First Time for Everything - Pre-Trip

[lwhit_x]

First Time for Everything – Pre-Trip Report

Well like the title says, I’ve never written anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary before, writing never was my strong point! But after reading so many of your pre-trip and trip reports I thought I should at least make a bit of an effort. So I shall take you back to 9 January 2014...260 days until our holiday begins.

The First Timers


This is me, I’m Lisa! I’m a 24 year old and a secret Disney Princess at heart and make any excuse to embrace all things Disney, HP, oh and shopping! I’m the mastermind and OCD planner behind the whole trip. It’s not my first time, this will be my 2nd time to WDW, although it feels like this first since it’s been 14 years since I was there.


Then there’s Sam, he’s 22 (23 when we go) and he’s never been to WDW before, claiming to have been deprived of this opportunity as a child. He’s the laid back; go with the flow travelling partner, leaving me to do the planning as long as he gets a taste of American dining. He’s also a secret HP geek and loves a bit of Disney too.


We met at Teesside Uni almost 5 years ago and it’ll be our 5th Anniversary while we are in Orlando so while I want to show Sam as many of the brilliant things that there are on offer I want to make it a little special for us both. We are thinking Miami for 2 days.

Decision Making & Booking

Sam and I had always talking about going to Florida, but it had always been more of a “we’ll do that one day” and I was determined to make it sooner rather than later. Mainly because I knew how expensive it could be and it would be best to do it while we had no ties. At this time I was working full time in Hartlepool and Sam was just finishing a Master’s Degree and working almost full time in Asda in Bradford, we’d spent 2 years doing the long distance thing. Sam had started applying for jobs in the North East and we had everything pinned on that, but I was still determined that this was the right year for our “once in a lifetime” trip to Florida.

Sadly we lost my Granda in September last year and he left me some money and I was also in a car accident last summer which I got a little bit of compensation from. So with this we spoke about me paying for the flights, accommodation, park tickets and insurance and then tried to figure out how we could save up for everything else. It was do-able, just! I’d already had a look about and wanted a package deal, I’m such a worrier so liked the idea of getting everything sorted in one go. I’m aware that this would have made things a little more expensive, but I can accept that.

Now as Sam will tell you, once I have an idea in my head that’s it, I just have to run with it, and that’s what I did. Right to my laptop scouring the internet finding what I thought was a good “all-in-one” deal with Thomson’s so then I hotfooted it to their local branch so I could ask all the questions I wanted. The not so helpful sales advisor priced us the same holiday at almost £700 more expensive and wouldn’t budge on the price claiming the additional cost was because it gave us peace of mind that a travel agent would deal with everything, hmmm I think not. I upped and left, feeling a bit deflated I went to Thomas Cook who couldn’t do much better. So I thought I would try my luck with Virgin, thinking it would be way out of our price range. The girl at VH was so helpful and gave me lots of different options, all of which were cheaper than I had seen. So armed with all of the information I needed I rang Sam (who at this point was still living in Bradford) and didn’t really give him much of an option, but he insisted we wait until we were together to book. In the few days that I had to wait, I’d looked at the possibility of going for 3 weeks, giving us a bit more free time, and it would only cost an extra £150 between us, what the hell!

That was it, deal was done and we booked that Saturday!

Flights

Manchester to MCO direct with Virgin, in economy on 26th September
MCO to Manchester direct with Virgin, in economy on 17th October

Accommodation

International Palms Resort (International Drive) 21 nights
We liked the idea of being on I-Drive giving us the freedom of doing what we liked when we liked. Also, we decided against hiring a car as a $25 per day young driver surcharge on top of parking costs would eat into our spending money. Here we can get free shuttles to all of the parks, so bonus!

Tickets

Disney’s 14 Day Ultimate Ticket
Orlando Flex Ticket Plus

Extras

V-Lounge
7 Days Free Dine on Us Vouchers
As part of a combination booking with Virgin we managed to get the V-Lounge for pennies. We opted for the Flex Ticket Plus as it includes Busch Gardens, which I didn’t get to do on my last trip.

Cost

£2878 between us

[katebush95]

That seems like a great price for 3 weeks with your tickets and everything! Hope you have a great trip!

[princess1706]

ahhhh a fellow hartlepuddlian! im originally from hartlepool but now living in brighton!

pre trip report looks good, shall look forward to reading more! looks like you got a great price too xx

[letty]

3 weeks will be such good fun. Our last few holidays have been 18-21 days and it makes all the difference. Only 17 nights this year but thats all we could fit in!

[lwhit_x]

Ahhh not quite a hartlepuddlian, I just work there!

Thanks guys! More instalments to add and OCD planning is coming on great!

[Yorkie Girl]

Great price, and great hotel base for the three weeks!

