Trip Report COMPLETED!!! 2 Brits, 2 weeks and 2 Tonnes of fun!!!

I’ve been lurking on the WDWmagic website for a while and have fell in love with all your trip reports. With a trip coming up soon me and the other half thought why not give it a go!!

So who will be in the report?
I’m Tasha (Natasha) and I’m a veterinarian from the UK and my family are Disney lovers for life. My parents are DVC members and this will be my 20th (I think??!!) visit to Disney world Florida :O

The other person you’ll mainly be seeing in this trip report is Adam. Adam is my fiancé who has caught the Disney bug also! This will be his 3rd visit to the world. Adam is a die-hard American football and New Orleans Saints fan (he says he bleeds black and gold if this means anything to anyone…). He is looking to expand his jersey collection of every NFL team and is welcome for suggestions on places to go to buy them.

This is the last holiday we go on before we become husband and wife after 11 years of being together (its about time… )! It’s also the first trip that we will have at disney world as a couple without other family members present through the whole trip. Both of us may write up parts of this report so I will be N and Adam will be A from now on.

When, Where and How long?
We will be staying in the Avanti resort on international drive for 15 nights from the 22nd September to the 7th October. We have stayed on Disney property many times previously but decided that we will use our hotel as a base this trip and save our pennies for experiences and the wedding next year. We also have a large family trip planned for the world in September 2019, staying in boardwalk villas so we’re happy to wait until then for our ‘on property’ experience.

Tickets
As we have two, two week trips planned within a year time frame we have bought annual passes for both Disney world and Universal. We love Halloween and have also purchased the frequent fear plus pass for Halloween horror nights (HHN). I think we will mostly spend our time in disney but we’re happy to be flexible and make the best of both locations!

Planning
We have been really torn this trip between allowing free time to relax and see what we fancy doing vs booking fast passes and ADR’s. The compromise has been to have fast passes planned for must do rides and parks and ‘relax days’ but we will ultimately let how we’re feeling guide the holiday. Staying off site has meant we have been unable to catch some of our most sought after fast passes e.g. slinky dog dash and FOP, but we keep checking the MDE app and are planning standby line if we need to (i really hope we dont!!). I should also mention that my mum and dad have a trip planned that overlaps ours by a couple of days at the end of the holiday so we’re planning to catch up with them as well.

 

[amjt660]

Great reporting so far
Loving the read

Max

 

[Songbird76]

Hi, I've just started reading your trip report and I'm a little confused - I thought you were A and T and it was just you two going, so who is N? Sorry, just trying to get oriented!

I noticed that, too, but figured T was for Tasha, which is a nickname for Natasha....I just assumed it was Natasha.

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

I'm late to the party, but enjoying your report immensely. A tip to get a big score on Men in Black? Try to hit the big monsters eyes. This gives you a big score.. I can't remember just where it is, but might be towards the end of the ride? My husband kept beating me at MIB until he told my his secret! Ha.
Loving hearing how our customs, etc, are so different from yours. Being upset at all the ipads and phones at the fireworks shows is universal! I don't understand it either.
Thanks for such a fun TR

 

[Tashifer90]

What a great and fun TR - I’ve just sat in bed and read from the start to here.

My husband swam with Manatees quite a few years ago so will be interesting to see what you thought and what the experience is like now.

He loved it when he went.

Looking forward to more

It was amazing! I'm just about to start the report for that day now! Sorry for the long delay between posts!

 

[Tashifer90]

I'm late to the party, but enjoying your report immensely. A tip to get a big score on Men in Black? Try to hit the big monsters eyes. This gives you a big score.. I can't remember just where it is, but might be towards the end of the ride? My husband kept beating me at MIB until he told my his secret! Ha.
Loving hearing how our customs, etc, are so different from yours. Being upset at all the ipads and phones at the fireworks shows is universal! I don't understand it either.
Thanks for such a fun TR

Thanks for the tips! We will definitely try it next time! We love seeing other peoples different customs too! That's why we just love reading other peoples trip reports!

