poppet2 Posted July 13, 2016 Share Posted July 13, 2016 (edited) Golden rule, if you are hiring a car, do NOT hire the car at the airport, the moment you come off the plane. You will be too jet lagged, even if you think you aren't, and trying to find the hotel and driving on the other side of the road and not knowing where you are going is disastrous. Instead, get a hire bus, or coach from the airport to the hotel. Then pick the hire car up in Kissimmee or wherever locally, the next day. I've booked with Virgin & Thomson and both great. Edited July 13, 2016 by poppet2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martss Posted July 14, 2016 Share Posted July 14, 2016 We went in March/ April 2012 and are going again this August. Booked a package with Virgin, flying from Gatwick and staying at Radisson Resort Celebration. Buy your park tickets before you go, I've got ours from Floridatix, if you're staying on a Disney resort you can start booking your fastpasses 60 days in advance, 30 days if your staying 'off site'. We've got 14 day Disney pass and 14 day Universal pass. Don't take the standard insurance that you get offered for the car, it's not enough! Our car is with Alamo, they do an online check in and skip the counter so you don't get the hard sell for satnavs, upgrading to a bigger car, more insurance etc after an 8 hour flight. Use a free satnav on your smartphone instead of buying a satnav and maps. Navmii and maps.me are free and don't use any data. Food, last time we went to Golden Corral for our breakfasts, it's not the best, but you pay and it's all you can eat. Plan on eating a big breakfast and go as long as you can through the day on that breakfast, the food in the parks is expensive! We also tried iHop and Mcdonalds but preferred Golden Corral. Drinks, it's hot and humid so you need to drink plenty, bottles of Coke, Gatorade, water etc are on sale all over the parks but they're about $3-$4 so it soon adds up. This year we plan to buy bottled water from a Walmart and those little bottles of concentrated flavours, make these the night before and put them in the hotel room fridge for our first drink in the parks. There are water fountains around the parks but the water doesn't taste that good. You need to plan your days, which parks your going to and when. There's parades throughout the day at Disney parks and its handy to know what time they start so you can watch them or avoid them and get on a ride while everyone else is watching the parade. Check for planned ride shutdowns, for example our first day at Magic Kingdom is on the 5th August. Big Thunder Mountain closes for refurb soon after that so we have made it a priority to book a fastpass on the 5th. Any new rides will have big queues, so fastpass those. You get three fastpasses with an hour time slot for each fastpass, you can't book anymore until you've used your last one, so don't make that last one too late in the day! Another way of doing it is to arrive as the park opens and go straight to a ride you want to go on before the queue builds up. Go to the water parks, these are my kids favourite bit, Typhoon Lagoon in particular. Get some wet socks (neoprene socks), the floor gets hot and the bottom of the big wave pool is like Artex! They wont let you on the slides with pool shoes or flip flops on in case they catch and suddenly grip on the slide,glasses are allowed if they are secured. I could go on, but there's loads of sources for information about a holiday in Florida, check out The DIBB forum, everything is on there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
panzer1 Posted July 15, 2016 Share Posted July 15, 2016 Been seven times in last decade including two holidays lasting 3 weeks each, all staying in villas with hire car. If going for a villa get a named one, had one allocated on arrival which was disgusting, would highly recommend Kenwood travel, cheapest and very good service with named villas. Was there with travel city when they went bust and had only been there three days but because package were fully covered for return to UK, if you book separate on web you are not covered by ABTA and ATOL so bear this in mind and get very good insurance if you do it that way. Go on Disney web site and request disneys little book of magic, they will send it free, loads of help in it. Get tickets from " attractions direct" based in London, you get proper tickets and some freebies, cheaper than in USA by a long shot. Go in sept after first week as US schools go back and you will save up to two grand but weather still good. There is acfacebook page called Orlando time, which is a closed group that you request to join, join this loads and loads of help advice adverts etc. Have a great time, my kids are now 23 and 17 but going again next year, once you have been you will want to return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackydog Posted July 24, 2017 Author Share Posted July 24, 2017 3 weeks away now. Got Thomson flights. East Midlands to Sanford. (I hate Manchester) Rented a viila with pool just off route 27. Got car hire with full insurances Got travel insurance Got Disney passes and booking the fastpass slots as the days go by. (inc memory maker) Got Estas Got passports. Booked hotel near EM airport for the night before (having to use the train to get there though). Owt else?????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy1976 Posted July 24, 2017 Share Posted July 24, 2017 3 weeks away now. Got Thomson flights. East Midlands to Sanford. (I hate Manchester) Rented a viila with pool just off route 27. Got car hire with full insurances Got travel insurance Got Disney passes and booking the fastpass slots as the days go by. (inc memory maker) Got Estas Got passports. Booked hotel near EM airport for the night before (having to use the train to get there though). Owt else?????? My ticket? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackydog Posted July 24, 2017 Author Share Posted July 24, 2017 My ticket? Wife's sister is coming out for a week with us. Her husband was going to come too but he cannot sort out his passport in time. Stressing me out all this planning in case i forget something important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
panzer1 Posted July 24, 2017 Share Posted July 24, 2017 Fly on Saturday with virgin. Only thing I have to do is API which we cannot do til check in opens 24 hours previous to flight. You may have to do that with your flight too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bargepole23 Posted July 24, 2017 Share Posted July 24, 2017 Fly on Saturday with virgin. Only thing I have to do is API which we cannot do til check in opens 24 hours previous to flight. You may have to do that with your flight too? Unusual to not be able to submit API until check in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackydog Posted July 24, 2017 Author Share Posted July 24, 2017 Unusual to not be able to submit API until check in. API ?? Have I missed something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackanne Posted July 24, 2017 Share Posted July 24, 2017 Advanced Passsenger Information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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