The BIG Florida Return - August/September 2017

[smithlane]

Update 1 - 02/03/2017

Update 2 - 01/05/2017

Update 3 - 24/07/2017

Hello and welcome to my pre trippy for our 2nd ‘once in a lifetime’ holiday to the Sunshine State.

This year there will be 12 of us in total so it could be an absolute blast of a holiday or a complete and utter disaster . Wish me luck! To be fair when we last went there was 10 out of the 12 of us and we had a ball so what’s 2 more added to the mix

So let me start by introducing this mammoth group

First up my little family of 4

There’s me, Alicia. 34 year old Disney fanatic, holiday lover and master planner. Mobile Beauty Therapist by trade, a job I thankfully love. Favourite park, hands down Magic Kingdom but I would say Hollywood Studios comes a close second.

Jim, my wonderful OH and step dad to my 2 children. 38 years young. Works in the Electrical Construction business. Huge lover of golf (may even overtake his love of me!) and is the main financier of this holiday, so we owe him big time!

Hope, DD13 but will be 14 by the time we go.

Lover of all things American. Partly fuelled by her first Florida holiday but mainly down to her obsession with PLL, Gossip Girl, Gilmore Girls and 90210. Anyone with teenage girls will relate to this! My Disney partner in crime and probably the most excited one of us all, can’t wait to get back to her favourite park MK but is also a complete coaster junkie. She would have ridden Sheikra in Busch Gardens over and over again if we had let her! Freak!

Sam, DS11 but turning 12 next month.

Lover of all animals large and small, is never happier than when he is around them. Most looking forward to hopefully seeing dolphins in the wild when we visit the Gulf coast. Favourite park would be between SeaWorld and Animal Kingdom. A laid back, happy go lucky kid but due to age is ever so slowly turning in to Perry to match Hope’s Kevin.
Jam sandwich anyone?

Butter wouldn’t melt eh?

Next up we have Bill and Sylvia, my lovely in laws. A pair of Florida veterans. They first went way back in 1992 for their ‘once in a lifetime’ holiday and have since racked up over 30 trips!
Bill is Jim’s golf partner and is looking forward to playing at some of his favourite courses as well as a few new ones.
Sylvia would spend every minute in Magic Kingdom if left to her own devices, specifically Splash Mountain as that is her all time favourite ride. In fact I don’t think she goes on anything else!

The Leans consist of Jim’s sister Helen, BIL Nick, nephew Sean 21 and niece Jenny 15. Have had their fair share of Florida holidays themselves over the years. Sean is autistic but truly embraces what a Florida holiday has to offer. His favourite rides are ToT and The Mummy and even conquered The Hulk last time which he was very proud of himself. Jenny is Hope’s coaster partner and can’t wait to get back to Universal. Even though not blood related Sean and Jen are truly like siblings to my two.

Last but definitely not least my amazing parents, Sue and Ron. AKA Nanna and Grumps to Hope and Sam.

My mum’s only taste of Disney is when I dragged her to DLP back in 2010 which thankfully she loved! Is really looking forward to experiencing all of what I have been harping on about all these months. Dad is slightly more apprehensive about it all, I think he is expecting 2 weeks of Thorpe Park in 90 degree heat! However I think he is secretly looking forward to releasing his inner child especially for Hope and Sam’s sake.
It’s their 40th wedding anniversary this year so they’ve decided to push the boat out quite literally. They’ll be flying out to Orlando a week after we arrive to spend 2 weeks with us, then fly up to New York for 3 nights before boarding the Queen Mary 2 back to Southampton.
They originally wanted to sail into New York for the amazing sunrise views of Manhatten but we just couldn’t make the dates work. I’ve told her to just stand at the back of the boat as they sail away

How the trip came about
Our August 2015 holiday was honestly meant to be a 'one off' so we went all out.
A villa in Formosa Gardens for our first week then for our second we moved on-site staying in Coronado Springs. We did all the parks, Disney, Universal, Discovery Cove with swim and Busch Gardens. We came home instantly needing another holiday, but with the most amazing memories created I knew we had to make it work to get back.

