Florida Beach Bummers 2017

[wizzo]

Florida Beach Bummers 2017 Pre Trip Report

Follow this trip as it happens on Twitter @tweetwizzo


The cast are as follows...



Me – Paul (Wizzo) – Gob Sh#~* and writer of these. Driver (will be a big role this time)
Lynn – Just had a ‘significant’ birthday, Pro-cocktail drinker and Kindle’r
Lauren – Now a teenager, swimmer, and collector of ‘Impulse’
Maddy – Swimmer, animal lover and above all else…thinker

Despite ending the 2016 trip report just 2 weeks ago and closing by saying we may give it a miss this year, Kayak and Skyscanner have changed our minds once again. I was 100% convinced that if we did go on the cheap, we wouldn’t see good flight prices until July again like last year (if at all).

At the end of this next trip report I’m saying nothing other than ‘The End’ and not making any predictions, I’m clearly not very good at it.

I’m really looking forward to this Pre Trip Report. It’s been a few years since I last started a Pre-Trippy without all the plans set in stone and this one has very little set in stone other than flights as I write this. Lynn and I are really looking forward to the large amount of research we are going to have to do on this one as it will be something of a journey of discovery.

Here’s the shocker…………we aren’t going anywhere near Orlando. We love WDW and the other attractions Orlando has to offer but we need a change, freshen things up. Those of you who read Days of Chunder (it’s HERE) will know that we reduced our WDW exposure last year having spent the last 5 nights of a 14 night holiday in St Pete Beach. I don’t know how well it came across in the trip report but those 5 days were the best days of the holiday. It was so relaxing and so much fun too, in equal measure.

Now don’t get me wrong, we haven’t gone soft and are going to spend a fortnight in one hotel at a beach, far from it. It will be predominantly a beach holiday but you know us, we can’t sit still for long!

So how has this trip come about?

So last Thursday, Kayak and Skyscanner alerted me to boomerang flights out of Newcastle with Brussels Air which was actually Air Canada transatlantic. We are limited to the last 2 weeks of August while the kids are in this swimming scheme so when flights pop up with a ‘4’ at the start of the price you take a closer look, I can tell you!

These flights were a long day, 6am over to Brussels, then Air Canada to Montreal, then Montreal down to Orlando, arriving at about 9pm. There was a 5 hour wait in Montreal but when you’re as tight as me, you take a serious look at them anyway. They were £436 on the Thursday. This became £425 on the Friday. We didn’t jump. The price was good but I thought we might better the route for a little bit more cash in the weeks to come.

Saturday morning by the side of a pool my kayak alerts popped up on my phone and that same set of flights was now £396. It’s not easy to get flights in the summer holidays that start with a ‘3’ from where we live (or anywhere else for that matter). I had a good search for other flights on the kayak app while I sat there and I checked Atlanta again (I think I mentioned in the last trippy that we fancied flying into Atlanta and having a road trip to Florida). Anyway, to cut a long story short there were BA flights 1 stop Newcastle to Atlanta for £485. Now this is nearly £100 each more but it was a) worth thinking about and b) worth more searching.

I tweaked the fortnight slightly and they came down to about £470 each. I see anything under £500 as good in August these days.

A massive game of text tennis ensued between me and Lynn. I said “If we’re going this year it’s on a real budget”.

Lynn agreed and the Road Trip holiday was on! I had to wait for Maddy to finish swimming and get home before booking and it was about an hour. When I got home, some selfish muppet had obviously snagged a few of those Atlanta seats and it was now well over £500!

I’m an old hand at this though and added a day onto our holiday and changed the start date to make it 15 nights instead of 14 on the same route. BINGO!

Not only was that price back, it was bloody cheaper! £460 return. I shouted down to Lynn to let her know I’d found some cheaper and a day longer and Lynn’s reply was the same as every time I tell her anything about any flight price……………..”BOOK IT!”

I already am love! I wasn’t really asking.

It had been a couple of years since we went with Grandparents if you recall, we went BA through Miami and missed our connection? The point of telling you this is that we had a bunch of Avios points still. As we had the family point’s thing setup we have many thousands.

So imagine my delight when during booking it asked if I wanted to use 34,000 Avios points and save a further £240 off the total!

Eeerrrrrrrrr yes please!

It made these flights £400 each. I was more than delighted with that and quickly paid for them! So we fly on 16th August and land back in the UK on 1st September.

We have decided to travel light and get a Convertible Mustang for our epic road trip south from Atlanta. Within hours of booking we went to my parents for tea (dinner to you southerners) and upon hearing we wanted to do the trip in a convertible my Dad offered to pay for it! My mam (you may remember her from previous trip reports) has Alzheimer’s now and foreign travel is out of the question (as it is for my Dad for now being her full-time carer). He’s doing a fantastic job. I’m not sure I could be as patient as he is. I digress. In these last few years when coming with us wasn’t an option he has always paid for something for us. It’s his little way of contributing to it as he can’t live it with us. I get that. I will do the same with the girls in years to come. Anyway, he’ll be reading this (he reads them all) and I wanted to mark his contribution in print. It’s VERY much appreciated.

