Caribbean Combo Pack! Engagement TR(2/11) & Disneymoon PTR(9/12) at CBR

[suorkaterina]

Hello and welcome to a honeymoon one and a half years in the making. I am Katerina and my fiancé is Dave. On September 15th 2012 we will be getting married in Maine and on the 16th we will be arriving at Walt Disney World to spend our honeymoon. Here you will find our Engagement TR from February 2011 mixed in with our plans as they come for our Disneymoon in September of 2012. Enjoy!

Introducing the happy couple:
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Engagement-6-1.jpg
I’m Katerina, 32, the planner and Disney freak of the two of us. I’m a graduate in creative writing student at Goddard College and Innkeeper at the Norumbega Inn in Camden, Maine. (EDIT: 1/15/12 DF and I were laid off but I'm keeping it in the intro since that is where we were when I started this) I have been going to Disney almost every year since I was about 6 I think. I’m an only child and Disney was my family’s happy place as I was growing up. My BFF Kelly ended up coming along and soon enough our families were making Disney our annual spring break vacation together. For about 8 years (I’ll call them the wilderness years) I missed Disney while my parents went annually and attended my BFF’s wedding. Color me jealous. But in December 2008 we planned a trip together, meeting up with my BFF, her husband and son, and her parents. This was to be the last trip to WDW with my father who died of Parkinson’s disease in October of this year. That last trip with him is a memory I will cherish all my life.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/DSC_0047-1.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Engagement-5-1.jpg
This is Dave, 34, His first trip was the one we took together in February 2011. He grew up in Maine. He is the laid back sort who is happy to have me plan all the details. He is the other Innkeeper at Norumbega Inn.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/DSC_0038-1.jpg
His big loves are video games and Doctor Who. He’s basically a big kid so Disney wasn’t too hard to get him into (something I pride myself on!)
We have been friends for many years and got together formally in August 2010. By November I was planning our first vacation together for February 2011. It turned out to be a very memorable one. After Wishes on our first day he proposed. This is our first picture as an engaged couple thanks to Disney's Photo Pass.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Photo0018FourBySix-1-1.jpg
So we really wanted to get married at Disney but it was unrealistic to get family and friends to pay for a Disney trip. So we decided to have a small wedding with close friends and family at Merry Spring Nature Park in the town we live. It was where we had our first date.

We had a lot of fun on our first trip to WDW and though it was only 5 days we crammed a lot into those days. For our honeymoon we are doubling our fun for 10 days! I’ve never stayed at WDW this long so I am very excited to really get into relaxation and enjoy our first days as husband and wife.

Fun facts
Our first ride together: Jungle Cruise
Kat's Favorite Ride: Jungle Cruise
Dave's Favorite Ride: Splash Mountain
Dave's Favorite Character: Goofy
Kat's Favorite Character: Mickey, and Lilo. She's one cool kid.
Kat's Favorite Disney Picture:
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/IMG_0658-1-1.jpg

So welcome to our planning and our trip report. I hope it’s not too overwhelming to put the two together! Thank you for joining us in the celebration of the beginning of our lives together!

Ok so now you’ve got the intro into us, next post will be:
The Basics of Planning and Our Vacation Style

Engagement TR INDEX
Merry Manor Inn(Portland, Maine) (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43925700&postcount=32)
In Flight(Maine to Florida (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43925812&postcount=33)
Magical Day at the Magic Kingdom (http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/Photo0018FourBySix.jpg)


Disneymoon PTR INDEX
Introduction (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43484670&postcount=1)
The Basics of Planning and Our Vacation Style (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43484826&postcount=2)
Our Home at WDW (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43488840&postcount=5)
Trip Length Update (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43501135&postcount=6)
WDW with a Gluten Intolerance (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43524204&postcount=14)
First Draft Itinerary (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43524583&postcount=15)
Details and Trasportation Issues (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43604251&postcount=19)
Flights and Fancy(Flight info and some other little updates) (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44091152&postcount=37)

Wedding Report
Wedding Plans (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44487484&postcount=47)
Random Decor Update (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44672307&postcount=55)

The Future
Big News!!! (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44672113&postcount=54)

[suorkaterina]

Welcome back to our Disneymoon planning and trip report. I thought I would start out with our style as far as Disney goes.
On our first trip together I planned everything out pretty detailed but I was missing some tools like Touring Plans, which I hope to put into use this time around. We only had five days so we did a lot of running around. It was also Dave’s first trip so I we tried to do as much as possible without getting too worn out.

This is what we learned.
1. We can go non stop for about two days but will likely be dead on our feet by day three. Next time I am planning on a couple full days, but mostly half days.
2. We can’t relax for too long. We get bored sitting around the resort for too long. We like a nice break but prefer to get to the parks at some point. So half days in the parks should be sufficient to give us relaxation time.
3. We actually enjoy spending our table service credits on lunch. Dave doesn’t really eat breakfast so by lunch time he’s starving! Hehe
4. Dave isn’t big on the frou frou foods so I’ve decided to cut out signature restaurants in favor of a dinner show.
5. I have a gluten allergy. I met almost every chef at the places we dined and even at counter service! I learned that buffet style meals are not a good idea as it’s hard to tell if something has been cross contaminated. Also I learned the hard way to watch out for hidden ingredients in the condiments bar.
6. We love CBR. We thought about trying something else but, we’re hooked.
7. We dislike layovers! So hopefully we can get straight flights this time.
8. You can never take too many pictures. This is something I’ve learned since my father passed too. You can never have too many pictures of the ones you love. So this time we are both taking a camera and I will not be afraid to ask complete strangers to take our picture. And I will be taking pictures of our food and I’m on a personal mission to have my picture taken with every chef I meet.
9. Having limited access to the internet during vacation is liberating. So no trip report till we return
10. There is still so much we haven’t experienced, so no need to spend a lot of money on extras; we just want lots of time. So we opted for 10 days vs. special tours.

So that in a nutshell is our Disney vacationing style. Here is what we know right now.
1. We are staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort from September 17th – 26th
2. We have the dining plan, but I’m hoping free dining comes out for those dates, I chose these dates because the past three years have had free dining in this time period.
3. We went through Dreams Unlimited with Tracy Hendricks who was also our TA for our engagement trip.
4. We have the Hopper pass with water parks. I’m not a big water parks fan but I told Dave I’d go to TL for his sake. He can ride the rides; I’ll hang out in the lazy river. I’m not good at holding my breath underwater which makes the end of the slides terrifying to me.
5. We are HUGE fans of pin trading. We only caught on to it the last two days of our stay last time. Our plan this time is to start with some basic packs and trade trade trade.
6. I’ve been keeping an eye on Touring Plans but their numbers keep changing for those dates since they are so far out. But I have a good Excel Spreadsheet started with all the info ready to be filled in.
7. Restaurants we have chosen so far. Sci-Fi dine-in, Rainforest Café, Ohana, Spirit of Aloha, Wave(a fave from last time), Chefs de France, Liberty Tree Tavern. We will keep working on this list.
8. Our flights will be early on the day we arrive and late on the day we leave. Still hoping for direct flight but so far no word from Jet Blue on that possibility from Portland Maine.
9. We will probably do the Park and Fly package at the Merry Manor Inn in Portland. You get a one night stay and can leave your car there till you return. You also get breakfast. It was great last time. Middle of winter and they had a heated indoor/outdoor pool. Very cool.


That’s about it right now. As we get closer and dates firm up I’ll be able to make more permanent plans. So stay tuned!

[ronnmel]

Hi, I decided to join your PTR. :)

Lots of great information so far. Congrats again on the engagement. :)
My sympathies for your dad passing away. :(

Do you plan on going just to TL? Or do you plan on also visiting BB or Disneyquest? The waterpark option on the package only because of good value if you visit at least two of those. Otherwise, it's cheaper to pay the entry out of pocket.

[suorkaterina]

Thanks for joining. I hope I can make this an interesting read!

We are deffinately planning on DisneyQuest as we havn't tried that yet. But probably not BB. I have issues with snow, even fake snow :laughing: I went there once and it just didn't appeal to me. Much more of a tropical sort of girl. And since I'm planning he seems ok with picking just one of the water parks.

Right now I'm putting together my notes, concentrating on half days. Putting together lists of ADR's, entertainment wants and must do's in each park. I sure do love planning!

[suorkaterina]

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/CBR/IMG_0679-1.jpg
As a child we stayed with my grandparents in Clearwater and did day trips. This increased to one week at the grandparents and one at an outside resort, Holiday Inn. My BFF was coming with us by this point and we started trying on property resorts. We did Port Orleans(Or whatever it used to be called?). My family found it quiet…a little too quiet. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Then we tried the Contemporary whose décor was a little blah for us. But then we tried the Caribbean Beach and we’d found home.

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/CBR/IMG_0682-1.jpg
When Dave and I started planning our trip I was really trying to induct him into the family so CBR was the natural choice. I hoped and prayed he would love it there. I am happy to report that he loves it too. We stayed in Jamaica last time which I requested so we could take the bridge to Old Port Royale. I even suggested trying a different resort and he said CBR was home. Glad we are on the same page.

