Return to the Laughing Place - August 2017 Pre Trip Report

[rich2820]

Return to the Laughing Place – Pre trip report, Aug 2017

Welcome to my pre-trip report of our 2017 adventure in Florida. This will be our third time in Florida, my second attempt at a trip report, and first time doing a pre-trippie. I thought I would organize everything here in case it might be useful to anyone else, so here’s what’s coming soon to this pre-trip report:

1. Introductions
2. Hotel
3. Theme park tickets
4. Flights
5. Airport parking
6. Travel in Florida
7. Kennedy Space Centre
8. Itinerary
9. ADRs and dining
10. Passports, ESTAs, insurance, etc…. zzzzzzzzzz…..
11. What’s in my camera bag?

Links will be added in due course – i.e. when I’ve written them! And more sections may be added if I think of anything that might be of use.

[rich2820]

Introductions

So, first let me introduce the cast:

Me (Rich) – ‘Expert’ planner of holidays; relatively recent Disney convert. Favourite Walt Disney World ride = Splash Mountain

Hilary – Expert packer and reminder of forgotten things; Cast Member confounder. Favourite place in WDW = the backside of the Beach Club, next to Crescent Lake.

Hannah – (will be 17 when we travel) Now all grown up, but definitely not too grown up for Disney. Favourite Disney character = Stitch

Will – (13) Impersonator of Stitch, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and others. Favourite restaurant = ‘Ohana

Beth – (11) Assistant planner/ researcher. Favourite Ride = Expedition Everest

Beach Club 2012

We first went to Florida in 2012. I have to admit that initially I went under duress but was very quickly converted into the WDW fan that I am today. That first trip was 10 days entirely in Walt Disney World, staying onsite at the Beach Club and doing nothing but the Disney parks. It was meant to be a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience, but by end of that holiday we’d had such a great time that we were already planning our next trip!

Magic Kingdom 2014

In 2014 we stayed 14 nights in the Beach Club again, but this time we branched out a little more and spent 3 days in the Universal Parks and a day shopping, as well as the Disney parks. We had an amazing time – even better than in 2012, but we really thought this would be the last time we’d be able to go, partly because we wanted to see other places in the world apart from the Disney version.

So, after travelling to Menorca and Amsterdam in 2015 (in an effort to broaden our horizons), and knowing that for various reasons we wouldn’t be going away in 2016, we had a view to organizing a ‘big’ holiday in 2017. We’re aware also that with Hannah due to go away to university in 2018 the dynamic of our family holidays is likely to change over the next few years. So, we wanted to do something special, and I came up with the following options:

(i) West coast USA (including Disneyland)

(ii) Japan (including Tokyo Disneyland/ DisneySea)

(iii) Orlando – with a view to travelling a little more widely than we have previously.

Anyone notice a common theme here!

Japan - the Disney version!

There wasn’t much interest in option (i), but for a little while we were pretty sure we were going to Japan. I’d started to do a fair bit of research and was getting quite excited about the prospect, until I hit a couple of stumbling blocks: (i) The weather in Japan in August, whilst not too dissimilar to Florida would be more of a problem as we’d be outside a lot more as we travelled around. (ii) The crowds in Disney (and Universal) in Japan in August, paired with the heat and humidity sounded awful.

Perhaps these aren’t insurmountable problems, but it was enough to make us rethink. We considered the Easter holidays but Hannah wasn’t too happy with it being close to her AS levels. Reluctantly we put that idea aside (for now) and turned our attention back to Florida. When we did this I have to admit feeling a sense of relief – it had taken us a while to get there, but discovered that’s what we wanted to do after all.

As for timing, we’re restricted to the school holidays and whilst I did briefly consider Christmas (until I looked at crowd levels ) we decided on the summer holidays. Because of various things happening we only have a 2 week window at the end of August available. We might ideally have booked longer, but 14 nights will have to do!

View from the backside of the Beach Club

[rich2820]

Hotel

Although we’re going back to Florida for a third time I didn’t want us to just be repeating ourselves. I was keen for us to try new things, so having stayed at the Beach Club twice I looked further afield. Options such as a villa, non-Disney hotels, and a stay at Universal were all considered. The trouble is no matter what I thought everyone else wanted to stay at the Beach Club for the duration!

To be fair the Beach Club does suit us well. We can fit all 5 of us into one room in the two queen beds and one single (day bed) – albeit at a bit of a squeeze. The downside is having just one bathroom between the 5 of us, although the double wash basins do help. But the positives of this hotel easily outweigh the negatives for us, the main ones being the location and the pool. And I think that staying in Orlando and not being at the Beach Club just wouldn’t feel right for us now.

When the free dining offers for 2017 came out in April (2016) I initially dithered before booking. Whilst I vacillated, the standard and garden view rooms became unavailable during the 2 weeks we wanted to go, leaving only pool/ lagoon view rooms (at nearly Ł1000 more for the 14 night duration). More dithering ensued, until finally I booked the water view room. We would just have to make sure we made the most of that gold-plated view!