Cheers you old B#@&er!

Now don’t worry, this is still to be a Florida holiday, we won’t spend more than a couple of days in Georgia I don’t think. Lynn wants as much beach action as possible and I’m happy to accommodate that. The only venue we have decided on is Zoo Atlanta. The kids love zoos and this is a good one, so we will be going to it at some point. That might be our first day or possibly our last. Don’t forget we have to return to Atlanta at the end so that may limit how far south we go in Florida. Lynn would like to go to the Keys but we’ll see how the planning goes.

Yesterday morning we watched videos on YouTube of all the rides at Six Flags Over Georgia and I dare say we’ll be going. There are way too many BIG coasters in that park to miss the opportunity. We also measured Maddy yesterday and she’s over the magical 54” mark so she can go on anything now at 10.

So apart from that, that’s all we know. I think we’ll be at Bongos again at some point though, don’t you?! It does have a special place in our hearts now.

We’ve got a lot of research to do on resorts up and down the gulf coast in particular. We may well start at Panama City Beach but I’d like to hear your recommendations of Gulf Coast resorts, beaches, hotels, eateries, and particularly beach bars (and the Keys)! A good evening bar is important to us for some food and a couple of cocktails. We know Clearwater, St Pete and Sarasota fairly well but even here, we would love to hear about places you’ve visited. Recommendations for places to visit/stay in Georgia would be nice too to break the journey up.

Please reply with your recommendations on this thread. You will help to build this trip, that’s for sure. Don’t be shy to suggest somewhere.

So that’s it for now. I would imagine there will be a lot of updates in the next 141 days so say tuned and please join in and follow us on our journey bumming around the beaches of Florida

I'll hold off on my traditional Do's and Dont's until I know where we're going and what will and won't be allowed!

Thanks for reading this dribble again. I know a lot of you say you’ve loved watching the girls grow up and have read them all. I get to the end of a trip report and always think “Can I be bothered to do another one?” and then your replies start rolling in and I’m genuinely touched and invigorated every time. It never fails to amaze me.

Thank you

Wizzo


PS. Yes Dinks (JoJo88) I know your DADC friends had your life for doing a trip report (now lots) that didn’t include Disney! You were right and it’s quite liberating!


Mini update - 29/3/17

We've quickly decided that we need an extra 3 weeks to do everythig we'd like to do. So I think we're going to make this trip our Northern Florida Trip and we will fly into Tampa/Miami and do the southern route and take in the Keys in the future.

We should have an itineray of the town/cities we're staying in very soon. Then I will begin tracking hotel prices for many weeks and booking them as and when I see good prices in our chosen layovers

Update - 31/3/17

So, after many hours of research so far and a lot of google maps driving distance searches, we have a draft itinerary.

We 'think' the following will be the places we visit (or locations nearby) so we need your hotel/restaurant/things to do recommendations for these places.

Obviously not St Pete Beach! We'll be sat in Bongos every night and looking for 'Cliff the Skimmer' I'm not expecting anyone to have stay in a cabin at Lake Eufaula either but you never know!

1 Night Atlanta
1 Night Macon
1 Night Cedar Key
2 Nights Ann Maria Island
3 nights Captiva/Sanibel Island
4 Nights St Pete Beach
1 Night Gainesville
2 Nights Lake Eufaula (or similar in a lakeside cabin)

Hopefully this won't change again (it's changed a lot in the last few days). I don't think Ann-Marie, Captiva/Sanibel and St Pete Beach will change at all. They are the three beach spots of choice for this holiday.

So if you've stayed in any of those places lets' have you recommendations please

Mini Update - 10/4/17

Well reader, watching Ant and Dec live from Disney World on Saturday has put the cat amongst the pigeons! This was supposed to be a break from WDW and the girls all crumbled on Saturday and are now talking about wanting to go back!

I’ve said we should take a few days to have a think about things. If daily tickets were remotely reasonable, I would have said “Let’s have a 3-4 day stop off in Orlando then” but as we all know……ticket prices are ridiculous if you aren’t getting the full value of 14 day ultimate tickets.

We’re flying into Atlanta no matter what so this is going to be a road trip no matter what and all of us are excited about going to Six Flags.

So our Itinerary is up in the air now until people calm down a bit and we discuss it through the week

More to follow…………….