Realistically we knew it would take around 2 years to save especially as we are tied to school holidays but that was fine with me as long as I knew we were going back at some point! So a tentative date of August 2017 was put in place. After us (me) chewing mum and dads ears off about the amazing time we had and showing them the 1000’s of photos I took, they finally relented and said they would love to come with us next time.
We knew Bill and Sylvia would be a given, we just needed to get the go ahead from the Leans before I could start looking for villas. Now Helen is the complete opposite of me and rarely plans anything more than a month in advance so asking about a holiday a little under 2 years away we weren’t sure whether they would commit. However it was a big fat yes from them!
Whilst we were all together for the weekend and obviously talk was on the subject of Florida, someone *cough* me *cough* might have slipped into the conversation about going for 3 weeks instead of 2. I mean one of the biggest costs of any holiday are the flights and they would be the same regardless of length, plus with us all sharing a villa the cost for an extra week would be minimal. That’s my argument and I’m sticking to it!
Thankfully everyone thought it was a genius idea (thank you, thank you very much) so 3 weeks in our favourite place it is!
We went the last 2 weeks of August in 2015 and really didn’t think the parks were bad at all, obviously I had nothing to compare it to but even Bill and Sylvia who never go in school holidays were constantly saying it was actually quieter than when they normally go in May. So it was decided to do the same but add on the first week of September as well. More specifically 17/08-07/09.

Accommodation
With the dates set it was now onto the massive task of finding accommodation. As much as we enjoyed the on site experience we really didn't get on with all 4 of us in one room so we knew it had to be a villa, a 6 bed one at that!
We definitely wanted to stay in Formosa Gardens again as it was perfect in terms of location to the parks, restaurants and most importantly Super Target! Also I’ve read the plot sizes are much more generous which for a family of 12 sharing, size definitely does matter
I first of all looked on the Dibb but unfortunately no members own in FG so back to the drawing board. After what felt like eternity scouring websites like VR360floridavillas, vr360homes, Owners Direct and HomeAway etc and sending what felt like a gazillion emails to owners we finally found this stunner of a villa.

The owner Simon has been a gem and responded to my many questions in record time. We all agreed to the price so a deposit was quickly sent off before someone else could book!
So by October 2015, just over a month after returning we were BOOKED!
Total cost of villa is £4000
Our share £1090. Complete bargain for 3 weeks!

We knew we wanted to spend a night or 2 on the Gulf coast and originally was looking at Clearwater after reading JoJo88’s trippy. It looked lovely and most importantly had dolphin boat trips so Sam would be happy. We had our eye on the Hilton and were just waiting for rooms to be released.
In the mean time I start reading Redrach1903’s latest trippy where they spend 3 nights on Anna Maria Island. Wow! I fell in love with the place just by looking at the photos. It was slightly harder finding accommodation as some of you will know there are no hotels like Clearwater and a lot of places require a minimum of a 7 night stay or a hefty price per night. Eventually I found a condo resort that did hotel style rooms up to 2 bed condos that sleep 6. It’s called The Tortuga Inn and is down the Bradenton Beach end of the island which wasn’t our first choice but was well within our price range. I think you’ll agree looks stunning!

We have got a 2 bed condo that we’ll share with Mum and Dad, Bill and Sylvia have a hotel style room and the Leans have a 2 bed for the 4 of them.
Total cost for ours is $605, but Mum and Dad have very kindly offered to pay the full amount as a Christmas pressie for us. We are very lucky indeed!

