Our Not So Scary, Very Merry, Honeymoon - An Oct/Nov 2012 PTR

[silverhaze269]

It is my pleasure to introduce to you my Not So Scary, Very Merry, Honeymoon pre-trip report!

For those of you who don't know me, it's nice to meet you. For those of you who do, it's nice to see you again! Without any farther ado, let me introduce myself&well, ourselves really.

The Cast:
My name is Amy and I live in Nova Scotia, which is on the East Coast of Canada, with my fiancé. Just to give you an idea of where we are located, it's sort of to the northeast of Maine. I work full-time at a store similar to Walgreens, and I'm finishing up my undergraduate degree at a local university. I should be graduating in May, finally!

My love of Disney started on my first trip in 2002, but it wasn't until my second trip in 2004 when I really fell in love with the place It was shortly after that trip that I found these message boards but I didnt join right away. Once I did though, there was no going back. My favourite park would have to be the Magic Kingdom, but Epcot and the Animal Kingdom follow closely behind that. My favourite ride is the Haunted Mansion . So far, Ive stayed at the Port Orleans French Quarter, Pop Century, and the Coronado Springs Resort.

My fiancé works at the contact center for a local branch of a medical insurance company, and loves it. She, like me, loves Disney. Her first trip was when she was 9, and she went with her Aunt and Grandmother. Since then, shes been to Disney World about 6 times. Her favourite ride is Dinosaur, and her favourite park is the Animal Kingdom. Shes a hobbyist photographer, so that park is like heaven for her with all the animals to take photos of . So far, shes stayed at the All Star Music, Pop Century, Port Orleans French Quarter, and the Coronado Springs Resort.

I'm the one in the blue

So, I'm still fairly new to to doing PTR's and TR's so hang in there while I try and figure out how to make things look pretty. I'm sure I'll get there eventually

Index
The Trip
Speficics
Booked!
And Now It's Time For Some Plans
Day 1: We Have to Get Up How Early?!
Life Update
Day 2: Oh The Places You'll Go...or Maybe Not...
Life Update #2
Day 3: This is Halloween, This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...
Weekend Getaway
Excited?
Whaaaat's on the Menuuu?
Mini Life Update and Day 4: The Day of the Mad Dash
Who R U? And Wedding Updates
A Beautiful Non-Disney Weekend
Photo of the Week #1
LGMH Arts and Crafts on a Saturday Afternoon
Nostalgia and ADR's
Photo of the Week #2 and Good News!
Dinner Show or No Dinner Show, That Is The Question
It's all about the food...well, sort of
Recap of Plans Day 1-4
Day 5! (finally)
The Busy Weekend aka, The Long Post With No Pictures (I won't be mad if you skip this one)
Day 6: Food Day...mostly
Food and Wine Stuff and Something A Little Extra
More Food and Wine Stuff and Poutine!
The Disney List: Small but Mighty (so far)
Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Flight Woes
Updates and Recaps: Days 1-6
MIA
Day 7!
Day 8: Slightly Undecided
Day 9: There's a chill in the air...
Days 10 and 11: A Splash of Magic, and Whole lot of Fun
Life Update: T-minus 2 weeks
Day 12: "What's this? There's white things in the air..."
Days 13 and 14: The Day of Awesome followed by Sadness​

 

[silverhaze269]

This trip has been in its planning stages for almost a year now. When we started really planning our wedding, we also were talking about honeymoons and where we’d like to go. Originally, my idea was to take a Hawaiian cruise for a week, then spend a week in Disney World . When I looked into that, I discovered it would be extremely expensive for us, so there was just no way that was going to happen . So now we had to choose, Disney or Hawaii. We were on the fence for a while, and then our Disney vacation rolled around in late May of last year, and once we came home, it was decided. Disney . It really is the perfect fit for us. I was going to propose on that trip, but listening to the voice in the back of my head (and some of my friends), I did it on Christmas day (of 2010) instead. Once we both calmed down enough to talk normally, my fiancé told me that she also had planned to propose on our upcoming Disney trip. Good call on my part I guess! So, a honeymoon there just seemed to fit.

There are a few big things about this trip. The first one is that it’s our honeymoon . The second one is that it’s the first time we’ll be there alone together . It’s also the first time we will have traveled completely by ourselves. It is also going to be the longest either one of us have stayed before - nearly 2 fully weeks .

We are probably going to be doing a split stay, since we will be there so long, and we are also hoping to stay at a deluxe resort for part of the trip, again, another first.