Hehe! It's good to know some things are universal!

 

[Tashifer90]

I don't know anything about DVC, but if your parents are DVC members, you couldn't use their membership to stay on property? Maybe on of your parents would have had to be with you?

We would do! If they didn't use all of their points on their own holiday! haha! They usually take 2 long trips a year to Florida and are planning a big one next year!

 

[Tashifer90]

Oh, just change the post where you say you'll be T to say you'll be N. Much easier! I just thought someone else was involved for a bit.

Wayyy ahead of you

 

[Tashifer90]

Today started with a slap to the face... a 0400 slap to the face...

We were up and out of the hotel room at 0430

We got a fairly early night so I wasn't too bad, i'm used to getting up early anyways with work, however N was really struggling and sulked the whole way during the drive to Crystal River. (She doesn't do mornings)

We weren't super hungry when we first got up and ended up stopping at a Mcdonalds nearby to Crystal river. I think it was in Inverness? Although on the drive there I was very worried that not a single car was on our side of the road, so I thought I had driven past a road closure! haha!

We got to the place (River Ventures) about 0615 and wandered around their store and began our induction of how to interact with the Manatees. (Pro tip was: Be like manatee, float like manatee) Then we got on our very form flattering wetsuits...

Tired but excited!!

We opted for a semi private tour (160 GBP) with the Manatees which would have meant us and two other couples, however only one other couple was there so there was plenty of room on the boat for us! We all piled onto a minibus to take us to the dock and we were at our boat within a couple of minutes or so. We met our Captain and our tour guide.

We left the dock and within 5 minutes we had our first manatee encounter!

Grabbed this photo of the sunrise before diving in! N had already jumped in and left me!


I was a little late into the water, because I grabbed the above photo, however this actually worked in my favour! As N had already headed over to the Manatees (It was a Mother and her 2 calves) they had circled back round towards the boat as I got in, so the moment I got my head under the water, I saw a Calf look at me and immediately began to swim over to me to say hello! I got this 'boop' to my face from him if you can see him in the picture...

He was awesome! He even then swam around then latched his fins onto my arm and gave me a hug! Best. Experience. Ever!!

It was a really enjoyable experience to be around them whilst the two calves played with each other and interacted with us all, they're quote large but very graceful when they spin around in the water!

Eventually another tour boat rolled up and we were soon crowded by another group of about 10 or 12 people so we all decided that we had, had our time with the manatees and decided to head out for more adventure!

So after a while we headed towards the springs. The little guy definitely was not camera shy though...

The spring was absolutely beautiful. We've done diving in the UK before but everywhere you dive in the UK the water is very murky and your can sometimes barely see anything further than your own hand. We had never seen water so clear here! We swam into the spring and was just amazed by how much we could see, as we swam along I thought I saw a otter swim past me but it was actually a duck that had dived into the water and was trying to grab a fish!!

Eventually our guide forced us to do a few poses whilst in the clear water.

N was super graceful at the posing under water!

I... however... was not so majestic...

Remember... Be like manatee float like manatee!

It doesn't get better... We then tried double poses!

As you can see... i had some buoyancy issues... At least i know i'll never drown!

I don't know what on earth it was but i could not sink for the photo to save my life... All these photos look terrible! haha! But look how clear that water was!!

We then headed back to boat to search for more manatees, We got a more photogenic picture before we left though...

We had to head out from the spring fast, because if we didn't apparently the tide would become to high for us to fit the boat under the bridge! The captain told us that once he almost got caught but bribed a pregnant lady with some bottles of water to sit on his boat so he could increase is draft to fit under the bridge!

We found one more baby manatee sleeping in another area but couldn't get any other photos as our phones weren't recording properly. This was a nice experience though, this manatee was very chilled and we were just content to watch.

