I always have a lot of questions about accommodati I always have a lot of questions about accommodation when we stay anywhere as a family so I thought I’d share this little tour of our room at @windjammerlanding which was a pretty perfect place to stay.

It’s the ‘Ocean View Two Bedroom’ which was like a little house, with an upstairs and downstairs, built into the hillside. Both rooms had outdoor space and their own shower rooms. Such a great option for a family.
A little photo dump from our holiday in St Lucia. A little photo dump from our holiday in St Lucia. We’ve been back a few days now but still miss the heat, the food, the pool, the constant sounds of wildlife and the lovely people. It was such a great holiday and I’m sure we’ll be back one day.
And just like that, Athena is 12! What a joy it is And just like that, Athena is 12! What a joy it is watching her grow and what a wonderful young woman she is becoming. We could not be more proud. Love you Pickle, have a great birthday.
We’ve just got back from two glorious weeks in S We’ve just got back from two glorious weeks in St Lucia staying at @windjammerlanding and it was just the holiday we needed. Two weeks of sunshine and relaxation in what must be one of the most beautiful islands in the world. 

We can’t wait to go back again in the future. Here’s just a little snippet of our trip.
AD - Press Tickets | We had such a nice day at @na AD - Press Tickets | We had such a nice day at @national_motor_museum despite the rain! The children loved the Little Beaulieu play area and we loved exploring the National Motor Museum and Top Gear exhibit before having a ride on the monorail! We went on an old open topped bus, explored the Beaulieu Manor House and loved the gardens. 
Beaulieu is always a great day out - whatever the weather. This summer they have a whole ‘Summer of Fun’ planned, with activities most days - parades, bird shows and hundreds of sculptures within the grounds too. If you’re looking for a day out this summer definitely think about heading to Beaulieu.
AD - Press Tickets | Tonight we took the kids to t AD - Press Tickets | Tonight we took the kids to their first concert - but it was so much more than just a concert! @abbavoyage is incredible. With CGI ABBA and a live band, it’s like being at an ABBA concert 40 years ago but with modern lighting, effects and sound. ABBA look and sound real, it’s a mind blowing experience.
The set includes all the songs you know and love as well as a few less familiar ones.
You can’t take photos during the show which actually made a refreshing change. A whole arena focused purely on the show and soaking up the moment. It’s definitely something the four of us will always remember.
Now, I’m off to sing Dancing Queen all the way home.
AD - Press Trip | We had such a great day at @phdo AD - Press Trip | We had such a great day at @phdockyard today. They have a fantastic Ultimate Explorer ticket that lets you visit all the attractions as many times as you like for 12 months - and after a day at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard we can see that you need more than one day to really do everything!

We explored HMS Warrior, HMS Victory and the Mary Rose Exhibition - which is incredible! We also saw where ships are built and restored and spent time in Action Stations where the kids climbed and did an assault course.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is such a fun, educational day out with something for all ages - we can’t wait to go on their harbour tours next time we visit!
AD | WIN!! Would you love to win a holiday? To cel AD | WIN!! Would you love to win a holiday? To celebrate #100YearOfARoads National Highways have launched their #ARoadsToSummer competition! It's all about celebrating summer holiday moments, time together, fun in the sun, days out and more.

So why not be in it to win it? To enter, all you have to do is send @nationalhways a DM on here with a photo or video of your favourite holiday moments. You can also comment on their Facebook or Twitter #ARoadsToSummer posts with your holiday photos. I've shared a few of our favourite photos to give you some inspiration.

The best six entries will each win a £500 @nationaltrust holidays voucher! SO what are you waiting for? Dig out your favourite holiday photos or take some new ones to share!

The #ARoadsToSummer competition runs from 24 July to 10 September 2023. Winners will be announced in September 2023.

Good luck!
Oh these two! Every day I feel lucky to have them. Oh these two! Every day I feel lucky to have them. As school draws to a close at lunchtime, I’m looking forward to a whole summer with them. My favourite people.

They’ve both had a great year at school this year. Troy’s first without his sister by his side and Athena’s first at secondary school. 

They both had great reports, always did their best and have made some really lovely new friends this year. I could not be more proud of them.

Now, let’s go and enjoy the next six weeks before school starts all over again!
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Florida, Travel · September 14, 2018

Our reasons for choosing a Villa in Florida over a Disney Hotel

When we were planning our trip to Florida we looked at all the possible options and spent time deciding between a villa or staying in a Walt Disney World resort, making use of the frequent free Disney dining offers. But, in the end we chose a villa and so I thought it might be useful to others planning the same trip to write about why we chose a villa over the appealing packages that Disney has to offer.

Our reasons for choosing a Villa in Florida over a Disney Hotel

Disney dining is worth about £600 per person for a two week holiday. Saving a family of four over two thousand pounds. However, we were travelling with the children’s grandparents and looking at the Disney room options we would either need one pair of adults to sleep on a sofa bed every night or we would need to pay a lot more for a suite with seperate bedrooms. A villa cost a lot less and gave us so much living space – as well as full kitchen and barbecue to cook our own meals and our own private, secluded pool.

