Update #17 5/8/18 Can I persuade my family to wear matching T-shirts? Florida 2018 Pre-Trip Report

[smithlane]

Ooh looking forward to this, I do love your reports . We had originally planned to go to Cape Coral this summer and was really looking forward to visiting Sanibel and Captiva so I cant wait to read all about it! We are going to New York instead so really not hard done by, I have read your NY trippy about 4 times now listing down every bit of detail I can get from it

[florida girl]

Sounds great you could almost be writing my pre-trip report it's so similar to ours.Flights to MIA (same flight changes)DD's and BF's got PE home for a small cost me and OH are flying on to Vegas for a week in the West Coast 😊. We were originally not doing Disney but now doing 1 day at Epcot and the Mickeys Halloween Party 😄😄. We are staying PB for 1ngt stayed there a few years ago and loved it looking forward to Volcano Bay. We visited CapeCoral last year and went to Sannibel we did the same bike ride great way to see the island and a lot quicker traffic is so slow moving, we never found a sand dollar🙁 but did find some amazing shells it's such a beautiful place.

[Floridafour]

Great pre-trippy

Great deal on the airport hotel, Ive booked the premier inn Heathrow T4 for £29, couldn't believe it!

[Excitedx4]

Sounds like you've got a great trip planned. As we fly home you'll be getting all excited to fly out! We land in England 16th August! We think this will be our last Florida holiday for a few years also, going to head back once the youngest reaches 54" so definitely another 2-3 years. (Well he is around 49" now)

[i love jack]

Originally Posted by chippyminton

We’ll be there the same time as you with our GCSE student in tow. Do you have a plan? That’s a day that needs a good plan! No idea yet how he’ll get his results, or what time, so planning mini-golf (his favourite) and a lunchtime trip to Beaches & Cream for a celebratory kitchen sink.

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Sounds great, no, I don’t know, I’m hoping they can be emailed

Originally Posted by smithlane

Ooh looking forward to this, I do love your reports . We had originally planned to go to Cape Coral this summer and was really looking forward to visiting Sanibel and Captiva so I cant wait to read all about it! We are going to New York instead so really not hard done by, I have read your NY trippy about 4 times now listing down every bit of detail I can get from it

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Aah thank you you’ll have a great time

Originally Posted by florida girl

Sounds great you could almost be writing my pre-trip report it's so similar to ours.Flights to MIA (same flight changes)DD's and BF's got PE home for a small cost me and OH are flying on to Vegas for a week in the West Coast 😊. We were originally not doing Disney but now doing 1 day at Epcot and the Mickeys Halloween Party 😄😄. We are staying PB for 1ngt stayed there a few years ago and loved it looking forward to Volcano Bay. We visited CapeCoral last year and went to Sannibel we did the same bike ride great way to see the island and a lot quicker traffic is so slow moving, we never found a sand dollar🙁 but did find some amazing shells it's such a beautiful place.

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Sounds great, glad you like PB we were debating on going back to HRH but it’s good to hear positive reports. And a week in Vegas - amazing!

Originally Posted by Floridafour

Great pre-trippy

Great deal on the airport hotel, Ive booked the premier inn Heathrow T4 for £29, couldn't believe it!

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Bargain! Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by Excitedx4

Sounds like you've got a great trip planned. As we fly home you'll be getting all excited to fly out! We land in England 16th August! We think this will be our last Florida holiday for a few years also, going to head back once the youngest reaches 54" so definitely another 2-3 years. (Well he is around 49" now)

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Famous last words
Thanks for reading

[dking2001]

Finding live sand dollars in Sanibel is really easy, walk out until you feel the sand go softer / slightly muddy (only 15 / 20 m off shore and chest height). You will then feel them as 'domes' under you feet. My kids were diving down and bringing up handfuls (all safely returned). As these are live they must be put back in the sea. Finding whole dead sand dollars for keeping is more tricky as they are very fragile and get broken by the action of the sea.

We also found lots of star fish in the same area (like this)

Have fun!

[i love jack]

So we are now at less than two weeks to go eeek so excited!

I’m pretty sure that when I write up the report post holiday the answer to the question will be no! I cannot get my family to wear matching tshirts! they are definitely not feeling it

So we’ve booked all of our fast passes. As I expected we didn’t manage to get flights of passage, slinky dog or even SDMT so looks like we’ll be doing some rope drop queuing.

The only thing I had left to do when I wrote the pre-trip report was estas and Dad will be pleased to know that I’ve definitely done them...I think

Sadly we’ve decided to rearrange one element of our stay. We had booked a night on sanibel which we last visited on our honeymoon in 2000. We were looking forward to revisiting some of the sites and I’d had a recommendation for eating at the island cow which looked fab. I then saw a thread about the red tide which just sounds awful so I decided to cancel. I didn’t fancy a 4 hour drive and not be able to go on the beach.

I’d booked the hotel by converting Tesco vouchers to hotels.com vouchers. I phoned Tesco last week to enquire about cancelling and was advised I needed to cancel with hotels.com then give them the cancellation number and they would claim the vouchers back. Sounds easy enough...I then had a call the next day from Tesco to say they couldn’t refund my vouchers after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing they listened to the original call and have confirmed that I was told I could get vouchers back so they are retrying... watch this space ...still waiting... not holding my breath!

All that’s left to do now is register for a few free appetisers and pack.

[mick]

Such a shame you had to cancel Sanibel
But as you say no point going if you can’t go on the beach

Joan

[Fuellady]

Can't believe I missed this Emma. It was brought to my attention by Mick when we were both commenting on a Bob Evans thread a couple of weeks ago

That's a shame you had to cancel Sanibel, but you have lots of other great plans there. We seem to cut down our Disney time each time we go, but as you say it seems wrong to not have any Disney time at all. A day at each park seems like a good compromise. Hopefully you will be able to get the rides done early that you didn't manage to get FP's for.

Looking forward to reading your report. Not long to go now, safe travels

[i love jack]

Originally Posted by Fuellady

Can't believe I missed this Emma. It was brought to my attention by Mick when we were both commenting on a Bob Evans thread a couple of weeks ago

That's a shame you had to cancel Sanibel, but you have lots of other great plans there. We seem to cut down our Disney time each time we go, but as you say it seems wrong to not have any Disney time at all. A day at each park seems like a good compromise. Hopefully you will be able to get the rides done early that you didn't manage to get FP's for.

Looking forward to reading your report. Not long to go now, safe travels

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Thanks Lynda it is a shame about sanibel but there’s always next time