Anybody who even vaguely knows me, knows how obsessed I am with Disney; Disney Princesses are actually my fav. and I do not care how old I am. Back in October, me and my friend Laura…

(this one)

… decided to book a cheap girls holiday to Spain or somewhere, we were browsing on Thomson’s website (they are always my package holiday agent of choice), we browsed some deals and the prices were probably higher than we had really expected. So, we ended up looking at ‘cheap’ trips to Orlando (which to use just really means Disney World).

After all, we needed to be cheered up and Disney is the happiest place on Earth…

We found a holiday to Florida for £900 staying on International Drive with free car hire and a buffet breakfast every morning. Great we had talked ourselves into paying the extra for Florida. Then, we thought “I wonder how much it’ll cost to stay at Disney…” which resulted in us booking to stay in a Disney hotel. I had been to Florida twice before and both times stayed on International Drive. The first time we used taxis constantly and the second time we hired a car. We talked ourselves into staying at a Disney hotel this time round after acknowledging we would want to spend the majority of our time at Disney and the price of parking would compensate the additional cost of the hotel; we knew from experience we would want to go to the park on the morning, then go back on an evening for the shows etc. We were however still on a budget. So we avoided the temptation of booking a ‘deluxe’ hotel and opted for the All Star Music resort. I’m not going to lie. I was worried, I read LOADS of reviews and they were totally mixed, so I sort of prepared myself to be disappointed…

There were other benefits to booking to stay at a Disney hotel though! We got free Magic Bands, which we could pick the colour of in advance so they were pre-programmed for arrival, and we could book fast pass tickets up to 90 days in advance. I am a super organised person who likes plans and itineraries so this was a great thing for me!

We booked the holiday through Thomson, but we chose to book our tickets separately through Attraction Tickets because they have some REALLY good deals and always have some sort of promotion on. With our reasonably priced 14 day park tickets for Disney and Universal we got our free Disney photo pass, Disney fast pass’, entry to the new Universal Volcano Bay waterpark, the typical Orlando discount card that I never use and free tickets to Cirque du Soleil!!!