Our honeymoon trip to Orlando! (Updated 7/10, Day 14&15; going home...THE END!)

[Marjol]

Tomorrow... tomorrow....!

Only 18 hours left untill we get on a plane to Orlando!

 

[AnnieDan_Artlover]

You are so beautiful in your wedding pictures!!!
Both of you!!!

You make the most beautiful couple!

I love the bubbles idea! So cute! And Much less messier than confettis!
I also bet the kids had way more fun with that than they would've had with confettis!

The pic with Mirte in your arms is just precious!

I, too, love your flowers!

Where did you take the outdoor pictures? Was it at the same place the wedding took place? It looks very beautiful!
Are the kids standing on the mushroom top?
I like that soldier at the bottom of the tree...
Is that a palace behind the garden?
What? I ask too many questions?

My favorite picture though is the 3rd one with the well in the background...

I'm very happy it was all you wished for.

Now on to the honeymoon!

 

[Marjol]

We're here!!!!

The trip was not what we expected....

When we got to the airport yesterday, we had a 3 hour delay to start with, so we would miss our connecting flight in Washington. But they decided to delay that flight too... so we would still be able to get on it.. because almost everyone in that plane had to come from our plane.

However... when we were in the plane, they noticed a problem with the kerosine pumps and it took them over an hour and a half to fix that.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful, but we arrived four hours late and our connecting flight was gone... we directly went to the customer service, where there was a HUGE line! While we were in the line, a woman came up to us and gave us hotel vouchers and new tickets for tomorrow... they weren't able to book us on another flight later that day..

We went to the Hyatt hotel and spent the night there. They gave us some toiletries, because our suitcases DID go to Orlando that evening. We also got some dinner vouchers.

We went to bed early (it was 9 pm, but for us, it was 3 am!) and flew to Orlando this morning at 8 am. We arrived at 11 and were in our hotel by 1 pm.

We had planned Universal for today, but went to Typhoon Lagoon instead, which was great!

Let the fun begin!

 

[lilpixiebabe101]

We're here!!!!

The trip was not what we expected....

When we got to the airport yesterday, we had a 3 hour delay to start with, so we would miss our connecting flight in Washington. But they decided to delay that flight too... so we would still be able to get on it.. because almost everyone in that plane had to come from our plane.

However... when we were in the plane, they noticed a problem with the kerosine pumps and it took them over an hour and a half to fix that.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful, but we arrived four hours late and our connecting flight was gone... we directly went to the customer service, where there was a HUGE line! While we were in the line, a woman came up to us and gave us hotel vouchers and new tickets for tomorrow... they weren't able to book us on another flight later that day..

We went to the Hyatt hotel and spent the night there. They gave us some toiletries, because our suitcases DID go to Orlando that evening. We also got some dinner vouchers.

We went to bed early (it was 9 pm, but for us, it was 3 am!) and flew to Orlando this morning at 8 am. We arrived at 11 and were in our hotel by 1 pm.

We had planned Universal for today, but went to Typhoon Lagoon instead, which was great!

Let the fun begin!

That sounds exactly like what happened when my tour group from school was flying to Ireland. We got to New Orleans, the flight was delayed 3 hours because of weather in atlanta, Georgia where our connecting flight was. Then when we got on the plane a guy had a heart attack. So we were delayed another 2 hours. We finally make it to Atlanta and they say they are holding the plane because half the people on our flight needed to catch that flight.... We all got there and it had taken off 5 mins before we got to the gates. So they had to put almost 75 people between our group of 15 and everyone else up in a hotel in Georgia.

 

[mkluvsmickey]

Glad you made it to Orlando finally! Enjoy your week!

 

[AnnieDan_Artlover]

Wow!

What a way to start a honeymoon!!!

Sad it didn't go as planned...
Happy you seemed to be in good hands (vouchers, good hotel, etc)
Very happy you're now in Orlando, not too much later than intended, and enjoying yourselves!!!

Have fun and magic!!!

I'll be joining you soon, I noted when we could bump into each other in my binder, and crossing my fingers!

 

[Marjol]

We've been here for five days now and we're having a blast!

