The "On Our Way" Pre-Trip April 2018

[EmmaBolan]

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this. Life has taken over the past couple of months in between birthdays, work, Mum having a hip replacement, a DLP trip & Christmas! Usually Boxing Day for us is another day for visiting more family but today Dad & Matt have headed up to Leeds for the day as Matt’s working, so Dad has taken his camera out for the day & they’ll be back tonight. Me & Mum are having a lazy day as we're both pretty shattered from yesterday & I’m taking the opportunity to update this.
ADR’s

Our ADR window has been & gone at the end of October & I managed to get everything we wanted! Some took a little longer than others & there was a lot of cancelling back up ADR’s once I’d actually got what I wanted. Tusker House & Be Our Guest were the most difficult. I’d planned BOG for the last night of our holiday but about a week before our window opened I decided I was going to try book it for earlier in the holiday just encase I couldn’t get the last night.

Our ADR’s are looking like this:-
26th April, 7:30am – Ohana Breakfast
28th April, 2pm – Mama Melrose Fantasmic Package
5th May, 8:10am – Tusker House Breakfast (Mum & Dads Christmas present off Matthew & I)
8th May, 4:20pm – Be Our Guest Dinner

As I’ve just looked at MDE to get these dates, I’ve realised I haven’t cancelled some of the ones I booked as back ups... ooops! Best go do that now. I’m super excited for these as we have never really done dining in Disney on our previous trips. We’ve never done character breakfasts as a family. I’ve only ever done Crystal Palace with my friends.

Tickets

I have also just bought our tickets. We had seen the Black Friday sales & also people talking about the possibility of Disney doing 25% off from mid December like they did last year, so we had decided to hold out until today when someone pointed out Boxing Day sales are the same as Black Friday. Some very lovely DIBBer just posted earlier today about OAT having a limited number of 2018 tickets on their pop up shop listed for £353. I then had a code for another £5pp, meaning our Disney tickets came to £348 each – the best price I could find anywhere. Only 30 tickets left so I quickly called Dad – who was probably bird watching somewhere – and he said to just book them. I added our universal tickets on as well & ordered the whole lot with a £40 deposit with our balance due at the end of February. Cannot complain about that at all – so thank you to the DIBBer who posted about it!

I think that's all for now folks! Next up is our car hire...Dad said he'd do this over Christmas while I'm home... I know nothing about car hire & I won't be driving
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[stace&tink]

I loved my meal at Mama Melrose. My next day of my trip report will include my review. xx

[Guest]

Oh you are out there around the same time as us. Fabulous pre trip report xxx

[EmmaBolan]

Update – All balances are paid! 3 weeks to go!

Cannot quite believe we go in three weeks. Since Christmas life has just been crazy busy, I’ve been working lots of extra, every weekend there seems to have been something on, both my Nana’s 80th, Uncles 70th, family visiting me in Leeds, me back down on the Wirral, concerts etc... and I’ve started doing some more studying(I must be crazy) but I’m going to use my knowledge from University and train to become an NVQ Assessor in Childcare. I don’t think I’ve stopped. I’ve not taken any holidays at work yet this year so I am really ready for this break! I managed to get the day before off work now too so I’m looking forward to finishing on 19th April & not being back in until 15th May! I'm really looking forward to some sun aswell, the snow has been particularly bad where I live in Leeds & quite frankly I've had enough of it. I've had 2 snow days from work & various plans/things ruined because of it!

Since my last update we have paid our final balances – tickets & villa. All our tickets were delivered a couple of weeks back, cannot fault OAT at all. I paid the balance on a Friday; the tickets were with us on the Tuesday.

Dad has also booked our car hire with Alamo, a full size 4 door – I’m expecting something similar to this...

He has also booked parking at Manchester Airport so we’ll be driving ourselves there & back. We are only 45 minutes away from the Airport so not too horrendous.

