Sept PTR with Princess Glitter and family

[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

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 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.

.

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.

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

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!!

 

[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 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.
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

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]

I bet many a hubbie can relate to that.

mine can

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 ....

nice one !

 

[islandmum]

I can't believe that shopping list.
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

 

[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 ......