasn't much price difference, that was another decision made!

Next I started looking at the best flight options on the day, and I realized I had us flying out on Sunday the 24th. Myla finishes school on Friday the 22nd... so why weren't we leaving on Saturday the 23rd? I'm sure I had a reason for it at the time I was booking our accommodation, but I cannot remember for the life of me now! My mom agreed; let's just head out Saturday if we can add a night at Old Key West to our booking. So, emailed my awesome DVC owner, and he was able to change our OKW booking by adding one night, so checking in on April 23 instead of 24. Woohoo!

When he confirmed that was all sorted, I then set out to book the flights. We decided on an early flight out of Amsterdam at 9:15AM, landing at Newark for 11AM local time. The early start means we need to be at Schiphol for 6ish and will need to get up by 5AMish, but that's exactly what I did last time we flew to the USA, and the early start meant Myla slept a good bit of the flight on the way over!

Then we have a 2:25 layover in Newark, an airport both my mom and I have been several times so we're familiar with it. 2:25 should be plenty for security and the train to the other terminal without needing to rush too much.

The flight to MCO is then at 1:55PM, so we land in Orlando at just after 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Hopefully we should be at OKW for around 6PM after a 13-hour travel day - I definitely prefer not getting in too late!

For the flight back, we leave MCO at 2PM (this is fine for us, I don't like going to parks or doing much on departure day), Newark for 16:30, and then have 90 minutes to eat some dinner and catch the next flight to Amsterdam at 18:00. By 7:15AM we should be back in Amsterdam!

I'm very happy with these flight times; layovers are not too short and not too long and it's comforting to go to airports I already know well, especially with a potentially tired child, since my husband won't be with us and she's too big now for me to carry!

Price wise, we paid 750 euros (623 pounds) each for these flights. Which I actually thought wasn't too bad, considering we didn't go for the cheapest options but instead focussed on just getting the easiest (for us) flights. We were happy enough with the prices anyway, it's worth it for me knowing we'll have a familiar travel day.

So, flights booked and holiday extended from 18 to 19 nights. I call that a good day!

[lfc_sarah]

What a hard decision you made with your husband not being vaccinated. Good for you though! I can imagine it caused some 'discussions'.

Your plans look great!

We will be arriving to Orlando just before you leave 😊

[nothingless]

Originally Posted by lfc_sarah

What a hard decision you made with your husband not being vaccinated. Good for you though! I can imagine it caused some 'discussions'.

Your plans look great!

We will be arriving to Orlando just before you leave 😊

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Definitely - it hasn't been an easy year for us at all, not seeing eye to eye on this issue. :/ But I'm still really happy with my decision, Florida is my happy place and I just need to do this for me.

Oh how exciting, you're going in May too! Just read your pre-trip report, your trip sounds amazing also! So good to see so many people planning again, isn't it?

[nothingless]

Update time!

Just a quick one today - I got Myla's passport renewed and have her new one in hand, yay! This was a big one on my todo list as we can now apply for the ESTAS. May do this next week when I have some quiet time to sit down and give it my full attention. ESTAS make me nervous!

I also got our stroller rental sorted - I went with Kingdom Strollers again. They have the City Mini GT stroller which is supposed to be up to around 120cm in height (Myla is around 110cm) and I know she'll need it - she's not a great walker and definitely not used to the Florida heat! Kingdom Strollers were great when we last used them in 2020, so hopefully it'll be an easy airport pickup and drop-off again.

[rubberduckie89]

So exciting that you have trip booked!
We will also be in Disney from the 24th April and fingers' crossed it's going ahead too.

[nothingless]

I actually had 2 additional updates I forgot to mention!

1) the government here in the Netherlands have dropped the quarantine requirement for arrivals from the USA, yay! Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the tests for going back will be scrapped, like they have been in the UK!

2) I submitted the leave request for Myla to get an extra week off school and it was approved within 3 hours to my delight. I was half expecting them to give me hassle, but I did explain in the request this was a holiday we were supposed to take before she turned 5 (which is the legal school age here) and that I couldn't move it to the summer holidays due to cost. Luckily they were very understanding, it was no problem to take her out of school, and the principal wished us a great trip.