How to Get Married In Epcot... and Survive a 12-Day Honeymoon @ WDW!

[DisneyJo]

Loving all your photos, the last installment's were shot from some great angles

 

[olydizknee]

Your trip report is almost over - oh no! I can't wait to read the next update, but I'm kind of sad it is ending. You can appease the crowd by going back to renew your wedding vows and then writing about it!

 

[SandraVB79]

While reading the installments, I had questions, and now I don't remember them anymore. I'm getting old!!!

How far is Celebration from WDW? Is it easy to find??

 

[lurkyloo]

Your trip report is almost over - oh no! I can't wait to read the next update, but I'm kind of sad it is ending. You can appease the crowd by going back to renew your wedding vows and then writing about it!

I like the way you think! And don't worry - there are still three whole more days to read about!

While reading the installments, I had questions, and now I don't remember them anymore. I'm getting old!!!How far is Celebration from WDW? Is it easy to find??

You could write them down - that's what I do! Celebration is.... 15minutes from Disney? 10 with no traffic? It is kind of easy to find, but it's down a long road off the highway. But your hotel should be able to give you good directions!

Loving all your photos, the last installment's were shot from some great angles

That's DH being arty!

I think that's wonderful that you did that. You had a great - and stress free - honeymoon.
I'm really enjoying your report. Love it!!!!

Thanks!!

 

[lurkyloo]

Oh dear. This day doesn’t have very many pictures in it. I had to go on Flickr.com to find a bunch of pictures to round out my report. My apologies to the generous vacationers who shared their pix with me...!

We decided to start the day back at Market Street Café in Celebration cuz their breakfast is so good. DH had been angling for a day at a water park during the whole trip, but we kept finding other ways to fill up our days off, and it was getting to the end of our trip. As we walked to the parking lot at AKV, the skies were cloudy and it was much cooler than it had been all week. DH looked at me hopefully and started a running joke about it being prime water park weather. I just exhaled so he could see my breath.

This time we had to wait in line at Market Street Café, prolly because the President’s Day crowds were beginning to roll into town. Between the two of us we had pancakes, eggs, home fries, bacon, and biscuits and gravy (but no pie – I was saving room for Kilwin’s ice cream!). After lunch we wandered into an overpriced used bookstore down the street and spent half an hour reading books about the history of Epcot (DH) and Celebration (me). Then we went next door to Kilwin’s to stock up on fudge for the flight and to try their peanut butter chocolate ice cream (verdict: meh….).

I wanted to be a good wife and compromise and blah blah blah, so I finally told DH I thought we could go to Typhoon Lagoon today. You should have seen the look on his face – actually, you probably have… it looked something like this:

So we ran back to AKV to get our swimsuits, and it’s a good thing we did because we FINALLY saw animals on the savannah outside our room! I guess the middle of the day is prime time. We saw 3 giraffes, 2 zebras, some gazelle/deer thingies and a bunch of birds (none of which are pictured here). Wow!

Finally we suited up and headed out into 60-degree weather for our big fun day at Typhoon Lagoon.

We were so excited – there was hardly anyone there (because everyone else had paid attention to their thermometers that morning) and we walked right up to the ticket counter. We told the guy who took our ticket (possibly the same guy who sold us our ticket – it was that slow) that we’d never been before and asked him which slide we should ride first. His recommendation: Crush ‘n’ Gusher. Not having a clue what this was, we skipped merrily along our way, ready for our big adventure.

Crush ‘n Gusher from a deceptively bland angle

OK, now, I had never been to any water park before, but I figured that riding water slides was probably just like riding roller coasters, except wet and with fewer clothes. What I’d sorta forgotten is that I don’t even like to put my head underwater in a swimming pool and for much of my life I avoided going in a pool at all. Hmmm….

We went scampering up Crush ‘n’ Gusher’s empty stairways to the tandem slide, plopped into a tube, and shot down the pipe.

My last happy moment…

Three seconds in, ice cold water shoots up my nose, my self-preservation instinct kicks in, and I wail “I don’t want to do this anymoooooooooooooooore!” as we bounce and scrape our way down to the bottom. A Photopass photographer had the gall to take a picture of me in all my misery as we were dumped out.

This is what I wish I’d looked like coming out…

This is what I actually looked like.

As we staggered to the shore, the Photopass photog belatedly informed us that Crush ‘n’ Gusher is the only slide in the park that doesn’t have heated water. DH shepherded me to where we’d left our towels and promised that we’d go find some warm water. Off to the giant wave pool!

DH waded out about half way to wait for the next big wave, while I tried to find non-moving water deep enough to keep me warm.

