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Old 25 Mar 19, 12:53 PM  
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#41
Lisa29
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Originally Posted by MrsSilverStar View Post
I had no idea about the ESTA middle name drama until reading this, so just had a mini panic! Did a search in the forum and someone has posted an official response which says don’t worry if you don’t have middle names in there. So...I might risk it!

You can see the post on pg 3 https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...+nam e&page=3

I might keep an eye on it and decide the nearer the time.
Thanks for that link. I haven't re-done ours yet, I'm still going to wait a while I think.

Originally Posted by DISNEYNIC View Post
So annoying about the middle names on the ESTA's. I haven't done ours yet - must remember this.

I also keep checking premier inn prices for the night before we go - it seems expensive compared to previous years - think I may have booked it earlier and have left it too late. I need to book a Thursday night too and it's £50! Have booked for £29 before.
It is so annoying.

PI is still so expensive, £84 for our date! I don;t understand why, it;'s not half-term or anything. I'm not sure at what point I'll just have to make a decision and book somewhere.

Originally Posted by collybird View Post
Ouch the car hire was pricey! You’ve reminded me that I haven’t sorted out ours yet.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy the lounge, and you’ll definitely get the benefit of it with a 1pm flight.

I have to sort out a new passport too, I am waiting for a day when I look semi-decent to take a picture haha.

Thanks for the heads up about the middle name on ESTA issue, I’d be tempted just to leave them as they were, £46 is a lot of money! But I suppose the peace of mind is worth more.

Argh, you’ve also reminded me we need to book the airport hotel. MONEY MONEY MONEY!
Car hire was a lot but has jumped up even more now so I'm glad I did it when I did.

I'm really excited to try the lounge.

My picture wasn't the best, passport ones never are, but I just wanted them done!

I am waiting on the ESTA for the time being, I'm hoping there will be more reports from people who have been fine.

MONEY MONEY MONEY is so right when it comes to a holiday!
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Old 25 Mar 19, 12:55 PM  
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#42
Lisa29
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Sorry, I have't completely abandoned this!

A few months ago I finally started doing the scrapbook for our 2015 trip , and I really want to get this finished before I do too much with this holiday, hence the neglect of my pre-trip. I am on Castaway Cay day so only 3 days left so will be back with an update soon (I hope).
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Old 26 Apr 19, 01:07 PM  
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#43
Lisa29
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Sorry, I have been rubbish with this report this time around. I had every intention of updating each time I booked something but that hasn't happened, so here is another booked and ticked off the to-do list update.

More things booked and ticked off the to-do list

Kennedy Space Centre

Madison has been learning about space at school and is really interested in it and said she would like to go here. Phil loves it too, and I haven't been since 2004, so I was on the lookout for any offers. Towards the end of January, I saw an offer on ATD to get 2019 tickets at 2018 prices. This made the adult tickets £36 each and the kids £29 each, a total of £130. I booked these and have downloaded the tickets ready.





Fairytale Personal Shopper

Next up was getting my date booked in with Beth and Tim at Fairytale Personal Shopper for their parcel holding service. The cost of this will be $20. I haven't started shopping yet but I'm sure I will in the near future!

I might also use their grocery shopping service, as we are on the later flight, I don't fancy having to go out and get milk, water, etc. I will decide nearer the time on this.

Airport Parking

I wasn't going to book this until I had sorted the airport hotel but Bethany had found a good offer through Money Saving Expert. I booked Gatwick Ace Meet and Greet Parking through looking4parking.com, with a discount of 30%. The cost of this was £114.00, but with discount came to £79.80. There was a £1 booking fee and I have the cancellation waiver too, though this wasn't charged for. Total paid £80.80.

We drop this off at the Hampton by Hilton hotel at the North Terminal the night before we fly and will collect on the Friday when we land.

Airport Hotel

I didn't want to book this yet as the price was so high, but I was checking the Premier Inn website daily and the price wasn't coming down at all. For the Gatwick North Terminal hotel it had been £82.50 for ages, then went to £84.

I finally decided that though it was far more than I had paid for a Premier Inn before, it was still cheaper than any other hotels that were this close to the airport. The only cheaper options would have meant needing to drop the car off the next morning and (likely) paying to park at the hotel for the night, and were further away. I felt that the convenience of being minutes from where we drop off and collect the car from, and being directly opposite the terminal, was worth the higher price.

The cost was £84 (and still is now, I have checked a couple of times ). We will drop the car off first so won't need anywhere else to park, then walk to the airport. As we are planning on arriving later and have booked the airport lounge, we haven't done the meal deal.

Touring Plans

I have signed up to this again and have been using it to get the park hours and show times. I am also basing my plan on their predicted crowd levels. I have had a brief look at making my own touring plan for a day and have liked this so far.

I will be back soon with another update.
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Old 11 May 19, 06:43 PM  
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#44
Lisa29
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ADR Day

Dining Reservations

ADR day was a few weeks ago - with being on the QSDP and trying to keep costs down, our list for this wasn't very long.

