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Old 12 Jan 15, 10:46 PM  
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Originally Posted by DiddyDan View Post
I forgot to say, I love how Piper is singing let it go! So cute! x
I know, I was going to mention that and I forgot! I love how they do that as soon as they hear the song! x
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Old 22 Jan 15, 02:29 PM  
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Car Hire, ESTA's, Airport Hotel and Flight Update

I have a few holiday related updates but first, the last 4 movie nights since Christmas Eve have been



Unsurprisingly, this is NOT the first time they have seen this!



This one was Madison's choice and fits in as a Universal film



Kaley is loving the Toy Story films at the minute so this one was her choice



Phil was working so I thought we would get a princess film out of the way for him!

On to holiday updates!

I have a OneNote spreadsheet/document (hijacked from Phil!) with numerous pages of information, research, bookings etc. and I want to get as much ticked off my to do list and have as many items on my budget list booked and paid for as possible. So with that in mind, more money has been spent!

Car Hire

I have never booked car hire before. My Mum has always done the research and bookings previously so this was the first time for me. To give us as much flexibility as possible whilst away, the 3 additional drivers offered through the Alamo Brits deal was what we wanted and meant that I didn't look anywhere else. (I do have the 2015 Brit's Guide! )



I started looking at prices in late November. To start with, I looked at having a car for the whole of our holiday. I was mostly looking at the standard and intermediate SUV's and for the whole time the prices were:

Full size, Ford Fusion or similar £373.74
Standard suv, Santa Fe or similar £476.51
Intermediate suv, rav 4 or similar £487.15
Mini van, grand caravan or similar £494.67


(I am sure the standard is the better car too, but is cheaper? ) If we chose to have the car for the whole holiday, I would need to add approximately £50 for the cost of parking at the cruise terminal too.

I then looked at the cost of dropping the car back at Cape Canaveral and then re-hiring for the last day to get us back to Orlando and the airport. The prices from arrival day to cruise day were:


Full size, Ford Fusion or similar £294.67
Standard suv, Santa Fe or similar £375.69
Intermediate suv, rav 4 or similar £384.07
Mini van, grand caravan or similar £384.07


So already a saving of about £100 by not having it for the whole time, plus the £50 for parking. The cost for then hiring a car for the last day was:

Full size, Ford Fusion or similar £27.92
Standard suv, Santa Fe or similar £35.89
Intermediate suv, rav 4 or similar £36.55
Mini van, grand caravan or similar £36.55


Which still meant a decent saving. Yes, a bit more hassle and faffing at the cruise but a good enough saving to make it worthwhile.

I checked again a few times in December and the price didn't change at all, which may be due to the exchange rate.

Based on the fact that the mini-van was only £9 more expensive than the standard SUV, I decided to book this on New Year's Day, with the intention to cancel and re-book if the price came down.



I also booked the same car for the last day.

So the mini-van from the 11th to the 26th was booked for £384.06 and for the last day at £36.56 making a total of £420.62. This is more than I was hoping to pay but is a saving of £74.05, plus the £50 for parking, compared with hiring a car for the whole holiday.

Since booking this, the Alamo Brits offer has changed and you can only have one additional driver which won't be any use to us. Since I have the 3 drivers included with my booking, I will be sticking with this booking and having the benefit of more space in the car and different options for us all when we are there.

I will do Save Time nearer the time when we have decided who else will be listed as drivers.

ESTA's

With absolutely no need to worry that our ESTA's may not be approved, I wanted to get these done and out of the way! These were also done on New Year's Day and there was that little moment of nerves before each one was approved. Thankfully, all were approved immediately and cost £9.24 each, with 24p of that being a credit card fee.

Airport Hotel

Despite being happy enough with the Premier Inn, Runger Lane North in 2013 and saying I was happy to wait to book here again, I caved over the weekend and booked elsewhere!

