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Old 31 Jan 20, 02:16 PM  
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nothingless
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Talking Three do 5 weeks in Florida - Feb/March 2020, Pre Trip Report

Hello everyone! I have literally just finished my trip report for last year, so now I am allowing myself to start my new pre-trip report...just in time as we're off in 10 days! EEK!

Introductions

Im Micah, 38, chief planner and Dibber, Disney fan from no age, and technically my first Disney visit was before I was born, when my mom was 4-5 months pregnant with me and visited the original Disneyland in California! I visited DLP 7-8 times as a child, and this will be my 4th time to Florida.


This is my husband Michael, 44 - we're married 5 years later this year. He's started getting into Disney after he met me, and is a huge fan of all the parks. He's happy to go where I point and trusts me implicitly with all the planning & booking! He's been to DLP with me 6 times (we had annual passes 2 years ago), and this will be his 3rd to Florida.


And this is our daughter Myla, she'll turn 3.5 when we go. She loves all things Disney - Winnie The Pooh is her favorite bedtime story, her Minnie Mouse and Olaf plushes sleep in her bed every night, and she's started to develop a real interest in the princesses now too. Her favorite movies are probably Frozen, Tinkerbell (any of them), and Big Hero 6. She's been to DLP 5 times (during the year we had annual passes, when she was 1), and this will be her second time to Florida.


The Plans
So, we celebrated Christmas and New Years in Florida last year, and absolutely LOVED it. We knew we really wanted to go back in 2019 or 2020, but, due to ongoing problems with my husband's oldest daughter, who lived with us in Holland, hated it here, but wasn't allowed to go back to her mom's in the UK by CPS, we knew we couldn't book anything. Every week was a struggle, lots of fights and stress as we all tried to cope with one very unhappy 16-year-old and circumstances beyond any of our control. Finally by August 2019, it seemed there was light at the end of the tunnel, as her mom finally did the things asked of her, and my husband's oldest was able to move home again. This left us as a family of 3 again, and with a whole year ahead of us before Myla turned 4 and started school, we decided to make the best of it, and leave these really difficult past 2 years behind us. We hadn't been able to travel much while the eldest was with us, and we decided to make up for that in the coming year by going away as much as we wanted before we were stuck to school holidays for the next 15 years.

After last year, we really wanted to stay on-site again, and decided to rent DVC points, so we needed to book with plenty of time in advance. I checked the DVC availability in September, and decided to rent via David's DVC Rentals. I filled in the forms, and put down the deposits on a week AKL with Savannah View and a week Polynesian in a standard studio. I was in a hurry, as availability was dwindling every day at the 6-7 month mark. After a few days of emailing back and forth and me needing to confirm several times, I finally got the email to say that they'd be finalizing my booking... only to be followed 5 minutes later by an email saying they didn't actually have the points they needed for my bookings in their inventory, and I was being waitlisted.

I waited a few days, but as I suspected, the availability was now SO low, that before even the points were back in stock, my week in AKL was no longer available. So again emails back and forth about making changes... maybe do 5 days AKL and a few days SSP? Yes, I agreed to that, again not enough points, again waitlisted, again availability changed, maybe 4 days AKL now? they suggested.

At that point I'd had enough - if I had gotten this booked at the time I wanted, I'd have gotten the full weeks. If David's had let me know at the time of booking that they didn't have the points, I would have looked elsewhere. But they took my deposit and wasted 2 weeks emailing back and forth with me before I gave up. Very frustrating!

I then turned to the Dibb here, posted on the DVC forum, and within a few hours, was talking to a nice lady named Janet who pretty much that same night got my bookings sorted for me! She was able to give me a better price too, so we ended up booking:

4 nights SSP (Feb 24-28)
3 nights AKL - Jambo House (no Savannah view though, unfortunately) (Feb 28 - Mar 2)
7 nights Polynesian (Mar 2 - Mar 9)
and 7 nights OKW! (Mar 9 - Mar 15)

I was over the moon with this - 21 nights, on-site, all in awesome hotels I hadn't been to before!

So this was all booked in September. We did say right from the start that we wanted to go for about a month, so it was a matter of trying to decide what to do for the other week. I kept an eye on flight prices too, and in early December, saw some great prices - 1200 euros for returns for all 3 of us on United Airlines! They included a stop in Newark on the way over, and in Washington on the way, and the price included luggage and seat selection. Only catch - the flying out date was Feb 10, so that meant we actually had 2 weeks before Disney to plan!

We were toying with the idea of doing a road trip somewhere and were looking at options. Then in December, first our daughter got sick and got pneumonia, and then I got sick with the proper flu over Christmas. I had a fever for 8 straight days, couldn't even get out of bed, and even after the fever lifted, it took another good week before I was able to get up and walk around again. I've never been that sick in my adult life! Even now, a month later, I'm still not 100%, my energy levels are nowhere near normal yet.

