A new addiction is born

In keeping with our new found travel freedoms it was time for something new again for our second anniversary. But in a nod to our Honeymoon we were also doing something Familiar.

I made absolutely no notes for this trip if I did this would probably be in several different posts with more information in each section. Because I have no notes I cannot really say exactly what we did each day but I do have emails and other paperwork to help me piece it together as best I can and it will go in the order of the photos I added to FB so it will give a decent picture

So....here we go

11th January we were picked up from our home around 4am - a chauffeur driven round trip was a perk included with our booking with Virgin - and were taken to Gatwick. We flew with Virgin Atlantic to Orlando Florida! On arrival we picked up our car and headed to the Rosen Inn on International drive for our initial 4 night stay.

We had booked Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure tickets which we got 14 days for the price of 2. The first 4 days we spent making the most of our days in the 2 parks.

We had to pick our tickets up at the parks then headed into the Universal Park

The park was so quiet we were virtually able to walk onto all of the major attractions before stopping for breakfast

We had intended on spending a full day in each park but having conquered Universal we decided to head over to

where we made a beeline for the new attraction

We couldn't get over how immersive it was.

We decided to stop for a luncthime refreshment

I had frozen C had the non frozen and mine was better. We then decided to join the queue for the hot new ride

This ride was fantastic!! Of course we did all the rides in the park whilst enjoying the theming

We had a bite to eat before we left the parks

The next day was a park free day and we went a did some shopping and drove around the area.

We did, however, have a reservation that evening

The Blue Man Group was something we almost went to see in Vegas before we got the Criss Angel tickets. It was absolutely fantastic and I would recommend anyone see it.

Our final full day in the area was spent between the 2 parks riding as much as we could. We started with breakfast in the 3 broomsticks where I believe we had the English breakfast

And rode all we could in IOA

As you know we had 4 nights in Orlando this was our final night and we had had a lot of fun as we knew we would!

14th January we were up early and checked out to start our hour drive to the coast where we dropped of our hire car and got a transfer to our new accommodation for the next week

Pinch me...is this real? We never thought we'd be going on a cruise at this stage in our lives...they're for old people right?

Once aboard we got acquainted with our room

And had our muster drill which was to ensure we knew what to do in an emergency. After that it was our first ever sailaway party

We had 2 very relaxing days at sea

The second day at sea was our second anniversary and we had decided to mark it with a visit to the upcharge restaurant for brunch

Otherwise we had no plans, we mostly just chilled out

Formal night photo and a dessert bought to us in the main dining room the night of our anniversary. The waiters sang to us happy anniversary to you (to the tune of Happy Birthday)

On the 17th we pulled into our first port of call

Disney has a Castaway Cay club which is tiered as Silver after you have completed one cruise, Gold after you have completed 5 and Platinum after you have completed 10. Each comes with some perks and one of them is when you can do your online check in and secure any excursions etc you may want. Platinum can do this 120 days before sailing, Gold is 105 days and Silver is 90 day. We had not completed our first cruise so we could only book 75 days in advance. Because of this the excursion we really wanted was fully booked by the time we could book it. Not wanting to miss out on everything we made the decision to book onto the Island tour

It was good, probably the most efficient way to see the whole Island but we were still a little disappointed to miss out on something more fun. The excursion only lasted a few hours so we headed back to the ship to pick up swimming costumes and walked the short distance to the town and beach for a couple hours where we also had frozen cocktails for $1 each

We also picked up a couple things to get us into character for tonights Pirate night ARRRR

I got exactly what I asked for for dessert

Then we went up on deck to see the Pirates in the Caribbean deck party

This has become one of our absolute favourite nights!

Cruise day 4 saw us in another port -

St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.

This was a port where we had to tender meaning a boat came to pick us up to take us to shore

In this port we did get an excursion we wanted - Kayak Hike and Snorkel.

After our Kayak and Hiking we went to a location for snorkelling. This was our first time properly snorkelling and as per usual C picked it up fine but I usually breathe through my nose and found it difficult to change. I got so far and had a little panic attack so went back to where I could stand and practised for a little before joining the rest of the group, I had missed the Octopus though.

We were then back on the Kayaks to paddle back to our starting location

We really enjoyed this trip and LOVED Snorkelling (once I got the hang of it)

We had a bit of time to explore the town a little and we did some souvenir shopping but it was very overcast. We headed onto the tender boat and just as we boarded it poured down!

Next up was a leisurely day at sea which started with a character breakfast and our servers made us some matching headwear

that evening we visited the upcharge restaurant for dinner this time

Delicious!

The sun rose on our final full day on the cruise and today we were visiting a special location - Disney's private Island Castaway Cay

We decided to hire snorkelling gear and headed out snorkelling first thing

We then decided to go for a wander around the island

It was windy on the serenity bay side of the Island so we went to the included BBQ before heading back for more snorkelling

Our Menagerie of towel animals

And the cruise set on our first cruise... our new favourite holiday... our new addiction

Yes you will! not soon enough though

Back on dry land we picked up a new hire car and made our way back to Orlando for our final 3 night stay

We checked into our hotel and here's where things go a bit wrong. As you know we booked the Universal tickets before we left but as we only had a couple days for Disney we had decided we would just buy a 3 day hopper when we got back on Carls credit card. our UK IP address stops us being able to purchase them at home. Unfortunately he didn't tell his card issuer he was going away and his card got blocked. We skyped his parents to see if they could help then went to downtown Disney where we had some amazing customer service and were given $15 to use the payphones to call the bank.

Finally we decided to give up and buy a 1 day 1 park pass for the following day.

That done we decided to use what we already had and went to Islands of adventure.

We went on water rides where we got drenched

Luckily our new car had heated seats so we actually did the water rides then went back to have a picnic lunch in the car and dry off before doing the rest of the park.

Huzzah! a Disney day!!

As you know we thought we'd have 2 days to cover the 4 parks. That wasn't to be so instead we had 1 day in 1 park. The only choice as far as I was concerned was the Magic Kingdom. It was open the longest (so best value for money ;-) ) and we love the park. The others were more half day parks for us back then.

So we decided we would get there for opening and just do as much as humanly possible hoping we could last until closing... Enjoy a selection of photos

Carl and his horse

Very tired eyes! we had dinner from caseys corner because I love it

We did it! we rope dropped to park close and were exhausted when we left but we had a fantastic day!

Our final day we definitely had a lie in and made some sandwiches for another few hours at Universal

Our final meal at the parks is one of my fave treats - we definitely could have shared one of these

mmmm funnel cake!

We had had a great 2 week holiday and the cruise was obviously the highlight but we do love all the Orlando parks so it was nice to do some of those just the 2 of us.

Our last day we checked out and did the luggage drop off check in at Downtown Disney and visited Old Town before our afternoon flight home. and so ends another TR.