Sept PTR with Princess Glitter and family

[islandmum]

The intrepid explorers for this trip will be:

Me::surfweb: Mother to the worlds most gorgeous 2 boys, referee between said gorgeous 2 boys, washer-woman, nurse, chauffeur, dietician and disciplinarian to the same gorgeous 2 boys. Spender of the DH's cash, meticulous planner, beach bum, orderer of the take-away master.

DH: :cool2: Fabulous father, provider of the $$$, workaholic, big spender himself, loves to travel, roller coaster rider, balding, greying (whats left), with a chest crying out for a medallion!! Hates planning, packing or organising, happy to defer all duties to wifelet.

DS's::banana: :banana: Aged 6 and 4, blonde (age 6) red head (aged 4), mad children, coconut palm tree climbers, expert swimmers, Power Rangers, Transformers and Star Wars fanatics. Run with disgust from Princesses and 'girlie' stuff, ready to hit the world with energy supplies unknown to mankind.


Princess: princess: My best friend in the entire world, never a cross word between us in our 15 years of friendship. She's mad, wears more glitter than is humanly envisaged, 5ft tall, built like Dawn French, party animal, would be the winner of mum of the year, stops at nothing to indulge her children ..... she's one in a million, I love her to death, I'm so lucky to have her.

Poo: pirate: Her dh. Imposing in stature, tall, bald, 2 earrings, and a total pushover. Pool playing champ, coaster lover, begdrudging DIY doer (following wifelets instructions), John Smiths drinker We love him.

her DS and DD: :banana: :banana: DD aged 7 and DS aged 4, as mad, loud, and glittery as their mother, our godchildren, little miracles the both of them (DD born 27 weeks, DS at 33), DD a total princess freak, DS a total Power Rangers freak, need no sugar or E additives to be hyped to the max ..... their first trip!

well, after making the monumental decision that Orlando and Disney were out for next years travel plans we returned home from our October trip happy with the thought we'd been twice in 2 years, our first ever trips, we'd had the experience of staying on and off-site, 10 days in the WL the first time, stayed in a villa the second trip, and we would return in a couple of years time to see the new stuff in 2010 maybe. We didnt want to go so often the magic wore off for the boys and it became 'normal'.


Wrote up my TR on here and on my facebook account I loaded up all the pics we took and the above mentioned Princess made the fateful error of showing her kids ......


and that was it really!! We were talking about meeting up somewhere with them in 2009 (probably Barbados) as its hard for us not to see them every year since we emigrated and we try to get together if we can. We are VERY close and there have been MANY :sad1: tearful skype calls between us as we struggle to live 4000 miles apart.

but once the kids saw the pics emotional blackmail was in full swing ;) they threw tantrums, stropped around in sulks, I posted more pictures in the hope she would succumb and break ...... SHE DID!!!!! :hug:

and heres the resulting plans...

[islandmum]

the big discussion started as to when we would go. This is a transatlantic meetup and actually turned out quite difficult to arrange in terms of time off schools and jobs. My darling dh has a job in the hospitality industry and school holidays are when he is required to be at work ..... meaning all vacations have to be taken in school time.

Luckily their school has allowed them to have leave and the dates were set for arrival on Mar 12th and departure on May 26th.

Poo (being a grumpy pants) really didnt want to spend more time than necessary in a Disney hotel as well as the parks so 4 nights was agreed on at a Disney hotel followed by 10 days in a villa. Since it is Memorial weekend at the end of our trip we decided to stay at Disney first and then the villa.

Now I did have some work to do - they are on a certain budget, with the economy as it is they dont want to go mad, so a value resort at Disney was required, shopping around for the best deals on tickets etc... This was a challenge to the dh as he likes the finer things in life and always pays for the best hotels possible, we are hotel snobs I do admit, ... Pop Century was not his idea of a hotel, so after briefly kicking him round the house telling him how spoilt he was behaving he was a broken man and he got into the idea.

