We're going again!!

I didn't post the most important thing in all this. The actual holiday!!

You can the read the whole stay from start to finish, with pictures, here!

And here is the new blog as I just started as we're going again in October 2012!!

This time, I won't be on my own and there will be 3 children coming with us!

Please follow me again, if you enjoyed this blog you'll love the next. :D

OMG!

We're leaving tomorrow!! I feel so unprepared!

2 more days...

...until we leave for Gatwick!

I've got $1550 now and will add more onto my card on Thursday before we leave which will hopefully make it up to about 2k!

Then I've got another £200 to add on over the two weeks I'm there from tax credits so I should have about $2300 in total which is great. :)

Going to unpack and re-pack tonight to make sure we've got everything. I know a few bits I need to pack still and a few I could do with taking out, so that should be sorted tonight.

Getting closer!

Today I've worked out how much I'm estimating I'll spend.

Food, taxi's, tips and snacks have come to around $1300. I've rounded everything up though so I'm hoping it'll be less than that!

I have $1500 right now, and should have about $2100 by the end of the week :)

So everything I have left after the $1300 will be for shopping, souvenirs, buying things from the parks etc and duty free on the last day. :)

Getting nervous

I'm getting really nervous now! I've never been on holiday without another adult before and have to make sure I don't lose 2 young children too!

I'll be dropping kids off as usual on Thursday, getting some last minute things sorted and spending some time with Ben. Then at about lunch time I'll be picking the kids up, giving them a massive lunch to last them the journey down to Leicester, then London. We'll probably leave here about 4, getting to my mum's at 5, so we'll miss rush hour by the time we get to London.

We'll check in the hotel around 8pm I'd guess and go to the airport for something to eat before saying bye to my mum and settling in for the night.

Then in the morning, we'll be up at 6am, get washed and ready and checked out early so we can catch the short bus ride to the South terminal where we'll check in. Hopefully about 7am so we'll be one of the first checked in, and with a bit of luck we may be able to request a window seat. :)

Then we'll be dawdling around the airport for 3 hours! We'll get some breakfast and see if we can find somewhere we can watch planes take off.

Then we'll get to our terminal bit around 9:30am-10am and wait to be called!

I'm hoping the kids will sleep a bit on the plane but I'm guessing that won't happen in the first half of the flight!

I've got to get some activities for them to do on the plane and keep them occupied, although there will be back seat tv's.

So that's the first part of our journey there! I'll post again soon with the rest, I've got some holiday sorting to do!

Getting there!

Packing done (almost, just need the toiletries now which I cant pack until the day we leave) and everything confirmed.

Cameron's spots are still there but yet to see any blisters so I think we've got lucky there!

This time next week we'd have just had our first night at POP and we'll be getting ready to go to Epcot for the day. I'll probably be on the phone to Ben about now too!

Getting really excited now!

Update...

...Ok, it looks promising for Cameron. Since he was sent home from school on Tuesday he has had no blistering! Which either means it's not chicken pox, like the doctor said, or it's a very mild case.

They have faded a lot and I'm hoping the spots would have gone by the end of the weekend. If he hasn't got them then I don't have to worry about Alyssa getting them. And if she does I hope it's mild for her too so we can fly!

She seems fine though and no sign of any spots so fingers crossed it's something else!

This time next week we'll be sat on the plane (hopefully!) almost half way to Florida!

I've got to get a few more bits, boiled sweets, toothpaste, toothbrushes, higher factor suncream, and some snacks and I think that's about it.

I've got all the holiday stuff washed, they just need ironing and packing. I've got to try to figure out how to pack Alyssa's big princess dresses without squashing them. :S

We've all got summer clothes, as well as a warm outfit each. They'll both be wearing a light jacket when we go so we've got them in case it gets chilly. Swimsuits are all packed as well as snorkels for all of us. Cameron has his spiderman costume, and I need to find the top half of his Jack Sparrow outfit or that wont be coming with us!

Plane tickets, park tickets, cards, cash, daily notebook and park maps are all in my bum bag, and the folder will be going into our hand luggage, along with some snacks and something to keep the kids amused.

