There's no place like home...my 2013 Trip Report! **Chapter 3 Update**

[newlittleminnie]

Ok, so here goes. I started a trip report last year and life just got in the way. But this year I'm determined to keep at it.

We haven't even ordered our Photopass CD but I need something to do to clear away these Disney blues, so I decided to start my trip report!

We haven't been back long, but I'm already feeling the withdrawal symptoms, so I'm wearing my Disney watch, I've painted my nails with my Disney Princess Nail Polish, and I'm going to re-live my trip with all of you lovely people

I'm hoping to get my first update done tonight and I'll add the photos in as soon as I can

Chapter Links:
Chapter 1: Introductions
Chapter 2: Travelling
Chapter 3: Our Villa

 

[irongirlof12]

bring it on I need my disney fix.

 

[Tinkerbell1989]

Ok, so here goes. I started a trip report last year and life just got in the way. But this year I'm determined to keep at it.

I haven't got all my photos sorted yet, and we haven't even ordered our Photopass CD but I need something to do to clear away these Disney blues, so I decided to start my trip report!

I'm hoping to get my first update done tonight and I'll add the photos in as soon as I can

Chapter Links:

Yes Louise!! Very excited to be onboard and live vicariously for a while xx

 

[newlittleminnie]

bring it on I need my disney fix.

Yes Louise!! Very excited to be onboard and live vicariously for a while xx

Nice to have you both here!

So excited to start this TR, it's going to be quite fast paced as I want to get it done in time to do a Pre-Trip for Disneyland Paris in October.

First update coming soon!

 

[westgrove]

I'll be reading

 

[Tony Bush]

looking forward to reading them, just love trip reports !

Tony

 

[newlittleminnie]

I'll be reading

looking forward to reading them, just love trip reports !

Tony

Welcome both! Finally feeling caught up on my sleep so raring to get going tonight

 

[wiigirl]

Following along.

 

[newlittleminnie]

So as I said in the first post I'll have to come back and add photos in later but I'm still going to give you some introductions and the basic details of our trip!

Me: Louise
Age: 23
Loves: reading, dancing, roller coasters and art.

DBF: Richard
Age: 22
Loves: football, gaming, music and roller coasters.

We've been together almost 3 years now and are still very much 'loved up' lol Luckily, he shares my love of all things Disney, and if it wasn't for him I would probably have never been to Florida. For those of you who don't know, this is us:



We also went with Richard's family (I'll post a photo of all of us when we get our Photopass CD): his gran and granda, his mam and dad, and his two younger brothers (17 and 11). This was their 6th Florida holiday, and they've also been to Disneyland once and Disneyland Paris about five times. However this was only my second Florida visit, my first was last August.

This year we were going a little earlier due to work commitments so our dates were from July 27th to August 10th. We hired a 12 seater car and as there was 8 of us we stayed in a villa offsite. We had 14 day tickets for Walt Disney World and Universal, and a 1 day ticket to SeaWorld.

I can't really tell you much about the pricing as I wasn't involved in the planning/booking (a killer for a planner like me!) but I can tell you I paid around £1600 and it covered the following:
- Flights with Virgin from Glasgow and villa in High Grove for 2 weeks
- 14 day tickets to WDW and Universl, and 1 Day to Seaworld
- Hire car for the 2 week
- Travel insurance
- Minibus to and from the airport

We aren't commando types, we don't go for rope drop and we don't have a plan. We do take certain things like park hours into consideration, but we don't plan the next day until the night before (that will be a shocker to some of you I know ) We like to have a 'rest day' around the middle of the holiday, and this year SeaWorld would be somewhere in the middle as we were only doing one day. That's pretty much our whole plan, apart from (of course) starting and ending the holiday in MK!

I think that pretty much covers the basics so I'll be back tomorrow with a run down of our first day. In the mean time if anyone has questions or comments please feel free!

 

[newlittleminnie]

Following along.

Welcome hope you enjoy!

 

[newlittleminnie]

This is probably the worst part of a Florida holiday for me. Not only is there a 9 hour flight, but there's also the 3 hour wait at the airport, the 2 hours journey to the airport, and the fact that I find it impossible to sleep on planes

I was spending the night at Richard's before we flew as we had to be up early in the morning, so I arrived at Richard's around 11pm and was tucked into my sleeping bag by midnight! I won't bore you with the travelling details as I find them pretty boring myself lol but we left Richard's at 6pm (we'd booked a minibus to take us to the airport) and had a very quick and easy journey, arriving at Glasgow at the perfect time as there was NO queue for Virgin economy check in!