What we love about CBR
1. The colors! So bright and tropical.
2. The tropical theme.
3. The steel drum music. We love the music. We almost had a steel drum band for our wedding!
4. The layout. We love the sprawling layout of CBR. Taking the walk across Caribbean Cay is a beautiful way to start the day.
5. The King sized bed rooms are perfect for us. And I really like the brightness of the rooms too.
6. I love the way the food court is set up and the way it looks like a Caribbean village. When you look up you can see all the windows to upper apartments.
7. The tiki bar next to the pool is also a really cool place to hang out at night. Very chill =D
8. Since most of the resort is outside, my smoker DF has lots of options for places to smoke. He likes to smoke and drink his coffee out beyond the fountain while I eat breakfast.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/CBR/IMG_0506-1.jpg

So that’s our reasons for choosing CBR. We thought about trying out the Poly for part of the trip but instead decided just to spend a couple meals over there and explore the resort as a visitor this time around.

[suorkaterina]

So after some conversation we may have added a day to our trip. Our wedding is scheduled for 6pm on September the 15th. I booked our trip for the 17th intending to give us one day off(the 16th) to sleep in, drive to Portland International Airport and stay at the Merry Manor Inn for the evening, and leave on a 6am flight on the 17th.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/NightFront.jpghttp://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Pool20Winter20shot.jpg

So Dave started asking me why we were waiting a day to leave, to which I said, I thought we'd need time to recoup from the wedding. To which he said he didn't want to wait that long to get to Disney! So I think we are adding one more night. We will use the Park and Fly package at Merry Manor Inn but stay the night of our return instead, letting us take a late flight home(more time at Disney). And we will leave midday on the 16th, which adds one more night stay, and gives us a full day in the parks on the 17th instead of a half day. I'm very excited to add another day. I've never been there for so long! It will be nice to be able to really relax and not feel like we have to run ourselves ragged to do everything we want to do.

Next I will go over the tentative schedule I have put together including our list of possible ADR's.

[ronnmel]

We've stayed at Caribbean Beach and we thought it was a beautiful resort! I think POP is more of our home though.

Great idea to add a day!

[suorkaterina]

It's so funny how everybody has their resort, the one that fits them and feels like home. I'd love to try some other resorts, but when you only get to go once in a while it's hard to justify trying something you might not like. I remember when we tried Contemporary, of course we had a good time but going back to the resort at the end of the day wasn't as exciting, nor was having breakfast there.

I emailed Tracey at Dreams and our trip has been extended. We didn't extend the park tickets though since we'll probably get in later in the evening.

[ronnmel]

Well, as much as POP felt like home, and even though we really don't go often, there are still LOTS of resorts I'd love to try. Pretty much the only places I know for sure I never want to go are : All-Stars Sports, camping and the cabins of Fort Wilderness, and the Wilderness Lodge. Though even that last one I could possibly be convinced... I love the excitement of exploring a new resort.

[solana131]

Joining in :cool1: So happy to find another Mainer on here! And I think we will be in Disney the same time you are. We are going this Feb, but hoping to get a bounceback offer so we can celebrate our 10th anniversary in Sept.

So funny to hear you say you are not a snow girl and are more tropical....ummm, yeah because Camden is on the coast, so its much more tropical ;);) But I totally understand...I thought it was really weird that they would do a snow themed water park too. We are not bothering with the waterpark option for this trip because DH and DS don't do water rides. Plus, I think in Feb it can be a little chilly.

Congrats on your engagement! We will have to take a trip up to Camden to check out your inn this summer. I love that area. We usually do an Acadia trip every summer, so maybe on our way up or back (we live in Southwestern ME, about an hour north of Portland).

I hear you about PWM needing more nonstop to FL flights. We chose to fly out of Manchester this time. Sometimes we go to Boston, but its just too much hassle. Manchester is about the same size as Portland and Southwest has much cheaper flights. Plus bags fly free (2 each). Airtran and Jetblue both had nonstops for our Feb trip, but not sure what happened to them for later in the year. I know MHT is a little far for you....prob around 3 1/2 hours, but if you really want nonstop, maybe you could stay at Merry Manor for the night and travel the rest of the way the morning of your flight. Parking is much cheaper at MHT too :)

Anyhow...looking forward to seeing more of your plans :)

[suorkaterina]

Well, as much as POP felt like home, and even though we really don't go often, there are still LOTS of resorts I'd love to try. Pretty much the only places I know for sure I never want to go are : All-Stars Sports, camping and the cabins of Fort Wilderness, and the Wilderness Lodge. Though even that last one I could possibly be convinced... I love the excitement of exploring a new resort.

Yeah I have no interest in Wilderness Lodge, too much like Maine =P I thought about trying Fort Wilderness, i love camping. But Disney and Camping just don't seem right together. :confused3

[suorkaterina]

Joining in :cool1: So happy to find another Mainer on here! And I think we will be in Disney the same time you are. We are going this Feb, but hoping to get a bounceback offer so we can celebrate our 10th anniversary in Sept.

So funny to hear you say you are not a snow girl and are more tropical....ummm, yeah because Camden is on the coast, so its much more tropical ;);) But I totally understand...I thought it was really weird that they would do a snow themed water park too. We are not bothering with the waterpark option for this trip because DH and DS don't do water rides. Plus, I think in Feb it can be a little chilly.

Congrats on your engagement! We will have to take a trip up to Camden to check out your inn this summer. I love that area. We usually do an Acadia trip every summer, so maybe on our way up or back (we live in Southwestern ME, about an hour north of Portland).

I hear you about PWM needing more nonstop to FL flights. We chose to fly out of Manchester this time. Sometimes we go to Boston, but its just too much hassle. Manchester is about the same size as Portland and Southwest has much cheaper flights. Plus bags fly free (2 each). Airtran and Jetblue both had nonstops for our Feb trip, but not sure what happened to them for later in the year. I know MHT is a little far for you....prob around 3 1/2 hours, but if you really want nonstop, maybe you could stay at Merry Manor for the night and travel the rest of the way the morning of your flight. Parking is much cheaper at MHT too :)

Anyhow...looking forward to seeing more of your plans :)

Yay a fellow Mainer!:thumbsup2

Now, to speak to the tropical girl comment, I have been trying to move to Florida since I was 17. Seriously. I applied to 3 FL colleges and one SC and the SC won out sadly. The I was with a guy who didn't like the heat. Then I was supposed to move South with my parents but my Dad got sick. And now I'm with a guy who isn't quite ready to make the move. I will get down there someday. Even if it's just part of the year. My Mom is still planning on moving at some point. I love Florida. I'm currently interested in the Palm Harbor area North of Tampa.

Anyhow, hehe. Have fun on your February trip. That's usually when I've gone. I've never been so close to summer so this will be a new experience for me! Havn't expreienced Florida summer yet. Yikes. Have you been in September before? Is there lots of sudden thunderstorms like in the summer?

[suorkaterina]

First I'd like to point out that he spelled my name wrong, even though it was spelled out right on the e-mail. it's KatArina. There is an extra A in there! Grrr. This is a pet peeve of mine and unfortunately it happens all of the time. Anyhow, I sent an email to Portland International Airport(two weeks ago) about whether or not there were direct flights to Orlando and this is what I got.

Katrina:

Unfortunately JetBlue is stopping their non-stop service to Orlando. All of our airlines can get you to Orlando with a change of aircraft.

Greg


Gregory Hughes
Airport Marketing Manager


Boooooo Hisssssss:mad: Not a fan of layovers.

[suorkaterina]

So after reading another TR I realized that I have a unique perspective on WDW that I didn't even mention. I have a gluten intolerance. What does that mean?

About two years ago I got the flu. When the flu should have been over I was still sick. A friend who has Celiac Disease asked me what I was eating and I said, just crackers. To which she said maybe I was allergic to wheat. So I did an experiment and ate whatever what I wanted to the next day and almost immediately felt better. A week later I felt great. I went further with my experiment by eating a wheat bagel, to see if it effected me. I was out of work sick for two days. Since then I havn't eaten wheat. Now I can't even use the same toaster as DF without getting sick. The more I avoid it the more sensitive I am to it. I haven't yet been tested for Celiac for two reasons. In order to test for Celiac you have to be eating wheat, which would put me out of work for a while and I can't afford that. The other reason is I'm pretty sure it's an allergy not Celiac since it only seems to effect me abdominally.

So last February was my first time doing Disney GF, which is how I'll be refering to it from now on. I was so impresed with how Disney handles food allergies. It took me a little longer to order and get my food, but really wasn't that bad at all. My DF never felt like he was waiting to long for me. Mostly it took longer at CS. At TS though, I met every chef! In fact my goal this trip is to have my picture taken with every chef we meet! I was able to eat all sorts of things I have missed out on the past two years. Burgers on a bun, this was a first in a long time. I was able to have DF's favorite sandwhich(Reubin) with him. I was even able to have fries. These little things get missed for me because most restaurants do not carry GF breads and usually fry all their breaded foods in the same oil they fry their fries. I even got to have Mickey waffles. The funny thing with that was I forced DF to get a Mickey waffle because I wanted to watch him eat it :laughing: This was at the CBR food court. And the chef overheard me talking to DF about it and came out and told me he could make me a GF Waffle! I was so excited. Then he went on to tell me all of the things they could make for me. Any burger or sandwhich!

