"Say Hi to Mickey for Me" - A Disneymoon Two Years in the Making! *3/4 Second MK Day!

[DisneymoonJess07]

Hello, and welcome to my first trip report! So here we are, one day since getting back from Disney, and I am very excited to be starting my Trip Report!

First things first – introductions! This was my first trip to Disney in ten years, and my husband’s first trip in twelve, and on that trip he only went to Epcot, so we basically don’t count it. We even got him a “1st Visit” button at the resort, because he really hadn’t experienced the Disney magic!

I’m Jessica, 24 years old and I work at a synagogue here in the Chicago area. I’m looking to go into non-profit management here starting in fall 2010.

My husband is Raif, 26 about to be 27 on the 25th of September. He works at the Jewish student organization at a university in Chicago, as their operations manager. He is looking into Rabbinical school to start fall 2010.

We also have two feathered friends, Dehaba and Atarah. Dehaba, meaning gold in Aramaic, is a yellow & green parakeet, and Atarah means crown, since she is blue and white, with a white patch on her head, right where a crown would be. Our lovely friend Melissa took them for our eight days in Disney, and when we brought her a gift back from Disney, she said she didn’t think she needed one, since she got to have pets for a week. It was really sweet. However, she did love her gift when we gave it to her.

Here we are

(we were in a friend's wedding, and they had a great photobooth setup with props)

This trip was a very special one for us. Not only had neither of us been there in at least ten years, but this was also our honeymoon! We were married on September 2, 2007 in my husband’s hometown, but since we were both recent college graduates who had just come back from a year abroad and just about to start new jobs, we had no money and no vacation time. So, we decided to wait.

As a bonus, us on our wedding day:

 

[disneygirlinnj]

Can't wait to hear about your trip

 

[haleofafamily]

Followed you on your pre-trip report and can't wait to read more!

 

[ScotsMinnie]

I'm in! Love the pics so far!!! Can't wait to hear how your trip went!
Lx

 

[Mickey_Mom]

Hey there!

 

[stacikristine]

Hey Jessica! I can't wait to hear about your trip!! I'm so glad you had a wonderful time And those pictures are both GREAT!!

 

[DisneymoonJess07]

Can't wait to hear about your trip

Followed you on your pre-trip report and can't wait to read more!

I'm hoping to get started on the good stuff tonight after our MAJOR grocery shopping!

I'm in! Love the pics so far!!! Can't wait to hear how your trip went!
Lx

Aren't we a good looking couple?

Hey there!

Hey Jessica! I can't wait to hear about your trip!! I'm so glad you had a wonderful time And those pictures are both GREAT!!

Thanks! It's going to be so much fun reliving it! Can't wait!

---

I brought mickey-shaped chocolate covered pretzels for my coworkers, and they were a hit. And yummy!

 

[DisneyFaeriePrincess]

What cute pictures! You two look so cute together! Can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[disneygirlinnj]

You're STILL grocery shopping?!?!?! Haha, just kidding!

 

[DisneymoonJess07]

What cute pictures! You two look so cute together! Can't wait to hear all about it!

We are pretty cute, aren't we?

You're STILL grocery shopping?!?!?! Haha, just kidding!

We were shopping from like 7 to 9 pm, then we had to eat dinner, and then I had to catch up some more emails and blah blah blah. Yeah, I know you are totally not interested - you just want to get more report. I'll see what I can do!

 

[DisneymoonJess07]

*I promise the next installments won't be so pictureless*

By the time we were both able to take vacation, I was already looking into getting a new job, since the original one was unmanageable, and I got one in July of last year. This of course, again, put a hold on our vacation plans, and since my husband’s job revolves around the school year, it looked like summer would be our best option. Fast forward to February of this year. My parents came to Chicago for the weekend to visit and to see the sites of the city, and they decided to take the train up which seemed like a great idea. They got into town Thursday night, and we were going to a party for some friends who were recently married and they wanted dinner together just the two of them, so we agreed to meet them for coffee and dessert afterwards.

You know what they say about best laid plans! They got into a cab to take them to the restaurant, and a few moments after the guy pulls away, another car pulls out in front of them, and they collide. Since you really have to dig for the seatbelts in Chicago cabs, they didn’t have them on yet. My dad hit his knee, arm and head because he was seated slightly to one side, but my mom, being significantly shorter than my dad, hit the partition head on. She’s on blood thinners due to a clot in one arm, and so she had a terrible nosebleed and it all looked very dramatic. The paramedics got her nosebleed stopped and gave them both ice packs, and a cop came to question them about the accident, I think trying to determine who was at fault. In any case, there was a Starbucks right where the accident took place (of course, it’s downtown Chicago, there’s one on every block) and they go in, and the cop paid for coffee for both of them and the Starbucks lady wouldn’t take the money since she’d seen the accident, but he paid her anyway. It was a really nice experience with the cops, considering what had happened!