Mum and Dad have now sorted their hotel in New York. As it’s a special occasion they’ve gone all out and booked a Central Park view room at The Park Lane hotel. Jealous much! They got a really good rate with Booking.com of $1020 for 3 nights

Flights
After sorting the villa out there wasn’t much we could do in terms of booking anything as we were still months away from flights being released. The one downside in booking so damn early for us obsessive planners! I however was going to be pro-active and research flight prices. Obsessively in fact, I had a spreadsheet and everything 😂
For those that read my last trip report might remember me saying I would never get an indirect flight ever again after our disastrous travel day, resulting in an overnight stay in Charlotte. Well with our budget of £500 per person we knew it had to be indirect or nothing. I mean who am I kidding? I would row a boat over if need be!
September 2016 soon rolled around and flights were coming in dribs and drabs but all being very expensive. To be fair most of the indirect options weren’t available, so was only the direct flights I could see. Then one morning whilst getting ready for work I get an email notification from the Dibb from the group thread about cheap/glitch flights for July/August.
One very kind Dibber had posted flights booked through Momondo via Travel Up, flying out with Aer Lingus LGW-DUB-MCO then return British Airways direct MCO-LGW all for the very low price of £450 per person. However the dates were 15/08-05/09 so we would have to move our villa forward by 2 days which I knew was no problem as there was a 3 day gap prior to us arriving.
It was one of those moments where I had about 30 minutes until I had to leave for work and I was only half ready but knew I had to get these booked as who knew how long they would be that price for

We have a group WhatsApp so quickly fired off a message to the others asking for an opinion. Sylvia called a little while after to say she had gone ahead and booked for her and Bill, so that left Helen to reply and Jim to give me the go ahead. After all he is master and owner of the credit card! I’ve now got 5 minutes until I leave for work and I’m in a right flap. I make the constructive decision to move back my first client (one of the many positives of being self-employed and having amazing clients!)
Jim eventually calls from work to give me his card details so I go about getting ours booked and praying to every god out there that Helen gets her backside up out of bed to do theirs 😆
When I go to book ours I notice there is a slightly earlier flight out of Gatwick at 9.20 (Sylvia has booked the 10.55) so I go for that one as it gives us longer in Dublin to pre clear immigration. I am notorious for never being on a flight that leaves on time!
So I input all of our details, meticulously checking it's all correct but when I press confirm it's not accepting Sam's date of birth saying something about needing to be an adult as he is 11 now but will be 12 when we fly.
Seriously! There must be thousands of kids this applies to

I try 3 times but nope not working so I have no choice but to go back to Momondo and choose the next agent that has the flights which is Go To Gate and hope it works with them. All went through perfectly fine thank god! Have paid a few more £'s each than Travel Up but still a bargain.
Grand total inc CC fee - £1836
£459 per person
Finally Helen calls so I give her the details to get it booked, she went for the same flights as us.
So to re-cap
15/08

9.20 LGW-DUB 10.45
14.10 DUB-MCO 18.35
05/09

17.35 MCO-LGW 06.55
Phew! After all that I needed a lie down!

A few weeks later Mum managed to book their outbound flights through the cruise company Cunard, who very kindly didn’t charge them any extra to fly to Orlando instead of New York. So they fly out 6 days after us on Monday 21st August on the 11.15 LGW flight arriving in MCO at 15.25 where I’ll be waiting to collect them.
We also decided to stay the night before at Gatwick. We only live about 30-40 minutes away but for my stress levels I don’t want to be worrying about the M25 in the morning. I’ve booked the Premier Inn North Terminal through Booking.com for £60 which I thought wasn’t too bad for a family room.

The Leans have booked the same as us but both sets of parents have gone for the posh option of The Bloc Hotel. As they don’t need a family room it was a lot cheaper.

