April 2019 – Mkingdon's Blog

Veggie Plight Sandwich

28/04/2019 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I am pleased to report that I have been strong this week and no further ADRs have been made. I applaud my own restraint.

One change and planning consideration on this trip is that Emily is now vegetarian and I was very proud of myself for remembering to order her a vegetarian meal on the flight! She has been busily scouring the menus of our favourite haunts looking at how well she will be catered for. Most places of course accommodate veggies very well, but a couple don’t seem to have recognised them as a customer base. Teak doesn’t seem to offer much to them (we’re still going though, she can have a salad!) and the biggest sacrifice Emily will be making for the sake of animal kind is to miss out on the lasagne at Olive Garden.

This dish is Emily’s most favourite thing on a plate on the planet and there is no veggie version. So if any of you are seasoned Orlando veggies I am sure she will be delighted to hear of any tips, recommendations and advice.

One new place we have added to the plan is Sweet Tomatoes. We’ve heard good things about it for years and yet never been. Recognising that this place is very likely to be appropriate for Emily’s veggie needs, it looks like it would still offer enough stuff to interest the carnivores in the party. A lunch here is on the cards which means that if any of us are feeling meat deprived we can make up for it during the evening meal!

It’s been a bit of a busy work week despite its four-day nature. Louise worked the bank holiday Monday and has been doing the same every day including this weekend. That’s a tough stretch. I mean it’s very tough that I have had to do the washing and tidy the house completely unaided this weekend. I have also done a few finishing touches to the bedroom, glossing some bits that were added post decorator to remedy some of the snag list stuff we noticed. I hate doing it but I do seem to have managed not to destroy the entire room which is always a positive when I pick up a tool of any kind.

I know I haven’t shared any photos yet. I will but we are still waiting for some things to get it 100% complete. Our blinds, ordered in early April, are still being made. Their delivery and installation is something I am very much looking forward to as currently, with nothing up at the windows, the now very bright mornings are restricting my ability to sleep. I crave some darkness.

We also have some bedroom furniture on order and that isn’t due until late May. This staggers me. What are they doing, growing the trees from scratch? Anyway, once all that is in place I’ll do some photos so you can all see what I’ve been moaning about all these weeks. The room looks a million times better than it did of course and we are happy with it. The spare room is suffering a little, as there is still a load of stuff dumped in there that needs to either thrown or found a new home for. Why do your possessions always outnumber your capacity to store them?

On Thursday (I think it was Thursday anyway) we all went to a wedding evening at the venue for Rebecca and Tom’s wedding. It was set up to show what it would look like when properly decorated etc and there were a few suppliers flogging their wares. We were entertained by a close up magician, which was handy, as if he’d been far away we wouldn’t have been able to see what he was doing, and discovered wonders that might be available to us such as a doughnut wall. Yep, that’s a thing and I suspect it may be a thing at Rebecca’s wedding too. Whilst we were there we were given a tour of the bridal suites on offer and Rebecca chose the one she (and Tom) wanted. Tom was off watching the Avengers film so he’ll be staying wherever he is told. Not that his presence on the night would have made a huge difference to the decision making process of course.

A few things are beginning to get booked in now, with the make up lady being the latest. I hope she can manage my complex skin tones. It’s a complex business this wedding lark. Luckily, we have years of experience of planning complex family based activities and Rebecca specialises in a list. I can’t think where she gets that from.

Time to go, I have dogs to walk, and then I am on Freddie minding duty later this afternoon whilst Tom watches End Game again, this time using the excuse of taking Rebecca with him!

Till the next time…..

A Tool And His Money…

21/04/201921/04/2019 by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

There are a few good things about these weekly blogs. Often I search my blog to find out when something happened when my memory fails, and then there’s the weekly amusement of seeing people still coming to my blog after searching to see if Olly Murs had a hair transplant.

Go on, google it, you’ll see.

One downside is that it is an almost permanent reminder of all the times I talk absolute nonsense or tell fibs. It was only a couple of weeks ago when I was justifying to myself how our plan to go this year would be fine as we’d do it really cheap. We wouldn’t be doing any ADRs and we’d be in a cheap as chips villa just north of Miami.

So, last week I booked two ADRs. One reason for that was that I got a bit over excited that I actually could. Booking so close to the trip comes with perks like that. The first ADR I blame on Freddie. Clearly, you can’t go to WDW with a toddler and not do a character meal, right? So Chef Mickeys was added. Rebecca made that choice on his behalf and we’re both pretending that it really is for Freddie when we both know different.

