SSR baby! pre trip report

[TrueBlue]

The cast

Me - Marion Chief planner, loves all things Disney/American. Is good at getting high on the excitement scale and also the stressful scale

DH - Ramsay, so laid back he's like a deck chair! Just goes with the flow and isn't interested in any input into our holidays. He just turns up and goes where he's told Will celebrate his 38th birthday whilst over there this year (auld yin)

DS - Callum (13) lover of big thrill rides and sleeping Can never manage to get him out of bed before 10am on holiday. Pretends he's not that 'into' Disney/Florida but he's my son and I can read his mind which tells me something different

DS - Scott (8) Doesn't like big rides or the dark. His favourite ride is Splash Mountain and that's as big a ride as it gets for him. Another lazy kid how loves his long lies in the morning.

Here's a picture of us from last year

When we're going and where we're staying

I'll add further updates to this thread as I go along.

Flying from Edinburgh on the 12th October 2010. Going via Newark with Continental and staying onsite at Saratoga Springs Resort with DDP

I knew when we got home last year that we would be going again this year but was wanting to hang off till January to book flights etc as sometimes the airlines have sales on. With staying in Scotland, to fly direct often works out very expensive for flights i.e. Glasgow - MCO via Virgin Atlantic was coming at over £700 pp, at that was as soon as the prices were released!

Over christmas and new year I kept having a look and true enough there was some sales on but they didn't go as far as October I didn't want to hang off until the next sale round about easter time so at the beginning of January I started looking at indirect flights. I was pricing up BA and Virgin going via Gatwick. The price wasn't too bad (about £550pp) and would have booked it but the thing that put me off was there would be a 5 hour wait in Gatwick for our connecting flight back to Edinburgh on the way back home. We'd probably also have to fly down the night before our departure and stay in a hotel so that would bump the price up even more.

I read on the Dibb about the Continental flight from Edinburgh (about 20 mins from my house) via Newark and had a wee look at their website. The price was good (approx £500 pp) plus the flight leaves at 9.30am (a lot earlier than other flights across the pond). We would only have 2 and a half hours between connecting flights (both ways).

I said to DH about this option and he just gave me the usual grunt which translates to 'it's up to you dear...i'll go with the flow' So the next day I booked the flights for 12th October - 26th October, flying from Edinburgh- Newark- MCO Because our flight is early in the morning and only have a 2.5 hour turn around at Newark, we should arrive in MCO at the same time as the direct flights from Gatwick (or maybe a wee bit earlier) Also because we clear customs in Newark we won't have that hassle at MCO Our return flight leaves MCO at 3pm which is good as I hate hanging around on our last day plus we get into Edinburgh much earlier than we would if we went via Gatwick... result!



I always knew that we'd be staying onsite so the next day whilst the snow was blowing a blizzard I had a look at the Disney website and felt a warm glow as Disney had the free DDP offer on. They also had a sale on their Old Key West and Saratoga Springs Resort hotels which funnily enough worked out cheaper than booking Port Orleans Riverside (which is where we were originally going to stay). I did numerous seaches on the dibb plus put a thread up about these 2 hotels and finally decided to book Saratoga Springs Resort. I think the proximity to DTD finally swung it for me.



The price for 2 weeks at this hotel was something like £2300 (don't have the paper work in front of me for the exact price) but this included the Hotel room, 14 day ultimate tickets, DDP and the Disney Magical Express bus from the airport to the hotel (and return).

Although it sounds quite expensive for a hotel considering what it includes I think it's a total bargain.

We now only have to hire a basic car which we'll pick up for somewhere near Disney (Doubletree hotel near DTD? ). Usually we have to hire a big car to take the four of us plus all our luggage then we somehow always get lost from the airport to our hotel so we won't have to deal with that part. The hire of a basic 2 door small car will save up over £100 in car hire costs. Plus we won't have to pay to park at the Disney parks...another saving of approx $14 per day

Last year we came home with over $1000 and as we're on DDP we shouldn't need to take much more spending money with us.

We've (i've) also decided we only need 2 park tickets for Universal/IOA as I don't really fancy doing Seaworld this year. We've seen the shows in there twice now and it's a park I could easily go without.

I got our 2 park tickets (valid for 14 days) from Florida Tix (Dibb advertiser). I only ordered them about 2 weeks ago and they were here with 2 days, and they were REAL tickets



I'll keep updating this thread with everything else I plan/book between now and us leaving. DS Callum really wants to go to the Blueman Group this year and i'm planning a wee overnight stay in one of the Universal hotels so we can get the FOTL passes. The plan is to leave our Disney hotel early in the morning, drive to Universal and check into whichever hotel I book (I know the room won't be ready but we should still get our card for FOTL passes early). We'll then probably do Isands of Adventure all day, can't wait to see Harry Potter land. Then hopefully leave US about 3pm(ish) and go back to hotel and freshen up then head to bubba gump's for dinner before going to see the Blueman Group. The next day the kids can have a play in the hotel's swimming pool before we go to Universal Studio's.



My countdown is starting to look good now, can't believe we're going in just over 4 months time

I'll go back and add more pics later today, i'll need to put some more into photobucket first