Faith, Trust & Pixie Dust! Jenn & Kevin 10/12/14 Italy/ADH/France - The End (7/2016 New TR Link!)

[elphie101]

Oh I completely understand!!! I've made plenty of oop-ses with this wedding because I've been such a control freak! I guess it comes with wanting everything to be perfect!

I have full confidence I'll be one of those people who says "I didn't need to worry so much!" after the wedding - but that's not going to stop me now!

Not yet! We're currently waiting to find out who our planner will be, and then hopefully we can schedule our PS. One thing that seems to be consistent with having a Disney wedding is me having to wait! LOL!

Haha I did that in my very first e-mail! What locations have you picked?

Mmmmm, food. I'm drooling over here over the potatoes and parmesan crusted chicken, they look so good! The menu you ended up with sounds awesome, especially to someone who pretty much hates breakfast food (the exact opposite of you). I'm surprised you guys ended up with so much lunch food on the menu!

Now that I look at the menu, it really isn't a lot of breakfast food! I don't really know what else we could have added, we don't have any particular breakfast foods on property we want, so I'm just happy with what we picked. I'm confident everything we have will be PHENOMENAL.

Ugh, I probably would have been pretty angry in the situation Nico put you in, but where I would just try to push it aside like you did, Raist probably wouldn't. Sorry you had to deal with that. The pictures you got from ADH were really pretty, and definitely look a lot less overwhelming than some of the others I've seen of the space, which is actually one of the reasons Raist and I didn't feel like it'd fit our personalities, which is sad because it does look like a pretty space from pictures. As for the rain...that reminds me of the drive down last time - we had no clue that that could happen. So much rain there!

Grand Floridian is so pretty...love their lobby area.

Kevin really was about two seconds away from snapping at him - he actually looked around for a supervisor or something. Writing this made me realize that we both wanted write to guest services about the experience.

At least you can visit ADH on your own! You would never get to see LSS otherwise, which to me is a huge plus for that space.

You poor thing! Why wouldn't the CM 'let it go'? And then the monsoon… I'm really impressed that you still stayed so positive! But it sure is a once in a lifetime experience!
ADH looks so beautiful - I wish I had enough guests for this venue, but with an Escape wedding it would be too big (and I doubt Disney would even allow it).

I agree that The Grand Floridian has a more girly feel to it… it's a great location for mother/daughter (or grandmother/mother/daughter

 

[kmg3366]

I can't wait to read the rest of your planning session. It all is so exciting! It sounds like you didn't let the rain get you down.

 

[Seia]

Haha I did that in my very first e-mail! What locations have you picked?

We got our first choices on everything, thankfully! I had been fretting about that since January. Our venues are SBP/The Attic/UK Lochside. I really do love ADH, and your pictures of it make me love it even more! But we're only having around 30 guests, so we needed something smaller.

 

[elphie101]

When we got into the Merryweather room, Kristie offered a few pashminas to us freezing ladies, and some of the other planners got us water, coffee and tea, and the session began. I'll try to do my best with this part but I'll admit, SO much of it is fuzzy in my brain - it was a long 4 hours and there was a LOT of information covered.

We started by going over a timeline of the months leading up to the wedding - covering the dates of payments due, guest counts due, etc. Following that, we started with the wedding weekend in chronological order, focusing first on our wedding rehearsal on the afternoon of Saturday the 11th, and our welcome party/rehearsal dinner following (I'm still not quite sure what to call it).

Sometime in our walking to and from Atlantic Dance Hall Kevin's parents had flagged down Kristie and started talking welcome options already. With our size and the desire for some small privacy, it seemed our only option was to do something private & catered through DFTW (which I've been able to lurkyloo verify makes the most sense with our numbers). We had figured we would do the wedding rehearsal at Beach Club, and now that we were in our formal planning session, Kristie was able check on her computer if Ariel's was available, which it was until the late evening. We booked Ariel's from 5:30-7:30 that night, with our wedding rehearsal following beforehand. There was a function booked after us that night, but we thought the timeline worked out perfectly - this would allow us to maybe go to Jellyrolls or relax by the pool after the dinner, especially since there will be an early wake-up the next morning!

We then dove headfirst into planning October 12th. There were some things I never imagined having to focus so much on - we spent a legitimate 10 minutes talking about if our ring bearer, my 9-year old cousin, would be more comfortable traveling to the ceremony with the men (and my brother) or the women (and his sister). It just blew my mind that the things you never expect to think about are the things you seem to spend the most time on!