We already visited Typhoon Lagoon, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Aquatica, Disney Quest, Cirque du Soleil and Universal Studios.

The weather is just perfect, low eighties.

A little spoiler for you untill we get back and I start my TR...

 

[Marjol]

We're back! Unfortunately, because even after two weeks in Orlando I could have stayed two more!

We landed in Amsterdam at 7.00 am this morning and I'm fighting against my jetlag now

We had a wonderful, marvelous trip! Can't wait to tell you all about it, but I still have some laundry to do and this TR needs to be moved to the regular TR section before I start

I'll get back to you tomorrow!

 

[punkin413]

welcome home! glad to hear you had fun!

 

[Marjol]

Day 1, Our trip to Orlando.. well... that was the plan

After a surprising good night sleep (I expected it to be very bad, but I slept like a baby) we got up around 6.15, took a shower, had a little breakfast and checked our bags for the last time.
As expected, my dad (aka the cabdriver to the airport) was here right on time at 7.30. We loaded our bags into the car and drove to the airport, where we arrived around 8.30. We thanked my dad, took our bags out of the car and walked to the door, not knowing what we would find there...

My god! What a crowds! And what a HUGE line for the check in desks! I really couldn't believe this was the right line, so Gerbert got in line with the suitcases and I went on an expedition to check this was the right line. I came across a departures board on my way and checked it... to see our flight was already delayed for almost three hours!

I also thought this really was the line for our check in desk, so with the bad news I got back to Gerbert. This would mean we would miss our flight in Washinton....
When we were in the slooooow moving line for about 10 minutes, a United employee walked by and asked who flew with United. He directed us to the right line, a much shorter one...
They told us our flight in Washington would be delayed, because almost everyone in that flight would be in this flight too. What a relief! They also offered us money and an update to buisness class if we would fly tomorrow, but we really wanted to go now, so we declined.
While in line for the check in, we met some people we know from a Dutch message board.
We checked in and now had somewhere around six hours to spend on the airport. We started off with a breakfast at McDonalds and spent the next hours with reading, playing on the Nintendo DS and some looking around in the shops. Before we knew it, it was time to go to our gate!
We saw some more people we know from this Dutch messageboard here and talked with them for a while.

After that, we had to answer some questions about our suitcases (standard procedure when you go to the US) and had some more waiting time before we could board the plane. Finally, around 2.45, the plane was ready to board!

But unfortunately, we couldn't leave just yet. There was a problem with a kerosine pump and it had to be fixed. This took them another hour and a half and we finally left 4,5 hours later than we were supposed to. Nobody on the plane was able to tell us what that would mean for our connecting flight. But we were pretty happy to finally be on our way!

The flight itself was pretty uneventful. We watched some movies on our personal entertainment systems (Gerbert watched National Treasure, I watched Enchantment and we both watched Persepolis) and our food was OK.

The flight was over pretty soon and we arrived at Dulles airport at 7 pm. They still couldn't tell us what to do now, so we just got out of the plane and checked the board. Our connecting flight already left (which was not a big surprise) and we were told to go to United's customer service. The line there was almost as huge as the line we were in this morning, so Gerbert decided to see if he could find us someone else to help. But after a little waiting, a United employee came to us with vouchers for a hotel and a flight for the next morning. The flights to Orlando later this evening were all full.

We were a bit dissapointed, but also happy that we wouldn't have to hang around at the airport anymore, because we were pretty tired.
They said we could get our suitcases, but that this would take us another hour and a half, so we decided to let the suitcases stay at the airport and to just go to the hotel, the Hyatt.

We took the next shuttlebus and were there pretty soon. We checked in, recieved some essential toiletries in a plastic bag and checked out our room, which was great!

We came back to the lobby to eat and drink something (United also gave us vouchers for that) and talked to the other people who were there. We went to our room pretty soon, set the alarm for 5.45 and after that we fell asleep pretty quickly.

Up next: Will we finally make it to Orlando?

 

[bluedolph1n]

Good beginning of your trip report. I almost have the same picture of the hotel room in the Hyatt. It was sadly the flight didn't went well at first, but I'm glad to hear you had a great trip too like we did.

