Team Groves are Florida Bound - Highs, Lows and Future Plans

[berniegroves]

Holiday highs and lows and future plans:

As I said in our highs and lows from 2016, we had a wonderful holiday and so most of the lows are really just niggles. But they are things that bothered us and so I wanted to mention them to give an honest opinion.

Highs:
Valet parking at Gatwick -
This was a great service again, much like in 2016. The drop off point wasn’t quite as nice as the previous year, but it still made our two travel days SO much more straightforward.

Car on the drive - this service is amazing. Especially if you have kids travelling with you as it means you can focus on them without needing to worry about driving and directions etc. It takes some of the stress out of travel days as you don’t need to worry about the car.

Kingdom strollers - again a super service and much easier than lugging a stroller with us.

Fairytale personal shopper - sadly this has stopped now, but I wanted to give them a mention as being able to shop online in advance was awesome!

Mileys birthday - this was a magical day. Miley initially wasn’t keen on spending her birthday in Florida, she isn’t a fan of change. But she had a really wonderful birthday.

Crystal Palace - hands down our favourite Disney meal in 2016 and 2017.

BBB - I was super impressed with this. It was really fast but didn’t feel rushed and the fairy godmother was SO good with Miley. Miley talks about it on a regular basis.

Pirates league - all of us loved this. The atmosphere was immersive and the makeovers were really amazing. Both kids want to do it again next time.

MNSSHP - one of the big highlights from our whole trip. It’s a lot of money but we are so glad we did it. Both M and G ask if we can go again as they had so much fun.

The lion king show - this was obviously a huge hit with all of us, but especially Miley. Seeing it have such a huge impact on her was emotional and then having her take part on our last day was the most magical moment we’ve ever had in Florida.

Wilderness explorers - this was M and G’s favourite thing to do in animal kingdom on this trip and they are looking forward to doing it again next time.

Characters - we had some really awesome meet and greets and my kids just love them! I love how much joy it brings them. But the best ones we had we’re definitely:
Rogue in Islands of Adventure

Rapunsel at Magic Kingdom

Buzz at Magic Kingdom

Grinch at Islands of Adventure

Toothsome Chocolate Factory - this was our favourite restaurant of the holiday. We had two really nice meals here and it is talked about a lot by all of us.

My kids - They both handled everything so well, from the 3 hour immigration wait through to the journey home when they both cried. They were superstars! I love seeing how much joy these holidays bring.

Lows:
Wait in immigration at mco - as I covered in our travel day post the length of time it took to get through the airport was crazy! After 8 hours on a plane with two young children you really don’t want to spend another 3 hours in queues at the airport.
I know it’s all worth it but it was frustrating none the less.

Travel time from villa each day -
We stayed in the Town Centre villa resort this time down by championsgate. Looking on the map it didn’t seem that far but actually it wasn’t the distance but the traffic we encountered most days that was a problem. Staying closer to the 192 you seem to avoid a lot of residential traffic from locals, but we hit much more of it this time and spent a fair amount of time most days in queues.
It wasn’t a huge issue, but it definitely meant that we’d want to stay closer to the 192 next time.

Getting Grayson dressed! - haha! This was a real battle! I mean some days I had to literally wrestle him into his clothes! And as soon as we were back at the villa he would strip off again! He wasn’t like this at home but for some reason on holiday he took issue to wearing clothes and it was a real pain each day!

Ohanas - yes yes I know! I’m aware this is a super popular restaurant and most people love it. But our experience here was not good. All of us felt the same and Simon in particular still feels frustrated by the experience. It was a definite low point for us.

The crowds - I don’t think I really mentioned this in my trip report but the crowds were high whilst we were there. Much higher than we’ve ever experienced before. I know that we were visiting straight after a hurricane so lots of Americans had pushed their vacations back by a week or two which did account for some increased crowds, and is perfectly understandable. But it definitely impacted us and I remember us discussing it a number of times throughout the holiday. Magic kingdom in particular felt very busy.

Suitcase being taken by someone else - this wasn’t the best end to our trip and caused me a great deal of worry for 48 hours after returning home. It definitely didn’t help the post Florida blues and was more frustrating as it was totally avoidable! Please check your suitcases people

As I said none of this ruined the holiday or would stop us going again and the good stuff far far far outweighed the bad. But they were things that bothered us or were frustrating so I thought I’d mention them in the interest of being honest.

Future plans:
At the time of returning from our trip our plan had been to return in April 2019. I started looking at villas immediately as that is what we always book initially.
Simon and I were both excited to return as soon as possible as we’d had such a great time.

However in February 2018 we surprisingly found out we were expecting our third baby! Surprise! We talked about the holiday and decided to continue with our plans as we’d taken Miley when she was 6 months old so taking the new baby at that age wouldn’t be any different.
However a few weeks after we found out about baby number 3, my husbands business suffered a big loss and had to go into administration, which changed our financial situation drastically. So we knew the holiday wouldn’t be able to go ahead in 2019. I couldn’t bring myself to cancel it as I was so desperate to go back. So I moved it to 2021. I was going to stick with the villa we had booked but it was really very expensive and whilst I’m sure it’s lovely, we’d now have to be more careful with our budget. And I realised that booking SO far in advance gave me a chance to go back and book Redjacks villa again! ? Yay! We loved it there in 2016, so we are super excited to be returning again in 2021!

So far that’s all we have planned. The kids will be 9, 7 and 2, so it’s the perfect time as Miley will still be considered a child and Oakley will still be free! Hurrah!
Here is a photo of the three of them taken a few months ago.

We can’t wait!

[Mamie Baldwin]

I have enjoyed your report so very much. It’s just lovely to see you talk so positively about your children when so many parents complain about theirs (not necessarily on the DIBB, just in general). I can’t wait to read the next report with your new family member.

[berniegroves]

Originally Posted by Mamie Baldwin

I have enjoyed your report so very much. It’s just lovely to see you talk so positively about your children when so many parents complain about theirs (not necessarily on the DIBB, just in general). I can’t wait to read the next report with your new family member.

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Ah thank you so much. That is a really lovely thing to say. My kids can drive me mad and I try and be honest in the report about the times we struggle, but overall I prefer to count my blessings and remind myself how lucky I am that my kids are happy and healthy.

I’ll definitely do a trip report next time and I’ll definitely get it done a LOT faster than this time!

Thank you so much for reading and commenting x