The price for the Saturday we need was £139 at the same Premier Inn. Now obviously the saver rates haven't been released yet for October but this particular Saturday was a lot more expensive than the Saturday's before and after it. I asked on the dibb if anyone had an idea why this particular date might be so much more expensive than the other Saturday's (around £79 each) and someone replied to say that it was the Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford on that day. I was then a bit worried that the price wouldn't come down a lot if there was such an important sporting event taking place.

Mum and Dad and Dan and Dave had already booked rooms at the Marriott near Manchester Airport and had got a good rate and I know Mum really wanted us all to stay at the same hotel if possible.

I was looking on topcashback over the weekend and Expedia were offering around 12.15% on hotel only bookings. I clicked through to the Marriott and this was coming up at the same price of £94 for a family room that it has been for the last 6 weeks or so. Even though it was more than I wanted to pay, I wanted to stay where the others were staying so I decided to book it.



So, £94 for the hotel with the cashback already showing (did take a few days though) for £11.47 bringing the price paid down to £82.53. They have a rather posh looking pool



Which we may take the girls to, depending on what time we arrive and if we think we can get our stuff dry in time to re-pack the next morning.

Flight Update

I have received an email from Virgin Atlantic this week, confirming what I already knew about the APD refund that we are due and letting me know that the refunds and new e-tickets will be done by the end of March. They must have a lot of bookings if it is taking them this long!

I think that is all for now.
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Edited at 02:31 PM.
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Old 24 Jan 15, 09:06 AM  
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Lol it's so funny that you've already done your ESTA's! I'm glad your keeping that car, like you said it gives us options 😊 are you going down as a driver on the car? If not, I think me Dave and dad should go down lol! x x x
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Old 24 Jan 15, 06:06 PM  
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Fab update, great that you've got your car hire all sorted. Always wondered what was the best thing to do in regards to car hire when you went on a cruise. Seems the way you've done it works out the best value

Good to see you'll receive your refund soon. xx
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Old 25 Jan 15, 11:47 AM  
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Just caught on your pre-trip, your trip sounds amazing. Can't wait to hear about the wedding planning.

I've *silently* followed your other trip reports so looking forward to this
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Old 25 Jan 15, 06:18 PM  
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Wow, just caught up on all your updates. Great planning and reveal for the girls.

Looking forward to reading more and your trippie.
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Old 28 Jan 15, 11:21 AM  
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Originally Posted by DiddyDan View Post
Lol it's so funny that you've already done your ESTA's! I'm glad your keeping that car, like you said it gives us options 😊 are you going down as a driver on the car? If not, I think me Dave and dad should go down lol! x x x
I know! There really is no need to have done them so early but I want to get everything done now!

I like this car, I would love one like it here. If I don't have to go on it I won't, and we will have you, Dave and either Mum or Dad.xx

Originally Posted by juliab View Post
Fab update, great that you've got your car hire all sorted. Always wondered what was the best thing to do in regards to car hire when you went on a cruise. Seems the way you've done it works out the best value

Good to see you'll receive your refund soon. xx
Thanks Julia. I am happy that the car hire is done and it was too much of a saving doing it this way than having the car the whole time.

Hopefully will get the refund soon.xx

Originally Posted by rinroo View Post
Just caught on your pre-trip, your trip sounds amazing. Can't wait to hear about the wedding planning.

I've *silently* followed your other trip reports so looking forward to this
Thank you! We are all really excited.

I am hoping Danielle will do a proper Wedding Planning thread herself.

Originally Posted by KittyBlackDog View Post
Wow, just caught up on all your updates. Great planning and reveal for the girls.

Looking forward to reading more and your trippie.
Thank you, we loved the reveal and they are so excited now.

Thanks!
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Old 3 Feb 15, 11:13 AM  
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The last two movie nights have been



I like the Tinkerbell movies so was happy to watch this one



And this one was because I sometimes can't figure out the HDMI leads and Playstation(!) so chose something from On Demand... er, odd film and the girls weren't particularly interested in it!
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Old 5 Feb 15, 01:08 PM  
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Cruise booking

Back at the start of my report, I said I would go into more detail about our cruise booking, so for anyone interested, here it is!

