Some Magic before Marriage! Offsite Pre-Trip Report September 2018

[MsMinervaMouse]

Hello there! Welcome to my FIRST EVER trip report. I read many many MANY of you lovely DIBBers' trippies so I think I have a handle on what I'm doing, but please bear with

As is tradition, let me introduce us.

Me:

Hi! I'm Laura and will have just turned 28 (YIKES) by the time we fly out. This will be my 4th trip to the magic. I am a huge Disney nerd and own pretty much a whole shelf of books on Disney history, Imagineering, cast member accounts, and other such nerdy Disney related topics. Chief organiser. By trade, I'm an Audio Producer and I work in Soho in London, so my days revolve around organising and...er...producing, so I am well equipped I even made an Orlando dining spreadsheet a few years back that I keep updated regularly. (See? Obsessed.)

OH:

Willsy. Turning 32 in a couple weeks. Also a huge nerd, but more of the bus and train variety. A bit of a shy one but also a silly bean. Electrician by trade and very handy. Does this thing where he takes 2 facts and mashes them together to create a new "fact". Often I have to ask him if he just made something up and then make him Google it. (It's usually made up). This will be his first trip. Recently got back from a stag do in Vegas and LOVED it but wasn't expecting to, so hopefully Orlando will be right up his alley.

Our background:

I'll try and keep this short, but it's a bit of a story. So, me and Willsy have known each other a very loooooong time. He was best friends with my older (ex) stepbrother and so used to sometimes come to our house and they'd jam together in the bedroom (stepbro on drums, Willsy on guitar). He had this longish, wavy, swooshy hair that I would swoon over (I was 14, give me a break ) Fast forward a few years, and we would often bump into each other on nights out at our local music venue and just gradually built up a friendship over time.

(Best pic I could find of the hair. That's Willsy on the left.)

Well, back in 2016 I had a WDW holiday booked with an ex, but we broke up beforehand. I went into Thomson to cancel the booking, but they said if I cancel, I will lose ALL the money I had paid towards it. BUT, I could transfer the money I'd already paid to a new holiday. GREAT! But now I needed someone to go on holiday with. And guess who stepped in and offered to be my holiday companion? (No, not Jason Momoa. Good guess though!) I'm not sure if he was a bit drunk or just felt like being spontaneous that night, but either way the following weekend we were in Thomson choosing a new holiday.

We decided on Alcudia in Majorca (no particular reason) and jetted off in May 2017. Sun, sand and sangria were plentiful (especially the sangria), and by the power of deduction, I'm pretty sure you can guess what happened. (Is this too much information? Oh well, leaving it in anyway!) We agreed to a few dates when we got home to see how things went. Neither of us were sure if this was just a holiday romance or not, but fast forward again to April 2018 and clearly we needn't have worried. We have 2 cats, a house, and are engaged!

The Trip

Our wedding is planned (AND BOOKED! ) for September 2019. I'm already stressed as all hell trying to organise vendors, booking things, worrying about how we're going to blimmin' pay for it etc. So what better way to ease my stress than to throw in an Orlando holiday as well right?!

(Obligatory ring pic!)

As Disney means SO much to me, it's important to me for Willsy to have context when I'm blabbing on about WDW. I want to show him my happy place. I feel like (and I'm sure others will agree) it's somewhere that can't always be described in words; you have to physically be there and experience it for yourself to truly understand. So thought I better drag him there before we tie the knot just in case he hates it (in which case, I'm backing out! )

So March 2018, after searching around on the usual Virgin, TUI, TC, BA etc sites and comparing deals, I thought I'd do something I'd never done before and get a quote from a specialist TA. We didn't have any super specific dates in mind, but were looking at early September as most kids will be back to school by then. Hotel-wise, I'd stayed at the Rosen Inn International on I-drive back in 2012 and was pleased with its location and general vibe, so either there or somewhere similar. I'd love to stay on site again, but since we're watching the pennies for the wedding, the Contemporary will just have to wait until 2021! We'd also need a car. Nothing fancy, just something compact as there's only 2 of us. And park passes to WDW and Universal, obviously. No Seaworld or Busch Gardens for us, as we're not fans. (No disrespect to SW or BG fans out there!)

One day!

After a quick phonecall with Oceans Florida they sent me back a fairly reasonable quote. I'm sure I could have knocked a bit more off had I done DIY, but with my work schedule being crazy, wedding planning as well as a very poorly cat, I simply didn't have time to spend. Their quote was already a few good hundred ££ off the cheapest I could find on TUI so...sod it...BOOKED!

Here's what we got:

Flights with BA. Standard economy.
LGW > MCO - 04/09/2018 - 11:15
MCO > LGW - 18/09/2018 - 19:55 (I hate night flights! )
We may book a stay & park, but I haven't started looking into this yet!

Staying at Rosen Inn International. Standard and basic but will suit us just fine

Looks like they've had a bit of a refurb since I was last there!

2 week pass to WDW & 2 week 3 park pass to Universal. I'm hoping we get a chance to fit Volcano Bay in, but I was only planning on 1 waterpark day and not sure I can bear to skip my beloved Typhoon Lagoon! I'm also not sure we actually needed a 2 week pass to Universal, but after investigating the website it seems you can't get any for less time unless we went and purchased them at the gates ourselves. I'd rather have everything done and booked before we go.

With our booking we also got a voucher for a meal at Hard Rock Cafe, Play4Less and Dine4Less cards, a 1 day pass for Fun Spot Orlando, AND a $100 pre-paid mastercard. Not to be sniffed at!