Anyway, this whole thing put a severe damper on the weekend, since not only did they instead of going out to Greek and meeting up with us later, they called and we came home and fed them scrambled eggs and took good care of them. My poor mom had two matching black eyes and so she didn’t want to go out anywhere, even though we had been planning to go out to a great dinner on Saturday. So, Raif and I went to the restaurant we had planned to go to, and then brought the meal down to their hotel and ate with them in their suite, and had a great time anyway. During our evening though, my mom brought up that we hadn’t been on a honeymoon yet, and said that we should really try to figure something out for that.

Picking a place for a honeymoon for us was a little more difficult than one would imagine. We’re Jewish, and we keep kosher, so any place we went would have to be able to accommodate that. I started looking into some all-inclusives, but most of those would cost the earth and although we had more of a budget, $4000 plus $1800 airfare for a week didn’t seem right to us. So we kept looking. Eventually, I came back around to an idea I’d had for a while, about Disney, and then found out about how kosher dining works, and that it would work perfectly with the Dining Plan. I started thinking about the week of our anniversary as a great time to go, and things started rolling from there, especially when I bought my UnOfficial Guide and rejoined the Disboards. I had been a member for a while right when we were beginning wedding planning and thought we’d be able to go on a honeymoon right away. Best of all, with free dining, our total for the vacation came in at just over $2000, and we had an amazing, unforgettable trip. The kind of trip that made my husband realize how stressful he has been finding work and how he needs to work on reducing stress in his life!

 

[stacikristine]

I'm so glad you and Raif were able to take this trip. Your mom was right--it was about time you went on your honeymoon I'm so glad you loved it. Can't wait to hear more!

 

[DisneyFaeriePrincess]

Oh gosh, what a horrible thing to happen to your mom and dad! I'm glad they weren't too hurt! Yay for a Disneymoon though!! I can't wait to hear all about your trip!!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Welcome back Jess! I can't wait to hear how this trip went for you and Raif!

Your wedding picture is beautiful!

 

[DisneymoonJess07]

I'm so glad you and Raif were able to take this trip. Your mom was right--it was about time you went on your honeymoon I'm so glad you loved it. Can't wait to hear more!

Isn't my mom smart?

Oh gosh, what a horrible thing to happen to your mom and dad! I'm glad they weren't too hurt! Yay for a Disneymoon though!! I can't wait to hear all about your trip!!

They really recovered so well, and they're coming back in like two weeks for a redo of a city trip, so they can actually do things with us.

Welcome back Jess! I can't wait to hear how this trip went for you and Raif!

Your wedding picture is beautiful!

Thanks for the good comments - I loved my wedding dress so much! And I can't wait to get time to continue to write about the trip!

~~

Good morning ladies! Unfortunately, I have come back to work just at our very busy time, so I'm hoping to start an update tonight. I have all my pictures lined up and ready and I know what I want to write -just a matter of writing them.

BUT I am uploading to photopass tonight! I meant to last night, but my DH was out of town and so I went out with a girlfriend for dinner and we had wine, and then I forgot

Thanks for the great comments though!

 

[DisneymoonJess07]

Because we wouldn’t be able to do much for the trip on Friday evening and Saturday due to Shabbat, we began packing on Thursday night for our trip. We got about 80% packed that night, but we still had enough to pack that we knew we needed to get going on packing on Saturday night. I had gotten a call from the limo service, and so I called them back to confirm. Since it was our honeymoon, we did take a moment to enjoy some refreshment.

We found these in the grocery store and could hardly resist.

Even after we packed and were all ready, neither of us slept much. I think the anticipation of going was totally getting to us. Anyway, the alarm went off at 4:45, and we both managed to get out of bed without too much trouble, even though we’d only gotten a few hours of sleep. We were ready ahead of schedule and brought our stuff downstairs at about 5:25. Luckily, the driver was already downstairs, and we got into the car the car service had sent. The car was nice and there was barely any traffic that early in the morning. Perhaps, in retrospect, we didn’t have to leave quite that early, given that we were leaving on a Sunday morning, but I was nervous about things going wrong. As it turned out though, they were preparing for the Chicago triathlon by closing several lanes of one of the roads we had to go on, so maybe it was better that we went early.