We decided the men would be out the door by 7:00am, women at 7:20am, and we would stage our first look at Epcot. Kristie was too funny, she said "Kevin, as soon as you get to Epcot you can hop right out of the car." Then she turned to me and with such a stern voice said "Jennifer, under no circumstance are you to leave the car until me or one of my assistants comes for you. No exceptions!" We had a good laugh about it - it was all to preserve the first look, if I hopped right out there was no guarantee Kevin wouldn't see me!

We discussed ceremony setup and brief decor - we would get into more detail when Shannon arrived - and the music for the ceremony, which I delegated to Kevin to figure out (it's time he had more jobs!) Following that we plotted photos in Italy and transportation to Atlantic Dance Hall, and our entrances. Kristie suggested doing the toasts right after our first dance, before we ate, which to us felt weird, especially since we decided to not have a bar during the pre-reception; we didn't want people to want to scurry to the bar for toasts. We decided to start with our first dance, followed immediately by the parent dances and save the toasts for after eating.

We came into the PS only looking to do a beer and wine bar, but Kristie pointed out that wine was (at minimum) $7 per glass, while cocktails were $6 per glass - ergo if we had guests who would choose wine over beer, but cocktails over both if liquor was available, we would actually come out cheaper then if we stuck to beer and wine. Hey, you don't have to tell me twice!

I believe we took a bio break at this point and stretched our legs - it was still utterly pouring out - and when we came back we took a pause and switched into talking about floral & decor with our floral planner. Kristie was gone for the time being (she had been waiting on a call from Epcot about going to rain backup for her dessert party that night) but we briefly ran through bouquets & personals, ceremony decor, and centerpieces. Now that I'm thinking about it, I may have agreed to a glow-cube centerpiece for the dessert party......it's so hard to remember! Everything is blurring together, which makes me even more anxious to get our BEO This was also where we found out that our floral planner wasn't our actual floral planner, but the maternity leave coverage - who knew?

After the brief floral break, we finished out the planning session talking about the dessert party. We agreed to have our guides meet at International Gateway, and asked for a few specific menu items - the ice cream bar, nacho station (with guac!), Disney popcorn AND (I'm calling this my first item cut) white chocolate fondue. YUM.

And speaking of yum, there was a knock at the door - our cake was here!







The large slice was yellow cake with white chocolate mousse & buttercream - Kristie said it was included to make sure we got an idea of the full layered cake. There was also a container of buttercream included with the fillings, which she encouraged us to taste along with our first few samples since buttercream is involved in all cakes.

Here we learned something I did not know: all of Disney's mousses (at least out of the ones that we had chosen) with the exception of Strawberry and Bavarian Cream include some kind of chocolate in them. (Edit: Just double checked and it's actually Peanut Butter and Strawberry that are 100% chocolate free - Bavarian Cream isn't a mousse. Ooops!) Out of those, all were white chocolate except for the Bailey's, which was made with milk chocolate. I was a tiny bit bummed we had a filling Kevin couldn't try (therefore taking it off the table entirely for us), especially after Amanda had confirmed all were chocolate free, but Kristie said this was something she didn't even know until she inquired about it.

We started right away on trying combinations, all trying the same one as once as Kristie suggested. Here's where I would definitely advise against bringing more than 4 people total - unlike the menu tasting, didn't get any additional cake samples because we had more people, which meant we really had to ration our cake.

We all quickly dismissed the carrot cake, and the orange was ok but not a standout. The peanut butter tasted just like that - peanut butter - and Kristie pointed out that it's far more popular with the chocolate cake flavors, which we of course weren't having. I honestly have no memory of lemon or bavarian cream, but the strawberry was pretty light and refreshing. Kevin loved the lemon cake and raspberry combination as we figured he would, but he was the only one who absolutely HATED the much loved almond and amaretto crunch combination - the rest of us thought it was amazing. Out of everything, the only universal favorite was yellow cake with white chocolate mousse, so we picked that for our top tier to take back and almond & amaretto crunch as our second flavor.

After finalizing the cake flavors, we realized in almost a daze that we were done and the session was over. We surfaced from the Merryweather room again to find a far more empty and peaceful Franck's (and so I took a few pictures)













After chatting with Kristie some more (we were very reluctant to leave) we said goodbye and made our way back to the main building. It was so surreal to realize the next time I would see Kristie it would be at our wedding rehearsal.

As we were walking through the rain after passing back through the villas, it hit me: we just planned our entire wedding in 6 hours. Like that was it. Sure we still need the men's wear and my dress had to be altered and invites hadn't even gone out - but so many, the real bulk of decisions had been made and were done. It felt so strange.

We got back to the monorail platform just in time for the monorail to be shut down for weather, so we headed back down and waited for the shuttle bus. It was here we met the sterotypical Disney Jerk - one man was loudly whining to any CM that would listen that he NEVER had to wait 20 minutes for the monorail, and that was the whole reason he spent so much to stay at the Grand Floridian in the first place. Myself, I didn't mind - I got to point out to my parents what my old stomping grounds of backstage MK looked like, as they had never seen it before.