And, the final awesome thing about this trip is that we will be there to get to see Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party AND Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party . I’ve been to the Christmas Party before, and my fiancé has been to the Halloween Party before, so it will be awesome that we can get to do both (hopefully). I also think that we will be there during the Epcot Food and Wine festival, but I haven’t really looked into that yet to be sure…though, that would be another awesome thing to look forward to.

 

[silverhaze269]

So, since nothing has been booked yet it’s just speculation, but after having gone through several date changes, it looks like our final dates will be October 29 – November 11. When I book the trip, I will book it at the Coronado Springs Resort, in 2 parts. The first part being from October 29 – November 6, and then November 6 – November 11. This way we will be able to get park tickets for the duration of our stay, and it gives us room to move around our resort choices for one portion of the trip, or even both if we wanted to.

In planning on how much the trip will cost, here are all the options I ran through:

Staying at the CSR and then the POLY, staying at the POP and then the POLY, staying at an All Star and then the POLY. Then, I decided to try out other deluxe resort options, so it was then the CSR and then the WL, the POP and then the WL, and the All Star resorts and the WL. I also tried the same options with the AKL, and finally, I decided to see how much it would be to stay at the CSR the whole time.

Since it’s our honeymoon I’d like to be able to stay at a deluxe resort for at least a portion of the trip, so that’s why almost all of the options have a deluxe on the last part of the trip. Ideally I’d like to stay at the POLY for the whole trip, but unless we win the lottery that’s just not going to happen, so I’m hopeful that we will be able to stay there for at least a little bit. I should also mention that we’re getting married on October 27th…so we leave for our honeymoon 2 days after , hence, the budgeting.

 

[FairestOfThemAll]

Halloween, Christmas and a honeymoon - sounds like a fantastic trip! ... and your fiancé is a photographer? I'm so jealous of your scrapbooks!

 

[silverhaze269]

Hahaha! She's not a professional, but yeah, our photo albums are pretty awesome...now if I could just get my butt in gear and get stuff together for scrapbooks, we'd be all set

 

[silverhaze269]

It's official, we're going to Disney World!

Last night I caved in, and called to book our vacation. I just couldn't wait any longer! Right after I got off the phone with the LOVELY lady I was speaking with, I made a Disney honeymoon registry. It's crazy, things are starting to fall into place.

SO, I booked from October 29 - November 6 at the CSR (she coaxed me into requesting Casitas, on an upper floor), and then from November 6 - November 11 at the Port Orleans Riverside in one of the new Royal Rooms I will be happy with these choices even if we aren't able to upgrade one portion to the POLY. I'm going to be in such a good mood at work today.

WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD! ​

 

[silverhaze269]

So I just had to post about this...

Today is March 21, which is the second day of spring. I live in a part of Canada where it rarely reaches 85 degrees in the height of summer, and today, it's currently 77 degrees and very sunny. This is pretty much unheard of. I can't believe I'm sitting here in shorts and a tank top with all the windows open. The average temperature for this time of year is around the mid to low 40's. Can you say BUT, I'm right now. I don't want this amazing weather to end! Yesterday was really nice too, probably reached around 72. But wait, there's more. Tomorrow is supposed to get up to 79!

Bring on the heat! I love this weather! It makes me feel like I'm in Florida

 

[OrangeJuice]

Hey there, I'm joining in!

First things first, great timing for your honeymoon. It will be pretty special to see both the Halloween and the Christmas decorations. Secondly, I love your resort choices, the royal rooms look really nice. Thirdly, OMG how weird is this weather? I'm in New-Brunswick and am also wearing shorts and have all my windows open.

Anyways, Nice to meet you and I'm looking forward to hearing more about your plans!

 

[silverhaze269]

Hey there, I'm joining in!

First things first, great timing for your honeymoon. It will be pretty special to see both the Halloween and the Christmas decorations. Secondly, I love your resort choices, the royal rooms look really nice. Thirdly, OMG how weird is this weather? I'm in New-Brunswick and am also wearing shorts and have all my windows open.

Anyways, Nice to meet you and I'm looking forward to hearing more about your plans!

Thanks! This is a trip I've been wanting to take for a while, and I'm just lucky enough to make it my honeymoon

And yeah, the weather here has been weird! Literally, the same temperatures as Orlando the past few days. But it looks like we'll be getting back to more seasonal stuff for the next while I was getting spoiled

Thanks for joining in, and congrats on your Disney honeymoon (I'm about to go check out your PTR before I head in to class this morning)!

