Leslie and Andrew's Trip Report - Feb 11, 2008 - Escape YCG/CG - Update Day 2, Part 1

[suprgrlx]

Hi everyone!

While I never posted very much and didn't have a PJ, I thought it would be a nice idea to do a trip report.

Our Story:

Me - Leslie - I'm 27 years old, from Newfoundland, Canada. I'm currently in school (and have been for the past 9 years) and am doing my PhD in math. Ever since I heard of a Disney wedding, I thought it would be a fantastic option for me and Andrew. This is partially because I didn't want a religious ceremony, partially because I don't like being the centre of attention and I thought a destination wedding would be an easy way to keep it small, and lastly I thought the whimsy would suit us both, what with us being fairly playful.

DH - Andrew - He's a 26 year old, from Newfoundland, Canada as well. He's working in IT at a company here in Toronto. Without me, he would have gravitated to his family norm of "big church wedding, 200 people, cold plates in a rented hall", which is a fine option for other people, but based on what I said about me earlier, you can see why I'd shy away. He was very open to the Disney wedding however, I believe he even brought it up, and seemed to have a great time.

Andrew and I met at a math seminar in grade 11, almost 10 years ago. We were together through our undergrads and then moved together to Toronto for me to continue going to school. We're fairly quiet and like TV, movies, books and using the computer.

Our wedding was at the Yacht Club Gazebo at the Yacht Club. We followed that up with dinner at the Sonoma room at the California Grill from 6:00 - 10:30. We mostly went with the package elements, with some slight customization.

Vendors:
Officiant - Rev. Kevin Knox
Hair/Makeup - About Face
Photography - Randy Chapman
Tux Rental - Absolutely Fitting
Favours/Decor - Disney

Stay tuned for Day 1, and the drama that comes with flying out of Canada in winter! Here are a couple pre-wedding pictures as teasers.

Us in Newfoundland this past summer:

Us at the Spice Girls concert a week before the wedding.

These last two are us at Andrew's work's Christmas party these past two years.

 

[suprgrlx]

When we booked our flights back in August 2007, we were expecting Andrew not to get Thursday, February 7 off from work. Therefore, we booked a flight at 9:00 PM that day, which wouldn't arrive in Orlando until 11:45 PM. I absolutely hated the idea of getting in that late, and Andrew eventually did get the day off, so we decided to try for an earlier flight.

This involved many complications however. First was that we wouldn't know if we could change flights until we arrived at the airport the day of (and we were recommended to try for the 6:30 AM flight as that would be our best bet). Then, the night before, we called about 10 cab companies trying to get a cab to the airport at 3:45 AM and they were all booked! I don't know where everyone was going! We finally got a cab who was willing to pick us up, which was lucky because that company stopped taking reservations about half an hour later (they told me when I called back). Our next problem was that there was a big storm going on here in Toronto. The entire way to the airport, the road was covered in snow and we crawled along at about 50 KM/h instead of 100 KM/h, some exits were so blocked with snow as to be unusable.

We finally made it to the airport and then the lady at the counter said she wasn't sure, that she doubted we would be able to switch to that flight. My heart just about stopped, since we'd have to then have to get a cab all the way back home (with a carry on, my dress in a garment bag, and three big suitcases), only to have to trek back later that night. Thankfully though she managed to "move some things around" and we got on! We cleared customs and then headed to the gate. Andrew went off in search of breakfast, and returned quite the hero:

Said breakfast included a couple of pastries, fruit, and a surprisingly good airport-breakfast-sandwich. We froliced about at the gate for a while (read: we sat tiredly):

Due to a generous gift from Andrew's parents, we got to fly first class, so the flight down passed in relative comfort (with my dress safely stowed in the first-class closet). We arrived at about 11:00 AM, picked up our luggage and headed off to pick up the rental car. We figured since it was our wedding/honeymoon that we'd like to get something cool for a rental car. Since we're a bit geeky, this cool car ended up being a Prius!

Coming up, our amazing hotel find in Kissimmee!

 

[newyearsbride]

Great start! Can't wait to hear/read the rest!

 

[mla1977]

Glad you made it there! I hate traveling in the wintertime.

 

[lurkyloo]

OOh! Can't wait to read more! Also, where'd you find a Prius to rent in Orlando?

