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Old 1 Aug 16, 03:46 PM  
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JoJo88
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No Parks, All Recreation! Team Jamerica's August 2016 Brexit - The Pre-Trippy

No Parks, All Recreation! Team Jamerica’s 2016 Brexit

August 17th - 31st 2016

The Pre-Trip Report


Hello again! Surprise!

If you haven’t read a ‘Jamerica’ trippy before, this is us……



Me, Jo, along with DH Simon, offspring Adam, 13 & Daniel, 10, and my parents, Linda & Brian.

For the four of us, this will be our sixth family trip to Florida. The Grandparents have dipped in and out over the years, and Grandma even went renegade in 2014, going with my brother and his family!

Our first three Florida holidays involved lots of Disney as well as the standard overnight stay at Universal. However, for our fourth visit we tried something different and spent a week in Clearwater and a week onsite at US. And finally, last year we did a little bit of Clearwater, a little bit of Caribe Royale at LBV, and another week at US. I’ve posted reports for all of these holidays (except the first – ) if you fancied catching up. 

I honestly didn’t think I’d be posting in this section of the Dibb this year. If there was going to be any kind of trip report, it would’ve been in General Trip Reports, as our intention had been to give Florida a miss and try somewhere else. Ha! As if that was going to happen! Our decision to try somewhere else wasn’t because we’d grown tired of Florida, or had an awful holiday last year, quite the contrary. We’d had a fabulous time as always, and you can read all about it HERE.

Just don’t look at how long it took me to finish

IT WAS A VERY LONG TIME…..!

No, the reason to try somewhere else was twofold really. We’d spent a lot of our time last year either round a pool, or on the beach, and even with a week onsite at Universal and 14 day tickets, we still only visited the parks a handful of times and sometimes only for a few hours. Beaches and pools can be found anywhere, so if that was the kind of holiday we were looking for, we didn’t need to travel all the way to the States for that. Also, the world is a big place, and having taken the boys to Barcelona for a few days during the Christmas holidays, and it not being a horrendous experience (you’ve read my trippies, there can sometimes be friction!), we figured they would quite enjoy trying something a bit different.



So, on returning home after our holiday last year, we set about planning our next adventure. And we stumbled upon the idea of a little road trip around Southern Germany!



How’s that for different? We were going to start in Stuttgart and spend ten days travelling down and across, eventually finishing up in Munich. It sounded lovely, and we had the beginnings of a route planned out, and places to stop along the way.



Interestingly, not much pool or beach time here!

However, when it came down to the nitty gritty, I just couldn’t get motivated, and I didn’t really know where to start. I can plan a holiday to Florida with my eyes closed. (In fact I do, almost daily ), but Germany? This was starting all over again. I made several attempts to get Simon on board with the planning, but usually he just waits for the important information, like which dates to book off work and which airport to point the car towards. And if he'll be able to fit in a tip run So he wasn’t much help, but in fairness, it usually all happens around him, and when it comes to Florida, it suits both of us that way

So, plans for Germany came to a halt. It’s still something we want to do. I love Germany, having lived there as a teen, and we visited as a couple a few years ago and both fell in love with the place. But we figured we can go there for a half term, rather than as a summer holiday, and I’m sure we will before too long.

Incidentally, some friends of ours are actually heading to Southern Germany this summer, around the same time we would’ve been going, and are staying in the very same village we were going to stay in during our Neuschwanstein leg! And this was without knowing it was our original plan!

So, with Germany off the cards, we then decided to look for a villa holiday, somewhere in Europe, possibly Cyprus, or Majorca, somewhere like that. We asked the boys and they were up for it too. As long as the villa had a pool. And a table tennis table. And preferably a pool table too. Seemed fair enough. They’d always had that kind of thing in our Florida villas, and it made perfect sense that there should be things there to entertain them (and us!).

So the search began. I enlisted help from my Mum – she’s very good at the European resorts, as she seems to always be either on a short haul holiday, just back from one, or just about to go on one when she’s not with us in Florida! Of course, asking for her help meant increasing the accommodation from a sleeps 4 to a sleeps 6 as her and my Dad were very keen to join us. Hurrah!

We found the perfect villa which ticked all the boxes, in Calan Bosch, Menorca. However, when I looked at the cost of the villa, I was gobsmacked. It was more than double what we’d pay for a villa in Florida, and for half the time too. And then adding on flights, and car(s), it wasn’t difficult to see that we were approaching the sort of money that could get us across the Atlantic.



