Ok I think it could actually be happening. I think we could actually be going to Walt Disney World and really soon.
A little backstory. We were meant to be flying out to Disney world in July 2020 (I know right). It had been booked for over a year. We were meant to be staying at wilderness lodge in one of the actual lodges. We were meant to be staying for 16 nights and we were meant to be on the deluxe dining plan. But we all know what happened, the world ground to a halt and six weeks before we were due to fly out, I had to phone Disney and we officially cancelled. Even under the circumstances it was heartbreaking and during that time we weren’t sure that things would ever return back to pre pandemic normal or that international travel would ever be possible again.
Back to the present day, We are (with some trepidation) going back. We are booked to go May into June (about 2 weeks away), we are going for 16 nights and we are staying at Port Orleans riverside. There is no dining plan available at the moment so we have come up with our own plan but more on that later and we are doing things quite differently to usual.
We usually stay for 16 nights and we spend the first full day and the last day (before we fly home) at resort chilling and swimming. We have in the past found this is a good way of easing into and out of the holiday however not this time.
We are choosing to go into the parks on our first full day in order to get the DAS pass (Disney’s disability pass which allows you to be outside of the queue for the (queue) time). In case you haven’t seen previous blogs this is due to autism, ADHD, IBS, Fibromyalgia, reactive asthma and joint disorders unfortunately all of these conditions mean it is almost impossible to queue in the traditional sense.
Riley and myself will be navigating the parks in our electric wheelchairs due to the amount of walking and distances covered our joints can not tolerate it and we don’t want to damage ourselves or exhaust ourselves to the point we can no longer enjoy the holiday.
Now the first park I was desperate to go to is Magic Kingdom in order to see the castle however I don’t want to faff with other things (like the DAS pass) before I get to see the castle so we are now going to Epcot the first morning to get the DAS, ride a few rides and acclimatise to the heat, rides and crowds before heading back to resort for a swim.
As our flight home is late in the day (it’s currently sitting at an 8pm flight), we are going to animal kingdom on our flight home day. It’s our favourite park, we have many hours to spare and it’s been four years since we last went and want to squeeze out every moment.
A big part of this decision making was realising that on the magic tickets, water parks do not count as one of your park days, so we can do 14 days in the park and 2 days in the water parks on a 14 day ticket so that’s what we are doing.
We will have rest days but they will be an afternoon or a morning rather than full days (unless we really need it while we are there). We are striving to not squander our time there after all we really weren’t sure we were ever going to make it back.
Right dining plan. We do not have a dining plan, we are very saddened by this as we have always had a dining plan and love the convenience of it. We have instead looked at what the basic disney dining plan would have cost ($55 per person per day, although when all is said and done we are closer to the standard dining plan with our choices which would be $78), we with that budget in mind looked up where we wanted to eat and have come up with our own plan. We have figured out where we are eating, how much it will cost and we have put that money on a revolut card along with the dining credit and gift card that Disney gifted us as part of our package. In total we have $4663 this includes $100 each for a slushy/iced coffee a day and a table service meal almost every day. This works out a little over $58 a day per person. If people are interested let me know and I can give a full breakdown when we get back of what we have spent and where.
We are flying with Virgin Atlantic direct from Heathrow to Orlando mco at the sucky time of 3.40pm and have parking at the airport.
We are also staying at the premier inn heathrow the night before the flight as the thought of travelling to London the day of the flight stops me from breathing.
That’s kind of it for now. We are watching a ton of Disney vlogs whilst preparing to create our own and looking forward to our next adventure.
