Pre-Trip report : 17 Summer nights

Hi all

As a quick reintroduction, as I've been very quiet on here recently, I'm Fiona from the UK and I'm a single mum to 2 dds aged 9 and 12. I've been to wdw 3 times in 2000. 2008 and 2011.

Last summer, Disney released their standard UK offer of free dining + $200 gift card for booking early so I booked WL (where we stayed in 2011) for 14 nights from 13th - 27th August this year. Then all I had to do was wait for the flights to be released at the 11 month point. However, for some reason there were no flights with VA available to return to the UK on 27th. I kept on checking and there were flights on 28th, 29th and 30th. Anyway, I worked it out that it was going to be cheaper to stay at a value resort for 3 nights and fly back on the 30th (very last day we could fly back as dds have to return to school and I have to return to work that week), as prices on 28th and 29th were outrageous. So, obviously with great sadness at being forced to spend another 3 days at Disney, I booked our return for 30th . But it gets better...... I knew that renting DVC points could be a good way of staying at a deluxe resort for a fraction of the price so I made enquiries and.... we're booked to stay at BCV for the 3 nights - SAB here we come. And it still gets better as I phoned Disney and upgraded our 14 day ticket to a 21 day ticket for only a few extra $, meaning we can enter a park (or more) every single day that we are there, it works out as great value for money.

Renting dvc points through dvc Rental Store has been so easy. They sent me a confirmation number immediately and I linked the reservation on MDE so it is officially in my plans. If I do manage to make it back to WDW in another few years (takes that long to save up for it) I will definitely look at renting points as my first option.

So our full plans are :-

8/11 - Check into Hilton Hotel, South terminal, Gatwick airport
8/12 - Fly to Orlando with VA, check into Hyatt Regency at MCO on arival( we did this last time and it worked really well for us)
8/13 - Take early ME to WL, check in, then head to MK while waiting for our room
8/14 - 8/26 - 1st week we're there we will be doing RD every morning as we will still be partly on UK time, 2nd week we will be sleeping in more and going into parks later for evening entertainment. We will have plenty of pool/resort/down time and hopefully have a trip to a mall, at some point.
8/27 - check out of WL and into BCV
8/28 & 8/29 - take advantage of our location to walk to WS, catch boat to DHS and explore boardwalk.
8/30 - check out of BCV and take Tragical express to catch flight back to UK, spending the time working out how we can get back to WDW asap. I did manage to book the last 3 seats in economy on the upper deck so hoping that will ease the pain of our return.

ADRs hoping to book when window opens :-

BOG
CRT
CP
Tusker House
Sci - Fi
Teppan Edo
Boma
Biergarten
HDDR
1900 Park Fare
WCC
Wishes Dessert Party
Beaches and Cream
Cape May Cafe

'New to us' experiences:-

ADRS - BOG, Biergarten, 1900 Park Fare, Dessert Party, B&C, Cape May
New Fantasyland
Characters - Gaston, Peter Pan, Elsa and Anna (we managed to collect 42 autographs last time)
Walk to FW
Order a Lapu Lapu
Trade a pin - dds loved pin trading but I never traded a pin myself
Ride the monorail from MK to Epcot
MK Main street entertainment inc Dapper Dans and Trolley show
FoF parade
7DMT - during day and night
Magic of Disney Animation
People Mover
CoP
DVC!

So the next 6 1/2 months is going to be all about the planning and I know where to come if I have questions.