Happily Ever After...Honeymoon TR August 31 - September 6 2015

[mlegerto]

Day 3
September 2 2015 - Hooray for Hollywood and Delicious Food

We had our alarm set for 7:40 this morning and we're easily able to get out of bed. We couldn't believe that after all the food we had consumed last night that we were hungry! So we decided that we would snack on some OJ and fruit for a light breakfast.

Today we decided that we were going to visit Hollywood Studios, which opened at 9:00 am. We had our snacks, got showered and dressed and were out of the room by 8:20 am. We decided we would drive over because hey, why not we have a car.

The drive over was easy and we had arrived by 8:35 am, parked the car and walked up to the entrance.

not my photo

When we got there, they had already started letting everyone in so we followed the masses. Once we got past the gate we realized that they were holding everyone right in front of the Chinese Theater.

not my image

Ryan and I decided to be a bit sneaky as we had planned to make a dash to Toy Story Midway Mania. We cut across towards Starring Rolls cafe and ended up almost at the front of the people being held. Win for us! It was SUPER humid today...like just standing there sweating and standing in and about all these people didn't help.

Thankfully once the crowd began to move, we were leading! I think we must have been one of the first 20 people to ride TTMM this morning. YEEEEEEAH...no line for us!


I of course kicked Ryan's butt as I ALWAYS do at this game...not gloating or anything haha.

Once we were done at TSMM we went across towards Rock N Roller Coaster as we weren't able to get a fastpass for it - we decided on a fastpass for TSMM and Tower of Terror.



We may have waited in line for all of 10 minutes before catching our limo to the show! Ride was fun as it always is.

We now had a bit of time to kill before our first fastpass of the day, so we decided to head back to Starring Rolls to grab a coffee for Ryan - if you haven't noticed yet, I don't drink coffee.

not my image

We just sat at one of the tables outside and had a chat while Ryan enjoyed his coffee. He decided it would be fun to take some photo of me while we hung out - remember, it was SUPER humid today so don't judge me haha.



It was now time for our first fastpass of the day. 9:50 - 10:50 am for Tower of Terror...straight to the twilight zone for us!



Now just a little background. I was extremely lucky and thanks to our DVC membership, I pretty much grew up at Disney World...which means I grew up on rides. I LOVE rides, but a few years ago (I guess my body was changing as they say) I became SO incredibly sensitive to motion and would be physically ill from being a passenger in a car rather than the driver. It sucked!

On our last trip to WDW, I got sick on almost EVERY ride and it just wasn't enjoyable - to the point that we'd have to leave the park after only being there for an hour or so. Needless to say, I was nervous that this trip would have the same results.

Rock n Roller Coaster....no problems! YEAH starting to feel a bit more optimistic that maybe my body was over whatever "change" it was going through previously haha.

Flat out....this ride on Tower of Terror made me SICK. We had the series where you go all the way up, then all the way back multiple times and my stomach was NOT feeling it. Booooooo.

After we rode, we sat down in the shade for a bit and Ryan went to go get us a bottle of water. I however was determined NOT to let this ruin my day at HS.

We decided to wander Sunset Blvd. and see if any of the street performers were out so we could enjoy something unique to this park. Luckily, we came across these guys.



I actually got asked to participate in the show and was called up to help out with a magic trick! These guys were a hoot!

We then strolled along the shops and ended up stopping for some yummy treats. I got myself a Rice Krispy Treat and Ryan got the Carrot Cake Cookie!




Be Back shortly with Pt 2 of our day!

​

 

[TeamSy]

Love the Kate Spade clutch!

Did you love Poly??? We're staying there next trip!!

 

[mlegerto]

Love the Kate Spade clutch!

Did you love Poly??? We're staying there next trip!!

OMG YES!! We absolutely LOVED the poly. I had always wanted to stay there, but with our family having DVC, it didn't make much sense to pay to stay there when we had points for the DVC properties that we had already paid for ahaha, but now with it having DVC we were able to and jumped on the opportunity. It's a really convenient location (resort hoping, food options, close to the TTC for transportation), they offer great on site amenities (food locations, bars, pool is awesome, boating, etc.), a great firework location when your not in the parks (if you go down to the beach you can watch from there and they pipe in the soundtrack) and in general just a very beautiful and relaxing resort. You'll love it!