Along with the dibbcast (see HERE if you haven't listened before), I also listen to the dis unplugged podcast every week and the guy who hosts the podcast is the owner of the disboards and co-owner of a company called Dreams Unlimited Travel. I had heard of this company before from reading Terry's (thebeast) trip report as he booked their cruise in 2013 through Dreams.

I knew that we could book direct with Disney Cruise Line but after hearing so much of Dreams on the podcast, I decided to have a look at their website.

I checked some pricing on both their website and on the DCL website and when you converted the dollar price into pounds, they were just about the same prices, but Dreams offered onboard credit if you booked through them.

Phil was really keen to do a cruise and was quite determined that we have a stateroom with a verandah so I tasked him with researching the best locations, categories and staterooms.



He decided that a category 4D stateroom would be good for us and would have everything we wanted. This is a Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah and is on deck 6 of the ship.



I used their contact form to send a request for details as the cruises had not yet been released. One of their agents came back to me really quickly, explained that they hoped to have details in the next few days and said she would email as soon as she had the information.

A few days later, the cruise details for 2015 were released and I had an email from Kristie saying that I could book and she asked me to resubmit the request form so that she had all of the details of what we wanted. I did this and she came straight back saying she had received it and would see what she could do.

Not long after, she emailed back with a quote for the 3-night cruise on the date we wanted, in the category 4D we wanted. The price was the same as if we booked direct with DCL but would include $100 onboard credit. Following Phil's research, I knew what stateroom he wanted so asked if it was available. She replied to say they had it so I asked her to book it for us. She did this immediately and sent the confirmation through.

I was given the log in details for my booking and logged in to confirm everything was correct and to pay the deposit, which was $422.40 or £250.68 at the exchange rate at the time which was around $1.70/£.

The following month, with the exchange rate still being quite good and us having the money, we decided to pay the balance on the cruise which was $1940.64 or £1158.59 at a very similar exchange rate.

This made the total for the cruise $2363.04 and we paid £1409.27 in pounds, which was slightly less than booking it with DCL.

Obviously then, as I posted a while back HERE, this cruise and a couple of others around it were cancelled and we made the decision to change to the 4-night cruise at the end of our holiday. The new cost for this was $3067.04, less the $2363.04 we have already paid, leaving us with a balance of $704.00 to pay. With the exchange rate not being particularly high at the moment, I am holding off a bit to pay this. The balance is due in mid-August so we have plenty of time for the rate to hopefully rise.

With the cruise going over $3000, we now have an onboard credit of $150 from Dreams. This is in addition to the £250 onboard credit we have from Disney for them cancelling our original cruise.

We have booked the First/Main seating for dining at 5.45pm as we think this will be better for the little ones and have also had all of our bookings linked to hopefully be sat together to eat.

As this is our first cruise, we cannot book our shore excursions until the day after our balance is due. I need to do some research on this to see what I want to do. Phil has already started his list:



He also wants to hire a jet ski, as do a few of the others, and he wants to get off the ship at Nassau which isn't something I want to do at the minute. I am hoping to convince him to have a brunch at Palo though



I think that is everything on my cruise booking. I am waiting for the new edition of the Passporter Cruise Guide to be delivered so I will be looking through that, along with the Navigators from Mum and Dad's cruise last year, to see what we can do on our cruise.
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Edited at 01:27 PM.
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Old 6 Feb 15, 03:31 PM  
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Hi Lisa, thanks for writing the details of your cruise booking as I 've found it most helpful. We are hoping to go on a cruise next summer and it's great to hear how you booked yours. Is your stateroom one that will sleep 5? I've only briefly looked at the staterooms but I think the category you are in will accommodate our family.

Thanks

Julia xx
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