Disney World Pre-Trip Report
A Belated Birthday, Anniversary and Early Christmas Celebration!
Hello and welcome to our pre-trip report. For those of you who are new to this concept I’ll be sharing the background to our upcoming trip and letting you in on our plans for our latest Walt Disney World vacation…
The Ws:
- Who? Myself and my husband (see cast details below)
- What? Our birthday/anniversary/Christmas Disney extravaganza!
- When? November 30 through December 14 2009
- Where? Animal Kingdom Villas and Old Key West
- Why? Erm – because it’s Disney World of course!
The cast:
Me: Clare – Outed Disney Addict
~ Having been lucky enough to visit both Disneyland and Walt Disney World from an early age it’s no surprise I developed a love for all things pixie dust. When the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ family vacation to Disney World turned into a ‘once-every-couple-of-years’ family vacation my path was set. As an adult the love turned into obsession as I celebrated first my birthday, then my wedding then my honeymoon and anniversaries in the place where magic lives – past the point of no return we signed on the dotted line for DVC and our future is now filled with magical vacations for years to come 
Him: Lee – Closet Disney Addict
~ When I convinced my then-boyfriend now-husband to take me to my childhood vacation spot little did he know what he was signing up for. A mere seven years later he’s clocked up five visits to the Mouse’s house and is now well and truly a closet Disney addict!
How this trip came to be:
In 2007 we brought into the Disney Vacation Club with our chosen Home Resort being the Animal Kingdom Villas. Two years later and we’ve yet to actually visit the door knob that we actually own at our Home Resort so a trip was on the cards. We’re great fans of November at WDW – good weather and light crowds – but the great thing about Disney World is that different events happen at different times of year.
So this year we’re trading in the Food & Wine Festival for Christmas at Disney World. Ok, so we’re not actually celebrating Christmas Day there (we’re not that crazy) but for the two weeks of our trip it will be Christmas every day 
What are we celebrating?
This year Disney World is helping everyone celebrate their special events by giving people free entry on their birthdays. Unfortunately we’re a little late for mine but we’re going to celebrate it anyway!
- My birthday – as if turning 33 wasn’t bad enough I wasn’t even in my favourite place to celebrate it… so I postponed my birthday If I want to watch Wishes on my birthday then I will – I’ll just do it a few weeks after the real event lol
- Our anniversary – four years have passed since our Fairytale Wedding at Sunset Pointe and that’s got to be worth a celebration Disney-style
- Christmas – we’ll be a little early, but with the parks decked out for Christmas and a ginormous tree at our Resort it really will be Christmas every day!
Our plans:
Flights – Our most recent US trips have been with Continental out of Bristol via Newark, but travelling in December presents a potential problem. Snow. Yep – Lee is worried that we might get snowed in at Newark on our return journey so we’re making the trek to Gatwick instead!
To be honest there are pros and cons for each. Bristol airport is a mere 10 minutes away by bus, Gatwick is more like 4 hours by train. Flying Continental requires a change of plane and 10 hours on board. Virgin can get us there direct in about nine. Flying Virgin also buys us an extra day on holiday since the flight isn’t until 9pm.
We got us a good deal on the tickets too so we’re all set. We fly out on November 30 and home on December 14.
Travel – We’ll be taking the train to Gatwick on Sunday November 29. We usually go into Reading where we change to the local train to Gatwick but the timings aren’t great for a Sunday so this year we’re being brave. We’ll get the train into Paddington and then the tube over to London Victoria where we’ll board the Gatwick Express.
I’m not a fan of the tube at the best of times so while Sunday afternoon, fresh faced and excited, may be an adventure with two suitcases – I’m pretty sure the return journey where jet lag and commuters join the mix may be more like our worst nightmare!
When we make it to Gatwick we’ll take advantage of Virgin’s Twilight Check in to swap our cases for boarding passes and then head to the Marriot to try and get a good night’s sleep…
Car Hire – We usually book our car hire online but this year we are trying to max out our Virgin airmiles possibilities so we’ve book with Dollar via Virgin. We’ve opted for the smallest car available to save cash so I’m hoping we’ll be able to get the cases in!
Resort – We’re starting out in a Studio at the newly opened Kidani Village at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas. We have a view of the savana so I’m hoping to pass a few lazy hours watching some giraffe or antelope grazing outside the balcony.
After nine days we’re swtiching over to a one-bedroom villa at the Old Key West resort over by Downtown Disney – OKW was our first DVC experience and we love the resort.
Passes – After much shopping around we finally stumbled across American Attractions and bought ourselves the 14-day all-singing, all-dancing Disney World park tickets and a two-park Aquatica and Sea World combo which is good for 14 days at each park. We’ve decided against Universal Studios this year as we’re waiting patiently for Harry Potter world to open.
We paid extra for courier delivery thanks to the recent postal strikes and the tickets (real passes not vouchers) arrived in two days.
If you’re looking for park tickets then I definitely recommend American Attractions – they were the cheapest by far!
Food – No Disney Dining Plan for us, we’ll stick with our normal plans of cereal/toast for breakfast followed by packed lunch/counter service and then head out to Perkins/IHOP/Bob Evans type restaurants for dinner.
We’ve given ourselves a $40 a day budget for food – and we’ll see how far that takes us!
Itinerary:
I’m a firm believer that no Disney World trip should go unplanned – even if you do plan on visiting every other year. Making plans on the fly will waste a lot of time – and when we save hard to be able to make these trips that seems to me to be a waste of money. So I headed over to Tour Guide Mike to download his trusty Red Yellow Green day calendar and set about building the jigsaw that answers the question of – what shall we do each day?
This year Lee decided to have a go himself and declared that his jigsaw was better than mine – so here are our plans…
November 29 – Travel to Gatwick
November 30 – Fly to Orlando. Evening will be spent unpacking, getting some dinner and taking a trip to Publix to stock up on essentials
December 1 – Aquatica (weather permitting) | Jellyrolls duelling piano bar
December 2 – Tour of the malls | Blizzard Beach (weather permitting) | Illuminations
December 3 – Hollywood Studios | ICE! at Galord Palms
December 4 – Animal Kingdom | Fantasmic!
December 5 – Epcot | Spectromagic & Wishes
December 6 – Tour of the malls | Blizzard Beach (weather permitting) | American Idol Final (at DHS)
December 7 – Epcot | Evening plans to be confirmed
December 8 – Magic Kingdom | Miniature Golf
December 9 – SeaWorld
December 10 – Tour of the malls | Blizzard Beach (weather permitting) | Fantasmic!
December 11 – Hollywood Studios | Epcot (EMH)
December 12 – Animal Kingdom | Spectromagic & Wishes
December 13 – Magic Kingdom | Illuminations
December 14 – TBC | Fly to Gatwick
December 15 – Train home
Touring Plans:
Of course the planning doesn’t stop with the ‘what should we do each day?’ question – we also need a plan for the parks so that we don’t waste hours standing in line.
This year I was keen to check out Ridemax as I’ve heard such good things about it, but I have to say that I’m not impressed. The software generates the strangest touring plans I’ve ever seen, that go against what we have learnt over the years. I think I’m going to ditch it and sign back up to Touring Plans for a plan that I know will work.
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Related Affordable Disney Vacation Packages Articles:
- Live Disney World Trip Report
- New for this trip
- Disney World Vacation Tips – The best road into Disney World: Sherberth Road
- Disney World crowd levels – when is the best time to visit Disney?
November 21, 2009 by Clare Swindlehurst
Filed under Live Trip Report
