Disneymoon - A first-time trip for one of us

[allie_to_you]

Okay, I have finally decided to write a trip report about our honeymoon at Walt Disney World.

But first...let me introduce you to the two of us!

Me (Allie) -- New bride...devout Disney lover and big time planner

DH (Robert) -- New husband -- never been to Disney but fell in love with it on our honeymoon

Picture of us below...

Okay, this trip has already happened and it feels kinda strange writing a TR that is old but since I have been reading TR's for the last several months, I have been dying to write one and our next trip won't be until November of this year, so I thought I would give it a go. I won't have a ton of pictures because at the time we took our trip, we didn't have a digital camera and I only got a few pics scanned into our computer, but I will show you what I have!

Before I begin with the actual TR, let me give you some background information. DH and I had our honeymoon decided on long before we got married. We both knew we wanted to spend it at Disney...not only because I love anything and everything Disney, but also because DH had never been and couldn't wait to find out what I loved so much about it. Well, my DH made all the reservations and got everything arranged. We had plans to stay for 5 nights at the Coronado Springs Resort and had 4-day MWY PH passes. Well, the day before the wedding, I told DH to go ahead and call Disney to verify all our reservations. Picture it...I am sitting on the couch, waiting for him to get off the phone, happy and content knowing that in 24 hours, I will be married and the hard part will be behind us when...to my horror, my fiance gets off the phone and tells me that Disney has lost our room reservation.

WHAT! Don't tell me this...not after everything else that has happened. Now what?...

 

[nts4wdw]

Great start!! I love a good cliffhanger!!! More please.

 

[serendipity]

Can't wait to read more, great start!

 

[KathyRN137]

...to my horror, my fiance gets off the phone and tells me that Disney has lost our room reservation.

WHAT! Don't tell me this...not after everything else that has happened. Now what?...

Well, I'm in on this report from the start because...

1) We love POFQ! DH and I honeymooned in New Orleans and so we sentimentally think the POFQ theme is very romantic.

2) I already feel kinship with you because OUR next WDW trip is in November, too.

3) Just like nts4wdw, I love a good cliffhanger! (Just don't leave us hanging for weeks....)

Kathy

 

[allie_to_you]

(Just don't leave us hanging for weeks....)

Kathy

Don't worry, I won't...i'll be posting more tomorrow! Thanks for reading!

 

[allie_to_you]

(First off -- a correction. Originallly I said we were supposed to be at POFQ, but our actual original reservation was for Coronado Springs Resort)

Ok, so where did we leave off...oh yeah! No room for our honeymoon!

Well, my DH tells me that Disney is going to call us back and let us know where we go from here. So, here we are, only about 2 hours away from our rehearsal dinner waiting to hear where we are going to be staying in 2 days, and afraid we'll end up in some dump outside of Disney because they are all sold out!

Well, thankfully, Disney called us about 30 minutes before we leave for our rehearsal dinner and tells us that we are going to be staying at Port Orleans French Quarter. Okay, so at least we're on the Disney grounds but what hotel is that? Neither of us had ever heard of it.

So, what do we do? We get online and do some research to find out where we'll be staying for the next week & guess what! It's a beautiful resort and we start getting really excited.

Okay, jump ahead to Sunday. Gorgeous wedding, amazing day, romantic honeymoon night.


Instead of traveling after the wedding, we decided to go to my apartment (now ours) and spend the night there, then wake up Monday morning early and leave for Disney. LOL...yet another plan that didn't exactly work out like we thought it would...

 

[allie_to_you]

So here was the plan...wake up morning after wedding, run to the airport and pick up the rental car, come home, finish packing and leave Mobile, AL around 8:00 a.m., get to Disney around 3 or 4, check in and check out our resort, then find someplace for a nice dinner.

What really happened...We woke up Monday morning real early and got dressed, packed and went to the
airport to pick up our rental car. We ended getting a Mercury Sable and when we
got it, we found out that it had a GPS in it. We were excited about that.

Well, we went back to the apartment and Robert stayed in the car while I loaded up all our
luggage and locked everything up. Then we went to Burger King and got some
breakfast. When we finished eating it was about 10:00. Before we left, we
programmed in the Port Orleans Resort at Disney in the GPS and it calculated our
route and we took off. The GPS was soooo cool. It told us how many miles the trip
would take, how many hours, it showed a map and told us which direction to go as
well as where we were. It also told us whenever it was time to make a turn and it
spoke to us to give us directions. We never even needed a map.
We stopped in Tallahassee for lunch. We didn’t know where the mall was, so we
found the nearest mall in the GPS and it told us how to get there. While we were
at the mall, I got my ears pierced and we walked around and stretched out legs
and got something to drink. Robert took over driving after we left because I was
getting sleepy and wanted to take a nap, plus I had a headache from getting my
ears pierced. It took us nearly an hour to get from the mall back to the interstate
because we hit 5:00 traffic so were even more tired and irritable after getting out of
Tallahassee. A couple hours later, I took over driving again and I drove the rest of
the way to Disney.