Extra bits

Since we're going to be there for our -1 year wedding anniversary (I'm making it a thing ) I wanted to book something special. I wasn't planning on booking any ADRs because this is meant to be a budget trip, but ended up making a dinner reservation at San Angel Inn on Friday 14th Sept at 7:15pm. I know the food here isn't meant to be great, but I've ALWAYS wanted to "eat in the pyramid" :P I tried for Ohana but since we booked 6 months out there were no good reservation times left

Like I said, this is meant to be a budget trip. But it suddenly dawned on me that MNSSHP would be happening whilst we're there. Do I, don't I? I was expecting the tickets to be SUPER pricey, but I looked on the website and they were way more reasonable than I thought, and I want to see that headless horseman! A quick email to Oceans Florida and MNSSHP was booked for Tuesday 11th :P

Eeeeek!

FP day is 5th August so I'll be prepped and ready. This is the first time I'll be there since they brought in FP+, and tbh I'm not sure how I feel about it. I like being able to have a rough plan but mainly play it by ear, and I feel like booking FP will force us to be more regimented in terms of which parks we have to go to on specific days. I like being able to wake up in the morning and say "I feel like it's an AK day today!" So what I'm planning to do is book the absolute essentials in the first week (7DMT, FOP, Slinky Dog Coaster etc) and then keep the 2nd week a bit more casual. We'll see if that works!

Dining

Since we're staying offsite, we'll mostly be eating offsite except for maybe snacks and QS lunches in the parks. With the help of The DIBB and my trusty spreadsheet here's my list of places we're hoping to try:

IHOP - Firm favourite of mine for breakfast. Can't wait to inaugurate Willsy.

Buffalo Wild Wings - I love wings!

CiCi's Pizza - Wasn't sure on this as thought it sounded dodgy, but after more research I think we can't not!

Millers Ale House - After reading everyone's opinion on the DIBB, I think skipping this place might be sacrilege!
Olive Garden
Cheesecake Factory
Sweet Tomatoes - I know we'll be BEGGING for veggies by week 2!
Wendy's - I actually grew up in Canada and I miss Wendy's so much!
Friendly's
Tijuana Flats - A favourite of Tim & Jenn Tracker

Bahama Breeze - I've wanted to eat here for YEARS



Plus a few others such as TGI Friday's, Hooters, Perkins etc that we'll probably pop into over the holiday.

Well, I can't think of anything else, so I guess I'll end it here (for now!) Will post any updates I have as and when.

Arrivederci! :

[smithlane]

Sounds like you will both have an amazing time. We too are going to MNSSHP this year for the first time, I can't wait!
You will love both Millers and Bahama Breeze, my 2 favourites. If you're a Nachos fan you just have to get them at Millers 😬
Looking forward to reading about it all

[caitlinsmummy]

Congratulations on the engagement! It'll fly by.

We ummed and ahhed about MNSSHP or MVMCP but decided we will just do the parks.

Can't wait to follow your report x

[EJSakaAnna]

Sounds like a brilliant trip! -1 year day to the wedding is defo a thing needs to be recognised! x

[MsMinervaMouse]

Just a small update with 29 days to go!

We decided to book an overnight stay at LGW for the 3rd as our flight is departing at 11:15am on the 4th, and we didn't really fancy getting up at 5am to drive to the airport!


We ended up booking The Cambridge via Holiday Extras. Not exactly The Ritz and it does look a bit tired, but for a 1 night stay and 14 days parking at the hotel for £133 I couldn't really say no to that! I've parked at Heathrow using services such as Purple Parking and whilst it was fine, I just wanted things as stress free as possible.

You drop your keys at the front desk when you arrive, and they take your car to their offsite secure car park. And when you arrive back, your car will be waiting at reception for you. Easy! They offer a mini bus service to the terminals for a £3 fee which you can pre-book at reception, and when you land you just call the hotel and they will come and collect you.


Cat sitting is all booked in with Nanny for our cat Maggie, and our foster cat Pushkin will be taking her holidays with the lady who runs the charity we volunteer for. Pushkin's got some quite serious health issues and Willsy's mum doesn't drive, so it's best if she goes to the charity owner in case anything happens whilst we're away.



We've got our tickets through for Disney and MNSSHP which I've loaded into MDE. I did my maths wrong though, FP day is the 7th, not the 5th which means I'll be at work. Going to set myself 500 reminders so I don't forget.
Tickets for Universal have also arrived but they're just bits of paper?! Terrified we're going to lose these, so might print spares, just in case.

Also went and got half our dollars yesterday. We're doing half pre-paid card and half cash, so we went into TUI for the cards. We were trying to hold out to see if the rate improved at all, but we just don't have that much time left. I'll get the other half of the dollars in cash during the week some time as I work in central London and the rates are a bit better vs out in the sticks. The difference is only by a few dollars but every penny counts!

I think we're pretty much set! Willsy still needs to buy a suitcase ( ) and still I need to write the packing lists. I'm a lot less organised than I was last time, but I was a lot younger and a lot less busy then I guess A few days before we go I'm also going to sign up to as many eclubs as possible for those sweet sweet discount coupons, so will post which ones I've got if I have time/remember.

Just a little (boring) update

[Toff Princess]

Congrats on the engagement.. can't wait for this report!

[caitlinsmummy]

Not long at all now. Sign up to Earl Of Sandwich and you get a $5 coupon we have the DDP but thought we'd sign up anyway x