Big Update - 4/6/17

The previous update (in April!) left us re-evaluating a trip to WDW after all. As I said, our heartstrings were tugged (especially Maddy’s) and we were going to think it through that week as a family and decide on a plan. You can scrap most of the above now

So here we are, almost 2 months later and only now are we feeling fairly sure of what the plan is for our holiday. I’ll tell you now it’s been both traumatic and annoying in equal measure. I think it’s testament to America and Florida in particular that there is simply so much to do and see, it doesn’t matter how many times you go, you just can’t fit everything in that you want to do in one go.

So we left you wobbling over a re-visit to Orlando and WDW in particular. Our Beach Bummers trip was in jeopardy. We had a number of beach resort on the short list and a number of new places inland in both Georgia and Florida to go and see. In the last 7 weeks we have seesawed from Disney to No Disney and worked out literally dozens of itineraries.

For the record, we are definitely going to Disney World again this trip. It’ll be brief but we are definitely going. That’s good for me as I won’t feel a fraud posting my Trippy on a Disney Forum!

Over these last few weeks we had toyed with doing quite a bit in Atlanta and I’ve mentioned Six Flags above. Unfortunately, once the US summer holidays are over, Six Flags only opens on bloody weekends so that scuppered our plans as we arrive on a Wednesday! We had decided on a plan that included about 5 nights in Atlanta a few weeks ago that included the upcoming Total Eclipse! I’m not sure if many people are aware but in August a Total Solar Eclipse travels right across America. To me, this was a once in a lifetime chance to see one and we agreed to stay longer, go to six flags and a few other tourist attractions so that we would still be in the north of Georgia to see it. It was all decided I had hotel researched and everything. It was the plan for about a week until Lynn went “Do you know what? I don’t want to hang around in Georgia doing stuff we didn’t plan to do just for the sake of killing time to see it go dark for two minutes…..I’m out!” She’s not big on Science and Astronomy.

While her summing up of the situation was quite simplistic given that this is one of the most amazing experiences humans can go through, I did see her point. I would have stayed and killed time waiting for it but as a husband, can you imagine the stick I would have got if it had rained on the day and we saw nothing! ?

These things are rare, there won’t be another one in the UK in my lifetime but that’s not going to get in the way of Lynn sitting her backside on a sun lounger and drinking cocktails so I had to concede this one!

If you’re there and interested, the sun will still be about 85-90% obscured on the 21st August in Florida too but it’s not the same as it turning to night time in the middle of the day. I have 4 pairs of solar eclipse glasses procured from Ebay so we can still watch this from Florida.

So we’ve gone from about 13 beach/cabin days originally, down to about 4 beach days at one point and as things stand we’re back to around 8 pure beach days.

The fairly firm plan now looks like this……………

Day 1 - Travel
Day 2 – Zoo Atlanta / Travel a couple of hours south (Hotel booked in Cordele GA)
Day 3 – Travel to WDW. Check-in (Hotel to be decided) / Disney Springs
Days 4-7 WDW Parks
Day 8 & 9 Either a beach resort (Captiva?) or something a bit different inland. (Needs booking)
Days 9 – 14 St Pete Beach (Grand Plaza Booked)
Day 15 Travel up through Florida/Alabama/Georgia (hotel/cabin needed)
Day 16 – Atlanta Aquarium / World of Coca Cola and then fly home

So there it is. Still some things to decide on but the bones of the trip are fleshed out now. FINALLY!

This is supposed to be a budget trip this year so we’re not going deluxe at Disney and to be honest it won’t be worth it, we’re getting 4 park magic tickets that allow one park per day and no hopping. We won’t see much of any resort. At the moment the plan is to have a blast from the past and go to All Star Movies (Maddy is desperate to go to a kiddie resort as she can’t remember it when we went in 2009) and the summer offer rates on WDW’s USA site have the rooms at about £90 a night which isn’t bad. I’m watching Swan and Dolphin prices closely too because unlike true Disney hotels, Swan and Dolphin prices change daily.

I have also booked our car today too. If you recall, this beach bummers holiday was to be in a convertible Mustang (or similar). As the trip changed, Lynn started to waver on the convertible and has never been fully sold on the idea because of the lack of luggage space. Me and the kids on the other hand have never wavered and have always wanted to cruise through the Gulf Coast Resorts with the top down.

So before Lynn could pull the plug on the Mustang like she did on the eclipse, I’ve booked it and it’s none refundable!

It’ll be fine Lynn…….we only need shorts and t-shirts on this holiday

I have a contingency plan too. If the cases don’t fit in the ‘Stang we simply empty our clothes into the boot and buy ones that do fit! GENIUS EH?

Okay, we’re back in the game…finally! You won’t believe how stressful the last few weeks have been as the bloke who has to book all of this and house full of women who simply can’t make their minds up about anything!

I’ll update when I book more stuff but we’re not in a rush now and can play the waiting game on hotel prices.

Fingers crossed they don’t read this and change their minds again.

