The Magnificent Seven - April 2018 - updated 4th April

[Redrach1903]

Well looky here, we're going again! I know, I know! It's getting to be a habit However, at least we have been to Nashville since our last trip, so you can't accuse us of not trying new places Trip report for Nashville is here by the way. Have a look if you want to see two 30 something's getting drunk every day for a week

Our cast this time is a little larger than normal, hence the title (credit to Chris). Let's run through everyone, shall we? I'll do it in age order…

Abigail (Abi chops to me), 15 months.
My niece and the funniest, cutest wee thing on the planet. She will be just about 19 months when we go. Yes, we know she won't remember this trip, but we will! We can't wait to see her reaction to everything. I'm sure she will be totally mesmerized by all the sights and sounds Abi's favourite thing at the moment is watching the intro to The Lion King. Atta girl . Her other favourite things include eating (a lot), sleeping (a lot) and dancing to country music. That would be our Nashville influence – you're welcome Abi!







Sorry I just couldn’t pick one photo

Jake, 8 years old. Will be 9 when we go.
Chris's son and my step son (still think that makes me sound old). A gem of a kid, totally thoughtful, kind and great company. He is an absolute star with Abi too. He loves her to bits and totally dotes on her! Jake's favourite thing at the moment is football. He is in two teams now and is actually getting very good. We struggle to get him to wear anything other than a football kit! Haha! He is most looking forward to the villa pool and (spoiler for the plans) Discovery Cove! Water baby! The last time we had Jake in Orlando was for our wedding in 2015, where he looked like this:




He now looks like this. GULP . Time flies.





Chris, 31 (will be 32 when we go).
My husband, as regular readers will know. Wireline Field Supervisor (don’t ask me what that means) who works a 5 / 5 week rotation in Oman. Every time we come home from Florida he says he needs a break from it and within approx. 3 weeks he is saying he misses it! EVERY. TIME. He's an avid golfer as many of you know, so he is super excited to have my Dad and brother in law there to golf with! He is also immensely excited to revisit Blaze Pizza. As am I to be fair.



Me, Rachael. 32 (will be 33 when we go).
Legal PA. Eternal Disney nerd and planning nazi. It will be fun having my sister to make plans with this year too! The boys will not contribute. They can sort their golf plans and that's it I am very much looking forward to seeing Pandora: The World of Avatar. I do hope it was worth the 700 years of construction. I really must watch the movie though! I am also SO excited to watch Happily Ever After. As much as I loved Wishes, this does look spectacular. When I watched the live stream of it I cried. God knows how I'll be when I'm actually there



Emma, 35.
My sister and mummy to Abi chops. Children's Nurse at A&E. Another Disney nerd (not quite as big as me though). She is also a bit of a foodie and she is very excited for the food stalls at Epcot's Flower & Garden Festival. She is also considering booking Victoria & Albert's. I think she's off her head to pay that for a meal, but that's where we differ so much. Chicken nuggets for me please Emma was last in Florida in 2015 for Chris & I's wedding, so she is very excited to be going back! Bonus picture of Abi cos I couldn’t find a recent one without her in it! Obvs



Paul, 38.
Husband to Emma and Daddy to Abi chops. Does something in Business Support for the NHS. Paul is another keen golfer and is definitely looking forward to all the food too. He loves that he can have steak for breakfast in Florida! Haha! Something else I'm sure Paul will love is all the Star Wars additions since his last visit! He is a bit of a SW geek!



And last, but not least – Bob, 63 (will be 64 when we go).
Retired. Mine and Emma's Dad, Abi's doting Granddad and the reason this trip is happening! More on that later though! Dad completes the trio of golfers and is already planning out with the boys which courses they will playing! He just loves Florida and has done since the first time he and Mum took us in 1997. He loves the food, the weather, the people and even the theme parks! He is not a fan of heights though and will avoid rides that are super high. When we took him on Soarin' in 2015 he looked up at the ride structure and gave Emma and I a "what are you making me do" look Thankfully he loved it though



How this trip came about and the travel plans!

As I said, this trip is all down to Dad. Pretty much since Abi was born he has been talking about taking a big family trip to Florida. In September Dad, Emma, Paul and Abi went to Portugal for a week and this was kind of a test to see how Abi was on the plane etc. Turns out that she was brilliant, no bother at all! So that was enough to convince Dad that Florida 2018 should happen! Dad is very kindly treating us to the flights and villa! We tried (and tried and tried) to contribute, but he wouldn’t hear it! His view is that that he'd rather spend his money on us and see us enjoy ourselves while he's still around! Bit morbid, but there you go…..