"Groetjes", Sandra

 

[Marjol]

Day 2, Will we finally make it to Orlando?

This morning, after (again) a good night sleep, we woke up at 5.45. We took a quick shower, had a bottle of orange juice for breakfast and watched some news on TV before we headed to the lobby around 6.30. The shuttle bus to the airport wouldn't leave until 6.45, so we had some time left to relax.

We met up with some other people that needed the same flight and we walked outside together. There already was a long line for the bus there, but everyone was still able to get in the bus and to have a seat, except for me! I had to stand, which wasn't a big problem, but it felt kind of lonely.

At Dulles airport, we asked where they put our suitcases. Turned out they were already in Orlando, so we just checked ourselves in. After that, we had the passport control and took a ride to the right building (I still can't believe those transportation vehicles they have there) and walked over to the right gate.

When we were at the gate, we had an hour left before we could board. Gerbert got us hot chocolate and cookies from Starbucks and I tried if I could find a wifi connection on my laptop, but I wasn't able to. The hour went by quickly and before we knew it, we were on the plane to Orlando!
It left right on time and we even got to Orlando 15 minutes before we were supposed to, how's that for a change? And yay, we finally were in Orlando!
We picked up our suitcases, who were in a separate room, and walked to the Alamo desk to get our rental car. There wasn't a big line, but we still had to wait 30 minutes or so, because the people in front of us took a looooong time...
We said "no" to everything they said (Are you sure you don't want a bigger car? Are you sure you don't need extra insurance?) and were directed to the Alamo garage, where we picked out our compact car (we booked an economy, but they don't have those in Orlando, so you get an update to a compact for free!). We chose a yellow Pontiac G5, which would be very easily to recognize in the parking lots.

We drove to our hotel and after going in the wrong direction first, we got there pretty quickly. We checked in, dropped our bags in our fine looking hotel room and decided to head to Typhoon Lagoon, with a lunch stop at Sizzler (which was right next to the hotel). Our original plan had been to go to Universal on this first day, but because it was already 1 pm when we got to the hotel, we thought we wouldn't have enough time left to do Universal.

Lunch at Sizzler was nice. Gerbert got a cheeseburger and I had a steak, which both were very nice. After lunch, we drove to Typhoon Lagoon!

It looked as like it was quite busy... the parking lot was almost full! We had to bark way back on a hill. But we were in Disney, so I was happy after all!
We walked to the entrance and took this "obligatory" picture there:

We were ready to enter the park, so we got our tickets out of our wallets. We entered the first ticket into the turnstile... but it was rejected. We tried again, but it still came back rejected. A friendly castmember tried again, but both tickets just didn't work. That was quite a scary moment.... But the castmember just said he would print some new tickets for us!
Two minutes after that we were in the park with our new tickets in our hands. We thanked the castmember and went looking for a nice seat in front of the big Surf Pool. We took this picture on our way there:

We found nice seats, dropped our towels there and walked to the lazy river, to start of easy. I just love the lazy river...
After that, we did the Crush 'n Gusher "rollercoaster slides", which are a lot of fun. They took some photopass pics of us there, but I only have them in print screen size so far, so you're going to have and wait untill I get the cd
We took a swim in the Surf Pool, went on the Gangplank Falls and swam with the fish (didn't see any sharks) in the shark reef.
It was 4.15 by now and we headed to our seats, where we just relaxed for a while and let our bathing suits dry. About half an hour later, just before the park closed, we decided to call it a day and walked back to our car. We drove back to the hotel, where we got a nice shower and watched some TV.

Around 7, we decided to get a bite to eat at our last year's favorite restaurant, Olive Garden.
We enjoyed our meal there. I had the Tour of Italy, which was great, but too much to eat it all. Gerbert had the mixed grill, which he really liked. We also had some cakes for desert, which were great too. But, to be honest, we especially like the breadsticks here...

We were back in our hotel around 9, and we began to notice we were pretty tired, so we only watched a little TV before we fell asleep...

