I won this last year and booked the trip for the start of May, so I've just got back :)
The prize included flights, accommodation, £250 spending money, plus a speedboat/dolphin spotting ride.
My favorite part of the trip was going to Universal Studios and experiencing the magic of Harry Potter Land!
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Flights
We flew with Virgin Atlantic in Economy Class. I've not flown with Virgin before, and it was quite a treat experiencing an airline where the food and drink is complentary! I loved the on flight entertainment, there was a huge choice of films to watch on your individual TV. That being said, it got quite cramped in Economy and for a nine hour flight I think I would always choose an upgrade from now on!
Accomodation
We stayed at the Wyndham Grand Orlando Bonnet Creek. It's a lovely hotel overall, very clean with spacious rooms. We did have to pay an $18-a-day resort fee on checkout though, which we were made aware of at the time of booking, but I don't think the fee was worth it as it basically covered things like wifi which would have been free in a lot of hotels anyway! I wouldn't stay there again as I felt like they tried to overcharged on everything (the fee, the food in restaurants, even more fees to park in garage etc). Locationwise it wasn't great either, pretty much in the middle of nowhere so you are forced to rely on either car hire or taxis which isn't ideal. I feel like I'm moaning a bit too much now, because it is a nice hotel, I just wouldn't choose to stay there if I went back to Orlando, and I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone else either because of a few little niggles.
Speedboat Ride
This was a daytrip booked for us on Viator. Florida Dolphin Tours run the trip (I think they do quite a few different daytrips around Florida). They have set pick up points near Orlando hotels, and they arrived at ours pretty much on time to take us on the hour long ride to Clearwater Beach. The Coach was good, clean and cool and they played us a film to watch (some kind of straight-to-dvd film from the 90s, it was weird) before making sure we knew all about what times we had to be at the boats for our various excursions. We spent the morning on the beach, which was very pretty, before heading to to a local cafe for a free lunch, which was also included in the trip. The lunch was very tasty and they had a large variety of options. Then we went down to the marina for our boatride, which was excellent! We got drenched when the speedboat picked up speed, which was great fun, and then a couple of wild dolphins came up behind the boat, playing in the wake the boat had made, which was a fabulous experience.
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Overall we had an amazing holiday, the prize was handled very well by IMS who organised all our bookings and kept us informed the whole way through.
Value: Approx £3000
2014 Total: £4346.82
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