 

[silverhaze269]

I don't want this trip to feel rushed, or "forced" in any way. Not that our last trip felt like that at all, it's more so, I don't want to feel pressured to be at a certain park on a certain day, eating at a certain time. I'd like to be able to sort of fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants, you could say. We're going to be there for 14 days (though, not a full 14 thanks to travel time), so I feel like we'll have plenty of time to see and do everything we want to.

Since we're not going on the dining plan, I'm not too worried about making ADR's. That being said, there are some places we would like to get to. These are:

and I'm really hoping that this place will be open for us:

Other than that, it might be nice to get back to the 50's Prime Time, but I'm not going to be too upset if we don't, and Donald's Safari Breakfast might be nice to do again as well.

In terms of park touring plans, I don't think the November hours have been released yet, so I can't plan too much just yet. Last year we both really wanted to try to conquer Expedition Everest and Splash Mountain, but we didn't get to, so I MUST do them this time! The only rides that I don't think I'll do, intentionally, are the Tower of Terror, and Aerosmith Rollercoaster...too much for me . Who knows though, I plan on walking through the line of the ToT and then using the chicken exit, but maybe I'll work up enough nerve to try it

With only one class left and 2 papers to write, I'm starting to get more and more excited for this trip!

 

[oboedm]

Yay for only one more class and two papers! I get that same feeling when I am almost done grading a stack of papers! Such a great feeling! Your plans look great so far-- you a such a cute couple and seem very much in love! Are you going to post anything about your wedding plans? I think you should!

 

[silverhaze269]

Yay for only one more class and two papers! I get that same feeling when I am almost done grading a stack of papers! Such a great feeling! Your plans look great so far-- you a such a cute couple and seem very much in love! Are you going to post anything about your wedding plans? I think you should!

Aww, thanks! I'll probably make a few posts here and there about our wedding plans at some point We're still trying to get everything together, but we've got some of the important things down already. We still need our dresses though, so that's high on my priority list at the moment.

 

[silverhaze269]

*I had posted this at the end of my last update, but as I was looking through my PTR, I decided I'd give it a little TLC, so I re-worked this into a longer post...next post will be a life update*

Day 1: Monday October 29
We will most likely be up really early to catch our flight out of the Halifax International Airport that leaves at 6:15 am...that means our wake-up time will probably be at...dun dun dunnn!...3:45 am - 4 am That flight is scheduled to get in to "New York" at 7:32 am (there is a time difference, though I wish it was just 1 hr and 15 mins) where we have a layover until 9, when we get to leave for Orlando . We're due to arrive there at 12:01 pm

From the Orlando Airport, we'll make our way to the ME bus and head on over to...

The Coronado Springs Resort (in case you didn't recognize that photo)

Our room probably won't be ready when we get there, so we'll store our bags, get our KTTW's and probably head over to a park, or maybe grab a bite to eat and then head over to a park. But which park will we go to?.....

That's right, the Magic Kingdom! It's been a tradition to start our Disney vacations there, regardless if it's been me going with my family, or my fiance going with hers.

I'll probably insist on us going over to Adventureland to start off, where we'll more than likely go on the Jungle Cruise, Pirates, BTMRR, and Haunted Mansion . We may have time to get a few more rides in there, but if that's all we do at the MK on our first day I'll be

Depending on how tired we are/what time of day it is when we're ready to move on, our next stop will be....

The HS has Extra Magic Hours that night, so I figure we can take in those and do Star Tours and Toy Story Mania at the very least, before we call it a day, and head back to the hotel for some well needed sleep.

 

[silverhaze269]

So, I figured it was time for a life-update.

My last university class of my current undergrad degree is on Friday. How the heck did that happen?!?!?! I can't believe I'm almost done! I just have the one class left, but I have to do a presentation in that class, and I have a small paper due that class as well, followed by my final paper which is due April 5th (next Thursday). I'm all ready to present on Friday, but I've been trying to get the article I need in order to write my paper, but I can't find it . My prof gave us a link to where we can get it, as well as showed us how to access these online articles on the first day of class and until now I've had no problems. Why, oh why, am I having problems now? It's just one more article My final paper doesn't have a whole lot of work done on it as of yet, but I have a good idea of what I'm going to write. I wanted to get these few things out of the way before I really started getting into it.

