"The not-so-budget budget trip" - September 2017

[rscxox]

Background
So, myself and my boyfriend Sean went to Orlando for two weeks in August/September 2016 and had the most amazing time. It was my 7th visit and Sean's first time, and he loved it as much as I did. When we got home, it only took us a few weeks to decide to go back in 2017, instead of 2018 or 2019 as we had planned

Dates and Flights
We liked the time of year we went in 2016 as it was a lot quieter with most schools being back so that's when we wanted to return in 2017. We booked our flights in January with the cheapest option being indirect from Glasgow to Orlando via London Gatwick, flying out on the 30th of August and returning on the 14th of September, giving us a full 14 days in Orlando instead of losing a day to travelling.


Hotels
We wanted to try the Disney Dining Plan but didn't want to stay onsite at Disney for the full two weeks so came up with a rough idea of a week at Disney with the dining plan, 5 days at Universal then our last few days staying at Disney using DVC points. We originally booked a week at Caribbean Beach Resort however we were then told about the work being done there so changed it to Port Orleans Riverside. We then booked 5 days at the Rosen Inn Pointe Orlando through Travel Republic however it was only working out an extra £100 between us to stay at Universal's Cabana Bay instead so we changed it to that as it meant we would be closer to Universal. We couldn't help having a nosey at the Hard Rock Hotel and ended up booking 1 night there before moving to Cabana Bay for 4 nights instead of 5. This meant we would have express passes for 2 days. Our final 3 nights we booked a deluxe studio at Old Key West using DVC points we rented through dvcdreamrentals. Would highly recommend them! So we had;

• 7 nights at Disney's Port Orleans with the regular DDP, $100 gift card, 2 weeks Disney tickets and memory maker

• 1 night at the Hard Rock Hotel

• 4 nights at Cabana Bay Resort

• 3 nights at Disney's Old Key West

Port Orleans


Hard Rock Hotel


Cabana Bay Resort


Old Key West

Extras
We booked 14 day 3-park Universal tickets through FloridaTix.com as they were the cheapest. We also booked a day trip to Clearwater Beach with Attraction Tickets Direct and we (I) were planning on doing a lot of shopping at the malls as well. Sean got a Revolut card for half of his spends and the other half in cash. I got all mine in cash however I get paid during our trip so will send Sean money via online banking that he can upload on to the Revolut card for me to use.

Dining
We had 11 dining reservations booked for our Disney days, which were;

• August 31st - Breakfast at Crystal Palace and Dinner at Planet Hollywood Studios

• September 1st - Dinner at 'Ohana

• September 2nd - Lunch at Mama Melrose

• September 3rd - Lunch at Teppan Edo

• September 4th - Dinner at Yak and Yeti

• September 5th - Dinner at Paradiso 37

• September 6th - Breakfast at Be Our Guest

• September 11th - Dinner at La Hacienda De San Angel

• September 13th - Dinner at The Boathouse

• September 14th - Breakfast at Boma

Were also going to eat at either T-Rex or Rainforest Cafe as we have a Landry's Card with $50 on it. Whilst at Universal we want to eat at Hard Rock Cafe, Bubba Gumps, Millers Ale House The Cheesecake Factory and Buffalo Wild Wings. Food is a big part of our holiday

So that's our plans. We used Touring Plans crowd calendar to plan our days out and also used them to request rooms at the Disney hotels.

Next up is the trip report TTFN, ta ta for now x