The Trip Report for the trip that hasnt yet been booked!

The Pre Trip

Right. That's it. I cant stand it any longer. I have to start my pre trip or I'll spontaneously combust!

This will be a very strange pre trip as currently, there is no trip! I know, but bear with me

If you have read my last trip report (and of course you have ) you will know that we bought some annual passes and intended to make good use of them - hopefully with 2 visits this year! Well 1 trip is booked, we have flights and DVC booked for a stay in September YAY

Hold on I hear you cry, I thought you said you hadn't booked anything? Ahhh well, I might have booked a trip in September but the other trip is going to be in May! And for May I have booked nothing, nada, zilch, niente. Actually to be fair that's not exactly right. I haven't booked any flights, car hire or hotel/villa. I *have* booked some ADR's and tickets to see Olly Murs in House of Blues DTD Anyway, I'll go back to the start to explain...

When we decided to upgrade our tickets last year to annual passes we did it on the basis that we would go back once more before they expired. Then we got to talking and decided we could do 2 trips if we booked 2 last minute bargains, one in May and one in September (as these are the months historically the bargains are to be had). We then went on the trip, upgraded our tickets and since then they have been burning our pockets, plaguing us in our sleep, pleading with us 'please use me'. Before we knew it, we were checking out flight prices for September (its okay, we'll just book some flights and then stay somewhere cheap on I drive). When we knew that Sy would be getting a bonus we thought yay, we can start thinking about booking some. Virgin miles plus money flights were really cheap, but then they started selling out for our dates (we wanted to make sure we were there for the start of food and wine) so we kinda went into panic mode! Ahhhh! All the other flights were over 100 pounds each more! Then the best woman in the world came to our rescue my darling mother in law said 'I'll book them for you till you get the bonus though' awwwwwwww! My lovely mother in law What a sweet and kind lady she is No sooner were the words out of her mouth, the flights were booked 11th till the 30th September. That's it, flights for September were booked. We can put the thoughts of that trip to bed now...

But we realllllly enjoyed our stay in AKL DVC last year for those 2 nights... and as we'd saved money on the flights, it would be good to stay in a standard or value studio for a few nights as we were going to be there for our wedding anniversary... if the points came up for rent from someone I knew... Well we could stay 1 week in a value for a really small amount of money (in comparison to normal Disney prices) and then slum it for the rest of the time in a really cheap hotel (well, as cheap as 3 stars go, Robyn doesn't do less than 3 stars ). A wonderful DIBBer came to my rescue and points were rented. 7 nights in AKL Jambo house, half of it was booked and half wasn't quite yet as she didn't have enough AKL points and had to wait till 7 months for the rest.
In the mean time I was talking with my good friend Hayley about DVC in general along with lots of Disney things, and she then lets the cat out that she *might* be renting some of her points out... And would I like some? WHAT?! After a few days of umming and ahhhing (yeah right!) we said yes, and another 10 nights at AKL were booked with 2 nights at BLT standard view... well I say standard view, that room was book for all of a few hours I believe before I fluttered my eyes lashes at Hayley and asked if she wouldn't mind changing it to a MK view for me as its over our anniversary I wanted it to be special

You are now probably wondering what this all has to do with the May trip? Well it means we have NO money left for May Ah well, we will just go and have an amazing time in September and if there so happens to be a great last min trip for late April/early May then we might consider it.

That was before the winter that would never end My illness is much worse in the cold and I've been slipping slowly downwards (I have severe ulcerative colitis). I'm still okay and not back on any nasty steroids (which is a huge bonus as I hate them!) but its going that way... So getting away somewhere hot would be perfect. When I was younger my parents would try to book a holiday for feb - march time as it would be like clockwork each year I'd be ill and back on the steroids, but the warm weather sped up my recovery and sometimes staved off the need for the steroids, bonus!

So then we were back to seriously considering Florida - were we ever really not?! If we could get cheap flights and a cheap hotel, Florida would be as cheap as anywhere else that's hot right now. We already have the tickets, and eating out isn't exactly expensive - especially as we like a mixture of places including the odd Taco Bell and Chili's dinner for 2 for $20!

So we have a budget of around 2000 pounds for both of us including spending money. That's 1000 each for flights, hotel, car hire and spends! OMG! That's not a lot is it? If it cant be done then we wont be going :'( This time last year flights went as low as below 200 each I've already checked out car hire and that will be around the 200 mark. We wont be doing any shopping (who needs to shop now when we're going back in September ). We need to be there for the 7th of May for Olly Murs but other than that, we have no set dates. For a little while there we thought we would be going for 13 nights on the 25th April with Thomson, the flights went to 258 each (plus 70 for baggage) but I was hoping they might drop more and low and behold they went up again. Then I saw some for 14 nights leaving on the 3rd May, perfect as we would be there for most of the time Hayley and Matt were going to be there, we wanted to hopefully meet up a couple of times for dinner Those flights were 328 but then went up the very next day. At the moment, right now we could fly for just over 400 each for 15 nights including baggage, but that it's a bit too much, we need them to come down to around 300 each at the most. Nail biting stuff! If the flights don't come down enough we will just got for 1 weeks (so saving on the hotel car hire and need for spends). We can grab together another few hundred possibly if we really need it, but we shouldn't really touch that if we can help it.