I've got to get another bag for hand luggage as mine is just outside the size limits! If I cant I'll have to just try my luck and hope they'll let me off the couple of cm's.

Alyssa is so close to being 40"! I don't know if they'll let her on the rides (I wouldn't take her on roller coasters or anything where the height limit actually matters), but I really want us all to go on the Spiderman ride! Well there's a few rides that have the 40" limit that shouldn't really have height limits that I would love us all to go on

Down side of going on my own is that if she can't get on, none of us get to ride. :(

Just confirmed that my landline has free international calls for under and hour (can hang up and start again) so at least I can talk to Ben every day at no cost. :)

Getting very excited again now :)

This time in 6 days, we'll be getting ready to leave for my mum's!

Major set back!!!!!

We might have to cancel! :(

Cameron has the chicken pox!

He got sent home from school on tuesday with spots. I thought they might be bites as we let the cats in the night before and Cameron had chucked his school uniform on the floor tuesday morning!

Took him to the doctors and he said he thought it was chicken pox. Since he wasn't our regular doctor, Cameron wasn't ill and the spots are not blistering I took him back yesterday. He said he also thought they were chicken pox but we'll know for sure in a day or two.

Today half the spots seem to be fading and the rest have still not started to blister more than 48 hours after the spots appeared, so I'm stuck in limbo right now!

I don't know if they are chicken pox or not, but to be safe I'm trying to keep the kids away from each other and am putting loads of Calomine lotion on him. We have 7 days to go now! if they are chicken pox they should have scabbed over by then (assuming they actually start scabbing over!!), but my main worry is if Alyssa gets them.

She has to get them today or after the holiday if we are going to be able to fly. If she gets them tomorrow we won't be allowed to go! The airline policy is that you can fly 7 days after the first spot has appeared. So Cameron will be fine.

The best thing that could happen right now is if the next time I check Cameron the spots have faded and it turns out not to be chicken pox at all! Then I can relax and start getting excited again.

Suffice to say right now I'm not excited at all, I'm just so stressed. First credit card fraud, now this...

If things come in three's, what on earth is coming next?????

I'm going to do our holiday washing and ironing today and pack them all up and hope that gets me excited again. I can't see me relaxing totally until we're actually on the plane and it's taken off!

Not a nice build up to a Florida holiday, we should be dancing around counting down the days now, instead I'm counting spots and worrying 7 days isn't enough!

Aaahhh, hopefully this time next week we would have just had a massive lunch (won't be able to eat until 8pm when we get to London) making sure everything is ready and getting ready to leave for my mum's house! Then onto the Sofitel for an early night before a very long day the next day.

Hope hope hope!!

12 days to go!

$1350 on my card now making $1500 in total. Not so bad really. I have pretty much everything sorted now. I have packed a lot of things (not permanently, just in the case so I know what to take, still need washing again and ironing before we go), got all the documents I need, confirmed the Sofitel booking, confirmed and arranged the Clearwater trip and pick up times, changed the transfer pick up since my flight was changed (2 extra hours! ), and have park maps of all the parks we're going to with rides we can go on and things we can do in each park marked on them.

I'm not sure what else needs to be done. I've loved planning this holiday, this past year (and a bit) has been a long, hard journey, with it's ups and downs, but it's been so much fun!

I want something else to do now, I can't sit around for 12 days doing nothing! I'll go bonkers! There must be something else, and I will find it. :)

I can't believe how quickly this has gone, just 12 days to go now!!

Update

$1300 on my card, $150 in cash. You think I could get $550 in two weeks??

Hope so!

Stroller and fridge swap

I've written all this on my plan but just in case, I'll write it here too.

Stroller swap.

Friday 9th October: Ring HeatherSue at 8pm ish to arrange to meet to swap the stroller.

Thursday 22nd October: Ring KrisnChris and arrange a place to meet to pass on the stroller.

Fridge swap.

Sunday 11th October: Ring Gail after Seaworld to arrange to collect the fridge from their room.

Monday 19th October: Ring Bev at 8am to arrange to drop the fridge off at her room.

I have all their numbers in my phone and will have to ring them from my room at POP or a payphone or something as my phone will probably not work over there.

Getting there!