Fastpass

Our Fastpass window started last week too, I was worried about being offsite and only being able to get them at 30 days on a rolling basis but so far I’ve not really had any problems! The first day was a little stressful as I’d never done it before and when I logged on bang on 12pm there was nothing! However I found between 12-12:15 they add more & more – not sure if anyone else has found this before.
So far we have:
26th April
MK
BTM – 9:20am
Splash – 10:25am
SDMT – 17:25pm (I’m hoping to change this to a little earlier, our first day I imagine we’ll be flagging by about 2pm)

27th April
AK
KRR – 9:10am
Dinosaur – 10:25am
Na’vi – 11:25am (I’m made up that I got this, I’m dreading trying to get FOP)

28th April
HS
ToT – 9:50am
RnR – 11am
Little Mermaid – 12:10pm (Wasn’t much else to choose from! )

30th April
Epcot
Test Track – 10:05am
Spaceship Earth – 10:05am

Now we’ve split our 3rd FP choice here as Matt & Dad fancied Spaceship Earth, Me & Mum didn’t, so we’ve gone for The Seas with Nemo & Friends. However when I just logged onto my phone, it wasn’t showing one. When I’ve logged on the PC it’s showing as a time overlap – but each one is only booked for 2 guests...anyone know if we’re going to have problems?

I’ve got some more days to book during the week and next Sunday then that’s it, done!

Purchases

Mum & I have a shopping trip planned for April 13th for holiday clothes & essentials. I wanted to leave it as long as I possibly could before shopping for holiday clothes. I have some things but most of my stuff is too big now. Currently 10 months into working with a PT I’ve just hit 2 stone 2lbs! I’m absolutely over the moon that I’m a lot slimmer for holiday, but I just feel so much better in myself. I figured leaving shopping till last minute would be a good idea & I’m glad I have

This was my then & now picture...

I’ve also bought myself this cute skirt for our Be Our Guest reservation..

And this lovely top off Stace to wear on travel day!

We also ordered our dollars, we went with Covent Garden in the end, the rate suddenly hit 1.40 but I was in work & didn’t see Dad’s message until it had back down to 1.38! We hung on for a couple of days, we caved when it got to 1.396 & ordered. Couldn’t fault them at all, I had picked Good Friday for delivery – I didn’t think as Friday is my usual day off. They called me on Monday last week saying it couldn’t be delivered that day, but the dollars were ready & could be delivered anytime from Tuesday. I was working the rest of the week so asked if they could change the address & send them to Mum & Dad’s on the Wirral instead of Leeds...they were delivered on the Wednesday. Brilliant service!

I think that’s all for now folks! I’ll update again closer to the day... I cannot believe we go in 22 days!

[EmmaBolan]

Originally Posted by stace&tink

I loved my meal at Mama Melrose. My next day of my trip report will include my review. xx

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I'm really excited for this! I'll go have a look

Originally Posted by tigger32

Oh you are out there around the same time as us. Fabulous pre trip report xxx

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Thank you! Enjoy your trip x

[Goldia]

This looks like it will be an awesome trip. Congrats on doing so well losing weight. I hope you all have a brilliant time, not long now!

[EmmaBolan]

Originally Posted by Goldia

This looks like it will be an awesome trip. Congrats on doing so well losing weight. I hope you all have a brilliant time, not long now!

See more...

Thank you!

15 days now 7 working days left after today!

[EmmaBolan]

The Day Before
Just a quick update, I've not had a chance to even think about this until now! I've worked so many extra days, spending my days off in the gym, having family/friends visit that I didn't have a minute to do anything until I finished work last Thursday. Since I last updated this I booked the rest of our fastpasses, we have:

4th May
Epcot
Spaceship Earth
Figment
Frozen Ever After

5th May
AK
Expedition Everest
Kali River Rapids
Kilimanjaro Safaris

6th May
MK
BTM
Splash Mountain
Pirates

8th May
MK
BTM
Peter Pan
SDMT

9th May
Buzz
Splash Mountain
BTM

I've not been able to get FOP at all! I have checked every day at all hours but nothing so far! Fingers crossed we manage it at some point

It's been a pretty quiet few days really, which has been nice to really relax and de-stress from work.

Today's been a little chaotic - I seemed to find lots of last minute things to do, as well as fitting in a PT session at lunchtime Me & Matt drove from Leeds to Mum & Dad's on the Wirral. I was dreading the drive - weather was awful and rush hour on the M62 is never good, but we did the journey in 1hr40! We're all packed now & our cases are ready for the morning

I didn't plan on being up this late as I awake super early this morning and then worked extremely hard at the gym - my PT really pushed me today for my last session...however it's nearly midnight and I'm still up faffing around. I'm gonna sign off now & probably go watch the soaps in bed!

See you in Orlando