 

[MyGoofy26]

Yay! Another honeymoon trip report to follow! Trying to steal ideas so keep the updates coming, haha! We got married two weeks but delayed the honeymoon to end of February to give us more time to save (seriously, no one wants to honeymoon on a budget!). We'll be at AKL and I'm pretty sure I'm driving my husband absolutely nuts with little details. He's never been to WDW so I FINALLY get to show him where I "grew up." Of course there are a thousand things I want to do and show him in that week. I have him sold on 'Ohana so we snagged a reservation for my birthday (honeymoon overlapping birthday--how spoiled am I?) and I'm trying to figure out what else to plan for him.

I may have him sold on buying into DVC before he's even stepped foot in Orlando. He knows my addition and supports it, haha. But I gave him the short spiel on DVC and how we could come out way ahead since I want our kids to grow up with the same experience I had with regular trips to Disney. And I did warn him that Disney is a compulsion for me...that if I go too long between trips I get twitchy and HAVE to go back.

 

[Alexsandra]

Mmmm, carrot cake cookie!
I too was able to go on tons of rides when I was younger and now I get motion sickness. I can do all the simulator rides but roller coasters are a no for me now!
HTT and SPace Mountain nearly killed me on my last trip! Lesson learned!

 

[mlegerto]

Yay! Another honeymoon trip report to follow! Trying to steal ideas so keep the updates coming, haha! We got married two weeks but delayed the honeymoon to end of February to give us more time to save (seriously, no one wants to honeymoon on a budget!). We'll be at AKL and I'm pretty sure I'm driving my husband absolutely nuts with little details. He's never been to WDW so I FINALLY get to show him where I "grew up." Of course there are a thousand things I want to do and show him in that week. I have him sold on 'Ohana so we snagged a reservation for my birthday (honeymoon overlapping birthday--how spoiled am I?) and I'm trying to figure out what else to plan for him.

Well CONGRATULATIONS my dear!!! Steal away, that's why we post these trip reports. That's great that you are delaying your honeymoon a bit to have the extra money for it. as you said, who wants a budget honeymoon haha! We were only able to go when we did because of my parents DVC, otherwise we would have waited a bit as well. We are actually planning our honeymoon part 2 (as I like to call it) for Thailand in March, so we've been saving for that. I completely understand your desire to go and take him back "home" to where you grew up, I feel the exact same way - even though I have taken Ryan many times in the last 13 years haha.

Stay tuned for another update!

Mmmm, carrot cake cookie!
I too was able to go on tons of rides when I was younger and now I get motion sickness. I can do all the simulator rides but roller coasters are a no for me now!
HTT and SPace Mountain nearly killed me on my last trip! Lesson learned!

Ryan said the carrot cake cookie was amazing! I am not the biggest fan of carrot cake so my opinion doesn't really matter, but I did take a bite and it was really fresh. Ugh, I can't do the motion simulators - last time we went to Universal I was so sick after riding the Simpson's ride. Getting old I guess .

 

[mlegerto]

Off Topic Update

Hey guys, I will get to Part 2 momentarily, but I wanted to post a quick off TR update.

So I'm not sure if I mentioned it earlier in this TR or not, but Ryan tolerates my love of Disney and accepts that it is a part of me. He himself is not a Disney addict - although his track record based on the number of times he has visit may argue that haha. A compromise we made was to go on this "Disneymoon" as I have dubbed it right after our wedding for a couple of reasons;

1. Having spent so much time growing up in Disney, I always saw other happy couples roam the parks in their wedding ears and I always dreamed that I would get a chance to do that too
2. why wouldn't I want to spend another milestone in Disney since it has always been present in my life
3. since my parents own DVC, our stay was free so the cost was drastically reduced which gave us an opportunity to go away and just be the two of us after all the craziness leading up to the wedding
4. we compromised that since this was something that was important to me, it was important for him to also get to see another part of the world, so we would go on honeymoon part 2 to Thailand

We have just begun planning our trip to Thailand for March 2016. Ryan is a lot more excited about this than I am, but it is something that is important to him so I will support it. I just got approval from work to take 2 weeks off in March for this trip - this may not sound like a big deal, but I started this job just before the wedding AND in my position, if I am not here to do my job then it piles up so I am typically not able to take extended periods of time off in a lump together like this. So exciting news!