And so the conversations began. If our plan was to chill out around a pool, go out for nice meals in the evening, stroll around shops and enjoy some sunshine, why wouldn’t we do that somewhere we all know and love?!

We all talked about it, and not for the first time this year, we voted on whether or not to stay in Europe.



You already know which way it went as you're in the Florida Trip Report section. I just hope this vote turns out better than the last one…….

The first obstacle to overcome was ditching the Grandparents. We didn’t mind them coming to Menorca with us, but Florida for a fortnight was a whole other matter. I’m KIDDING!

Love you Mum! (She’s a Dibber )

The only real obstacle was flights, being the most expensive element. If we could find reasonably priced flights it was a goer. If we couldn’t, Menorca it was. But it no longer held the same excitement now that Florida was a possibility. And we all know that once you’ve started on that road, it’s very difficult to reverse.

I decided to save myself hours of internet searching by making a phone call to Pillinger Travel to see if they could come up with anything. We used them last year and they’d been very competitive. I left our details and our range of dates with them, and went about practising walking while tripping over my bottom lip. After all, that’s what I’d be doing if this new little plan didn’t come to fruition.

Pillinger soon came back to me with some flights, and after a bit of jiggery pokery with dates and flight combinations, we managed to secure ourselves six flights on the 17th August from Heathrow to MCO via Dallas, returning from Miami two weeks later via Washington. And all just slightly over our budget of £2500 for the four of us, including a 7 seater car. Woooo Hooooo! Flights are with AA on a BA codeshare. I don’t know much about AA, but if they’re willing to get us across the pond, that’ll do for me.

I did my usual trick of feeling a little bit unsure when it came down to actually handing over the cash (metaphorically speaking). It was Simon who was the one pushing me to do it, despite it usually being him to hesitate, want to try something different, save money etc etc…. But….. once it was booked we were on a roll!

Those of you who have read my trippy from last year (first of all give yourselves a pat on the back for sticking with me! ), will know that we had discussed how nice it would be to stay at Sapphire Falls if we weren’t doing the parks, and now here we were with the perfect opportunity!



Two rooms were soon booked, for five nights at the end of the holiday, thank you very much British Airways. We did wobble a little, and considered club level at Royal Pacific knowing how much we loved the convenience of the club room, the breakfast, and the steady supply of drinks throughout the day. However, a quick peep at the prices soon confirmed what we suspected, the difference in price was ridiculous for a bit of breakfast and some cans of fizzy pop Especially considering we’d be paying for Express Passes that we wouldn’t be needing.

Next up was the search for a villa. We didn’t need to pay a premium to be on Disney’s doorstep like we have in the past. So, we cast our net wide. Well, Dibb wide, and after a couple of enquiries and email exchanges, we settled on a lovely villa in Westridge, The Retreat.



The villa looks ideal, but what sealed the deal for us was the owners, Donna & Jason. Their emails were so friendly, and nothing seems too much trouble for them. The villa itself has a pool, obviously, as well as table tennis & pool in the games room. And also there is a welcome pack with tea, coffee, milk, juice etc to see us through the evening and early morning, therefore saving us a late night wander around Publix, where we would no doubt have filled the trolley with treats that we just didn’t need, simply because we weren’t thinking straight. We can now save that until the following day, when we can fill our trolley with carefully thought out goodies instead. 



Flights, car and accommodation all booked, it was just the extras to sort out now. Airport parking was booked through Looking4Parking. It seemed only fair to use them as they feel like an old friend, the amount of emails they send me. It came to around £90 for Meet & Greet parking which seemed a lot compared to the £32 they charged us last year for the same product at Manchester. However, compared to other places I looked, £90 is actually quite reasonable.

There’s no need to stay overnight at the airport the night before as our flight is at 12.50pm, and we’re not too far from Heathrow. That’s a bit of a shame as I do enjoy that extra night. I’m definitely one whose holiday begins the moment the front door is locked……

Passports all checked and ESTAS updated, the only other thing was to see about pre-booking our seats. I somehow managed to book seats on our outbound transatlantic leg for free, probably as the flight is with AA. I can’t do anything about our internal flight until we check in, but I’m not too worried about that, I’m sure we’ll be able to get seats together.