After this we headed back to the dock and even got treated to a beer before we got off the boat! (The boat was fully stocked with lots of snacks as well, we love all the peanut butter snacks as they're isn't as much variety of them over our side of the pond)

Good end to the boat trip!

 

[Tashifer90]

After getting off the boat and getting dried off we were shown all our photos that the guide took of us during the day, everyone had a good laugh at my abysmal underwater posing... We bought a USB stick with all the photos on it it was about 30 USD. (Well worth it)

We were feeling pretty peckish at this point and we had already looked at places to eat and heard good reviews of a place called 'The crab plant' everyone at River Ventures told us this was a good call, so we were very excited.

My... My... were they right... The food (and view) was amazing!

N went for a full dish of crabs legs (Again) and I went for some kind feast tray? It had everything on it!

it had corn on the cob, potatoes, mussels, clams, shrimp, onions and a FULL CRAB!! It was covered in cajun seasoning and it tasted absolutely amazing!

Also... nice window seat, right on the water!

Service was equally brilliant as well!

We noticed as we left a boat was pulling up with crab and stuff onboard, turns out it was a seafood market as well as a restaurant, everything came straight from the water into the market/Restaurant!

Weather was scorching but we absolutely loved crystal river, scenery was very picturesque, we would definitely explore more of the marina if we had more time as you can see in the photos below:

We then left and headed back to Orlando, we were planning to meet N's parents in Millers as they had just flown in that day.

We got back to the hotel and decided to jump in the pool to cool off for a little while, then got showered and ready to meet the in laws (To be)

We sat in the outside bar area N had a surf and turf meal, steak was cooked to perfection! I had the Shrimp Alfredo which was A-M-Azing.

I've had it at millers before and i was sure it was called 35 shrimp Alfredo but it wasn't this time... i feel like there was a story as to why they had to change that name...

OMNOMNOM!!

We decided to head to Target afterwards as we had heard that this was a good place to shop for little bits.

We. Loved. Target! There was so much to buy even though we didn't need half of it... Also.... Halloween costumes stateside? Are sooo much better than ours!!

I was just monkeying around to be honest...

After buying lots of clothes and snacks we shouldn't really be eating we headed back to our hotel.

BTW... Manatees are awesome!

 

[PacNWTigger]

I'm loving all of the manatee pics! Too cute!!

 

[amjt660]

Love the pictures of the manatees and your excursion day sounded great from start to finish.

Max

 

[Gurt]

All caught up I would love to swim with manatees!

I love the 18 different names, if it has bacon on it it's a barm, if it has chips on it it's a butty!

 

[DRD]

Thanks for sharing the manatee photos! That looks like a great experience.

 

[Tashifer90]

I'm loving all of the manatee pics! Too cute!!

Love the pictures of the manatees and your excursion day sounded great from start to finish.


This view is amazing .. and it is nice outside too!!

Max

All caught up I would love to swim with manatees!

I love the 18 different names, if it has bacon on it it's a barm, if it has chips on it it's a butty!

Thanks for sharing the manatee photos! That looks like a great experience.

I feel like the love of manatees is universal for everyone!!! we couldn't have hoped for a better experience and without doubt we plan to do it again some day

 

[Tashifer90]

Today was going to be our last day in Disney! It was still a couple of days before we flew back but our final few days were going to be spent getting last minute gifts and other things that we wanted from America before heading home. (Basically using up the rest of our dollars)

We started the day properly with a trip to Denny's! N started with the grand slam slugger, with maple syrup and side of pancakes and I just couldn't resists those beautiful hashbrowns again! Our server was super pleasant and because N isn't a fan of coffee or tea, he said he would give her the diet coke with free refills for free. Then after the meal it turned out he gave us both our drinks for free! They were always super pleasant in that Denny's and we would highly recommend it . It was the one on I drive next door to Senor Frogs.

