Our travel plans for the year ahead

At the start of the year, I love to look ahead to all the exciting things that we have coming up. As  travel is so important to us as a family I particularly like to look forward to the holidays that we have booked. We have a few in the calendar, a couple yet to be scheduled in, and a couple which may or may not end up happening.

Our first holiday is in February half term, when we will be spending just over a week in Dubai. Dubai has been on our wish list for a little while now, as we've heard such good things about it from friends and colleagues. We are staying in a couple of hotels so that we'll be able to spend time in different parts of the city. It will be nice to have some warmth and sunshine, and while we aren't really in to the shopping or the eating I know that there will be lots to keep our family occupied.

A year rarely passes us by without a trip to Center Parcs and this year will be no exception, with a family break to Center Parcs Woburn planned for June. Woburn is a park that we've only visited for the day thanks to my sister who works there, so we are looking forward to spending a bit more time there and it will be lovely to spend lots of time with my family.

In August we are planning a holiday with the other side of the family, with a location yet to be decided although we may return to the Cotswolds where we spent a lovely break last year. Due to children and teachers in the family we have to stick to the main school summer holiday dates which pushes the prices up but we are hoping to find somewhere suitable, probably with Airbnb.

A big holiday next year comes in October, when we are heading to Florida and taking a Disney cruise aboard the Fantasy around the Caribbean. Our cruise departure date conveniently coincides with my 40th birthday and I can't think of a much better way to celebrate! I'm going all out with the Disney for this cruise, and I've signed up for an ornament exchange as well as various other gift exchanges. I may even treat myself to some celebratory decorated Minnie Mouse ears! We haven't firmed up our plans for the rest of the trip but we are thinking about giving the Disney parks a miss this time and heading down to the Everglades or the Florida Keys.

Thanks to our longer school summer holidays we have the potential to book cheaper holidays at the beginning of the summer or in December if we can afford it, so we are keeping an eye out for deals at the moment to see what comes up.

It's going to be an exciting year!