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Old 30 Apr 18, 05:27 PM  
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juliab
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Five Fords Fifth Family Floriday - August 2018

Hi and welcome to our pre trip report! This will be our fifth time as a family going to Florida, hence the title, and I’m beyond excited that we’ll be going back. Here are few photo's of us from our past four holidays in Florida


2010


2012


2014


I am Julia, a stay at home mum and the oldest of the family. I turned 51 last month, not quite sure how that happened!
I’m the main planner which I absolutely love to do as I love to think about Disney a lot! I didn’t grow up with Disney in my life but I’ve loved it from being a young adult. Beauty and the Beast is my favourite film, I love everything about but then I do with most of the classics.


Celebrating my 50th in Iceland!

Next up Scott, he’s the reason why we can go on holidays being the bread winner in the household. He works very hard but is fortunate to be able to do flexi hours, this means he gets to have quite a few extra days each year for holidays. Scott is the next oldest in the family being 48, he’s a fantastic father. He got drawn into Disney by me when we first met 23 years ago and our first holiday abroad together was Florida. His real favourite is Star Wars but again loves most things Disney.









Hayden is the eldest of our kids. He’s 16 years old which I still can’t quite believe! It only seems like two minutes ago when Hayden was born and now he’s turned into a young man. Disney has played a big part in Hayden’s life but like his dad he absolutely loves Star Wars. Hayden loves the coasters and bigger thrill rides.



Jamie is our middle child and is the cheekiest of the bunch. Being 13 yrs we do seem to be getting our fair share of the teenage strops at the moment but generally Jamie is a lovely lad who still has a big love for Disney and again Star Wars. Another thrill seeker who will have a go at anything!



The youngest of the family is Poppy who is 9 yrs at the moment but will turn 10 in the summer just before we go away. Poppy is a quiet little lady who, like the other two, is growing up way too quickly. She still loves the princesses but Poppy is not a big thrill seeker and is not keen on rides with big drops (so definitely no Tower of Terror)! Poppy loves the shows, parades and the fireworks the most.






How did this holiday come about? Well as like most people the Disney blues set in big time after we came home at the end of August 2016. We’d had an amazing time but we all know how expensive Disney holidays are and knew it would be at least a couple of years before we would have the funds to go back.
We eagerly waited for the free dining to be announced and in the April of last year we were excited to see the dining offers were announced.


Now we said it was about time for us to try a new resort, we nearly booked the Caribbean Beach Resort in 2016 but changed our minds at the last moment. This time though we said no it was time to try somewhere new. Being a larger family means the choices aren’t as plentiful, well not at a price that we can afford as the majority of accommodation are deluxe. We took the plunge and booked CBR as at that point the new dining and shopping facilities were due to be completed at the end of June 18. We booked for 16 night’s with the 14 day ticket’s, our first booking had been made


In the mean while we managed to go to Disneyland Paris for the first time and got a massive Disney fix there. We were really surprised at how much we enjoyed our stay and thankfully we didn't really compare it much to Disneyworld. Mind you I did keep saying we're going into Magic Kingdom























We had a lovely summer and went on our very first camping holiday in Italy. It was amazing and really cheap, hopefully we’ll do another one of these before the kids are too grown up.







Also because we enjoyed DLP so much we went away for a quick break at the beginning of this year. We made use of the annual passes that we’d bought in May and I found some bargain flights courtesy of Easyjet. Whilst it was just after Christmas it was lovely to see a Disney park with all the decorations up, first time we've ever seen a Disney Christmas tree!
















Flight 1
Fast forward a few months until late summer where we eagerly awaited the July/August school holiday flight bargains thread. I subscribed and come September I began with the daily checking of flights to anywhere within Florida. At some point a lovely Dibbers alerted everyone of some great BA flydrive prices so after checking various dates and routes we booked a flydrive from Manchester to Miami via Heathrow. We’d booked for 24 nights but decided to have a car for just 17 of those. I wanted Scott to have a rest from driving for a time so he could take advantage of the new dining plan changes. The price came in at just under £3,000 which we were very pleased with, we just needed a deposit of £300 to secure it.




Other Accommodation
Next booking to be made was for a DVC rental, something we had never done before. Now I’ve always dreamt of us being able to stay at a deluxe resort for a couple of nights, once I kind of got my head around renting DVC points I realised that it could actually be a reality if we did it this way. I then made a plan to add 3 nights onto the end of holiday as I thought we’d be fed up of eating at that point so would be grateful for not having the dining plan. I contacted David’s rentals and put a request in for our last 3 nights in August, the deposit was sent off and a few days later, when the dates came available, we were contacted to stay they had availability. I couldn’t believe how easy it was, we paid the remainder and even with the poor exchange rate at that time, the cost for 3 nights was £600.

Beach Club here we come!