The other TR I found also mentioned a Disney GF app which I just downloaded. It's pretty simple but will help a lot in the parks as it simply lists what foods I can eat at each TS and CS.

My intention when i get to the TR portion of this is to seperate the Dining Reviews so people can go directly to those. I'm looking forward to taking pictures of my food and having people look at me like I'm nuts and getting weird looks from the chefs who I beg for a picture from. :rotfl:

[suorkaterina]

September 16th Arrival Day: A midday flight, most likely a layover in NY and arrival around 4pm. That night we will spend the evening enjoying Old Port Royale

The rest of these days don't have a specific dates attached as I will mix them up depending on what numbers I get from Trip Reports the closer we get to September, also I'll be able to take into account EMH and events. We are planning on making it to MNSSHP. So the rest of the stay is full days the 17th - 25th. 9 full days.

Day 1: Rope Drop. Magic Kingdom on a night it closes early due to MNSSHP. Spirit of Aloha that night and Wishes while relaxing on the Poly Beach.

Day 2: Kona for a late breakfast, explore the Poly and maybe Grand Floridian. Or maybe back to the resort for the early afternoon and late entry to MK on the night of our MNSSHP tickets.

Day 3: Rainy day plan. DTD and DisneyQuest. Dinner at House of Blues.

Day 4: Typhoon Lagoon. Early Dinner at Wave and Tomorrowland Terrace Desert Party.

Day 5: Rope Drop. Epcot Futureworld. Lunch at Via Napoli. Not sure on the restaurant choice. Want to see if they have GF pizzas first. Thought it would be a good place so we could take the boat over.

Day 6: Late arrival. Epcot World Showcase. Chefs de France for lunch and Illuminations.

Day 7: Animal Kingdom full day with dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.

Day 8: DHS full day. Sci-Fi Dine-in lunch and stay for Fantasmic.

Day 9: Resort Day. Do laundry. Swim. Imporomptu TS. Maybe a movie.

September 26th Departure Day: I'll let this be our day to do something we want to do again, or may have missed. Use up our last DP meals. Maybe go to Babycakes to stock up on sweets to take home. Our flight will be later in the evening, 5pm or later. And we will stay at Merry Manor that night before driving the 2 hours home.

So the plan is to alternate full days with looser half days. You'll notice we scheduled a lot of MK and Epcot in there since those are our favorites. There's lots of room to change our minds. The only signature is Spirit of Aloha. DH wasn't a big fan of Jiko last time we went, I think the warm towel thing threw him off. He's a simple guy. Anyway I might try and sneak one signature in there. I'm also thinking about scheduling a photo shoot. I have to do some research on that.

Please feel free to make any suggestions!

[ronnmel]

Joyeux Noel to the both of you!!

[suorkaterina]

Joyeux Noel to the both of you!!

Hope you guys had a great Christmas!

[suorkaterina]

Made out like bandits amassing Disney gift cards for our Honeymoon. We got 150$ bucks to add to what I got for my birthday and for my Graduation in June. So 425$ so far! Still waiting for Disney to fix their wedding registry then our guests we'll be able to add to growing pile of gift cards! I'm so looking forward to working on the registry list. I've been wanting to do it for months. Disney just needs to get their butts in gear and launch the new registry site!!!!

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. DF and I had a great first Christmas living together. It was a hard one as it was the first without my dad who passed in October. But we were surrounded by family most of the day and had a nice time in the morning opening our presents. I got DF tickets to a gamer convention he's been wanting to go to and he got me jewelry for the wedding.

Now it's back to real life. In a week in a half I go to my first residency for Grad school at Goddard College for my Masters in Creative Writing. Very excited but not really looking forward to driving 5 hours away in the winter. Praying for clear weather those days I have to drive!

:tink:It's gonna be an incredibly busy 2012! Happy New Year to all of you reading!

[suorkaterina]

So as the ticker says, our trip is 8 months, 2 weeks and 1 day away. I seem to be a little ahead of the game with everything, wedding and honeymoon. So far ahead in fact that there is little for me to do now. Some things are just too far away to plan for.

Right now I am dealing with some things at home. Our jobs and income are continually challenged and it is causing me stress. We are innkeepers and the owners live on the other side of the country. The Inn is for sale. We are closed for a couple months. We thought that our salary would be paid through those months but it seems like at the last minute our bosses are going to throw a wrench in things which is worrisome since I have everything budgeted out to the penny for the months leading up to the wedding. Also it looks like someone might be interested in buying the Inn which could mean we might be looking for new employment and a new residence. I'm the sort that makes myself sick with stress over uncertainties. Not the way i wanted to enter 2012.

Also I am starting grad school in three days but these three days waiting to hear from my bosses before I leave are torturous as I wonder if... A. I'll be paid for my week at Residency. B. I'll be paid for the upcoming two months. C. If they are going to allow me to get my paycheck a day early so I can have money for the trip to Goddard College in Vermont. It's keeping me very much out of my comfort zone. But I am really looking forward to getting back to school and writing again.

DETAILS:
So a detail I have figured out for my ticket in particular is that I plan to upgrade to an anual pass after our first day in the parks. I am also planning a trip with my mother for February 2013(and hopefully my BFF and her mother) and it will be much cheaper if I get an AP. So by upgrading once I get there in September I won't lose the Free Dining discount(which I am hoping for) and I'll have my tickets all paid for February. Not to mention that I will be able to book my and my mothers room at the AP discount.

Another detail has to do with Disney Honeymoon Registry. They just launched their site and a new policy is to charge 7% on every gift and 3% for every gift charged to a credit card. So instead we will be directing our guests to the gift card page on the Disney website and letting them know that all monetary gifts will be intended for our honeymoon. We have a website and will be posting our honeymoon plans on there so our guests can see them and get excited for us. The wedding is going to be small and intimate so all I'm expecting for gifts really is a little extra spending money.

Our last trip detail has been a little change in one of our days. Since we have talked seriously about moving to Florida after I finish grad school, we thought this would be the perfect time to get a feel for Florida. We hope to save the money to make a long trip later on and really explore but since we are going to be down there, we are going to take a day, rent a car and drive around. I know parts of Florida pretty well but DF does not. He's only seen the road from the Tampa airport to MCO and there to WDW. I've been interested in the Palm Harbor area North of Tampa, which is about two hours away from Disney so we'll probably start out there then move into the outskirts of Orlando area. I'm actually not too excited by this. I;d prefer to do this in a seperate trip than waste a Disney day. But if this is what it takes to get DF excited about a move down south, then this is what I will do! I'm very tired of dealing with winters in Maine, as I deal with seasonal depression. I'm ready for some sunshine and opressive heat ;-)

TRANSPORTATION
So I am still waiting for Jet Blue and their dates to go past September 4th. And since there are no direct flights from our usual airport(Portland) anymore, I've been forced to look at other options. And here they are:

1. Mini plane from Rockland to Boston then direct flight from Boston to Orlando
This would be a good option because it cuts out parking costs because my mother could drive us there, but I'm not a fan of the mini plane, also I'm not sure the cost of this extra plane compaired to parking costs.

2. We drive to Boston and fly direct to MCO from there. I estimated about 200$ parking costs. That's a three hour drive for us too. We could find a park and fly hotel.

3. We deal with a layover in NY from Portland and worry about delays and mix ups. Not a fan of this obviously. Last trip we ended up in Tampa with a shuttle to Orlando which set us back 7 hours later than we wanted to arrive. Also there will be parking fees.

4. Wait and see if there are any direct flights from Bangor. I've never flown from here and it won't be Jet Blue because they don't fly from there. I like Jet Blue because they don't charge for your first checked bag.

So as soon as I can compare rates in these options I'll be better able to make a decision for us.

I guess that is about it for now. I probably won't post again till travel arangements are made and I've returned from Residency. Wish me luck in the wilderness of Vermont!

[ronnmel]

Well that sucks that the Disney registry changed their policy and is now charging a fee. Is that a common thing for registries to do?

Sorry you're dealing with so much stress work related, hope it gets resolved soon.

[suorkaterina]

I checked other registries and most do have a service charge. But previously Disney did not. That's why I wanted to go with them. It just doesn't make sense to deal with the service charge. They don't offer too much for benifits. I was just looking forward to building the registry as you pick specific experiences you want people to purchase gifts towards. But they even cut down on those. For instance you can't choose a specific resort, it just says "Disney Resort Stay". Ah well. Maybe I'll just refer my guests to my PTR:)

[ronnmel]

Oh well. Anyway, as you said, the registry doesn't offer any benefits really. Plus, anything you receive on there will just come to you in the form of cash on a gift card, and you can then spend that money on anything you want, regardless of what the guest "bought" for you.