Looking forward to reading more plans

[Disney4Three]

Great start,thanks for sharing

[lwhit_x]

176 Days to Go – Why the hell not?! And Bloody Germany

Our original plan was to do the first 2 weeks at Disney, and the second 2 weeks working through the Flex Ticket parks, with the middle week a mix of the two. But then I had a major panic, this would mean I couldn’t just pop back to see Mickey one last time before we left! So we went back to Virgin and met with the same TA that we had booked with, she priced up adding an extra week for Disney and it cost us an extra £25 between us, done, booked, bargain! Now we can have so much more freedom around coming and going as we please.

So now I can properly start planning, I’ve already been reading my Brit Guide and Unofficial Guide and I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I want to do and when I want to do it. Although, Sam keeps reminding me that we need to not do too much as it’s a holiday…doesn’t he know that this isn’t going to be a restful holiday!

Bloody Germany!

As if two holidays wasn’t enough, Sam decided that he wanted to travel to Germany to watch NUFC in a pre-season tournament. Well you can imagine! When it’s going to be tight for spending money anyway this was the last thing I expected, but apparently it’s the only chance he will see NUFC play overseas for a long time. Understanding his love for the team, he decided to go on the basis that he didn’t go to any away games for the remainder of the football season and the start of next season, until after Florida. He’d agreed to that at least, but I still couldn’t understand it.

[lwhit_x]

140 Days to Go – Let the Planning Commence

Like I’ve mentioned before, my OCD planning goes further than just this holiday but this holiday is one where I can come into my own. I remember when I last went to WDW with my parents, my mam had done all of the research, had spreadsheets galore and travel guides, I’ve clearly learnt well. I’ve already read my Unofficial Guide and Brits Guide cover to cover so have an idea of our plan once we are there. When I was there in 2000, we didn’t actually do any ADRs and mainly took picnics into the parks, but this time we both want to have a couple of ADRs. I’m a fussy eater so I’ve been through the menus of places that I think we will both like.

We sat down tonight and managed to book a couple of ADRs

Mama Melrose’s (gets us priority seating for Fantasmic)




I absolutely LOVE deserts, anything almondy so this sounds right up my street. Although I’m sure Sam will argue that as we’re going there for lunch I shouldn’t stuff myself too much!

Rainforest Café


I’ve heard great things about the atmosphere here, so I’m looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about. I know it’s probably geared more towards families but I’m not bothered, I’m all for fun.

The Plaza Restaurant


We have an ADR here for lunch time, if all goes to plan then we should finish about half an hour before the afternoon parade which should put us in a decent spot. It should leave us just enough time to pop to Plaza Ice Cream Parlour to get something sweet for during the parade. I’m planning on getting one of these little treats..


YUMMM!

We’ve also opted for the All Day Dining Plan whilst we are at Seaworld and Busch Gardens, Sam is a pretty big eater and we plan on being there all day. So I’m hoping that Sam will get us both our monies worth!

[lwhit_x]

117 Days To Go – Anniversary Plans and Major Money Panic (contradiction)

Since it’s our 5 anniversary while we are out there we want to do something a little special. When we had sat down and started looking into driving to Miami for 2 days/1 night we realised that it was possibly going to push the budget a little too far, especially with the young driver surcharge, parking, tolls, insurance, hotel…yeah these things quickly add up when you’re on a budget! So we looked at other options, Disney Cruise was mentioned and quickly discarded as out of budget and I have an irrational fear or boats/ships.

A night in a deluxe resort was where both our hearts were set, when we compared the prices of both Disney and Universal hotels and for us, the Universal Hotels offered us more and seemed at a more reasonable price. So that narrowed down our options, we ended up booking Loews Royal Pacific Resort for one night, we booked via quidco so will get some cash back once we’ve stayed. Plus the benefit of FOLP and HP early entry will allow us to get a last day fix of all things universal.

So because we made a bit of a saving in comparison to going to Miami, we looked into what to the evening we are staying at RPR. The Blue Man Group was a winner, looks so much fun and I’ve been really intrigued so we also booked that.

I’ve always known it would be tight with money, but with Sam having his new job and us not spending quite so much on travelling to and from each other’s houses I thought we would be in a much better position. Then it dawned on me that we weren’t in as good of a position as I thought we would be. So we sat down, worked out what we would have to budget for whilst we were there, this is the list we’ve come up with:
Resort fee - $7.50 per day (can’t believe they don’t include this in the cost of the hotel)
LynxBus passes - $16 per week each
Food - $2100

Then whatever else we can save is our individual spends, and boy have I got a shopping list!

Despite the major panic I still wanted to book the little extras to go with the holiday. I just couldn’t wait and well some of them are pretty essential, I mean if we don’t book the airport car parking then we can’t get to the airport (we’ll be travelling from Newcastle to Manchester). So I’ve just put that on my credit card as it’s a necessity. Then there was the teeny tiny Serengeti Safari for while we are at Busch Gardens, well I just couldn’t help myself and for $19 each I couldn’t turn that bargain down! So that’s all booked 

The next plan is to figure out some places both on and off site that we want to eat, I’m just desperate for a try of the butterbeer!