hello!
rachel is allowing me to add in a few updates as we spent the first part of our trip separate despite sharing a hotel room. we have been planning this trip for such a long time & i wish i could do it all over again.
side note: we are also doing a tandem dining report & i will save my food photos for the review.
my daughter & i arrived at disney early sunday evening. however, prior to that, i was in atlanta to shoot a wedding...i worked until 3:30pm on friday, caught a plane to atlanta at 5:20 pm on friday, shot a wedding on saturday, flew back to jacksonville sunday & landed at noon, picked emme up & we began our drive to orlando.
*PHEW!*
that made me tired re-living the moment before arriving into orlando.
since i live in florida (i'm 2.5 hours from orlando), we visit frequently but the visits are always short. if i'm lucky, i can get a long weekend. i'm a nurse, monday-friday & getting time off isn't easy especially when i'm back in school. so the 9 days, 8 nights was a complete luxury for me.
also, typically, emme & i stay off site as disney hotels are pretty expensive especially since we spend most of our time in the parks...but it's awesome to travel with rachel as we split the cost of the room which makes it more affordable for me. i was so excited to be staying at AKL...it was our first stay there.
but before i begin, here are two photos from the wedding i shot:
i had the car packed and we began our drive to orlando at about 2:30pm.
orlando always has traffic...no matter when you drive. and during this drive, the congestion was awful. i just wanted to hurry up and get to the hotel.
finally, we saw this wonderful sign:
we made it to AKL and after some mix up, my bags made it to the room. as rachel mentioned prior, we had dinner at boma. i was just so tired & a bit out of it....i was a tad bit spacey. i just wanted to relax and sleep for daaaaays but my schedule said NO to that.
i needed an adult beverage with dinner so i chose:
mmmmmmmm! the stella was very cold and so satisfying. i enjoyed it very much.
i was having issues with my magic band as it wouldn't unlock the door and than took a long time to fix. after the issue was corrected, we headed back up to our room. i wanted to hit a park or explore the hotel but i was just physically exhausted.
but emme kept herself busy & was practicing her autograph:
i decided that monday was going to be our pool/resort day but not after spending a few hours at AKL. but i wish we made tuesday our resort day as it was blazing hot on tuesday. on monday, it was cloudy & the sun was playing peek a boo all day but on tuesday, there were hardly a single cloud in the sky.
good morning from AKL!
we took the bus to AKL & began our day.
but we ran into a friend as we entered the park:
DVine
we had an early reservation for lunch at yak & yeti at 11am. we took a few pictures before lunch.
i love this picture so much!
emme & i became obsessed with seeking & finding magic shots during our vacation. it was so fun! she would ask the photopass photographers if they could do a magic shot.
it was SOOOOO nice to have a photopass photographer take our pictures. i normally ask if they can shoot a picture with my dslr or phone and 90% of the time, the picture they take aren't very good. but for the most part on this trip, the pictures that the photopass photographers took were decent. rachel & i split the memory maker & it was such a good deal! it was really nice to just smile for picture instead of lugging my camera & asking them to take an out of focus picture. but a caveat, the photopass page is awful...trying to add a border or making adjustments has been a bit difficult....more so, it's been very
SLOOOOOOOOOOOW.
after some pictures, we had lunch at yak & yeti.
we then went to say hello to some more friends:
we purchased this frozen book from the gift shop. i used it for autographs. it was really awesome for autographs. mickey & minnie read the book with emme...such a cute moment together.
family portrait!
after meeting our friends, we had a fast pass for some safari action:
we spent some more time at AK & then headed back to the resort to begin our pool day.
we loooooved this pool. they had the floatation vests pool side & emme went down the water slide at least 20 times. i only wished the clouds were gone as they were hiding the sun. that didn't stop emme from having a super fun time.
i had an adult beverage:
i learned a valuable lesson while ordering my drink. i saw a basket of chips on the bar. i didn't see a price and i asked the bartender if these were complimentary. she said, "sure, take one!". so i stupidly opened the doritos and when i got my total for the drink, she added $2.99 for bag of doritos. that kind of irked but since i had opened the bag, i couldn't really argue. so i went back pool side & enjoyed my drink & $2.99 bag of doritos while emme went down the slide again and again.
after pool time, emme passed out...hard. i had an adr for jiko but had to reschedule. while she was snoring, i ran down to mara & grabbed us some dinner. i fixed me a vodka cranberry & sat on the balcony while the animals were roaming in the savannah and the sun was setting. it was so quiet & serene...it really felt like a vacation at this point. i was really enjoying this moment.
dinner with a view:
a few hours later, we explored the resot & did the night vision goggles to see the animals. that was pretty neat. we also sat & caught the end of lilo & stitch & also played on the playground. we grabbed a late night snack from mara again & went back to our room. i was really falling in love with the resort...it is an amazing place!
emme had a bath & jessica & rachel had returned. lucky for rachel that there must be some magic in the air at disney because her coughing pretty much ceased from this night on.
this was a great start to our vacation!
God I'm homesick!
I'm following along! Can't wait to read more!!
