welllll i've held off long enough heres the trip planning thread

[rhysd2]

Yep here it is. been running it through in my head but thinking i'll stick it down on paper so to speak to help me plan it better and to get some input from others

been holding off on writing this for ages as im really really in need of the holiday and thinking writing this till soon will frustrate me as theres still ages left to go. also figuring this might cheer me up a bit with so many days left to go heh.

soooo here goes.

oct 30th: arrive late afternoon. grab supplies from the gas station just down the road(cheetos, mnt dew ) and wander around i drive for a bit. have some dinner and snag some popeyes on the way back to the room
stay up til midnight to help bodies adjust to time zone.

october 31st get up semi late. head to perkins for brekfast. maybe hit the pool for a bit. mid day ish head to univeral. grab dinner in finnegans late afternoon and filter into stay and screm area for HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHT
really looking forward to this.

november 1st: get up early. maybe snag brekfast in the room and head to mgm. fantasmic show

november 2nd: wifes bday. brekfast in bed. wet n wild in the morning. shopping in the afternoon(florida mall and maybe premium outlets depending on time). jimmy buffets at city walk in the evening.

november 3rd: sleep in late due to previous nights alcohol

then probably head to universal or islands of adventure around mid day depending on hangover.

November 4th: Magic kingdrom including firework show at night.

november 5th seaworld

november 6th semi rest day. disneyquest, house of blues, cirque de solei(downtown disney in general.

november 7th islands of adventure/universal

november 8th epcot, evening fireworks show

november 9th animal kingdom followed by typhoon lagoon. or vice versa

november 10th universal/ IOA or sea world or both

november 11th repeat favourite disney park or universal/IOA

november 12th premium outlets/belz and maybe some universal/IoA

november 13th store luggage somewhere safe. maybe hit universal up one last time as we dont fly out till 18:20 so probably wont be picked up til around 2pm ish.
Fly home

where we shop etc is fairly up in the air as we'll just play it by ear depending on the time of day we go and which we're closer too. and what we're shopping for.

reason for so much universal is 1. i prefer the universal rides/parks and 2. i have 14 day universal tickets but only about 5 or 6 days each of disney tickets heh. so pretty much whenever we have a bit of time free we'll probably pop into one of the universal parks or sea world.

where we eat etc will depend on our mood that night though i intend to do mythos, house of blues, and the various city walk ones like hard rock, jimmy buffets etc.

so there it is. i've been twice before so got a good idea what to skip and times of the day to go etc but my minds fried after a horrific 4 days at work so please offer advice. think i have the rest days pretty spaced though and the later part of the holiday we wont be spending all day in universal etc. just picking out favourite rides to do again.

 

[Miffy2003]

I think it looks good Rhys

The only little thing I would say is your Animal Kingdom / Typhoon Lagoon day - if you do TL first then you may not see much of AK at all due to closing time - but you may know this already and be happy about it.

 

[rhysd2]

yea. after i wrote it i thought that animal kingdom would be better first thing due to the animals being more awake etc.

to be honest i'd rather avoid AK as i dont think much of the place but the tree of lifes worth seeing so we'll probably go, see the few attractions there are and catch a internal bus to TL.

 

[Madjock]

Sounds good. Its nice once you’ve been a few times and you no longer feel the need to do it commando style.

Notice your countdown mentions its your honeymoon! when are you getting married?

Annmarie

 

[rhysd2]

we were actually married march 27th this year. but due to the government stiffing us for visas etc we had to save up and wait for the honey moon. i havent really bored you all yet with the full story so i guess i'll post it here.

My wife jessica is from minnesota in the US. after moving her over here we found out the proper route to take to have her here as a legal resident.

first thing we had to do was travel to the nearest brittish consultate to her home state. this was chicago. so we had to pay to fly to chicago. stay in chicago. plus food etc then pay £300 for a fiancee visa.

then once we traveled back to england we had 6 months to get married. so in under 6 months we planned, paid for, and executed a wedding, mostly from our own pocket(bearing in mind at this time she wasnt working either as you cant work till your a resident)

then we got married march 27th. great great day. thourghaly enjoyed it.

then within 2 months of the wedding we had to travel to sollihull(sp?) in birmingham to pay another £300 to get the resident visa.

so basically within a 8 month period we paid for £600 in visas. a trip to chicago. and a wedding. which needless to say left us rather broke!!!