That will of course be an expensive breakfast, but, all the main characters will be there and it will be a civilised and sugar filled way to meet them without the hassle and queues in the parks. See, I can justify most WDW related expenses.

That was going to be it. We have a long, long list of eateries that we wish to go to and none of them are on site. So, the reasoning behind our second ADR booking is frankly a little more shaky. I think the best I can do is, I wanted to go.

It came about in a chat during a Rebecca, Tom and Freddie visit. I can’t remember the exact details of it, but it involved food, specifically large amounts of food, mashed potato and deep-fried chicken. Anyway, a day later this happened.

Congratulations!

Your dining reservation is set.

Trail’s End Restaurant Dinner

Sunday, September 1, 2019(6:25 PM, Dinner)

I appreciate that is a bit of a random selection. We have history there though and have loved it each time we have dined there. The journey there, if done by boat from the Contemporary or Magic Kingdom is delightful too. Freddie will love the boat ride I’m sure and seeing the huge horses at the camp ground too. See, any expense you like and I can justify it. And, mashed potato.

That day is an official rest day on the plan. That’s right, I have a day by day plan already, what of it? You know how our rest days go, so we’ll probably be getting restless by mid-afternoon so we can get ourselves ready, head to the Magic Kingdom and get the boat over from there. After eating, assuming I am not close to an over indulgence related coma, who knows, we may scoot back over to the Magic Kingdom for an evening stroll around the twinkly lit delights. There’s something vert different about the parks in the early evening darkness and that applies especially to the Magic Kingdom. These types of visits come without the pressure to ride anything, and just allows time for a bit of rose smelling and lovely memory making stuff like the dance party over in Tomorrowland.

It will be Labor Day weekend so if the crowds are too heavy it matters not, we can leave them to it and take our food babies home.

It also allows me to work off everything I just consumed by walking around for twenty minutes. That’s how it works right?

I think that’s it for ADRs though. Honest. We don’t have any room for them to be honest and of course we are on a budget. The only other place that tempted me was Via Napoli. We had lunch there last year and the pizza is sensational. They do a counter service though so we may grab a slice from there. Confession time. It won’t be a bloody slice, it will be several. Seriously, who just has one slice of pizza?

So we’re settled into the countdown now, and indeed, have a good old-fashioned visual of that on our fridge. It’s the small things….

Till the next time……

Perfectly Planning In Every Way

14/04/2019 by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

I tend to be excellent at being average. I have never excelled at any sport, which with my physique must be a shock to you all, my career does not deserve closer investigation or praise and musically I am proficient and efficient without being spectacular. On darker days I am less pragmatic and spend time assessing how woeful I am at lots of stuff to be honest.

However, when it comes to putting a Florida holiday into practice I am peerless, outstanding and just totally awesome in every way. I am Mkingdon….hear me roar!

From having no intentions or plans for a trip this year at lunchtime last Saturday, by close of play this Wednesday the whole thing was researched, booked and written down in a plan. I am the veritable well oiled machine in this regard, and believe me, my machine needs some oiling…..whatever that means.

I had spotted our flight last Saturday during my first search to be honest. It just had to wait for Louise’s holiday approval to happen before buttons could be pressed. It took almost all of Monday for that to happen, with a hilarious few moments of panic after Louise had told me I was OK to book, only then to be told a mistake had been made and she couldn’t have the holiday. Such fun. All was well, and she doesn’t have to stay at home with the dogs after all.

So as sense and tradition normally dictates, the flight is the first piece of the puzzle and that was slotted into place on Monday evening (ish)….work may read this! We are flying on August the 28th with Thomas Cook from Manchester. It’s an unusual one in that we don’t depart until 14.40. That means we don’t touch down until 7pm and the drive to the villa, already interesting with a toddler, Louise on her flight drugs and everyone else hot and tired, will be made more entertaining with it being dark, but we will be sat navved up as well as having my unerring sense of direction and years of Orlando driving experience. I bet it is raining too!

The benefit of that later departure is that we won’t need to be up at 3am to allow for female pre-airport readying. We will only need to be at the airport around 10am which is much more civilised. If Louise asks what time she needs to be ready, then it’s still 5am, OK?

