Sooooo, its been a while since I've updated and lots has happened (if you are on my facebook, you will probably already know about some of it!)
I'll start with the To Do list, this is how it now looks...
Booked so far
Flights
Car hire
DVC at Animal Kingdom Lodge and Grand Floridian
Vow renewal
Hotel in Key West
Hotel in Fort Lauderdale
Hotel in Miami
Hotel in Heathrow
ADR's
Sunrise Safari
Spa treatments for the ladies
Marceline tour
All day tickets bought
Balance paid on Vow Renewal
Cake for Vow Renewal sorted, along with desserts for TOTWL
Golf Cart hires for the day at Ft Wilderness as there were no spaces for horse and carriage ride
Still to do/organise
Behind the seeds tour? Not 100% sure this one is gonna fit into the plan :-/
MNSSHP tickets - Think its just me and Sy doing that though not sure about Anne & Cliff
Book Golf
Buy Memory Maker
Sort the cakes
Do API for flights
Renew ESTA
Book Food and Wine seminars (cheese seminars for the men)
Bit of a drama has also unfolded since the last update... My 'friend' is now no longer travelling with us. She has fallen out with me, I do know why as she told a mutual friend however she hasn't told me personally which I think is a bit sad and pathetic when we have been friends for years. The reason itself is also not only pathetic but actually unhinged! (I honestly think think she's lost the plot!). I won't go into it here, but lets just say I'm glad we found this all out now rather than her turning mental while we are on holiday. I have to admit our families are quite relieved as its back to just being us again on the trip (they weren't too keen).
The rather nasty thing she did while un-friending me though is cancel all of our shared ADR's. She arrives in Disney before us so her booking window opened first which is why she made all of the reservations, it didn't ever even enter my head that she would do something so spiteful so I was happy for her to book them all. I don't even care that we were left with no ADR's in the run up to our trip, which fall slap bang in the middle of free dining (so restaurants are already chocker-blocked), but what I was so very upset about was that she also cancelled our ADR for 'Ohana - our vow renewal meal, for 14 people. She didn't even give me any notice or let me know she was cancelling, so it was only that I went on to have a look and saw that she had cancelled them all that I knew anything about it, and of course by that time the reservation at 'Ohana had gone
She didn't just ruin it for us though, she ruined it for a family who is mutual friends to us both, they were coming to the meal so hadn't made a separate reservation there as they didn't want to go twice, now they are also left without a trip to 'Ohana
The worst part is, I went to try and rebook our ADR's but as we were all named on the reservations it wouldn't let me rebook without cancelling her original ADR's, so I text her and let her know that we needed to get together and cancel and rebook at the same time. I deliberately didn't cancel her reservations cause I'm a nice person, even though there's only 1 of her (easy to get) and 6 of us (hard to get). Instead she went ahead and cancelled them all, just cause she's a cow. (She then went to on tell mutual friend that I had cancelled most of them myself and she just did the last few - honestly, she's unhinged!).
I tried calling Disney 3 times and they basically didn't seem to care, they just said keep trying to see if a table comes available
It wasn't until I posted on a Disney wedding group on facebook about it that someone gave me 'Ohana's direct number to call them and see if they could help. They could! They could rebook the reservation however they couldn't change who's name it was under, nor could they stop it reappearing on
MDE, so She was still able to cancel it again. They did suggest calling the Disney dining number again to ask them to try and change it into our name. Sy was so good, he was on the phone for about 45 minutes with them trying everything they could think of to change it but there was nothing that they could do
The only thing she could suggest would be to cancel the reservation and book it again right away. Not wanting to keep the reservation in Her name (as I didn't trust her not to cancel it again) I said go ahead however as it was a reinstated booking that they didn't really have the space for anyway, the seats never came available again
It was a stressful few days while we tried to sort something out, I got all excited when they could reinstate the booking and so disappointed when we lost it again. She did suggest to keep checking in the run up to October but tbh now it just feels tainted there. I have however booked us into the Wave for dinner and arranged (with private dining) a cake and desserts to be had at Top of the World Lounge
I think this is actually even nicer than what we had planned before, okay the restaurant won't be as lively but fireworks and dessert at TOTWL?! That's pretty unique
I feel a lot happier than I did at the time anyway
I had to do a lot of rejigging to the plan now that our ADR's were screwed up. So this is what the revised plan looks like...
11th Saturday
Flight 12:30pm Heathrow to Miami
Pick up car hire
Overnight near Miami
Dinner maybe Longhorn Steakhouse
12th Sunday
Breakfast in hotel
Drive to Key West
Stop on route at Deer Nature Reserve & Islamorada for tarpoon feeding
Check into key west hotel
Visit a supermarket for some drinks and nibbles for the room
Get dinner and visit sunset pier
13th Monday
Key west tour
Blue heaven for key lime pie
Possibly head over to sunset key?
Benihana dinner
Drag show maybe?