For the start of our holiday we’ve decided to stay at the Blue Heron Resort in a 1 bedroom suite. I don’t know a great deal about the resort but it seems to get ok reviews. The location looks ideal for us so that was the main reason for our choosing and it cost just over £500 for the 7 nights which we thought was fairly reasonable. We’re not expecting it to be the Ritz, so long as it’s clean it will be fine for our needs.



Not long back we found out that the new dining and shopping area at CBR wouldn’t be completed until the end of the year. I couldn’t believe it. Whilst we booked knowing that work would be happening around the resort I was quite upset to know they we’d be without a decent food court. Thankfully our saving had been going really good so we upgraded to full dining but took a few days off the CBR stay. This meant we had a couple of spare nights, one of them being our wedding anniversary. I didn’t want to think we’d be in the middle of a construction site for our anniversary so we’ve booked a couple of nights at Clearwater instead. We’ll be staying at the Springhill Suites Clearwater Beach, whilst it’s not on the gulf it’s very close with the beach being a 2 minute walk away. The cost for 2 nights is £285.




It’s been a few years since we last visited here. I’ve put a few pictures on from the last time, looking forward to seeing those beautiful sunsets again.

Here's a few pictures from our last holidays here in 2007 and 2010






















Flight 2
Now don’t ask we why I did this but I broke the rule of rechecking flight prices! I couldn’t believe that some of the flights had been reduced a little more. Whilst tinkering around with different airports and timings I found a flight from Manchester to Tampa, via Heathrow and Miami and a return flight from Orlando to Manchester via JFK and Heathrow. Now I know what you’re thinking, yes we’re a bit mad, but the boys especially Hayden, love airplanes and airports so I know they’d be really happy at visiting some new ones!


Even with losing the £300 deposit the new flights would still be nearly £200 cheaper. Most importantly though we wouldn’t have the 4 hour drive to and from Miami, which we have done on previous occasions.


Now for whatever reason I totally forgot to cancel our original booking, it was only when I received an email form BA advising us that our Manchester flight had been cancelled. The email advised of the choices we could take and one of those was to cancel and we would receive a full refund of the deposit. So of course that’s what I did! I was very glad of my forgetfulness on this occasion. This then made our flight and cat hire cost to be £2,500, so very pleased with this price.


Accommodation change
Whilst we were originally happy to stay at the Caribbean Beach Resort all the reports of the ongoing work were starting to unsettle me a little. It was also putting a bit of a downer on the holiday build up. I know that you don’t spend a great deal of time at your resort but we do like to have the occasional afternoon round the pool and resort. I saw a video which showed the work which was happening right at the side of the pool and I wasn’t keen at all. I sent an email to Disney guest services about my concerns and a while later they contacted me to say we could move to a standard room at Port Orleans Riverside. I was so happy. The cost was just over £300 so basically the money we received back from the first BA flydrive paid for the change of resort. I felt so relieved and very happy that we’d be going back to the Port Orleans Riverside.




Sorry for waffling, as I’ve wrote this down I’ve realised we’ve made loads of changes to the original holiday and I needed to explain it all. They’ll probably be a few more made too but for the moment our holiday looks something like this!

7th August – Manchester to Tampa via Heathrow and Miami with AA
7th August - 7 nights at the Blue Heron Resort Orlando
14th August – 2 nights at Residence Inn by Marriott Clearwater
16th August – 12 nights at Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside
28th August – 3 nights at Disney’s Beach Club
31st August – Orlando to Manchester via JFK and Heathrow with AA and BA

Think that’s about it for the time being!


Thanks for reading and I’ll update soon with the ADR’s that we’ve booked

Edited at 05:35 PM.
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Old 30 Apr 18, 06:28 PM  
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Buggles94
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Sounds fantastic - not long now!
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Old 30 Apr 18, 06:51 PM  
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nickyjw
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Sounds great Julia, how far in advance can you book rooms through David's Rentals? I might look into this for us... Once you've had it confirmed is it a guaranteed arrangement?
Looking forward to reading more x
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Old 30 Apr 18, 09:02 PM  
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So exciting, lots of things going on, will be a fab trippie to read
The children have changed so much since you started going.

Jen
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Old 30 Apr 18, 09:15 PM  
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It sounds like a great trip, look forward to reading about it
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Old 30 Apr 18, 09:39 PM  
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FloridaFairy
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Loving it Julia... loads of changes but sounds exciting... I like airports too and don't mind connecting flights. It think it breaks the journey up.

Xx
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Old 30 Apr 18, 09:50 PM  
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Pumba75
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Brilliant. Lovely photos. Excited for you!

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Old 30 Apr 18, 10:09 PM  
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margyloveswdw
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Love the pictures seeing your growing family over the years!

Sounds like a fab trip!
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Old 1 May 18, 09:35 AM  
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I’m gonna start employing you to find our flights! Sooooo glad your back at POR!
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Old 1 May 18, 01:59 PM  
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Sounds like a great trip!
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