Wow I've written so much already without introducing us!

Me, Robyn, 28 years young, Super planner extraordinaire, obsessed by Disney in general but WDW in particular. Fav character is probably Tinkerbell as she's sassy like me ideal job in WDW would be in one of the shops, so I could shower pixie dust every day

My lovely hubby Simon, or Sy for short - 'Simon' is usually reserved for when I'm annoyed with him He's 30 years old (damn he's old!) He became obsessed by Disney after he met me and we honeymooned in WDW. I went to WDW when I first started dating him and he would hear about all the wonderful things I was doing, so it was his choice to go back there for our honeymoon - and the obsession there began for him His dream job is an imagineer so if he worked at Disney he would be doing that (in fact he hopes this might be true one day!).

And here we are

A bit of background on us (a refresher for those who have read my many other trip reports!)

We met in 2008 after years of being online pals and clicked from the moment our eyes locked then 1 week later I was off on holiday with a girlfriend for 2 weeks to Orlando I was a love sick puppy! To be fair though, so was she she had just started seeing a guy too hehe. After 2 weeks and a mahoooooosive phone bill I was in love 3 months later in DLP on new years eve at midnight, Sy got down on 1 knee and asked me to marry him we planned to marry 9 months later - we married just 1 year and 2 weeks after the day we met, bit of a whirlwind but we had talked for hours on end online for 4 years previous and just not had the opportunity to meet, so we did know each other very well.

A shameless picture of us on our wedding day

We honeymooned in WDW as I said before and hubby was hooked. A few weeks before our wedding I was introduced Disney forums by a lovely girl called Nicola we were planning our weddings at the same time and knew each other from a wedding forum. As she knew we were going to WDW for our honeymoon she introduced me to the wonders of the dibb (the UK disney forum where it all started) and all that we could do to make it wonderful! As it happens I didn't really go on there much in the run up to our wedding so I didn't really learn much for that trip, but all the trips since then have been amazing (thank you Nic!).

We then planned to go back in 2010 for our 1st anniversary with both of our parents. My parents had been a few times and love Orlando (almost as much as us ) but Sy's parents had never been before. They fell in love with Florida, less so the theme parks (though they did enjoy them) and have been back twice with us, once in 2011 (we went for 2 weeks and they joined us for 1 week at half term) and again last year when my parents came too (along with friends of Sy's parents). You can find TR's for all of those trips in my signature

Last year was the first time we have ever stayed onsite, 1 week in the beach club with free dining and then 2 nights in a DVC villa at AKL. OMG I am SOLD. If I had the choice I would never stay offsite again. Like ever. We have even been seriously looking at buying in DVC but decided to pay off all of our debts first.

The plans

Well as I said before, we kinda don't have any! :S I have made some ADR's already but that was when I was sure we would be going on the 25th April. To be fair, we tend to eat in less popular places, plus as there are only 2 of us we can usually find a slot we want and slip it into the plan.

The Disney places we intend to eat at this time are...
Teppan edo
Grand Floridian cafe breakfast
The Plaza
Via Napoli
Les chefs des france
Coral reef
Sanaa

Also hoping to eat at Dine in cinema and Splitsville

We also want to eat in

Steak and shake (thanks to Hayley and her pictures!)
Hooters to try their loaded tato tots
Kobe
Outback
Chili's

Must eat snacks
I have never eaten a funnel cake, I know - weird?! So I must have one this trip.
Dole whips of course
Corn Dog for Sy
I'd like to try dippin' dots, never had one of them either.
Must try the *new* napoleon in the French Bakery in EPCOT (why Disney, WHY?!?!!)
And while I'm there I want to try the ham and cheese croissant
Sy wants to try the carrot cake cookie
Although I don't really drink much, I'm going to try a grey goose slushie, if I don't like it I can always make Sy drink it
Beignets

I know what you're thinking, that's a lot of food on a small budget! I'm not sure we will make it to all of them, but there's always September if we don't Plus for the Disney restaurants we will be getting the tables in wonderland card.

Still left to do

Book flights
Book hotel/villa
Book car hire
Get some more dollars (didn't have many left from last year!)
Make sure our *wonderful* friends are still okay to cat sit our new addition (who is incredibly noisy, I'm warning you now! But he's really loving, especially at 3am... and honestly, you'll get used to the fish breath...)

*Side note. We adopted him 4 weeks ago and he was at home with us from day 1, his owners signed him over to our vets as they didn't want him anymore he's 11 years old.

Where was i? Oh yes,

Tickets, ESTA, travel insurance and passports are still all okay from the last trip.

We plan on visiting all of the Disney parks, with a day at each water park maybe and 3 days in US & IOA (a day in each and 1 day to go back and do our fav rides). MK will be or first full day and last full day. Always is