Disney Nomads ... 3 Resorts in 8 Nights! ALL NEW 9/2!

[MAGICFOR2]

I bet your sort of eloping story is interesting. Do tell!

Not as interesting as yours, I think. We were engaged, and DH Jim left in July to join the AF. He was supposed to come home on leave in December and we had a wedding date set. There was not much of a budget, and my parents were not warmed up to him yet - he was my "bad boy." His mom was trying to take over the wedding plans and I was going nuts. My roommate moved out and left me with rent I couldn't cover by myself.

Of course we were miserable without each other, so Jim said come out here and we'll just get married - my new friend Paul is married and he gets more money and his wife will be here. So my mom made me a dress, I hopped on a bus for a 3 day trip out to Illinois from Oregon.

When I got there, he had a furnished apartment all ready, we made a few friends - other couples who were newlyweds. We found a minister and church who married us free - (we gave him a thank you payment). Jim's aunt and uncle from California came out and his great aunt and family from Chicago came down. We had 13 people including the minister, and our reception was at one of our friends' trailer with a cake from the grocery store!

Later, Jim's uncle took all of us to a place like Sizzler for dinner It was two days before payday and we were broke, so the next day, we walked to Burger King and spent our last $5 on lunch - (It was 1980) - so we always say we had our honeymoon at BK!

 

[mmeb144]

Not as interesting as yours, I think. We were engaged, and DH Jim left in July to join the AF. He was supposed to come home on leave in December and we had a wedding date set. There was not much of a budget, and my parents were not warmed up to him yet - he was my "bad boy." His mom was trying to take over the wedding plans and I was going nuts. My roommate moved out and left me with rent I couldn't cover by myself.

Of course we were miserable without each other, so Jim said come out here and we'll just get married - my new friend Paul is married and he gets more money and his wife will be here. So my mom made me a dress, I hopped on a bus for a 3 day trip out to Illinois from Oregon.

When I got there, he had a furnished apartment all ready, we made a few friends - other couples who were newlyweds. We found a minister and church who married us free - (we gave him a thank you payment). Jim's aunt and uncle from California came out and his great aunt and family from Chicago came down. We had 13 people including the minister, and our reception was at one of our friends' trailer with a cake from the grocery store!

Later, Jim's uncle took all of us to a place like Sizzler for dinner It was two days before payday and we were broke, so the next day, we walked to Burger King and spent our last $5 on lunch - (It was 1980) - so we always say we had our honeymoon at BK!

That is the sweetest "let's get married" story ever!

 

[yellowtink]

That is the sweetest "let's get married" story ever!

I concur. And anyway, there are worse places to have a honeymoon; I for one like BK.

 

[mmeb144]

I concur. And anyway, there are worse places to have a honeymoon; I for one like BK.

Future boyfriends, take note!

 

[laura74]

Not as interesting as yours, I think. We were engaged, and DH Jim left in July to join the AF. He was supposed to come home on leave in December and we had a wedding date set. There was not much of a budget, and my parents were not warmed up to him yet - he was my "bad boy." His mom was trying to take over the wedding plans and I was going nuts. My roommate moved out and left me with rent I couldn't cover by myself.

Of course we were miserable without each other, so Jim said come out here and we'll just get married - my new friend Paul is married and he gets more money and his wife will be here. So my mom made me a dress, I hopped on a bus for a 3 day trip out to Illinois from Oregon.

When I got there, he had a furnished apartment all ready, we made a few friends - other couples who were newlyweds. We found a minister and church who married us free - (we gave him a thank you payment). Jim's aunt and uncle from California came out and his great aunt and family from Chicago came down. We had 13 people including the minister, and our reception was at one of our friends' trailer with a cake from the grocery store!

Later, Jim's uncle took all of us to a place like Sizzler for dinner It was two days before payday and we were broke, so the next day, we walked to Burger King and spent our last $5 on lunch - (It was 1980) - so we always say we had our honeymoon at BK!

What a great story! I love the honeymoon at Burger King angle!

That is the sweetest "let's get married" story ever!

Agreed!

I concur. And anyway, there are worse places to have a honeymoon; I for one like BK.

Yes, it could have been White Castle.

Future boyfriends, take note!

Funny!

 

[rosiep]

Hi Laura!! I just found your TR and am enjoying it very much! Can't wait to hear about your experience with split stays since I'll be doing my very first one in Sept.

 

[cp'ersmom]

Lovely wedding story. True love always wins, doesn't matter if the ceremony is in a backyard or a castle at WDW it's what's in the heart that will lasting after the memories fade.

