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Old 22 Apr 16, 11:19 PM  
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WifeyB
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The Sort of Surprise Trip – September/October 2016 - Updated 01/09

We’re back! Woo hoo

As I’ve finally finished my trip report trip (shameless plug here!) I thought it was definitely time to start the pre trippie for our upcoming trip.

The Cast

There’s still me, Alice. However I’m now 31 Turning 32 in August! Still not acting my age (or feeling it) but it definitely looks scary written down!


I am the chief planner and overall spread sheet enthusiast (You should see my planning spread sheet!), I adore all things Disney and Harry Potter and love to shop. This will be my 17th trip to Florida.

And my partner in crime, Cameron who is currently 29 but much to his dismay turns 30 in June.


Is also a Disney geek (but won’t admit it) and probably a bigger shopper than me (but again, not that he’ll admit it ). He first caught the Florida bug in 2012 and this will be his third trip.


We have been together 8 years this summer and last year bought our first house together.

The Trip

Our last trip in 2014 was so I didn’t feel so bad about turning 30... It was the perfect way to spend my birthday, in fact I have said it’s how every big birthday will be spent going forward Last May with Cameron’s 29th Birthday looming I asked him what he wanted to do for his 30th. I honestly expected him to say he wanted to go to Japan as he’s very much into Japanese culture (I was already thinking Tokyo Disney! ) however he said he wanted to go back to Florida.

We was in the middle of purchasing our first house at this point so we both knew it would be a budget trip as finances would be tight but agreed a budget trip was better than no trip! Disney had the free dining offer on and I priced up a few things but without knowing what our outgoings was going to be like with the house I wasn’t sure whether we could afford it. Also onsite didn't really qualify for a budget trip did it?!

Cameron’s birthday came and went and we finally completed on our house in July. At the end of July we had our annual salary and bonus review at work and I found out that due to the amount of extra hours I had put in over the start of the new financial year, I was being given a bigger bonus.

What did I do with my bonus?! Decorate our new house? Buy new furniture?... Of course not

Accommodation Part 1!

This is where the surprise part of the trip comes into play… Although Cameron knows we are going to Florida in September that’s about all he knows… in fact he doesn’t even know I’ve booked flights! I just gave him our estimated dates for work

His first surprise is that I’ve booked a 7 night stay here:




Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort I booked with Orlando Attractions and upgraded to DDP, with 14 day ultimate's and the $200 gift card at a total cost of £1,549. I've paid a deposit of £100 and the remaining balance is due in July.

This will be our first time with the dining plan and our longest stay on site


Then all the planning went quiet whilst I waited for flights to be released!

Flights

October came and went and Virgin wanted £680 for direct economy flights

So I waited...

Christmas arrived and prices were still ridiculous! I was obsessively checking on a daily basis (At one point I had 9 sky scanner alerts! ) but at one point they was going up instead of down

Although Virgin is our preferred airline, at this point I was considering any airline and any route! In fact I would have happily sat in the luggage hold

And then one miserable morning in March, our prices had dropped... to £530 which was much more like it so I quickly booked before they went up again!


We are on the VS015 leaving Gatwick at 1pm on the 19th September and arrive in Orlando at 5.10pm

I could now say we was officially going to Florida!

As I'm quite a nervous flyer I paid to prebook our seats and was very happy to book the bubble for both flights. We loved it last time This added another £100 on to the flight cost but still ended up cheaper than I budgeted overall.



Cameron still doesn't know anything has been booked and won't until his Birthday in June. I'm hoping to add a few more surprises for him by then as well
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Edited at 10:59 PM.
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Old 22 Apr 16, 11:40 PM  
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Danielle24
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Flying out the day after you. Looking forward to following along with your pre trippie.
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Old 22 Apr 16, 11:56 PM  
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Jesslydevie1
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How good are you. ,are you going to book all your ADR yourself ?
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Old 23 Apr 16, 11:33 AM  
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bettany2001
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I'm flying out two days before you, for my 'big' birthday celebrations (the birthday is in August but I couldn't get time off work). It's also my husband's birthday while we are there. Your trip sounds great, very jealous that you're doing a week onsite!😊
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Old 25 Apr 16, 02:52 PM  
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DisneyDreamer81
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We stayed at CBR last year and LOVED it. Were so tempted to go back next year but fancied trying somewhere new. I'm also a fellow spreadsheet enthusiast and looking forward to reading about the rest of your plans!
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Old 26 Apr 16, 09:44 AM  
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DLS1005
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We fly out the day before you
Your plans look good so far, love the idea of him not knowing all the details
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Old 26 Apr 16, 07:29 PM  
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WifeyB
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Originally Posted by Danielle24 View Post
Flying out the day after you. Looking forward to following along with your pre trippie.
Woohoo Where are you staying?

Originally Posted by Jesslydevie1 View Post
How good are you. ,are you going to book all your ADR yourself ?
ADRs are all booked It's stressful doing it all by myself without a second opinion, although to be honest I end up doing all the planning anyway

Originally Posted by bettany2001 View Post
I'm flying out two days before you, for my 'big' birthday celebrations (the birthday is in August but I couldn't get time off work). It's also my husband's birthday while we are there. Your trip sounds great, very jealous that you're doing a week onsite!😊
You'll have an amazing birthday It's definitely the best way to spend them! Where are you staying?