Today was going to be spent in Magic Kingdom! We were meeting up with N's parents there and doing some of the rides with them before separating in the evening. Upon our arrival I was desperate to use the Annual Pass line (Even though it had a bigger queue) because... you know... annual pass holder. Gotta get those perks! And because it was our last day there, but alas! The queue was too big so N forced me to go into the regular line. (I know, i'm a idiot)

When caught up with them on front of the castle and got the obligatory photo.

This photo would actually prove to be an invaluable asset in recovering a very well thought out lost ride photo which i'll show at the end.

From here we went to wherever the waits were shortest. The wait times were much longer today I think minimum waits were 35-45 mins.

We did buzz light year first, then TTA, then space mountain, monsters Inc (Arguably the most terrifying ride in MK... Because... social awkwardness) pirates, thunder mountain, splash mountain (Which we were super eager to get on as it had been closed in the morning even to the extent of having all the water turned off for it) then to haunted mansion to finish off. Yes... No breaks... We disney'd HARD!

Got some fairly decent ride photos too!

N obviously much more relaxed sat at the back, N's dad however was very concerned about being sat at the front. Space mountain always makes the ride more terrifying for the folks sat at the front!

And buzz lightyear...

I was very confident that i had won at this point, so sat back relaxed, and gave the ride my thumbs up of approval

Turns out this was a bad choice as N took the lead right at the end... Damn my showboating tendencies!

After all this we were in dire need of some refreshment, luckily we remembered from the last time we came that Gastons Tavern had free water in the entrance, so popped in there for some fine quality H20!

oh... and a cinnamon roll of course...

N could not wait for me to take the picture and began digging in

After that we were gonna have a slow walk out the park, i really wanted to stop by Liberty square to pick myself up a funnel cake before leaving (Another privilege we are denied across the pond) but unfortunately N looked at me with the judgmental stare of 'You seriously want one?!' so my opportunity was denied...

We decided to relax in disney springs that evening and then have our tea (dinner) at the AMC dine in theater! (Though this was not our first plan) this was only decided after a loooooong time wandering around being unable to decide where to eat. (There's just too many good places, and also too may people taking up tables haha!) unfortunately we decided upon this a little too late and AMC were fully booked up! So instead we popped in to Planet hollywood! Tea was amazing, we got seated in about 10 minutes or so and were served promptly.

The food there was amazing. We shared some wings with buffalo sauce. (Omnomnom... I think wings are my 'Desert island' food) I got the ribs for mains which were served on an actual table...

Got myself an arnolds lemonade as well! Vodka, Lemoncino, iced tea & lemonade!

N went for the chicken burger, and was especially happy with the loaded fries. In all honesty they were absolutely amazing, this really nice cheesy bacon sauce. just... to die for.

i managed to eat most but not all of the ribs though...

after that we tried to walk off our food babies by doing some gift shopping for our nephews and nieces back home although N almost bought herself one of these...

Damn you luggage allowance!! We wanted a giant Baymax!!

after that we headed back to the hotel and fell into bed around one am.

Oh yeah... the ride photo I promised you all!

Not bad right? We're getting good at hiding our terror!

 

[Tashifer90]

Today was another attempt at a 'relaxation day'

It was not.

Shopping in malls on a Saturday of Columbus weekend was probably... in hindsight a bad idea...

Either way we managed to press on and buy lots of goodies. We browsed around premium outlets first where i bought a large portion of American Eagles stock from there we headed on to Florida Mall where N had been toying with the idea all holiday of treating herself to the new Iphone.

After much discussion with the sales assistant, (Who actually didn't say a word) N convinced herself she was going to buy her new phone. She was super happy with it! (Even if she did have to go back in to get the correct model ) I meanwhile looked to improve on my NFL jersey collection. (Unsure if i've mentioned this but i like to collect all the NFL jerseys, i'm currently on a warpath to own all 32 teams home jerseys i think i only have about 12 left to get now!) However prices on jerseys seemed to skyrocket a little since my last visit where most jersys were about 100 USD this time i was finding 150 USD was the more common price so in the end i decided to pick up a cheap cowboys jersey for 100 USD (Elliot) and decided to make a start on my NBA collection as well. (I know... what is wrong with me?!) i ended up going for the golden state warrior Durant jersey.