14th Tuesday
Key west
Dolphin boat trip
Historic sea port for dinner
15th Wednesday
Check out of Parrot Key hotel
Breakfast near hotel
Drive towards Ft Lauderdale
Stop in Everglades to do an airboat trip
Arrive in Ft Lauderdale
Dinner - possibly Texas de Brazil?
16th Thursday
Have breakfast in/near hotel
Drive to Orlando
Check into AKL, room might not be ready so will leave bags with bellhop in that case
go to Walmart
Bring shopping back to room, unpack/sort shopping
Change car for smaller at Disney car centre
Sanaa 6:55pm
Swim at hotel/or park if we aren't too tired
17th Friday
Whispering Canyon Cafe 8:35am
Magic Kingdom morning & afternoon till about 2/3pm
Fastpasses - Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain and Jungle Cruise (visit Tiki room and Liberty square, could get baked potato if hungry for lunch)
Swim/relax in room for a bit mid afternoon
5/6pm head to Hollywood studios Fantasmic (7:30pm)
Dinner offsite Texas de Brazil if we don't go in Ft Lauderdale or Kobe after Fantasmic.
18th Saturday
Breakfast in room
Cheese seminar (men)
Shopping morning (women)
Animal kingdom late morning & afternoon
Fastpass - Dinosaur, Lion King, Kali
Yak & Yeti dinner 5:15pm
Jellyrolls & Boardwalk evening
19th Sunday
Sunrise safari (includes breakfast)
Rest lunchtime
Epcot afternoon
Fastpass - Test Track, Spaceship Earth and Figment.
Via Napoli 7pm
20th Monday
Marceline tour 7:45am
Magic kingdom morning
Lunch be our guest if can get fastpass (try for 12pm)
Fastpass for Anna & Elsa, Storytime with Belle, Monsters inc
Leave MK after lunch
Afternoon pool & rest
Epcot late afternoon/evening
Coral reef 8:45pm
Eat to the beat Smash Mouth
21st Tuesday
Hollywood Studios morning till about 1:30pm
Fast passes - Toy Story, ToT, Muppets
Afternoon tea garden view tea room 2:35pm
Change at hotel for MNSSHP
22nd Wednesday
Check out Celebration
Breakfast in Celebration Tavern
Walmart/Publix to pick-up nibbles
Golf/spa 1:30pm arrive
WDWFGU meet in Epcot (EMH)
Fastpass for Soarin (not sure what else)
Smash mouth again eat to the beat
Dinner somewhere, maybe graze around World Showcase?
23rd Thursday
Renew vows
Grand Floridian Cafe breakfast 9:30am
Renew vows
Pictures at AKL
Hire a boat on seven seas
The wave 6:35pm
TOTWL
Hallowishes on at 9:30pm
24th Friday
Breakfast in room
Typhoon lagoon 10am opening
Culinary tour of AKL 4pm
MK evening
Fast passes - Wishes, Dwarves, Pirates
25th Saturday
Animal kingdom
Fast passes - Finding Nemo, Tough to be a Bug, meet Minnie & Mickey
Rest late afternoon
Wagon ride at pioneer hall before dinner
Hoop de doo 8:30pm
26th Sunday
1900 park fare 10:40am brunch
Hollywood Studios lunchtime till about 5pm
Fastpass - Beauty & the Beast, Little Mermaid & Stunt show
Back to hotel to change for dinner
Yachtsman steakhouse 7:30pm
TOTWL
27th Monday
Check out of AKL by 11am
Lunch somewhere? Maybe visit MK?
Fastpass - Monsters inc, Buzz Lightyear, Meet Mickey Mouse
Check into VGF
Swim by the pool for an hour or so?
Parents leave by 5-5:30pm
Change car
Dinner somewhere
Evening MK
28th Tuesday
Hollywood studios morning & afternoon
Beaches and cream 2:30pm
Epcot evening
Kiss round the world <3
Eat around the world
Wilson Philips eat to the beat
29th Wednesday
Captains grille 10am
Blizzard beach
Welcome home Wednesday possibly
Dinner somewhere maybe with Karen, Iain & family?
30th Thursday
Magic kingdom EMH morning
Golf cart for the day at Ft Wilderness
Trails end 7:20pm
31st Friday
Epcot
Chefs des France 12:40pm
Carrie's Halloween party!
1st Saturday
Kona cafe breakfast 10am
Animal kingdom
Carrie & Mark for dinner?
Fast passes for Wishes, Space Mountain
MK EMH till midnight
2nd Sunday
Seaworld
Meet up with Diane and Adam 7pm ish
Big river grille dinner at the boardwalk
3rd Monday
Seaworld again if we decide to buy tickets
Epcot evening
Tokyo dining dinner 7pm
Boyz II men eat to the beat
4th Tuesday
Check out
MK
Outback at the airport
5th Wednesday
Arrive home to Gatwick