Villas on the other hand really are not that much different in price between the mankier looking ones compared to the real nice ones, especially when the cost is split between 2 families.

I offered - and was immediately given - job of vacation planner and director! As they have never been to Florida before, let alone Disney, I was to choose and book everything!!

This was a joyous moment for me .... OCD are my middle initials!

to do list:

1 choose Value resort

2 find a suitable villa with 2 master suites, 5 beds, kitchen table in kitchen, games room, big pool area, wireless internet, gated community, south facing pool with view over lake (not that I'm hard to please :laughing: )

3 get best deals on Disney, Universal and Seaworld tickets

4 find best car hire deals.



Choosing the value resort was hard. ASMo appealed to me most but then again I like ammenties and good buses in Disney, so after trolling through the resort forums I settle on Pop Century. A quick phonecall to WDW HQ and we are booked, 4 nights, 13th to 17th May, connecting rooms requested, quiet rooms requested, fridge booked. DDP is a consideration but we will book if necessary closer to the dates. My CM Dave was a total sweetheart.

Villa searching was EPIC!! literally hundreds of villa owners replied to my cry of help for info on their properties and saying no to all but one of them felt awful, but we found what looks to be a fantastic place, and having spoken to the owners its owned by lovely people too ....
http://www.yourluxuryvilla.com/
booked for 10days from the 17th to 26th.


ticket hunting and car hire searching is still a work in progress but as of tomorrow we are at the

180 day:cheer2: :worship: :banana:
marker so I am ready to book the restaurants as organised in the plan below .....

[islandmum]

Fly to US May 12th
Overnight Palm Beach 12th
Drive to Orlando 13th May



13th Arrive PopCentury - they arrive from UK
14th chill out AM, Epcot PM, Akershus lunch
15th DHS day, dinner at 50's Prime time
16th Chill out day, dinner at Chef Mickeys
17th AK day, lunch at Rainforest Cafe, go to villa

18th Universal PM
19th Magic Kingdom Day
20th
21st Universal IOA, Spiderman breakfast
22nd Universal Studios
23rd
24th Seaworld
25th
26th leave villa, they go to UK, we go to Palm Beach

27th - 29th Palm Beach, with friends
29th - 3rd Miami, Turnberry Isle Resort

3rd Fly home.




I think its a nice itinery for us all, we do the parks but we also have spare time too to spend days around the pool and chilling out. We are not fans of flying round doing a ton of stuff every day - that aint a vacation to me!!!

Plus I must have ample time dedicated to my chosen speciality of shopping !

[natalielongstaff]

its great that you have another trip planned, im sure you will have a fab time x x

[islandmum]

well THAT was a huge disppointment!

just got off the phone with Disney Dining, todays our 180 day so I needed to book all the TS meals.

I had no idea the reservation sytem was being overhauled so they are only taking bookings for 4 restaurants I think - luckily one was Chef Mickeys which we want so at least I got that one done.


BUT she told me to call back on Dec 22nd to book all the other stuff, I said fine, that'll be me and all the other 13th May arrivees then!! ...................

she said no - thats for EVERYONE to call on that day onwards on the new system!! can you imagine how many people this is going to be, the 180 days system staggered the calls on a daily basis - but now on the 22nd they'll be swamped.

People have been informed to call on Dec 22nd since August apparantly, so that will be 5 months of people all being directed to call on the SAME day to get their TS ressies.

Has Disney gone mad? Lets hope they get about an extra 10,000 employees on the phones, assuming the system doesnt crash almost immediately with the demand on it. Of course everyone will call on that day coz the demand for your restaurant of choice will be fierce, and everyone wants their choice of course.

