"Let's do something different this time" Pre-trip June 2016

[Fuellady]

So, although this is technically a pre-trip report it's actually being posted post-trip. I was so busy at work before leaving for the trip that I had no free time to post this up. I did manage to type it up though, only a few days before we left, so I have decided just to post it anyway, exactly as I typed it... so just pretend I haven't been on holiday yet ok?

Thanks for reading

So with less than a week to go, I thought I should get started on my new Pre-Trip Report. Because I’ve left this so late, instead of a massive autobiography of our lives over the last 20 months I’ll just cut to the chase and tell you about our holiday plans.

You may remember us from my previous trip reports, but just to refresh your memories here we are…

First off, there’s me – Lynda, 43, Chief Planner and Trip Report writer. This will be my 4th visit.
Next, my husband, Neil, 50 when we go, turns 51 on the day we arrive back in the UK. This will be his 6th visit.
DD, Shannon, 19. Has recently moved to Edinburgh for Uni so no longer lives with us, but said she would never speak to us again if we didn’t take her on this trip. This will be her 4th visit.
DD, Eilidh, 15. This will be her 4th visit as well. Probably the most excited of all of us for this trip.

If you read my last report, you might remember that Neils parents, James and June came with us last time, but they decided that shorter haul holidays suit them better so they’re not coming with us this time. We will miss them, it was good having them along.

Anyway, to the details:

FLIGHTS

As always, the first thing that we book. We found cheap flights with Delta after looking for only a few days, and we decided not to dally, and booked in September. We usually fly from Aberdeen as it is our closest airport, but the cheap flights were from Edinburgh and with only 2 flights instead of our usual 3 we decided to give it a go. Travelling to the airport won’t be a problem, but coming home might be a different story, with a 4 hour drive in front of us. But let’s not worry about that now, we’ve got a holiday to enjoy first!

So, the flights… Edinburgh to JFK (New York) on Thursday 2nd June, then JFK to Orlando arriving at MCO a little later then we would prefer at 10.00pm. We were originally meant to land at 7.15pm but Delta have changed the flights several times now and this is what we have ended up with. Same route home on 16th June, landing in Edinburgh on 17th June about 1.00pm. All for the grand total of £1378 for the 4 of us.

We have booked a Travelodge in Perth for Wednesday 1st June, just to split the journey to the airport up. It’s not really that it’s too far to travel in one day, we just worry that something happens on the roads that holds us up too much, so we prefer to start off closer to the airport on travel day!

ACCOMMODATION

There was a debate about whether or not to stay on site for 5 nights with the free DDP, but I lost and so the next option was a no brainer for us. We have booked the same villa that we stayed in for our last 2 trips again, a lovely 4 bedroom villa on Hampton Lakes. As always, Janet the owner gave us a great deal and we are very much looking forward to staying in our home from home once again. We booked this just days after booking the flights as her calendar was filling up fast and we really didn’t want to stay anywhere else. Neil has promised me that when we go on our own without the girls, we can stay on site but that’s for another time.

That's June, my MIL standing at the door!

AIRPORT CAR PARKING

Again, thanks to a thread on the Dibb, we got a good deal on surface parking at Edinburgh Airport. Two weeks for £39.74. Really pleased that we can walk to the terminal from here as I don’t mind waiting for a shuttle bus on the way out, but waiting when we’re cold and tired on the way home always makes me really grumpy!

THE OFFICIAL STUFF

The girls both needed new passports, so these were bought in March and new Estas duly done. I updated mine and Neils Estas as well and thankfully everything went through fine. I’ve also just recently completed API for our flights so I think that’s all the official stuff done.

CAR HIRE

We were going to hold off until nearer the time of our trip to book car hire, but in October there was a thread on The Dibb that Alamo Brits had drastically cut their prices. A quick search showed that we could have our preferred Midsize SUV Rav 4 or similar) now for the same price as a family sized car had been showing up just a week before. So, we decided just to book there and then although it was a bit early for us to be booking car hire. I don’t have the bill in front of me, but the total for 14 days was around £300. We have completed online check-in and Skip the Counter so hopefully it will be a simple job of choosing a car and driving off when we get there.

TICKETS

When we first discussed this trip, we toyed with the idea of not doing any parks at all. In the end though, I just can’t go to Orlando without visiting Disney. We looked at 4 day and 5 day Magic Your Way tickets but in the end decided to go with 14 day Ultimates direct from Disney themselves. We booked these through Quidco with (I think) 2% cash back. We have the e-tickets and probably won’t pick up the “real” tickets from Will Call but just get Magic Bands and link them up. Total paid £1196, not including the cashback.

