A Trip of Celebrations - August 2017 - proper title TBC

[loobz]

I always write a trip report but they never make it to the boards - most of them don't make it past my notebook! The trip won't have an official title until after we come home because I tend to name each trip after 'the' song - you know, the one that seems to be on whenever you get in the car and turn the radio on!

Our family and the cast members for this trip are:

Louise (me) – age 50 (but if anyone asks I’m 36 and will be until the day I die). Main organiser because I’m the one with enough time to read endless comments on the DIBB and Facebook.

Jeff (hubby) – age 48. Main booker. He usually books whatever I tell him after he’s investigated the cheapest price, maximum cashback etc.

Sophie (daughter) – sweet 16. Huge Harry Potter fan and so like me in personality it’s unreal.

Hayden (son) – age 13 so just started his teenage years. Another Harry Potter fan (actually it’s only me that doesn’t really like HP – there I’ve said it, out loud!). Also mad on Pokemon and Mario/Nintendo.

This trip will be our 6th trip and we’re calling it our Celebration Trip as we have achieved some milestones in recent months. Firstly it was my 50th birthday on 31st December last year (but I’m only 36 remember?). Next was Sophie finishing secondary school and taking her GCSE’s. She starts 6th form college in September and her results should be waiting for us on the doormat upon our return. And thirdly, Jeff and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on June 23rd. More than enough reasons to call this trip a celebration.

We are also celebrating that Jeff is now just about fully recovered following a very nasty bout of cellulitis last August and that, after 16 years, we finally got the extension to our house built. Still some internal work to be done but I’m so much more proud of my house than I have been in the past.

This is us on our last visit in 2013.

The Plan

We now have just 2 days left on our countdown – our countdown started at 925 days! Every time I walk past the fridge, I can’t quite believe it!

A New Way
Although we have been before, this is the first one we have booked DIY. It was daunting at first but we soon got into the swing of it.

The first thing we booked, back in February 2015, was a lovely DIBB villa in Watersong. Previously our villas have been allocated on arrival and although we haven’t had any really bad experiences, it is lovely to know exactly what we’ve booked and to know exactly where we’re going. The whole process has been made so easy thanks to a very understanding villa owner!

There then followed a gap whilst we waited for flights to be released. Luckily, we were kept busy with building work so the time didn’t drag (although the countdown was around 925 days!). All of our passports were renewed during this time too.

We almost booked flights with Thomas Cook when they were first released in April 2016 but hesitated too long (remember, we’re beginners at this DIY malarkey) and the price went up so we decided to wait until the rest of the airlines released flights.

We looked at loads of airlines and loads of possibilities (direct to MCO, direct to Sanford, indirect with 1 stop, indirect 2 stop, flying from Dublin, flying from Gatwick, flying from Manchester and so on). We eventually settled with Norwegian – great price and I’ve been wanting to try a Dreamliner for a while. We also ended up with a direct LGW to MCO flight there and back which suits us perfectly. Norwegian leave at a later time compared to our usual Virgin so it will be interesting to see how that pans out. Once we had flights we finally knew the dates of our holiday.

We fly out on Saturday 5th August for 3 weeks. We leave on Saturday 26th August and land back in the UK on Sunday 27th August. Due to the later flight times we have no silly o’clock times to consider!

Once flights were booked we did the necessary ESTA’s and holiday insurance and were good to go – now it was just waiting for time to pass by so that we could start looking at some details.

After Christmas and the New Year were over (much excited chatter around the New Year’s Day dinner table as it dawned on us that we were going back to Orlando this year), we started to plan out a first draft itinerary and look at things like renewing our Fairfx cards. We must have had our first family meeting around this time!

So, fast forward to today and we’ve booked all of our FP’s, we have loaded our pre-paid cards (I cannot believe how ridiculously excited I was to get $1.28), we have some dollars (even more excited to get $1.29 for cash and more recently $1.30) and have booked all of our treats and special days.

Something Old, Something New
Each visit I like to do something a little bit different and, this year, we have tickets for the Orlando Eye, the Titanic Experience dinner and Pioneer Village. We have also booked 2 nights at Loews Royal Pacific as an anniversary treat (we’re still taking the children with us!) – of course the express line tickets are just a bonus. We have 14 day Disney tickets and 14 day Universal tickets so plenty to keep us amused and not much time for shopping (but I’m sure I’ll squeeze it in somewhere).

I’ve managed to get all the rides on FP that we wanted apart from Flights of Passage (which I always call Flight of the Navigator) so we may just have to suck up a long line. We’ve got all the ADR’s booked that we wanted – not too many as it’s expensive to eat on-site without the Dining Plan.

Unbirthday Birthday
I’ve picked 13th August to celebrate my birthday (it’s known as mum’s un-birthday birthday). It would have been my mum’s 90th birthday so it’s a nice nod to her. She passed away 19 years ago but you always miss your mum! Tradition for our family is breakfast at Crystal Palace. Both of my children have had a birthday breakfast there (on their proper birthday) so it was a given that it was where I would celebrate my un-birthday!

I did all of the packing yesterday so today is major house clean day - it's bad enough coming home but at least coming home to a clean and tidy house eases the pain a bit.

So, now we wait for 2 more sleeps to pass before we're on our way!

[MadHatter1]

lovely trip report, we are also going air norwegian for the first time and interested to see how these flight times pan out.

[Smilesonfaces]

Great trip report so far ! Lovely way to celebrate your mums birthday !

[loobz]

thank you - can't believe it's all over now but I shall carry on with the full trip report - I managed to get some of it written whilst we were away.

Have to say Norwegian was great and will be our airline of choice now. Not sure if it was because of the Dreamliner or because of the later flight time home (or a combination of both) but we have absolutely no jet lag!