We flew from Glasgow last year too so we were comfortable enough that we could just wander through the airport and relax for a couple of hours before heading to our gate. Again, the journey went very smoothly, no problems with boarding and we actually got the seats we pre-selected! (we weren't as lucky on the way home unfortunately) We have never had any major problems with Virgin and in our experience the staff are always helpful and friendly, the meals are the best I've ever had on a flight (although that might not be saying much ) and the IFE is excellent! In case you don'd know what a plane looks like, I'll provide you with a photo.... :rofl:



We landed in Orlando at around 3:30pm FL time and proceeded to the part I dread most. I didn't have a very good experience with passport control (or whatever it's called) on my first visit to Florida last year. The gentleman who I was seen by seemed much more strict than the others I could hear around me and he didn't seem to like the fact that it was my first visit to America (isn't it everyone's first visit at some point though? lol) he grilled me about where we would be staying and got annoyed by the fact that I couldn't give him a specific address - we were staying at Highland's reserve last year so wouldn't have an address until we got to the welcome centre, he also didn't seem to understand that I was travelling with my boyfriend's family and kept asking me why I was travelling on my own. Luckily this time went much smoother, the gentleman was very pleasant, and I was through in a matter of seconds!

Getting our luggage only took minutes and although we had to wait around an hour and a half for our hire care to be ready, when we finally got it we were very happy with it and left the airport to find High Grove. Only a short amount of time later we found it, and that is when we started to get suspicious.....so far on our journey not one single thing had gone wrong, everything had gone on time, ran smoothly, no injuries or illness.....surely it was too good to be true...?

And would you believe it, when we found 'our' villa, there was already a car parked in the driveway......

So Richard's dad knocked on the door, went inside, came back out a few minutes later and told us.....

There were already people in our villa.....and they were going to be there for another week!

So obviously, we panicked, and worried, and fretted, for a good ten minutes while he went inside to use the phone and try and sort everything out. It turned out we'd been given the wrong address for our villa (still don't know how that happened) and ours was in a different section of High Grove. We found it easily enough though and were very happy with it! Florida villas definitely spoil me as both of the ones we have stayed in have been huge, beautifully decorated, and immaculately clean.

And here it is.....



I could definitely get used to that! I'll give you a tour in the next update

 

[Linda67]

Joining in
Wow, that must have been a scary moment when you found people in 'your' villa!
Glad it all got sorted out quickly

 

[newlittleminnie]

Joining in
Wow, that must have been a scary moment when you found people in 'your' villa!
Glad it all got sorted out quickly

It was quite scary, we were all on our phones trying to find nearby hotels in case they didn't have another villa for us! With their being 8 of us it was worrying thinking of trying to find enough hotel rooms on such short notice

The woman who booked our villa was lovely though and came round to see us about 20 minutes later to make sure everything was ok, and she was very apologetic.

 

[newlittleminnie]

In my last update, I said I would give you a little tour of our villa, so here it is! It was incredible and definitely worth the money that we paid for it, situated really close to Disney, Universal and SeaWorld and in a great area. I loved it and would definitely go back again!



We'll start downstairs with the two lounges, each had 2 sofas, a coffee table and a small table and chairs; one of which we used for a small celebration during the middle of our stay. Only one of the lounges had a TV so we used this one most for watching the news and such while we had our breakfast. The kitchen was in between the two lounges which was great and had plenty of storage for our yummy USA treats!









Next is the pool and games room. The games room was in the garage and had a pool table, ping pong table and football table. This is how I learned I am definitely not a good ping pong player, but I blame my bad eyesight! The pool was bigger than the one we had last year, and had the advantage of a small spa pool. However the only downside, was that it looked onto our neighbours pools, so if they had all been occupied i think it would have felt a little claustrophobic.





The villa had 3 and a half bathrooms, the half was downstairs and one of the full ones was an en suite off the master bedroom. Believe me, with 8 of us we needed all those bathrooms!





Then there's the 5 bedrooms, 3 doubles and two twins. All decorated slightly differently but all really nice. Ours is unfortunately the darkest of the photos as the light was always coming right through the window as we looked out onto the pool.











All in all we really liked our villa and I would definitely stay there again! I'll leave you with a couple of scenic shots, and I'll be back soon with the next update

 

[Tinkerbell1989]

Wow, the place looks amazing! X

 

[newlittleminnie]

Wow, the place looks amazing! X

Thanks, it really was, would love to stay there again x

 

[maryr1oz]

Really enjoying your report!

 

[newlittleminnie]

Really enjoying your report!

Thank you I'm hoping to get another update done tonight! You know how life likes to get in the way lol

 

[wicket2005]

Nice holiday report.

 

[princess_ariel_85]

Love trip report so far, the villa looks wonderful.

Can't wait to hear more x