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Old 28 Jul 21, 11:37 AM  
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Congratulations! Sounds am-az-ing!

Can't wait to read all your updates.

AnnMarie
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Old 4 Aug 21, 10:37 PM  
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Originally Posted by FLAFantastic View Post
Congratulations! Sounds am-az-ing!

Can't wait to read all your updates.

AnnMarie
Thank you so much for reading along!
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Old 21 Sep 21, 01:14 PM  
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Just read this and it all sounds amazing. I look forward to hearing more - I love Anna Maria Island and the Sandbar. It must all feel a bit more real with the US opening up.
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Old 17 Nov 21, 10:28 AM  
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omg this sounds amazing! I fall in love with Anna Maria Island everytime Tim Tracker does a vlog there! and congratulations on the wedding, what a perfect place! And yes you need to order all 11 cocktails I think we had 5 cocktails each and a bottle of champagne between us on our wedding day and it was fine nobody noticed
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Old 9 Jan 22, 12:45 PM  
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Have just found this! Wow you're going to have the most amazing wedding and honeymoon. Anna Maria is the perfect wedding location. Am flattered that you've taken inspiration from my trip report - another road trip coming up soon, fingers crossed!
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Old 19 Jan 22, 11:54 AM  
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Hello everyone! I’m so embarrassed this has taken me so long to update 🙈, can you believe it’s 2022 already?! We can finally say we are getting married THIS YEAR! Eeek

Even though the first half of 2021 was fairly crappy all round we ended up managing to go away twice and ending the year a heck of a lot better than when it started!

In August we had a very relaxing and fun week in Crete with our friends which you can read all about HERE







God it felt good to have the sun on our faces after what had turned out to be a very disappointing summer weather wise!

We then had an action packed 10 nights in Canada at the end of September with Jim’s sister and BIL Helen and Nick which you can read about HERE. He finally put a ring on it whilst we were in Canada, halfway up a mountain actually, which is better late than never as here I am organising our upcoming wedding





So lots to update you on!
We have a slight reduction in numbers for the Orlando part of the holiday. Helen & Nick and kids are now just coming for the wedding week on Anna Maria Island so it will just be Jim & I and the kids with Bill and Sylvia in the huge 7 bedroom villa . A little annoying as we now have to pay more but it hasn’t worked out hugely more expensive which is a relief. We can now play musical bedrooms if we want

We still haven’t booked our Anna Maria Island accommodation yet but hope to get it sorted soon.

I have finished booking the accommodation for the honeymoon week though. So I’ve booked a room at the Hilton Garden Inn next to Sawgrass for one night on our way up to Hilton Head Island









The plan is to wave everyone off at Tampa airport then drive up through Florida, hopefully stopping by a little town called Micanopy for something to eat before arriving at the hotel in the evening. The next morning Jim will play golf at Sawgrass before we drive up to Hilton Head Island.

I also booked a room at the Renaissance St Augustine Historic Downtown hotel for our last night in Florida before flying home from Orlando the following day. I’ve splurged a little on this hotel but it’s actually really hard to find decent accommodation at decent prices in St Augustine! It looks really lovely though, in a fab location.









A quick recap on where we’ll be staying

20th-27th August
Villa in Formosa Gardens - booked
27th-3rd Sept
House on AMI - yet to be booked
3rd-4th Sept
Hilton Garden Inn Sawgrass - booked
4th-9th Sept
Air BnB Palmetto Dunes HHI - booked
9th-10th Sept
Renaissance St Augustine Downtown - booked

Now for the most exciting news though, our flights are booked!
Anyone who is looking to go this Summer will know just how ridiculously expensive flights are. The really great bargains of years past just don’t seem to be materialising this year, I guess that’s the Covid effect and that the demand outstrips supply with this being 3 years since going to the US for a lot of families (including us)

It was always going to be a bit tricky trying to book everyone’s flights as Jim and I are staying on for an extra week so we figured we’d get ours booked and then the kids would fly to and from Florida with my parents and sister & Co. They would be old enough and sensible enough to fly home on their own but it makes me feel better knowing they’ll be with family.
Bill and Sylvia have booked their flights and are actually flying out 4 days before everyone and are staying at a hotel in Disney Springs first. Helen and Co are going to fly into Miami as it’s coming in a lot cheaper and they quite fancy a night or two there before driving across to AMI.

I looked at so many different flight combinations it was giving me a serious headache, I just couldn’t get any half decent indirects for less than £600pp especially now that you have to add luggage onto the cost
I looked at my trusty BA flight and car but as many of you will know, car hire is through the roof so it was making the fly/drive package ridiculous.
We had some Avios points that I figured we could use but only enough for indirect in Economy. Annoyingly we have a 2-4-1 voucher from our Amex card but it expires this February and with the rules changing with how the companion vouchers can be used with our type of Amex, any future ones would only be able to be used in economy as well.