I also had a mooch over to Ultimate sports fan to see if i could buy as much saints memorabilia as possible as trying to get something even as basic as a mug over our side of the pond can be very difficult. I ended up getting a thermos to take my cup of tea into work in the mornings and the woman showed me that they had the Saints color rush jersey as well. Even though it was 150 USD i couldn't help myself and splurged on it.

We were toying with the idea of doing HHN for a final time but judging how busy the day had been we decided we would want to have a more relaxed final evening instead of getting stuck in queues at universal. (We later read on a facebook post that someone else said that the night was awful because it was horrendously busy)

We fell into the AMC dine in theater trap again. Mainly because we couldn't book the tickets online with a UK credit card so drove there to find the 1930 showing of venom was sold out. But we weren't gonna let this pass us by again!! We booked the 2200 showing instead. (Late time to eat, but most definitely worth it)

Whilst we waited for our showing, we mooched around disney springs again and decided to mix up tea (dinner) with us having dessert before we ate at the cinema. We went into ghirardelli's N went for a 'One scoop' salted caramel ice cream. (I'm fairly certain the one scoop was with a shovel however)

Look at that beast!! Much jealousy on the face of the kid behind her

I went for the butterscotch sundae which was super rich!!

But i managed to finish it of course...

then again it was still a lot of time before our cinema showing, so we mooched around again and reminisced of our highs and lows of our holiday. We couldn't actually pick one particular high point as it was all so great, however we both agreed the lowest point of the holiday was Richter Burger. (Boooo!!!)

Further along on our mooching, we found a family sat in one of those car boats? near the boathouse. We weren't sure what was going on but i think the general gist of it was that it was a 4 person family (Mum, Dad, 2 sons) but all of them couldn't fit in the car so in the end the mother kicked the dad out!!

We felt terrible for him, as a massive crowed was watching eager to see the car leave the dock.

We then headed to AMC Theaters to watch Venom! Did our good deed for the day by finding some guys ID that had fallen out of his wallet and then sat down and waited for the waitress to take our order.

Seats weren't to bad either!! Air con did certainly make our legs chilly though!

Food was of course... amazing...

N had loaded fries (Far right) we shared some buffalo wings (middle) and i had the Shrimp Taco trio on the left. All of it was absolutely amazing.

Sidenote: We are now of the opinion they anything that goes into our mouths should be covered in buffalo sauce.

All in all, not a bad ending to our final evening!

 

[Tashifer90]

Leaving day! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

We spent the morning packing and sobbing over suitcases. We could not believe our holiday was already at an end. I was also sobbing as i wasn't sure if i could fit everything in my suitcase! But growing up with tetris training we managed to fit everything in. We were still under the weight allowance even though the cases were bursting at the seems somewhat.

We met up with N's parents at typhoon lagoon for a last minute swim before heading to the airport, we spent some time in the wave pool, sliding down the slides, then eventually eating some chicken tenders and getting ready to leave.

With the service of drinks and snacks being a little less than what we were used to on Thomas cook (Compared to virgin Atlantic) we decided to stock up on snacks and sweets for the plane journey at Target. (Oh my god target, just open a store up in the UK already!!) We got crisps, sweeties and various other stuff we should not have bought and squeezed it all into our hand luggage. (We got a kilo bag of caramel M&Ms!!) The biggest bags back home are only about 350g!

We also got ourselves a sandwich at the outback steakhouse in the terminal (They had a takeaway part which is attached to the restaurant) the flight got delayed so we ate our sandwiches while we waited.

