It's that time again!!

It’s that time again! I can see most of you blinking at the screen, wondering what on earth I’m talking about. Maybe one or two of you are looking at your watch and noting that it’s not any time special.

Okay, let me explain… I’m a geek, and when I get to do geeky things, I
geek out.

Ehm… still too vague, right?

Okay, well, let’s just say I enjoy going on holiday so much (especially to certain locations) that I tend to blog about it.

Up till now I’ve done so in Dutch, but after reading my Dutch blogs again last night, I decided it would be better if I did so in English. (Sorry Mom! I will translate this for you one day)

So, holiday blog… I don’t know how many people would be interested to read my vacation shenanigans, but I blog because *I* like to read them. It’s like a diary… but with a bit of a mentally exhibitionist tinge to it.

As off today we are either 47 or 48 days away from our trip, depending on the gods of fortune. We need to get permission to get Elora out of school a couple of days early, and we need to be fortunate enough to get on this flight. You see, we’re flying standby. It’s a little like Russian roulette, except it’s not a bullet that will kill you, but sheer stress from waiting and not knowing.

*forced smile* FUN.

If it wasn’t for the enormous price difference, we’d fly booked. But let’s face it, I rather use that money to buy things I really don’t need in the US.

Some of my friends roll their eyes when we say we’re going to Disney World again. Yes, I know… there are a lot of other things to explore in the world. And we do want to explore them. But we like going here. It’s proven to be our perfect holiday so far. Not saying our other holidays weren’t freaking
awesome.

Holidays is something we Noodles do really well. We love them. Especially the ones where we are very active. We tried the whole ‘let’s hang out at the beach’ thing, but that’s not us. Though I have to admit, I do love snorkeling A LOT.

Anyway… I digress.

Last year we saw a great opportunity to get a trip booked in the Port Orleans French quarter in Disney World. After our trip in 2013 we decided to stay on site again the next time we went. A villa is lovely, and it gives you a lot more privacy than a hotel room, but it also lacks the certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ that a Disney Hotel has. Plus, staying with three people in a cramped little hotel room, forces us to get off our lazy buttocks and get out to explore the world. Two years ago we got too comfortable,
and stayed in more often than was the plan.

I am very excited about the hotel. I’m talking ‘crazy eyes’ excited. We’ve been to two Disney hotels so far, and they were quite a world apart. Animal Kingdom Lodge has been our favorite by far. The Pop Century isn’t the hotel for us. I’m hoping that Port Orleans will be. It seems like it’s more ‘quiet’ than the Pop Century, and we certainly hope that’s the case. We tend to stay out most of the day, but when we rest… we REALLY want to rest and relax.

This hotel looks ideal. The surroundings look wonderful, and Elora is in love with the big dragon pool slide. I'm told we can see the Epcot's nightly fireworks from certain areas and we need to
explore that. Another bonus is that we can go to Downtown Disney by boat. It's not as awesome as going to the Magic Kingdom by boat, but it's close enough. I'm very thrilled!

As of today we still need to arrange a few things. The hotel is booked an paid for. Like the second year, we’re on the dining plan again, which is pretty awesome. That means we’ll be eating most of our meals at the parks. Disney
food is pretty nice, but my favorite part is the experience. I think one of the quirkiest restaurants has to be Sci-Fi dine in, where you get to eat in a booth shaped like a car and watch commercials for old movies. I love stuff like that, because I’m really 5.

So, hotel, food and tickets to the Disney World parks are sorted. I still need to get a car, Universal tickets and at the last minute plane tickets. Plus I need to sort out the hotels we’re going to stay in before Port Orleans. You see, we have a room from Saturday the 2^nd of May until Sunday the 17^th of May. Depending on when we get to fly, we might already be arriving on Wednesday the 29^th of

April.

My cunning plan (“Is  Is it as cunning as a fox what used to be Professor of Cunning at Oxford University but has moved on and is now working for the U.N. at the High Commission of International Cunning Planning?”... “no”) was to split up the journey to Orlando. We fly to Atlanta, because we have more chance to travel on standby that way. More direct flights go in that direction that we can take.

The journey from Atlanta to Orlando is about 8 hours. So I booked a hotel about half way, so that we travel part of the way on the day of arrival, and the rest of the way the next day. Now… I have that hotel booked for the Friday, since the initial plan was to travel on Friday. However, as soon as I know when we’ll leave, I’m going to rebook it for another day.

Am so excited!