Barbie finds her Prince Charming- our English wedding & Disneymoon June 2011!

[disneybarbie]

Thanks guys... we also booked our wedding singer and DJ this week, paid the deposit.. starting to feel more 'real' every day now!

We also had a letter from the Registrar a few days ago, it has a form to complete about our ceremony! things like what readings we're having, music choices, wording of the vows etc... also, if I want my Dad to formerly 'give me away' to Steve, or just walk up the aisle with me?!
It doesn't have to be completed til March 2011.. so I've put it away in the wedding file for now!

 

[disneybarbie]

This Thursday, DF and I are off on holiday with his family to... Barbados!

We are staying at an all inclusive resort called Sea Breeze...

It looks beautiful, but has pretty mixed reviews on Expedia/Trip Advisor (although I do take those reviews with a pinch of salt!!) - I'm looking forward to 2 weeks of pure relaxation - sun, sea, reading & lots of cocktails!
But our annual vacations with DF's family are often quite up&down.. the trips to the caribbean (St Lucia 2007 & Antigua 2008) were pretty good & I enjoyed them, but some of you may remember 'the' trip to WDW last summer!
The TR should still be here. It's hard to explain why the trips aren't always great.. they complain quite a lot (eg about the weather/food/rooms/hotel/staff..) and don't seem to enjoy being away from home? I don't know what it is.. but last year I took all the complaints personally because I had been planning the trip to Disney for over 6 months!

But.. I'm hoping this year's vacation is better.. and also it'll probably be our last 'family holiday' with them, as next year.. we'll be on Honeymoon in June/July!!

The hotel does have WiFi & Steve is taking his laptop, so I might be able to post some updates on the DIS while I'm there!

Emma x

 

[rachy]

Jealous! Looks gorgeous, i am sure you will have a great time x

 

[NikkiLovesWDW!]

Oh how lovely!!! What a nice, relaxing trip! Have a great time!!

 

[Tracy161]

Have a wonderful time! It looks absolutely gorgeous!!!

 

[Mindy5767]

Wow... looks like a very relaxing lovely place. Enjoy! We're having a heat wave here in the Washington DC area! hooo its hot!! my backyard thermometer read 114.6 yesterday!! The one in the van keeps reading 104! We're painting a front bedroom today and we have the A/C going full blast, but the sun bounces off the metal porch roof and that room is 84 degrees!! (sorry, have no idea what that is in Celcius). Its much cooler on the first floor and in the basement.

Don't forget to mark on your calendar to fill our the form that you put in the folder. You don't want to forget about the form when all the tiny details are surrounding you!

Enjoy the vacay!!

 

[klacey1]

That looks beautiful!! Have a wonderful time!
We've gone on vacation with family, too, and for us, it just works best to go away just the two of us. Less to worry about, etc. I can't stand for people to be constantly complaining or refusing to have a good time!

 

[SOUTHERNtinkerBELLE]

Have fun in Barbados! It looks absolutely beautiful! I hope you'll take lots of pictures to share with us!

 

[disneybarbie]

Thanks everyone!

Bit of drama this evening... we'd just had dinner & were washing up; when Steve accidentally cut his finger with a carving knife!!
It wouldn't stop bleeding, I felt so ill looking at it ... we ended up at hospital in the emergency departmenfor 2+ hours!
he now has 5 stitches and a bandage on his finger... guess he's lucky it didn't cut any deeper!
poor guy.. he'll need to have the stitches out while we're in Barbados too - plus no swimming or golf until the second week!


Hope everyone else has had a less stressful Sunday evening


x

 

[Stefy]

Omigoodness I hope Steve is ok now, what a shock that must have been bless him. Hopefully it will heal up nice and quick

 

[NikkiLovesWDW!]

Oh no! Poor Steve! That totally stinks! Hope he's feeling better today....

 

[disneybarbie]

Omigoodness I hope Steve is ok now, what a shock that must have been bless him. Hopefully it will heal up nice and quick

Oh no! Poor Steve! That totally stinks! Hope he's feeling better today....

Thanks! He's doing okay today - he can't help out with any cooking/cleaning etc at the mo though

 

[Mindy5767]

Thanks! He's doing okay today - he can't help out with any cooking/cleaning etc at the mo though

Oh My!! Hope he heals quickly!! Well, with no golf... that will be more time with you right? You don't play golf do you? I used to... have clubs and all, but haven't really played in.... at least 21 years!! Yipes!

 

[klacey1]

Ahh poor Steve!! That stinks about no swimming the first week-- I hope you guys can find a good doctor in Barbados to take the stitches out!!

 

[Sarah84]

Have a great time in barbados, looks beautiful hope you don't have any family dramas.