ALSO....we've received our wedding photography proofs so I thought in this update I would include a few of my favorites!


For those of you who read my wedding PJ, you'll know that the ampersand (&) was present in all of our decor and stationary, so I really love this photo of Ryan's cuff links


I LOVED my hair





















Ahhh....what an amazing day that was. If anyone is really interested in seeing others, feel free to add me to Facebook (just PM me and I'll give you my contact information)

OK OK OK....back to the TR now!
​

 

[mlegerto]

Part 2

Alright, so where did we leave off....oh yah, snacks.

Once we were done consuming our delicious snacks, we decided to head over to The Great Movie Ride. Ryan isn't a big fan of this ride, but I wanted to check it out as I hadn't ridden it since the merge with TCM.



We had a driver named Ron and the gangster scene. Ron was pretty energetic, but I wasn't a fan of the prerecorded script. I think I like it better when the driver is the one who takes you through the movies. I did however enjoy the new film while waiting in line - which was maybe only 10 minutes!

Next we decided to head towards the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular show as we had fastpasses for the 11:15 show.

However....we got stuck leaving the Great Movie Ride behind the Frozen parade. I asked a cast member how we could get by to get to use our fastpasses and was told there was no way around the parade to get to that side of the park from where we were. We'd have to wait till the parade was done and it was going to be close to getting to the show on time! EEEEK. So note to self, don't get trapped on the Great Movie Ride side of the park around parade time because you can't get anywhere else.

Oh well, took this opportunity to watch what was left of the Frozen parade as we hadn't planned on seeing it. To be honest, I am so over all the Frozen hype. Don't get me wrong, I really did enjoy the movie, I thought it was great. However, it seems like Frozen has thrown up on everything everywhere you go. At one point in the parade Kristof waved to me and yelled "Congratulations" - we were wearing our Happily Ever After Buttons and I was wearing my bride Minnie ears. I said Thank you back and he asked " Did you two just meet?"...I laughed and told him no! To which he responded...."Good...you really shouldn't marry someone you just met unless...." and points to Anna. HAHA. This was a great interaction and all the while he was on top of a float so this CM went out of his way to make it happen. I've always loved how CM's stay in character and really do make an effort to make your trip memorable.

ANYWAYS...once the parade was done, we crossed over and ran towards Indy.



MADE IT!




During the show I realized that I was still feeling a bit nauseous from our earlier ride on Tower of Terror so we decided that we would grab some lunch after the show and see if that helps. It was also very humid out still so I am sure this didn't help much.

We decided to go over to Fairfax Fare for lunch as I had wanted to try their gourmet hotdogs.

In typical fashion, Ryan and I decided that we should split our meal and decided on the Mac n Cheese hot dog. This was a gourmet hot dog topped with truffle oil, bacon bits and Mac n Cheese.



Ryan decided he also wanted a beer with his meal. Total cost was just under $22. This was an extremely messy meal, but it was so good!

When lunch was over, I was feeling a bit better and we were having a difficult time deciding what to do next. Since we were in the area and thought we needed some time to let our food digest, we decided to go have a look in some of the stores near by. SOMEHOW I had forgotten to bring a backpack / park touring style bag so I was on the lookout for something like that.

After shopping, we decided that we should exit the park - it was SO freaking humid still that we were sweating just standing there. It was around 1:30 by this time and we decided that we should go have a rest in the room - we still hadn't fully recovered from the busyness of the wedding and Ryan said his throat felt a little ticklish.

On the way back to the hotel, we changed our mind and decided we would go check out Downtown Disney (soon to be Disney Springs) as I still hadn't found a backpack that I liked and Ryan wanted to grab a few cigars to take home with him for his friends.



We parked in the new park garage and really liked how they had the green lights on top of the spots so you knew what spots were available before going down the lane. We had previously head that it's best to park on Level 2 as this is where the walkway towards DD is, so that's where we went.

