Laura & Gary Wedding Trip Report - FINISHED!!

[dee slack]

Is there anywhere I can find a breakdown of cost of all the different elements of wedding packages / photo sections, or can I only find this out by calling DFTW?

have you tried the wish book facility on www.disneyweddings.com ? Take a look there and then if there's something specific you want to know, I might be able to help you. Have fun on the weddings site!

 

[jns]

What a wonderful day
just looked at the photos again
they done a great job of lighting up the castle
and I just love the one in the mirror
were you gavin a choice where you could get the photos done

Thank you again so much for sharing

 

[Laurafoster]

What a wonderful day
just looked at the photos again
they done a great job of lighting up the castle
and I just love the one in the mirror
were you gavin a choice where you could get the photos done

Thank you again so much for sharing

Usually your not given a choice as they normally take pictures around the teacups and the carousel but as they were being used to film the commercial we were allowed to choose 1 other location so we chose main street as it had all the Christmas Decorations up. We then had time to go to 1 other location and the photographer suggested Minnies house which i thought was great as they are fun pictures!

 

[jjpenguin]

Great report and fantastic photo's .... I'm secretly thinking about a vow renewal in 3 years... (10 year anniversary)

 

[Laurafoster]

Saturday 9th December;

Thankfully we didn’t have to get up early this morning! We got up quite late and had a leisurely breakfast over at the Boardwalk bakery, it was a warm day so it was nice to sit outside.

We had arranged to go to MGM today so we hopped on the boat and headed towards the entrance. We were a bit early so we had a wander through some of the shops. We met up with my parents. We headed straight over to Tower of Terror – Gary wont go on this ride! So him and my mum sat outside and waited for me and my dad to come off. No matter how big the queue is for this ride I always seem to get that one seat right in the middle!!

Once we had done that we headed over to do Rockin Rollercoaster. There was no queue so we went on twice! We then sat down to have something to eat and a drink – the lady saw our just married stuff and gave us our whole order for free!! Funny thing though, she told Gary off for making me carry the tray! After we had finished eating we headed round to do the muppets, Indiana jones and star tours. We decided to head back to the hotel at around 3pm as it was a nice day again. So we spent the afternoon around the pool with some nice cocktails.

In the evening we had a reservation at Blue Zoo – last time I ate here I loved the restaurant! I thought it had a wonderful atmosphere and so I was really looking forward to our meal. It was a lovely meal, the food was excellent – we had a great waiter who kept us laughing throughout the whole time. He also brought over a free dessert – it was lovely but soooo rich!

After the meal we definitely needed to walk around! We ate so much food!! We took a walk around the boardwalk and had a few drinks in ESPN before heading back to the hotel.

 

[SusanEllen]

How sweet that people continued to notice your newly married status and awarded you special treats.

 

[arieljasmine]

Another lovely day, Laura. How lovely of the CM to give you your food for free, and your free dessert in the evening looks delicious.

ArielJasmine

 

[Laurafoster]

Sunday 10th December 2006;
We woke up this morning and it looked like it was going to be a nice hot day! So we quickly called round the rest of the troops to see if they fancied heading over to Typhoon Lagoon for a few hours! We got to typhoon lagoon at around 10:30 and the place was virtually empty! Me and Gary headed off to go and get one of the refillable mugs and the rest went to find a sunbed over near crush n gusher! We caught up with them just as some more of the family arrived. We lounged around for a while waiting for any straglers. Once everyone had arrived we went off to do the bigger rides like Crush n Gusher and Humunga Cowabunga as most people didn’t want to do these! We managed to go on each of them a few times. We headed back and headed off with the rest of the family to do the lazy river and we went on some of the kiddie rides with my cousins. By the time we got back to the sunbed we were all starving! So we headed back to the main entrance to have something to eat.

After lunch some people left to go back to their hotels and the rest of us decided to hit the wave pool! We stood in the shallow end for a while with the kids as they cant go out to far – My cousin Marc didn’t realise how strong the wave would be and got knocked over! Wish id had the video camera!!! After quite a while in the wave pool we went back and got changed before heading into the shop! I love the shops in Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard beach – I really love the Roxy T Shirts as they fold up really small and dry really quickly so they are great for Florida! After we had spent our money we jumped on a bus back to the hotel to chil out and get changed for the evening!