PACKING & HOLIDAY CLOTHES

Not started yet! Although, the cases did come down from the loft today, and we have looked out and washed/ironed anything that needed freshened up. The only person who doesn’t have new stuff to pack is Neil, who says he is happy to shop once there. I had a wee spree in Inverness a few weeks ago when I bought some new swimwear, dresses, tops and skirts. Then a couple of weeks ago I took Eilidh through to Aberdeen so she could top up her holiday wardrobe. She got a great haul in Primark with new swimwear, shorts and tops. She picked up a couple of new things in New Look as well and has been busy sorting all her new stuff into which days she will wear what! Shannon has been picking up things in Edinburgh over the last few months as and when she saw anything she liked. Neil and I popped down to Edinburgh last weekend to take home most of her stuff as she had to leave the halls a few days later, and on unpacking her suitcase once home I see she has accumulated quite a few new things. She is so lucky living in a city with ready access to shops anytime, whereas with us living in the sticks a shopping trip is a big deal.

We also bought 2 new wheeled holdalls from Costco as we couldn’t fit 4 cases in Neil’s new car. Turns out we can’t fit 2 cases and the 2 wheeled holdalls in either! Luckily, Neil’s old (big) company car is still at work and his boss has kindly said that we can use it for going to and from the airport, so problem solved. Our only other alternative was tying one child to the roof of the car!

PLANS

This was a tricky on for us this trip as we knew that we wanted to try some different things but didn’t know what everyone would like to do. I made up a list of possible activities and had everyone mark them 1 – 17 in order of preference. I then added up the scores and the activities with the lowest scores were the winners. Hot Air Ballooning came quite high on the list and I was really keen to do this, but after careful thought we decided not to go ahead. Partly because it’s quite expensive for the time the activity takes, although I’m sure it would be an amazing experience, and partly because we were worried that some of our party might chicken out on the day at the thought of floating randomly through the air! Another top scorer was to attend a sports game, but it would seem that there is very little available when we are there. I could only find indoor soccer which didn’t really appeal to any of us. Hopefully we’ll manage to do this on another visit if we go at a different time of year when the sports seasons are in full swing.

So less of what we aren’t going to do, how about I tell you what we actually are going to do. So, here is our plan so far, subject to change of course!

Day 0 - Travel from home to Perth for overnight stay.

Day 1 – Travel Day – Edinburgh – JFK, JFK to Orlando, pick up hire car, travel to villa.

Day 2 – First full day, our traditional dip in the pool in the morning, followed by our traditional visit to Chilis for lunch, followed by our traditional Walmart big shop. So all in all, a day of traditions made over 3 previous trips. There is a trip to Disney Springs pencilled in for evening, but if we are too tired we won’t bother with this.

Day 3 – Hollywood Studios in the morning, followed by some shopping, then Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner. Fastpasses booked are Toy Story, Tower of Terror and Voyage of the Little Mermaid.

Day 4 – Visit to Celebration with brunch at the Market Street Café. Followed by mini golf then either a takeaway from Bamboo Wok or a visit to the new Mannys on the 192 for dinner.

Day 5 – Magic Kingdom – so excited for this day because we are booked on the Walt Disney: Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour. I wanted to book Keys to the Kingdom originally but because Eilidh is only 15 she can’t attend this one. Now that it’s booked though I’m really glad that we’re doing the tour that we are, I can’t wait! It’s a really early start, so I’m excited to experience an empty Main Street USA and get some great pics. I’ll be ushering everyone out of the door that morning to make sure we are there in plenty of time. I have booked some Fastpasses for after the tour: Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Peter Pan. The rest of the day will be restful after our early start, just chilling at our villa pool.

Day 6 – Blizzard Beach, followed by mini golf.

Day 7 – I had been planning to take Neil to Kennedy Space Center as his birthday present on this day and the girls were going shopping at the Premium Outlets. I held off telling him until I was about to book the tickets then I decided to share the secret. Turns out he isn’t that bothered about going there despite suggesting it on his activities form so we are now going to do the World Showcase at Epcot because we just always scout around the edge and never actually explore the “Countries”. I managed to get us a Fastpass for the old Soarin’ as well after expecting it to be closed for refurb. I’m not bothered that it’s not the new version, I’ll just be happy to go on it at all. The girls have no interest in the World Showcase and were excited to have a sisters shopping day, so we will still drop them off at the Outlets on our way to Epcot. Neil fancies a bit of a jaunt down I-drive as well to see what’s there so we might do that as well. Olive Garden is the restaurant of choice for dinner after we pick the girls up.