We got to the bus depot and dragged ourselves to the Pop Century stop. We made a plan of attack to get dinner at Downtown Disney that night - after being unable to get reservations at Raglan Road, I suggested we try T-REX, as I had never been before (yay new restaurant!) and Kevin's mother has a Landry's Select Club card, so we knew the wait wouldn't be too bad. In the meantime, we would relax at Pop for half an hour or so, giving out parents time to throw their sneakers in the dryer (all four of them only had one pair of shoes) and let everyone dry off. Did I mention it was still pouring? This was no summer Florida thunderstorm - this was almost 5 hours now of unrelenting rain.

The bus ride back was uneventful, and Kevin and I spent some time back in the room vegging out to the Downtown Disney channel, while I kept refreshing the map on my Weather app. Now that the wedding-related stuff of the trip was formally over, I was very aware that in just over 24 hours I would be running my first 5K! Thankfully, while the next day looked pretty rainy, it seemed due to stop before the actual race at 10:00pm (spoiler alert: it didn't).

We met back up with the parents and headed to the always-long wait for the Downtown Disney bus. Thanks to Glenn at the Boardwalk and Kevin's mother's awesome thinking-ahead skills, we had enough umbrellas to each have our own. It had been raining so much that you could tell people had just accepted it, since no one was making obvious efforts to stay dry if they didn't have an umbrella or poncho - they just let themselves get soaked.

After the standard 20-25 minute wait for the bus, we suffered the standard just-too-long-a-drive to Downtown Disney, and decided to get off at the Pleasure Island stop, theorizing that it was closer to T-REX.

We shlogged through the rain and entered Downtown Disney right at Raglan Road - and it was PACKED. Utterly mobbed. In retrospect, I'm not sure what else we expected for a Friday night, in the rain. Still, on a mission we headed over to T-REX and Kevin's mother got in the Club line to check in. The long, slowly moving line, as large mobs clustered around the front of the restaurant and frazzled-sounding hosts called out for parties of 11 to get up to the podium.

It wasn't looking good. At almost 7:30, we split up to check out the other area restaurants. Kevin headed to Raglan (1 hour wait), while my dad put our name down at Portobello (45 minute wait) and joined the line for Fulton's. Kevin wanted to head down to Rainforest Cafe, but I asked him to wait till we heard about the T-REX wait time - I didn't want to come all the way to Downtown Disney to eat somewhere that was only 15 minutes from out apartment back home.

Finally Kevin's mother surfaced, with fantastic news - we could join the line at the host podium immediately, we would be called at any minute. Score one for the Club card! I grabbed my dad and we waited in line, and soon we were whisked off to our table. I'd say our total wait time (including DF's mom's wait to even check in) was no more than 20 minutes. We were seated in the forest room right on the edge of the underwater room, near to the infamous fishtank that had yet to be replaced.

The oh so real fishtank decal



We had 'lovely' table mates behind us - a family of six who seemed aghast that they had to fold up their stroller so that we could actually sit behind them (they had hoped to park it full open behind their chairs, which would have left us unable to move our chairs our from the table on one side). Welcome to Disney!

I didn't take any notes after this part of the trip, nor did I take any more photos of our meal - we were exhausted, cold, and just wanted to relax and decompress everything that had happened that day. Not the best restaurant to do it in, but with a 20 minute wait we'd take it! I did manage to get one more picture though:



After a long day of wedding planning, sometimes what you really need is a beer the size of your face.

I know my mom and I both got the Tribal Tacos (aka fish tacos), hers grilled and mine tempura fried, plus we shared a basket of waffle fries. She loved her meal, while I wouldn't order it again - there was WAY too much red cabbage, to the point that it was all I could taste. Kevin got the Paleozoic Chicken Sandwich - pizza dough bread with grilled chicken (minus all the fixins it came with, like bacon and cheese and flavor ) which he said had great flavor but kept falling apart in his hands. Kevin's mother got the Lava Tomato Basil Soup, since she was freezing (and perhaps something else as well), and my dad had the Mega Mes-O-Bones (aka ribs), his go to restaurant food. I can't for the love of me remember what Kevin's dad ordered, but as he shares the same food habits as his son, I can safely assume it was a burger, steak, or chicken sandwich

I would definitely go back again (I just would order something else), the meal really hit the spot. It took until 7:30pm for us to realize that our last big meal was at 9:30am that morning (plus a wedding cake snack) - good to know for the actual day.