Up next: Our Epcot-day!

 

[LISAMWDW]

Awesome trippiee so far! So sorry about your rough start! But hey, you made it to WDW!

What hotel are you staying at?

 

[punkin413]

glad you guys FINALLY made it! how annoying about the delays.

i love olive garden, too - their salad and breadsticks are delicious!!!

 

[lovealldisney]

Marjol:

Thank you for writing about your honeymoon and taking us along on all your adventures! I read your other one you wrote and really enjoyed it!

I am so looking forword to your whole trip!! Thank you again!

Oh and I love Olive Garden too. There breadsticks are really yummy!

 

[Marjol]

Day 3; Our Epcot day!

We set the alarm for 7.00, but we were already wide awake before that. The beds were great, but I guess our bodies weren't really used to this timezone yet
We got dressed and walked to the breakfast area to see what we had for breakfast. It looked good. They had bagels, toast, apples, yoghurt, pastries and make-your-own waffles. As for drinks we had a choice between coffee, tea, juice or milk. We both decided to make a waffle and to have some orange juice. It tasted good. While having breakfast, a little girl came up to us, said something to us in Dutch and handed me a present bag. I was very surprised. The present turned out to be from her parents, who are on the same Dutch messageboard as us and who were also staying in the same hotel. What a sweet thing to do! We thanked them, finished our breakfast and got back to our room to look inside the bag. This was in the bag:

Around 8.20 we were ready to go to Epcot! We were there around 8.40, so we still had some time to go to Guest Relations to get the "just married" buttons. Soon after, we heard the first "congratulations!". Something we would hear many more times on this trip

We walked into the park right at rope drop. We followed everyone else to Soarin', but because we can walk pretty fast, there weren't a lot of people in front of us. Our waiting time was 10 minutes and that included waiting for the front row. We love to see Soarin' without the feet in front of us
Soarin' is a great attraction, I still loved it.
We walked to the Nemo pavillion, where we had to take a picture with Nemo and his friends (look at my shirt ):

The Nemo ride was a walk on. There was absolutely nobody in front of us. After the ride, I took a picture with Bruce and we saw Turtle Talk with Crush, which I still adore. It's such a great "show".

On our way to Test Track we came across the same person that gave us the present this morning. She asked us if we wanted two fastpasses for Soarin', because her husband and daughter didn't want to ride it again. We ofcourse took the fastpasses and thanked her. We decided to go to Soarin' first, because our fastpass window had already begun. We waited for the front row again and I still believe that's worth it!

After riding Soarin' again, we walked to Test Track, but there was a 40 minute line, so we got a fastpass. We decided to do Mission Space first. After my frightening experience from last year, I really didn't want to do the orange side again, so we chose the green one this time, which was MUCH better. I was even able to press the two buttons

When exiting Mission Space, we saw these musicians making music on garden suppies. Very cool!

We got quite hungry by now and decided to have an early lunch at the Electric Umbrella. I loved the salad here last year, so I took it again. Gerbert got the chicken strips.
After lunch, we could use our fastpasses for Test Track, so we walked there. There had been some technical problems and the line for the fastpass entrance was huge. We decided to join the line anyway and we were in the cars after about 20 minutes, not too bad afterall. Unfortunately, the photopass machines didn't work when we got out of the ride, but we still loved it! It is Gerberts favorite! We got another fastpass, so we could ride TT again later this day.

We looked inside some shops after this and I got Gerbert to pose with the wedding hats he definately did NOT want to wear

After buying some souveniers, we saw an ice cream shop and decided to get two double-scoop icecreams, not knowing how huge the scoops would be. But we managed to eat everything anyway

From where we were eating our ice cream, we could see the character connection. There were a lot of people in line, but there also were quite some characters, so after we finished our ice cream, we decided to get in line. After a 40 minute wait, we got our pictures taken with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy ánd Chip & Dale. This was definately worth the wait!