We went into a few of the shops















Ryan grabbed a few cigars from Sosa ($17), I found my backpack ($39.50) and a tanktop ($32)in TrenD and I purchased on the the tubes of bathbombs from Basin ($19). We also scoped out a few of the souvenirs that we would like to pick up at some point in our trip at World of Disney, but decided to wait and come back towards the end of the trip in case we saw other items while visiting the parks. Good afternoon of shopping for us.

We then decided to head back to the hotel now as it was close to 5:00.


Stay Tuned for Part 3 !

​

 

[skier_pete]

Hey there - joining in since (a) you came over and joined our TR (b) we were neighbors at the Poly at the same time and (c) we're neighbors (sort of) in real life. Well, at least you came and flew through our airport. (Like half of Ontario. Ha Ha!)

We didn't arrive at the Poly until September 3rd, but we were practically neighbors. We were in Tokelau, which was right next to Moorea. Also on the 3rd floor, and also with a (stretch) view of the Lagoon. So much fun watching those fireworks every night. We also had the exact same drinks as you did at Trader Sams, though again on a different night.

Just did a quick browse through your TR, and so far looks like you were having a great time. Of course, how could you not, Honeymoon + Disney! My wife always wants to get the massages at WDW, but then won't do it because of the price. Maybe I'll have to surprise her one day. Maybe if we ever get into the VGF.

I like the Christoph interaction. Clever! Nice when the characters are sharp on their feet.

Looking forward to the rest.

 

[Alexsandra]

Off Topic Update

Hey guys, I will get to Part 2 momentarily, but I wanted to post a quick off TR update.

So I'm not sure if I mentioned it earlier in this TR or not, but Ryan tolerates my love of Disney and accepts that it is a part of me. He himself is not a Disney addict - although his track record based on the number of times he has visit may argue that haha. A compromise we made was to go on this "Disneymoon" as I have dubbed it right after our wedding for a couple of reasons;

1. Having spent so much time growing up in Disney, I always saw other happy couples roam the parks in their wedding ears and I always dreamed that I would get a chance to do that too
2. why wouldn't I want to spend another milestone in Disney since it has always been present in my life
3. since my parents own DVC, our stay was free so the cost was drastically reduced which gave us an opportunity to go away and just be the two of us after all the craziness leading up to the wedding
4. we compromised that since this was something that was important to me, it was important for him to also get to see another part of the world, so we would go on honeymoon part 2 to Thailand

We have just begun planning our trip to Thailand for March 2016. Ryan is a lot more excited about this than I am, but it is something that is important to him so I will support it. I just got approval from work to take 2 weeks off in March for this trip - this may not sound like a big deal, but I started this job just before the wedding AND in my position, if I am not here to do my job then it piles up so I am typically not able to take extended periods of time off in a lump together like this. So exciting news!

ALSO....we've received our wedding photography proofs so I thought in this update I would include a few of my favorites!

View attachment 127447
For those of you who read my wedding PJ, you'll know that the ampersand (&) was present in all of our decor and stationary, so I really love this photo of Ryan's cuff links

View attachment 127448
I LOVED my hair

View attachment 127449


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View attachment 127451

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Ahhh....what an amazing day that was. If anyone is really interested in seeing others, feel free to add me to Facebook (just PM me and I'll give you my contact information)

OK OK OK....back to the TR now!
​

OMG your wedding picture are beautiful. You look gorgeous and Ryan looks very handsome. Looks like it was an amazing wedding. SO happy for you! I guess you figured out what to do for the isle runner. Wasn't it supposed to be red? It looks white on the pictures.

Thailand is amazing! My husband and I had one of the most amazing trips of our lives there. The people are so nice and welcoming, the food is amazing and so inexpensive and the scenery is one of a kind. It is a different world there so it might be a culture shock if you've never been to the Orient. I travel to China for work all the time so I was prepared. We went in April and it was hotter than the sun's surface, so be prepared. I think it was 42-45 degrees Celsius each day plus humidity. We spend almost all our days in the pool, or the ocean and we would go exploring at night after sundown. We went to visit a temple in Bangkok one day in the afternoon, and we almost died. We had to cover our arms so I needed to wear my cardigan and the men had to wear pants. The temple is all outdoors so you could imagine how hot we were. It was absolutely beautiful but I will never do that again.
I'm sure you will have an amazing trip. Plus you got the best of both world: Disney and Thailand!

