Potter & Dinton Pastures

It came to me that I have never said anything about The Deathly Hallows... How I could be so remise I don't know, but suffice to say that when it comes to Snape I WAS RIGHT!!!

Shall say no more in case anyone hasn't read it yet. We were up at 7am and down to Asda to get a copy each. I finished mine in 1 1/2 days - closely beaten by the reading machine that is Jax but at least no one got the chance to spoil it for me :o)

Here I am, changed back into my PJ's and embarking on the reading marathon:

Also went to Dinton Pastures today (25/08/07) which was lovely as usual. Walked all around Black Swan Lake, Lavells Lake, Herons Water, and traipsed around in some kind of copse for a while. Took a few pics - did see bunnies and Herons but no pictures of them as again I had the never-ready camera with me!:

The oo-de-tinerary

SO, we spent a lot of time creating an itinerary to try to fit the "Must Do's" into without dying of exhaustion in the process.

When I say "We", I should probably say "M" as I am a teensy bit guilty of getting a bit sidetracked by 1. The Brits Guide to Orlando book, 2. The DIS message boards, 3. The planning DVD's, and 4. Singing the oo-de-lally song!

I think he did a great job on it though:

We start on Sunday 16/09/2007 - DAY ZERO

16/09: Train or (hopefully) lift to Gatwick, Twilight check in, Dinner, Overnight stay at the Gatwick Hilton.

WEEK 1:

17/09: "Leeeaaving, on a jet plane..." Take off 10.45am... Arrive, get through immigration (I'm scared!) and make our way to I-Drive and the SSC Hotel.
18/09: SeaWorld and Dolphin Nursery Tour. Lunch or Dinner at the Sharks Underwater Grill and possible afternoon visit to WNW.
19/09: Typhoon Lagoon - evening at Downtown Disney
20/09: Coach from SW to Busch Gardens in Tampa - evening on I-Drive after what I anticipate is going to be our most tiring day.
21/09: Universal Studios - Blue Man Show in the evening
22/09: Discovery Cove... swimming with a Dolphin... just another day really ;o) Dinner at Universal CityWalk

Jax and Toms Engagement Party - sadly we will be missing the party of the year as, while we are living it up with our new flippered friends, one of my oldest and best friends is celebrating her engagement. Jax - I'm sorry we can't come but you won't be able to keep us away from the wedding - we'll be there with bells on!! We hope you & Tom have a fantabulous night at your party and expect to see lots and lots of photos on our return :o)

23/09: Island of Adventure and/or Shopping, evening at CityWalk

WEEK 2:

24/09: Wet n Wild and SeaWorld,maybe a bit more shopping
25/09: Blizzard Beach, Downtown Disney in the evening
26/09: SeaWorld & Dine with Shamu
27/09: Animal Kingdom, Dinner at the Rainforest Cafe
28/09: Islands of Adventure, Universal CityWalk in the evening
29/09: MGM, Medieval Times Dinner Show in the evening
30/09: Last Day... BOOOOOOOOO. No plan as yet - re-do our favourite park or maybe head for Magic Kingdom or Epcot. We shall see. Some kind of sumptuous feast in the evening!
01/10: Flight Home... lets not think about this bit yet :o(

So there it is - our basic itinerary. Who knows if we will keep to it but at least we know that it is possible to fit everything in! The plan is to rise early and get to the parks for opening, and then have more relaxing afternoons. WNW is just over the road from our hotel so I'm hoping we can just dip in there as and when to chill, have some silly fun, and cool down!

OOOO-DE-LALLY for the OO-DE-TINERARY!!!

Timeline

Spend, Spend... no SAVE!!

With all the big decisions made and the itinerary decided on (coming up soon) we proceeded to book and purchase everything we could. M was furtively changing £'s into $'s and we were topping up our savings account whenever possible. In between the big decisions and purchases we also made good headway with all the "Little Things"...

We bought extra luggage to carry our holiday shopping home in, both got some Crocs, M got a new biometric passport, and I bought a cheap waterproof watch as am completely paranoid about missing our Dolphin Swim slot at DC!!

We bought some new summer kit, shades, and tiny toiletries. Ordered some bags from Captain Bags for carrying liquid on the plane (I'm going to want my deoderant!). The list goes on and on and we are not finished yet!

A lot of time and effort has gone into planning this trip and happily M keeps a journal so we do have a timeline of the main events:

Florida Planning Timeline

27/06/06 - Decided to go
17/07/06 - Began Research
01/01/07 - Booked Flights/Hotel/4 Park Flex Ticket online with Vigin
01/01/07 - Booked Discovery Cove (WOOOOHOOOO!!)
02/01/07 - Picked seats on plane
03/01/07 - Purchased Holiday Insurance
06/01/07 - Confirmation arrived from Virgin
09/01/07 - Confirmation Arrived from Discovery Cove
30/01/07 - Booked Dolphin Nursery Tour
08/02/07 - M new passport arrived
26/02/07 - Booked Dine with Shamu
27/02/07 - Purchased Disney Tickets
27/02/07 - Purchased Medieval Times Dinner Show Tickets
27/02/07 - M changed more $'s - hits his $1000 target
05/03/07 - SeaWorld made announcement re the new Aquatica WaterPark which cements our plans for a 2010 return trip!!
08/03/07 - Disney and Medieval Times Tickets arrive
17/04/07 - Booked Blue Man Group Tickets
06/07/07 - Transferred savings to pay holiday balance
06/07/07 - Ordered AMEX TC Card (that was a mistake - but at least we are travelling before they withdraw it!)
12/07/07 - Amex TC Card arrived
13/07/07 - Holiday Balance Paid!!
25/07/07 - Purchased funky Mickey trip report book and started writing
31/07/07 - Booked Gatwick Hilton for our pre-flight stay

It has not escaped my notice that we began our planning on 17/07/06, and finally paid the Holiday Balance 13/07/07 - almost a year to the day!

