What a year to pick to go overseas. My count down timer is a day ahead of it's self due to being a leap year. We are down to 16 days before departure, had a few hurdles with flight changes, which are nearly all resolved.
Visa waivers paid for and approved today.
Accommodation in Orlando now paid in full. We are staying at Mickey's World which is a fully self contained three bedroom town house with it's own plunge pool, and it is within a resort, and has access to all the resort facilities.
All our theme park tickets arrived from the UK Attraction Tickets Direct, it is great to know that using this site has saved us just over $8k to purchase the same from Aussie sites. And a good tip that I have learnt for next time is that they will ship directly to Australia, just need to email them.
Prices for Manhattan have gone up again, but it is still two months before we get there, so plenty of time to keep an eye out for a good deal. I booked our backup accommodation for New York City, which is actually in Long Island City Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, New York , I booked the accommodation through www.hotels.com, they charge for the accommodation in AUD. So no conversion costs and they have an aussie number to call and can book over the phone as well. But this place seems pretty good with breakfast and WiFi included.
Car hire was through Travel Jigsaw. They have been great so far as well. They also charge in AUD, only require a deposit and will take the rest out two days before picking up the car. They are also great in that if the price for the rental drops, I have call them up and they have adjusted my rate to the new lower price.
Searching for the best way to get international funds I was put onto this website Mozo. From here I found a really good credit card that is fee free and doesn't charge international transaction fees or anything, so we have grabbed a couple of those to use 28 Degrees Card. I have also tracked down useful information that the best way to convert currency it via an ATM as you get the closest exchange rate and only get charged $1- $2 to withdraw from an ATM overseas.
I took out extra travel insurance as the limits for what was offered with our credit card were limited and I had to pay for an assessment for my pre existing medical condition, where as the additional just covered it without any medical. We used Compare Travel Insurance to see what policies were out there and selected the Amex travel insurance
I have been managing the holiday through Trip It which is excellent, I forward any confirmation emails that I receive and it adds it to the itinerary this includes accommodation, meals, theatre etc. I have the app downloaded on my phone that can be accessed without data once it has been downloaded. There is a free account for this service or a premium service that will send you SMS notifications if there are any changes to your flights etc. I'm just using the free version.
I have since been directed to another little gem Check My Trip that tracks your flight details and is linked directly into the Amadeus system, which is the flight system that all travel agents use, so this gives you real time updates to your flights with no costs, it also has an app for my phone, but I'm not to keen on the phone app. Much easier to just have the browser logged in.
We will be getting a local SIM Card whilst in the state and have found that T mobile will give us the best package that we need, as we will be there for just over a month. A friend sent me a link to a place here in Australia that will ship you the SIM cards that are activated and ready to go Travel Gear. Unfortunately because we are going to South America first we will just have to get a SIM card when we land in the USA. We will be picking it up from Walmart, which is on the other side of the Miami International airport.
Well that's all I can think of at the moment. I will post up a packing blog when I get around to doing a trial pack.
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