First time Floribobs - September 2017 - Pre-trip report

[Cazzius]

Originally Posted by JanetteParker

Great planning - I would absolutely book all those ADR's. Definitely worth doing Kilimanjaro Safari in the evening, we loved it. Also, go to Pandora at night, it's totally beautiful and so different from the daytime.

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Thanks for the tips Janet
I have such a long list of things to do, but the safari and Pandora at night have just slid up nearer the top!

[Cazzius]

Last pre trip instalment is actually being written post trip as it was SO crazy before we travelled.

We were due to go on 09 September 2017.

We didn’t.

I heard rumblings about Hurricane Irma possibly heading towards Florida at the beginning of the week. I checked the forecasts and hurricane projections and hoped it would change course and blow out to sea.

On Monday 4th September, I received a welcome email from our in resort rep, Jeff. He was looking forward to us staying and gave us some info about navigating MCO. I emailed Jeff back to see if any contingency was being made in case of Hurricane Irma coming to call.

On Tuesday 5th September, Jeff called me. We were going to be fine. Irma was nothing to worry about, it wouldn’t even touch Orlando. Might be a bit rainy, but we’re British, we’re used to rain.

Jeff then told us how fabulous our hotel was, how we could see the animals, that the wine list was amazing – the most South African wines in the USA! and we were going to love it. There were night vision goggles and movies under the stars and we were in for a treat.
I'm thinking - "I know Jeff, it's why I booked it and have been excited about it for a year!"

On Wednesday 6th September, rumours of MCO closing on Saturday began, as predictions began to show the cone moving north over Florida. Virgin announced on Twitter that those travelling to Miami, Tampa and Caribbean Islands could reschedule as flights were going to be affected. No mention of Orlando. I called Virgin Holidays and spoke to a lovely young lady, who once again assured me that we would be fine, but we could either reschedule, chose any other holiday in the catalogue or get a full refund.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so went to the pub.

To be fair, we do a weekly pub quiz which is really fun and it helped me to forget our holiday drama. A girl on our team was due to fly to Miami the week after us. He dad is a pilot for Virgin, so she asked him about the situation. He thought we’d be fine, but did note that the pilots look at the weather conditions on a case by case basis on day of travel. He said Saturday’s flight was to go as scheduled as far as he knew.

I asked my mum what she’d do, she said to go anyway. I asked my auntie (a WDW veteran) and she said to go anyway.

We did consider switching to go to Disneyland instead, but I hadn’t done any research for California, we hadn’t investigated hotels or restaurants or anything. Disney World was the holiday we’d (ok, I’d) been planning and dreaming of for a year.

Reports were getting worse, looking likely that Orlando would be hit.

Thursday 7th September, 2 days before scheduled departure, I received the fateful call from Virgin while at my desk at work. Our flight was cancelled. We would not be travelling to Disney on Saturday.

Virgin Holidays advised us that we could either reschedule, chose any other holiday in the catalogue or get a full refund. If we wanted to reschedule it had to be within the month.

I called Chris and we decided to reschedule our holiday.

We would lose all of my 180 day ADRs, we’d lose most of the FastPasses I logged in at 60 days for to secure, my carefully made plans were out the window.

It was at this point that I was so glad, not only that we had booked a package, but that we had booked with Virgin. Checking stories online, Virgin seemed to be taking the best care of their guests. It also meant that I only needed 1 conversation to change everything rather than contacting car hire, accommodation and airline separately. Great in a stressful situation.

First I spoke to an amazing customer service rep at Virgin called Gina, who was apologetic but could only get us an 11 night holiday instead of 14 due to flight availability. We decided to sacrifice our 5 nights in Tampa (we weren’t going to be able to meet our friends there as we originally planned anyway) and just do Orlando. This was disappointing but we felt we wouldn’t get value from our Disney tickets otherwise.

It was all fixed, we’d fly on Sunday 17 September, and return on Thursday 21 September, arriving in the UK on Friday 22 September. 5 nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge with the Disney Dining Plan and then 6 nights at the Radisson in Celebration. Sorted. HURRAH!

Then, the really bad news.

Gina called me. There was no availability at Animal Kingdom Lodge for our new dates. Virgin had no rooms left in their allocation. We couldn’t stay there. I checked the Disney website, they had availability! Gina said they could not access it.
“Any other Deluxes available?” I asked hopefully. I had the hotel in Tampa refunded so could spend some extra on our Disney resort.
Sadly not.
“Ok, any moderates available?” I asked, I could see availability on the Disney website for Port Orleans and Coronado Springs.
No, no availability.
The ONLY thing they could offer, to allow us to stay onsite and keep our DDP was All Star Music.

Now, I know a lot of people love the All Stars, the décor is great for kids and the pools are really fun. But it wasn’t what we wanted. Animal Kingdom Lodge does not equal All Stars. It just doesn’t.

