Booking Our Flights

We didn't know where to begin. Admittedly, we haven't flown as a family since 2005; the kids can't even remember ever being on a plane (they were only 1 and 3) and we have never flown transatlantic. We did know basics though and that was to just search with well known flight carrier companies such as Thomson, Thomas Cook & Virgin Atlantic. We found out, doing this, that booking flights separately, you can only book 11 months in advance of the date you fly HOME... We had a looooong wait!

Over the months, we did some research and decided we wanted to fly to Orlando International Airport (MCO) as it is closer to our villa by about 45 minutes than going to Sanford Airport. Which left 2 airline companies to fly with; Virgin Atlantic and Thomas Cook. Ideally we wanted to fly with Thomas Cook as they were the cheapest (based on last years prices) compared to Virgin Atlantic.
However, when it came closer to us booking, we discovered that Thomas Cook weren't actually flying out to MCO on the dates we had booked!! Arrrghhhh!! I immediately went into panic mode. What were we going to do?! Here's me thinking that we're going to have to shell out £5-£6k on flights alone with Virgin Atlantic (based on previous years prices) or see if we can book an in-direct flight. I didn't really want to do an in-direct flight; not with 2 kids and my parents (9 hour flight plus extra travelling on top, no thanks!).

As we had spent weeks glued to the internet checking prices, we had noticed that on the day of release, the prices were sky-high, the next day they had dropped by a couple of thousand pounds. Shocking! So we waited patiently until the day of our release, set our alarms for early that morning. As expected, the price for 5 adults and 1 child was in the region of £5.5k. Ridic-u-lous! So, again, we set our alarm early for the next day. Our patience and research paid off, as the price was just under £3k for 5 adults and 1 child - in the bubble!! Hoo-ray!! We had booked our flights!! So exciting!!
As we wanted to sit together, we also booked our seats for an extra £25pp each way.

Sam xoxo

Doing DIY - Plan

We decided when we booked (before telling the kids) we wanted to do this DIY. We also wanted my parents to come too, so this meant we HAD to stay in a villa.We looked at quite a few villas, in and around the Orlando area & Kissimmmee; short listed some, then my husband found one he instantly fell in love with. It is absolutely stunning!! 5 beds, 3 baths, pool, games room plus loads more. You can find it by following this link for www.five-star-florida-villa.co.uk

Obviously being first timers at this, we weren't sure how it worked with regards to flights but the owners of this villa gave us some very useful advice and tips, which we definitely followed. We booked the villa 585 days before travel. Oh My God!! 585 days!!! This is going to absolutely draaaaaaag!! We couldn't do very much now until we could book our flights in January (11 months before flying home). So we spent the next 8 months researching everything Disney & Universal, other theme parks and the area.

We made a list of what we had to do:

• Book Accommodation
• Book Flights
• Renew Passports
• Complete ESTA's
• Hire a Car
• Research & decide on Theme parks - Book theme park tickets
• Research places to eat for our Advanced Dining Reservations (ADR's)
• Do a savings plan - This holiday was going to cost us a fortune!!

I'll do separate posts on the topics underlined as there's so much to go into

Sam xoxo

Christmas Surprise for the kids!!

We booked for Florida back in April 2014 but didn't tell the girls. We wanted it to be a surprise! We originally wanted to keep it a surprise until the day we were going, but 18 months keeping a secret from the 2 nosiest people in the country, we thought it would be too hard and besides, we wanted them to share the fun and excitement of all the planning too.

So we decided that we would tell them on Christmas Day. I got an idea from Pinterest using a balloon to tell them. We did just that; hiding it in a large box, wrapping it and keeping it until the very last and had them both rip open the paper. The balloon floated up letting the girls know that they were off to Disney World.

Of course, Chloe, my eldest, burst into tears, as she has wanted to go for such a long time. We were all in tears by this point!

As this will be our very first trip (hopefully not our last), I want to record everything from the planning, to the travelling and everything we do there - so I've created this blog and an Instagram account.

Did you surprise your kids with a trip to Disney? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below :-)

Sam xoxo