Sarah & Brian's Anniversary 8/22-8/25 (Pop)

sarah_n_brian2006

<font color=deeppink>No questions asked and they w
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A quick introduction for those who do not know me, my name is Sarah, 24, and my DH is Brian, 29. We are from Palm Beach County, Florida. I have been going to WDW since conception, and my DH (before me) hadn’t been in so many years he didn’t remember Small World! I work at the most “inner-city” high school in the district, and he works at my DFIL’s Ophthalmology office (Eye Surgeon). We met in February 2004 and became instant friends. I never had intentions of dating him, but fate happens and you have no control of it. That September, between the 2 bad hurricanes that we had that month, we became a couple. That holiday season he had made up his mind that I was the girl he was going to marry, and lo and behold 8/4/06 we got married (and honeymooned in WDW at the Yacht Club!).


Back in April I had an epiphany during a field trip we were chaperoning. We were standing in the middle of Tomorrowland, trying to see the Jabowacz (sp?, the dance group from the Randy Jackson Dance show from MTV) during Grad Nite 2008, and I knew what I was going to do for his birthday, take him to Disney for a romantic trip. When I returned to work that Monday, I made all of the plans. I took my last paycheck from a night job I was doing and bought a pre-paid credit card (so it wouldn’t show on our statements) and reserved a room in the Port Orleans French Quarter.

The next month, I kept changing my mind and eventually rescheduled (for the same nights in October) at the Coronado Springs resort. I had planned our ADRs (not scheduled at that time), and everyday’s itinerary. Then I realized that October would be harder for us to get off of work than I thought, so I had to change plans. I moved it up to 8/1-8/5, our anniversary weekend. I knew that would be harder on us financially than originally planned, and changed the resort to Pop Century.

I had everything planned, ADRs confirmed, carriage reserved and Poly PhotoPass shoot arranged. Every piece was in order. That’s always when something goes wrong, isn’t it? Over the summer, when I wasn’t at my Summer School, I was at my DFIL’s office helping out. One day while I was working, the Front Desk Secretary (who does like 3 peoples work without getting a hair out of place) told me the dates for her cruise in the Mediterranean later that summer. It turned out that our trip was going to be during hers. My trip was blown, as DH would not be able to take off ‘cuz he was substituting her. Time to call W-Disney again!!!

I was able to reschedule it to 8/22-25. The good thing was I now get the discount! Originally I would have paid $99/night. Now I was paying $64! Sweet! The unfortunate thing was I had to change my announcement plans. I had planned for him to go to work as normal, me to skip work and pack. Hide the luggage in the trunk and pick him up for a lunch that was in this new restaurant in Port St. Lucie and that “his parents had given him the day off.” But instead of getting off the highway at PSL, tell him I the meal was at Downtown Disney, and we would come back that night. Then after lunch, check in to the hotel and voila. But 2 problems, 1 our trip was 1 week before my birthday and 2 weeks after our anniversary, so his celebration wouldn’t have worked. 2 was that I was unable to make a 5 day reservation starting on Thurs. in Aug. at a value, so the first day would have to be cut.

Then I knew it. A Scavenger Hunt. I know it sounds corny, but I am and he loves that about me. I went to Home Depot and got a bunch of Mickey head paint samples. I collected and assortment of colors (14, I think) ranging from Blue to Red. Remember the hot/cold game from childhood (“You’re getting warmer. Ice cold. Burning Up!”), hence the color idea. I peeled the heads off the paper, and glued them onto strips of colored paper. On the front, I gave directions to the next clue. The back was info on our trip, including that his DM loved the idea and was giving him the time off. I bought a bottle of his favorite rum (Pirates joke), and a bottle of champagne. The rum was a clue, and the champagne would be with me. Our real anniversary day was very stressful at work, so I was not in the mind frame to celebrate that day (instead we went to his ‘rents house for dinner). Instead 2 days later, I finally had a chance to do it. I left work early, showered and cleaned up the house. Set up the hunt, got myself ready. I went and picked him up after work, and when we got home, snuck out with the champagne in a bag. I told him to open his card on the coffee table and I would be right back. I sat on the other side of the lake, where he couldn’t see me from the townhouse. He doesn’t have much patience so I knew to expect 1 of 2 things. If he came from the street he did not follow the clues, if he came from around the lake, as instructed, then he knew.