[islandmum]

Today was flight booking day and decided to stay at the Miami Airport Sofitel the night before departure back to Barbados as check-in is 8am and the Turnberry is a good 45 minutes to an hour away in mornin traffic. So the Sofitel is all booked up ..... got a suite for just $245, really ticks me off when I have to pay 245 pounds for the UK one!

so we leave the Turnberry Isle now on the 30th May and fly out on the morning of the 31st. Chopped off a couple of days because ........

we now have to travel to the UK in September which we hadnt planned one but the business is closing for hurricane season in 2009, something it hasnt done since 2005 but financially its not worth opening for the few people who will travel at that time of year, so that means a 6 week closure for all the related business's on the island too so it makes almot a complete shutdown.

so its going to be a 4 week UK trip, get to spend quality time with the rellies :scared: and see alot of our pals for some good times :cheer2: . We dont really enjoy travelling back to the UK although its nice to see people we are now very unnacustomed to it and the boys have never lived there so its quite a culture shock for them to go on vacation to somewhere cold and with nothing really to do, apart from sit around at peoples houses. Its not ideal but I suppose we'll enjoy.

[jockey]

Your plans sound great :)

[islandmum]

I think I have reached full on maximum capacity breaking POINT!!!!!!!

Having booked this entire trip for both families, done flights, food bookings, car rentals, villa details .... BLAH BLAH BLAH

my best mate lets me know that they cant come in May - can we make it September, and cut it down by 4 days ....... :scared: :scared: :headache: :headache:

now in one way this is bad - I've gone and booked and deposited everything, I now have to waste an entire morning calling and rebooking all ....

but on the other hand its worked out quite well as we were planning on going to the UK in September as the business shuts down for 6 weeks or so at that time, so now we're just rolling it all into one. AND my sons birthday now falls whilst we're in Orlando which will be great!

SOOOoooooo, the new plan is as follows:

Sept 8th arrive Miami until Sept 12th
Sept 12th - 19th Orlando villa
Sept 19th - 23rd PopCentury
Sept 23rd fly to the UK
Sept 24th - Oct 9th in the UK
Oct 10th fly home.

so I piddled around yesterday first called Disney - no problem, re-arranged the dates, cancelled my ADR with Chef Mickeys, and being September the rate falls so saved a few $$.

next onto the villa, luckily they have the exact week we want, they are booked from the afternoon we depart on the 19th so we've just squeezed in!

Ammended the car hire with US rentacar, now down to 2 weeks rental and drop off in MCO rather than Miami .... it has come down in cost to just 324 pounds for the 4x4 7seater which is a great price to me, although we are charged 15 quid to change the booking, AND another 15 quid to change the named driver as I will be collecting it not the dh :scared: :headache:

flights booked with Virgin - dont have to pay for the seats until March but they've taken the booking here at the local office and we've booked seats 7AH, 8AH MCO to LGW and the same back from LGW to Barbados. Total cost ..... I didnt ask:rolleyes1 and dont want to know!

Booked the Sofitel at LGW for the night before we come home, got a FANTASTIC rate of 152 pounds for 2 connecting rooms - 100 pound saving on every other year we've stayed there. Very cheap.

Cancelled the Sofitel booking at Miami we had made.

Now only have to do ADR's when the time gets to 180 days and book our American Airline flight from Barbados to Miami, and our inter-island flights from here to Barbados. I'll do those in about July time next year.


so ...... all change! its quite nice to do it all in one go, although the downside is that dh wont be flying out to the US until the 12th and will be flying back from the UK on Oct 2nd ...... so I have to do both those flights alone with the rugrat terrorists!:eek: :love:

[Pinky166]

Sounds like a fun trip you are planning with your friends. :goodvibes


We will be there at the same time...7th to 21st Sept for us! :cool1:

[natalielongstaff]

how stressful !!! im glad you managed to swap things around :thumbsup2

[islandmum]

Sounds like a fun trip you are planning with your friends. :goodvibes


We will be there at the same time...7th to 21st Sept for us! :cool1:

run in fear if you see us lot in the parks ;) if we do all get there it will be untamed lunacy with these 4 kids together :eek:

how stressful !!! im glad you managed to swap things around :thumbsup2

I know! and the slightly worrying thing is I have a sneaky feeling she may cancel altogether at some point for some reason. But we'll still go - it actually works out better for us to do it this way so we WILL be there! (will change from Pop though if they dont go .... I do fancy a bash at the Contempory

[mark&sue]

you must keep us up-dated on any new developments. Brilliant that you managed to get the same villa, it looked so lovely from your link.