[Belle915]

Congrats on getting married! I'm also getting married on Sept 15th and heading down to Disney for our Disneymoon! I'm so excited! We are staying at the Polynesian! Have fun planning! Your trip looks like fun! :)

[suorkaterina]

Congrats on getting married! I'm also getting married on Sept 15th and heading down to Disney for our Disneymoon! I'm so excited! We are staying at the Polynesian! Have fun planning! Your trip looks like fun! :)

Oh cool we'll have matching anniversaries! I would love to do the Poly sometime. I'm saving it for when I get my first book published. I'll treat us to a deluxe hawaiian experience then!:banana:

[suorkaterina]

So, Ive been debating if I should write this post. This is a pre-trip report after all, not a therapy session. But since this may effect our trip I thought I would add it in as part of the planning process.

On January 4th I got a call from the owners of the Inn my DF and I innkeep for. I've been working there 8 years. And over the phone, they fired us. We have to move out by the 20th. This sucks on many levels but I'll just talk about how it may effect our wedding and honeymoon.

We are now jobless and homeless. I just started grad school(low residency) and am actually in Vermont right now and won't get back till the 15th(the day I have to apply for unemployment as it's formally our last day). So now my DF and I will be unemployed and living with my Mother(bless her for taking us in). When right now we should be saving for our wedding and honeymoon, instead we are wondering what our next step as a family is going to be.

DF insists that the wedding and honeymoon will continue as planned and we will figure it all out. I hope he is right. For right now I'm trying to concentrate on school but all I can think about is the uncertainty of the future...and how much I desperately want to go to my happy place right now, and not 9 months from now.

[ronnmel]

I'm really sorry to hear about the jobless and homeless situation. It truly sucks. It's like somewhere karma knows how happy a wedding and Disneymoon makes you, and decided to make you pay by having another part of your life be crappy. I understand the feeling, as for me it was my mother getting sick. I agree with your DF though, I would hold on to the wedding and Disneymoon as they are a happy thing. It will help you get through the harder part, if you know you have something to look forward to. :hug:

[oboedm]

Found your PTR from my PTR! I like your plan to alternate full and half days. It's nice to take a break!

[Dreamsdocometrue9112]

Joining in! My fiance and I are getting married on September 1 and we leave September 2 :)

I'm very sorry to read about your homeless/jobless situation. I truly hope everything works out for the two of you! I'm sending good vibes your way!

[suorkaterina]

I'm really sorry to hear about the jobless and homeless situation. It truly sucks. It's like somewhere karma knows how happy a wedding and Disneymoon makes you, and decided to make you pay by having another part of your life be crappy. I understand the feeling, as for me it was my mother getting sick. I agree with your DF though, I would hold on to the wedding and Disneymoon as they are a happy thing. It will help you get through the harder part, if you know you have something to look forward to. :hug:

Thanks for the sympathy. It's been hard. I went to my first MFA residency and couldn't stop thinking about coming home and having to move. But I'm home now, living with my mother. My DF and mom seem to be getting along well. Today is our first day job hunting. So wish us luck! I sent my resume in for an assistant innkeeping job so I'm hoping for that. Now I just have to get on track with my school work. I'm hoping whatever job I get is sympathetic to the fact that I already have my wedding and honeymoon booked and I also have two weeks a year in Vermont for residency. We'll see how that goes.

Found your PTR from my PTR! I like your plan to alternate full and half days. It's nice to take a break!

Oh great, glad you joined in! Last trip we found when we tried to take a full day "off" we got bored and had to head to the parks by lunch time :) So I think half days are perfect for us.

Joining in! My fiance and I are getting married on September 1 and we leave September 2 :)

I'm very sorry to read about your homeless/jobless situation. I truly hope everything works out for the two of you! I'm sending good vibes your way!

Glad to see a new face joining in! This honeymoon is gonna be epic, and by epic I mean very relaxing and deffinately worth the wait.;) Thanks for the good vibed. I will need them. Starting the job search today. Already sent out one resume. And living with mom is not idea but she's cool. I'm one of those lucky people that has a best friend for a mom. So we're here till the wedding I think which will help us save for both wedding and honeymoon.

Congratualtions on your wedding! I think September is a great month to get married. Right on the cusp of summer and fall. Not to mention it's a great slow time to take yearly anniversary trips to Disney!:rotfl: hehehe. That was my evil plot anyhow. I don't know about you!

[suorkaterina]

Hey everyone, it's been a little while. I've spent the last two weeks or so feeling pretty low but I'm back to being the old me again. The eternal optimist!

I've spent a lot of time (besides doing school work and trying to find a job) reading peoples TR and PTR. I found one that did a TR for a previous trip mixed in with their PTR for the next trip.

So I've decided to include our engagement trip from February 2011 into this PTR. I figure the proposal trip and the honeymoon should go hand in hand! I started this TR a while ago, it's even in my signature, but it got removed and I can't add to it anymore. I only got to the second day. Woops. So I will create a seperate index for these posts so you all can get to them quickly. It will be nice to go back to those memories and relive them as I prepare for my wedding and honeymoon.

Also, I'm cutting this down to just a PTR. I think it's too much to do two TR and a PTR together!

In other news it looks like I may have a job. An Inn I worked at in HS called me in for an interview. They seem eager to have someone with experience join their team and the owner didn't flinch too much over my wedding and honeymoon dates. Though I may have mentioned I could change the dates of the honeymoon. I'm hoping he forgets that because I am eager to make these flight arrangements the second Jet Blue opens my dates up!!!!

So anyway, just a little update to show you all I'm still around, still a fighter! And this Disneymoon will be happening as planned even with our little bump in the road.

[ronnmel]

I'm one of those who did a PTR mixed with an old TR, so of course I'm all for that! yay for getting to hear about your proposal trip. :thumbsup2

Also, YAY! for a possible job. :woohoo:

[suorkaterina]

February 10th 2011

DBF and I started for the Merry Manor Inn in Portland Maine in the early afternoon. I'd decided to stay here the night before our flight just in case there was some bad weather. Also friends had told me about their Fly and Park package which worked out well. We parked our car there for the week we were in Florida.

We went shopping at the mall for a while and DBF got some swim trunks. We had a nice time meandering around Best Buy and drooling over the new gadgets and games. Then we went to the hotel which was nice. In the lobby though, DBF stopped to get a cup of coffee and as he did I noticed something strange about their Valentines decorations.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/IMG_0485.jpg
Happy Inlentines Day?
So then we got into our room and DBF who is a HUGE Doctor Who fan discovered imediately that there was a very familliar looking crack in the wall...hopefully you Who fans out there will get the reference even though it's hard to see the crack in this picture.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/IMG_0489.jpg
We went to the Governors Restaurant that was attached. These restaurants are known in Maine for their home cooked meals. I must tell you though that you don't want to eat here if you have a gluten allergy. I made do the best I could a bun-less burger and DBF had his usual Ruebin, I think. The cool thing about Governors is the train they have making it's way around the dining room.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/IMG_0484.jpg
That night we tested out their beyond awesome Indoor/Outdoor pool. Yes you read that right. This pool is heated. It starts inside, then you go through a little plastic curtain and you are swimming outside in the middle of winter! It was way cool. We swam for over an hour amazed by the fact that we were surrounded by snow and could see our breath but were swimming comfortable. They also had a hot tub and another little pool that was cooler than the regular pool. We skipped that one.
It was an incredibly relaxing way to kick off our first vacation together. I will never forget the sense of peace I felt floating hand in hand with man I love, the steam drifting between us and the stars.

Stay with me here, one more day and we'll be in Disney World!

[suorkaterina]

February 11th 2011

The adventure begins! So it was a crazy night. I slept a total of three hours because my mind was racing with flight times and such. I spent the night downloading games onto my itouch and playing angry birds. Sigh. So when it was time to wake up I was a bit cranky, but also very excited so I got up and showered and DBF(who was loving the memory foam mattress and fell asleep in about 2 seconds flat) and I made our way to Governors again for our complimentary breakfast. Strike two for Governors. Their hashbrowns were sadly cooked in the same oil as breaded things so they had to make mine seperately which aparently takes half and hour, who knew!:confused3 So after that we packed up, had the front desk call us a taxi and we were off to the airport. I didn't understand a word the driver said so i just nodded and laughed when it seemed appropriate but DBF seemed to understand him well enough. So we got there and went through security, DBF got his hands swabbed which we found fascinating. It's been a while since we've flown :rolleyes:
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/IMG_0491.jpg
Sooo. We got bored and went into the CNBC store and bought Voodoo dolls. Our idea was to treat them like Flat Stanly's(but as you'll see we forgot about them after a couple days) Anyhow, here they are. DBF has a Roman obsession so he went with the Gladiator.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/IMG_0495.jpg
The flight was on Delta who's planes I regret to inform you are sadly out of date. I flew Jet Blue two years ago and their planes were way better. The little commuter to NY was tight but it got us there. Once in NY we got ourselves some lunch/dinner and sat down to wait out our 3 hours layover. About an hour before take-off we were sitting by our gate when an announcement came over the speakers that our flight had been cancelled. Now, there were blue skies out there so I just sat in denial while DBF shot up and got into the line quickly forming at the desk. At this point all my planning and preparation built up and as i joined him in the line to get assigned a new flight I started to quietly freak out. We only had 5 days at the parks and I was afraid they were going to make us fly out the next day instead. We waited in line for over an hour but finally when we got up to the counter we were told we'd have a flight to Tampa and a shuttle to MGO and the new flight would leave only a couple hours after the original flight. Oh yeah, and also that the flight had been cancelled due to technical difficulties. So we grabbed a snack and waited again. The next flight was cramped and outdated as well. Delta, you are not scoring big with me even though you did give us each 100$ vouchers. But we got to Tampa. Then nobody had mentioned this shuttle thing to anybody in Tampa so we had to figure that out. Then we had a shuttle ride with a couple of women who were nice but kept complaining about our flight being cancelled even though one of these women got an upgrade to first class! I call shenanegans! Anyhow, the shuttle was fine, I almost fell asleep, DBF was enjoying the view out the window. He's never been to Florida before. Of course at this point it was 10pm but you know Tampa was lit up nice and bright and so was Orlando. DBF thanked me for insisting he bring a jacket cause it was pretty cold that first night.

