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Old 08-08-2009, 10:59 AM   #1
T16GEM
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Gems Pre Trippie for Jan 2010! ***Updated page 5***

Cast Members
Introductions and a few pictures, always easier to get on if you can put a name with a face!
Me - Gem 28 (29 by then ) Disney Addict
DH - Matt 33 Loves thrill rides and American Portions!
DD - Shelby 4 Minnie Addict
DS - Harley 2 Buzz Addict

This is me and DD


This is DS


This is DH on Small World (I think) with the kids on our last trip


BFF - Lou 26 Her secret fantasy is Buzz!
Dh's BFF - Terry 29 Pluto Addict
This is Terry and Lou at MK just after he popped the question under the Castle, many tears were shed by me, might I add!



What's the Plan?

A bit of background for this trip..

We had always thought that when I was pregnant with DS that we wouldn't be able to go to the Happiest Place on Earth again until 2010 mainly because of the children being so young and us being scared of flying with them!

The urge got the better of us though when we had taken DD to portugal and found that actually it wasn't that bad - she was 6 months at the time! Maybe we were trying to convince ourselves that travelling with two kids would be a breeze but anyway we booked to go on Christmas Day 2007 for three weeks, with my mom and dad and Terry and Louthe flight was ok, and we all survived.

This was to be the start of the kids holidays to WDW and this one will be their third as last October DH decided to surprise me for our 5th wedding anniversary with a two week last minute trip flying out on the 30th Jan. I was gob smaked!! Again we had such a fantastic time and it was much easier with the kids being that little bit older, there was so much more that they could do.

By the point that we returned Lou was desperate to return and we collectively decided that January 10 would be the best time to go.

Terry and Lou are getting married on the 5th September and are having a honeymoon in Cyprus, but are using the WDW trip as a 2nd honeymoon, therefore not wanting to cramp their style we are planning to rent two cars, enabling us to do things together or split off and they can do slushy romantic stuff while we are doing lots of crazy kid friendly things!

Starting to plan.

So now that we knew when we were going it was time to decide where we were going!

Feb 09
We knew that we would be flying from Birmingham indirect via Newark as there are no airlines that fly direct from BHX. It's a bummer, but as we all live 10 minutes from the airport and listen to it every single day of the year we are certainly going to take advantage of it being on the door step!

We started looking for flights booking direct with Continental, but they were coming out a bit expensive. We decided to wait a while and see whether the flight fluctuated at all. They didn't. However, one night I was browsing the Dis and WayneG had posted about the American Airlines Winter Sale, so I started having a look at them and then DH (on the other computer) started browsing Continetals fares on NetFlights as he had just received an email from them. The price was amazing! £249 plus taxes!!!!!!!! I did a twirl around the lounge at this point It was nearly midnight and there was no way that we could phone Terry at that time as they would have been snoring away! So we retired to bed and hoped that the price was still the same in the morning......

IT WAS!! So we booked. Inc taxes we paid £2009 for 4 adults and 2 kids seats.

So we fly out on the 4th January at 9am, Connect at Newark at 15.00 and finally land into Orlando at 18.01 - another long day
We return 25th January at 13.50 and connect at Newark at 19.00 finally getting home at 06.55. - yet another long day - not so bad coming home though!

Accomodation.

We had looked at a few villas and one particular one had caught our eye, we liked it because it's on a development where we stayed in 2007 and DH and I have also stayed there on numerous occasions BC (before children!) we like the location and it's handy for Chilis, Walmart and Sizzler and Ponderosa - all of which we like to frequent when we are there!

We had reserved the villa for 10 days while we finalised our flight plans and the owner was fantastic and very kind waiting for us to sort everything out before we made our firm booking. We paid our deposit and our balance is due on 24th October I think.

When DH and I went on our anniversary trip this year we stayed at the Best Western Lakeside, it was fine but we are so used to having the amenities of a villa, just simple things like the kids having their own room makes all the difference. We couldn't get the kids to go to bed without us going too so that was a bit of a nightmare, we are looking forward to being able to relax by the pool with a beer after they have gone to bed!

This is "our" villa!













Our Wish List for this Trip

No doubt I will add to this as we go along but this is what I can think of at the moment and from looking at my planning journal.

On our 2004 honeymoon trip DH and I took a bit of a road trip from Orlando to Miami and then down to the keys, we quite fancy taking the kids to Miami for a few days just to have a sit on the beach and a rest from the long days in the theme parks. I was thinking that we may do this toward the end of the holiday so that we are rested to come home? What do you think?
If we are going to do this I need to firm up the dates and book a couple of nights stop over, as I would rather not drive back from Miami all in one day.

I think Terry and Lou are keen on going to the keys as they have never been before so we will probably split up for a couple of days while they do that and we return to Orlando.

Harley is turning 3 on the 16th January too, so we will be doing a character breakfast for his special day. I had started thinking about CP but our kids aren't really big Pooh fans, they prefer Minnie and Mickey so we will be doing Chef Mickeys I have my phone and Outlook reminder set to tell me when it's my 90 day window! I need to make sure that I get that ressie on the day!!! As Harley is Terry and Lou's god son they will definatly be joining us for napkin twirling and Mickey Waffles!

I would love to see the gingerbread house at the GF, I;m just worried that DS might try and eat it!

Theme Parks

We are planning on doing days (notice how I said days plural )
at the following parks.

Magic Kingdom - at least 3 days
Epcot - at least 2 days
MGM (yes I know it's DHS now but whatever!!) at least 2 days
Animal Kingdom - at least 1 day
Universal Studios - at least 2 days
Islands of Adventure - at least 2 days
Busch Gardens - at least 1 day
Sea World - at least 2 days

And which ever of the two Disney Water parks is open - I'm thinking this year it will be Typhoon Lagoon as it was Blizzard Beach that was open for Winter last year?