Our list consisted of three things:

Be Our Guest breakfast - girls' birthday
Be Our Guest lunch - MK day
Be Our Guest lunch - different MK day

We had made the decision this year that we were going to Beaches and Cream but it is closed while we are there so that came off the list.

I thought a few days before ADR day that wanting Be Our Guest on our first full day was probably not going to be available and it turns out I was right. As Danielle flies the day before us, her ADR day was the day before ours too so she looked for us but wasn't able to book it.

So on our ADR day, I now only needed to get the lunches booked. I couldn't get the plus 10 days to work on the desktop but it did work on the app. I was able to get both days and times that I wanted. I also booked a breakfast on another of our MK days. We will only go there once for lunch so will be cancelling one of the reservations nearer to the time.

Since then, we have all been checking and Dan was able to get a booking for 5 people and then found a separate one for 2, so we do have some of us booked in for breakfast. I have an alert set up on Touring Plans to try and find an ADR - typically they have found one twice, but both times it was well over an hour after that I saw the email so missed them.

Pirate's League

I had asked the girls if they wanted to do Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique this year and they both said no, they would rather do the mermaid package at the Pirate's League. I did ask a few times just to check they hadn’t changed their minds but they definitely didn't want to do BBB.

Ryan and Bethany decided that they wanted to do this for Piper too, so we picked a day they could all do it together. I was on the phone at 12 noon on ADR day and got through to a lovely lady who booked the three of them in for me, at the times I wanted.

The girls don't know we have booked this, we will keep it a surprise for them and will probably do an invite for them that they will get on the day.
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Old 11 May 19, 07:50 PM  
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It's going to be so interesting seeing how you get on with QSDP. I was sure you'd have been tempted to book a few cheeky TS ADRs so well done on your willpower!
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Old 27 May 19, 05:20 PM  
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It’s so exciting reading all of your/our plans! We need to be so careful talking about when we’re going in front of the girls, especially Madison! Love how many times your plans have changed lol. x
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Old 28 May 19, 10:16 AM  
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Originally Posted by collybird View Post
It's going to be so interesting seeing how you get on with QSDP. I was sure you'd have been tempted to book a few cheeky TS ADRs so well done on your willpower!
We are really looking forward to the QSDP. We have so many places we want to try, I don't think we will fit them all in.

About the no ADR's... . Update coming up!x

Originally Posted by DiddyDan View Post
It’s so exciting reading all of your/our plans! We need to be so careful talking about when we’re going in front of the girls, especially Madison! Love how many times your plans have changed lol. x
I know, we have to be so careful and not mention any dates! Madison is definitely always listening. Our plans always change don't they?!x
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Old 28 May 19, 10:25 AM  
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ADR Booked

If I remember right, I said something along the lines of, 'we're on the QSDP and keeping costs down so we're not booking any table service meals' - well, I changed my mind!

Let me explain. I kept thinking of the $200 gift card we have with our booking from ATD. We were just going to use this in place of some spending money and it would likely have been used for things like pins, scrapbooking stuff, photo frames, etc. all of which we would be buying even without the gift card. I then read the thread on here about opting out of mousekeeping and getting $10 per night added to a gift card. I had always thought we would decline this but then the thought of a $90 gift card started playing on my mind, along with the original $200 gift card.

I spoke to Phil about it and he agreed with me, that if they were still offering the gift card to opt out of mousekeeping when we go, we would do.

We then decided that we should treat the $200 gift card as extra money and spend it on something that we wouldn't be doing if we didn't have the gift card.

Sorry, that's my very long way of getting to the point that I booked an ADR.

When I was thinking of using the gift card for a table service meal, there was only one place I wanted to book, on one particular day - Crystal Palace on the girls birthday. As soon as we had decided we wanted to book, I searched for 4 people for breakfast on their birthday and it came up with a reservation for 10.25am - I booked this straight away for the four of us.




As I was waiting for the reservation to go through, I thought about the others and whether they would want to go. I knew Dan had mentioned having a breakfast here and I knew Ryan had it booked for later in the holiday so I thought I would do a quick search and see if anything came up for 9 people. I wasn't expecting anything to come up but when it showed a reservation for 9 at 10.35am, I quickly logged into Phil's MDE account to book it. I was fairly certain they would all want to come and when I spoke to them all the next day, and said I had booked it for us, my Mum's first response was 'oh, but we haven't booked there.' I told her what had happened and that I had a second reservation for all of them and she was really pleased. Dan said they would come and Bethany said they would cancel their original reservation and come too. She said she was sure Ryan would like to celebrate his birthday with Pooh Bear and friends!

We are keeping this a secret from Madison and Kaley. My idea at the moment is that we will do an invite for this and give it to them on travel to airport day.
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Old 29 May 19, 10:26 AM  
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Love the crystal palace👍. Have you decided what to do with your estas yet?
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Old 29 May 19, 12:36 PM  
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Love Crystal Palace breakfast. We are on QSDP too but decided to book Garden Grill breakfast and Ohana dinner and we have gift card too and will pay the rest OOP.
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