Around 9:30 we got ourselves up from the table and made our way back to the bus stop, where a Pop bus mercifully pulled up within a few minutes. We were quickly back at Pop, where I took note of the first bus to ESPN the next morning for our packet pick-up (8:30am) and we made plans to rendez-vous in the lobby once Kevin & I returned from ESPN - we had plans to finally meet The Roots over at Art of Animation. With that we split off, Kevin's parents and us to our rooms, and my parents to the front desk. This whole day they had been going through the wedding planning without telling us one very important thing they were dealing with: they had realized that morning while checking their bank account on their phone that there was an $1800 charge from Disney - WAY more than their room had cost and more than they possibly could have spent at that point We said goodnight and hoped that things would be resolved soon, then made our way back to the 90s and positively collapsed into bed.

 

[alyaki]

Between all the rain and the details, sounds like your planning session day ended up being utterly exhausting! Even if it sounds like you also had fun (for the most part). Sad that you guys didn't get to try the Bailey's I would have never thought that a majority of their fillings are chocolate based. How much were you able to taste it in those?

Yay for being able to get a table pretty quick at TREX! I haven't been there, but I always hear really good things about it. And 20'ish minutes is good no matter where you are - I think we waited that long, or longer, even with reservations at some of the Disney restaurants. Sounds like you had a mostly relaxing evening there (and holy crud, that beer was HUGE!!!). Also, did everything get figured out with that charge on Kevin's parents account? That seems really odd.

 

[elphie101]

I can't wait to read the rest of your planning session. It all is so exciting! It sounds like you didn't let the rain get you down.

Thanks to our weather apps on our phones, it was pretty clear the rain wasn't going anywhere, so we really had no choice but to suck it up and deal with it. You only get one PS day after all!

We got our first choices on everything, thankfully! I had been fretting about that since January. Our venues are SBP/The Attic/UK Lochside. I really do love ADH, and your pictures of it make me love it even more! But we're only having around 30 guests, so we needed something smaller.

Yeah, I can understand with a smaller number why you might want to stay away from ADH. But I LOVE your venues!

Between all the rain and the details, sounds like your planning session day ended up being utterly exhausting! Even if it sounds like you also had fun (for the most part). Sad that you guys didn't get to try the Bailey's I would have never thought that a majority of their fillings are chocolate based. How much were you able to taste it in those?

Yay for being able to get a table pretty quick at TREX! I haven't been there, but I always hear really good things about it. And 20'ish minutes is good no matter where you are - I think we waited that long, or longer, even with reservations at some of the Disney restaurants. Sounds like you had a mostly relaxing evening there (and holy crud, that beer was HUGE!!!). Also, did everything get figured out with that charge on Kevin's parents account? That seems really odd.

I did sample the Bailey's just to taste, since the fact that I don't eat chocolate is simply that I don't like it (whereas Kevin has an anaphylactic reaction). It wasn't bad, but like I said once we found out Kevin couldn't have it I mentally crossed it off. I want him to have as much leftover wedding cake as he wants! The only filling that had a noticeable white chocolate taste to it was (obviously) the white chocolate mousse. I think the addition of chocolate in all fillings is just a texture thing, if you ask me.

I would definitely chose a repeat visit at Raglan over T-REX, but it did in a pinch, and I would return again. We suspected the crazy charge on my parent's account had to do with their last minute room booking, but it never actually went through (it was just a hold or a processing charge).

 

[Aschenputtel]

Everything sounds great so far - except for the rain of course!
Your poor parents! But how nice of them nit to mention it during the whole stressful planning process.

The pic with the face-sized beer is a real favorite! You look so cute (I have one of me with an oversized fork and knife in front of a huge steak)

 

[elphie101]

Everything sounds great so far - except for the rain of course!
Your poor parents! But how nice of them nit to mention it during the whole stressful planning process.

The pic with the face-sized beer is a real favorite! You look so cute (I have one of me with an oversized fork and knife in front of a huge steak)

The beer was fantastic! It was really what I needed at the end of the cold, rainy, long (but fun!) day. I recommend it

I couldn't believe my parents went the whole day without saying anything! I was truly shocked.

 

[alyaki]

The only filling that had a noticeable white chocolate taste to it was (obviously) the white chocolate mousse. I think the addition of chocolate in all fillings is just a texture thing, if you ask me....We suspected the crazy charge on my parent's account had to do with their last minute room booking, but it never actually went through (it was just a hold or a processing charge).

Good to know about the white chocolate bases. That makes me less worried about choosing one or two of the flavors that will have that base now (for some reason, white chocolate is the only one I really, really don't like - no clue why). Also, bleh for the stupid hold/processing charge on the parent's account - I hate when something like that happens, it's a bit of a pain.

Looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip (especially your EE challenge!!).