So we started looking at dates. We knew we didn’t want to go much after April/May when it would be too hot for Abi. We also had to consider Jake's school, but the Easter holidays just wouldn’t work because of Emma's holidays. In the end, due to a combination of Chris's rota and us not wanting to push our luck with taking Jake out of school for too long, we had to settle for Chris, Jake and I flying out 6 days earlier than the rest of them. This way Jake is only out for an extra week after the Easter hols rather than an extra two. Not ideal that we won't all be out for the same dates, but we will still get 9 days all together and that's better than nothing huh?

Dates

So Chris, Jake and I fly out on 6th April and fly home on the 20th. Chris and I are a bit miffed that we are only getting 14 nights as we are used to 15 or 16. First world problems, eh? But we decided we had to fly home the Friday so that Jake had the weekend to get back on UK time etc for school on the Monday.

Dad, Emma, Paul and Abi fly out on the 12th April and they ARE staying for 16 nights. Pfffft.

We are all flying the same route with BA which is EDI - LGW - MCO. Chris, Jake and I have booked into the Marriott in Edinburgh for the night before our flight. I got a good deal though my membership for a family room. I am silver status, but only because the Bohemian Hotel where we got married is a Marriott and I got a heap of points then! I think Dad & co are booked into the Travelodge at the airport.

We have also booked our car hire. Chris's sister has her own travel business and managed to get us a really good price of £385 for an SUV for the 14 nights! Sorted!

Accommodation

We started hunting for villas as soon as the fights were booked and it was a bit of a slog to find one that ticked all the boxes. We needed one with at least 5 bedrooms, 3 of which had to be double rooms and with a cot provided for Abi. We didn’t want to be too far away from the 192 either. In the end, we settled on a beautiful looking Villa in Legacy Park. It is a Dibb villa, owned by Dibber Jiljo. Jill has been wonderful to deal with and her villa looks gorgeous! Here are a few pics!









As you can see, it has loads of space, so plenty room for us all to slink off and chill if we are doing each other's heads in

The only issue was that the villa wasn’t available until 8th April! However, it was the only villa that we all really liked, so we decided that Chris, Jake and I could just stay somewhere else for our first 2 nights. I immediately knew where that "somewhere" should be and so I quickly emailed BahamaBayLisa to see if the lovely condo Chris & I stayed in 2 years ago was available for the 6th and 7th. Luck was on our side and it was! Woo! I booked it straight away!

Plans

We will of course be purchasing 14 day WDW tickets. I was glad to see the price came down a bit a couple of weeks ago, but we are hoping there are further discounts in the New Year. Wishful thinking! We are also, as mentioned, going to do Discovery Cove. Chris and I went in 2013 and had such a lovely day there. When we took Jake to Majorca in July he really took to snorkelling, so we thought DC would be right up his street!



We showed him a promo video of it recently and his eyes lit up! We are not going to bother with the dolphin swim though, it's just a lot of extra money and it kind of dictates your day if you get a later swim time. It will be nice to just have a relaxing day without looking at the time! Discovery Cove tickets come with 14 day SeaWorld tickets too. As much as we have our opinions on SW following a certain documentary, we have decided to put our morals to one side for Jake's sake as he just loves sea animals. SeaWorld do an awful lot of good work too in rescue and rehabilitation, so let's not forget that.

We are not going to bother with Universal / IoA this time. Last time we found we were a bit fed up with it and all the samey attractions (simulator ride anyone?). There are a handful of attractions that we love, particularly the Harry Potter bits, but it's such a lot of money for one day as that’s all we ever spend there. Having said that, Emma and I may have a Harry Potter geek day there if time permits. If we do, we will just pay at the gate.

Instead of buying each other big Christmas presents this year, Emma and I have decided to do one of the Disney tours. We settled on Marceline to Magic Kingdom. Even though I have done it before, I would love to do it again, particularly with my sister

We have also booked a couple of ADRs. One is for Crystal Palace for all 7 of us. We are using Abi as an excuse Bring on the breakfast lasagne! The other ADR is just for Chris, Jake and I and its breakfast at Whispering Canyon Café. Something we have been meaning to do for years and I think Jake will find all the shenanigans hilarious!

That's about the only plans we have so far. I imagine this trip will be a lot more chilled than normal with a lot of time spent around the pool at the villa for the kids. We are lucky in that we have been every year for the past 5 years, so can definitely afford to take things a bit easier. Famous last words…..