Ok, so finally we get to MGO and they let us off right near the Magical Express. We walk through past the lady there. just seeing that CM waiting by the queue made me very happy. We got into our Queue for the Caribbean Beach resort, handed our luggage to the driver and settled into the dark bus. I swear i could even smell the Disney-ness the second we got on the bus. So at this point it's about midnight. We drive and enjoy the cool video in the bus, which of course gives me goose bumps. I'm screaming in my little head. It's here, we're here, we're finally here! Of course I'm paying so much attention to the video that I almost miss the signs! which DBF points out to me. So we get off the bus and BAM, I'm home again. Never fails to amaze me how much CBR feels like home no matter how long it's been since I've been there. My family and I have been CBR fans for years. We tested out a few others, Contemporary, Port Orleans...but none of them ever measured up to the steel drums, beautiful pathways and bright island colors of CBR.

So we check in and the CM is very nice, tells me I got Jamaica like I had requested. Yay! And we go back to the curb to wait for someone to take us to the room. At this point I am almost too tired to be excited. DBF just wants a cigaret. The CM that takes us to the room is really nice and I tip him big, realizing quickly that I didn't save nearly enough money aside for tips. Did I mention that this is pretty much my first vacation that I've ever planned and paid for on my own, at 31? Sad, I know. Ok, so tips and Delta, these are things I need to remember for next time.

We go up to the room, which DBF finds without a problem. CBR rooms and numbers always confuse me. For the remainder of this trip I realize I have to have DBF with me in order to find our room, in fact I stop bothering to remember the room number halfway into the first day. So of course we whip out our voodoo dolls for a photoshoot in the room.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/IMG_0501.jpg
Then I decide to follow DBF out to find the nearest smoking area and enjoy a little walk in the early morning...er 1am!
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/IMG_0503.jpg

So that is the end of our travel day and overflow into the next day. It's amazing how the magic of Disney takes over the second any of the park comes into sight, even getting into the queue for the Magical Express! I vowed before we left for this vacation that I would stop and try to imprint every moment into my memory. I think I succeeded. Three weeks later and all this still feels like yesterday. Anyhow, stick with me, We're going to Magic Kingdom tomorrow!:cloud9:

[oboedm]

That is great news! I really hope that you hear back soon. I am glad they are so willing to let you have those days for your wedding and honeymoon! Things seem to be looking up!

Can't wait to hear about your engagement trip!

[ronnmel]

Oh no, there is a crack in the wall! Silence will fall. :scared1:

Love Doctor Who. :thumbsup2

That pool sounds awesome! Too bad you didn't take pictures. :)

Sucky travel day, but hopefully things got better the rest of the trip.

[suorkaterina]

Oh no, there is a crack in the wall! Silence will fall. :scared1:

Love Doctor Who. :thumbsup2

That pool sounds awesome! Too bad you didn't take pictures. :)

Sucky travel day, but hopefully things got better the rest of the trip.

My DF is a HUGE Doctor Who fan, like old school Who too. The original title of the TR was "converting Doctor Who into Mr. Disney" :lmao:

I think i do have a pic of the pool. This time we won't be there while there's snow so it won't be quite as fun to be swimming surrounded by snow.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Pool20Winter20shot.jpg

[suorkaterina]

Hey everyone! I thought it was about time for an update. We are about 7 months away now and things are slowly coming together. Sometimes it feels like it's tooooooo slow!

I've been working on school stuff and it's a bit overwhelming but I'm hoping I get a better handle on the work soon. The fact is my head is sort of geared towards marriage and starting a family and not so much on school. I just have to keep reminding myself this is what I've been working towards and I only have two years left. Though I was thinking about a doctorate...what am I crazy!!!:eek:

I've been working on an Excel Spreadsheet for the trip. I don't think I'll post it yet but I will when we get a little closer. I've worked pretty hard on it and am still moving things around to make it more usable. I've used Touring Plans a lot and am now starting to pick which park which day to decide on ADR's Getting DF to choose restaurants with me is difficult. He doesn't quite get the whole idea of picking where you're going to eat 7 months in advance. I guess I'll just have to sneak some menus under his nose. Maybe I'll put them in the bathroom for a little "light reading" HAHAHA:rotfl:

So, flight info! Finally Jet Blue has extended their dates into October. I checked our dates and there was a flight at 6am Sunday September the 16th. Perfect, and just a two hour layover in NY. However on the day we leave I'd wanted a later flight but the latest flight they have is at 10:45AM! :confused: I dunno why. I'm hoping they add some more by the time I can afford to pay for the flight. If not I guess we'll just have to leave earlier. I'd add another day but...hehe...I've already told my new job when I'm coming back.

Some good developments on the money front, I was a little worried because my new job was a pay decrease of about 4$ and hour. Blech. But I just did my taxes and I'm getting quite a bit back and it will pay for about a third to half of the honeymoon :banana:

So I'm going to have two more posts today(even thought I have lots of reading to do for school!) The next two post will be the day we got engaged in our February 2011 TR and also a post about our wedding with lots of pictures of the wedding site and our engagement pics.

[suorkaterina]

Okay, so we are finally going to the parks! This day is etched into my mind, even though it was now over a year ago. This was February 12th 2011.

Our day started with some exploration of the resort. I'd planned to make it to rope drop at MK but we had gotten in so late that we slept right through my cell phone alarm. So we took our time getting ready. We were in Jamaica which is a nice walk across Caribbean Cay to Old Port Royale. When we got to OPR I was excited because I'd had this vision in my head of us eating at a particular table outside. But it wasn't near the smoking section! Oh dear! So after we bought our mugs, DBF got some coffee and I got a yogurt to go with my G-free granola bar, we found a nice spot out by the fountain.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/IMG_0506.jpg

After we were done we took the mugs back to the room and headed for the buses. Now, I'm sure some of you can understand my eagerness for DBF to enjoy himself. Disney is such a big part of my life, I was freaking out that he would be one of those "take it or leave it" sorts of people with disney. I think he might have felt the pressure from me! So we made our way into the park and of course I was in heaven. Man of my dreams....happiest place on earth...but DBF wasn't as easily convinced. His first thought about the castle "It's not as big as I thought is would be." :sad2: Our first stop was the fire station where we picked up a "first trip" pin for DBF. Then we had our picture taken on Main St.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/Photo0012FourBySix.jpg

So then we rushed off to get some rides in before our lunch ADR at Wave at the Contemporary. So I chose my favorite ride, Jungle Cruise! We got in line and this was the face of a man on his first WDW ride.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/IMG_0507.jpg

Not very encouraging. So we got on the ride and he didn't laugh at all. At first I thought him being a Muppets fan he'd love the dry corny humor! Well, come to find out later, he was just sort of soaking it all in. But I'll get to that. So we move on to Splash Mountain and he slowly starts to come out of his shell. I was singing along, pointing out cool things he might have missed, putting my hand up at all the "fake" drops to trick him further. hehe. Then we ran out of time and headed for Wave. It was a nice walk and we ran into a few people.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/Photo0005FourBySix.jpg
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http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/IMG_0514.jpg

Se we headed to Wave. Now as a person with a gluten allergy I figured I'd have a hard time. Tracey my Dreams Unlimited TA had me fill out forms to send to our ADR places but I didn't think they could do much. I've gotten so used to settling because of my allergy. But when we got to Wave it was super slow, the server was really friendly and he brought out the chef. He told me all the things he would do for me and I got really excited. DBF has a reubin wherever he goes, I think he's trying to find the prefect reubin. weirdo. hehe. Anyway i got to have one with him for a change, on g-free bread! And for desert we had a sampler thing with all sorts of different things, a bubble gum gelato(very odd but not bad) little creme brulet. I can't remember much else but we had a blast. I know this restaurant doesn't get much praise but we had a great time and the atmosphere was calm and quiet. Took this after, the waiting area, but it really doesn't show much of how cool the blue room is =D
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/IMG_0521.jpg

