Disneyworld

pavlovs_dog

when OH and i went back in september 05 (room only basis staying on I-drive), our budget consisted of dividing our total spending money between the number of days we were there.

this gave us a budget of $175 a day. some days you will spend much less, so this was rolled over to the next day's budget. i found it helped to have a daily budget to stick to as we didnt have to worry about running out of money - we knew exactly what we could afford.

we did very well on this too, paying for all our fuel, tickets to busch gardens, sea world and kennedy space centre, a very expensive pearl necklace, lots of meals out and loads of souveniers.

hope you have a fab trip - im very jealous!

blue_monkey_2

Hi Toto,

I actually came back to apologise, I was doing the hoovering and thinking on my post (as you do) that I sounded like I was dissing your choice of hotel and being very negative about it - I wanted to apologise for that really. Having stayed there in the past with children I just wanted to put the negative side of the food across. The good thing about the dining plan is that you can go off an have food elsewhere as breakfast is included. The buses run very early (we saw then at 7.30am as we had breastfast on our last day at Grand Floridian) and the buses were out and about so you might find the hotel next Door (where the bus stops to pick up - or used to) does a better breakfast and is included in the price. Either that or book breakfast at the parks, a couple of them have them, and you'll get them on the dining plan. Also, about the rides, again I thought I sounded negative on that respect but I wanted to let you know that the queues were not that bad to be honest. If you are doing only Disney then you can aim to do the rides in the first 2 hours each morning on one area (adventureland, fantasyland, etc..), you'll be early and they'll all be done then you have more time to eat, see the shows and get your autographs without having worrying about not done something. So I hope that made sense. It does sound daft but do plan and get to the water park for a day, if a warm day is coming up then grab it and take a day out, plus go to the malls for a day (Premium Outlets seems best, we went to Buena Vista Outlets and it wasn't all that so next time I'd do premium outlets, Beltz is not much good either, the florida Mall I did not do. But do them earlier on in your trip as you'll be surprised how much you'll save on things like t-shirts and although you say you won't get any inevitably you do. Just as an example, we saw a tiara in Disney for $20 and then found the same thing in Wal-Mart for $6 and that is just one little thing, I got my son a Cars T-shirt for $3 and in Disney the T-shirts are around $20 with Tax. We found Wal-Mart on the day we left - I weep when I think about how much money we could have saved - and it is more on £600 we could have saved over 2 weeks, possibly more!

Have a great time won't you and please PM me when you get back and let me know about the marmite!! Make sure you take a sealed jar so the dog can't smell it - you'll be amazed when you see it doing it's work and if someone gets caught. I'd put the marmite at the top and be honest if the dog catches you out otherwise they turf your belongings out on the floor at immigration with everyone else in the queues (possibly 28 of them or more) watching. Highly embarrassing. Try and get off the plane quite fast at Orlando as you have to go through Security at their Airport and it takes ages - nightmare when you have impatient children, I know we all have to do it but try and get off the plane as fast as you can toget to the front of the queue. I am excited for you, I'd love to go back - tomorrow if I could - but I think a 3 year wait is more practical and I'd have to be nuts tot think about going back with the buggy. I have 2 Tesco deliveries this week - my quest for Clubcard Points to exchange for Virgin Vouchers is on again, LOL, just another 18 months of saving *sigh*

blue_monkey_2

Hi Toto,

Another thing for you.... When you get there you will get given a Disney Photo Pass. take this and have as many pics taken as possible by the Disney Staff that have the cameras - they are everywhere. We got a pass and had a few pics on there and we just logged onto the site and you can get them all for $125 pluss shipping. We have edited some of the pics, added graphics and in the end we got 45 pics for the money we paid but carry a small camera and get these guys to do the decent ones, get the disc (before or after you come home - you can do them on your home PC or get it from Disney) and you'll get lots of nice, decent pics for that one price - otherwise they are $12.95 each. I can't beleive it and am gutted - we kind of assumed that we would have to pay for them all indiviually but you don't. Get the dic and take it off to Asda who charge 14p a print to print them from the disc. If you don't get a pass on your first day then ask for one and here is the website where you are able to veiw them and also add the grphics like the year and Tinkerbelle sprinkling magic dust over you - plus you can keep the original so you can have one for your album and for your daughters album. we bought 3 albums, one for us and one for each of the kids where we added pictures of them on their own doing things or with us, so they have something to remember the holiday with. I had to share - get the pass and get as many pics as you can, you can always delete the ones you don't want to check the site when you get home and choose which ones you want or to edit.

https://www.disneyphotopass.com

Again - have a good time.

xxx