After a week off work you’d imagine I would be rested, relaxed and raring to go. I’m not, but it’ll take more than a week of mowing grass, answering work emails on my phone and not lying in as long as I would have liked to achieve that.
As the week drew to an end both Louise and I also seem to have inherited some of Emily’s (non Covid) illness which isn’t that bad (for me at least) other than it prevents sleep. Louise is doing less well.
My birthday on Tuesday was a quiet one and I don’t think it will surprise or upset anyone to hear that I have had better birthdays but it was lovely to see family and get lots of lovely gifts. Most gifts were clothes which seemed to be a family wide conspiracy to tell me I am overdue a new wardrobe. I am set for any upcoming holiday now with many new T shirts.
We’ve been searching for that alternate holiday destination this week and I think we are there. An all inclusive hotel has been identified in Gran Canaria for our October dates and as soon as anyone fancies sending me a refund we will be booking that. The hotel is called Riu Vistamar on Gran Canaria. Hopefully those refunds will be any day as Aer Lingus said theirs would take 5-7 days. We sit here on the cusp of the end of that period so we will see what happens.
Floridatix received my tickets early in the week and quickly issued our cancellation invoices. Of course for some reason it will now take up to sixty days to actually see the cash returned. I mean they’ve only had thousands of my pounds in their bank since late 2019 so that seems fair.
Shout out to Matt (villa owner) who had that deposit back with me almost before I requested it. Travel Republic, through which we had booked our Universal stay, also refunded our small deposit within a couple of days.
My fear of the US opening shortly after we book for elsewhere is subsiding. Whilst there are small hints that the US know they are coming under increasing pressure to come up with a plan, I still think it will be 2022 before we are allowed in. Regardless, it will definitely be then before we can return now. What state the parks will be in with all these changes and how silly flight prices might be we can only imagine.
I think the US has a little bit of time to go yet to ride out their current wave and we will have our own new surge in cases with schools now back. I am hopeful for 2022 but I have lived in that naïve state for almost two years now so nobody hold your breath.
Had you told me in September 2019 as we left the parks for the last time on our most recent trip that we wouldn’t be back for the best part of three years (at least) not only would I have wept (more) but I may have chained myself to the flagpole on Main Street. Having been so often we were, I think, definitely at the stage of taking these trips for granted. Never again.
So in just under a month we should be overseas (probably…I just cannot bring myself to think about any travel plans as concrete), enjoying the sunshine, unlimited food and not being at work. It will be lovely of course, but just not quite the holiday I would have wanted. Who knows, maybe I will rediscover my love of these types of holiday. They were all I knew until the age of ten. I’m not kidding anyone with that, especially myself, but excuse my positive spinning after what feels like endless whinging (I don’t need to tell you that, right?).
How is my beach body diet going? Well, let’s just say that I am no heavier now than I was last week, and at this stage let’s embrace that for the positive step that it is.
And with that I shall leave you. We appear to be in for a heat wave this week so make the most and try to imagine you are somewhere in Florida if you can.
Till the next time……
Mkingdon's Blog 
We are also planning canaries for October so will be interesting to read your hotel review? Are you planning a trip report or would it be too painful. Have a great week at work…. 😉
I don’t think a full trip report would be very interesting (no change there then!!) 🙂 Beach holidays are pretty much the same each day but I will definitely blog about it.
Maybe Father Christmas should bring you a sit on grass cutter?
We are booked for January and would like someone to make a definite decision sooner rather than later. Do we buy baby summer dresses in the sales or not?! Someone please make a decision and tell me soon
This is what I can’t understand. They must know a rough time that the border will not open before.
I see some parallels….we were last in Magic Kingdom in August 2019. This August was supposed to be a big one as I hit a round number Birthday. Instead that was spent as a week in Mallorca. It was nice, and whilst it was no substitute, it was significantly cheaper.
About May/June, I had bargain Aer Lingus flights for this August and couldn’t wait to get back, but they came and went. For our next trip to the mouse we’ll now have to pay additional for onsite resort parking, fast passes and transfers. We used to get magical express and then hire a car after a couple of days. I’m still annoyed over the circa hundred quid hike in the 14 day ticket when they started to include ‘free’ photo pass in it a few years ago, and also scared about flight prices, especially from Manchester for next year.
As for taking it for granted, I too did, my eldest is 15 and has double figure visits, my youngest at 5 is likely to miss some of the best visits of her life. I’m less concerned about when they open up, (I’m kind of assuming by next August it will be done). For me it’s more if I can regain my mojo and whether or not I’m willing to pay the premium.
We had a little trip to Cyprus for 11 nights in the end when we should have been in Orlando. It was nice and the children enjoyed it but it wasn’t the same as 3.5 weeks in Florida!
Lucky you getting your villa money back though. The company we used are refusing to give us anything back or change the dates so we are still £4K out of pocket from this trip that we physically weren’t able to take!!
That’s scandalous!!😳
Like you we thought the same….could anywhere else possibly be good enough to travel to…we have just come back from a week in Croatia and loved every minute of it. It made me realise how spoilt I have been with America over the last 20 years and that there are many other beautiful places in this world to visit. I hope you enjoy Gran Canaria as much as we loved Croatia 🇭🇷
We too have booked Lanzarote for mid-November instead of seeing the Xmas decorations that the mouse puts up. We’ve been very lucky in that instead of rebooking for later we decided to request a refund and have had it all returned now. I’m sad to say that we may not be back to the mouse for quite some time due to all the expensive changes being put in. As Kerry said there is a big wide world out there to see. Enjoy Gran Canaria.
We’ve just had a weeks Royal Caribbean cruise around uk. Hit really lucky with the weather and really enjoyed it! Food, cocktails, sun and no work – perfect