My husband and I had the most romantic engagement story.
He wanted me to pick out my ring before he proposed officially so I went shopping to the Diamond district in NY. When I found what I wanted he came and bought the ring. The Diamond district is no frills so they gave us the ring in a small manilla envelope. I carried to an appraiser. We got a good appraisel on it and decided to go out for dinner. We get to the restaurant, and once seated I give him the ring in the envelope. He takes it out of the envelope, holds it up and says "will you marry me?" I bust out in tears like a lunatic that had no idea an engagement was coming. The waiter was frightened! I couldn't speak!! My husband took the envelope and wrote on it Will You Marry Me, Yes, No, None of the Above. (check one)
I laughed and finally got out a yes!! That was 25 years ago

I hope you all realize I was being sarcastic about the romance!
Love reading love stories!!

I hope you all realize I was being sarcastic about the romance!

 

[laura74]

Hi Laura!! I just found your TR and am enjoying it very much! Can't wait to hear about your experience with split stays since I'll be doing my very first one in Sept.

Thanks and welcome!

Lovely wedding story. True love always wins, doesn't matter if the ceremony is in a backyard or a castle at WDW it's what's in the heart that will lasting after the memories fade.

My husband and I had the most romantic engagement story.
He wanted me to pick out my ring before he proposed officially so I went shopping to the Diamond district in NY. When I found what I wanted he came and bought the ring. The Diamond district is no frills so they gave us the ring in a small manilla envelope. I carried to an appraiser. We got a good appraisel on it and decided to go out for dinner. We get to the restaurant, and once seated I give him the ring in the envelope. He takes it out of the envelope, holds it up and says "will you marry me?" I bust out in tears like a lunatic that had no idea an engagement was coming. The waiter was frightened! I couldn't speak!! My husband took the envelope and wrote on it Will You Marry Me, Yes, No, None of the Above. (check one)
I laughed and finally got out a yes!! That was 25 years ago

I hope you all realize I was being sarcastic about the romance!
Love reading love stories!!

I hope you all realize I was being sarcastic about the romance!

Love hearing these stories! The envelope is great. I hope you saved it.

 

[Backstage_Gal]

These are some great stories

 

[mmeb144]

Lovely wedding story. True love always wins, doesn't matter if the ceremony is in a backyard or a castle at WDW it's what's in the heart that will lasting after the memories fade.

My husband and I had the most romantic engagement story.
He wanted me to pick out my ring before he proposed officially so I went shopping to the Diamond district in NY. When I found what I wanted he came and bought the ring. The Diamond district is no frills so they gave us the ring in a small manilla envelope. I carried to an appraiser. We got a good appraisel on it and decided to go out for dinner. We get to the restaurant, and once seated I give him the ring in the envelope. He takes it out of the envelope, holds it up and says "will you marry me?" I bust out in tears like a lunatic that had no idea an engagement was coming. The waiter was frightened! I couldn't speak!! My husband took the envelope and wrote on it Will You Marry Me, Yes, No, None of the Above. (check one)
I laughed and finally got out a yes!! That was 25 years ago

I hope you all realize I was being sarcastic about the romance!
Love reading love stories!!

I hope you all realize I was being sarcastic about the romance!

I'm chuckling that you were rendered speechless by his proposal. Very sweet!

 

[pkondz]

Okay! All caught up. Terrific writing! I thoroughly enjoyed each and every chapter and LOLd quite a few times too. I like your style, girl!

 

[laura74]

Okay! All caught up. Terrific writing! I thoroughly enjoyed each and every chapter and LOLd quite a few times too. I like your style, girl!

Thanks Ponzi! I'm thrilled and honored that you took the time!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

That is the sweetest "let's get married" story ever!

Thank you for saying so!

I concur. And anyway, there are worse places to have a honeymoon; I for one like BK.

BK is pretty good, actually!

Future boyfriends, take note!

What a great story! I love the honeymoon at Burger King angle!



Agreed!



Yes, it could have been White Castle.



Funny!

Thank you! White Castle could be interesting.

Lovely wedding story. True love always wins, doesn't matter if the ceremony is in a backyard or a castle at WDW it's what's in the heart that will lasting after the memories fade.

My husband and I had the most romantic engagement story.
He wanted me to pick out my ring before he proposed officially so I went shopping to the Diamond district in NY. When I found what I wanted he came and bought the ring. The Diamond district is no frills so they gave us the ring in a small manilla envelope. I carried to an appraiser. We got a good appraisel on it and decided to go out for dinner. We get to the restaurant, and once seated I give him the ring in the envelope. He takes it out of the envelope, holds it up and says "will you marry me?" I bust out in tears like a lunatic that had no idea an engagement was coming. The waiter was frightened! I couldn't speak!! My husband took the envelope and wrote on it Will You Marry Me, Yes, No, None of the Above. (check one)
I laughed and finally got out a yes!! That was 25 years ago

I hope you all realize I was being sarcastic about the romance!
Love reading love stories!!