Originally Posted by DisneyDreamer81 View Post
We stayed at CBR last year and LOVED it. Were so tempted to go back next year but fancied trying somewhere new. I'm also a fellow spreadsheet enthusiast and looking forward to reading about the rest of your plans!
I'm so excited for CBR, do you have any room recommendations? Thank you for reading

Originally Posted by DLS1005 View Post
We fly out the day before you
Your plans look good so far, love the idea of him not knowing all the details
Thank you I can't wait to tell him, it's so hard keeping it all to myself... thank god for The Dibb!
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Old 26 Apr 16, 07:56 PM  
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WifeyB
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ADR's & Accommodation Part 2!

Our next mile stone after booking flights was ADR day which happened to fall on the 23rd March. Despite work being manic my team leader let me take out 20 minutes at 11 to get everything booked

The hardest part about ADR planning was trying to work out where we was going to be when! Disney had only released park hours a few days before so I was manically trying to get a plan together so I could get everything booked. I also sneakily asked Cameron if there was anywhere in Disney he wanted to eat and he said BOG and Ohana again. I asked whether he wanted to do lunch at BOG or try Dinner, he said he’d love to try dinner but it would be too expensive so lunch again is fine

A draft plan

I struggled with our plan somewhat… Disney hadn’t announced the dates for MNSSHP so I wasn’t sure when to visit MK for Wishes (my all-time favourite show!). I also wanted to book California Grill for Cameron’s birthday meal so wanted to make sure that was a Wishes night as well!

After checking various busy day guides and park hours, I finally came up with a sort of plan!


Tuesday 20th – Magic Kingdom
I love starting our first day at MK and thankfully it was a quiet park day thanks to MNSSHP being on in the evening. On the downside there was no Wishes for our first night
Wednesday 21st – Epcot
Thursday 22nd – No plans for the morning (our options are CBR pool, waterpark or Hollywood Studios) followed by MK late afternoon/evening.
Friday 23rd – Animal Kingdom
Saturday 24th – Hollywood Studios
Sunday 25th – No plans for the morning, late afternoon at MK
Monday 26th – Check out day Leave bags at luggage services and spend the morning in Epcot. I have pencilled in MK again later this evening for Wishes but it will be after we move hotels!

With a plan in place, it was time for ADRs!

ADRS

This was my first time booking ADRs at the 180 day mark! I scoured TheDibb for advice and tips and came up with a plan of actions… BOG first, followed by Crystal Palace and California Grill!

The plan worked perfect and I managed to get all I wanted when I wanted (or there abouts!).


Tuesday 20th – BOG Breakfast (8AM) and Ohana Dinner (7.35pm)
Wednesday 21st – Teppan Edo Dinner (7.10pm)
Thursday 22nd – California Grill Dinner (7.30pm)
Friday 23rd – Tusker House Breakfast (8am)
Saturday 24th – Mamma Melrose Fantasmic Dinner Package (4pm)
Sunday 25th – Crystal Palace Breakfast (8.05am) and BOG Dinner (5.40pm)
Monday 26th – Beaches & Cream Lunch (1.40pm)

I originally wanted CP for our first morning, however the first slot was 10am Instead I quickly shuffled things around and managed to get BOG for 8am on our first day I did get CP for later in our trip however I’m not sure whether to cancel this or not as we do have too many TS meals. We will be paying OOP for B&C but are still 2 credits over.

Also as much as we love Tusker House, I am debating to switch this to Tiffins once it’s open to try something new (and then we will definitely be short of credits )

Accomodation Part 2!

We only had accommodation booked for a 7 (out of 17!) nights so I really need to sort out where else we was staying! Our preferred hotel is the Rosen @ Pointe Orlando however this was fully booked for our dates I also wanted to book a couple of nights on site at Universal but prices for the Hard Rock were really high! I wanted to tie it in with HHN so we would be paying a weekend premium rate.

I was searching on Trivago and Kayak on a daily basis for HRH and RPR and RPR was coming up a good £150 less than HRH. I then decided that if we stayed at RPR we could do 3 nights instead of 2 (so much for budget trip huh?! ).

I found an amazing deal on RPR on Amoma.com (via Trivago) for £144 a night! I booked there and then feeling pretty pleased with myself! Until they called me and said they couldn't confirm my booking with the hotel and the price had now gone up to £170 night! Er no thanks...

I had an email from Florida Escapes advertising Universal Hotels so I emailed them for a quote and they got back to me pretty quick, £463 for 3 nights... Done

So we are staying in this gorgeous resort from the 28th September until the 1st. I also booked our Universal tickets with Florida Escapes at £144 each. I paid a deposit of £50 and the remaining balance is due 8 weeks before.


So now we have 10 nights covered! Only 7 more to go
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Old 27 Apr 16, 10:24 AM  
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margyloveswdw
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Sounds like a fab trip and what a lucky boy having all these surprises! personally I could never be that un-involved as I like to know what's going on
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Old 27 Apr 16, 01:08 PM  
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DisneyDreamer81
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Originally Posted by WifeyB View Post
I'm so excited for CBR, do you have any room recommendations? Thank you for reading
I cannot for the life of me remember our room number but I know we were in Building 44 in Jamaica! It was less than a 5 minute walk to the bridge across the lake and a tiny walk to the bus stop! We had a corner ground floor room and LOVED it
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