Day 8 – Bob Evans for breakfast is on the menu today, followed by an afternoon and evening visit to Animal Kingdom. I deliberately planned our AK visit for later in the day hoping that the new evening shows would have started. OK, so it’s not Rivers of Light, but we will see The Jungle Book: Alive with Magic which I managed to get a Fastpass for. Our other fastpasses are Festival of the Lion King and Expedition Everest. I had a look at the menu restaurants available as a Dining Package for the evening show, but none of them appealed, so we will just pick up a quick service meal before the show.

Day 9 – Our first proper shopping day at the Premium Outlets on International Drive. We will also pop over to the Mall of Millenia to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. I think the intention is only to have cheesecake and not a main course, because we had a bit of a cheesecake disaster on our last trip which ended with all of the cheesecakes in the bin.

Day 10 – Breakfast out (still to be decided, although I’m hoping for my first visit to Cracker Barrel), followed by a visit to Epcot with the girls this time. Fastpasses booked are Spaceship Earth, The Seas with Nemo & Friends, Test Track. Our Fastpasses are all booked for the afternoon so we may pop to a different park in the morning after breakfast. One of our favourite restaurants, Applebees will have the pleasure of our company for dinner.

Day 11 – Another visit to the Magic Kingdom for today, with Fastpasses booked for Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin, Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion. Outback Steakhouse for dinner tonight as we haven’t eaten there since our first visit together in 2010 and we wanted to give it a try again.

Day 12 – An early start today for our day trip to Clearwater Beach. A day trip came high on the activities list for all of us so we are really looking forward to this day.

Day 13 – A relaxing start at our villa pool for today, followed by a trip to Panera Bread for lunch. This is the girls choice, a place they are keen to try. Neil and I are not over excited about this lunch but we will give it a go. We are heading off to Magic Kingdom again tonight for Wishes, and will have dinner before we go into the park at a restaurant still to be chosen. I had been trying for ages to get a dinner reservation for Be Our Guest for this night but have now given up. I was also disappointed to find out that Wishes is no longer available for Fastpass. So the Fastpasses I have booked are: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (this is just the best in the dark!)

Day 14 – Shopping at Premium Outlets, Vineland.

Day 15 – Perkins for breakfast, before heading to the airport.

We may fit in more ½ days at the parks to make the most of our 14 day Ultimates, and will probably stop by the shops on our way home from the parks some days as well, but at least we have a rough guide to go by. I haven’t managed to fit Typhoon Lagoon into the plan but I’m sure we could squeeze it in if anyone really wanted to go, so that might happen as well.

So, that’s it… the plan so far. Now, I better get on with the packing. See you on the other side.

[Twinklestar1]

Hi

Great pre-trippie. Look forward to hearing how it all went x

[Col&Ali]

Really weird reading this as I think you might be home now! It won't stop me reading along though of course Plans look great and I did giggle at the thought of your cheesecake disaster last year so really hope you get to eat it this time!

Ali
x

[MinnieMrsA]

Sounds like an amazing trip - and great to try so many restaurants 😊

[margyloveswdw]

Sounds like a great trip!

[daftmum]

Sounds like a lovely trip and how nice to have a few adult hours whilst the girls are shopping

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by Twinklestar1

Hi

Great pre-trippie. Look forward to hearing how it all went x

See more...

Hi, thanks for reading Just got to sort through my photos then I can get day one up.

Originally Posted by Col&Ali

Really weird reading this as I think you might be home now! It won't stop me reading along though of course Plans look great and I did giggle at the thought of your cheesecake disaster last year so really hope you get to eat it this time!

Ali
x

See more...

Hey Ali, how are you? Yes, we are home now, and it's kind of weird for me too that this is a post trip pre trip I'm not sure if I should reply pretending that I don't know what happened! I guess you'll just have to wait and see if we had another great cheesecake disaster this time as well Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by MinnieMrsA

Sounds like an amazing trip - and great to try so many restaurants 😊

See more...

Haha, yes we do like our food! Thanks for reading.

Originally Posted by margyloveswdw

Sounds like a great trip!

See more...

Thanks for reading, let's hope it all turned out as good as it sounds!

Originally Posted by daftmum

Sounds like a lovely trip and how nice to have a few adult hours whilst the girls are shopping

See more...

Thanks for reading... yes, the constant company of teenagers can be trying. It's nice for them to have time without us as well now that they're older

[Redrach1903]

Ooooh I like it! Hope to see a full trippy xx

[Guest]

Another Aberdeen Airport local pitching in! Look forward to reading all about it

[Grapesoda]

Hi Lynda, i'm so looking forward to this, I hope you had a brill time x