Trip Report COMPLETED - After 2 1/2 years we finally made it back to WDW

So as the title suggests we finally got back to WDW.
It was every bit as magical as I expected and was much needed after years away due to Covid.
We had such a great time. I’m not going to lie it was a different experience which I’ll explain more of but this holiday was so needed.
I’ve thought long and hard about a TR as the honest truth is I kept no notes as I just wanted to live in the moment but I’ll share with you some of it the best I can.

So let’s rewind slightly here. We already have a trip booked for Sept this year but in early November the US borders opened for us UK folk and myself and Chris watched live on u tube as the Virgin and British airways planes took off together and we both got a bit emotional. After take off we both looked at each other and the words came out of my mouth “I don’t think I can wait till Sept , if Covid has taught us anything it’s to do what you want. Can we book another trip for March?” Without hesitation Chris said yes - he is a keeper! And so the planning started. I checked out various bits of data and found the lowest weeks in terms of spring break crowds, I prepared myself for a busy trip knowing full well that there is a lot of pent up demand and just considered myself lucky to finally be able to plan a trip.

We decided to plan 10 days from 26th Feb. Disney was so expensive that we decided as this was an additional trip we would book elsewhere and settled on Sheraton Vistana Resort as it was close to Disney with no resort fees or parking costs. Our trip was still just over £4000 but money well spent in my books (and as we’ve been stuck at home for 2 1/2 years we’ve hardly spent anything!)

I’ll get into more of the detail over the next few days and I’ll try to get some pictures posted rather than it being text heavy but for now I’m back………. Hello again Disney friends


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ferbtones

Well-Known Member
Yay fellow Brit here.

Feeling this one already.

We were pricing Florida for July this year(it would have been our 8th trip), but so expensive, so we booked California for the first time. So excited.

Following along. I love your reports.
 

Longers

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So for a little recap for those of you new to one of my TR’s - I’ve been going to Disney every year since 1998 (our first trip was in 1996 fir the 25th anniversary of WDW) I normally go in November and stay in POR. I’m up to something like 320 nights spent there. I’ve also slipped a couple of additional trips in March some years. So far I’ve spent a year of my life in Disney parks - I’m Tracey and yes I’m a Disneyholic, and a proud one, my husband has just learnt to love it like I do. Anyhow back to the report.

We booked our trip within days of those planes leaving and had cut our countdown from over 300 days to just over 100 days. Our main concern was keeping Covid safe to ensure nothing went wrong before we left. The last thing we wanted was to catch Covid before this trip. (Chris currently has Covid which we think he must have caught from going into London for work last week so we were certainly right to be ultra careful before this trip).

We agreed to self isolate for the 2 weeks prior to travel and apart from walks in the fresh air we kept away from everyone!

Fast forward to the day before we flew and even though we hadn’t left the house i was still shaking when we had to do our lateral flow test. We had a laugh with the gentlemen that observed us joking we hadn’t been out and apart from my file not uploading properly and Chris saying he was going without me it did all run pretty smoothly. Within half hour we had a fit to fly certificate. All Tests were negative.

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I think it was at this point it started to feel real. We hadn’t let ourselves get too excited for fear of something going wrong. We had both said until we had landed in Orlando we wouldn’t feel like it was really happening but there was a definite excitement in the air when all our forms were done and we could finally add things to the suitcase.
We had an early night in our own beds rather than staying overnight at the airport and both slept pretty well considering we were going to Disney.

Travel day

Our flight was 12 noon but we had seen various reports to say get to the airport 4 hours before and as we had to travel on the M25 (a notorious motorway in the UK for traffic jams) we allowed ourselves plenty of time.

Suitcases in the car we left the house and as we got to the end of the road tears were flowing - Chris turned and just said “we’ve not gone anywhere yet is this what it’s going to be like for the whole trip?” I casually replied “yes I think so” - spoiler alert there were a lot of tears!

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Thankfully leaving early paid off. The one thing we hadn’t looked up were roadworks and the junction we needed was closed and a diversion was in place! Traffic into Heathrow early that morning was busy but we made it in time. Hello Heathrow - I had never been so happy to see an airport.

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We dropped the car off, got the bus to the terminal, cleared all the checks and had time to get breakfast in the airport before heading to the gate.
The Alex and Ani bracelets were finally out of the drawer too!

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We just kept looking at each other grinning from ear to ear. We were wearing face masks but you just knew as you could see it in the eyes.

Boarding completed we waited for that plane to take off. There was a sign on the Tv screen that made me emotional - they had missed us! Not as much as I missed them.

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