PLANNING STAGES – EXCITING!

Thought we’d revisit some planning tips with regard to planning your trip so that we can go into a bit more detail and provide more up to date information. Planning and researching before you book anything will be the difference between you having an amazing holiday (all Orlando holidays are amazing obviously!) and an “out of this world perfect for you” holiday. We all holiday differently and want different things out of a trip to Orlando.

To revisit flights

Most airlines now offer varying levels of economy classes. What’s best for you? Are you taking only hand luggage or a small check-in bag? Or are you going to hit the malls hard when you get there? If you intend to go shopping you will need the extra luggage allowances built into the ticket prices. Some airlines only offer 20kg of hold luggage and others offer up to 23kgs and an additional 10kg as hand luggage AND some even offer a laptop as well as hand luggage. Virgin Atlantic’s new flight structure means their economy basic flight, which is the cheapest does not include any check-in baggage – so if you are travel light kind of people you needn’t pay a higher ticket price. We are definitely “shoppers” and Orlando has the most amazing malls, discount outlets and shops, not too mention the Disney and Universal merchandise – hand luggage would never do for us. Although when packing in the UK we do not take a lot of toiletries with us – we hit Walmart when we get there and stock up on what we need. It’s cheap and there’s so much choice and it’s fun in Walmart!

Flight prices can vary vastly depending what time of year you are travelling, UK school holidays always see the biggest price increase. Sometimes travelling from an airport that’s not local to you can see a cheaper price. BA flights out of Gatwick and Heathrow can sometimes be a cheaper option than Virgin Atlantic out of Manchester, but obviously you need to factor in travelling time, cost of travelling and maybe an overnight stay with car parking into the overall cost of your flights.

This can also work the other way. If you fly into Sanford or Tampa it can sometimes save you money, also it’s always a little quicker getting out of the less busy/smaller airports. Split flights are a good option for the budget conscious traveller. MCO/Orlando international is a massive airport, but with it’s a well organised set up. Getting your hire car or transfers to your resort or villa is quite stress free unless you are there during the first day of the summer holidays when the whole planet decides to descend into Orlando International!

Don’t forget if you shop with Tesco you can save the Club Card points and convert them into Virgin Flying Club points, which you can use to pay or part pay for flights or to upgrade the seats if you have enough points. (Side note – you will need quite a few points to do this! But if you have a large family or fill the car up regularly at the Tesco garage these will mount up over time, and every little helps!).

Revisiting Park tickets

There are a few sites online now that offer park ticket deals as we have previously mentioned (Attraction Tickets Direct, Orlando Attraction Tickets, Florida Tix) most of them offer varying deals. The main ones are flexible tickets that allow you to visit most theme park attractions in the Orlando and surrounding areas. These can get quite expensive. Look at what you want to do? Is it just theme parks/water parks? Just Disney Parks or just Universal parks? Or do you want to include Seaworld and Legoland, for example, as well. It is worth researching all of the parks and water parks to see what would best suit your family/travelling party.

On the UK ticket sites at the moment tickets for Disney are on sale at a 7 day ultimate ticket, all parks, all water parks and memory maker pass for an adult are £399.00. BUT a 14 day ticket with exactly the same deals is on sale for £399.00!!! So, if you want to park hop and dip in and out of Disney and Universal at your leisure and not have to spend many long days in the parks the 14 day deal is way better.

You can get a Disney and Universal combo ticket 14 days. Unlimited access to both parks and water parks for £678 adults and £654 for children up to 10yrs old

The Universal tickets for 14 days unlimited are currently selling for £297 adults and £289 children under 10.

If you plan to buy the park tickets when you get to Orlando you may find that they are a lot more expensive than any here. Disney and Universal have started a price increase during the busy periods (school holidays, Easter , summer holidays, factory fortnight in the UK) when the tickets increase by 10% minimum and you will always pay more when buying at the gate.

We have also recently checked buying tickets, in the UK before travel, but from Universal Orlando and Disney World’s official sites and the ticket prices on there are as competitive as the UK ticket agencies and they also do the 14 days for the price of 7 offers, as well as options to upgrade to Express lines for Universal. Disney Fastpass always comes included as part of the multi-park multi-day tickets.

So do your research, everything is available to look at online so it shouldn’t be a problem for you to look at theme parks, maps, attractions and all of the airline and ticket options before you book. Hopefully we’ve given you some ideas to start searching – have fun! Oh! Orlando – we can’t wait to come back.

Next time we will look at what some of the theme park options are – Fastpass, Express lines etc and hopefully give you some money saving and time saving tips for your visits to the park.

Any questions – just let us know?