After the character connection, we got some free drinks at Club Cool. I was wise enough to NOT drink the Beverly... I learned a good lesson last year
We rode Imagination with Figment, which still is a funny ride, and went to Innoventions, a part of Epcot we missed last year. We played on the Wii there and instantly made plans to get one of those when we get home

We walked to Test Track to use our fastpasses after that, but we first wanted to try Spaceship Earth. We really didn't like it last year because we really couldn't hear what they were saying, but because of the refurbishments they did we wanted to try it again. And I must say, they improved it! We could hear everything now and I really like the interactive ending with the questions about your future and the little movie on the screens!

The fastpass line for Test Track was much shorter this time and we only had to wait about 5 minutes. The photopass machines were still down, but I took some nice pictures myself. I think this one turned out pretty cool!

~~more in next post~~

 

[Marjol]

We decided it was time to leave Future World and to enter World Showcase now. We started on the other side of the lagoon this time, at Mexico, where we did the boat ride with the three caballero's. We got our own boat there because we were on our honeymoon. Quite funny!

At the exit of Mexico, we saw Donald Duck in his Mexico outfit. We wanted to get our picture taken with him and he directed us to kiss and he stood in front of us! I love this picture!

We went to Norway to ride Maelstrom for the first time, because it was closed when we were in Epcot last year. We got our own boat again, even though there were a lot more people in line this time!
After Maelstrom (which was nice) we just walked through World Showcase and didn't go to any movies or shows. We got some pictures taken with characters and even saw Aladdin, Jasmine and Genie doing a little dance!

We loved all the flower and garden festival sculptures. My favorite was Snow White with her seven dwarfs!

At the England Pavillion we watched the British Invasion for a while, the cover songs from the Beatles and except for some false notes, they were pretty good!

At the Canada pavillion we left World Showcase. By now, it was 6.30 and we really didn't feel like having a counter service meal and walking around untill 9.00 for Illuminations. Gerbert was really surprised when I said: "Why don't we leave and just eat something outside the park?", but he also was very glad I felt the same way.

We got a very nice picture taken at the exit of the park:

We drove back to the hotel. On our way there, we had decided we would get a bite to eat at Steak & Shake, which was very close to our hotel.
That place was almost empty when we got there. There were only two other groups, one group of four Spanish speaking girls and a large group with more Dutch people...

We really liked the food. The steakburgers were great and the milkshakes were fantastic. Gerbert had the vanocholate and I had the banawberry shake. You may guess what flavours we mixed...

After the nice dinner we got back to our hotel, where we spent some time watching TV and surfing on the internet before we got to sleep.

Up next: Getting soaked in Animal Kingdom!

 

[punkin413]

great update, marjol! i love the donald picture! glad you liked steak & shake - my DH loves that place but we don't eat there very often because, while the hamburgers, fries and shakes are good, nothing else is and i have to be in the mood for a burger!

 

[Marjol]

Day 5; Getting soaked in Animal Kingdom!

Our alarm clock was set for 7.00, but we were wide awake by 6.30 because of loud noises in the hallway and our connecting rooms. Turned out to be a group of High School kids and they are LOUD! We were really hoping they wouldn't stay for a long time (and thankfully they only stayed for two nights )! It was really crowded in the breakfast area because of all these kids. We were able to get a table, made ourselves some waffles and hit the road around 8.30.

We were going to Animal Kingdom, my favorite park!

We got to AK just before rope drop and saw the opening ceremony.

When the park opened, we walked directly to Kilimanjaro Safari. We did the safari in the afternoon last year and we read that it was better to go in the morning because the animals are more active..... and that turned out to be true! I think we saw almost every animal that is out there. Giraffes, lions, hippo's, crocodiles, hyena's, monkey's, elephants... it was great!

After the safari we walked to Asia to ride Expedition Everest. We ran into these guys on our way there:

When we got to EE, it was surprisingly quiet there! We prepared ourselves for getting a fastpass, but the standby line was only like 10 minutes long, so we got in line ofcourse! EE was great... it is really a fantastic ride. Exiting and well themed at the same time!
When exiting, the line had gotten bigger, so we got a fastpass, which was ready to use in about 30 minutes. We took some pictures of EE.