After we took a spin on the monorail. We really had no reason to use the monorail this trip, we didn't have hopper tickets, but I wanted DBF to experience it. So we rode around and it was a nice way to digest before going crazy in MK! Which we totally did! It was an 11pm EMH night so we stayed till the very last. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First we headed back to see if Pirate's was up and running, which it still wasn't. So we did SFR which I've always loved. And DBF had me take tons of pictures for his neice who loved the movie. We had a guy take our picture for us, but I've got a funny look on my face because I'm trying to explain how the camera works to him.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/IMG_0527.jpg

We spun over to Frontierland and did BTMR, then headed into Liberty Square to do the Hall of Presidents. I think this might have been the turning point for DBF. He's a political junkie and history fanatic. Well he left HOP with a tear in his eye. Then we did HM and headed over to Tomorrowland. Notice we totally skipped Fantasyland. Now at this point DBF started bugging me about getting our Mickey ears. I sorta thought he was joking and I purposefully left Fantasyland till last because I thought it might be too kiddie for him. But he just kept begging! We criss crossed a little, finally catching Pirates then went into Fantasyland to get our ears. Here's where the pixie dust started. The woman who gave us our ears handed us a couple of "Happily ever after pins!" DBF thought this was amazing! he couldn't stop talking about it.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/182849_10150410136680347_759135346_17514339_753781 0_n.jpg

So it was about dinner time and we went to Cosmic Rays. This was fun. I was all set for having a hard time at CS but there was a manager right there who gave me a G-Free menu and followed us through the line to help me order. I got a burger...with a BUN which is just freaking amazing because no non-WDW restaurants ever have G-Free buns. I was so excited about these basic little things. So our server/food preparer chatted with us about our buttons and asked DBF how he was enjoying his first time. She asked what his favorite ride was then told him hers was Carousel of Progress which I hadn't even realized was up and running! I was excited about that. So we headed over there afterwords. A CM asked us if we'd just gotten married to which I said no, just "happy". At this point the two of us were totally on cloud 9. DBF couldn't stop smiling. :woohoo: and I was pretty sure I'd turned my man into a Disney freak and was feeling pretty proud of myself.

Now it was time for Wishes, we'd missed the first parade so we made our way as people were dispersing from that. We got our pictures taken next to the castle.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/Photo0016FourBySix.jpg

Then we found a spot next to the water fountains, to wait for Wishes. It was beyond magical. When Jiminy says the part about "sometimes wishes can be granted in the most unexpected ways" I lost it. A little about DBF and I: We met when we were both with someone else, the four of us were all friends. We found each other years after our respective break-ups and somehow we knew we had found "the one". Our Disney trip was only 6 months after we started dating. Anyhow DBF squeezed me tight when Jiminy said that and the tears just started flowing. When the show was over I spun around to see DBF who was holding me from behind and he had this weird look on his face. He kept hugging me then looking like he wanted to say something. Finally I watched him mouth "Will you marry me?" I say mouthed because the exit music for Wishes was so loud where we were that I couldn't hear him!!! So i paused for a moment, deciding if that is really what he asked me. I hugged him and said into his ear "Yes." :lovestruc We just kept hugging and smiling so wide it hurt for the next few minutes. He asked me if I was happy and I said of course. We decided to walk a little before the next parade, back over the bridge on the side of the castle. And DBF confessed that he didn't actually hear me say Yes, and I told him I hadn't actually heard him ask! :rotfl: So we watched the Electrical parade but I think we were both sort of in La La Land at that point. We stopped at the hub to get our first picture as an engaged couple.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Magic%20Kingdom%202011/Photo0018FourBySix.jpg

Afterwords we made our way down Main St and DF(notice the change over there =P) stopped to get coffee at the bakery while I did some shopping. Then on our way out we picked up our "Just Engaged" Pins at the Fire Station!!! It was the best day of my life.

Waiting for the bus a nice woman was asking us about getting engaged and was telling all her family how we'd just gotten engaged durring Wishes and how cool that was. It was truly a magical day.:cloud9:

[suorkaterina]

So for those of you who are interested in the wedding aspect of this PTR I thought I'd do a little intro into the world of our Wedding preparations. First I'll start out with some pictures from our engagement shoot in October which took place at the Norumbega Inn where we used to be the Innkeepers. I'm sad we're not there anymore but I'm glad we had the chance to have these pictures taken there to document this first stage of our lives together, actually the first place we ever lived in together.

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Wedding%20Plans%20and%20Engagement%20Pics/Engagement-15.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Wedding%20Plans%20and%20Engagement%20Pics/Engagement-20.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Wedding%20Plans%20and%20Engagement%20Pics/Engagement-21.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Wedding%20Plans%20and%20Engagement%20Pics/Engagement-28.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Wedding%20Plans%20and%20Engagement%20Pics/Engagement-31.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Wedding%20Plans%20and%20Engagement%20Pics/Engagement-29.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Wedding%20Plans%20and%20Engagement%20Pics/Engagement-23.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Wedding%20Plans%20and%20Engagement%20Pics/Engagement-19.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n282/suorkaterina/Wedding%20Plans%20and%20Engagement%20Pics/Engagement-3.jpg

I'll post wedding plans in the next post.

[oboedm]

Great pictures.... And great story! It made me cry tears of happiness! I am so glad you found each other and that you were able to turn "dr. Who" into Mr. Disney!

[ronnmel]

I have to confess. I cried while reading your update about your first day at Disney with your DBF/DF. I was already getting a bit teary (I blame the pregnancy hormones :rolleyes1) just with how happy he was about getting the Mouse ears and the Happily Ever After buttons, but when I read about him proposing I just lost it. So ROMANTIC!! :lovestruc

[suorkaterina]

Great pictures.... And great story! It made me cry tears of happiness! I am so glad you found each other and that you were able to turn "dr. Who" into Mr. Disney!

Thanks =D I cry whenever I think about it. It is so true that love comes to you when you least expect it.

I have to confess. I cried while reading your update about your first day at Disney with your DBF/DF. I was already getting a bit teary (I blame the pregnancy hormones :rolleyes1) just with how happy he was about getting the Mouse ears and the Happily Ever After buttons, but when I read about him proposing I just lost it. So ROMANTIC!! :lovestruc

Hehehe. I kept thinking he was joking when he was asking me to go get our ears. I hadn't bought ears since I was really little. Truthfully I hate wearing those things. So uncomfortable having that strap under your chin. hehe. Made for some really cute pics though.

And you don't need pregnancy hormones to get teary at an engagement story...we're women, that's what we do. :lmao: Personally when I need a good cry I watch Disney engagement videos and parents suprising their kids with Disney vacations on youtube.

[suorkaterina]

So a few updates. I got my tax return back and made some progress in our vacation.

We decided to fly from Boston/Jetblue(3hr drive from us) on 6am the morning after our wedding(Sept 16th). We really wanted a straight flight and there were none from Maine at all. We will be getting to MCO about 9:30 so we'll have most of that first day in the parks! And our flight out is going to be at 6pm(Sept 26th) so we'll have some extra time the day we leave to spend in the parks too. We will be staying at a hotel in Boston the night of the wedding. This has caused us to push our wedding to earlier in the day. Probably 11am then we can leave for Boston by 5 at the latest. We'll have to get up for the shuttle which leaves at 4am and 5am. I signed up for the 5am but now I'm second guessing how much time we'll need to get through security. So we might be getting up at 3am:eek:

Also, Tracey@ Dreams emailed me within a day of Free Dining being announced and signed us up for a 1000$ savings! Thank goodness for that. Between that and my tax return we are doing much better in our payments for our honeymoon.

Next post is going to be about our wedding, I promise. I'm doing the new budget right now to figure out how much I need to be saving. The job loss has really taken a chunk out of our plans but we will persevere. Right now my new job has cut my hours to 25 a week till June which totally blows. DF is going for an interview today so I am crossing fingers, toes and anything else that can be crossed that he gets this job!

In other news...my Mom and Aunt are at the MK today and they are having a great time. It's my moms first time being there without my father. She sounds in good spirits. I'm glad she has my Aunt with her. She just called and said she was about to enter Country Bears which was my Dad's favorite so i hope she is okay after that. I know Dad is with her in spirit, watching the Bears and having a good 'ole time. My dad always knew how to have a good time in WDW. He always rode the scary rides with me when mom wouldn't =P

[oboedm]

Love that your tax return came in and made a dent in the amount owed! Free dining is great! I am glad that they released it for the days of your trip! I need to make a budget to figure out how much I need to save for my upcoming trip! I need to get cracking!

[suorkaterina]

Love that your tax return came in and made a dent in the amount owed! Free dining is great! I am glad that they released it for the days of your trip! I need to make a budget to figure out how much I need to save for my upcoming trip! I need to get cracking!

We got all our dining reservations last week. so exciting. I'll post them soon along with my itinerary.