 

[elphie101]

Saturday May 3rd

Kevin and I woke up on Saturday morning, once again ahead of our alarm (though not quite as much this time!) and quickly started to get ready for our day. Our goal was to be on the first bus from Pop Century to Wide World of Sports (which would leave at 8:30am), so that we could pick up our packet for the Expedition Everest Challenge and make it back to Pop Century in time for breakfast and then our chat with The Roots at 10:30am. No second of downtime on this trip! While we were getting ready, there was a knock on the door - the saddest envelope ever delivered (aka the Magical Express envelope) had arrived.

We headed out to wait for our bus to WWOS, and reached out to our parents to see if they wanted to get breakfast at Art of Animation once we got back - we were hoping that the lack of high school band trips that had overrun Pop would make for a less crowded food court.

And yes, it was still raining.







In addition to a large amount of high school band and chorus trips that were flooding Pop Century, there was some kind of dance/cheerleader competition that we realized was also happening over the weekend - it felt like every room at Pop was filled with kids between 14-17, and about half of them also seemed to be waiting to go to WWOS (along with us & plenty of runners doing the kids/family challenge that morning). Right on schedule, the first race bus pulled up, and CMs working the bus stop started shouting that this was a "RUNNERS ONLY BUS! RUNNERS ONLY!" much to the annoyance of the dancers and chaperones trying to stay dry.

The ride from Pop to WWOS is only 2 miles long, so I figured we'd get there right in no time, which we did - until we pulled into the ESPN driveway. It was a perfect storm of bad weather, bus drop-offs, arrivals by car, and just total directional chaos that it took us a full 30 minutes to get from Point A at Pop to Point B, the bus drop off.



I had taken my umbrella, but Kevin had decided to stick it out. Of course, life being what it is, right when we got off the bus is when the skies decided to open up, and it went from drizzling rain to an utter downpour. We ran together under my umbrella from the drop-off to the actual complex, and Kevin made the executive decision that the time had come to purchase a poncho. Along the way, we saw the cutest child we have ever encountered at WDW - a little girl, no more than 3, in a kid's poncho that was WAY too big for her, holding it up like a ballgown but still dragging on the ground. We both melted - I wish I had gotten a picture!

We ducked into the shop as soon as we could, and I started taking pictures of all the merchandise I had never seen before.




The "girls section"




The runDisney shirts - if I ever do a Coast to Coast someday I want one!

At this point Kevin found me - the line was too long and people were being too indecisive, and he wanted to get going, so we continued up the stairs and joined the massive line outside the gates. About a minute later, we heard someone ask where the packet pick-up was - and a CM directed them inside. We were waiting in the dancer/cheerleader event line. Bah!

Thankfully the packet pick-up was undercover, so I could put away the umbrella and get some pictures. They had decorated the place to reflect the Everest theme, and it was soooo cool.





We found our pick-up station and got all our stuff - race bibs, afterparty bracelets, protein bars (sadly, they were chocolate), our clear GEAR bag for our stuff at the race, our EE Challenge pin, and our vouchers for our included tech shirt. It was here we also found out from our bibs that we were in Corral A (since no proof of time was required for the race, corral assignments were based on the order of registration - and we were in the 400s), and that our time tracker was actually on Kevin's bib, not mine as I had hoped (I thought I would get the tracker since I was the one who signed us up - and as the slower runner, I was hoping for it! Teams in EE only get one tracker). We double backed to the Clubhouse store so Kevin could buy his poncho, and he also picked up the marathon Mickey Vinylmation, with the Vinylmation Everest medal.

After our brief shopping spree, we continued down the hall until we got to the tech shirt pickup, and got our shirts. I've never had a tech shirt before, but it was NICE - after trying them on to confirm the sizes, we both decided to wear it that night for the race.

We briefly thought about checking out the expo, but since it was just running stuff, not Disney stuff, we passed.


Not very busy due to the location


Poor muddy baseball diamond

They had the New Balance Disney shoes (or at least displays of them with people trying them on - don't know how many they actually HAD left), and what we thought was the coolest thing, a display of all the RunDisney medals from both coasts.


The EE medal is being held by the guy on the left - but we'd have it soon! I think the Tinkerbell from DL is my favorite - that medal was a BEAST. We also liked how the ToT 10-miler had a moving elevator on it, fingers crossed we can do that race next year.

We ducked back into the Clubhouse store one more time so I could buy the "I Did It!" shirt for the Everest Challenge, and after briefly considering signing our names on the giant name wall and some of the Everest-themed photo ops, decided to head back to the buses. The buses left on the hour and the half hour, and it was just approaching 9:30 now, so we were hoping we wouldn't wait long.