A few weeks later, however, I checked the availability again (in truth I’d been checking regularly, concerned at how much we’d spent!) and sure enough standard and garden view rooms were available again. So after a quick phone call to a very helpful Disney cast member I changed our booking to a garden view room. With the Ł50 amendment fee that was still a saving of around Ł900.

Update 15/08/17: As a subscriber to TouringPlans.com I have made a request for a specific room via the Touring Plans room request system. This is only available to subscribers of their website. I'm not too hopeful that we'll get the room I've asked for, and to be honest I'm not all that bothered, but I'll let you know how I get on anyway.

[JenD1]

There at same time. I'll say hello if I spot you

[rich2820]

Theme Park Tickets


Time has moved on (!) and it's now only 26 days until we go so I'll get on with this now and keep it brief.

Our Walt Disney World tickets were pretty much a no-brainer. Because we wanted 'free' dining with this trip we had to book the tickets at the same time as booking the hotel, so for us it was the 14-day Ultimate Ticket (for the price of a 7-day ticket - isn't it always?!).

We also plan to spend 3 days at the Universal parks so I needed tickets for this. Last time we went I booked directly from the Universal Studios USA website as this was the cheapest option. However, this time the prices seemed to have gone up considerably, probably due to the exchange rate. I checked the price on Attraction Tickets Direct and found it was slightly cheaper to book the Universal Orlando 3-Park Explorer ticket (which gives access to Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios and Volcano Bay for a period of up to 14 days) than it was to book just 3 days direct on the US site. 3-Park tickets were exactly the same price as the 2-park tickets, so that gave us the option of Volcano Bay, but having read the reviews we've decided not to bother this time. Maybe we'll wait until the hype dies down.

[Jaspercat10]

Reading along and looking forward to the rest 😁

[rich2820]

Flights


This became a bit of a trauma but we got there in the end. On our two previous trips we flew direct from Manchester to Orlando International. Whilst I realise this isn't the cheapest way to fly we've never liked the idea of indirect flights so we've been prepared to pay extra to reduce the hassle. However, this time round direct flights started expensive (over Ł4500 for the five of us) when I first looked in June/ July and rose to over Ł5000 return after a few weeks. This was through Fly Thomas Cook. Virgin Atlantic flights were around Ł5500!

Checking the prices of flights, including indirect, became something of a daily obsession through the autumn months but there was no real improvement. Finally we came to the decision that we would have to take some combination of indirect flights for the trip to be affordable. Indirect options were around the Ł3200-3500 mark, but in the end we went for the compromise of a direct flight from Manchester to Orlando, and then an indirect flight, via Boston, for the trip home. This came to around Ł3900 (for the five of us) through Fly Thomas Cook, which is about the same as what we paid in 2014 for direct flights both ways. Our thinking being that on the way home we won't care so much if the journey isn't so straight forward, but on the way there we just want to get to the Beach Club!

[rich2820]

Airport Parking


The first time we went to Florida we parked in the potholed wasteland that they call 'JetParks' at Manchester Airport. This was more stress than was necessary for our first trip to the US with the kids. After driving around for ages trying to find a space we had to drag suitcases and small children over to the bus stop and wait for a crowded bus to take us to our terminal. It was a false economy as we found out in 2014 when we used the multi-storey car park. We just turned up, parked in a properly marked out space and got in the lift which took us straight to the airport check-in. And by signing up to the laugh-a-minute that is the Manchester Airport email newsletter we got 15% off and ended up paying only slightly more than the JetParks 'car park'.

This year the special offer was for the 'Meet and Greet' parking at Manchester T1. Only a little more expensive, including 15% off, than last time. I'll let you know how we get on with that.

[rich2820]

Travel in Florida


For our previous two trips we didn't hire a car to travel around the parks in Florida, using only Disney transportation buses and boats, or taxis to get us to Universal. This time I had planned to hire a car part way through the holiday from the Swan & Dolphin car rental, just a short walk from our hotel. I would have hired it for a few days whilst we travelled to Universal and Kennedy Space Centre. However, after weighing up the cost, and taking into account my stress levels at the thought of driving, we've gone back to just using Disney transportation and taxis for Universal. I know many people love driving over there, and I'm sure I'd be fine with it, but for me it was becoming a bit a hassle that really I didn't need - it's meant to be a holiday after all. For Kennedy Space Centre we came up with another solution (see below).

[rich2820]

Kennedy Space Centre


I never like the idea of just repeating ourselves over and over when we go on holiday, so I was keen to do some things that are new to us. Top of the list for me was Kennedy Space Centre. I looked into booking this direct, with a view to driving there ourselves, however when I changed my mind about driving (see above) I found tickets on Attraction Tickets Direct that included transportation from the Swan Hotel (next door to the Beach Club where we are staying). This ticket is through Florida Dolphin Tours who were recommended to me by a work colleague. I've been reading 'Carrying the Fire' by Michael Collins, who was one of the Apollo 11 crew (the one who didn't walk on the moon) to get me in the mood for this, so I'm ready to go full on geek when I get there this time next week!