WooHoo! Our honeymoon has officially begun...

 

[allie_to_you]

Well, we finally arrived at Disney after a looooong day of driving around 10:00 at night. By that time, we were tired of driving, tired of each other and sick of being in a car. And on top of all that, right about the time we were getting near Disney property it started raining. I was exhausted and I just broke down crying. I couldn't help it after such a long week, and then to think it might rain on our honeymoon was just too much! Well, my sweet DH calmed me down and by the time we got to the resort, the rain had stopped.

It took us what felt like forever to check in and when we got to our room, we had to wait for guest services to bring us our refridgerator and our shower transfer bench for my husband. I think by the time we finally got into bed it was nearly 1:00 a.m and we had a busy day ahead of us.

Next up...Animal Kingdom (a first for both of us)!

 

[nts4wdw]

Hey! I was crying in the car on the way to Disney on our last trip too! 5oclock in Orlando on I-4, don't do it!!! Loving your new chapters! I love POFQ. It's my favorite. Can't wait to hear what you think.

 

[allie_to_you]

We loooooved the POFQ. We were in building 4, 1st floor. Great location! It was close to the main building and a parking lot which was great after a long day in the parks when we didn't feel like walking a long way to get back to our room.

Our room was really nice. We had a handicapped accessible room for my husband with an extremely comfortable king-sized bed. We also had a fairly large bathroom with a sliding door and a walk-in shower.

The resort itself is so pretty. We didn't really get a chance to walk around and enjoy it much until the last day, but it really felt like you were walking around New Orleans (Pre-Katrina) and we just loved the romantic, fun & wimsy atmosphere.

We only used the bus transportation once while we were there since we had a rental car. The one time we used it, not only did it take a long time to get from place to place, but also, because my DH is in a wheelchair, it took forever for them to strap the wheelchair down good each time we got in.

Maid service each day was pretty good and we tipped our mousekeeper $5 a day. We would have loved to have gotten a towel animal, but never did. Oh well, we were still impressed with the service.

We never did swim since it was kinda cool and by the time we got back every night, we were exhausted, but the pool looked like so much fun!

Overall, I would definitely recommend this resort to anyone, but especially couples. It's very nice and romantic.

 

[allie_to_you]

Tuesday morning, we woke up about 6 and we got dressed and walked around the resort some. It was really pretty and decorated to look like the French quarter in New Orleans, plus some of the Christmas decorations were already up. For breakfast we went to the resort hotel. I got some eggs & grits and some wonderful beneigts and I think my DH got a mickey waffle. It was kinda expensive so we decided that from then on out, we would just eat stuff in the room.
About 8:45, we left for the Animal Kingdom. We got in and we spent the day there till about 3:00. It was a lot of fun. It was like a big zoo, but better. It didn’t take a long time to do everything, but we were expecting that. After we got done with the Animal Kingdom, we went back to the hotel and changed clothes. Even though it was November, the days were still warm and we just felt hot and sticky. Then we went to Wal-Mart and got some things we needed for the week. When we got back, we decided to go over to the Magic Kingdom to see the “Magic” fireworks display at 7:00. We got there about 6:30 and we bought Mickey & Minney bride & groom hats which we wore the rest of the week. We found a good spot to watch the fireworks and this couple from New York that were there began talking to us, first congratulating us on our wedding and then they talked to us for the next hour till the fireworks started. The fireworks were great, however it was pretty cold and Robert was freezing. When it was over, the couple from New York congratulated us again, hugged us bye and we left.

Next up...Magic Kingdom!

 

[allie_to_you]

This is just a test...No need to reply.

 

[allie_to_you]

yet another test

 

[KathyRN137]

Tuesday morning, we woke up about 6 and we got dressed and walked around the resort some. It was really pretty and decorated to look like the French quarter in New Orleans, ..........

.......we bought Mickey & Minney bride & groom hats which we wore the rest of the week.

POFQ is very romantic! So glad that you and your hubby wore the and ears...I love seeing newlyweds at WDW and shouting, "Congratulations!"

Kathy

 

[amy2girls]

Congrats,can't wait to hear more!!!!!!

 

[Our2Girls&Disney]

I started reading your report at work the other day and enjoyed it, so I am subscribing. I like the way, you don't keep us in suspense for too long. We had our honeymoon is WDW too and it was DH's first time there as well.

 

[allie_to_you]

Wednesday morning, we woke up at 6 a.m. (way too early for me -- I am definitely a night person), got dressed, ate cereal and juice in the room and we headed out to the Magic Kingdom. Again, we were wearing our Mickey/Minnie Bride & Groom hats.