Enjoy your months planning. We have been with friends a few times and is such fun (most the time)


Susan

[islandmum]

well I've got the basic outline of the trip sorted out. We're not mad park commandos and want a mix of some park days and some days just to lime and shop or whatever. We have to shop for the next years clothes, all christmas and birthday gifts etc etc so we'll box all that up and get UPS to pick it up from Orlando and send it to Miami to send on the container back home to us here.

We've bought a 4 day (get one extra day free) Disney pass so can choose an extra park to visit if we want. Also bought the Universal 2 days park passes for $94 each. We are thinking of the water parks but to be honest the pools should be enough to keep the 4 rugrats happy. We've ordered a fridge for the Pop room and to help our friends keep their costs down we wont be doing the DDP or eating out alot. Not quite what we planned but just having them at WDW with us means more than chowing down at all the restuarants.

Its also my oldest boys 7th birthday whilst we're there so he will have a nice birthday dinner at Chef Mickeys which will be fun. This is my plan so far:

Sept 8th Arrive Miami
8th - morning of 12th in Palm Beach and Miami

12th - AM drive to Orlando to the villa
13th - free day
14th - IAO day, Spidey breakfast
15th - free day
16th - DS birthday, Universal, Chef Mickey's dinner
17th - MK day - lunch at Cinderellas Castle
18th - free day, UPS pick up of boxes to ship home
19th - leave villa check-in PopCentury, Epcot
20th - free day
21st - DHS day - character breakfast
22nd - AK day
23rd - free day, check-in Virgin DTD, leave for the UK

24th - October 9th in UK visiting rellies and friends
9th Oct check-in Virgin LGW, night at LGW Sofitel
10th Oct fly home.

[mark&sue]

I think its worth it to alter your plans to accommodate your friends as you know you will go back and this could be a trip of a lifetime for them.

Have the best time planning. Thanks for the up-date


susan

[islandmum]

Now we're approaching Easter we have got round to doing some more of the payments and details (costs included for those who are interested in the current pricing):

booked and paid for Liat return flights from here to Barbados (we return on Oct 10th but the dh returns Oct 2nd for work) - $1088.00

booked and paid for American airlines Barbados to Miami one-way on Sept 8th - $1240.00

booked overnight hotel in Barbados Oct 7th - $259.00

paid US car rental with usrentacar, 7 seater SUV 14 days - £322.00

7 day Disney Unlimited pass with Virgin - £780.00

Universal 2 day, 2 park pass - $434.00.


So not really much more left to pay for, just the balance on Disney hotel and villa, UK car rental, Sofitel at Gatwick and book the dining at Disney.

One nice thing is that for DS 7th birthday he wants to go to DHS not Universal and they give birthday goers a $75 gift card for the park so he can get lots of nice stuff he wants to choose on his big day.


I just wish September was CLOSER!! being a planner is all well and good but being all done so far in advance makes the next few months of waiting EXCRUCIATING!:headache:

[natalielongstaff]

being a planner is all well and good but being all done so far in advance makes the next few months of waiting EXCRUCIATING!:headache:

I can relate to that :sad1:

[wilma-bride]

Don't know how I missed this but it sounds like your plans are starting to come together nicely :thumbsup2

[irongirlof12]

:rotfl:I just love your 'bulletin' style descriptions of your group,, i feel as though I know them quite well even before the full report. You sound like a happy clan and i am sure your trip will be fab despite the changes !

[wicket2005]

Looking forward to hearing your plans and reading your trip report. I find it helps to come on here and read other people's plans and reports in the lead up to your own holiday. It always feels a bit closer then.

[mandymouse]

Your plans sound great :thumbsup2 It'll be here before you know it

[islandmum]

116 days to go until we leave here for Barbados for the first leg of the trip.