I asked the lifeguard, “Where can I go to just sit in some warm water?”

She deadpanned, “The hotel pool.”

My favorite place at Typhoon Lagoon is... the hot tub at Animal Kingdom Lodge!

I ended up paddling around the kiddie area adjacent to the wave pool, where a little boy splashed repeatedly down the 3-foot slide and declared “I’m a big MAN!” every time he caught my eye. DH’s adventures in the wave pool gave me time to ponder things like, “Why is the floor of the kiddie pool rough enough to scrape your knuckles?” and “What do you mean, there’s no hot tub at Typhoon Lagoon?”

Next we tried the Lazy River.

I did OK here with our inner tube, but it was so %$#@! cold that we spent the whole time trying to avoid the water jets.

I thought I remembered my PassPorter saying something about a surprise drop in the cave part of the Lazy River, so I bailed out right before we got there.

Boy, are these people about to be surprised!!!

I streaked along the path to the other side, teeth chattering, til I saw DH come out of the cave. He was like, “There’s nothing – it’s just a cave!”

Only a few survived...

One thing we both wanted to try was the shark reef. I LOVE rays and I love looking at animals and fish, so this sounded cool. First we walked through the submerged ship in the reef, where you can see the fish swimming around. Only one side was open to the fish, and the glass was all scratched and smeared, so it was hard to see anything. But talk about great theming!

I could only find a picture of the outside of the ship...

So we got our life vests and snorkels and went through the little demonstration of how to snorkel. I had never done this before either, which might have something to do with what happened next. We sat on the ledge at the edge of the water and were told to swim straight over the reef, looking down at the fish as we went, and we weren’t allowed to turn around.

Well as soon as I put my face in the water, I started panicking. I may have been breathing through the snorkel correctly, but it felt very scary and suffocating. DH calmed me down, and the nice CM who did the demonstration told me all I had to do was swim from island to island. So I sucked it up and pushed off into the water, but even the prospect of seeing rays wasn’t enough to distract me. I think I put my face in the water once the whole time, and I could barely see anything. I was so intent on just making it to the other side alive that it didn’t sink in til the end that I hadn’t seen any dang fish. So I started to turn around to go meet DH, and of course the CM at the other end barked at me to keep going forward. When I got there, all I wanted to do was stay in the warm water and wait for DH, but she barked at me again that I had to get out—which was terribly rude, considering I had just narrowly escaped almost certain death!!!

What the scaredy cats don’t see while they’re freaking out on the surface...

So that was pretty traumatic... DH said, “Gee, I guess it’s good we didn’t blow all that money on swimming with dolphins at Discovery Cove!” I decided to be Towel Boy for the rest of the day. I sent DH off to each crazy water slide, and then I waited for him at the bottom with a nice warm towel. He had fun, and he got some lovely Photopass photos with various strangers on the raft rides.

Finally, we got to my favorite part of the day....

We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so a funnel cake with ice cream and chocolate sauce tasted like manna from heaven.

 

[lurkyloo]

Then it was time to go back to Animal Kingdom Lodge. Hooray! We sat on the balcony, took showers, and probably did more laundry. For Valentine’s Day dinner I’d made another reservation at Jiko—even 6 months before I’d known we were going to love it enough to go twice!

This time I had the sturgeon that I’d been eating from DH’s plate last time.

He had a curry.

Does anyone know why the pretty little creek that flows up to Jiko’s windows is/was dry?

What it used to look like

I gave DH the Valentine’s Day card I’d written to him two nights before our wedding. He got all teary, which made ME teary!

After dinner we sat in rocking chairs by the fire pit on the main savannah and watched an ill-behaved child attempt to torch the place by shoving larger and larger tree branches in the fire. We stayed until he and his family left just to make sure it turned out all right.

Finally we went back to our room, where I stuffed down as much wedding cake as I could cuz the next day we were moving to the Grand Floridian, and I didn’t want to keep dragging that darn topper around.

At the end of the night when I sat down to write in my journal, I found a postcard with a picture of fireworks over Cinderella Castle. DH had written a very sweet Valentine’s Day note and signed it “Your husband,” which made my tummy all loopy. I think it finally sank in that we were really-for-real married!

 

[Sleeping*Beauty]

Awww what a sweet Valentines day. Your such a sweet wife going to Typhoon Lagoon when it's freezing. If you want to do the shark reef again ask for a life jacket at the place where you get your snorkel. That's what I did or else I would have drowned.

 

[ProudMommyof2]

See- compromising already! Aren't you a good wifey!

 

[jcc0621]

Great day.