I hope you all realize I was being sarcastic about the romance!

That's a great story! It reminds me of the country song, "Check Yes or No." Yes, did you keep the envelope?

Oh, and I think you are sarcastic about the romance!

 

[jedijill]

Laura,

Great report so far! You are a fantastic writer. DVC is awesome. AKV is my home resort and staying at BLT for the first time pre-cruise in October!

I love the elopement stories...I would have never turned down Elvis! My dream wedding is at the Elvis Drive Through Chapel of Love....no wonder I'm still single!

Jill in CO

 

[laura74]

Laura,

Great report so far! You are a fantastic writer. DVC is awesome. AKV is my home resort and staying at BLT for the first time pre-cruise in October!

I love the elopement stories...I would have never turned down Elvis! My dream wedding is at the Elvis Drive Through Chapel of Love....no wonder I'm still single!

Jill in CO

Thanks Jill! I hope you enjoy BLT. I'm jealous that you're going on a cruise.

 

[laura74]

We get off our Broadway-themed bus and I think again what a beautiful day it is! I hope it’s cold and rainy in New Jersey. Wow! That’s a selfish thought, isn’t it? But isn’t lording it over the freezing folks back home one of the guilty pleasures of a warm weather vacation?

Monkston has a stack of gift cards burning a hole in her sparkly silver wallet but we decide to christen our new Tables in Wonderland card at T-Rex first. It could be hours before she makes a purchase decision and we’ve only had a couple of mini donuts since our dinner with The Marsupial.

Again, I act like I know where I’m going. Come on! This way, I say. Everything looks familiar yet I’m not entirely sure of the order of things. I know I’ve walked by T-Rex several times in the past but where is it in relation to World of Disney? I take a shot and follow a group in front of us.

Downtown Disney is so much more pleasant during the day. I guess because that’s most sane people would rather use their expensive park tickets or lounge the by pool at their expensive resorts than meander around a souped up shopping mall. But we have a $500 to recover, and recover it we must.

We arrive at T-Rex and I ask for a table for 3. The man at the podium tells us to have a seat and that it should be a short wait. We settle in for what I think will surely be a not-short wait and literally seconds later we’re approached to be seated. That’s strange. It reminds me of that unnecessary ticket procedure at Dumbo.

My first impression of T-Rex is that’s a lot like Rainforest Café. I think the animals are in the same positions but now they’re dinosaurs. I’m sure they’ll produce a similar cacophony every 20 minutes too.

I’ve been to Rainforest Café twice. The first time we took Monkston for her 4th birthday and I lost my debit card, an inconvenience exacerbated by the fact that Christmas was 5 days away and I hadn’t finished shopping.

Last year over Christmas break, Monkston and I met my aunt at Rainforest for lunch. She had never been there before and I forgot to mention to her that the place blows up at different intervals. Well, we were in the middle of a pleasant conversation and all of a sudden the storm started and the animals started screeching and the look on her face was just priceless.

Quick T-Rex review: Monkston had the kid’s cheese pizza and it was pizza. Mr. Squid had the Guac-asaurus Burger that he really enjoyed but it looked like a big mess to me. And how annoying are the cutesy names? I’m reminded of that Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity breakfast at Ihop. Even if I wanted to eat it, I wouldn’t order it on principle.

I had the Omnivore’s Salad consisting of romaine and baby greens with goat cheese, strawberries and pecans with balsamic. It was ok but much too large. I felt defeated before I’d begun.

The atmosphere here is fun but I sort of wish we had just gotten sandwiches at Earl of Sandwich. We’ve yet to try it because we always end up at Wolfgang Puck’s.

Here are a few photos from T-Rex.

Here are Mr. Squid and Monkston.

I don’t have one of me at T-Rex but here I am at Epcot.

Lunch over, we tell Monkston it’s shopping time! I check my phone and see that it’s about 1:00. My window for pool time is closing quickly and Monkston doesn’t make purchase decisions idly. Well at least not when it’s her money. When it’s mommy’s money we don’t have much buyer’s remorse.

I decide to just go with the flow and wherever we end up, we end up. Now, this is what I decide, whether or not I stick to it is anybody’s guess.

Monkston says she wants to look in the Lego store. After looking around at the mostly masculine building sets, she decides she wants to get a bucket of Legos. Mr. Squid and I look lovingly at our little girl picking out her Legos one little piece at a time. We say, “How cute is she? Look how she’s deliberating over the little blue Lego or the little yellow Lego! Isn’t that sweet!”