 

[mlegerto]

Hey there - joining in since (a) you came over and joined our TR (b) we were neighbors at the Poly at the same time and (c) we're neighbors (sort of) in real life. Well, at least you came and flew through our airport. (Like half of Ontario. Ha Ha!)

We didn't arrive at the Poly until September 3rd, but we were practically neighbors. We were in Tokelau, which was right next to Moorea. Also on the 3rd floor, and also with a (stretch) view of the Lagoon. So much fun watching those fireworks every night. We also had the exact same drinks as you did at Trader Sams, though again on a different night.

Just did a quick browse through your TR, and so far looks like you were having a great time. Of course, how could you not, Honeymoon + Disney! My wife always wants to get the massages at WDW, but then won't do it because of the price. Maybe I'll have to surprise her one day. Maybe if we ever get into the VGF.

I like the Christoph interaction. Clever! Nice when the characters are sharp on their feet.

Looking forward to the rest.

Thanks for joining it! What an amazing view right? We will probably NEVER get the chance to stay in a room with a view like this (at least not for our whole trip) again so it was amazing. The firework view was so nice and great to not be surrounded by tons of smelly people at the end of the day (I kid...not!). I just wish they had a channel on the TV or a radio station or something that you could tune into the have the soundtrack play through. We ended up just playing a video from youtube and tried to time it as closely as we could - we were almost spot on a few times!

We certianly did have fun. As you said, how couldn't we!

I'm not going to lie...the massages are quite expensive (okay, maybe overpriced), but I felt for a trip like this it was worth it. PLUS as an added bonus, we have health coverage that covers 50% of the cost of massages as long as the service is done by someone with a license, so we were actually able to recoup 1/2 the cost. This is how I was able to justify the price.

Thanks for coming over.

OMG your wedding picture are beautiful. You look gorgeous and Ryan looks very handsome. Looks like it was an amazing wedding. SO happy for you! I guess you figured out what to do for the isle runner. Wasn't it supposed to be red? It looks white on the pictures.

Thailand is amazing! My husband and I had one of the most amazing trips of our lives there. The people are so nice and welcoming, the food is amazing and so inexpensive and the scenery is one of a kind. It is a different world there so it might be a culture shock if you've never been to the Orient. I travel to China for work all the time so I was prepared. We went in April and it was hotter than the sun's surface, so be prepared. I think it was 42-45 degrees Celsius each day plus humidity. We spend almost all our days in the pool, or the ocean and we would go exploring at night after sundown. We went to visit a temple in Bangkok one day in the afternoon, and we almost died. We had to cover our arms so I needed to wear my cardigan and the men had to wear pants. The temple is all outdoors so you could imagine how hot we were. It was absolutely beautiful but I will never do that again.
I'm sure you will have an amazing trip. Plus you got the best of both world: Disney and Thailand!

Aww thank you so much. I truly did feel beautiful and quite princess like haha. Ryan sure was handsome lol.

YES, the aisle runner was supposed to be red (ewww), but my dad's girlfriend ended up making one for me so we just laid it on top to cover the red and poof!, it was white with a burlap trim. Unfortunately there were a few mistakes made by our florists (and the venue for that matter) and there were supposed to be flower petals scattered over the runner AND a flower garland hanging over the arbor where we said our vows, but they somehow didn't arrive. We're over it now and got our money back, but it would have completed the look.

I am totally afraid of the culture shock that I will experience when we go to Thailand haha. Ryan is a lot more adventurous and open to these kinda of experiences than I am, but I'm going to suck it up for him (and myself, lets not kid ourselves here haha). That's so exciting that you get to travel so much for work! This will be completely out of my comfort zone and a bit scary, but we'll be doing it together so we'll make it work. HOLY GEEZE 42-45 degrees.....we're wanting to go in March because our research says that is their "cool" time (not cold, not hot and humid and not their rainy season). Do you have any thoughts on this? If you have a list of places you visited/stayed OR places you think we should make a point to visit/stay, please feel free to PM me. Always open to suggestions!

