Planning a trip to Florida - all advice much needed

[2gorgeousboys]

Dmil has just offered to pay for us to take the boys to Florida next year. DFil died suddenly last year and apparently it is something they talked about doing for us and my wonderful, generous Dmil has just offered.

Our usual holiday is camping and we have been abroad once 8 years ago. I do not have the first clue about planning this trip because it was so far off anything we would ever be able to do I've never even thought about it. So, now that I have stopped crying happy tears, any help/ideas most carefully received. I read the current Florida thread but even that is too confusing for me with acronyms galore. Boys are both at secondary school so I think we'd need to go in the summer holidays.

We got back Saturday bacon, it was boiling wasn't it?
We went in October a few years ago, was much more comfortable.

Still, wouldn't mind some sun now.

We went in august and it was boiling but fine. Have to say that I absolutely could not do 2 weeks in Orlando. I would do universal for 2 days, it's far and away the best park especially Harry potter, animal kingdom which is great, Epcot, a waterpark and then get out of Orlando and see some of Florida such as Miami, the keys or the gulf coast. We had a great holiday but my 13 year old far preferred the segways we rode on our second week to any of the parks.

Just checking back in -thanks everyone for the comments and advice. I've ordered the books which have been recommended and had a good look at dbib. Who would have thought it is so complex but it's going to be a once in a lifetime thing so really want to get it right ad make the most of it. I think we are going to go for a villa and hire a car that way we can have some down time in the pool. We've also asked Dmil if she wants to join us.

I'll definitely be back for more advice so please keep the comments coming!

Hi, we have used an amazing company in the UK called All Ears, who gave us invaluable advice and planned our itinerary so that we had a stress free, completely magical time. Their website is at www.allearsplanning.co.uk. Hope this helps xx

We all went (grandparents included) at Easter time, we had a wonderful time, stayed in a places south of Haines City, bit of a drive each morning but the villa was amazing. We booked through Virgin Holidays actually. Parks of note - Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios (was MGM) which is full of Star Wars stuff which my husband loved. He even introduced Chewbacca to my mum who didn't have a clue, priceless!

Download or print off the park maps and include everybody in the planning so that nobody is left out of choosing what you want to do.
You will find that prices of park tickets on the dibb, sort out what is reasonable to do for your budget. For example, a lot of people rave about Discovery Cove but it is a very expensive day out for 10 minutes with a dolphin. You will also find that there are villas to rent on the dibb as well. A private 3 bed villa with pool and facilities can cost £500 per week or cheaper if you do the homework. Companies in the travel industry tend to rent per head on the booking to make more profit. You also need to sort out who to fly with and whether or not you want to fly direct to Orlando or indirect which usually means a cheaper flight. There is a lot of time involved in sorting it all out starting with the travel dates, airport hotel, airport parking, dollars and on it goes.

Check out Disney food blog (they have a great YouTube channel) for planning meals at Disney . You can eat hamburgers the whole time if you don’t plan, but with some tips you can eat really well there