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I sat and waited for like forever! Finally he came from around the lake; he had changed clothes like the hunt told him to do, telling me that he was cool with the trip. I was sitting under a tree for shade and once I saw him and was getting ready to pop the cork, these birds above me started screaming. I looked up, and they started to poop! Agh, I moved like the wind. I was spared, thank God. He laughed and sat down on the bench with me. Then we popped the cork and poured the champagne in the glasses. (I made the mistake of freezing it, and it wouldn’t stop foaming, but we poured any ways and it was a little like a slushy ;).) He told me he was excited and couldn’t believe I had made all of these plans without him finding out. We cooked dinner (recipe from Tony’s Town Square for lasagna) and talked about the trip! (P.S. Everyone has to try it, it’s to die for! The lasagna!)

To be continued… Up next, packing, traveling and checking in
 
Happy Anniversary!! What a great idea - a scavenger hunt! Now I can't wait to read all about your trip :surfweb:
 
I am working on uploading and editing our photos. I will have more up tomorrow.
 

Happy Anniversary!! What a great idea - a scavenger hunt! Now I can't wait to read all about your trip :surfweb:

Thank you. I believe I got the idea from this board, except it was meant for kids.

You two make a very beautiful couple! Can't wait to hear more. popcorn::

Thank you so much!:goodvibes

Can't wait to read more. Where do I get the recipe?

I got the recipe from allears.net. I made the mistake of buying the lasanga noodles that don't need the boiling:headache:. So instead we cooked spaghetti noodles and used the sauce recipe portion and it had to be the best sauce I think I ever have had. It is a must try.:stir:
 
The whole week before we left, we finished our packing. I had packed a lot of things 30+ days prior to leaving, so it was nothing much. But DH wanted to pick his own clothes and I think later regretted it (more on that later.) He wanted to change luggage. I had packed in a few duffle bags, but he wanted to put all the clothes in the big suitcase we have. To be honest, the way I pack, it didn’t change the number of bags.

We finished our packing Thursday night after the last load of laundry :laundy:. We packed everything that fit in the trunk in the car, and left the large suitcase in the car. The cooler we left for the morning. We had everything done and ready by 9, so we went to bed early.

Friday Morning, we woke up, showered and finished getting ready. I ate breakfast as normal and packed the cooler. Every single morning, my DH takes twice the time to get ready as I do. I have dedicated the Brad Paisley song, 'waiting on a woman' to him for this. But I had packed the car and everything. Feed the cats a final time and even cuddled with them until he was ready :cat: :cat: :cat: :wave2:. At around 5am, we were in the car driving off.:drive:

We have a McDonalds no more than ½ a mile from my house. That’s how far we made it. DH needed coffee and insisted we stop:mad:. While ordering he decided he needed food as well. He asked me if I wanted anything, but I had just ate. So I ordered a fruit salad to eat later. At around 5:30, we started again. :car::cheer2:

We arrived at Pop Century at around 8am :welcome:. I was so glad to finally be there :jumping1:. The trip finally felt real now. We pulled under the cover as it was raining, long enough to get the luggage out, and a CM came over and told us we were not allowed to park there. (We were there maybe 2 minutes and it was raining). I took the luggage to the luggage call room, and my DH parked the car. I found out that stopping on the right side, you block the buses, they don’t mind when you park to the right. But there was a bus there, so I don’t know why the fuss, it was raining and they have luggage there, and a bus was blocking any other spot. I just figured that the CM was doing his job, but my DH has a bad back, really bad and there was no way we could have parked and crossed the parking lot without killing his back. We were just unloading the car, then DH was leaving. So now everyone knows the innocent mistake we made and others can know “what not to do”.

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We went inside to the check in desk. When we checked in we found out the room that was on hold for us, may not be available until late this afternoon. The lady at the desk said that we could call the number on the card and they would tell us our room number and whether it was available. I confirmed that we had requested a King 50’s section room, and she told me that she didn’t know about the section, but they would do everything they could to get us a king room. She handed us a set of anniversary buttons, our packet and sent us on our way. We walked to the buses and got in line for the Epcot bus, which seemed to take forever.:hyper: :umbrella: All the other parks had 2-3 buses before Epcot finally came.

Did I mention that Fay was hitting Orlando and Central Florida pretty good that day. That morning, the storm started going west and alittle south, I think someone downstairs was trying to ruin our fun. :confused3

More to come… Epcot Part 1 (Pictures added)
 