 

[skier_pete]

Thanks for joining it! What an amazing view right? We will probably NEVER get the chance to stay in a room with a view like this (at least not for our whole trip) again so it was amazing. The firework view was so nice and great to not be surrounded by tons of smelly people at the end of the day (I kid...not!). I just wish they had a channel on the TV or a radio station or something that you could tune into the have the soundtrack play through. We ended up just playing a video from youtube and tried to time it as closely as we could - we were almost spot on a few times!

I agree with this! Even going down to the beach the first night, they had a few speakers that were playing the music, but they were more on the section of beach behind the long-houses. I can't believe that they didn't make it easier to hear. We could just about hear it from the end of Tokelau, where we actually found it easier to step outside our room and stand there. I don't get why they wouldn't have a way that you could hear it! One of my biggest complaints. (Well, the pool was too small and crowded was the other.)

I'm not sure you would want to go there too often anyways - it would spoil you to all other hotels on the entire planet.

 

[mlegerto]

Part 3

We got back to our room around 5:15 pm and started getting ready for dinner - shower, changing, etc.

At 6:45 pm we left our room and walked over to the TTC to hop on the monorail. We were heading towards the Contemporary for our celebration meal. We made our way down to level 2 to check in for our 7:35 pm reservation at California Grill.



We were almost immediately taken up in the elevator and to our table. We got a lovely table right beside the window!



Such an amazing view for our celebration dinner.

When we arrived, our table was decorated with Mickey head confetti and our waiter Dale gave us a big congratulations.




Dale was a great server all night long. He gave us our menus, explained the specials and asked us if we knew what we wanted to drink this evening. We needed a moment to review the menu because I am a pretty picky eater. It was at this point that Dale explained to me that he can make any substitution needed to ensure that I had a meal that I would enjoy - I was SO grateful to hear this as I often put off going to nicer restaurants because I don't like a lot of variety in my foods (I often explain that I have a 5 year olds taste palate)

Now, since we don't normally visit fancy restaurants and I had already previewed the menu online, I knew exactly what Ryan was going to say when he looked at the menu, "wow, this place is expensive". I had come prepared for this and I told Ryan that we were celebrating our marriage and that we were on our honeymoon and we were going to splurge tonight so not to worry about any prices and to get exactly what he wanted regardless. He was hesitant, but I insisted - once in a lifetime trip here guys!

Ryan decided to have a dirty martini (filthy if I remember correctly haha) and I had a glass of the Harmony Riesling. Both were very good. We stuck with these drinks for the night.

We decided to start off with the BLT Flat bread on Dale's recommendation.



SO good...but you want to eat it rather quickly as the last piece got a little soggy from the tomatoes.

For dinner Ryan went with the Oak Fire Grilled Beef with the added Surf and Turf (sushi) option - Florida Heirloom Tomato Risotto, Aged Balsamic, Tiny Basil, Tomato Butter + sushi side.



I ended up having the Bell & Evans Chicken - truffle whipped potatoes, organic mushrooms, cabernet-chicken demi-glace, but I substituted the mushrooms (gross) for asparagus.



Both of our meals were delicious. Again, I am SO glad that Dale let me know that it was okay to substitute items because I was a bit intimidated to order at first as there were items I didn't like on every meal the offered. Seriously guys...Dale was the best!

We finished our dinners and had another round of drinks because we wanted to take things at a bit slower of a pace. We decided to take a walk out to the balcony and take in our view and surroundings.






We just spent some time outside, watching the sunset. Seriously, this is a very romantic setting and I am so glad that I didn't let my fear of a signature dinning restaurant turn me away / ruin it. If only we were alone out there

Eventually we came back inside to our table and Dale asked if we wanted any dessert. We were stuck between a few options and asked what he would choose out of the ones we named. He suggested we go with the Warm Homemade Fritters - Banana-stuffed, Cinnamon-dusted Fritters complemented with a Trio of Dipping Sauces (caramel, chocolate and peanut butter).



Ryan liked the peanut butter and I liked the salted caramel dipping sauce best. All in all they were SO good and were done in like .5 seconds! Another win on Dale's suggestion.