Booking with only 140 days or so to go means that the seat selection was slim pickings and we are sitting nowhere of note in cattle class. Freddie will have his own seat though. He may be under two years old when we fly (by about eight weeks) but nobody deserves to have him on their knee for two eight-hour flights. The investment will be well worth the expense I am sure.

Price wise, we did OK. Kayak and similar sites were showing that flight as low as £330 but by the time you have added in your seat selection (I know you don’t need to, but with Freddie with us we need to be all together so that everyone else can pitch in to make sure I don’t get disturbed whilst watching my films), and something bigger than hand luggage it was another £100 on top of that, with a couple of hundred quid for Freddie’s ticket. Freddie having his own seat does of course mean he has full luggage allowance too which will come in handy. For direct flights in (late) August, anything in that price range is good enough.

I had to check with Thomas Cook before booking online as it wouldn’t let me buy a seat for Freddie if I entered his real date of birth. I had to make him a year older and then contact them afterwards to amend the booking. I didn’t do anything silly like phone them, their web chat worked a treat.

So that is the moment that we knew we were going and a little celebratory group chat ensued.

I had been browsing the endless stream of villas since the weekend. My main conclusion from this exercise was that someone needs to build a decent villa search website as the majority of them are absolute pants. Over the weekend and into Monday a shortlist emerged, and some quotes were requested for villas featured on sites where you can’t get a price without contacting someone. Is it 1997?

That whittled down the list a little further. Our requirements were important yet brief –

2 Master Suites

A decent pool

WiFi

An OK location.

The latter was the one thing I knew we would probably need to compromise on with our lack of proper budget. I usually treat villa locations down the US27 or near Championsgate with unworthy derision as I really like the Formosa Gardens area but these more distant developments would all be acceptable for this trip.

The quotes bore out the wisdom of this as quotes for villas in those areas were significantly cheaper, either by coincidence or not, I’m not sure.

I couldn’t decide and bite the bullet to book. The main factors here are typically that you always think are just one more search away from the perfect villa and of course, it’s fun to be looking for one. So the villa was actually the last thing to get booked. Whilst that was percolating I did the other more simple things.

Car hire was pretty easy. We always tend to use USRentaCar (not an ad, but I am absolutely open to them paying me money to promote them). I did some due diligence by using the Travel Supermarket comparison thing but anything cheaper than my usual car hire place was for off airport pick up and/or from brands I have never heard of. So a seven-seater mini van was secured with a £50 deposit, at a price of £499 with all relevant insurances etc. We only ever have one driver as most of the party are too young and Louise is barely allowed to drive in the UK after her recent run of prangs and of course I love Diet Coke. We are using Alamo as it happens this time.

Now, I had absolutely no need to book theme park tickets at this stage, but with some super low deposit schemes knocking around, why not right? Disney put ticket prices up three times a week so best to strike whilst my iron is tepid. Again, a look around the internet confirmed pretty much everyone was within a few quid of each other for the 14 day ultimate, so with that knowledge, again I reverted to one of the places I’ve used a few times, Floridatix (just to say once more, if you are reading this and want to pay me money to promote you, hit me up…as the kids might say), as they offer a £10pp deposit thingy. These bookings were flowing like water at this stage. I was on fire.

So by close of play Tuesday, we were metaphorically well on our way. I was still waiting for a few villa quotes to come back, so I did a little more searching, but it was becoming clear that one was emerging as the best option for us. It ticked all of our boxes, the owner was very responsive, he had a Facebook page with what appear to be genuine reviews, I could see the address of the villa and do some basic online checks and overall it just felt right. He was the only owner to come back to me after quoting to see what I thought and if I was fixed up too.

This is the villa we are using this time.

It’s on Sandy Ridge which sounds like a problem that you may go to the clinic with, but it looks lovely, and we should be 25 minutes from WDW. Google maps tells me it is 22 minutes so with traffic that’s tolerable.

So with the exchange of a booking form and some cash, I was done before the end of Wednesday, even with taking my sweet time selecting a villa.

Of course, whilst doing all of this, I have drafted the first day by day plan and made a list of all the eateries we want to get to. Not bad whilst at the same time remaining vaguely competent at my proper job and project managing home improvements/disaster scenarios.

What became clear to me shortly after last week’s blog was that my sanctimonious gloating that we wouldn’t be stupid enough to do a WDW trip right when Galaxy’s Edge is opening was unwise as it now turns out it opens on our first full day in Florida. This just proves that my recent post on this subject was all bluster and distraction, trying to make me feel better about not having a trip planned for this year.