 

[figmentfan0724]

great report, can't wait to read more!

 

[IndyBride]

Can't wait to read more! Nothing beats a spring break reading disboards!

 

[suprgrlx]

Thanks for the positive comments everyone! (I was kinda afraid it would fall into oblivion, unread by all!). But I'm working on the rest of day one as we speak!

Also, I rented the Prius from Hertz (so we had to shuttle, but it wasn't really a big deal). I believe Avis and Budget also have them, but for our dates they were way more expensive than the one we got from Hertz.

It was also well worth the money - everyone who rode in that car adored it! Plus, while my parents and Andrew's parents easily used two tanks of gas in their week, we only went through 3/4 of a tank in our 10 days!

 

[suprgrlx]

Now a little background about the hotel. We were originally booked at Port Orleans Riverside for the 10 days we were there. We booked this around when we signed the contract, so I believe it was sometime in May. Now, there's a long time between May and February and for a bride who *loves* to research online, it's easy to get taken in by the lure of the deluxes. Eventually, Andrew agreed (he's the money sensible one usually), and we booked at the Polynesian. We had also planned a welcome dessert party for Saturday, Feb 9. These two events, totaled together, cost about $4700, which was a huge chunk of our Escape budget. So, after talking about it, we thought it would probably be better to book somewhere like the DVC villas and host the welcome party at our hotel. This was much more cost effective, since the villa cost less than the Poly and the at-the-house welcome party would be very cheap. But the researcher in me continued, and eventually found an amazing place in Kissimmee. Plus, the cost for booking this place for the entire 10 days AND booking Pop for the mandatory 4 days (we didn't stay there, but I used it to store my dress and get ready the morning of), was more than $1000 less than the DVC villa was! So this is where we ended up.

It's called Lighthouse Key Resort and Spa and it's on the 192 in Kissimmee. Now, because of our early arrival, our room wasn't ready yet, so we had to kill about an hour in the lobby. We were very tired from our 3:00 AM rise, plane ride and drive to the hotel, so this seemed like a better option than foraying out onto the town (particularly when our Prius was stuffed with luggage).

This is Andrew after he cracked open the laptop:

And for those that are interested, this is the key to the Prius, that we took both for our trip report and because we're lame:

And last but not least, the picture we took of the beautiful Florida weather we were seeing, so that I could text message it to my sister, who was still in the snow (it looks gross with the cell phone picture, but it was very bright and beautiful):

We also took a stroll to the little eatery they had by the pool, which was about 85% a deli. They had lots of sandwiches, a couple of pizzas and strangely enough, sweet potato fries (which is what we got). After all this excitement, our room was ready! We had a two bedroom suite, which had a full kitchen, living room, balcony and a master that was to die for (king bed, giant jacuzzi tub, walk in closet, etc).

Exterior of Building 2, which is where our rooms were:

Our kitchen/dining room:

The view that you could see if you went on our balcony, stuck your head out, and looked right (the proper view was construction-y, but we didn't care that much):

And now, because despite my vigilance in taking Trip-Report-Fodder up to now, I totally dropped the ball with the picture taking, we present some pictures of my parents 4-bedroom suite (similar, but slightly bigger):

Their living/dining room (slightly bigger than ours):

Their kitchen:

One of their two masters (one for my parents, one for my sister and her husband). It was almost identical to ours:

One of the master baths (again, almost identical to ours):

So at this point it was just Andrew and I that had arrived. Shortly thereafter, his brother Phil, brother's girlfriend Shannon, his mother Winnie and stepfather Ray, along with two aunts and an uncle (for completeness, Cathy, Leo and Mary) all arrived. They were all staying in a three bedroom suite (again with two masters), but it wasn't ready yet, so they ordered food up to our apartment and waited (from the deli, which they really seemed to like). Eventually they got their room and after having caught up, we left to go grocery shopping down the road.

That evening, Phil and Shannon came over to visit and we hung out there until we went to bed. Overall, even though the day was very tiring, it was great. I was so happy that we got in early, that the hotel wasn't horrible (sooo worried about that!) and that we were finally there!

Next day - tux fitting, Animal Kingdom, and Raglan Road!

 

[newyearsbride]

Woohoo for updates! That place is nice! Waiting for day 2....