I raised our budget for this trip to double what I've paid in the past. I've never been more than 7 days and our first trip was only 5(way too short!) So 10 days will be like heaven. We aren't doing anything extra really except for water parks and MNSSHP but still those extra days add up. If I'd known we are going to lose our jobs I might not have gone for 10 days but, I'm determined to keep our trip as is! So that means the wedding keeps shrinking. Ah well, as long as we get to say our I Do's that's all I care about. Then we can spend 10 whole day starting our marriage with fun and relaxation. Woohoo!

[oboedm]

Small weddings are nice! Someone once told me that you should spend more time and effort planning for the marriage than the wedding.... And your honeymoon will get your marriage off to a good start!

[suorkaterina]

As promised I thought I would do a little update on our wedding plans.

We are getting married on September 15th 2012 at 11:30am. We decided on a lunch time wedding because our Disneymoon plans now have us driving to Boston directly after the reception, a 3 hour drive.

We will be getting married at Merry Spring Nature Park (http://www.merryspring.org/). This is where we went for our first date so it seemed the perfect place to tie the knot. Plus, it's beautiful.

Here is a picture of the ceremony site. I took this on September 15th of 2011 so I could get an idea of what it looked like that time of year.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/DSC_0599-1-1.jpg

And these are some pictures of the Ross Center where we'll have the reception. It's also in the park. It's very small but our guest list isn't even 50 people so this should work fine. We are hoping it's a nice day too so people can mingle out on the deck.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/DSC_0619-1.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/DSC_0620-1.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/DSC_0616-1.jpg

We are having a short and sweet stand-up ceremony. I'm having trouble finding a reasonably priced officiant! But hopefully I find one soon. I bought my dress very early on. Great sale at David's Bridal. It's chiffon, empire waist with a criss-cross beaded band. I love it. My two bridesmaids are wearing one shoulder espresso brown, empire waist gowns that they love, thank goodness. My maid of honor is my best friend and her daughter is the flower girl. I just gave her the dress for her birthday and she is super excited to be flower girl. My other bridesmaid is my best friend from gradeschool. I think I mentioned her before. My family and hers used to go to Disney together all the time. DF's got two groomsmen, his cousin and friend. The three of them are inseparable. In fact the are going to Boston together this weekend! We deffinately lucked out with our wedding party. I think it helps to keep it small.

David's Bridal is actually doing our photography too. I have yet to fill out their form and receive a bio on the photographer they choose for me. I would have rather gone with a local photographer but most will not set up a payment plan for you, nor will they let you mess with the photos which I will be able to do with these. I enjoy doing my own post processing.

Decor for the reception is going to be very simple. Our budget keeps shrinking unfortunately. We are going with a simple cake I think, or cupcakes depending on prices. We are also getting platters with sandwich meats from the local grocery store. I'm hoping I can pretty this all up by surrounding it with foliage and pinecones. No band, just our favorite songs on a playlist on our ipods.

I am collecting mason jars now to hold dahlias from the local dahlia farm. The colors will be white, purple and fushia. I'm making the bouquets myself out of these. Bridesmaids will be white(or a really cool purple tipped dahlia) and mine will be fushia and purple I think. I'm looking forward to going to the dahlia farm to pick out particular types. I chose dahlias to honor my father who passed away in October. When I was a kid he took our garden and instead of veggies planted the whole thing with dahlias. I must have been very young because I remember the flowers looming over me. Here's a pciture of what I'm going for with that.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/dahliacenterpiece.jpg

I'll also be using ferns to make table runners, cover up the bookshelves and decorate around the food table. I've also been collecting pine cones to spread around the tables. I'm trying to make it simple so it goes with the naturalness of the park. I'm hoping for a fern theme on the invites too.

Oh and here is our cake topper! Haven't ordered this yet but we decided on it long ago.
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/615zhoF-ZkL_AA1000_-1.jpg

I guess that is about it. I had wanted a bit more for my wedding. Something bigger, more unique. I had many ideas. But in the end, as the budget shrank because of unemployment, we decided that what we wanted most of all was to spend our first week as a married couple having lots of fun together at Disney. So simple wedding it is. After all, the important part is saying "I do" in front of those we love and each other.

[ronnmel]

I think the place for the ceremony looks lovely!

I love the purple and fuchsia color scheme for your flowers. And of course I LOVE the cake topper!

[suorkaterina]

Small weddings are nice! Someone once told me that you should spend more time and effort planning for the marriage than the wedding.... And your honeymoon will get your marriage off to a good start!

Yeah i think it will be more sentimental with just the VIP's =D I know our engagement trip was the happiest memory ever. That's why I want to make the honeymoon extra special, but more relaxed. We zipped right through the parks in 5 days last time. It was crazy!

I think the place for the ceremony looks lovely!

I love the purple and fuchsia color scheme for your flowers. And of course I LOVE the cake topper!

Thank you, it really is a beautiful place. I just wish we could use more of the grounds somehow. I'm thinking of doing the posed shots in different parts of the park, the hosta garden, the herb garden, on a trail. We'll see how it goes. I only paid for the photographer for 4 hours =P

[oboedm]

Love the venue! And the cake topper matches the theme nicely! I am glad that you went with the David's photographer, especially because you can do the processing and get what you want. It is really nice that they can do a payment plan! Your plans look lovely so far!

[bowlingchicaroo]

Loving your TR so far...wow we were at CBR the exact same time as you and are returning in September too! We fell in love with CBR and I do believe we found "our home" too!!!

[suorkaterina]

Love the venue! And the cake topper matches the theme nicely! I am glad that you went with the David's photographer, especially because you can do the processing and get what you want. It is really nice that they can do a payment plan! Your plans look lovely so far!

Thank you. I can't beleive it's getting so close now. The fact that I haven't picked an officiant is becoming a fear now. It's like once I hit the 6 month point everything got very real.

Loving your TR so far...wow we were at CBR the exact same time as you and are returning in September too! We fell in love with CBR and I do believe we found "our home" too!!!

Oh that's fabulous! I've been going to CBR with my parents since I was young. DF got roped into it. Though when we watched the new promotional video he got excited about the value resorts(which I don;t like at all). I just rolled my eyes. hehe.

I hope Sept is a good month. I've never been in Florida so close to hurricane season!

[archdandy]

Wow, so many things all wrapped into one thread! :goodvibes Congrats on your upcoming wedding. DH and I just got married last June and went to Disney for our honeymoon as well. It was the perfect choice for us! I love your cake topper! I wish we could have found something unique like that but we could never agree on one so we went without, haha. I understand about having a wedding on a budget. It's hard to have a nice wedding these with the prices that everywhere is charging for various wedding stuff such as venues and cakes and dresses! Blarg! Anyways good luck with your planning and I can't wait to see how it all unfolds.

[suorkaterina]

That's right...we've got BIG NEWS.....

We are moving to Florida!

After much discussion on the subject, myself, DF and my mother are moving to Florida, Fall 2013.

I've wanted to move to Florida since I can remember. In HS I applied to all FL colleges except one...and unfortunately that one happened to be the one that was the best option so I ended up in South Carolina instead. When I moved back in with my parents after a bad break-up 4 years ago we talked about moving to FL together but then my Dad's Parkinson's got worse. Now that he has passed my mother has been thinking more and more about moving down and recently visited The Villages where my cousin lives. When she came back she had decided to move but was worried about being away from us and any future grandchildren. I grew up with my grandparents in FL and us in NY/ME and only saw them once or twice a year. My mother told me it was one of my grandmothers biggest regrets that I grew up so far away. And DF, well he was fluctuating on the idea of moving, and so was I actually. I've gotten to a place now where all my friends have kids and homes and I was looking forward to finally joining the "club". But I absolutely HATE the winter here and I think it might border on seasonal depression. Even though this one was mild, I still hate the gray. Anyway, DF kept going back and forth on it. But out of the blue one day he said, "Lets move to Florida, next year." He said he was ready for a new start, to get out of his hometown and move onto something new. Well that was all it took for me. I thought about the things holding me back and I have to admit, I will never be in the "club" with my friends. They are at different stages in their lives. We are ready for the adventure of starting our new lives together in the sunshine state!

So DF and I will be looking to move somewhere between The Villages and Orlando, Clermont area perhaps. So after the wedding we will have a year to save and plan for our move.

Now this ties into our Disneymoon plans because we've decided to take one day to check out the area. We are going to rent a car and just drive around the towns my Central FL family and friends have suggested.

So many things to be excited about. I just hope we can find jobs down there. Since we are both in tourism industries Restaurant/Hospitality, I think we will do okay.

Well that's it for my big news. Have any of you thought about making the move to be closer to the Mouse?

[suorkaterina]

And one more little wedding update. Last week when cleaning up the yard I collected 3 whole trashbags full of pinecones for our wedding decor. I think I'm going to string them together for garlands and hang them from the book shelves and wind them around and behind the food table and put some on the dining tables as well. It was worth the 3 hours of bending over to pick them up =P Free decor. Doesn't get better than that!

