Pre-Trip Report....Can't wait to go 'home' again!

[DopeyforDonald]

Every time I start a Pre-Trip something always gets in the way so this time I'm going to keep it simple.

Introduction
There's just me and my fiancé on our trips, I'm 24 and he's 23 and we both LOVE anything and everything Florida. We constantly debate with taking our holidays elsewhere but we can never seem to convince ourselves to go anywhere else.....and why should we?

We were last there in October 2014 when he made me the happiest girl in the world and asked me to marry him at the wishing well next to Cinderella Castle....best night of my life! This is us there in October:

We had an amazing time staying at Art of Animation for 9 nights, taking in MNSSHP and Halloween Horror Nights at Universal. We were already planning the next trip on our way home and now it's getting so close!

I'm not sure if people are interested in pricing or what we have paid but in case it is useful to anyone I will include prices of what we have booked and keep a running total of the holiday cost at the end of each post....

We have booked a flights and hotel package through Disney.
Flying Virgin from Manchester to MCO on June 20th for 9 nights staying at Art of Animation again.
This cost us a total of £2246.56
It might not be everyone's cup of tea but for us Art of Animation just feels like home

We've also paid the extra £100 to pre-book our seats and have managed to get a 2 seat at the back of the plane which is what we were hoping for....as the seat configuration has 3 down the sides when it reduces to 2 at the very back it feels like you have that bit more room and I'm a little claustrophobic so it is great for me.

We already bought annual passes for both Disney and Universal in October as we knew we'd be back within the 12 month. Knowing our tickets are already taken care of makes the trip feel that bit less expensive this year.

Flights and hotel: £2246.56
Seat booking: £100
Total cost so far: £2346.56

Feel free to drop in and say hi

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

I'm here to say "Hi"

Hope you don't mind me being along for the trip. We go in July so I will look forward to hearing all about your trip.

 

[DopeyforDonald]

I'm here to say "Hi"

Hope you don't mind me being along for the trip. We go in July so I will look forward to hearing all about your trip.

Hi there! I don't mind at all, one of the best parts of the boards is meeting new people

We went in July a couple of years ago and the weather was beautiful, not quite up to the burning temps of august but a lovely change from UK weather haha

How is your planning coming along?

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

Well we have flights booked and 4 nights at CSR followed by 16 nights offsite. It's about 10 years since we went in school holidays so I can't remember how hoof or bad the heat will be! We try to go at Christmas or October. I have a few ADRs booked and will eat offsite in the main. We are taking our nephew for his first visit, so it will be interesting to see how he likes it.

 

[DopeyforDonald]

Well we have flights booked and 4 nights at CSR followed by 16 nights offsite. It's about 10 years since we went in school holidays so I can't remember how hoof or bad the heat will be! We try to go at Christmas or October. I have a few ADRs booked and will eat offsite in the main. We are taking our nephew for his first visit, so it will be interesting to see how he likes it.

Oh that's so exciting taking someone for their first visit! It was only a few years ago that I was the one being taken for my first visit haha We're mainly breakfast people so only have a few ADRs booked too. We were restricted to school holidays the last few years as we went with my fiance's family and he has younger brothers. In october last year and now in June it's just the two of us so we get to avoid the crowds and heat

 

[DopeyforDonald]

Let's Talk Food!

One of the things I love most about Florida is the food, even the food which in the UK would be considered 'fast food' is so much nicer across the pond! Until last year we had never done any ADR's. We travelled in a big group with my fiance's family and always ate at quick service locations as there was always something for everyone, with a few of us being picky eaters. However last year when it was just him and me, we decided to give a few ADR's a go, especially because we loved the idea of eating in Beast's Castle!

Last year we ate at Crystal Palace (Breakfast), Akershus (Lunch), Be Our Guest (Dinner) and Tusker House (Lunch)

A brief overview on our opinions of those would be:
Crystal Palace and Tusker House - brilliant, couldn't fault the variety of options at the breakfast buffets and the character interaction was brilliant
Be Our Guest - while the food was great (especially the cupcakes and the grey stuff!) we really aren't big dinner people, we'd much rather grab something quick and be out and about in the parks. We are so glad we did it though as the detailing in Be Our Guest in Amazing. Meeting Beast was reason enough to have an ADR there.
Akershus - I can see why this would appeal to a lot of people with the princess interaction, but for us, they seemed less interested in us because we didn't have any children with us I assume (maybe the princesses were having a bad day?) and the food for us was not the sort we enjoyed, especially for the price!

As you can see we realised we are much more breakfast people so this year thats what we're doing! We have breakfasts booked at:
Crystal Palace
Tusker House
Cinderella's Royal Table

We only have the 3 as we're only going for 10 days and 3 of those will be spent at Universal. Our Epcot day we're going to grab a quick breakfast at Sunshine Seasons and we're debating about breakfast at Hollywood and Vine for Hollywood Studios?

Does anyone have any opinions on Hollywood and Vine when we aren't really interested in the Disney Junior characters?

We'ev prepaid for Cinderella's Royal Table obviously so the running total is now:
Total so far: £2346.56
CRT (inc. bank fees): £78.28
Total Cost so far: £2424.84

 

[bex7583]

have you tried ohana for breakfast its lovely and has stitch and other characters you dont always see in the park , its in the polynesian resort but just a quick ride from mk on the monorail

 

[DopeyforDonald]

have you tried ohana for breakfast its lovely and has stitch and other characters you dont always see in the park , its in the polynesian resort but just a quick ride from mk on the monorail

To be honest it never even crossed our mind to look at resort dining.....so thank you for the suggestion! I've heard a lot of good reviews about Ohana so it might be something to look into

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

I agree the resorts are good to go to, Kona cafe is good for breakfast, especially Tonga toast This year we are eating breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. Although nowadays I like eating offsite. The Ale House was our favourite last time, we all enjoyed the atmosphere and DD and DH the ribs! The drinks menu isn't bad too!!