We had a choice of a cheap 2 week break to spain or europe or wait and save for something special. we opted to go over the wifes birthday on november 2nd. and first of all opted for the carribean but we are people who dont really like lying around doing nothing just tanning so we changed our minds and headed for florida(after persuassion from my old boss who had just come back and showed us his snaps and videos)

phew so there ya have it. thats why we've had to wait for so long. hope that wasnt to boring a read.

i tell yas we can go to war with them but its easier to hop on the back of a lorry at calais than it is for her to live here legally.

 

[kazzie]

Wow after all you've been through you both deserve a holiday

Your itinerary looks great,a bit too much theme parks for me but I'm in the minority on that one!

 

[rhysd2]

Saturday oct 30th: arrive late afternoon. grab supplies from the gas station just down the road(cheetos, mnt dew ) and wander around i drive for a bit. have some dinner(maybe charleys steakhouse? to start things off with a BANG) and snag some popeyes on the way back to the room stay up til midnight to help bodies adjust to time zone.

Sunday october 31st get up semi late. head to perkins for brekfast. head to univeral. grab dinner in finnegans late afternoon and filter into stay and screm area for HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHT
really looking forward to this.

Monday november 1st: get up early. maybe snag brekfast in the room and head to mgm. fantasmic show

Tuesday november 2nd: wifes bday. brekfast in bed. wet n wild in the morning. shopping in the afternoon(florida mall and maybe premium outlets depending on time). jimmy buffets at city walk in the evening.

Wednesday november 3rd: sleep in late due to previous nights alcohol then head to islands of adventure around mid day depending on hangover. Eat at hard rock or maybe somewhere else on city walk.

Thursday November 4th: Magic kingdrom including firework show at night. eat in the italian place just off main street.

Friday november 5th seaworld

Saturday november 6th semi rest day. disneyquest, house of blues for dinner

Sunday november 7th Universal/IOA, Possibly eat at mythos

Monday november 8th epcot, evening fireworks show

Tuesday november 9th animal kingdom followed by typhoon lagoon.

Wednesday november 10th universal/ IOA or sea world or both

Thursday november 11th IOA/Universal

Friday november 12th premium outlets/belz(depending on if we've found all we need at premium/florida mall) and maybe some universal/IoA

Saturday november 13th store luggage somewhere safe. maybe hit universal up one last time as we dont fly out till 18:20 so probably wont be picked up til around 2pm ish.
Fly home



Made some slight modifications to it based on your inputs also scribbled out cirque de solei as im not desperatly keen on going and after seeing the price Jessica isnt to sure about it.

as for the belz bit, not sure if we will have all we want after visiting the premium outlets and florida mall so penciling it in there just in case we want to go. Or maybe i could pencil it in on a day we're in universal. light shopping in the morning. universal in the afternoon perhaps.

 

[fizz13]

Congratulations and please enjoy your holiday. It sounds like you really deserve it!. As for the plan, it looks good to me. If it was my birthday I think this would be about perfect for me; shopping, water slides and a bar. I love it.
One thing, if you're in Epcot for the evening anyway, what about having dinner in the world showcase?
Much pixie dust,
Claire

 

[rhysd2]

oooh thats a good plan. i hadnt really thought about dinner there to be honest. where do you guys recommend?

and is there somewhere we could eat AND watch the fireworks from at the same time?

 

[fizz13]

The only place you could do that would be Rose and Crown in the UK pavillion for a sit-down meal.This is on their terrace. However, a lot of people have this idea and the terrace has limited seating, so it is pot-luck if you could get seated out there.
The other place to try would be Cantina de San Angel. This is counter-service in Mexico but its seating is right next to the water.
I think it might be worth eating a bit earlier (around 7) in a sit -down restaurant and then staking out a good spot for the fireworks. Check out allears.net for menus or the restaurant board for details on these.
Much pixie dust,
Claire

 

[rhysd2]

sorry for the late response. had a hellish weekend and a complete hard drive failure. /sigh. oh well all up and running again now *touch wood*.

thanks for your info claire. i expect we'll just eat early then stake ourselves a spot on the grass somewhere.

One thing though. is it not possible to book some kinda priority seating that gets you the balcony?