You can tell you are fro Cali though. Us northerners would have thought 60 was a heatwave and loved every minute of Typhoon Lagoon

Jiko is on my list of things to do when we can either take a trip without DS4 or if I can talk DH into a solo trip

 

[Nemo32]

I hated TL also...I sent DBF on all the slides and after a few myself watched him. I'm no water person either and woulda freaked in the Shark Reef too.

And HOW CUTE about the postcard he left you!

 

[juliana_sd]

Brrr! So, uh, where are those Photopass pictures?

I would be terrified to even go in that shark reef thing. You done good!!

 

[qv09vvp]

Thanks for giving me part of my Disney fix. My BFF has been at Disney for the last week , so I've been feeling sorry for myself. BUT your spectacular wedding, photos, & your great word style really got me through the week... I wish, I wish, I wish my wedding could have been at Disney....guess I'll shoot for the vow renewwal!

 

[lurkyloo]

Awww what a sweet Valentines day. Your such a sweet wife going to Typhoon Lagoon when it's freezing. If you want to do the shark reef again ask for a life jacket at the place where you get your snorkel. That's what I did or else I would have drowned.

Oooh - good tip! I think what I also needed was a sedative

See- compromising already! Aren't you a good wifey!

Where's that darn good wifey icon...? Ah, here it is:

Great day.

You can tell you are fro Cali though. Us northerners would have thought 60 was a heatwave and loved every minute of Typhoon Lagoon

I used to be much tougher when I loved in Northern CA. Living in LA has made me soft....

I hated TL also...I sent DBF on all the slides and after a few myself watched him. I'm no water person either and woulda freaked in the Shark Reef too.

Oh good - I'm not the only one! I just don't like water up my nose - what can I say?

Brrr! So, uh, where are those Photopass pictures? I would be terrified to even go in that shark reef thing. You done good!!

Yeah, those Photopass pix were allowed to expire - why would I ever pay money to see myself looking like that?

Thanks for giving me part of my Disney fix. My BFF has been at Disney for the last week , so I've been feeling sorry for myself. BUT your spectacular wedding, photos, & your great word style really got me through the week... I wish, I wish, I wish my wedding could have been at Disney....guess I'll shoot for the vow renewal!

Aw, thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying the report! You should totally do a vow renewal so we can all read about it when we're feeling sorry for ourselves!

 

[lurkyloo]

Day 11

Today was our last full day of our honeymoon, and we jammy packed it with activities. Unfortunately, we had a pretty awful experience during our one and only night at the Grand Floridian, but we didn’t let it ruin the whole day.

We woke up, I had the last of the cake topper for breakfast, and we said goodbye to our animal buddies outside the room at Animal Kingdom Villas. Then we packed all our luggage into the O Mobile and headed for the Grand Floridian. If you have what's known as a Wishes wedding at WDW, and you fill the room-night minimum requirement with your guests' reservations, they give you a free night in Concierge at the WDW resort of your choice. We picked GF cuz we could never otherwise afford to stay there...

I was awestruck when we pulled up the hotel and a Concierge rep walked up to us and asked if we were Carrie and Patrick. Patrick pointed out that they’d seen our names at the guard gate and probably radioed ahead, but I was convinced we’d been recognized like celebrities.

The O Mobile screeches to a halt in front of the Grand Floridian

The woman checking us in escorted us from the valet stand up to the concierge check-in desks on the fifth floor (Tip: I am super-cheap about valet and I never do it, even in L.A., but we used valet at GF – the self-park lot is FAR away! I think it might technically be inside Ft. Wilderness...). Both CMs were busy, so our escort took us to a sitting area and checked us in using all the documents on her clipboard – cool! I tried to get a turret suite, I really did, but she said they were all occupied. Boo!

We got immediate access to the concierge lounge, even though our room wasn’t ready, so we went down to the fourth floor for FREE BREAKFAST!

The Spread

The Spread from Above

Can’t talk... eating

After breakfast (or Breakfast No. 2, if you count stale wedding cake) we walked around the entire fourth floor taking pictures because, well, not just anybody gets to take 86 bazillion pictures of hotel room doors and the lobby from the Concierge level.

Before heading out, we checked out the beach pool area (but all we have to show for it is this picture of a lamppost):

Then we were off to our date with an Imagineer! My co-workers gave us Dining with an Imagineer as a shower present a week before we left, and I managed to get the last two slots on the last available day during our trip. The lunch was held in the private Bamboo Room at the Brown Derby in DHS – a room it turned out our Imagineer helped design!