We were heading over to MGM this evening as it was time for Gary’s family and a few friends to head back to England the next morning. So we had all arranged to meet at the Hat at 7pm to go and see the OsborneLights! We arrived early and the park wasn’t too busy so we got a chance to go on the Tower of Terror one last time!

Everyone was amazed by the osborne lights! I thought they were really good this year! After we had all walked round we said our good byes to Gary’s Family. Sounds really mean but I saw soooo glad they were leaving! All holiday they had made nasty remarks each time we saw them about my family “tagging along on our honeymoon”. I kept saying to them that this wasn’t our honeymoon and that the cruise was! I also pointed out that everyone that was “tagging along” had taken the time of work, flown all the way out here and spent thousands of pounds to go to Florida for my wedding and we really appreciated that – how rude would it have been for me to say well thanks now go away?! Anyway we were enjoying having all our friends and family with us in the parks! Gary’s always worried about what they might say and if they would offend me or my family so I knew he would relax a bit more once they had gone! I feel so sorry for him having to worry about that! My family couldn’t care less what his parents say – water of a ducks back to my family!

Anyway they headed off and the rest of us went to the Big River on the Boardwalk for something to eat! I love their Mahi Mahi Caesar salad! Another day over and we headed back to the hotel – the men were off to play Golf tomorrow so me and my Mum were heading to Downtown to do some Shopping! Need plenty of energy for that!!!

 

[DisneyJo]

Great day, I love the water parks, sorry about the family!

 

[jns]

we love the water parks too

 

[Laurafoster]

Monday 11th December;

We woke up pretty early this morning as Gary, My Dad,Grandad and Uncle had a Tee time reserved for a round of Golf at one of the Disney courses. I think they were playing Eagle Pines this time. We had breakfast downstairs in the Yacht Club and waited for everyone to turn up, then they jumped into a taxi. As the guys were headed off to play golf we decided that it was only fair that us ladies went off for some retail therapy!! So we got on a bus for Downtown Disney and got off at the Market Place.

We went straight into the Christmas shop - i love this shop! I bought a Red velvety tree skirt with a cream and gold Mickey and Minnie on it, i went and got it personalised with our wedding date in gold embroidery. I paid for that and they said they would have it ready for the next day for me so i asked them to ship it back to the Yacht Club. We wandered through the Marketplace and went into the beach shop (summersands is it?) i love the roxy tshirts they sell in there! They are really lightweight and thin and are great for going on holiday as they dry out really quickly etc! (and i can get more in the suitcase!!!) however there wasnt any that i liked this time, maybe because it was Christmassy stuff and they didnt ahve any summery colours. We walked down through pleasure island and had a look in some of the shops down in West Side, i love the little magnet shop - i always pick up a couple for my friends and work collegues. I got 3 really suitable ones this time, for my dad i got "It is company policy to blame the computer" - he works for an IT company, for My MIL i got "inside every old person is a young person wondering what the hell happened"! And for me i got "i like to cook with wine, i sometimes even put it in the food".

We headed back towards the bus stop and back to the hotel. By now it was lunch time so we headed back to the hotel and headed up to our rooms to put the shopping away. When we got back to the rooms we saw a note my DH had left saying they were back and had gone down to the pool. So we headed down and found them sitting round the pool bar Hurricane Hannas. We sat down and ordered some lunch. We spent the afternoon sitting around the pool relaxing and enjoying the good weather.

That evening we headed down to Downtown Disney again, no shopping this time though. My dad had always wanted to eat at Fultons Crab house but everytime we have been he has made some excuse not to. So this time i had booked the reservation and not told him. He was really pleased when we told him where he would be eating! We were given a seat upstairs by window - looking over Downtown Disney which was great! The waiter was really funny and kept telling us funny stories about when he visited England and asked for Chips instead of Crisps. The food was really good but nothing special i thought it was a bit too expensive for what it was but im glad we ate there!

After Dinner we headed outside and went to the Comedy Club - i love this but i always try to avoid sitting near one of the phones as i hate to be the person whos picked on LOL!

We walked back to the bus stop and decided to go into Raglan Road for a few drinks! I really like Raglan road, i think its got a great atmosphere and its so lively! Although ive not tried the food!