Princess has managed to come through and has fully paid her part of the villa, their Disney hotel costs, the car hire and the flights - this despite the fact that her DH is currently on gardening leave as his company has no work for him right now or in the forseeable future:sad2:

so she's done great and got it all paid and sorted so no money worries about putting things on CC. She also pre-saved their spending money so although they wont be going wild they will have a great time. I'm just so happy they are ACTUALLY doing this! Until she paid for it all I was very nervous they'd pull out.

Had the email from Virgin to say the Clubhouse is closed during our flight period:scared::headache: but we can use the No.1 Lounge or VRoom instead but we may well opt to just stay longer in the hotel room and relax and have brekkie in there. DH has managed to extend his vaca time so is now flying back with us which is great for me, although he seemed less thrilled with the prospect!

he casually asked for a figure, ball park amount for our spending money ..... I gently patted his shoulder, and softly told him ...... "whatever it takes". He had a few beers in silence after that.

so all is good, I'm waiting for the 90 day window for our boy's birthday meal to book for Chef Mickeys and then 3 days later the 90 window for our arrival at Pop Century to book WCC, Cinderellas Castle, and something else I havent decided yet.

All our passports are currently with immigration here as we have to update our residency and national status here, they expect to get our UK passports back to us in August (the wheels move VERRRRRYYYYY slowly here) so we are pretty much all set now. ADR's and thats about it.

[wicket2005]

he casually asked for a figure, ball park amount for our spending money ..... I gently patted his shoulder, and softly told him ...... "whatever it takes". He had a few beers in silence after that.

.

:rotfl: I bet many a hubbie can relate to that.

[islandmum]

well the 90 days windows have come and gone. Sat on the phone ready for the booking for Sept 16th for Blue's birthday supper at Chef Mickeys, got through within 2 minutes so was very excited to get a time ........ err no, fully booked!

a shame but WCC was available and he loves that so we've got a table there instead.

Seeing all the excitement about the online ADR's I tested the system (which worked) and was all ready and awake (in body, not mind) on the morning of our 90 window for the stay at Pop to book the next section of ADR's. It wasnt a pleasant experience seeing in the sunrise but I was happy to start the online process ........

if only the online process was as happy as me! As it turns out me, along with many others on this day could not access the online booking to get our 90 + 10 days window.:headache::headache::headache:

With much pissed off attitude boiling to the surface I could only wait until 6.55am and start dialing. A 30 minute hold and I got through - amazingly getting absoloutely everything we wanted including CRT for our little princess goddaughter:woohoo:

so the ADR list is now:

Sept 16th - WCC for Blues birthday
Sept 18th - Spidey breakfast at Universal
Sept 19th - Biergarten supper
Sept 20th - adults off to Jellyrolls!
Sept 21st - Chef Mickeys supper
Sept 22nd - CRT lunch

as we're not on the dining plan we like to leave things open and not book too much so we can have flexibility and eat offsite as well when we want.

Finalised a couple of other things to:

booked tickets for the Florida Marlins home game Sept 11th
changed arrival date to Barbados to Sept 5th for a couple extra days R+R
ordered Blue's birthday cake - custom made Ben 10, from Orlando bakery.


All in all very happy, everything is booked, we have lots of free days to mooch around and the kids are totally excited to see the ball game as they're huge baseball fans.

roll on Sept 5th!!:banana::worship::cool1::woohoo::yay::cheer2:

[islandmum]

Today has been spent making the first draft of our mammouth shopping list! As most of you know from the previous TR we hit the states no only for vacation but also to do a years worth of shooping as the island we live on has no shops apart from 3 small food stores. We rely on one yearly shop to buy all our living stuff and have to buy multiples of alot of stuff (like tweezers for example) so incase it breaks or gets lost we have another - so heres my first list ....