And it was sweet…

For the first 10 minutes.

Now, Mr. Squid and I are pretty indulgent parents. I waited a long time for Monkston. I was 38 when she was born so that makes me…well it’s a simple math problem and I can’t say it. Anyway, my point is that we do let the world revolve around Monkston but this is getting painful.

Our endearing parental gazing has turned to eye rolling.

“Monkston, you must have this color. Lots of this color! It’s so cool!” I dump a handful of purple Legos in the tub.

“Monkston, you really need to have lots of this one!” More dumping.

Mr. Squid pitches in with his suggestions and in short order we have stuffed the tub with as many Legos as we could possibly jam in there.

Whew! $15 down, $85 to go.

We stop in World of Disney and we tell Monkston that this is the last store today. After all, we have all week and many more stores to look at. As we are browsing, I think back to last year and the surprising purchase she made.

At least it’s come in handy at times…

After about 15 minutes of browsing she decides to buy a Stitch pin and we head out on our way to find the boat to Saratoga Springs.

We head over to the boat dock and see that the boats only go to Port Orleans and I have no idea where another boat dock is. We ask several people where it is and they keep pointing us back to the same place. We decide that we’d just be better off walking so we leave the souped-up shopping center and head off to the souped-up condo complex. Walking along a busy roadway in the blazing sun is not how I envisioned our first full day at the happiest place on earth.

Finally we arrive at the resort and only having been to the DVC office, I had no idea how vast this place is. We flag down a passing cast member driving a cart and ask for directions to the office. He explains how to get there and then proceeds to drive along beside us giving us directions. I wonder how long he is going to do this. Wouldn’t it be easier to ask us to hop on and drive us? He continues in this way until the office is in our site, he points at it and then drives away.

And there goes the second strangest driver of the day.

We reach the office and after explaining to the front desk our situation and who we’re waiting for we’re told to sit in the reception area. And you know what that means…Free cookies!

Coming up: Do we get our $500 gift card, can we weasel a ride back to the resort out of them and can we get in some pool time?

 

[cjlvsccm]

Enjoying the TR!

and cookies!!

 

[Kgroo]

What a beautiful family . I know what you mean with the only child situation. I was 37 when we adopted Chloe and it took forever, so our world pretty much revolves around her. There are times when we feel effects of that.

I love DTD but it is always so crowded when we are there. I would love to try T-Rex sometime -I think Chloe would love it, but we are going to Fultons now that it is on the DDP-YUMMY!!!!!

Can't wait to find out if you got that $500.

Hope you had a great Mother's Day!!!!

 

[Backstage_Gal]

Laura, I again greatly enjoyed your report. You have such a great way of telling a story, not the usual "we did this and then we did that" which alway put me to sleep....

Great looking family you are indeed! And in case you haven't learned this yet (which you probably did), the OKW/Saratoga boat stop is on the west side, but there is a shuttle that goes frome east to west (and back) so you don't have to walk.

And I LOVE your new tag line "Now with cookie recipies", LOL

 

[laura74]

Enjoying the TR!

and cookies!!

Thanks! Maybe I should post some more recipes!

What a beautiful family . I know what you mean with the only child situation. I was 37 when we adopted Chloe and it took forever, so our world pretty much revolves around her. There are times when we feel effects of that.

I love DTD but it is always so crowded when we are there. I would love to try T-Rex sometime -I think Chloe would love it, but we are going to Fultons now that it is on the DDP-YUMMY!!!!!

Can't wait to find out if you got that $500.

Hope you had a great Mother's Day!!!!

Thanks! I hope you had a great Mother's Day too!

I haven't been to Fulton's yet but it gets really great reviews.

It's always good to know I'm not in the same boat with the kid situation. Do you also calculate future ages, like when she graduates I'll be this age; when she finishes college, I'll be this, etc.

And I probably spend too much time and energy trying not to look like the "old mom."

Laura, I again greatly enjoyed your report. You have such a great way of telling a story, not the usual "we did this and then we did that" which alway put me to sleep....

Great looking family you are indeed! And in case you haven't learned this yet (which you probably did), the OKW/Saratoga boat stop is on the west side, but there is a shuttle that goes frome east to west (and back) so you don't have to walk.

And I LOVE your new tag line "Now with cookie recipies", LOL

Thanks Marita!

I haven't learned about the boat stop or the shuttle yet. I was informed by someone that I should have walked to MK from BLT and taken the Saratoga Springs bus. Doh! Never even occurred to me! I could have been back at the pool in no time.

Maybe I should expand and add a cake recipe.