Another night over and we headed back to the hotel before another full day tomorrow!

 

[Laurafoster]

Tuesday 12th December;

A week after the wedding - time always goes by far too quickly in Disney!! We were off to Universal today and meeting some more members of my family, My Nan,Grandad, Aunt Julie, Marc and George and My Aunt Christine, Uncle Stuart, Andrew and Robbie. As everyone was coming from different hotels we arranged to meet at the Universal globe outside the front entrance. We got there bright and early at 9:15 and Christine,Stuart and the kids were ready waiting for us. We waited for a few minutes before we got a text from my other Aunt saying they were running a bit late and they would meet us in there. So we headed off to do Islands of Adventure first. I really love Islands of Adventure - the way the park is themed is great. We headed ovver to the Hulk first, we left our stuff with my mum who was going to stay with Robbie as she doesnt like roller coasters. The hulk is Garys favorite ride in Orlando - i always think about that scene in the film house on haunted hill where they have the hulk and it flys off the tracks LOL. Anyway we walked through the queue which was totally empty and walked straight on to the coaster. I dont think the others were expecting it to fire you so fast and there were some funny noises coming from the row in front of me! We got off and took a look at our pictures which were quite funny, we walked out the queue and saw the rest of the group and now turned up so we went on it again with them! We went on Docter Dooms next and i know my Dad and Gary both hate this ride but will always go on it anyway?! Wheres the logic in that? Must be a man thing?!

Next up was Spiderman - i think this ride is so clever! We had to go on this in 2 groups as Robbie was too little to go on it. When the second group went on it we went and sat down and got a drink for everyone. Everyone else came out and we sat and had a drink for a while before making our way round to Blutos rapids. I always get soaked on this ride, my grandparents, Julie, Marc and George all put on ponchos - i teased Marc and George about this because they were worried their hair would get messed up! Gary chose not to go one it - he claimed he was coming down with a cold - Wuss!! So the rest of us went off onto the ride we were lucky and it was quite so we got a whole boat to ourselves! As always i got soaked straight away! I think we all ended up getting pretty wet, and George ended up getting loads of water land on his head which did mess his hair up! We got off the ride and chose to go straight over to the other 2 water rides - Ripsaw Rapids and Jurassic Park whilst we were soaking wet already!

After that it was time for lunch - we walked round to Zeus Landing and ate at the big place there. Fortunately the sun was out and so everyone managed to get pretty dried off during lunch. Mum and My Aunt Christine took Robbie over to go on the kids rides whilst the rest of us started walking over to Universal Studios. We walked around to The Mummy and waited for the rest to come along - as we were waiting the Blues Brothers came out so we watched them for a bit. We went on the Mummy and then walked round to do Men in black. After this my Nan, Grandad, Julie and George had had enough and headed back to their hotel - Marc decided he wanted to stay with us and we would drop him off later. They left and we continued to walk round and go on a few more rides - Jaws, Back to the Future, Terminator 3D, Shrek 4D and Twister. We didnt get a chance to go on earthquake as it was getting quite late by that point so we headed back to the hotel dropping Marc off at the Caribbean Beach on the way. We decided to just eat along the boardwalk tonight as we had been out all day so we ate at the Big River, its one of my favourite restaurants in Disney. We didnt do much that evening, we had a few drinks on our balcony before calling it a night as we were all tired.

 

[arieljasmine]

Three lovely days, Laura. I love the Popeye and Blutos ride too, but always go on it last because I always end up soaked!

Laur's

 

[Chilly]

Great report as always. Families! Who'd have them!

 

[Laurafoster]

Wednesday 13th December;

We go up early today as I had booked me, Gary and my parents on the Yuletide fantasy tour as an early Christmas present! We needed to meet in Epcot at the Guest Services at 9:15am so we headed off early to have a nice breakfast over at the Yacht Club. We got to Epcot and found the guide, there were quite a lot of people on this tour – most of them were VERY festive Americans who were already singing Christmas carols!