I knew booking economy flights with no 2-4-1 voucher was the worst way to spend the points but the taxes were around £350pp which was a lot cheaper than the cash alternative and they included luggage too. They were also direct coming home which made them seem better value.
I tried to book them online but I kept on getting an error to say one of the flights was unavailable so to start again. I tried a few different routes and I kept on getting the same message. Not wanting to throw my laptop out of the window I figured it’d be quicker to give BA a call and get them booked over the phone

I spoke to a nice lady who confirmed that the outbound flights I was trying to book were now unavailable and the only route left was via Dallas and not getting in to MCO until gone 11pm. I was a little unsure as to whether I should book them and I wanted to check with Jim first but he was at golf so I said I’d call back in a little while, hoping all seats hadn’t sold out in the meantime.
Typically, Jim didn’t care how we got there or at what time so I called back to get them booked.
This time around I had the most wonderful agent who went over and above what she had to!
We were chatting about what flights we wanted and in the conversation I mentioned our 2-4-1 voucher and how annoying it was that it would expire before we were wanting to go.
She said “hang on, where there’s a will there’s a way!”
To cut a very long story short, we could use our voucher if we booked 2 throwaway flights for a date before the voucher expired, she would then cancel them and that booking would be converted into another voucher that didn’t expire until September 2023! She waited very patiently on the phone while I booked 2 flights to Paris using the 2-4-1 voucher. These were £35 each in taxes and 9000 points.
After a few minutes the booking was showing on her system so she cancelled them her end and put a credit voucher on our account. The money was credited and points were refunded too!
So we now had a 2-4-1 voucher that we could use for our Florida trip. She looked at flights that went into Orlando but couldn’t see any reward seats for the outbound, however said there were 2 Club seats going into Tampa that we could have instead. I think I actually squealed as I never in a million years thought we’d be able to fly Business! We unfortunately didn’t have enough points, even with the voucher to fly Club both ways but we have WT+ from MCO on return which is still miles better than what I was expecting
So for the grand total of just over £1100 and 125,000 points we have 2 return direct flights to Florida, one in Club and one in Premium. Happy. As. Larry!







I felt guilty that the kids weren’t coming with us for like a minute but then figured they’re getting a free holiday so can’t really moan. This is our wedding after all . They of course think it’s mightily unfair that we get to travel in style while they’re left in cattle class with their grandparents but I’m afraid it fell on deaf ears and I told them to get over themselves . For any new readers, my ‘kids’ will be 19 and 17 so I’m not abandoning toddlers
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Edited at 12:08 PM.
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Old 19 Jan 22, 11:58 AM  
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Now to get everyone else’s flights booked.
Mum ideally wanted to fly direct but with her paying for my sister and co’s flights as well as their own the budget wouldn’t stretch seeing as they were coming in at at least £1000pp!
She would fly indirect but asked if it was possible to split the connection with an overnight stay. They managed it a few years ago when they went to New Orleans and stayed in an airport hotel in Charlotte. It seems a faff but she doesn’t want the stress of potentially rushing through an airport if flights are delayed for whatever reason and missing the connection. Going home was no issue as there’s no immigration to worry about, it’s just going from one plane to another.

So I looked at this type of open jaw flight but it was still coming in at about £700pp once you added luggage which I felt was too high for indirect flights.

Over the Christmas break I kept a close eye on prices but then a few weeks ago I was browsing the BA site and found direct flights to Tampa on Friday 19th, so the same flight as ours only 24 hours earlier, with a 7 seater minivan for just under £800pp. Seeing as car hire would be around £1000 it makes the flights a lot more attractive, plus these are direct going out and then indirect via Charlotte on return.
They would also need a hotel for the night so I searched BA’s site for a hotel in Orlando. As you can imagine hundreds came up but then I had the very bright idea to see how much a Disney hotel would be. I could get 2 Savannah view rooms in Animal Kingdom Lodge for an extra £350 so after checking with mum (who was paying!) she also thought it was a great idea so pressed the book button! I suggested to mum and my sister that they should leave this part a surprise for my niece and nephew.







Now any eagle eyed readers will note that there will be 8 people travelling (mum, dad, sister, BIL, niece, nephew, Hope and Sam) and they only have a 7 seater car. My parents will not drive abroad so for now I have booked Hope and Sam into a Tampa airport hotel and we will collect them from there after we land the following day. It’s got a pool and restaurant and they said they’re fine with just chilling but my ‘mum guilt’ is getting the better of me and I’m trying to figure out a way of getting them up to Orlando and booking another room at AKL!

So that’s the flights sorted for us all now. It always feels so real once you know you’re actually getting there
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Edited at 12:09 PM.
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Old 19 Jan 22, 12:10 PM  
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Originally Posted by katiebaz View Post
Just read this and it all sounds amazing. I look forward to hearing more - I love Anna Maria Island and the Sandbar. It must all feel a bit more real with the US opening up.
Thanks so much Katie. As soon as we went to AMI we knew instantly that's where we wanted to get married
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Old 19 Jan 22, 12:12 PM  
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Originally Posted by princessnicki View Post
omg this sounds amazing! I fall in love with Anna Maria Island everytime Tim Tracker does a vlog there! and congratulations on the wedding, what a perfect place! And yes you need to order all 11 cocktails I think we had 5 cocktails each and a bottle of champagne between us on our wedding day and it was fine nobody noticed
Thank you Nicki! You will definitely have to try and get out there one day. I have never actually watched a Tim Tracker vlog , but I'll now be checking out his ones from AMI!

I think if I drank all 11 cocktails, there would be a day missing in the trip report as I'd probably pass out and forget the whole thing
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Old 19 Jan 22, 12:15 PM  
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Originally Posted by anji View Post
Have just found this! Wow you're going to have the most amazing wedding and honeymoon. Anna Maria is the perfect wedding location. Am flattered that you've taken inspiration from my trip report - another road trip coming up soon, fingers crossed!
Thank you Anji! We now have a change of plan for the honeymoon, I'll try and link the updates on the first page but we're now heading up to Hilton Head Island instead. We are however going to try and stop in the little town of Micanopy that I remember you visiting on that holiday. We will definitely make it to the Keys and Sanibel one day though!
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