[Annabel]

<font color="purple">Annabel’s Solo Trip to Disney World Mark II

AKA How to Book and Plan a Solo Trip in 40 Days

The Pre-Trip Report

Party: Me, myself and I Aged 32
Staying: Pop Century for 8 nights, July 7-15th
Why: Well why not! Originally, it was going to be both me and DH but he decided he didn’t want to miss out on any wages and suggested I take a solo trip seeing as I enjoyed myself so much last year. What a sweetie

This report has been written as I go along booking everything and planning – so any corrections or additions will be in brackets.

This little story starts at the end of May. DH and I were eagerly awaiting our October trip and were either planning or reminiscing a fair bit. As you do Since we moved here, DH has wanted to get a job on the railways – however he was offered another before he could apply and stayed with it. He finally got around to applying for a railways job (maintenance) and thankfully, the company seemed impressed with his background and he was put forward for an assessment day on June 13th (as I mentioned before, he failed the maths side of the assessment by 4 questions and wasn’t put forward).

Anyway, DH came home after a particularly stressful day at work and said he’d been thinking that if he was offered the railways job, he’d take some time off in between the jobs and we could go to Disney World. This was news to my ears of course as I was suffering with major withdrawal symptoms. A few days later, DH comes home from work and says “I might have a surprise for you”, all matter-of-factly as if he’d just announced something really boring. I waited patiently for half an hour or so, trying to keep my cool. “So…umm, when will I find out then?”
“Soon,” is all he would say. Hmm. So finally after a tortuous hour (it felt so much longer!) he tells me to switch on my MSN Messenger – DH and I have our own computers in the same room that are networked. Of course, now I’m thinking that DH has seen something he wants to buy and is going to send me a link of some sort. I wait for the private message box to appear from him, which finally comes through with the immortal words “do you fancy taking a solo trip in July instead?”

My face must’ve been a picture. I sat there, godsmacked, unable to take it all in. We talked for a bit and DH had decided that he didn’t really want to take 2 weeks off between jobs as that would leave us without 2 weeks worth of wages – a valid point that I never thought of in all the excitement. Some of you may be surprised by this but it took me a fair while to decide. Shock! Horror! Gasp! Very shocking, considering I went solo last year and I never really expected to have the chance to do it all again.

The idea of this trip took over every thought I had and I didn’t think of much else I can tell you. I researched the flights. I looked at the Coach USA website and discovered there is nothing listed for Sanford or anywhere in Florida at all so I’m guessing they’ve pulled out of Florida altogether. This is a bit shame because their transfers were very reasonable and I found them excellent during my last solo trip. I couldn’t find any other companies operating bus transfers out of Sanford so I started looking at flights into MCO. I’m a member of Virgin Atlantic’s Frequent Flyers Club and I discovered I could redeem some of the miles I’d acquired in a miles plus money offer. This would save me about £200 (approx. $355) and I’d only have to use 2,000 of my 13,000 miles. I priced up the flights and the Sanford flights were only slightly cheaper. I didn’t feel comfortable using a limo or towncar service – mainly because I’m not the most talkative person after a 9 hour flight and I much prefer the idea of a bus transfer. I could get on the bus and just chill and keep myself to myself, instead of feeling that I had to keep up a conversation and not appear rude. Seeing as Disney’s Magical Express operates out of MCO and it’s free, I figured that this was the way for me to go.

Next, I got some quotes for Pop Century and I was pleased to find that I could get an AP rate, saving me plenty of $$$ - I hadn’t expected to get an AP rate booking only a few weeks out so that was a big bonus. DH was amazed that I was still “just thinking” about going, rather than going for it and booking everything. I’m not sure if it was nerves – it was like I had an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, like Kronk in The Emperor’s New Groove! The devil was saying yeah, go for it, you’ll have a great time. The angel was saying yes but you’ll have to fly and you hate flying, plus DH will be slaving away at work while you’re living it up etc. It was a dilemma for sure. DH wasn’t helpful – it was totally up to me, he didn’t mind if I went or whether the money I’d spend was put towards our October trip.

I received a PM from Buzzpals2 about a fireworks cruise but it was on the evening of the 15th and I had originally planned to fly home on the 14th as my mum was having a barbecue on the 15th to celebrate her recent marriage in Barbados and I was told in no uncertain terms what would happen if I dared miss it. Ok then! I was sad to decline as I’ve never done a fireworks cruise before I still couldn’t make my decision – DH told me his offer came with an expiry date and I had one more day to think about it. At that point, I actually decided not to go and to put the money towards our October trip instead. And I was ok with it whenever DH asked me. Until the next morning. Then I felt gutted. I texted DH at work and asked him if it would bother him if I changed my mind. Luckily DH found it amusing and of course he didn’t mind.

I realised that it was really the flight that was holding me back. As you all know, I’m a very nervous flyer. I flew solo last year and I was ok, so what was the problem? I still don’t know. And I’m still nervous as I type this up now. You don’t know how many times I’d bring up the flights and get to the booking page and I’d freeze. My mum said it obviously wasn’t meant to be as I’d have booked it by now without a minute’s thought – just like last year. Hmm

coming up in Part 2: what do you mean there are no flights out of MCO on the 14th??
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