All in all, our night out at California Grill was amazing. It was a splurge for us ($193 + tip),but hey we were on our honeymoon so why not.

Before we left, we went back out on the balcony to see MK now that it was dark.



We were debating staying for Wishes (started in 25 minutes), but in the end decided to go home and have a private viewing from our room.

On our way out, I went to find the manager because I wanted to let them know how fantastic our experience with Dale was tonight. I often find that people are far to busy complaining about bad service and forget to compliment great service. I hope Dale knew how much we appreciated him that night.

We walked back to the monorail station to catch the monorail back to the TTC.

On the way home, we discussed our plan for tomorrow. The original plan was to wake up around 7:15 am and head to Universal Studios (both Studios and IOA) for the day - Ryan and I are both Harry Potter fans and really wanted to see Diagon Alley. In the end, we decided to skip Universal this trip and have a lay in as we still hadn't recovered from the craziness leading up to this trip - this sounds crazy to me too, I know, but we kept telling ourselves this is our honeymoon, let's slow down a bit! Not going to lie...I was a bit disappointed in this decisions, but hey we will be back and Universal will be on our must do list next trip!

We got back to the hotel around 9:45 pm and poured ourselves a glass of wine and went out on the balcony to wait for wishes to start. I decided that I would try to sync the music from a youtube video so that we could pretend we were in the MK watching. I was able to match the video up almost perfectly so try this next time if you have a MK view.

these are not my photos, but this is what our view looked like!




When Wishes was over, we just hung out on the balcony and talked about the last few days and how we couldn't believe that after 13 years of dating, 2 years of planning that our wedding had come and gone. We called back home to check up on the kitties (they were fine and having lots of love of course) and crawled into bed around 11:30 to watch a movie.

We were quickly asleep with no alarm set for tomorrow - a serious first for me on a Disney World Trip...marriage really does change a person haha.


And there you have it, Day 3 complete.

Stayed tuned to hear what we did on Day 4!
​

 

[skier_pete]

Mmmmm....love California Grille. Signature restaurants are expensive, but sometimes you just have to have a splurge, and if a Honeymoon isn't a good enough reason, what is??

Just so you know...generally Disney will let you substitute at ANY of the restaurants - at least when it's something they can. They are really great about this. Me - I'll try just about anything, but at Yachtsman for example they have different sides with each steak, so if one appeals more, you can substitute it in.

I have to tell you having seen Wishes from the California Grill it's pretty amazing. It's weird though because it's such an off-angle, you don't get the same affect as you do in the park - or even at the Poly where everything is pretty much head on.

Definitely a lot different than viewing from the Poly, but can't say I blame you for going back to the room. That's quite a treat too.

Smart to slow down a bit on your honeymoon. Not like Universal is going anywhere.

 

[DisneyJo]

It sounds like the perfect evening

 

[TXMNie]

California Grille looks so romantic! And good for you too taking some time off and relaxing! Hopefully we will be able to strike a balance with that on our honeymoon too.

 

[MyGoofy26]

Thailand sounds amazing. We threw a lot of ideas out there and I was actually the one to say no to Disney at first (because I knew I'd want to drag him from one end of the property to the other and didn't want to subject him to that on our honeymoon, haha). But we eventually came back around to it. We decided to start trying for a family immediately and I really wanted to do an adults only trip with him before we were wrangling little ones down Main Street. We realized if biology is on our side and things move fast then this was our only shot for that.

Sounds like you had a great dinner experience! We've had a lot of luck with waitstaff at the signature restaurants. Always so friendly and helpful and never rushed. Good for you for making sure the manager knew how great he was!

 

[Cando86]

What an awesome evening. Seriously, just perfect!

We LOVE Cali Grill and have never had a bad experience. I was glad to see you got those fritters - those are my FAVORITE!

It is so nice to take it slow in Disney. It's really hard to do but SO nice when you're able to!

By the way, the wedding pictures you posted a few posts ago are FANTASTIC! You had a GREAT photographer!

 

[Alexsandra]

What a wonderful evening. I loved my experience at California Grill. The view was absolutely spectacular. You did well to speak to the manager about the great service. It is always nice to get some positive feedback like you said.