I guess they do these “private” lunches in groups of eight. It was us and a big family who seemed to think that dining with an Imagineer living in Orlando could help their daughter break into acting in Hollywood. As it turned out, our Imagineer (who was actually named Steve, my favorite nickname for any animal I meet) had dabbled briefly in acting, so his advice was along the lines of “Only do it if you really have absolutely nothing else you want to do, and have a backup plan.” What’s funny is that his backup plan turned out to be Imagineering – while most of us can only dream of being an Imagineer!

Steve sourced this refrigerator for Epcot’s Africa!

DH and I, being the Disney nerds that we are, peppered Steve with insider questions about future and shelved projects, most of which he was forbidden to answer. Poop! We got used to hearing “I can neither confirm nor deny that...” He did tell us neat stories about his first Imagineering job (doing the Africa area at Epcot) and his favorite job (decorating Castaway Cay). As it turns out, he was also the lead designer of Typhoon Lagoon, but I didn’t hold it against him...

Steve bought this truck, took it apart for shipping, and put it back together again!

Meanwhile, our waiter was delivering course after course of great Brown Derby food. I felt bad for Steve because his job was to talk to us the whole time, so he hardly had a chance to eat. At the end of each course, the waiter would come over to take his untouched plate, and he’d shovel in a bite or two and say, “Oh! Mmm! Delicious... now where was I?” I noticed a few longing glances at the food each time it was carried away.

We started with the Roasted Parsnip Soup with carmelized beet emulsion and chervil creme fraiche, followed by the Famous Brown Derby Cobb Salad, with a choice of three entrees: Grilled New York Strip Steak, Pan-Fired Black Grouper or the Noodle Bowl. The only thing I got a picture of was the Grapefruit Cake dessert, since I wasn’t eating it:

I think our lunch ran about a half an hour long (it was 2 1/2 hours al together), but Steve had arrived a little late because of some project he’d been working on. At the end he autographed a glass plate for each of us, and we got to take pictures with him.

DH and I wanted to get outta Hollywood Studios and back to the Grand Floridian as fast as possible, so we used the Rockin’ Rollercoaster FastPasses we’d collected earlier and picked up two souvenirs I’d been eyeing: a black-and-silver Star Wars shirt and two Mickey-glove oven mitts.

When we were poking around the Grand Floridian in September, on our Planning Session trip, we got to chat with the famous Grand Floridian greeter who shows up in many brides’ pictures because he helps carry their trains or get them in and out of vehicles. Two days after we got home, there was a news story about the long-time greeter at the Grand Floridian passing away. We were so sad.... Well when we got back to the Grand Floridian this day, there he was! I guess he isn’t a long-time greeter at the Grand Floridian. Maybe he was recently transferred from the High School Musical Extravaganza... At any rate, we were so excited, we had to get a picture with him.

Before we headed to the room, I came up with the ultimate test of Concierge service and asked the CM for a lunch reservation at Le Cellier the next day. No dice... Harrumph – some $900 Concierge service that turned out to be!

We’d been assigned a room on the second floor of the main building. We got a king room overlooking the Marina where they have Wishes dessert parties. In fact, a private party was held there that night, but it ended before the fireworks (?!?). We could even see Cinderella Castle in the distance.

And now, some gratuitous photos:

 

[lurkyloo]

Soon-to-be-stolen toiletries...

We decided to change and go swimming in the beach pool. It had been totally deserted that morning, but it was a pretty happening spot by the time we got there. It’s another of those 4-footer pools, so we mostly cruised around on our hands and/or knees.

I managed to over come my post-Crush ‘n’ Gusher trauma long enough to try the pool’s water slide, and I LOVED it! I think I went down it 20 times...

In fact, you have to click this link to see Janet2K’s awesome video of going down the slide (thanks, Janet2K!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/janettwokay/2400293083/

When the pool got too crowded, we headed over to the jacuzzi by the main pool... which we ended up sharing with 14 children.

¿Dónde están los niños?

Finally we dragged our prune-y bodies outta the water and went back to the room to dress for dinner. I also called about a discount code on a flyer in our room and ended up adding a night at the Poly to our September free-dining trip for cheap, cheap, cheap!

We got to watch this sunset:

When we were all dolled up, we walked around the corner to Citrico’s for our last dinner at Disney. Something weird happened – it was the first swanky restaurant we’d been to (including California Grill, Bistro de Paris, and Jiko) that actually enforced the “no hats” rule in the dress code and made us take off our bride and groom ears!

Lonely, rejected free-dessert magnets

The hostesses seemed to feel really bad about having to ask us to take them off. We got a nice seat by the window and an able server. The atmosphere was lovely, but the meal didn’t knock our socks off. It wasn’t bad, just unremarkable.

Sorry, but I don’t even remember what this was...

...Or this!