So, the other big thing in my life right now is the wedding. Plans have kind of stalled due to my class being nearly done, and me wanting to get that out of the way before I do too much wedding-type stuff. BUT, we have the ceremony all written out, our caterer lined up, the venue booked, the officiant booked, and our wedding bands paid off and sitting in a safe spot (I've been meaning to e-mail the ceremony to our officiant to make sure everything sounds okay, but it's a modified version of one of the ones he made up in the past so it should be fine). On Friday either my fiance or I has to go pick up the mariage licence. We still need our dresses, we need to do up our invitations, and we need to find a DJ. Other than that it's just small things (decorations, our first-dance song, that sort of thing). We're going with a fall-type theme, so keeping colours to oranges, yellows, reds, and browns. So things are starting to come together

 

[oboedm]

Wow! That is an early flight! However, it will be great getting to Orlando so early! I couldn't imagine doing EMH after an early day, though. I would need a nap in the lobby before even going to MK, LOL!

As for the wedding plans, to quote the A-team, "I love it when a plan comes together." It sounds like you are off to a great start!

 

[oboedm]

Wow! That is an early flight! However, it will be great getting to Orlando so early! I couldn't imagine doing EMH after an early day, though. I would need a nap in the lobby before even going to MK, LOL!

As for the wedding plans, to quote the A-team, "I love it when a plan comes together." It sounds like you are off to a great start!

 

[silverhaze269]

Wow! That is an early flight! However, it will be great getting to Orlando so early! I couldn't imagine doing EMH after an early day, though. I would need a nap in the lobby before even going to MK, LOL!

As for the wedding plans, to quote the A-team, "I love it when a plan comes together." It sounds like you are off to a great start!

Thanks! It's good to have some reassurance Sometimes I feel like we've still got so much to do, and it's only about 6 months away . We picked up our mariage licence yesterday though!

I'm used to having early flights like that, and late nights on our first day at WDW. When I went with my family for Christmas in '07 our flight was supposed to leave early in the morning, but got delayed for a few hours in Halifax, and then we were a bit delayed where ever it was we were connecting through, so that when we got in it was a lot later than we had expected...what was "worse" was that we had tickets for MVMCP that night. By the time we got settled in our resort and got underway we arrived at the MK just as the party was starting. We were really lucky . When we finally decided to call it a night, we pretty much rolled into bed

 

[silverhaze269]

So, since I have the day off today (good thing I checked my schedule last night , otherwise I'd have showen up at 8am this morning, only to be told I wasn't supposed to be there ) I figured I'd pop on over here and start planning some more. After all, I have just over a week to finish my final paper...I've got plenty of time

So, Day 2. Tuesday October 30th.
After having had a long day the day before, I'm sure we will both want to sleep in at least a little. Normally while at Disney we're go go go, so if we're able to sleep in, awesome, but if we're too excited to sleep in we'll probably get up and out relatively early.

We will likely end up grabbing our breakfast from the PepperMarket, but if we're more in the mood for something quick we'll probably grab a quick bite from CafeRix.

(I didn't take this photo, I borrowed it for demonstrative purposes)

(this one I did take though)

Once we're finished getting our breakfast, we may head over to...

Epcot has morning EMH according to the calendar, so if we're up and out early enough, we'll probably want to take those in. If not, we may want to head over to...

The Animal Kingdom. It's my fiance's favourite park, so I know she'll be itching to get over there. Last trip that's the first park we went to because of morning EMH, and it worked out...well, it was interesting. If you want to see what happened, you can find out in my TR (the link is in my siggy).

This is the night that I would like to do the haunted carriage ride over at the FWR, since it's one of the only night's we'd get to do it. It sounds like a lot of fun, and a nice way to spend some alone time together

It depends on which park we end up in as to where we'd be eating, but this might be our 'Ohana night, since it's close to the FWR. Maybe we might even try something over there?

 

[weezy26nm]

Stopping by to say hello neighbor Congratulations on the upcoming wedding Did you already book your flights? I've been holding out for a decent price. Which university are you attending? I'm going to pop over now and read your previous TR (I was going to do the dishes, but they can wait LOL)

 

[silverhaze269]

Stopping by to say hello neighbor Congratulations on the upcoming wedding Did you already book your flights? I've been holding out for a decent price. Which university are you attending? I'm going to pop over now and read your previous TR (I was going to do the dishes, but they can wait LOL)

Hi! and thanks!

We were lucky and had our flights gifted to us They were booked on a TD version of Expedia...not exactly sure how that works, but they were the same flights I had been seeing on regular Expedia. They were also super cheap, I think it was a total of $550 for both tickets one way and home they were around $450 total, so super prices!

I'm going to Saint Mary's. It's a great university I'm actually kinda sad to be leaving, but I'm also really happy to be graduating, so it's sort of bittersweet.

I know that feeling I was on the Dis a good chunk of yesterday when I could have been doing my paper ...but I have it half done as of today, so I feel better about it