Our first ride there was called Stitch’s Great Escape. This attraction gets a lot of differing opinions but for me, who has been to it when it was an Alien Escape attraction, I didn't think it was that bad, just sort of a knock off, but still cute!

After we left the exhibit, we walked outside where a garbage can (I think it was called "Push" started following us and the voice coming from it was that of Stitch. He was saying “Oh, a newly married couple” and then it started humming “Here Comes the Bride.” It was quite cute and hilarious.

We spent the rest of the day doing as many of the exhibits and rides as we could. The weather was perfect and the lines weren’t bad at all. The longest line we had was for the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. We waited about 30 minutes for this ride and they said that the reason for the wait was because of a "honey spill." Too cute!

For lunch we went to the Crystal Palace. This was our first time eating here for either of us. We didn’t have a reservation, but luckily we didn’t have to wait long – only about 5 minutes. When we went in, they had Mickey confetti on the table in the shape of a heart. They knew it was our honeymoon. We also got a certificate commemorating the lunch at the Crystal Palace on our honeymoon. They had a buffet there and the food was wonderful. Plus a bunch of the Disney characters were in the restaurant and they would come over to our table and hug us and get pictures taken with us.

That night we didn’t end up going anywhere special. We were going to go to another fireworks display, but we were tired, so we just spent the evening in bed relaxing and went to sleep early.

 

[allie_to_you]

Thursday morning, we got up and went to Epcot. We had a blast here today. The only thing I was disappointed about was that the Wonders of Life Pavilion was closed and that was my favorite. I truly wish they would either close it down for good, refurbish it or do something else with the building. It is such a waste of space now and very depressing to walk past and remember what a nice attraction it used to be.

We were at Epcot pretty much the entire day. This was the first time we ever did the Innoventions Attractions. It was pretty good. Our favorite game was the "Who Put Out the Fire Game."

I was so exhausted by the time we made it over the World Showcase. We would have gone back to the hotel, but we had reservations for dinner at Alfredo's in Italy at 7:00 and it’s a good thing we had made ADR's. The place was packed. The service and food were great, but it was very expensive. I got the fettucini Alfredo and I'm not sure what mh DH got, but we both enjoyed it immensely. We paid about $75 for supper that night, but that was for my salad, 2 drinks, 2 entrees and 2 desserts.

After supper, we were going to stay for Illuminations, but I was so exhausted and I had blisters on several toes, so mh DH decided that we’d just go ahead and go back to the hotel.

 

[diz8297]

We stayed at POFQ on our honeymoon in 1994. It was wonderful then too!! I remember how we overdid it in the parks to such an extent that when we got home, we both got sick!! Hey, we got our money's worth!! I am so happy for the both of you-congrats and many happy years together!!!!

 

[allie_to_you]

Friday morning, we got up and went to MGM Studios. We had a great day here too. We rode pretty much everything there was to ride and saw a bunch of shows. My DH is in a wheelchair and can't transfer so the rides he can do are limited. I only rode one ride without Robert all week and that was today. I really wanted to ride the Tower of Terror, so he waited for me while I rode it. Unfortunately since I rode it, we missed one ride we really wanted to ride and that was the Backlot tour. It closed at 5 and we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t’ get to go on it, but we were tired anyway, so it was fine.

For lunch, we went to this 50’s café called the Hollywood & Vine. It had a buffet as well and it was really good, but not as good as the Crystal Palace. After we finished there, we wished we had decided to go the Rainforest Café after all.

We really wanted to see Fantasmic at 7:00 that night. We had some time left before that, so we did the last of our souvenir shopping. During the week, we got a hat pin for each of the places we’d been too, plus one for the hotel. We also got a picture of us made at each park. Robert bought me some cute earrings and we got him a hat and me a t-shirt.

Once we finished shopping, we went about an hour early for Fantasmic so we could get a good seat. The place filled up fast, so were glad we got there early. While we waited, Robert & I kissed and cuddled and talked and I called home and talked to everyone there. The show was okay, but a bit on the scary side for kids and we didn’t like nearly as much as we thought we would.

We got done about 7:45 and since we hadn’t gotten to see Illuminations at Epcot, we drove over to there and got there with plenty of time to spare before the fireworks.
Saturday morning, we got up, sleepy and worn out, plus we just didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm, because it was time to go home. We got packed up and walked around to take some pictures of the resort. Then we called a bellhop and had him take our bags out to the car. Then we went into Kissimmee and went to I-Hop for breakfast. By the time we got done it was about 11:00 a.m. It took us forever to get onto the interstate because traffic was so backed up. But we did finally get on the road and get going. Robert was still not feeling well, so I drove most of the way back home. He drove for a couple hours and I got a little bit of a nap, but not much. We ended up getting home about 7:30. Once we got home, we opened up all our gifts from the wedding and then hit the hay!

Overall, it was a wonderful honeymoon trip, even though it had a rough start. We can't wait to go back!