I have $1250 on my card now and $150 in cash. I'm getting paid in 2 weeks and it should be about £300 built up over the last few weeks, so that's about another $500 too. :D

I'm hoping to get another £100 from work for the second week we're out there, and about £150 ish from tax credits which will be about another $250. Excluding the extra £100 from work, that should be around $2150!! If all this stays on track that should be plenty so I'm more chilled out now about spending money.

Just got to carry on sorting our packing out, get a few extra bits from ebay and we're all set! I've packed on little case already.

Book 'Ohana again!

I had to, just look at the Polynesian resort!

I had to visit, and the kids love Lilo and Stitch too, not to mention saying bye to Mickey and Minnie on our last day. It only works out at $50 with tip anyway so it's not that much of an expense. :D

We'll be having a late breakfast/early lunch (although its still the character breakfast) on the 23rd of October, our last day, at 10:50am.

We have to get back to POP before 3pm now instead of 1 which is great so we'll have plenty of time. Packing will be done in the morning so we'll probably nip to Magic Kingdom or Epcot for an hour on the last day, then take the monorail to the Poly for our reservation.

Ok...

...I've now got $1200 on my card and $150 cash, making $1350.

I'm hoping to get quite a bit more before I go, and hopefully sort out a refund I'm due too.

It's not likely at all I'll get my money back from the fraudulent transactions before I go, but at least we'll get it back and can use it for something else after the holiday.

Ticker!

Getting so close now!!!!!

Ok...

...Still waiting on an investigation on my card and hoping for a miracle that I get my money back before my holiday, but until then I'm going to try to put as much as possible on my other one.

I've not got $1150 on it. I have about £200 ($300 ish) coming to me while I'm there (I should leave some in my account for bills while I'm away), and around £150 ($230 ish) from work, but hope to get more before I leave, going to work my arse off!

So that makes about $1670 minimum if I don't get my money back in time.

I'm hoping to get the chance to do a car boot too but that might not be possible so I'm also trying to cut back A LOT on my normal spending so I can put a little more away that way.

I'm still going to keep ringing fairfx and give them a sob story, keep telling them when I am due to leave and begging them to try to sort it out before then. I'll be a very happy lady if they can!

Great! Just what I need!!!!!

With just over 3 weeks to go, I've been the victim of credit card fraud! $460 has disappeared from my fairfx card!!

I've contacted them and all they could do last night was cancel my card since it was a sunday but I'll be ringing them back again once they open.

I've contacted the police, and they can't really do anything unless fairfx can't.

I've also contacted the website these transactions came from and told them to cancel any orders that might be in my name.

I can't believe this! I was panicking already about not having enough spending money and now I only have $1000 or so!!!!!

I really don't need this, I'm stressed again now wondering how we'll be able to manage if this isn't sorted out before we go. Great way to start a holiday, stressed and worried.

I can't even get a normal credit card because of my credit so whatever I save on my fairfx card is all I'll have. :(

Tickets are here!!!!!

I've just picked up our flight tickets!!! Unless there are any delays or cancellations (touch wood there aren't!), there's nothing left to stress about now.

The spending money I have right now is ok, so I'm just going to top up as much as possible over the next 3 1/2 weeks!!!!!

Everything booked now!!

Just booked the Spiderman breakfast for the 18th of October at 9am.

So nothing left to book or pay for now, just a few bits to take with us and spending money!!!!!

28 days to go now!!!!!!

Also, I changed teh T-Rex booking a few days ago. It's now on the 19th at 2:30pm instead of being on the same day as Shamu at 9pm!!

Getting sorted...

Ok, I think the spending money situation will be fine, fingers crossed, so that's one worry off my list.

I'm now getting freaked by how close the holiday is and how little I've got sorted!

Today I bought some suitcase scales so I know exactly what each case weighs instead of being charged at customs, a travel cushion for the kids, will get another so they each have one, and a new bum bag which fits everything I need in it and it's still small.

I've also got 2 cans of that mist spray in case we get too hot in the parks.

And last but not least, my passport has just arrived! I've just done my ESTA and it's been approved so we're all set to go!

I can get excited now, the biggest stresses (hopefully) are over and I just really need to pack and save as much spending money as possible and hope nothing is delayed or cancelled!