Normally i would detest being forced to wait for a delayed flight... but i mean... come on... with seats like these? I could hardly complain

Sunday football kept me sweet... But dammit they started boarding in the 2 minute warning of the 4th! I was obviously distraught.

Flight back was not too bad, we had a few spare seats around but these eventually got taken by the cabin crew for rest hours.

We managed to watch pacific rim uprising and then N slept for most of the flight, she didn't even get up for breakfast. She actually didn't even get up when I dropped a bottle of water and the bottle split and started leaking all over the cabin whilst i was rushing up and down to find a steward/stewardess. (Not really what you want on an overnight flight) of course i couldn't sleep despite my best efforts. I have no idea how people sleep on planes?! I have never been able to do it.

We landed actually on time, despite the delay due, to some heavy tail winds. Then N said she would do the 2 and a half hour drive back (Thank god, cause the moment i was in the car i fell straight asleep!)

We got back home and collapsed in bed, thoroughly jet lagged and sad to be back home!

Even sadder news, we bought some reeses peanut butter cups and squeezed them into our suitcase, however when we unpacked at home they were no longer cups but... peanut butter squidgys?

Still didn't stop us eating them all to drown our sorrows!

Sorry for the lack of pictures, we were too sad to take any selfies or photos!

Until next time Disney, it was... Magical.

Adam & Tasha
Xxx

 

[Tashifer90]

As promised here are our thoughts on the Avanti resort International drive:

1) Rooms- for the two of us our room had more than enough space. we had a small kitchenette area with a decent sized mini fridge so we could keep little essentials like drinks, leftovers and milk for cereal. the only downside was the lack of cutlery and table wear to eat with! having a living area slightly cordoned off from the bed also was a nice added touch. I imagine that the sofa would pull out into a sofa bed and provide a small amount of privacy in a family of four. no complaints with the bed size or comfort- neither of us had a bad nights sleep during our entire visit and you cant really ask for more than that! the bathroom area was adequate for our needs, it could maybe do with a small amount of modernisation in the actual bath/shower and toilet but thats a small point and didnt bother us at all.

the room was cleaned every day by housekeeping and they were always happy to come back or give us time if we were having a late morning or popped back into the room to freshen up. My only gripe would be that you need to wear sandals as with the floor being laminate its too easy to pick up the dirt/dust on your feet that you have dragged into the room. we stayed in Block 1 on the fourth floor facing the pool. we found the area quiet and we weren't bothered by noise from either the I4 or I drive

2) hotel facilities- in all honesty we didn't really explore or make use of the facilities on offer. as we had hired a car we didnt use the shuttle bus. we did not use the coffee shop or the pool bar as we either had drinks in our room or was just passing by. we enjoyed the size of the pool for the few dips we had in it and found the atmosphere and music created a fun family orientated vibe- no issue for us. the pool wasn't freezing either which is always a bonus. we made use of the free beach towels and were able to take these to water parks and drop them off for cleaning the next day. the pool was also open until 11pm every night which is good if you fancy a dip after a long day at the parks.

3) Location- we think the location of this hotel is unbeatable. its in a prime location on I drive and we were able to walk or drive to wherever we wanted fairly quickly. the entertainment, shopping and restaurant variety in the area is perfect for holiday makers like us.

4) Value for money- its hard to say completely but I'm pretty sure this hotel is great for families on a budget. we booked our flights and hotel as part of a package deal for £2000. I've checked flight costs for the same time of year and they're approximately £1100 for the two of us. That means we got the hotel for approximately £60 a night and based on current exchange rate is around $75 a night, certainly budget friendly in comparison to costs on site at disney and universal.

5) Overall thoughts- Would we stay at the Avanti resort again? YES! its perfect budget friendly option for longer stays or where budget is tight. I feel like large or small groups would find the hotel fit for use. We were sad we didn't get that touch of magic we've come to associate with staying in a disney resort, however, we were happy it didn't come with that disney price tag!