We are planning on buying the 21 day Ultimate ticket and the Flex Plus. I'm currently monitoring the prices via the thread on the UK Trip Planning boards and with the $$ rising by the day I think we should be able to get a pretty good deal. I won't buy my tickets until I am absolutly sure that they are a good price. We used Attraction Tickets Direct last time, but there are some great prices coming about from other places now so we shall see!

Well that's about it for now folks, I am going to go and do some work! the joys of working ina shop on a sunny saturday in August - no customers!

Hope I didn't go on too much!
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Last edited by T16GEM; 12-30-2009 at 06:32 AM.
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Old 08-08-2009, 12:46 PM   #2
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Sounds like a great trip planned Gem. The villa looks lovely.
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Old 08-08-2009, 02:19 PM   #3
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your plans sound great and a little mini trip to Miami sounds like a great adventure.

your villa - wow!
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Old 08-08-2009, 02:43 PM   #4
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Your plans sound fab Gems. The villa looks lovely.

I found Miami beach very surreal, almost like being on a tv set. I think you could either do it at the end to relax like you say or maybe in the middle to give you a half way rest & recharge your batteries.
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Old 08-08-2009, 03:19 PM   #5
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sounds awesome Gems! Love reading about your trippie! I want to sneak out to FL to meet you so bad! Stupid 3,000 miles...
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Old 08-09-2009, 06:08 AM   #6
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I love the look of the pool area at 'your' villa. It's the first thing I always look for when deciding which villa to book - if it is too overlooked or is surrounded by a prison style fence it is off the list. Yours looks perfect.
Hope you get your park tickets at a good price
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Old 08-09-2009, 08:45 AM   #7
T16GEM
I must have a funnel cake when I'm in Florida!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pegasus928 View Post
I love the look of the pool area at 'your' villa. It's the first thing I always look for when deciding which villa to book - if it is too overlooked or is surrounded by a prison style fence it is off the list. Yours looks perfect.
Hope you get your park tickets at a good price
Yes, exactly why we went with it, stayed at the same development in 2007 so we know that the lake is really nice to look out on, plus the wildlife there is great too - yet to see a gator though

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alice28 View Post
sounds awesome Gems! Love reading about your trippie! I want to sneak out to FL to meet you so bad! Stupid 3,000 miles...
Yes but we may actually get to chat online one day while we are there without me having to stay up until 4am!


Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinky166 View Post
Your plans sound fab Gems. The villa looks lovely.

I found Miami beach very surreal, almost like being on a tv set. I think you could either do it at the end to relax like you say or maybe in the middle to give you a half way rest & recharge your batteries.
Yes I loved Miami, I thinkwe went to South Beach which was lovely but as you say very surreal! I think we will need to recharge our batteries after 3 weeks of Disney!

Stay tuned for my next installment.............
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Old 08-09-2009, 08:54 AM   #8
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Counting Down the Days

I thought it would be a fun way to countdown the days to go and also a nice craft activity for the winter days to make a big countdown for on the back of the kitchen door, I cut out all of the Mickey heads and stuck them in the right place and then the kids decorated it with their stickers and stuff......

Every Thursday (I'm not sure why every Thursday, it's just the way it worked out!) we cross off a Mickey Head - This week we crossed off 151 days to go!


Checking Our Height

DD is desperate to get on Soarin so we have been measuring her on the height chart that WayneG very kindly sent us from the Poly gift shop on his last trip. It's fantastic and tells you at which height the rides that the kids can go on now. Shelby is fighting for 40inches, and Harley has just passed over 35" so he can go on the Barnstormer - which he will love!!!!

Standing nice and straight to get maximum tallness!! Great practice for when the CMs measure them too as last year Harley really struggled to keep straight and kept going all wonky when he was measured!

These were taken today so hopefully by the time we measure in a month they will have notched up a bit more!





I need to be this big!


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Old 08-09-2009, 08:56 AM   #9
T16GEM
I must have a funnel cake when I'm in Florida!
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You may also be noticing a pattern that my son doesn't like wearing trousers! He doesn't seem to be wearing any in a lot of the pics!!!
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Old 08-09-2009, 01:31 PM   #10
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Great start Love the pics of the kids measuring themselves, hope Shelby gains those extra inches to take her up to 40!!
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Old 08-09-2009, 01:55 PM   #11
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Lovely photos of the kids, it is nice seeing them growing up as you do each of your trip reports.

Personally if planning a couple of days at the beach I think I would do it roughly in the middle of the holidays. Then you can come back refreshed for the final time in the parks, then go home and 'rest' then thats if you can with 2 kiddies. I have just been and I think it was by the 8th or 9th day I had had enough of theme parks and just wanted to escape for a day. We ended up doing shopping, mini golf, eating a meal, relaxing by the hotel pool and then did go into Sea World but just for shows so was okay for the day. We all really enjoyed this day.
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Old 08-09-2009, 02:36 PM   #12
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Oh my goodness- that last pic of Shelby- she looks SO BIG GIRL!!!! Wow!
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Old 08-10-2009, 02:44 AM   #13
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Great chart you've made with the children
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Old 08-10-2009, 05:51 AM   #14
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Your plans sound great, we fly out the same day too, Jan is such a lovely time to go
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Old 08-10-2009, 01:46 PM   #15
T16GEM
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Your plans sound great, we fly out the same day too, Jan is such a lovely time to go
Where are you flying from?
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