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Old 22 Feb 20, 03:12 AM  
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Mad Hatters
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The Mad Hatters big family Disney vacation July/August 2020 - Pre trip report

Hello and welcome to our pre trip report for our big family Disney holiday for 2020. I had hummed and hawed about whether or not to do a report for this year’s trip, but have finally decided to get on with it and do one

If anybody missed it and is interested, below is a link to 2018’s trip report.

Index for our 2018 trip

The cast for this year’s trip report:

Me (Adam) Age 32

I am chief planner and trippy writer. I work as a maintenance engineer. Everyone at work knows me for being organised and loving to plan, so I must admit to how much I enjoy the whole planning for our holidays! I’m always excited for the food out there too haha. Always been a massive meat eater but recently became pescatarian as a bit of a challenge which I am really enjoying. I will probably be eating some meat while on holiday, though I doubt as much as I have previously. Hobbies include going to the gym, watching motor racing (big F1 fan) and I love football (Arsenal fan). I absolutely love going to Florida. My favourite park is and always has been, Epcot. I have never been one for the bigger rides, but I am getting there, having now concurred Space Mountain and last time round, Rock n rollercoaster, this time I have my sights set on Everest. Last time we went I was quite restricted due to having my hand in a splint after an accident where I severed my artery, tendons and nerves in my finger. Hopefully no accidents on the run up to this one and I can fully enjoy the holiday without restrictions.

Wife (Grace) Age 28

Grace is the artistic one of the family. She is the mother of Trayvon and step mum to Joshua. She works as a finance assistant for a private hospital. Her hobbies include making craft items, walking the dog and make up/nails. Her favourite park is The Magic Kingdom. She is beauty and the beast mad, but also loves Merida from Brave. She loves all the big rides and so will be the one to take the kids on to the ones I am too scared to go on.

Eldest son (Joshua) Age 9

Joshua is my oldest son and is Grace’s step son. This will be his 5th visit to Florida. He loves all the usual things that kids love such as super heroes, playing on the PlayStation and Xbox, going swimming, star wars, Lego etc. When it comes to food he does well in trying new things and has expensive tastes enjoying things such as steak and lobster. He loves all of the rides and now he can get onto all of them in Disney.

Youngest son (Trayvon) Age 5 – Will be 6 just before we go

Trayvon is our youngest son. This will be his 4th visit to Florida. He also loves his superheroes. His favourites are Thor and The Hulk. He is currently obsessed with Sonic. He loves talking about all the things we have done and plan to do in Florida. He should be able to get on to most rides now as he has grown a fair bit since our last visit.

My parents (Mick and Sue) Both Age 59

My parents both love going to Florida, this will be something like their 13th trip since 2000. My mum loves all things Disney and the colour purple. She doesn’t do any of the big rides and even some of the smaller ones. I think that’s where I get my wimpy side from. My dad loves Florida for the weather and the food. He loves the big rides. The only ride that he won’t go on again is Tower of Terror, which he hated.

My Sisters Team

My sister is called Rachel and her husband is Chris (both 34, will be 35 when we go). Rachel has been to Florida 4 times if I remember correctly and Chris just the once. Their 5 children are; Cody (17, will be 18), Courtney (14, will be 15), Ryan (13), Connor (9, will be 10) and Becca (7). None of my sister’s team have been to Florida since 2013, when we all went together (with the exception of Trayvon, who wasn’t born yet and Grace, as the holiday was booked before we got together). Everyone is very excited and they are all looking forward to their first time staying on site at Disney.

An old picture of all the little ones and Joshua on their last visit in 2013. Obviously they have grown a fair bit since then!


Background for this holiday

This year’s trip report is going to be mainly focussed around the 4 of us as with so many people it will be very difficult to keep track, although I will be trying to include others where ever possible.

So, a little bit on this year’s plans and how it all came together:

My Dad got his pension from his old work a few years back (He is still working though) and has often mentioned about him taking me and my family along with my sister and her family on holiday. Florida was always the first choice, however it looked as though it may not be possible as it is so expensive. There is a total of 13 of us (4 in my family, 7 in my sister’s lot and then my parents).

Anyway, in early 2019 I started doing some digging into prices for flights, hotels, tickets etc. Somehow I managed to use a bit of man maths and this brought about the possibility of staying on site, if the free dining was to be released, alongside a contribution towards the bill from my sister’s family and mine. My parents set a rough budget for what they were comfortable with and so we waited and hoped.

April soon came around and upon the news of the free dining being offered, we quickly set about obtaining quotes for various different variations of a Disney stay. Eventually, we all agreed on 14 nights at Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside. That, along with our flights that were with Thomas cook were booked.

We were all booked for 3 pool view rooms (we needed rooms to sleep 5 and wanted to stay together), however it’s looking likely that we are going to be in a garden view room, although my mum is chasing this with my magic holiday constantly, but it doesn’t seem to be changing.

Obviously Thomas Cook went bust, so we had to set about trying to sort out new flights. The prices had skyrocketed and my parents were hesitant to go indirect or fly out from anywhere other than Manchester. Eventually we found some virgin flights that weren’t coming in at some of the comedy quotes we had been getting and these were quickly booked.

So that’s a brief sum up of how this all came about. A bit of stress at times and we did think we may have to cancel due to the flight prices being so high. Thankfully we managed to get it all sorted out.

Accommodation

For the night before we fly we have booked what is now our tradition, the Premier Inn Runger lane north, next to Manchester airport. This is where we always stay and ticks all the boxes for us as its cheap, clean and comfortable. The food is usually pretty decent and its only 5 minutes from the airport in the morning.

