Are we there yet?

I am sure there were a few confused shoppers at our local supermarket this week when they may have seen a grown man trying hard to contain his excitement as the time ticked on and we hit our single digit dance; luckily for Emma she wasn't there to witness it this time as there was a bit of dancing at Lakeside last year - I am sure she was so impressed that she was with us!

I just seem to be spending my days wishing my time away and thinking what I will be doing very soon, like looking out of the big windows of the V room watching the planes. If you travel with Virgin holidays I would highly recommend this as an amazing way to start your holiday; there is limited capacity and it all feels very calm and even better there is plenty of free food and drink so I can stock up before the flight - me and plane food have a very love hate relationship.....actually that's a lie I just hate it.
Virgin Vroom

Which means the day before the flight I am busy shopping for supplies; I already have sweets but that won't keep me full up.....I love reading all the threads on the forums about what everyone else takes on board and believe me there have been some strange ones. I mean why would someone eat cold McDonald's and the poor people who were sitting near them must have loved the smell.....for me it is probably some fruit and some bagels and maybe a bag of kettle chips (how I miss them)

The highlight of my inflight meal used to be the pudding, which was a very nice GU chocolate orange mousse but virgin have been changing them up recently so who knows what you might get.....key lime pie would be my dessert of choice.

Actually whilst I am on the subject of Virgin, they have recently announced that they are giving long haul customers approximately 2 more hours use of their on demand entertainment system by turning it on as soon as the safety demo has been completed and leaving it on during landing....I am not sure how much use that is to me as I get really fidgety and struggle to maintain my concentration but James will be happy

I'm off to check my list again and see what I still have left to sort out xxxx

Think happy thoughts.....

What a strange week it has been in the world, who would have thought this time last week that something so truly shocking was going to happen at the Boston marathon. My thoughts have been with the families affected in what is a truly beautiful city.

I have visited Boston 3 times and it has always struck me as being friendly and welcoming, thank god that those responsible have been found and justice will be done and now the city and its people can begin to heal.

It has been a week for reflecting and thinking about those we love and what makes us happy; one thing that did bring a smile to my face and I still find funny is this....  (this has to be the best ad ever!!!!!) If the link doesn't work just search you tube for Ship my pants
Kmart Ship my pants advert

So what does make me happy apart from my family and obviously childish humour...I just shipped my bed!!! There are lots of things....listening to my favourite band, a lay in, Oreo cornetto's (if you haven't tried one I highly recommend them) and a really good hug - you know the type that just feel like you are wrapped in love.

What make me happy at Walt Disney World - it would be easy for me to sit here and say all of it but that is a cop out; actually what are my favourite things about going to Florida.....

• I love the feeling as you disembark the plane and walk up the jetway and you can feel the heat
• I love fat coke bottles (and I don't mean full sugar coke) I mean the shape of their coke bottles is better than ours - Emma told me I am a numpty for saying this 
• I love going under the Walt Disney World sign, its like a big welcome home

And so I could go on, but really I can't spend my life day dreaming as there is still some planning to do...I have to order my phone from Walmart, order a CD, think about paying for an extra bag for the way home; you would think all of this stuff would have been ticked off way before now what with my OCD but no this year it appears everything is a bit last minute.com

But before I go into full planning mode I will share the one thing that can always raise a smile from me - this may surprise some people considering how much I rave about Wishes that its not that ...my favourite thing in all of WDW is the moment in Philharmagic when Ariel puts her hands out; I can't explain what it is but I love it!!!!!

I'm off to search you tube for a video of it now....until next week xxxxx

Are you hungry?

I am sure you are dying to know, but I got a phone YAY! One less thing for me to worry about; it may not be the most up to date handset but at least it works and I know can be used in the US

This week we had the joy of our tickets arriving (can't believe I didn't notice them behind the door so they only got spotted this morning), which means that the holiday is now fast approaching....in one way this is really exciting but also slightly nerve racking; I just love to worry about things.

So now is the time to catch up on my podcast listening to get me into the right mood; I have a few staples that I like and you will always find episodes from the Dis Unplugged, the Disney Food Blog, the Dibbcast and also WDWradio on my iPod. One of the few pleasures of working on my own is that I can listen to them whilst at work and the added bonus that because people can hear voices they think that I have someone in there with me so they leave me alone.

There is a downside though, I end up with post it notes everywhere with more things to research and as James doesn't possess a single planning gene in his body I guess that it will be me doing it then; although there is an advantage to this - if I want to do it its on the plan.

This week one of the podcasts was about the quick service dining plan, which we have; so we have discussed which quick service places we will visit....which led me to thinking is the dining plan worth the money?


I have decided that this year we will keep all of our receipts and work out what we might have spent if we had paid out of pocket to see if there is a saving; as there are rumours that next year Disney might not be offering free dining. But I have one nagging question; how can a UK travel company charge £35 per person but Disney be selling it for $37 - what is that all about?

But really is the Dining plan a good thing, we will get 2 quick service meals a day, one snack and a refillable resort mug and that is a whole lot of food; as the 2 quick service meals will include a main course, drink and dessert and then on top of that you also have your snack credit (frozen coke for me please). For me that is too much food, who eats desserts with both lunch and dinner (I know James will put his hand up to being able to do this) now if they offered me fruit I would be a happy girl.....

One thing I won't turn down though is a visit to Katsura Grill.....which works for me as the dessert is green tea ice cream so it will be easy to say no....now a mickey premium bar on the other hand.......

Who you gonna call.....

Who you gonna call......the answer is not ghostbusters, right now the answer is nobody! You would think that making a call or sending a text home from Florida would be easy with all the technology available but there is one small problem

I have a very lovely iphone (which is never far away from me) but I am not keen on using it in Florida as I have heard multiple horror stories of people coming home to massive bills and I bet you even though I am technically minded I would be one of them because I wouldn't turn off everything I needed too (last year the PAYG phone we took didn't work, so I put on my iphone and had about fifteen twitter text notifications - if I remember rightly my language was very interesting)

What are my options...well I can iMessage some of my nearest and dearest via wifi and keep in touch with my friends via Facebook but what about my olds? We do have a tracfone for making calls which fingers crossed I will be able to reactivate - although its not too much of a big deal as it was only $10 in Walmart (oh how I cant wait to wander the aisles again, crossing things off my ever growing shopping list) but you can't text home on a tracfone!

So I have spent my afternoon searching eBay for quad-band phones that I can use PAYG....and to be quite honest I have had enough; I thought the most stressful part of my holiday planning was going to be plucking up the courage to get on the flight but no; finding a phone has topped my list.

Isn't it strange to think that the first time we went that I remember standing at the pay phone feeding it quarters to call home and text messages were still quite new....now its not uncommon to see people taking pictures on their iPads; don't event get me started on that one - I know its got a camera on it but its not something you want to carry round a theme park all day!!!!!! And you can bet when you are standing watching the fireworks you will see a few phones being held up to video them

One of the big decisions is the cost of your operator as for some of them to send a text home from the States you might as well just give them your bank account number and say help yourself. Strangely I think on my network it is cheaper to send a picture message home than a text (hmmmm does a picture message include some text.....something else to look into)

As I have just been outbid on eBay the way things are going I will end up with a couple of empty bean cans and a very long piece of string. I don't think I am asking too much, I just want to be like ET and phone home (or send the odd text)