Anyway we set off walking towards our coach, we disappeared through a backstage area behind Spaceship earth where our coach was. I found it so surprising that the living seas was so close to spaceship earth backstage because it seems such a distance when your walking around the park! We got on the coach and drove off around the world showcase – we got out of the coach in a few locations – Germany, Morocco and Italy and the guides told us a bit how Christmas was celebrated in each of those countries. They explained about all the Christmas decorations and what they meant – she explained that there were a few countries that didn’t have decorations and the reasons why I think Morocco was one of them. We saw the Segway tour wizzing past us when we were in Italy. After we had been through all of these we headed back to the coach and it was off to MGM. As we went through the Backstage entrance we had to have someone come on and search our bags – atleast they were substantially more cheerful that the people at the airport!! And she gave us all a Candy Cane as she did it! When we were driving through backstage MGM we went past a building site – it was somewhere around where the tram goes on the backlot tour. She said they were building a big new attraction but wouldn’t give any details on what it was. We headed over to the Osborne Lights and she explained what parts of the display mean – they certainly don’t look like much in the daylight! After that we headed back to the coach where we were off to the Grand Floridian next.

On the way there they were explaining that the Grand Floridian have different Christmas tree lights as Victorian England used candles in their trees and they were trying to recreate that soft glow by using dim led lights. The best part of the visit to the Grand Floridian was that we were given a load of free Gingerbread! We headed back to the coach and it had just started raining. Our next stop was the huge warehouse where they keep all the Christmas decorations! As we drove in we went past a bunch of other backstage buildings you don’t normally get to see – the recycling plant – the monorail maintenance area and the train station.

We all had to wear safety goggles in certain parts of the Warehouse so these were given to us as we walked in. The warehouse was HUGE! It was pretty empty now obviously as all the decorations were already up but there were just rows and rows of trees – all in there separate bits. They had rows of tinsel strung up, then they had boxes and boxes of the baubles and ornaments. They had huge sections for each park, resort and cruise ship! All themed accordingly. She explained that the warehouse is staffed all year round and at the moment they were working on designs for next years Christmas! We went through into the workshop area next, she showed us that each tree goes out to the resort mostly assembled – including the lights, tinsel and ornaments and then when they get to the resort they just have to put the tree parts together. She said that they all get a timetable of what resort/park/cruise ship is going to be done on what day and they load everything up into huge vans and they head to the relevant location – if it’s a hotel they wait until 1am before putting all the decorations up in 1 night. She said they get people who somehow find out the decorations are going up that night and they sit there with their video cameras LOL!

We headed back towards the coach for our final stop on the tour – The Magic Kingdom. We drove through another backstage area and she showed us the place where they build the tree before putting it on to main street. She told us about the decorations around main street before we headed back to the coach to go back to Epcot. It was quite a good tour but I certainly wouldn’t do it again! I found it a bit boring in places to be honest! All I really wanted to see was the big warehouse.

Anyway we got our nice pins and headed off to get some lunch in the land. We headed back to the hotel as I wanted to do a bit of packing – we were only taking 1 suitcase with us on the cruise and I wanted to leave the other one with my parents who were staying in Disney. We decided to spend a few hours around the pool relaxing. We had lovely weather throughout all of the holiday and I was really pleased as last time we came in December it was pretty chilly.

That evening my grandparents were taking me, gary and my parents for a meal in Epcot – San Angel Inn in Mexico. We were given a lovely table right near the water! The food was excellent, and the atmosphere in the restaurant was great. I really enjoyed that meal. We headed back out to the world showcase to do a bit of shopping in Mousegear before Illuminations started. We headed over to Italy to watch the fireworks as its one of the best views ive found so far (except that wonderful place I had my dessert party lol) I knew someone else (from the dis weddings board) that was getting married today and having a dessert party there so I knew I wouldn’t be able to sneak down. After Illuminations ended we strolled back to our hotels, I needed to finish packing before the cruise tomorrow and my grandparents were leaving for home tomorrow to so we all said goodbye and headed off to finish packing!

 

[Chilly]

Thanks for the info on the tour. No photos?

 

[Laurafoster]

Thanks for the info on the tour. No photos?

No Your not allowed to take photos on any of the backstage areas apparently

 

[Laurafoster]

Woo Hoo - our video summary is finally uploaded on the website!! Our actually DVD is about 1hr 30mins but he has uploaded a summary version onto his website -

http://www.stvsweddings.com/gallery.html

 

[Laurafoster]

Here are some pics from our evening in Epcot -

Picture of my mum and Nan

Picture of My parents.

 

[Chilly]

Great Pictures.