Of course, now that Kevin had bought a poncho, it was hardly raining anymore, just sprinkling. We hustled back to the bus stop, and when Kevin saw our exact bus that we had been on that morning was still there, he ran ahead to keep it from leaving. Luckily, we just made it - in and out of WWOS in half an hour!

Kevin decided to wear his tech shirt for the day, to help him stay cool in the park (we had decided to go to Epcot that day, if you remember)



Unlike our ride over, this time we had the bus to ourselves-




Legions of buses waiting to drop others off

I called my mom to let her know we were on our way back and ready to go to AoA, while Kevin reached out to his parents. Thankfully, the trip back only took 10 minutes, because we were starving and ready to eat!

 

[October 2014 Bride]

Loving your trip report so far. Sounds like you had such a good time. We also stayed in the 90s building in Pop when we were there for our planning session. It was our first time in a Disney hotel and I loved it there - beds were so comfy. The buses were so easy. It also chucked it down the day of our planning session. I found the day went so quick and I also felt a lot of the same emotions as you. You hair and make up looks great. Patricia Lejeune did a great job. Can't wait to hear more.

 

[Bewitch324]

I'm sorry you had to deal with so much rain!!! I can't wait to hear about your race experience...in and out of the expo is 30 minutes is AMAZING...bodes well for your racing

Brooke

 

[carlabellaxox]

We were at the ESPN Club that night watching the game. We sat in that same room, that TV was huge. I was surprised there were soooo many Boston fans!

 

[elphie101]

Loving your trip report so far. Sounds like you had such a good time. We also stayed in the 90s building in Pop when we were there for our planning session. It was our first time in a Disney hotel and I loved it there - beds were so comfy. The buses were so easy. It also chucked it down the day of our planning session. I found the day went so quick and I also felt a lot of the same emotions as you. You hair and make up looks great. Patricia Lejeune did a great job. Can't wait to hear more.

I love the 90s, mostly because of how it feels like home since it was where we stayed on our first trip as well. And I love that you never share a bus!

I'm sorry you had to deal with so much rain!!! I can't wait to hear about your race experience...in and out of the expo is 30 minutes is AMAZING...bodes well for your racing

Brooke

We probably would've poked around more if a) it wasn't pouring over the expo, b) we didn't have to meet the Roots and c) the sooner we met them, the sooner Kevin got to go to Epcot! Three guesses which reason was motivating a certain bearded someone....

We were at the ESPN Club that night watching the game. We sat in that same room, that TV was huge. I was surprised there were soooo many Boston fans!

No freaking way! That's so mind-blowing to me that you were also there, that night. If you noticed a girl who's hair & make-up was WAY too nice for ESPN - that'd be yours truly!

And that's the thing about Boston - once you're a fan, no matter where you go, you're ALWAYS a fan.

 

[elphie101]

We hopped off at Pop Century and Kevin took off to our room with all our race items, since the plan was to head straight to Epcot after we met with The Roots. They (The Roots) had suggested AoA as a meeting spot since they had never been there before, and originally at the time we arranged our rendez-vous we were not planning on having park tickets; frankly I'm sure they weren't either! I waited for our parents in the lobby, and was soon joined by Kevin's folks (who had already ate) and then mine (who hadn't eaten). Once my parents dropped their bags off with bell services (they were leaving after our meeting) we all huddled under our umbrellas and took off for the Generation Gap Bridge. By the way, for those keeping score at home, nothing ever came of the mysterious charges from Disney on my parents' account. Hooray for that!

We pointed out cute things to our parents at the walk over, but unfortunately had to essentially run into the food court to get out of the bad weather. Landscape of Flavors is designed to hold a ton of people, but it was still crowded. My parents grabbed breakfast and I told Kevin what to order for me, before we went to stake out tables.


Challah French Toast with bacon (for me) and Character-shaped Waffles with bacon (for Kevin) - the waffles were stamped with Nemo, Ariel and Dory! Too cute.

The food was typical Disney breakfast food - not rocking anyone's socks off, but still good!

We finished eating right at 10:30 on the spot - our designated meeting time with The Roots - and headed out to the lobby to look for them. I had such silly butterflies in my stomach, I was so nervous yet so excited!

They ended up being a minute or two late, because of how large the lobby is, but we found them in due time and spent a good 15 minutes chatting with them and getting to know them, even though it was a tiny bit awkward for all of us. It was literally a dream come true though - after years and years of following them on their blog (since 2009, when I first found the Wedding section of DisBoards and Carrie's wedding) they were here, we were speaking with them, and they were going to shoot our wedding. I've always told Kevin and my parents that the only true must-have for me was The Roots. If I had to, I could give up anything in this wedding - guest size, in park location, dessert party, even a Disney Wedding period - I would do anything I had to so long as we had The Roots. I didn't even want to request a date with DFTW until we knew they were available!