Ouch, tell Steve to be more careful in future though i'm sure he has learn't his lesson now, I spent my sunday evening watching Toy Story 3 and you were right it's fantastic, better than being stuck in A&E

 

[PoppyGirl]

Hi!

Neither of us have been to NYC before, so we're really excited about going there.. seen so much of it in movies & on tv (I'm a huge Friends & SatC fan!!) that'll it be amazing to visit.. especially during December during the festive season! - and then onto WDW for 6 nights of Disney magic!

here is the plan so far...

8th December - Fly from London to JFK

3 nights at The New Yorker hotel (opposite Penn Station & Madison Square Gardens)


We'll have 2.5 days of sight-seeing and shopping!

Then -

11th December - fly from Newark to Orlando (just booked this today!), land at 2.20pm..
Then get the Magical Express to my 'other home'...


Disney's Boardwalk Villas!!

We'll have 6 nights there in a Boardwalk View Studio

Can't do detailed planning just yet at park hours won't be out to June lol.. but we're planning to do MVMCP one night

That's the plans for now... all very up in the air, but I'm excited we have hotels, flights and DME booked!!
Going to get APs this trip as it'll work out more cost-effective for Disneymoon too!

Emma xx

Hi everyone!

Ok.. putting this December's trip to one side - wanted to share some of the plans for our honeymoon; as it will begin a year today!

So - after getting married on Saturday 18th, we'll spend the Sunday with family & friends who've stayed over at the hotel.. come home and open any wedding presents we get (!) - possibly go out for a meal with my cousin (MoH) and her husband in the evening (we did this with them after their wedding last April!)

and then on the Monday 20th... we'll be hopping across the Atlantic for our disneymoon!!

Originally, I'd thought we'd spend the first night at the Boardwalk Villas (DVC home resort) - but after thinking about it and talking to DF, we're hoping to stay at...


Kidani Village!!

I'd love to stay at this resort but as we're unlikely to stay at WDW with a rental car, it just seems too far away from the parks etc (been spoiled by staying at the Boardwalk I guess! )
But for this one night in WDW, I think it'll be a perfect relaxing place to stay.

We'll probably just go to Mara for a light meal & sit out on our balcony watching the sunset & all the animals!

In the morning, I might suggest we head to Boma for breakfast - never been there before & only heard great reviews!

We could head into a park for a couple of hours... but I think we'll need to be back at the resort by 12pm ish to head to...

Port Canaveral & the Disney Dream ship!

The 7 month window for our non-home resort DVC will open up in November, so hopefully we'll get a savanna view studio for this one night!

Emma x

Hi Emma! I'm finally making my way through your PTR....WOW! I absolutely love reading it!

How exciting to be planning a Disney trip....a wedding...a honeymoon....whew!

Your venue is breathtaking!

We had our first trip to NYC this year when my oldest stepson graduated from veterinary school. It is a very exciting city and I'm sure you'll enjoy your time there.

And we are staying at AKL for the first time this December. I cannot WAIT for that! I'm so excited. To me it's the most beautiful place at Disney!

Thanks everyone for the thumbs up on the possible music choices

Mindy, we can't have hymns because it's not a church wedding - in England we can either have a christian church wedding, or a secular one (we've chosen the latter) - known as a 'civil ceremony' .. to keep the two separate, there's very strict rules on what songs/poems/readings etc are allowed - no mentioning God, Jesus or anything to do with religion!
whereas if we had a church wedding, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be allowed to walk down the aisle to a Disney song!

I have to smile when I hear the traditional Wagner wedding song now... when my cousin was planning her wedding she said to me "I want that song, you know, 'Here Comes the Bride'..." unfortunately, she started humming the Imperial March(Darth Vader's theme) from Star Wars by mistake!!
(they're actually quite similar tunes when you think about it lol)

That is just fascinating about the "rules" regarding music and readings for church vs secular weddings. We got married in a church but we had a couple of non-religious songs. We weren't allowed to have any alcohol at the reception though since it was in the church hall. Since DH is a diary farmer we had a milk toast instead. That was quite fun.

That cracks meup about your cousin and the Imperial March. I'm going to have to listen to it more closely now! hehe.

 

[disneybarbie]

Hi Emma! I'm finally making my way through your PTR....WOW! I absolutely love reading it!

How exciting to be planning a Disney trip....a wedding...a honeymoon....whew!

Hi! Thank you for reading & your comments

 

[disneybarbie]

So I'm back from the Caribbean!
Feels like we were away ages lol - had a nice time, it was much more relaxed than last year in Disney.. it helped that it was an all-inclusive resort so everything had pretty much been paid upfront .. and Steve's niece came with us this year, she is our flower girl for the wedding

Thought I would do a mini-TR on Barbados on this PJ.. took so many photos so it's nice to share them with people, sorry it's a bit OT.. but I did find a few Disney touches, even in Barbados!