Up Next: The Itinerary

Attractions & Tickets

Another round of research ensued and we decided that the following attractions are essentials:

1. Discovery Cove (DC)
2. SeaWorld (SW)
3. Universal Studios (US)
4. Islands of Adventure (IOA)
5. Disneys MGM Studios (MGM)
6. Disneys Animal Kingdom (AK)
7. Busch Gardens (BG)
8. Blizzard Beach (BB)
9. Typhoon Lagoon (TL)
10. Wet n Wild (WNW)

Now thats a whole lotta fun!

Obviously we have not included the other two Disney parks, Magic Kingdom and Epcot, in this list. A lot of the Disney Addicts will think we are mad for choosing BG over Magic Kingdom, or that I am more excited about SW than any of the Disney Parks but hey, it's our holiday and we have planned it around the things that we think we will enjoy the most. If we have enough time/money we may still visit Magic Kingdom but its not going on the essentials list!

ANYWAY... looking at all the brochures and websites it became obvious that choosing the tickets was not going to be a simple task... there are 4 & 5 park flex tickets, 2 day passes with extra days free, different prices from different agents, the option to book through Virgin or the parks direct, and about 200 types (seriously - there actually ARE that many) of Disney tickets... our minds were well and truly boggled!

Not to be deterred we worked out that the following three tickets would cover everything on the essentials list:

1. 4 Park Flex Ticket (SW, US, IOD, WNW)
2. Discovery Cove with Dolphin Swim (WOOOOHOOOO!!) + 7 days entry to Busch Gardens
3. 2 + 3 Disney Tickets (2x main parks plus 3 visits to waterparks / fun)

We opted for booking the Flex Tickets through Virgin as the price seemed pretty standard across the board. Discovery Cove was booked direct, and the Disney Tickets were purchased online from Ticket Mania. Now that we knew which attractions we would definately be visiting we had the task of creating an itinerary to fit it all in. Our research had also revealed a number of little extra's that it seemed rude not to partake of...

Tours, Dinners, & Shows

It seemed a bit of a waste to go all the way to Florida and not treat ourselves to some of the extra FUN on offer so we also booked:

1. Dolphin Nursery Tour @ SW
2. Medieval Times Dinner Show
3. Dine With Shamu @ SW
4. Blue Man Group @ US

I love seeing the list of things we are going to do - it's VERY exciting!!! I literally CANNOT wait to get to Discovery Cove. Have a look at the reviews here for an idea of why I'm so looking forward to this day. M is a bit aprehensive about the dolphins not liking him (I know - he's silly!) but I'm thinking I will need to be restrained from throwing myself in fully clothed and will probably burst into tears (in a good way) on meeting my dolphin friend!

I do tend to get a bit obsessed about DC and SW, but then I remember about all the other cool places we are going and think my head may EXPLODE with excitment!! The anticipation for this holiday is HUGE and although I feel like we have been waiting to go forever, planning it has actually been really good fun as well :o)

UP Next: Timeline & Itinerary

ALL together now.... OO-DE-LALLY!!!

Oo-de-lally Tour 2007 - Pre-Trip Report

As it is now under a month (29 days to be exact!!) till our Florida Extravaganza I thought it was about time to write my Pre-Trip Report and share our year of planning the (hopefully) perfect holiday.

The trip will henceforth be known as the Oo-de-lally Tour 2007 - I will expect everyone to join me in periodic renditions of the "Oo-de-lally oo-de-lally Golly What a Day" song from Robin Hood, and you may of course shout "OO-DE-LALLY!!" whenever it seems appropriate ;o)

So, without further ado I present....

Oo-de-lally Tour 2007 - Pre-Trip Report

Decisions, Decisions!

So many things to decide on and so much choice to choose from! I honestly can't remember the first conversation we had about this trip - but I'm pretty certain it started with the words "I wonder how much it would cost..." and ended with the words "Who cares how much it costs!"

I do know that we started our research on 17/07/06 with the two biggies - When? & Where?

When? was suprisingly easy - we decided on 17/09/07 - 01/10/07. There are no UK school holidays and no American holidays between these dates, and all the guidebooks say it is one of the quietest times of year and that the weather is more bearable.

Where? posed more of a problem. It was obvious from the start that we were going to stay on International Drive but as for which hotel - what a minefield! Eventually after many hours of scouring the brochures and reading online reviews we finally agreed on the Sheraton Studio City. It seems to be in a good position on I-Drive (right opposite Wet n Wild) and has free shuttles to Universal Studios & Disney if we need them. M also has a bit of a movie obsession - once we had read about the Sheraton Studio City's 50's movie theming it seemed a given that we would stay here.

So with the two big decisions made and a general consensus that we would take the easy option and book a package deal through Virgin, we were left with planning the actual fun!!

OO-DE-LALLY Indeedy!!

Up Next: Attractions & Tickets.