Don't worry about skipping US. It will give you something to look forward to for your next trip to WDW. I decided to skip US on my upcoming trip as it added an extra expense to our already tight budget. The boys were a little disappointed when I told them but we are looking forward to a relaxing trip to WDW instead.

 

[mlegerto]

Mmmmm....love California Grille. Signature restaurants are expensive, but sometimes you just have to have a splurge, and if a Honeymoon isn't a good enough reason, what is??

Just so you know...generally Disney will let you substitute at ANY of the restaurants - at least when it's something they can. They are really great about this. Me - I'll try just about anything, but at Yachtsman for example they have different sides with each steak, so if one appeals more, you can substitute it in.

I have to tell you having seen Wishes from the California Grill it's pretty amazing. It's weird though because it's such an off-angle, you don't get the same affect as you do in the park - or even at the Poly where everything is pretty much head on.

Definitely a lot different than viewing from the Poly, but can't say I blame you for going back to the room. That's quite a treat too.

Smart to slow down a bit on your honeymoon. Not like Universal is going anywhere.

Completely agree. Being a young couple who just bought their first house the idea of splurging on a single meal if foreign to us, but hey, it's on honeymoon so I'm glad we realized this and went for it! I am a lot more open to signature dining now that we've had such a great experience. Hopefully we can try to fit one in now on each trip. One day we will book California Grill a little later and make sure we stay for wishes! Yet another item on our to do list - funny how we've been so many times, but it seems our to do list grows longer each time haha.

It sounds like the perfect evening

Certainly was! Thanks for joining in DisneyJo!

California Grille looks so romantic! And good for you too taking some time off and relaxing! Hopefully we will be able to strike a balance with that on our honeymoon too.

It was quite the romantic place and quite a splurge for us, but hey, when on your honeymoon this is what these events should be like! So exciting that your honeymoon is coming up! As difficult as it was, try to find the balance, it's hard but really well worth it.

Thailand sounds amazing. We threw a lot of ideas out there and I was actually the one to say no to Disney at first (because I knew I'd want to drag him from one end of the property to the other and didn't want to subject him to that on our honeymoon, haha). But we eventually came back around to it. We decided to start trying for a family immediately and I really wanted to do an adults only trip with him before we were wrangling little ones down Main Street. We realized if biology is on our side and things move fast then this was our only shot for that.

Sounds like you had a great dinner experience! We've had a lot of luck with waitstaff at the signature restaurants. Always so friendly and helpful and never rushed. Good for you for making sure the manager knew how great he was!

Ahhh kids in Disney. That will be so exciting, but I want to fit a few more trips in just the two of us OR with friends. Every trip is different depending on who you travel with so that will be amazing to experience, eventually (at least for us!) We had a great experience and I really think Dale our server made it memorable for us. I was really happy later on that we shared our great experience with the manager. I typically am not one to complain, nor make a stink when things are really good....but thought I was so excited and happy with our experience there that we had to share and hopefully Dale gets recognized!

What an awesome evening. Seriously, just perfect!

We LOVE Cali Grill and have never had a bad experience. I was glad to see you got those fritters - those are my FAVORITE!

It is so nice to take it slow in Disney. It's really hard to do but SO nice when you're able to!

By the way, the wedding pictures you posted a few posts ago are FANTASTIC! You had a GREAT photographer!

MMM all of our food was SO good. I really hope we can book it in on our next trip and hopefully can book it just slightly later so we are there for Wishes - may be an easier decision to hang around and wait for it because we wont have the Poly MK view calling us back to our room haha. Thank you about our wedding photos! Our photographer was amazing and a lot of fun to work with, plus we got amazing memories from the day so win win win!

What a wonderful evening. I loved my experience at California Grill. The view was absolutely spectacular. You did well to speak to the manager about the great service. It is always nice to get some positive feedback like you said.

Don't worry about skipping US. It will give you something to look forward to for your next trip to WDW. I decided to skip US on my upcoming trip as it added an extra expense to our already tight budget. The boys were a little disappointed when I told them but we are looking forward to a relaxing trip to WDW instead.

It was a great night. Amazing! We'll just have to fit US in on our next trip ooooh well lol.