Coming home was a different matter, the flight is operated by BA and so we ended up paying £38 per person to pre-book our seats. I hate having to pay the extra but it’s worth it just to alleviate any anxiety.

There was a slight heart in mouth moment when Pillinger left a message on my mobile saying there was a problem with our return flights and to give them a call. It turned out our Washington flight was cancelled. Gulp! However, the alternative offered to us was a complete bonus, and we are now flying home directly from Miami into Heathrow. Jackpot!

And that, is everything!

We fly on the 17th August with AA from Heathrow to Orlando via Dallas, checking into The Retreat at Westridge for 9 nights. Then on the 26th August we check into Sapphire Falls for 5 nights, before flying home on the 31st from Miami to Heathrow with BA. Whatever happens in between is anybody's guess!

No Fast Passes to book, no ADRs to arrange, no tickets to source…. We’ll be mucking about in the pool, doing a bit of shopping, eating out in our favourite haunts, and hopefully trying out a few new ones. There will be a visit or two to Disney Springs, we’ve talked about Blue Man Group and might try an airboat ride. But do you know what, we have two whole weeks to fill with whatever we want and we can’t wait! And of course there’ll be endless games of Blob. We hope to achieve two things playing Blob this year. The first, that Simon & Grandad manage to make it through a game in joyous harmony. They are both very sore losers…… Obviously Grandad is at a huge advantage being the only one able to score, which leads me to the second achievement, that someone else finally learns how to score!

So there we have it! Team Jamerica’s second Brexit of 2016. “No Parks & All Recreation” plays homage to one of the cutest, funniest comedies we’ve come across over the last few years, Parks & Recreation



(if you haven’t seen it, please give it a go! ). It’s simple really – we’re not doing any parks this year (probably!), and the definition of Recreation is, in a nutshell ‘something people do to relax or have fun’. Sounds good to me! Fancy joining us?! 

Edited at 01:57 PM.
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Old 1 Aug 16, 04:21 PM  
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JanetteP
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Sounds fantastic. We're hoping to get a last minute flight in September, just the 2 of us, after spending a hectic 18 nights in May this year at Disney and Universal. We did this last September, and absolutely loved it. We're thinking of going to Discovery Cove, SeaWorld and Aquatica, but really want to spend time lounging about, doing as we please. I've also looked in Europe for a holiday, but absolutely cannot bring myself to pay the prices, even in September! Looking forward to reading all about your trip.
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Old 1 Aug 16, 04:21 PM  
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Jessika
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Great to see you're going back! We are also parks and recreation fans, gutted its over! We also leave Miami on the 31st, we re on the late flight with BA. I haven't bothered paying to reserve seats!
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Old 1 Aug 16, 04:42 PM  
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Sounds like a great plan!
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Old 1 Aug 16, 07:03 PM  
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redscouse2
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Have a great time , your going two days before us
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Old 1 Aug 16, 08:44 PM  
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KCMUMMY
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Ooh excited to see this trippy!
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Old 1 Aug 16, 08:57 PM  
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Lisa29
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So excited to see you have a new trip planned, yay! Sounds like it will be a lovely, chilled out holiday for you.

I really need to finish reading your trip report, I will have this done before you get back from this trip! x
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Old 1 Aug 16, 09:10 PM  
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I'm intrigued as to how you are going fill a whole trippie this time. Enjoy!
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Old 1 Aug 16, 09:19 PM  
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I really shouldn’t be reading any more pre trippys at the moment, as I’ve so many actual trip reports that I’ve started and not yet finished – yours included – but as your pre trippy is nearly a bon voyage I’m making an exception!

Your villa looks lovely and I look forward to hearing about Sapphire Falls.

Cala'n Bosch is a lovely resort – we had 5 great holidays there before we experienced an Orlando holiday (I’m starting to realise what creatures of habits we are where holidays come in!), but I know what you mean about the cost of a nice European holiday – hence we have also just booked again for Orlando! We’re having a short break to Barcelona next week, and it will be our first European city break with the girls, so I’m hoping we survive - but with the heat wandering round I'm not too sure! So long as we get to the Camp Nou, and the megastore, Katie (11) will be happy!
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Old 1 Aug 16, 09:25 PM  
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I don't do trip reports apart from Geoffs however I am making an exception for yours as they are so entertaining and well written. Have a great time and I will be following!
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