Toyr R US / Walmart / DTD Star Wars store:
All toys and games for Christmas for the boys, and extra toys for a few other friends back home

Walmart / Publix / Target:
a years supply of:
shampoo
makeup and makeup tools
sunlotion
razor blades
toothpastes
toothbrushes
medecines
wrapping paper
birthday cards
kids and adults belts, underwear, chino's
alot of boxed/jar foods (brownie mixes, pasta packets, herbs, sauces, etc etc)
kitchen utensils

Millenia / Florida Malls / Premium Outlets
clothes, shoes, swimmers etc for a year.


From last years haul I'm budgeting on a bulk load of approx:
60 - 70 t-shirts / polo shirts
30 pairs shorts
25+ pairs jeans and chino's
20+ pairs of shoes, sneakers, flip flops
32 packs underpants
60 pairs socks
18 belts
20 pairs swim shorts, 10 bikini sets
25 bottles sun lotion
15 bottles moisturiser
+ all the other mentioned above!

with the kids growing plus the climate here clothes dont have the longest life so we get through quite a lot quickly.

UPS is our friend :thumbsup2 and we should have 3 or 4 good size large boxes for them to deliver to our container port drop off in Miami ready to be shipped home to us.

[Pegasus928]

I can't believe that shopping list. :scared1:
Never again will I stare on in frustration as my DW spends time in Walmart shopping for our DD and comes out with half a dozen outfits. I feel like I'm getting away lightly now.

[islandmum]

its down to 45 days till departure for Barbados on the first leg of the trip and amongst packing up some winterish clothes for the UK park of the vacation we also have stuff I've ordered from the US coming in ready for us to take:

One of our carry ons has a tear in it so ordered a new one -
carry on (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B001J9TFLQ/ref=dp_otherviews_z_0_MAIN?)

just arrived for the beloved are 6 Made to Measure shirts from M&S which my folks sent out for us - he's just a tad on the short side but very broad built so finding shirts that fit his chest and yet have short arms is impossible unless you get them made and M&S does them really well. He likes to wear his jeans with a nice crisp shirt so I make sure they are ones that fit properly!

The boys are baseball mad so they each got delivered 3 baseball jerseys which they love from their favourite teams and I had a little splurge and have had a couple of pairs of JCrew jeans sent over.

The winterish clothes for the UK I ordered much earlier in the year as DH's dad came out and brought them with him so we have a good collection of rugger shirts and fleeces for the boys as they will freeze in the UK - we dont ever drop below 25 degrees here.

My new Virgin Atlantic Black credit card arrived in the UK this week so I'm also keen to get my hands on that for the spending in the US to rack up lots of airmiles - so our friends are picking it up from my folks place and bringing it to us where I can begin the shopping armed with it.

Luckily someone here posted pics of the No.1 Lounge where due to the Virgin Clubhouse closure we will be having brekkie the morning we leave the UK to come back home and it looks very nice, not as fun and funky as the clubhouse, less luxuries, but the view over the runway looks nice and I'm sure it will be very comfortable.

Everything is now paid and booked for the trip, we'll do Disney online checkin for the rooms when we get there, car hire is all paid, our friends will be busy stocking the fridge for our arrival into Miami, the Orlando villa is done and paid, seats are booked on all the flights ..... we are ready to go ....

[natalielongstaff]

:rotfl: I bet many a hubbie can relate to that.

mine can :lmao:


Everything is now paid and booked for the trip, we'll do Disney online checkin for the rooms when we get there, car hire is all paid, our friends will be busy stocking the fridge for our arrival into Miami, the Orlando villa is done and paid, seats are booked on all the flights ..... we are ready to go ....

:thumbsup2 nice one !

[islandmum]

I can't believe that shopping list. :scared1:
Never again will I stare on in frustration as my DW spends time in Walmart shopping for our DD and comes out with half a dozen outfits. I feel like I'm getting away lightly now.

see - you've got a good wife there ..... imagine being the bag carrier for me at the shops :scared1::laughing:

[islandmum]

a week to go - next weekend we're officially outta here!

Everything is done, including all the packing, barr the dh's suit carrier and contents.

so near and yet so far ......