In the 30 minutes we have left untill our second ride, we decided to ride Kali River Rapids. I always get SOAKED in water rides, so I was preparing for the worst. But this time it wasn't me who got soaked.. I barely even got wet! But Gerbert did... he came out dripping wet...
On our way back to EE, we came across some monkeys. They are always a joy to watch!

We used our fastpasses for EE and enjoyed the ride again. There weren't any castmembers in the picture area, so I took a picture of our picture. I would never do that if anyone was around though... I'm too scared they get mad at me!

After the second ride on EE, we decided to go to my favorite thing in the park... or even in Disneyworld... the Nemo musical! We were there 30 minutes before the show started, but it turned out to be very quiet in the park... they let people in untill 1 minute before the show started!
I loved, loved, LOVED it again... It is soooo great.. I even got all teary-eyed! They don't allow you to take flash photography pics, so I tried to take one without flash, and it turned out very decent!

After looking for Nemo, we went looking for another animal... Dinosaur! We were pleasantly surprised with this ride last year and we liked it again. From the onride picture you can see we knew where the camera was!
I always laugh because of how people look in these pictures... is it really THAT scary?

We were ready to have lunch now and because we didn't feel like burgers and fries, we went to pizzafari. I got a pepperoni pizza, Gerbert got a turkey sandwich and we shared a basket of breasticks. They were yummy! There really should be breadsticks in the Netherlands... or maybe it's for the better they aren't...

~ continued in next post ~

 

[Marjol]

We walked over to Camp Minnie Mickey to see the Lion King show. It was still very quiet there when we entered around 15 minutes prior to the show. We got to choose where we wanted to sit, so we chose the end of the row in the Lion section, which is close to the exit. From there, we would easily make it to the Camp MM characters before the others did.
We enjoyed the show!

After the show, we put our plan in action and we succeeded, because the line for safari Mickey wasn't too bad. The line for Minnie was way too long, so we passed on it. We did get our picture taken with Donald and Goofy though, they are definately less popular than M&M! Goofy got us to hold hands and he put his head between us.. very funny!

We got some icecream after that and just outside camp MM, we saw Lilo & Stitch! They were really playfull, Stitch kept on tickling my neck!

We noticed it was almost 4.00 and because we missed the parade last year, we really wanted to see it this time! We found ourselves a nice viewing place in the shade, just beside the entrance to It's tough to be a bug. We enjoyed the parade, the characters were cute and the animals are really well made!

After the parade, we walked right into It's Tough to be a bug and we didn't have to wait at all with all the parade watchers following us! They directed us right into the movie area. I still loved the show, although I still think they should warn people with small children more... it is quite scary!
And those 3D glasses... very charming!

We got back to Asia to do some stuff we missed last year. We did the Maharahja Jungle Trek there and saw a lot of animals. I especially enjoyed watching the tigers and the theming of the trek!

After this trek, we got on our way to Africa, so do the Pangani Forest Trail, which showed less animals than the previous trek, but was still fun to do. After the trail, we were right next to Kilimanjaro Safari, and because the park was almost closing, we decided to go on this one again. We didn't see as many animals as this morning, but we did see the lions much closer than this morning!

A little after six, we walked to the exit. On our way there, we took this nice shot of Expedition Everest:

All the characters are at the exit too and because we didn't go to Minnie in Camp MM, we decide to get in line for her now.
After the picture, we got in the car and drove to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for our reservation at Boma.

The resort looked really nice and well themed. We were a little early for our reservation, but they gave us a beeper and there were some seats available, so we were fine. Exactly at 7.10, our beeper showed us the red light and we were seated instantly. Our waiter tells us everything we need to know about the buffet and we got our first plates full pretty soon after that. We enjoyed the ambience here, especially considering the fact that this is a buffet.

The food at Boma was really nice and somewhat different, which is very nice for a change! I especially liked one of the soups.
As a surprise, we got a honeymoon dessert plate, but we were so full by now we barely ate anything from it! It was a nice touch though!

By 8.30 we were done and after looking in the souvenir shop, we went back to our hotel, where we had a nice and quiet evening.

Up next: Aquatica, Disney Quest and Cirque du Soleil