Beaching It With The Poole's Pre Trip Report August 2016

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So I am busy packing my cases so thought it was more than about time that I finally started my Pre Trippie...you know what it's like, I have booked my flights so I had better start it? Well that was nearly a year ago with hundreds of days on the countdown and now we are at 4 days!

Better late than never that's what I say

So who are we? Let's do the introductions first.

I am Angela 45 and lover of Florida. I am lucky to have been many many times and for the last 4 years have enjoyed sharing Florida with my family.
I am certainly the only planner, I sort everything which I take as a huge responsibility but love at the same time.
I love the weather there, the food, shopping and the out and out fun to be had..as much or as little as you want

We also have Mick my Hubby 39 and on his 6th trip. He loves Florida as much as I do and works for his holiday and loves his time off. He loves his food and spends his time in heaven at all those restaurants. He can shop till he drops too so I am a happy bunny.

Grace is our Daughter and she was 6 yesterday this will be her 4th trip. She will tell you she does not like the aeroplane (she loves it) and she loves the Magic Kingdom but is scared witless up close to any character. She enjoys them from afar and we are waiting for her to grow out of that one!

That's us above on Graces birthday last year in case you are in any doubt

We also have Micks parents Margaret and Gerry but for the sake of this report they are known as Nanny and Grandad. This will be their 5th trip as they did come years ago on their own. They enjoy the weather and the food too and are really happy to go with the flow and have a fabulous bond with Grace.

What we all love doing the most is spending time together as a family so let's the games begin as they say
We hope to be doing a lot of the above!

Over the years we have always stayed in villas and all have been amazing so this time is no exception, we love the space and the pool and the privacy a villa gives. This time though we are doing things a little differently and we have rented a gorgeous Dibb villa in Rotunda West for 2 weeks. We have decided after 3 trips to give Disney a miss, and be bold and spend 2 whole weeks on the beach...hooray you hear me cry. We always drive over to St Petes for a night and it is one of the highlights of the holidays so this time that is all we are going to do!
We have always said at the end of the day if we want to do a park we can always do a night in Orlando anyway and go, so we have bitten the bullet and booked the villa.

My biggest stress has always been the flights, and around September last year as flights started to be released I saw a price with Thomas Cook I sort of liked in terms of flying direct and after much discussion decided to book, for the following reasons

It was an OK price for flying direct in August
Once it was booked I didn't have to look at the flight price EVERY day probably until at least Christmas!
It was from Stanstead which is not far from us

So we were booked and had a proper countdown!

Along the way I booked the car park at Stanstead at a great price after a tip off from the Dibb and also the car hire which is through Virgin so I can skip the counter and get on with that 3 hour drive down from Orlando.

So as I said only a few days left to go as you can just about see on Graces countdown above,so today's I am going to sign up for some restaurant vouchers, we are going to go to our favourites...Longhorns everyone loves, Cheesecake Factory a must just that this time we will visit the one on Sarasota instead and a few others. The rest of the time we are planning on using the BBQ and shopping a bit differently this time for meat and fish and having some salads with that.
We are looking forward to long walks along the beach in the mornings and maybe the evenings to catch some sunrises and sunsets and pool in the middle of the day in case it is too hot!

Anyway I have rambled enough now I hope you will enjoy our report which I am planning on doing live, I hope as we are not doing the parks it will not be boring for you, I can assure you we will have fun

Thanks for reading and we will see you on the other side.