But, this did mean we had to pay for any meals we had at Disney – and they are not cheap. We paid about $450 for lunch at Cinderella’s castle in the Magic Kingdom for LP’s birthday and another $280 for breakfast at Chef Mickey’s to meet the Clubhouse Gang. In hindsight, if I’d known how easy it is to meet the characters in the Disney parks I wouldn’t have bothered with Chef Mickey’s but it did give the children quality one on one time with the characters – but no professional photos like the park meet and greets offer. If we had been staying on resort, with a Disney dining package, these dining experiences would be included – but it depends what package you’re on and how many dining tokens you want to use. The Disney dining isn’t as simple as breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Parking at Disney is $22 a day when you visit the parks. If you are staying on resort you can get various transport options to, from and between the parks saving you the fee. But, we didn’t want to just do Disney. We wanted to go further afield and experience more of what Florida had to offer. So we wanted a hire car. This would have been free to park at our Disney hotel (until December 2019, after that they are introducing overnight car parking fees from $13-$24 a night) but if we then left resort for a day we would probably think we were missing out on included meals, snacks and drinks – paying unnecessarily for refreshments at other attractions. Plus, at Disney there is so much to do you really can spend two weeks between the parks and attractions but we wanted to get away from Disney every so often. A villa gave us a welcome break from the parks and the Disney theming – as much as we loved it, really loved it, it was so nice to step out of the Disney bubble sometimes. In the end we only visited the parks 7 days out of the 14 we were in Florida for and felt we had the balance right as well as experiencing everything within the parks that we wanted to experience. Our villa was also only about twenty minutes from the parks which didn’t seem very far at all, even to do the same journey each day.

Whether you stay on resort or just buy your park tickets through Disney you get FastPasses and Memory Maker photographs included. But, with the resort packages you get to book FastPasses a lot earlier than the 30 days before travel that we could start booking. This means that you have a wider selection of rides and times available to you and have a better chance of getting a FastPass for the big name rides in the parks – and this works the same with dining reservations too. But, with the FastPasses we had and checking the Disney app for current queue times we were able to go on so many great rides that we didn’t feel we were missing out. Plus, we got to book and experience a meal at Cinderella’s castle which is a much coveted dining option – and should be for the price!

Our reasons for choosing a Villa in Florida over a Disney Hotel

During our break we had a combination of meals at Disney, meals at various restaurants outside of the Disney parks and barbecues and breakfasts in our villa but one thing was consistent – we didn’t eat lunch. We had snacks through the day if we needed them and an ice cream each day and that was enough for us – and we really like our food. Looking at the Disney dining plans I felt that the food on offer was excessive – but we would have eaten it because it was there and free. Buffet or a la carte breakfasts, lunch and dinner plus two snacks a day. And meal times really do take a chunk of time out of your day. We went to a Disney restaurant and although we had a reservation we had to wait half an hour for our table to be ready and then spent over an hour and a half in the restaurant eating and paying for just one course. Restaurants are often not a quick process and we would rather spend that time going on rides or meeting characters so being in a villa allowed us more flexibility – often getting dinner after leaving the resort each evening and coming back later in the day for the evening entertainment after a bit of a break.

The dining plans look amazing, and you don’t have to eat all the food because it’s there and included but, given the price of the Disney packages, the dining plan isn’t really free – it’s just an extra carrot to lure you in to staying on resort. I know, personally, if I was getting over two thousand pounds deducted from the cost of a holiday by way of a dining plan I would want to eat two thousand pounds worth of food. In hindsight we just wouldn’t have done that – we don’t need that much food.

One huge benefit to us of having a villa was having our own pool. You can get villas both with and without a pool and many have a shared community pool too in the complex but having our own private pool was fantastic – especially for the children who got in it at every opportunity.

Our reasons for choosing a Villa in Florida over a Disney Hotel

I’ve looked at pricing up a Disney resort holiday for the four of us next summer. The prices start at £4000 for the flights, hotel and park tickets but without a dining package. To get a dining package you either have to pay for it or get it free with a more expensive stay. This makes the minimum cost £6500+ with the four of us sleeping in the same room for two weeks, something we just can’t do on our holidays. But, on resort I am sure children would be exhausted from the constant stream of entertainment so would just sleep the minute their heads hit the pillow. You can bring this cost down by travelling outside of school holidays.

Our reasons for choosing a Villa in Florida over a Disney Hotel

Our holiday cost £800 each for the flights with British Airways (although we used my Father in Law’s Avios points to bring the cost down), £1500 for a four bedroom villa in the Legacy Park area of Orlando and £800 to hire a car big enough to fit six of us comfortably – both booked through Debbie’s Villas. If we’d just needed a car for four of us it would have been around £400. We paid £379 per adults and £359 per child for our Disney park tickets on a 14 days for the price of 7 offer. On top of that we had to pay for our food and entry to other attractions whilst we were there plus the constant tolls on the roads. This really comes out on a par with the cost of staying at a Disney resort – and having a dining package. So really, it depends what you want from your holiday.

Our reasons for choosing a Villa in Florida over a Disney Hotel

We wanted to not only experience Disney but to see more of the surrounding area too. We went on other big days out, had quiet time in our pool and had so many lovely barbecues as well. For us, the balance was right and Dave and I have both said we couldn’t imagine being in the Disney bubble for two weeks. One week would be enough but even then, in one go, I think it would be too much. A villa was the best option for us and it’s something I would definitely do again in the future.

Our reasons for choosing a Villa in Florida over a Disney Hotel

In: Florida, Travel

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Comments

  1. Chloe (Sorry About The Mess) says

    September 15, 2018 at 12:42 pm

    We always did villa stays when we went as children, but on our recent trip with our own kids we stayed in a Disney hotel.

    I really loved the convenience of the dining plan. It took a lot of the guilt away from adding up what each meal would have cost if we were paying for it there and then, especially the more expensive character meals. It’s a nice bonus of the dining plan to be able to feel so carefree about your food spending whilst on holiday.

    I think the dining plan really comes into its element if you are plannning lots of character meals. As those are so expensive without the plan. If you have older children or just aren’t that bothered about doing more than one or two character meals, then I don’t think the dining plan is a make or break thing.

    When we went off site (which wasn’t often) we’d Uber, so didn’t feel we needed a car.

    That being said, our trip was a week, and I think i’d Get bored of Disney dining on a 2 week trip. I think potentially 1 week on site and 1 week off would work well for our family.

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