We even passed on our free dessert (the dress code didn’t say we couldn’t wave our bride & groom hats under our server’s nose at every opportunity!) because nothing sounded good and we had plans for later.... So they sent us home with a bag of their biscotti – nice!

On the way back to our room we stopped at the concierge lounge to load up on treats for our Self-Service Dessert Party. We planned to sit on our balcony watching Wishes over Cinderella Castle and then the Electrical Water Pageant, which we’d so far missed at every opportunity. That was the plan, anyway...

Turndown Service

As it turned out, the fireworks actually went off way to the left of the castle as it could be seen from our room – right behind a palm tree! We squished way over in the corner of our balcony and craned our necks.

Then we started to hear the Electrical Water Pageant, but apparently it doesn’t actually come around the horn to the GF Marina, so we STILL have not seen the darn thing. About this time, we started to notice the smell of cigarette smoke in our room, and when we checked the hall it was really strong out there. No offense to the smokers out there, but the smell makes us sick, and we didn’t want to spend our only night in Concierge at the Grand Floridian sucking in fumes.

We called the front desk, and they said they’d investigate and call us back. When they didn’t call after a while, we called back and were told they’d found the person doing it and fined him for smoking in his room – eep! Moments later we were out on our balcony and we actually saw the guy in the room next door come out and light up again! (I guess he figured paying the penalty gave him carte blanche to smoke for the rest of the night?)

DH called over to him that this was a non-smoking hotel, and he shot back, “What, do you work here?” DH was like, “No, I’m a guest, and I’m paying to enjoy my stay here.” So then the guy goes, “Are you the one who called the hotel on me?” and DH retorts, “Yes, and I’ll do it again!”

I thought the guy was gonna come around the divider and start a fight! I started feeling really anxious and queasy, like our one night in this special places was getting ruined, fast. We called the front desk again and asked to be moved. They told us there were no other rooms, but that we could dial 0 for security if the guy got belligerent—because they’d experienced some “pushback” from him. Swell.

By this time the hall and our room smelled like a no-tell motel, and I thought I was gonna toss my cookies. Housekeeping had sprayed a sickly sweet deodorizer in the hall that made the smoke smell even worse. We called a second time and were told we could move to a non-concierge room in one of the other buildings, which didn’t sound too appealing at 10pm. Finally we got someone else on the line who magically discovered a handicap-accessible room on the fourth floor of the main building, and she comped us our dinner at Citrico’s. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I kinda wish they’d given us a do-over night at the hotel...

They sent a bellman to move our stuff. The new room had two queen beds instead of a king and no jacuzzi tub, but at least we could breathe.

What it looked like by the light of day...

There was one bright spot in all of this: We’d been trying since Tuesday to meet up with the Roots, but soon after Jensey got sick, Nathan got sick, and we had to reschedule for September. But bless their hearts, they finished all 1,535 of our wedding pictures and delivered them on DVD to the Grand Floridian that night. Bell services brought the discs to us, and we stayed up til 1am looking at our pictures on the TV in the new room.

Up Next: Last Day - We attempt to ride Haunted Mansion at WDW and Disneyland in the same day!

 

[KatGarcia]

Gotta love stupid people...at least you got to change rooms! The lunch with an Imagineer was really neat!

 

[tink1957]

The good news is you can see the electric water pagent at the Poly, just go to the beach around 9:00 & it passes by there every night. We saw it for the first time on our Dec trip while dining at Ohana & we also saw Wishes the same night. The view was wonderful. We just told them we wanted a table with a fireworks view & we were willing to wait. We were seated in 5 minutes and it was one of the highlights of our trip. So take heart, when you go to the Poly on your next trip you can see it all.

 

[stagemomx3]

I love all the pictures! Sorry about the smoker, how rude and disgusting!

 

[Becx N Gav]

I'm so sorry to hear about your night at GF, we're smokers but hate to offend (I'd rather walk a mile than smoke near people who don't like it) but that guy was a jerk and and a half.
Strangley enough we stayed at GF in 2005 ( we booked at the Poly but the concierge rooms were being upgraded ) I only found out through a website - they didn't bother contacting us - and when I called I insisted on a monrail resort, the Contempory was also being renovated, so they finally caved and gave us a GF room

But we had a pretty horrible stay - we wrote a trip report on Trip Advisor which I'll find when I get home later.

Needless to say hubby won't even go to a restaurant there let alone stay there! He will begrudgingly let me go look around when we go to WDW in Dec

Anyway, back to work!

So sad your trip is near its end, but hey Sept is only just round the corner

 

[PeterAll]

I've enjoyed your pictures. Congrats!