Tickets
Thankfully before Brexit occurred I secured 21 day Disney tickets for the 4 of us and 14 day tickets for Mum and Dad. I went through Orlando Attraction Tickets and used the code MSE5 to get an extra £5 off so ours came to £340 per person. They are now £439 each 😳
Bill and Sylvia have renewed their annual passes so they are good to go. Will be great to take advantage of the discounts not to mention free parking!
We were umming and aahring over whether to go to Universal as you all know how much of a price hike they’ve had but in the end we decided to book the 2 day park to park tickets through Orlando Attractions for £168 per person. Sam is mega excited about going as he is such a Potter head and Hope being a coaster junkie can’t wait to go on Rip Ride Rockit and the Hulk.
To be honest we had a great day there last time, tackling both parks in 12 hours! Looking forward to having a bit more of a relaxed approach this year.
As Helen and co weren't sure whether they were doing just Universal or Disney as well they have only just ordered theirs but this has paid off as the Disney tickets have dropped in price. They have decided they want to do all the Disney parks as its been a few years since they've visited them all so have gone with the 14 day Disney/Universal combo.
We have decided as a group to not do the SeaWorld parks or Discovery Cove as we just couldn’t justify the extra cost plus this holiday we want to make full use of the villa so more rest days are needed.

Car Hire
Again before Brexit I secured our hire car with Discount Florida Car Hire, a Full Size SUV for £760 for the 3 weeks. Fab price!
However because our flights were now 2 days earlier I needed to change the booking and this was obviously post Brexit. Cost was now £995!
I know we could get a slightly cheaper car but we need a 7 seater due to Mum and Dad not wanting to drive and I have always wanted to drive a beast of a Tahoe ever since seeing them lined up at Alamo in MCO in 2015!

I was still keeping an eye on prices as Bill and Sylvia and The Leans hadn’t yet booked but it was horrifically more expensive now. In fact a Tahoe through Alamo Brits was coming in at over 2K!
I then read a thread on here how prices seemed to drop dramatically on the 16/08 (the day after we land) so I looked again and sure enough a Tahoe was £891. Not quite the pre Brexit price but cheaper than DFCH. So we all booked through Brits, arranging to pick the cars up from the DCCC on the morning of the 16th. I then booked us a transfer from MCO to the villa with Quicksilver Transportation, total cost $90. We would then grab an Uber to get to DCCC.

As of last week we have made yet another change to the car hire, anything to save some dosh
Again after reading on here about other Dibbers saving loads doing a double booking through the BA/Avis website I thought I would check it out for myself. You basically have to do 2 bookings within the duration of your stay, so for us we would pick the cars up from MCO the night we land, drop off midway through the holiday to an Avis desk then start another booking straight away with that one ending at the airport on your last day.
It sounds really complicated but once you get your head around it, its a no brainer!
Total cost for the Tahoe - £725! We just have to drop off/pick up at the Embassy Suites on the 24th but the bonus being we get to have the car straight away the day we land so no need for a transfer.
As these were bargain prices Jim has twisted my arm into hiring himself a Convertable
Apparently he NEEDS his own car for going to golf
Ford Mustang or similar is £479 for 3 weeks, again doing the drop off/pick up at the Embassy Suites.

So that folks is about everything so far. If you’ve made it to the end thank you for persevering, I didn’t mean for it to turn into a massive essay!
Ill update soon with my restaurant choices, our few ADR bookings and first draft itinerary.

TTFN

[lovemickey]

Great start! Love the look of your villa! Looking forward to hearing more!

[smithlane]

We can't wait to stay in this villa, although I think it's going to ruin us slightly as any future villas we book won't compare! Thank you for reading

[Guest]

Your trip looks as though it's going to be awesome! Thanks for posting

[princess allie]

Sounds great, have loved reading along so far.

[ayles300]

All sounding great!
AMI is beautiful you will love it!

We've still to book car hire & hotel for our first night in Orlando but prices are so expensive!

One of our photos from AMI...

[EJSakaAnna]

Great start, your plans sound fab . That villa looks amazing.
I'm very jealous of your mum & dads epic trip!

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by lovemickey

Great start! Love the look of your villa! Looking forward to hearing more!

See more...

I've just remembered you are on the same flight as us! Now you know what we look like come and hi if you see us. The Irish contingent of our party will most likely be at the bar in Dublin

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by whosmypal

Your trip looks as though it's going to be awesome! Thanks for posting

See more...

I hope it lives up to our expectations, I've set them quite high this year
Thank you for reading

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by princess allie

Sounds great, have loved reading along so far.

See more...

Thank you