I'll be along with updates as time goes on I'm sure! Thanks for reading!

Update No. 1 - various

Update No. 2 - tickets, a sneaky extra ADR and new tops!

Update No. 3 - Daily plans

Update No. 4 - Emma's plans and a few other bits!

[mrsdjh]

Aw how lovely to have a family trip this time Rachael. Your villa looks fab.

You should look at the football fixtures for Orlando City when they come out and see if there's a home game for Jake to go to. We,ve been twice in early April with our daughters - it's very family friendly. I did a little report in the Sport section with more information after this years trip.

[HelenJNT]

Very excited about this. Good title, Chris!

Not long to go now. The villa looks gorgeous and like it’ll be perfect for you all.

You’ll def cry at Happily Ever After. 100%.

So my main burning question is whether Emma will continue the TR after you guys have flown back... ? 👀

[redemma13]

Good start Rach! Cant wait to start planning!

Lol,that's a good question Helen! The answer is...
Yes,I will be taking my own notes and will carry on after Rach,Chris and Jake leave!
Will have to go some to match your reports tho Helen! Hope you had a nice Christmas!
Em
xxxx

[Lisa_Lollipop]

Eeeeek this is all too blooming exciting! And I love that you are down double digits already! I’m so happy you will get to experience Abi’s first ever WDW experience, completely magical!

The villa looks just gorgeous and that pool looks absolutely perfect for family fun in the sun!

I’m so excited to follow along with this (and hopefully be proved that taking an under 2 is completely doable so I can build my case to get out there with Charlie in 2019!)

Great news Emma will be taking over the TR baton when you guys leave too... what a dream team!

Keep the updates coming! xxx

[Redrach1903]

Originally Posted by mrsdjh

Aw how lovely to have a family trip this time Rachael. Your villa looks fab.

You should look at the football fixtures for Orlando City when they come out and see if there's a home game for Jake to go to. We,ve been twice in early April with our daughters - it's very family friendly. I did a little report in the Sport section with more information after this years trip.

See more...

Thank you

Ah that is a great idea, i will have a look! Thanks xx

Originally Posted by HelenJNT

Very excited about this. Good title, Chris!

Not long to go now. The villa looks gorgeous and like it’ll be perfect for you all.

You’ll def cry at Happily Ever After. 100%.

So my main burning question is whether Emma will continue the TR after you guys have flown back... ? 👀

See more...

Yes, I was impressed with his title. Much better than the crap I was coming up with!

Oh god, really? I can't wait to read your review on it!

Haha, see Emma's response below! I wouldn't get too excited though! She took notes on my wedding trip and I am still waiting for that TR to appear

Thanks for reading xxx

Originally Posted by redemma13

Good start Rach! Cant wait to start planning!

Lol,that's a good question Helen! The answer is...
Yes,I will be taking my own notes and will carry on after Rach,Chris and Jake leave!
Will have to go some to match your reports tho Helen! Hope you had a nice Christmas!
Em
xxxx

See more...

THANKS! So excited!

Hahahaha I will believe it when I see it! xxx

Originally Posted by Lisa_Lollipop

Eeeeek this is all too blooming exciting! And I love that you are down double digits already! I’m so happy you will get to experience Abi’s first ever WDW experience, completely magical!

The villa looks just gorgeous and that pool looks absolutely perfect for family fun in the sun!

I’m so excited to follow along with this (and hopefully be proved that taking an under 2 is completely doable so I can build my case to get out there with Charlie in 2019!)

Great news Emma will be taking over the TR baton when you guys leave too... what a dream team!

Keep the updates coming! xxx

See more...

Thanks Lisa

I can't wait to see Abi's wee face out there! It's going to be amazing!

Oh I hope Abi doesn't let you down in your quest to prove to Paul that Charlie should go in 2019! The pressure!

Thanks for reading xxx

[LLamb]

Ooh how fabulous, plans look great so far
We will be there sort of the same time as you!
We went in 2016 with our then 16 month old, now four he loves looking at the all the photos. Any age is a great time to go

[DISNEYNIC]

Eeeek how exciting! Fab that you are having a big family trip. We are going back as an eight in October. Can't wait to follow the planning and insta. I can't wait to see Pandora too xx

[redemma13]

Lol, I will do the report! Pinkie promise!

I won't fail in your mission to build a case for you to go with Charlie Lisa! Haha!
Em
xxxx

[EJSakaAnna]

Oooh what an exciting trip . Love that you're all going as a family, can't wait to see Abi's wee face light up! xx