I hardly remember the trip to the airport, except for one important detail. There was a song playing in the car when we got into it, and it played one other time on our trip. I found some of the lyrics when we got back, and it’s the song “Bubbly” by Colbie Caillat, and so appropriate for the morning.

I've been awake for a while now
You've got me feeling like a child now
Cause every time I see your bubbly face
I get the tinglies in a silly place

It starts in my toes
And I crinkle my nose
Where ever it goes, I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time
Where ever you go

I have decided that this song will always make me think of this trip. In any case, we arrived at the airport by 6:00 a.m., which was about half an hour earlier than I thought we’d get there. We walked up to the security guy, and I think it was my shirt and the choice of destination on my ticket, but he said to me, “Say hi to Mickey for me!”, which just made me smile. Raif thought it was really cool that someone said something about Disney all the way back in Chicago too.

We found the gate pretty easily, and it was really quiet at first. We passed a small little Hallmark shop, which was great, since we had realized that neither of us had remembered to get a card for the other for our anniversary, which would be during the trip. We both took turns going to the card shop, and then I got a snack at the airport store to tide me over, since the cereal was not holding up after an hour in the airport.

We took off right on time, which was nice since there were a couple of really loud families in the waiting area, and I was sort of starting to get worried that maybe some of the naysayers of our trip were right and we’d be stuck with screaming families and bratty kids the entire time, rather than nice families and well-behaved, or at least, not congenitally bratty, kids. On the plane, we took our seats, and being Southwest, it’s hard to know exactly what you’re getting into. It wasn’t the best situation. In front of us, we had a grandma and her two grandkids and she clearly was having trouble getting them to behave and started threatening them with not bringing them on trips anymore if they didn’t behave. BTW, the kid was hardly doing anything that wasn’t directly related to being in a stuffed aircraft.

That really wasn’t the part that bothered me the most though. I tried to sleep some on the plane, but the guy behind me was like passed out and snoring really loudly. Not only that – he had THE WORST breath and I kept getting whiffs of it as I tried to sleep. We were both trying to lean against the windows, so that sleep was totally ineffectual.

The plane was landing, and then I was nervous all over again about getting onto Magical Express. I don’t know why I was nervous, I just was! Anyway, we got the cute little train from the terminal to the main terminal, and I pulled out my Magical Express booklet that we got and followed the directions, although there was a CM on the second floor who told us where to go. There seriously is no signage in the Orlando airport until way the last minute. However, once we got there, there was a big huge line – until another CM saw us and told us to go to the red carpet – that had no people on it. We were the first in line for our line to the bus to our hotel.

The guy came to lead us to our bus, and we were literally the only people out there, so we grabbed the opportunity to get a picture of the two of us, since we were now awake:

You can tell by my long sleeves that it was COLD in Chicago the morning we left!

We get on the bus and there is literally NO ONE on it. Not a soul. It was a little bizarre. So we made the best of it waiting, and eventually about fifteen other people get on with us. It was really a nice ride, and it was pretty amusing that I made a point to sit up front, since I remembered what was said about when the DME bus arrives at the hotel and the lobby gets totally swamped. Of course, even with everyone on the bust there were not that many getting off at POR, and we had done the online checkin, which was great.

The busride was uneventful, except for Mr. Helpful. He was the second person to get on the bus after us, and he just kept talking. First, he explained his entire reason for being on the bus (some convoluted story about a car rental) and then once he found out that we hadn’t been here in a while, he started giving us all kinds of advice (all of which we either already knew OR was wrong) and talked almost the entire ride. Luckily, I was on the inside next to the window, and so I got to watch most of the movie. But we still got to take these pictures:

At this point, this was me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBWvkpTY2Wo
And then:

Time for bed here – next up, check in and our first stop: Magic Kingdom!

 

[stacikristine]

YAY!!! You're in Disney World! So sorry about the plane situation. I don't have a very high tolerance for stinky breath...I probably would have gagged And sorry for Mr. Know It All. Isn't it funny how people automatically think you want tons and tons of Disney tips? Can't wait to see how you like POR!!!!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

YAY! You're finally at WDW!!

Can't wait to see your pics of POR and hear how you liked it.

 

[disneygirlinnj]

grrrr i'm on my worklaptop and cant view the photos! i'll have to go in the other room later and check on my home laptop!

 

[disneygirlinnj]

ok i switched computers for a little bit so I can see the photos I love Bubbly by colbie!!! Great song. Never saw the Stewie clip either, that's totally me! hahahahaa!