[suorkaterina]

Wow, so many things all wrapped into one thread! :goodvibes Congrats on your upcoming wedding. DH and I just got married last June and went to Disney for our honeymoon as well. It was the perfect choice for us! I love your cake topper! I wish we could have found something unique like that but we could never agree on one so we went without, haha. I understand about having a wedding on a budget. It's hard to have a nice wedding these with the prices that everywhere is charging for various wedding stuff such as venues and cakes and dresses! Blarg! Anyways good luck with your planning and I can't wait to see how it all unfolds.

Thanks for joining in! Congratulations on your recent wedding and Disneymoon! Isn't that cake topper adorable. I found it on amazon when we were considering a Mickey/Minnie themed wedding. It's the only thing that has stuck from that plan. =D

[ronnmel]

That is ao AWESOME that you will get to move to Florida!!! DH and I talk about it sometimes. For him it might be possible, as he often works with people from a sister company in Tampa, so he could look into transfering there. For me it wouldn't be as easy though. I've heard it's really hard for teachers in Florida. But anyway, the big things that keeps us here are his daughter, and our family. It's definitely in our plans to retire there though. And obviously we'd be okay with living there part time should we win the lottery. I hope you guys find a great home, and a good job down there.

[LisaKeys]

Come out, come out wherever you are! LOL I was reading your TR, and it ended on your 1st day in the park. Just a great photo of the 2 of you in front of the castle.

Only 4 more months. I know you are getting excited!

[suorkaterina]

Come out, come out wherever you are! LOL I was reading your TR, and it ended on your 1st day in the park. Just a great photo of the 2 of you in front of the castle.

Only 4 more months. I know you are getting excited!

We are excited! We were actually just now talking about how we were looking forward to spending some quality time together on our honeymoon. It's been a tough winter and will be a busy summer working hard and saving money for wedding stuff. But the rewards will be great!

I have a treat for you then...I just finished loading the Day two pics onto photobucket. I'll have a new TR post up soon!

[suorkaterina]

Warning: These pictures are HUGE but photobucket is giving me a hard time and I don't feel like starting over =P So beware!

Well we were starting to slow down today. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at Old Port Royal. I made DF enjoy a Mickey waffle so I could watch him eat it. You know, because of my gluten allergy. Now I don't remember how this happened, what order. But I think this was also the day the chef overheard me lamenting my loss of Mickey waffle and told me he can do G-free ones. Which he did and I was overjoyed! The g-free dedicated waffle iron is mini mickey waffles but they tasted sooooo good.

So after that it was off to The Studios. We ran into a survey CM who asked us some questions and congratulated us on our engagement(We had our pins on). Actually by midday I think we'd been congratulated by at least 10 CM's. We had our pictures taken in front of the hat, and the CM asked where my ring was. If I didn't mention it before, there was no ring. I had made it clear to DF that if and when he popped the question, I didn't need a ring because I wanted to re-set my great grandmothers engagement ring.

Anyhow, We started our tour of DHS at Muppet's because DF is a major Muppet freak and so am I. He loved it and we took some pictures by the fountain.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Studios/IMG_0546.jpg

It's been so long I don't remember the exact order of things. But after that we sort of wandered. Then we ended up at 50's Prime-time for lunch. I got all excited when the chef came out and told me they had a g-free chicken pot pie. Sadly it was only a g-free biscuit with pot pie filling on top. It was good, but I was really looking forward eating pie shell...yumm.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Studios/IMG_0549.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Studios/IMG_0553.jpg

After that we did Indiana Jones and then I ran into my first ever Dis-er. A woman I met on the Singles board. We chatted for a little bit but we both had plans to go to different areas so we parted ways. She also asked about the ring. By this time i was starting to regret my "no ring" policy. The pin wasn't enough for me :confused3

DF was sad that Star Tours was down but we did manage to get some pictures in. He was all excited about the entrance to the Traders. As you can see in the picture, there are two planets in one here. I'm not a bit Star Wars fan but I got the joke...I just can't remember the names of the planets! We also had our pictures taken as Luke and Laia(sp?) I'll post that picture once I scan it.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Studios/IMG_0557.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Studios/IMG_0559.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Studios/IMG_0561.jpg


By midafternoon we were starting to get really tired. After getting in at 1am, then an 11pm night at Magic Kingdom, we were ready to do a little relaxing. I had intended that we go to Fantasmic since I'd never been but after sitting and watching the Lights, Motors...etc. show...we decided to call it a day.

You will notice we missed the two big ones here, actually we missed a lot. So, DF has a weird aversion to rollercoasters which I was not aware of before this trip. Apparently because he is tall, he thinks his head will be chopped off by the ride. So RR was out. He has since reformed and realized that these rides were built to accommodate freakishly tall people like himself. (He's really not that tall, like 6'5" maybe) Anyway, I also have motion sickness so TOT was out for me. (Next time I'm taking dramamine). We decided we would be braver on our honeymoon. So we made our way back to the entrance. But, since we hadn't been down that way, we wondered down to see what was down by RR and TOT and ended up spending another hour shopping. And did the requisite pic in front of the hat before we left.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Studios/Photo0020FourBySix.jpg

As we made our way back to the main street(you'll notice i have no idea what the names of these streets are, such a bad Disney geek!) DF asked if I wanted a mickey promise ring. So we went into a shop and found this little beauty which I now wear on my right hand.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee425/suorkaterina1/Studios/IMG_0689.jpg

Then we went home. I got to fawn all over my little ring. And we ate burgers that evening outside of OPR. Then headed back to the room. DF fell asleep within minutes but I was too keyed up and watched a Walt Disney documentary which just happened to be on!

Tomorrow, onto Epcot!

[ronnmel]

I suffer from motion sickness as well, like on Star Tours, Expedition Everest and Mission Space, but for some reason I have absolutely no problem with TOT. I can even do it a few times in a row.

What a lovely promise ring!

[suorkaterina]

That is ao AWESOME that you will get to move to Florida!!! DH and I talk about it sometimes. For him it might be possible, as he often works with people from a sister company in Tampa, so he could look into transfering there. For me it wouldn't be as easy though. I've heard it's really hard for teachers in Florida. But anyway, the big things that keeps us here are his daughter, and our family. It's definitely in our plans to retire there though. And obviously we'd be okay with living there part time should we win the lottery. I hope you guys find a great home, and a good job down there.

I would absolutely love to live in Maine through the summer and Florida in the Winter. Both of us work is seasonal sort of jobs so that could be possible but I'd like to establish a home for our future child/children. So I'm hoping we'll be able to vacation in Maine in the summers. I love camping but because I'm always working twice as much during the summer I usually can't go camping.


I suffer from motion sickness as well, like on Star Tours, Expedition Everest and Mission Space, but for some reason I have absolutely no problem with TOT. I can even do it a few times in a row.

What a lovely promise ring!

It's so weird what does and doesn't make you sick. I was absolutely fine on Space Mountain(except a weird thing with my heart skipping a beat or two!) In fact I was fine on all the mountains. But Everest hit me, as did Mission Space at the very end. I find that landing, the going down, is worst, as in the landing on the flight into Florida sucked. But I love me some dramamine. I hope you can't OD on it because it is going to be my friend throughout the honeymoon!

[suorkaterina]

Well I got the Itinerary from Tracey at Dreams last week and I meshed it together with my own Honeymoon Excel Spreadsheet. So I thought I'd do an update and show you all what we have planned!

September 15th 2012
Day One:
Wedding at Noon
3pm Drive to Boston
Stay in Boston Overnight

September 16th 2012
Day 2:
6:30am Fly to Orlando
Check into CBR
Go to Magic Kingdom!
ADR - California Grill @ 7:20 (Hoping to watch Wishes from the balcony)
Go back to MK and try to stay awake till the park closes at 12am!

September 17th 2012
Day 3:
Epcot Future World(I broke Epcot into two days because last time we spent so much time in FW that we barely had any time to enjoy World Showcase)
ADR - Kouzzina 5pm at the Boardwalk

September 18th 2012
Day 4:
Epcot World Showcase
ADR - Beirgarten 12pm

September 19th 2012
Day 5:
The Studios
Mama Melrose - 1:45pm

September 20th 2012
Day 6:
Water Park or Free Day
ADR - 5:15 Spirit of Aloha
Relax on Poly Beach for Wishes

September 21st 2012
Day 7:
Animal Kingdom
ADR - Rainforest Cafe 6pm

September 22nd 2012
Day 8:
Water Park AM/ Studios PM
ADR - 50's Prime Time 5:20pm

September 23rd 2012
Day 9:
Downtown Disney/DisneyQuest
ADR - House of Blues 8:30pm

September 24th 2012
Day 10:
Explore area for moving purposes
No ADR

September 25th 2012
Day 11:
Magic Kingdom
ADR - Wave 5pm
MNSSHP!

September 26th 2012
Day 12:
Some last minute shopping at DTD
Magical Express back to the airport
The a long drive home very late at night filled with post-Disney melancholy.

That's it! Can't wait to spend soooo many days in the World!

[ronnmel]

I really recommend, for your day 6, to at least take it easy in the morning. If after a few hours of relaxing you really want to go to the water park, go. But that is our biggest regret of our Disneymoon, not to have any real free day. We hit a wall by day 9.