I have no idea how we will cope with that event and those crowds. I am trying to tell myself that this, along with Food & Wine, will spread the crowds out allowing us to easily get FastPasses for the stuff we couldn’t last time, namely Flights Of Passage and Slinky Dog. Our DHS days will need to be approached with suitably adjusted expectations. We will FastPass non Star Wars stuff and hope to just be able to wander around Galaxy’s Edge a bit, and ride something if we can.

This is a weird trip in that, in all of these years we have been going, we have never had a concrete plan to return the year after. We of course nearly always have but that was always something that was decided later. Knowing that we already have plans for 2020 for my 50th birthday trip, we can tell ourselves that it matters not if we miss something. We will indeed be back.

For fans of me pissing and moaning about our home improvements, normal service will return next week I’m sure. We are nearly done with just some blinds and furniture to arrive. It has broken me and if I have nothing else to write about next week it might break you too.

Till the next time…..

New Non Surprising News?

07/04/201907/04/2019 by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Sat staring at the electronic blank page of this post I’m not sure how or where to start with this week’s effort. I suppose in the natural turn of events I would have entertained you with the latest set of tragedies and woes in our remake of The Money Pit, where I, as a slightly older, heavier Tom Hanks laugh maniacally as I stare into the abyss where my bedroom and will to live used to be.

I’m sure you’ve all been looking forward to that all week. In reality, we are through the worst now. The decorator comes tomorrow, the carpet on Friday and the electrician should be returning to do the stuff he couldn’t do last time due to issues with our wiring.

Then we have to choose some blinds when the blind man comes on Tuesday night. I don’t think he has issues with his vision though. It’s a ridiculously long road for the doing up of just one average sized bedroom, but we don’t tend to do things by halves in that department.

So yesterday, Louise and I were out delivering some quantitative easing into the stagnant carpet and furniture economy and something weird happened. It had been brewing all day, being first mentioned by Louise as we were tidying and waiting for the carpet measuring man and Asda delivery. I dismissed it as playful banter at first, but the topic kept returning to our conversation all day as we wandered from shop to shop and by tea time, it had moved from fanciful nonsense to almost a reality.

An online chat including the girls in the conversation happened to confirm everything and it’s fair to say they were very shocked by this turn of events. What am I on about? Well, we now we sit staring down the barrel of a Florida holiday this summer when I would have put more money on my hair growing back just yesterday.

Related image

I know you probably won’t be, but I’m in shock. Mainly as it was Louise’s idea and secondly that we’ve found a way to juggle stuff around and pay for it. If negotiating Brexit were as important to politicians as WDW trips are to us, we’d have cracked that nonsense in an afternoon.

So we have our dates mapped out. The complexity of agreeing on dates is more challenging than a moon landing. The NHS give out holidays to staff like gruel to workhouse kids so we have to wait until tomorrow for Louise to get official permission before we can press the button. I have Mustard gigs already booked to avoid disrupting and all of that and more is before I wandered into the minefield of finding flights with acceptable prices. It’s been a busy last few hours.

We *think* we will be going on the 28th of August. The party is me, Louise, Emily, Rebecca, Tom, Freddie….and of course Ryan, and I am just beginning the villa search. It will be as budget as these things can be. Disney parks only, hardly any or no on-site dining, instead grabbing counter service stuff or enjoying our wide range of off-site favourites and no extras such as MNNSHP etc.

Flight wise, it looks like Thomas Cook have direct flights for much cheapness. I say that, as on Kayak they show at £350ish, but by the time you’ve added luxuries like a suitcase, a meal and a seat reservation it’s back up to the £450 mark I would have expected. We’ve made the decision to get Freddie his own seat, even though he will still be just under 2 when we fly. 16 hours in economy with him on laps is a horror not to be entertained.

I know we’ve done the whole, “we definitely aren’t going this year” bait and switch a million times, and I am probably much more shocked than any of you, but this one really did come out of the blue.

There is much now to do, so leave me whilst I spend far too many hours obsessing over every small detail that could be better spent elsewhere…..NOT!

So unless the NHS holiday Gods deny us, we should have a relatively short countdown to our next adventure. Fancy coming along, virtually, of course? I mean you are welcome to go to Florida at the same time, but I’m not paying for you.

Let the planning, countdown and diet commence, we are going home!