Wizzo

Mini Update - 7/6/17

Right folks, it's finally coming together now! I've booked two more hotels. 5 nights in All Star Movies and at the bargain price of £85 a night (not via Disney). We almost booked the Swan but we just won't get the benefit hitting 4 parks in 4 days and then leaving for the beach.

Speaking of Beaches... I've also booked 2 nights in The South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island. This is prior to driving up the coast to St Pete Beach.

We only have an aiport hotel on the day of arrival and a hotel midway between St Pete and Atlanta on the way back to the airport to book.

Mini Update - 25/6/17

I'd like to start this mini update for thanking Indra from the marketing team at the Grand Plaza who have confirmed that as a regular guest, travel writer and fan of their hotel they have kindly given us an upgrade for our 5 nights with them this year! Thanks Indra!

Don't let that stop you from mentioning me at check-in though readers, we aren't in a penthouse yet!

In other news... I've bought 4 park magic tickets for our brief stop in Orlando and we have snagged some fastpasses for the four days too. I've added our ASM reservation to my Disney account and ordered our magicbands. I have also booked a hotel for the night we land at Atlanta. Nothing flash, just a Country Inn and Suites near the airport. We'll be in that room for 10 hours max before picking up the car the next morning and starting our road trip.

Only things left to do is to book some more tickets. We need Busch Gardens & Adventure Island, Zoo Atlanta and probably the Georgia Aquarium and Coca Cola World. Still no hotel booking for the trip back up to Atlanta but we may play that by ear and see where we end up on the drive up.

I'll update again when something else is booked.

Wizzo


Mini Update - 22/7/17

A few weeks on from the last update, I've booked tickets for Zoo Atlanta and the Georgia Aquarium (first and last days) and also got American 2 day / 2 park Busch/Seaworld/Aquatica/Adventure Island tickets. We'll use this for Busch and Adventure Island this year.

I've done a new batch of ESTAs and surprisingly, they're letting us back in the country again!

I've also bought a new bag. No No not a hand bag... not even a 'Man Bag' (not my style) but in fact I've bought a duffle bag.

Given that we will be in a convertible with a small, odd shaped trunk (boot) we watched a good few youtube videos again of people loading luggage into the back of Mustangs. The one thing that was obvious is that our hardshell cases are going to be a bit hit and miss as to whether they will fit. Soft bags are definitely the way to go.

So I've bought a bloody brilliant 90 litre North Face duffle bag. It's superb. It's huge and really strong in its construction.

To prove this, the following photos shows how you can fit a Maddy in it!



Not only that but I picked her up and carried her around too. This is one tough bag. The plan is to take this and one medium hardshell case. It should be fine but if it isn't, we'll ditch the hardshell and get another North Face I think, I could see us using this bag even when we don't have a small boot. It weighs virtually nothing compared to a suitcase and has shoulder straps to carry it like a backpack in the airport if you had to.

Right, we're just about ready I think. The kids want tiny countdowns making so I may add them as an update in the next few days.

Almost forgot again! A big hello to a fellow Dibber called Stazza (real name Carrie). I met her at the North East Regional swimming championships a few weeks ago. She spotted me and came ot say hello. She was lovely (as all Dibbers are) and we chatted for ages about all things Florida while our kids warmed up. So hiya Carrie

[disneylover]

Paul this kinda trip is right up my alley. We've become a little outta love with the parks until all the new lands and attractions are built in future years we won't be returning to them. We love our beach time too in Florida so I'll be waiting with baited breath for your report.

[mick]

Looking forward to reading along and finding out where you will be going a great price for the flights

Joan

[Diz]

What about Anna Maria island and the sand bar? Sounds like that is right up your street although you might think beach, bar and sunset too similar to St. Pete's.

[JoJo88]

Well done Bummers!

Cannot wait to hear your plans, I might just steal a few ideas for future (non-Disney!) trips

#dibbaftertherestofdadcstarttoseesensestartingwith thewizzocrew

[jheaton]

Looks fab!

for the Gulf Coast we are fans of Anna Maria island but last year we twinned it with 10 days at Bonita Springs near Naples which was also fab

there is the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary(if the girls like wildlife) and as you sound like you appreciate cars, look at the Revs Institute- my DH was in heaven

[KittyBlackDog]

Yay! Will be reading along with interest for future non Disney hols! 😁🤣

[The Fatadder]

Very much looking forward to reading this. Love the idea of spending some time in Georgia on the way down...

[Stardust5]

Yeah, a new trip report!
I'm looking forward to also hearing about Georgia, we flew indirect to Mco via Atl 2 years ago, i was told by a friend that Atlanta has an amazing aquarium.
Look forward to hearing more details of your trip.

[snowdrop100]

another vote for anna maria island and the sand bar from personal experience.

i've always fancied Naples and Captiva island.

love your trip reports and really pleased to see you're doing another