So in light of that, we decided what we really craved, was 2 weeks relaxing in the sun. To that end, we booked a villa with a pool in West Haven and sorted out a rental car. The plan is to make use of the pool, and do day trips in the Orlando area. We want to visit Seaworld as Myla will love it, and do a few days of shopping at the Outlets or Florida Mall, maybe Gatorland, Universal City Walk, Disney Springs, Crayola Experience, drive to the beach - we'll see. No set plans, we'll see what we feel like doing those first 2 weeks. I'm actually SO looking forward to this - I rarely take the time to do anything but Disney lol.

Then for our 3 weeks on-site, we have 21-day Ultimate Tickets, and I have fast passes booked for most mornings. The plan is to go in early, do our FPs and anything else we feel like. Then in the afternoons, go back for naps or swimming (weather permitting), and in the evenings, decide then and there where we'd like to go for food/more rides/etc. So it's pretty relaxed, with lots of downtime!

After I had all this sorted, I realized that our flight home is actually on March 16, not 15, so we added on 1 night at Art of Animation for March 15-16. We can spend as long as we want in the parks on the 15th, head on over to AoA when we're done, and spend time enjoying the resort in the morning too before heading to the airport on the Magical Express.

So yes - we are pretty much doing a 6-way split stay over 5 weeks haha. I plan on using packing cubes to make all the moving easy though, and with only the 1 child, it should be OK and not too much hassle! I hope!

That's it, pretty much - I have all the big things booked and paid for, and am just about to start on packing. I have a zillion things from last summer I need Myla to try on. She's grown SO much taller in the past few months (but still not past 37"! ) so I doubt much still fits! Ah well, great excuse to go shopping in Florida lol!

Edited at 02:31 PM.
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Old 31 Jan 20, 03:00 PM  
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tink111
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Looks like a fantastic plan! Bet you’re getting excited now. Hope you have an amazing time x
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Old 31 Jan 20, 08:22 PM  
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caitlinsmummy
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That sounds amazing, I can't wait to follow along. It seems like you certainly deserve this with everything that's gone on in the last year or so xx
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Old 31 Jan 20, 09:19 PM  
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jothp
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Wow, how lucky to be taking such a long trip. It sounds like you are going to have a fantastic time and have some lovely plans.
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Old 1 Feb 20, 11:22 AM  
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Elsa42
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wow that sounds like an amazing trip! you've got some great hotels booked. I love AKL and the poly. Following along
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Old 1 Feb 20, 01:42 PM  
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nothingless
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Thanks everyone - we can't wait!

So quick overview (this is kind of for myself too lol)

Feb 10 - we fly Amsterdam - Newark - Orlando, pick up the stroller and rental car at MCO, and drive to our villa in West Haven
Feb 11-23 - relaxation time in the villa with shopping & Seaworld
Feb 24-28 - Drop the rental car back at MCO early, and take the Magical Express to Disney's Saratoga Springs
Feb 28-March 2 - Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge
March 2-9 - Disney's Polynesian Resort
March 9-15 - Disney's Old Key West
March 15-16 - Disney's Art of Animation
March 16-17 - Fly MCO - Washington - Amsterdam: home!

The postman called around this morning with 2 exciting packages for me too!

First one contained my 3 sets of packing cubes! Never used these before, but I figured they were worth the investment with how many times we're moving hotel in Disney - I can pack cubes for the 1, 3, and 4 night stays so everything else can stay in the suitcase and it's easy peasy to get packed up again! The red set is for Michael, pink for Myla, and purple for me - these were a bargain at 16 euros each on AliExpress, though the branding all says the real Gonex brand on them!


The second parcel had Myla's autograph book! I made this myself, bought a pack of digital autograph cards on Etsy and made my own cover, and then had it printed with a local website as a ringbound book on matte paper. I'm so pleased with how it came out:








We haven't done autographs on previous trips, since Myla was still scared of the face characters then. But she seems well past that now, and I'd noticed that recently she's really into "completing" things - like sticker books and collecting stamps at the grocery store for a free tatty toy lol. So since we're going for 3 whole weeks, I thought she might enjoy having a page for every autographing character at WDW that you can meet in the parks (about 70 in total), and we can make it a goal to try and get the book filled up! This way she can browse through it herself and see which pages are still empty and who we need to find today, etc. I hope she'll like it! 🤞🏻
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Old 10 Feb 20, 06:02 AM  
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Milpston
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Sounds brilliant. Have a fantastic trip!
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Orlando Villas/cruises 2001-2013, DLP Newport Bay Compass Club Feb 2017
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Old 10 Feb 20, 08:30 AM  
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jothp
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That is a beautiful autograph book. We've found in the past that we've had great interaction from making our own autograph books rather than just buying the ones from the parks.
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Old 13 Feb 20, 02:56 PM  
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VizslaMom
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Fabulous plans - and you're already out there, just chillin' !

Just love that autograph book

Have a wonderful time and looking forward to reading all about it
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Old 13 Feb 20, 08:55 PM  
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nothingless
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Thanks everyone! We got here no problem on Monday, have been chilling for the past few days, and did some Seaworld this morning! Day 3 out of 37 LOL - soo enjoying the hot weather. I'm taking plenty notes (so far lol) and definitely want to do a trippie when I'm back!
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