What were they going to offer us for this move from Deluxe to Value? £300.

That’s right. On the Disney website the difference in price for 5 days was £1000+. We were offered £300.

I spoke to Chris and he said he didn’t want to stay there. He didn’t like the look of it. Fair enough. It wasn’t what we agreed/planned/booked.

I declined. We would lose our Disney Dining Plan but we didn’t want to be staying at All Stars for 5 nights.

Virgin refunded our AKL money. I booked Port Orleans direct with Disney. No dining plan but we would be on site and the refund from Tampa and AKL would certainly pay for meals and snacks. Plus we’d still be on site and the resort really appealed to me.

All set. Now 4 nights at Port Orleans, 7 nights at the Radisson. Done.

With the reschedule, our second week was becoming our first week, so I could keep some fastpasses and dining reservations, but had to try and reschedule others.

MouseDining and TouringPlans were invaluable here.

I scored Crystal Palace & Tusker House breakfasts, I found San Angel Inn Restaurante, House of Blues and Narcoossee’s dinners. Our last night dinner at Ohana would not become our middle of the holiday dinner.

We started to get excited again.

Tuesday 12th September, 5 days before we were due to fly, as I was getting the train home after work at 6pm in the evening, I received a call from America.
It was Disney.
There was a computer glitch. They didn’t have availability at Port Orleans for the room that I had booked, paid and received confirmation for.
They didn’t have availability anywhere.

“What about the Deluxes?” I begged, “Is there no room at any other moderate?”
There wasn’t.

I was in tears, so stressed and so upset that my dream holiday was disappearing faster than Scrooge McDuck diving into a pool of gold.

We’d get a full refund, and an extra fast pass for each day we should have been staying at the hotel – including arrival day which we couldn’t even use.
Cheers then Disney.

No pixie dust for us.

I got home in tears, truly believing our holiday was jinxed.

No magic bands, no dining plan, no easy Disney transport, no free parking on site, no H20 mickey toiletries, no Mousekeeping towel animals… nothing.

We had some wine (wine always helps) and I had a brainwave.

Swan & Dolphin!

They weren’t Disney hotels, they are managed by SPG. I’m an SPG member! In fact, I’m an SPG ‘professional’ member due to working in marketing and arranging events!

Fingers crossed… maybe, just maybe these quirky Disney Non Disney hotels could save our trip.

Hotels.com said yes! There was availability.

Despite the rate on hotels.com being better, I wasn’t taking the risk of using a 3rd party and possibly getting bumped. I logged on to the Swan & Dolphin website.

Good news. There was room at the inn!

4 nights at the Dolphin booked.

Chris actually liked the look of the Dolphin better. The lobby looked more luxury hotel and less Disney (he doesn’t get it!) and the rate was the same as Port Orleans.

I HATE resort fees, I think they are sneaky and cheap on the part of the hotels to charge for services/amenities that other hotels include for free... but we’d be on site, it had a nice pool and we’d have Disney buses and boats to transport us.

No magic bands, but I knew from the Dibb we could buy them at the EarPort shop and get them all set up ourselves. Hey, from the Dolphin we might even be able to make Illuminations on our first night!

It’s not the plan we originally envisioned, it’s a bit looser, with some odd mealtimes and maybe not the best Fastpasses (no 7DMT, FoP or NRJ for us)… but we were going!

[Kidd McFluff]

My goodness what a rollercoaster! Hope you had a great time.

[Cazzius]

Originally Posted by Kidd McFluff

My goodness what a rollercoaster! Hope you had a great time.

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Thank you!
Rollercoaster is the right word for it. Think I spend the whole week crying, getting excited, stressing and every emotion in-between!
I don't think I relaxed until we had arrived and checked in.

[DisneyDreamer81]

Oh my word, I actually had palpitations after reading that! So glad you actually got to go, even if it wasn't the holiday you'd planned!

[Cazzius]

Originally Posted by DisneyDreamer81

Oh my word, I actually had palpitations after reading that! So glad you actually got to go, even if it wasn't the holiday you'd planned!

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Oh my goodness, I didn't meant to have that effect
I must admit, typing it all out brought it back and I got emotional about it all over again!

Thanks for reading. x

[Lizzim]

Oh my goodness, what a rollercoaster! I really like the Dolphin, hope you did too

[vics18]

Holy moly I can't believe all the stress you had to go through I felt stressed just reading about it. Really hope you had a good time in the end!

[Jockey]

Great planning looking forward to more

[Cazzius]

Originally Posted by Lizzim

Oh my goodness, what a rollercoaster! I really like the Dolphin, hope you did too

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*Spoiler alert*
We loved it! Was so nice to return to the (relative) tranquility of the Dolphin after busy days

Thank you for reading!