The holiday was booked with Virgin Holidays (DFD's travel agent of choice!), so we flew VA from London Gatwick to Bridgetown, Barbados .. the flight was just over 7 hours, so a bit less than Orlando.

We got to use the V-room (lounge) - there is complimentary breakfast, internet, newspapers, kids play area & games.

My breakfast

DF's breakfast ... apparently on vacation it's okay to have a beer any time of day?!

Our plane took off on time and we were soon on our way to the Caribbean

(Me on the plane – this is one of the only photos of me on my camera lol!)

**TOP TIP**

My sister (Verity) used to work for an airline and told me that she used to love it when passengers gave the crew some sweets or snacks on long-haul flights.
Taking her advice, Steve & I bought a bag of chocolates to give to our flight attendant.. when he came with the drinks trolley, I gave him the chocolates & he was sooo suprised!!
First off... he gave us 2x drinks each (that was 2 white wines for me LOL!) - then he served us our meals ages before everyone else... then he got us another drink each... later we got two glasses of champagne brought down from 1st class!

I think passengers around us must have wondered who we were
Then he gave us a 2l bottle of water.. and later a big bottle of white wine to take off the plane with us!

Just before landing, he gave us the last two chocolates left in the bag.. he said "thank you so much, you've made our flight!".. we were like - um, no... you've made our flight!!

So.. tip of the day, give your cabin crew some chocolates or candy!

Guess what movie I watched onboard..

It was the new 'on demand' style entertainment system which is so much better, you can choose what to watch & when.. I watched Alice in Wonderland, Shrek 4, Princess & the Frog then some Disney channel! ..Phineas & Ferb, Hannah Montana etc

We landed in Barbados & took over an hour to get through immigration (we were last off the plane (400 people onboard!) and it was quite disorganised.

Luckily it was only 20 mins transfer to our hotel...

Hotel

We stayed at a small hotel called Sea Breeze - it was in the south of the island near the town of Oistins. DFD had upgraded all our rooms to deluxe ocean view which meant we had top floor rooms with a beautiful view..

We also had free WiFi (which wasn't always great!), mini bar included, free 2 hour catamaran trip and reserved sunbeds on the beach each day.


Rooms

The rooms were simply decorated and clean..

Only problem was that at night, the sea was soo noisy! there were crashing waves all night long, which combined with the air-conditioning, squeaking insects, occasional barking dog & frequent rain storms meant that it was very hard to sleep most nights! Luckily DF & I dozed on the beach if we were still tired during the days lol.

 

[disneybarbie]

Weather

As it was late July/early August, we arrived right in the middle of the rainy season (same months as hurricane season in Florida!) – so we had several days of pretty heavy rain showers, usually at night; but sometimes we had to dash under the umbrellas on the beach!
DFM didn’t realise the weather was going to be like that and seemed pretty glum on the rainy days.

When the sun shone though it was very very hot! And despite wearing a high factor suncream and stayed under the parasols, I burnt my leg & hips quite badly on the first morning… I was so annoyed! My skin used to tan so easily but now it doesn’t take to it so easily lol. For honeymoon I’m considering a spray tan and then just avoiding the sun-bathing!
Also.. mosquitoes were everywhere! I’ve never had so many bites, we were all covered in them; even though we used anti-bite spray and I ate marmite (a spread we have in England, tastes a bit meaty and apparently insects hate the taste of it lol!) every day!

Food

In a huge contrast to a WDW vacation – this hotel had just one restaurant, where we had breakfasts, lunches and dinners; not an ADR in sight!
The food was generally very nice – some nights were a la carte others were buffet.

The restaurant was called ‘The Mermaid’, so guess who appeared on the menus..

Ariel!

And a seared tuna appetiser I had one evening…

Trips

We went on three excursions during the trip – one was a 2 hour boat cruise along the west coast



We also did a full day catamaran cruise which included swimming with turtles! Df went in the sea but I stayed onboard, I’m not great at snorkelling lol

(this is a turtle from above)

The rum!

Me

 

[disneybarbie]

The third trip was the best.. a jeep safari around the island! We had a fabulous driver (imagine a Jungle Cruise skipper mixed with the Kilimanjaro safari!) and saw some beautiful views..

And here are just some more photos of the vacation!

View from the beach

This was a sparrow that landed on our balcony every day – we nicknamed him Jack!

and this one only had one foot.. so we called him Peg Leg Pete!

View from the balcony

Our rooms, looking up from pool bar

a big crab that wandered up to us one evening, aah!!

Playing Disney princess card game!

Nice sunset

Our plane home!

And that’s a quick review of the vacation! It is a beautiful island and I’d recommend it if you can ever go to Barbados.


Now we’re home and have some more wedding planning to get to.. stay tuned!!

Emma