Then for the 14 nights of our stay, our home will be back at Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside. We stayed there for 7 nights in 2018 and absolutely loved it. We didn’t get much resort time as we were just too busy trying to get the most out of the parks. With having 14 nights here this time, we fully intend on enjoying this beautiful resort to the fullest. Caribbean Beach Resort was considered, but we just felt that we hadn’t fully taken Port Orleans in yet and we really did fall in love with the place.




This trip will be the first time where I have gone to Florida and not done a visit to the Universal parks. I did look into doing it, but it just wasn’t a viable option this time.

Food Plans

As part of the free dining offer we have the QSDP for our 14 night stay. We have upgraded the 3 youngest kids to adult park tickets so that they can order from the adults menu. I have been told that for 2020 there is now a difference between adult and child meal credits at the quick service places. We booked the following ADR’s at 180 days:

• BOG for breakfast on our first full day. We did this last time and really liked it.
• Sanaa for an evening meal. Again, we did this last time and it was a big highlight of our holiday.
• Tusker House for breakfast. Excited to try this as I have fancied it for a while now.

That’s all that has been booked so far, I don’t expect to be making any other reservations.

I have quite the snack list that I want to work my way through, plenty that Grace wants to try too, so we can probably share and have a better chance of getting through the mammoth list haha.

Snacks to try:



Some of the quick service restaurants that we are planning to visit include; Satu’li canteen, Polite Pig, Blaze, Wolfgang Puck express, Pecos Bill and many more, as well as some of the new quick service places in the Star Wars area of Hollywood studios.

To finish off, I thought I would include some of my favourite pictures from previous year’s visits.










The only plans outside of Disney that we have is a little visit to the premium outlets and a cheeky drop in at cheesecake factory to get some of the amazing cheesecake to go. There will also be a Walmart trip right at the beginning of the trip to get essentials for the room.

Anyway, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy following along
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Old 22 Feb 20, 09:38 AM  
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Goldia
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I loved reaading your 2018 trip report. I'm so glad you decided to do a report for this trip. Wow, it's going to be fun with all the family and I bet the kids will enjoy hanging out with their cousins. We've only had 2 nights at riverside, but we did love it. Last year was French quarter for us, definitely worth a stroll along the water to get some Beignets, or hop on the boat to Disney Springs.

I hope you have a fantastic trip.
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New pre trip report - Summer 2024

Link to all my completed trip reports
2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 22 Feb 20, 10:10 AM  
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Hi there,
Really enjoyed your last report, lovely to have a big family trip. Looking forward to reading along 😃
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Old 22 Feb 20, 12:10 PM  
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It sounds like you've got a really fun trip planned with all the family. I'm looking forward to reading more about your trip. That is a gigantic snack list you have there. I've not even started on my snack list yet so you're very organised.
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Old 22 Feb 20, 06:43 PM  
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Great start to your Pre-trip report. Sounds like you've got a great holiday planned. It seems I missed your previous trip report! I'll have to go back and read through You'll really like Tuskers house! Its a great atmosphere and the character interaction is great! Its on our to do list this year. You've got a great snack list there! I wonder how many of those you're going to manage to fit in haha.

Look forward to hearing more of your plans
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Old 24 Feb 20, 08:32 PM  
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Mad Hatters
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Originally Posted by Elsa42 View Post
Great start to your Pre-trip report. Sounds like you've got a great holiday planned. It seems I missed your previous trip report! I'll have to go back and read through You'll really like Tuskers house! Its a great atmosphere and the character interaction is great! Its on our to do list this year. You've got a great snack list there! I wonder how many of those you're going to manage to fit in haha.

Look forward to hearing more of your plans
Thank you, i'm sure it will be amazing. If you do have a read through, i hope you enjoy it.

Tusker house does look brilliant, i have heard many great reviews for it, so i am excited to try it.

I really do hope to get through all of the snacks, doubt it, but really fancying all the things on the list. Hopefully Grace can help me work through them by sharing them with me haha.

Originally Posted by jothp View Post
It sounds like you've got a really fun trip planned with all the family. I'm looking forward to reading more about your trip. That is a gigantic snack list you have there. I've not even started on my snack list yet so you're very organised.
Thank you, i hope you enjoy reading along.

It sure is a big snack list, i fully intend to finish it too haha. Peoples trip reports really do make it easy making a snack list, i'm sure you'll have fun making one.

Originally Posted by jools1302 View Post
Hi there,
Really enjoyed your last report, lovely to have a big family trip. Looking forward to reading along 😃
Hi, i am glad you enjoyed the last report. Must admit that i enjoyed doing it and reading back on the memories. Hope you enjoy this one

Originally Posted by Goldia View Post
I loved reaading your 2018 trip report. I'm so glad you decided to do a report for this trip. Wow, it's going to be fun with all the family and I bet the kids will enjoy hanging out with their cousins. We've only had 2 nights at riverside, but we did love it. Last year was French quarter for us, definitely worth a stroll along the water to get some Beignets, or hop on the boat to Disney Springs.

I hope you have a fantastic trip.
Thank you very much, hopefully you enjoy this report just as much.

Its going to be hectic, crazy and very interesting this time around haha, the boys will certainly love the time with all their cousins.

It is such a lovely resort, we just fell in love with the place. We never actually managed to make it round to french quarter last time, but will definitely be going there this time. Beignets high up the list
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Old 24 Feb 20, 10:48 PM  
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So glad your back with another trip report, I loved your last one and this one is looking to be another cracker!
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Old 3 Mar 20, 05:15 PM  
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Originally Posted by MrsEgg View Post
So glad your back with another trip report, I loved your last one and this one is looking to be another cracker!
Thank you very much, I'm glad you enjoyed the last one.

Hopefully this one is just as good haha.
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