Finally, we had said all we really could say, and they left to prepare for a session that night (if I remember correctly). At this point, we also said good-bye to my parents - Kevin's parents were heading to Epcot with us, while my parents were going back to Pop Century to await Magical Express. Once they left, it really did feel like the wedding planning was over.

We got in line for the Epcot bus, and I got a text from my friend Sas, who was meeting us there. Sas is from Australia, and we met while both working at Buzz/Monsters Inc/Carousel of Progress during our college programs. He recently moved back to Florida permanently, and I was so excited that we would be able to see each other and catch up, especially before the wedding! He was letting us know that Soarin was already at a 90 minute wait What can you do?



Thankfully, we did not have a repeat of The Great AoA Bus Disaster of 2012 (in which we waited about 35 minutes for a MK bus at AoA and made Kevin never want to stay there in the future) and were at Epcot in about 15 minutes. We dashed over to bag check, and headed to the ticket booths - Kevin to actually purchase a 1-day ticket, and me to exchange my cast member ticket for a useable RFID one (CMs are not fully loaded onto My Disney Experience unfortunately), while Kevin's parents headed into the park to give us a little time for ourselves. We stopped at the FP+ kisok right behind Spaceship Earth and attempted to make FP reservations - we couldn't get onto Soarin until 8:00pm that night (when we would be in race preparation mode) and Test Track was down for weather so FP bookings were unavailable. We grabbed FPs for Mission Space, Figment, and Maelstrom, because why not, and popped into Mousegears to check out their selection of phone cases for my brand new phone. I got a text from Sas that he was at Test Track with my BM Sinclaire's roommate, so I hustled over there to see both of them (I hadn't seen BM's roommate in ages!) It was a very happy reunion all around. BM's roommate let us know they had gotten the call that Test Track was about to reopen from the rain, and she could slip us on really quick, so Sas & I ran back to Mousegears to grab Kevin and the three of us made a dash back to find an open Test Track with nearly no wait!



This was Sas' first time on Test Track since the redesign, so we let him be in charge of designing our car. We put it on my Magic Band, since Kevin wanted to see if our last car from September was still saved on his and could compete with our new design (it was!)


Our product - not winning any efficiency awards any time soon.

We still had a bit of a wait after we were dumped from the design stop, and as soon as we got into the loading room cast members started making announcements about how bad weather was in the area and the ride could close at any minute. Once we strapped in, all we could hope for was that we would be evacuated from the line - once you've been trained on evacuating guests from a ride, it's an attraction CM's dream to have it happen to you!

Thankfully/sadly we made it through the ride with no stops. Sas agreed with us that there really wasn't anything changed about the ride at all - and that's not a bad thing! Overall a good improvement.



After Test Track we were starting to feel some hunger, so we set out for World Showcase and my mission: to try to fill a Flower & Garden passport book in 1 day at Epcot! I even printed out my handy-dandy guide from easywdw.com of which food & drinks were a waste of my time, and which were a steal for the money. (You all may have picked up by now that I'm a) obsessed with food and b) mildly insane ) We set off for World Showcase in the traditional-for-me Mexico direction.


You can see the rain drops in the water - it pretty much was on and off like this all day

We bypassed the Mexico booth and China booth (but candied strawberries!) and I spotted our first booth: Florida Fresh. Shrimp and Grits here I come! Kevin, who was less interested in sampling different foods, decided to head to his favorite QS in Epcot: Liberty Inn in America Yes, out of all the food options in Epcot, my dear DF goes for chicken nuggets. We decided to meet back there anyway; even though the rain had stopped for the time being, all benches and outside seating were pretty soaked.

Sas stayed with me and ordered a Watermelon Passion Fruit Slushie - sadly he had forgotten his passport, so he was stuck with booze-free beverages. He reported it refreshing, and once I had my food we set off for America. We got there to find Kevin and, not surprisingly, his parents, so we joined them for lunch. I just had one more thing to grab, at The Smokehouse in American - my dessert!


Shrimp and stone ground grits with andouille sausage, sweet corn, tomatoes and cilantro, Hurricane Class 5 White Sangria, and the “Piggylicous” bacon cupcake with maple frosting and pretzel crunch

The sangria was boring - I have a sangria weakness but I easily could have passed on this one. The shrimp and grits were excellent, they had a bit of spice to them and were warm and hearty, which was great on a day like today where there was a bit of a chill in the air. I was not a fan however of having to cut the tails off with my plastic utensils - I think I left a little shrimp behind there The bacon cupcake was good, not fantastic but good. Unfortunately the pretzels on top were a little stale, which detracted from the taste.