Hope you enjoy CRT, it's been a few years since we have been. We even went for our Christmas Day dinner one year there which was pretty special.

 

[DopeyforDonald]

I agree the resorts are good to go to, Kona cafe is good for breakfast, especially Tonga toast This year we are eating breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. Although nowadays I like eating offsite. The Ale House was our favourite last time, we all enjoyed the atmosphere and DD and DH the ribs! The drinks menu isn't bad too!!

Hope you enjoy CRT, it's been a few years since we have been. We even went for our Christmas Day dinner one year there which was pretty special.

I think when we're planning our next trip we'll look at some resort dining, don't wanna start missing about with this trips plan now! haha

we've heard some great reviews for offsite locations but we rely on the disney buses so we'd have to pay for buses or taxis to anywhere we wanted to try, and we aren't that adventurous yet lol

I'm a bit undecided about CRT at the minute, I've heard mixed opinions of it but im trying to keep an open mind for now

 

[jothp]

Hi, I've just been reading your plans. They look lovely - I really wish we had the option to go out of school holidays but that isn't going to happen anytime soon! We have got ADRs at CRT and Crystal Palace too so I look forward to hearing about those, hopefully you will find Crystal Palace as good as last time.

 

[DopeyforDonald]

Hi, I've just been reading your plans. They look lovely - I really wish we had the option to go out of school holidays but that isn't going to happen anytime soon! We have got ADRs at CRT and Crystal Palace too so I look forward to hearing about those, hopefully you will find Crystal Palace as good as last time.

The day you can finally go out of school holidays will be the day you start wishing your girls were still young enough that you couldnt! haha

I'll make sure to post some reviews when I get back for anyone going to the same places after us

 

[jothp]

The day you can finally go out of school holidays will be the day you start wishing your girls were still young enough that you couldnt! haha

I'll make sure to post some reviews when I get back for anyone going to the same places after us

Thanks for the reviews. You're right about the girls - I already wish they weren't growing up so quickly!

 

[DopeyforDonald]

Our Plans

So in preparation of our 60 day window for FP+ we've been talking about what plans we want to make for each day, which park we want to go to etc and I thought I'd share our plans with you.

We're doing the 4 Disney parks and both Universal parks. We aren't really park hoppers so our plans may seem a bit ordinary to some of you lol

Saturday 20th - Flights from Manchester, Magical express to Art of Animation, Night in Magic King because at the moment it's open until midnight plus 2 hours of extra magic hours
Sunday 21st - Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure (using a taxi from Art of Animation because it was so easy last time)
Monday 22nd - Hollywood Studios all day with a mid day break at the hotel, breakfast reservation at Hollywood and Vine (still a bit tentative on this one)
Tuesday 23rd - Animal Kingdom until about 4pm, breakfast reservation at Tusker House, evening at Downtown Disney
Wednesday 24th - Universal Studios/Island of Adventure, onto City Walk afterwards
Thursday 25th - Full day at Magic Kingdom with a mid day break at the hotel, breakfast reservation at Cinderellas Royal Table
Friday 26th - Full day at Epcot with mid day break at the hotel, will be trying some drinks around the world showcase again like we did during Food and Wine!
Saturday 27th - Last full day at Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure, then onto CityWalk
Sunday 28th - Last full day at Magic Kingdom with mid day break at hotel, breakfast reservation at Crystal Palace
Monday 29th - Departure day, spend time around the hotel, buy any last bits we want etc then get Magical Express back to the airport to come home

We hope to spend more time in the pool this time as we didn't get chance in October, plus we have our new Go Pro 4 to test out in the water!

Now we have our days in order (hopefully!) we can start properly deciding on fast passes! I'd love an Anna and Elsa fastpass but I just can't get up early enough and they'll probably be gone in seconds. If we have to queue it then we queue it lol

 

[DopeyforDonald]

So now that we're into double digits we've decided to start buying the little extras we need to buy for the trip. I say little, they're actually quite expensive, but little in comparison to the trip itself lol So we've ordered our Universal photo connect card and our Universal Express Passes.

We debated with both for a while, for a couple of reasons....

Express passes we couldn't decide whether to buy the regular ones which can only be used once on each ride, or the unlimited ones which (self explanatory) can be used unlimited times. We ended up plumping for the unlimited one as it was better value for money being only $10 more each than the regular one. We've got them to cover both parks but only for our last day at Universal. If we have spare money nearer the time we may buy them for others days but probably not.

The Photo Connect card was a bit of an odd one. We used it last year and got some good photos, but they were mainly ride photos as we've never come across many photographers in the parks. We decided to go for it and we bought the annual pass one as for some reason it was 5p cheaper than the 14 day one? every penny counts right?

The trip is starting to feel a lot closer now we're buying and booking things. Next up will be our airport hotel as at the minute it's at a really god price and we can get 4% cashback

Total so far: £2424.84
Universal Express Passes (inc. bank fees): £149.68
Universal Photo Connect (inc. bank fees) £58.73
Total Cost so far: £2633.25