 

[SailorsPrincess]

The hotel was beautiful! Can't wait to read more

 

[PrincessBride010103]

When we went to Universal last year we stayed in a timeshare that was just like this place. It was called the floridays resort and it was soooo nice. It was my parents, my brother, and me & my husband (fiancee then). We had a 3 bedroom suite and it was awesome! When we go back to universal or seaworld I definately wanna stay there again!

 

[suprgrlx]

Despite the tiring day yesterday, we had to be up early today because we had the tux fitting! Since we were getting married on Monday, I didn't want to leave the fitting any later than Friday in case something had to be fixed. Up until about 6 weeks before the wedding, we were going to go with Carolyn Allen's for the tuxes. This is in part because of their recommendation on the board, plus I was going with them for dress steaming anyway. However, when we sent them the tux measurements, we told them about the hotel switch. Apparently, we were now out of their "free delivery area" and the delivery would now cost anywhere from $30-$100+ (once you factored in possible fix-up trips and the pick-up trip). The other alternative was trying to drive to the store, which we had no interest in on one of our vacation days. So we went back to the list of Disney vendors and contacted Absolutely Fitting. Their tuxes were $10 more, but that would get us any tux in the store (according to the lady on the phone, which wasn't the case at Carolyn Allen's) and delivery would be included, even to Kissimmee.

So they arrived with the tuxes at about 9:00 so we could have the rest of the day free. Now, because I felt like I had chosen so many other things in the wedding, I let Andrew make his decision for the tuxes. And then I worried about it for those 6 weeks almost nonstop. See, he didn't pick out a "classic" tux, but rather this one:

Which looks fine on the model, but without having seen it on, I was really worried that it would look silly. Anyway, the man came to our room, he was very pleasant and brought several different pairs of pants for both boys (Andrew needed to try on three, but that last pair worked), a couple of tie options, as well as a couple different pairs of shoes. Overall, the experience was very smooth and we actually ended up very happy with how they looked. BUT, you can't see until the wedding day!

After this, we headed off to Animal Kingdom. This was our first time driving in Disney, so we ended up missing an exit, but managed to make it. Andrew's parents, aunts and uncle all came with us to this park and we headed up to get our APs and for them to get their tickets for the day. Phil and Shannon had taken advantage of the "wedding website discount" but no one else wanted to plan ahead. I was delighted when I saw that one of our APs had Tinkerbell on it, since she's one of my favourite characters! But then I realize our names are on them, and Tink was Andrew's! I was stuck with the Incredibles (which might be fine for some people, but I really wanted Tink!!). We got our DDE card too and then headed off to the park.

This was both my and Andrew's first time at the Animal Kingdom, so we weren't sure what to expect. But we were greeted by tiny deer! So that was awesome!

We did a couple shots in front of the Tree:

Then, we came across a store and went in and checked, and they had the bride and groom ears! We bought them and sent them to the front of the park to pick up on our way out, very happy that the groom ears did not elude us. And then headed off to the rides! We hit Dinosaur:

Note me cringing in the back seat. This is partially from the frigtening dinosaur scene, and partially because I knew they just took my picture and that I looked like an idiot! We then wandered around a bit and then headed down towards Everest:

But you had to wait 4 hours for the fast pass, so we decided to skip it. Then we went to find something to eat and hopefully get fast passes for the Safari ride (all gone!). We got a buzzer for Tusker House despite not having reservations, but we ended up ditching it and heading home. Next time we go on a trip we'll do AK more justice, but this time we just didn't do much.

BUT! By this time, we knew that my sister and her husband would have landed and would be heading off to the hotel. So we stopped at a Checkers on the way (when Ashley and I were younger, we used to come to Florida and we stayed at this hotel that had a Checkers in front, so it was something we both wanted to do this trip) and picked up food for the four of us. When we got to the hotel we were in luck - we spotted Ashley and Aaron heading across the parking lot towards the deli, but we were able to catch them and bring them back to their hotel room and have the nostalgic burgers.

We brought Ashley and Aaron to the grocery store, since they didn't have a car, and killed the rest of the afternoon catching up with them.

In Day 2, Part 2, we'll meet up with Andrew's family again and see a couple of their pictures, and then head to Downtown Disney for a family meal!

 

[newyearsbride]

Woohoo for updates! That deer is so cute! It's sad you didn't do more in the park though. More... more!