While I waited for my cupcake, Sas decided to order the Pulled pig slider with cole slaw, as he had never had pulled pork before! We instructed him to eat it with his hands and pronounced him a true American.

After lunch we parted ways with Kevin's parents again (they had FPs to use) and continued meandering around World Showcase admiring the topiaries. When I saw the Fleur de Lys booth in France, I knew there was only one thing I could get - the La Vie en Rose frozen slush – Vodka, Grey Goose Orange, St. Germain Liquor, and White and Red Cranberry Juice.

Oh. My. God. This beats the Grand Mariner orange slush for me hands down. I wish they would offer it year round! Since it was on the cooler side, it didn't immediately melt, but I still guzzled it down pretty fast.

While we were in France, we decided to visit our DP spot, Eau de France, to take a gander at the island that haunts my wedding-planning nightmares. Honestly, I don't think pictures do this spot justice. It is much larger then I think it comes out in photographs, and the island really only affect the view on the far right side of the pavilion (where I would hope they would put the food service, makes the most sense to me).









My only concern with this space now is that it is not wheelchair accessible - there is a ramp that goes down to the Upper France pavilion, but the only way to get down to Eau de France is 100% by stairs. Kevin's aunt believes she is coming (but will be having knee surgery in the meantime) and my parents are still trying to see if my grandmother can come, so we're banking on having at least 2 wheelchairs in our group, though both parties feel like they will be able to make the flight of stairs if that's all they have to do. I guess we'll just have to see what happens in the summer when we start getting RSVPs back.

We concluded our world tour by breezing through the UK and Canada, stopping at the Festival stand so Kevin could buy a Flower & Garden Vinylmation, and I could try on a ridiculous hat:



Did I mention it was a delicious drink?

Sas wanted to head over to Animal Kingdom, since he had a park hopper and hadn't been there since his last time in the States, so we walked him out to the front of the park to say good-bye. See you in October!




During my college program my Facebook picture was me posing like this in front of the castle - it became our pose of choice for the work location for awhile.

 

[Aschenputtel]

More delicious food - you're killing me (maybe it's not the best idea to read this when driving home after a long day of studying?).

I totally understand you with the Roots - since I read Carrrie's blog I'm stalking them as well and I'm going to book them, come what may ;-)

Good to hear how everything turned out with your parents!
And yay for the friend reunion! I love to see friends again, especially when they're from another country - it's always a little party!

 

[alyaki]

Sounds like you guys had a fun day! I really want to try that drink - guess that's one thing I'll need to do on my wedding trip, especially with how much you are praising it. Looking forward to hearing about your race prep and the race and afterparty!

 

[elphie101]

More delicious food - you're killing me (maybe it's not the best idea to read this when driving home after a long day of studying?).

I totally understand you with the Roots - since I read Carrrie's blog I'm stalking them as well and I'm going to book them, come what may ;-)

Good to hear how everything turned out with your parents!
And yay for the friend reunion! I love to see friends again, especially when they're from another country - it's always a little party!

There's no food porn like Disney food porn! I hope you also get The Roots someday - they book at 14 months out so even if you don't have your date confirmed at that point, you should absolutely contact them then.

Sounds like you guys had a fun day! I really want to try that drink - guess that's one thing I'll need to do on my wedding trip, especially with how much you are praising it. Looking forward to hearing about your race prep and the race and afterparty!

I hope they still have that drink next year! I can't imagine why they wouldn't, I have to think it was a best seller (even though it was something like $9.75 - with all that alcohol in it).

Sadly my race post will just be a long chunk of text - I barely took any photos! Damn rain.

 

[Bewitch324]

That Rose drink you had sounds really good! I'm a fan of the Grand Marnier Orange Slushee, but this sound even better!!!

Bummer about the bacon cupcake... Sounds like you guys had a very fun day, depsite the WET.

I'm glad you were able to meet with the Roots and work through that first meeting awkwardness...that will make the actual day more comfortable I'm sure...

The shrimp thing looks good, but why the heck don't they remove the tails??

Brooke

 

[edeneye]

Really enjoying the report so far! We wont get to do an in person planning session so it's really interesting to see how all that went (and I was curious what a cake tasting looked like! Love the photos!) Shame you had such a water-logged Expedition Everest, fingers crossed that's the end of Florida rain for you!

Also, totally living vicariously through your encounters with the Roots. Speaking of that though, I have to agree about another vendor we share. I haven't been communicating at all with Randy LaJeune but Jess has and she feels exactly like you do. You won't be alone in suggesting he improves in that area. On a positive note though, it's plain to see from your photos that Patricia does brilliant work! So good to see you can be at ease with that, knowing how fantastic you'll look on your big day is one less big thing to worry about.

Looking forward to the rest of your report!