We finally got to the park around 9:30am. I couldn’t believe it:banana: :banana:! I thought for sure we wouldn’t be there until 10:00ish. So we went to the windows to exchange our vouchers for our 4 Day Play Pass, and waited forever. There was this lady and her daughter standing there saying that she had bought her daughter a ticket online and didn’t print the confirmation page. She used her married name, but the daughter hadn’t fixed her license. The poor CM behind the window could not find a ticket for her daughter. The lady was getting louder. She almost started yelling at the CM:mad:. The CM kept telling her, “I’m looking and I can’t even find a name similar to her maiden or married name.” Finally I got to the window, and my DH said to our CM, “Don’t worry, we don’t yell at innocent employees. We’ll give you how much time you need, the park is open until midnight, I am in no hurry,” and smiled at her. The CM knew what he was saying, and the mother next to us got quiet finally. I think she finally realized how she was behaving. When I gave the CM our IDs, she saw it was my birthday in less than a week, so she made me my own Birthday button to add to our collection.:bday: I wasn’t going to do anything for my birthday, unless DH wanted to do something, because this trip was for our anniversary and a gift to him, so I didn’t want to take over our real reason being there, but I wore the pin that day. We joked around with our CM, while she finished us up, and thanked her, then went on our way. Needless to say, the mother had bought the ticket under the daughter’s new last name, but spelt it wrong and I think either the city or the year her daughter was born was imputed wrong. It was something totally the woman’s fault, but gave the CM cap for not finding it anyways! Audacity! :laughing: :laughing:

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This pic I took with my phone. It looks amazing, huh?
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So, we pass the gates and see the long line at Spaceship Earth and talk about where we’re going to go first, after we get the locker. We decide Imagination and work our way to Coral Reef for lunch. (We had brought a tote bag for our ponchos and a pair of sandals for him inside.) We decided to take the ponchos out and wear them. After we finished with the locker and put on our ponchos we went to Imagination and rode the Figment ride:figment:. Since my DH is an Ophthalmic Tech, he naturally loved the part about sight, with the mock Eye Doctor’s office with the refraction chart. Of course, there was no wait for this ride.

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When we got to The Land we got FastPasses for Soarin’. They came out for 11:35-12:35. It was only 10:20, so we had over an hour to kill. Afterward we stopped at Seasons to get a snack. We split the Veggie Rueben. It was pretty good. After which we rode the Living with the Land ride. I had totally forgotten that they removed the CM's from this ride. In the final section of the greenhouse, the left side (NASA’s display) was boarded up for some reason. I still want to know what they do with the Mickey shape pumpkins! I want one for Halloween!!! We had to wait about 15 minutes more for our FastPasses to be activated. When my watch said time, we walked up to the gates, but their clock was a few minutes behind my watch, so we had to wait 4 more minutes for their clock. I had read not long ago about how they have upgraded the FastPass process and now they have barcodes so that they have to scan and you now cannot go early or late. Well, there was no scanning, and I will write later about 2 experiences with the FastPass horror stories. We got on the Soarin’ ride and rode on the middle row in the middle group. (I couldn’t help but think about that post a few months ago that a man lost his camcorder on that ride and still can’t figure out how that was possible except it was stolen by the next guy over.) It was almost 12:20 by the time we walked out of Soarin’.



 
Great start so far!
We stayed at Pop too! We were in 50's building 1 on the second floor. I thought it was a good location.
I agree with you about the buses. Everytime we got in line for one 5 or 6 buses would come around for the other stops but not ours!
 
We walked over by the Seas with Nemo & Friends so my DH could check on the room, even though I told him that they usually do not release the rooms until after 3pm. Hard-Head!! What a surprise, our room was not release by housekeeping yet, and they didn’t know when it would. Well, duh, Disney freak doesn’t know anything! I have been waiting to ride the new Nemo ride since I first heard about it being constructed. So we went there next.

I love the queue! I think it is so adorable! I felt like I was almost at a beach by the décor. The large room with the boat above, reminded me of the Little Mermaid ride they never built as that was how they were to do the under water effects. The clams were cute too. But then I got disappointed. Each screen repeats the same thing and the speakers are by the screen, so the first part you hear about 10 sets of scenes at once and the way we were lined up, each scene, as we were directly in front started at the beginning. So approaching, we saw the end of the scene, nothing as we were smack dab, then the fish swam in as we were leaving. I thought it was terrible. It was loud and had I not seen the movie, nothing would have made sense to me. I loved the tank projection section with the song. I sang the song for the rest of the day. I was amazed how real it was. I was baffled at how they did it, heck, I still am.

After we got off Nemo, we went inside and walked around. We went everywhere inside. They’ve made several changes since 8/06 when we were there last (on our honeymoon). At 1:45, we walked over to the entrance of the Coral Reef restaurant. Unbeknownst to my DH, I had arranged the special personalized menu and the diver to hold the sign for us. I sent in some pictures of the first day of our first WDW trip together (4 of us and 1 of this perfect Wishes picture I had taken). The message was to say, “Brian, you have made all of my dreams come true. I love you! Happy 2nd Anniversary!” I didn’t think we would get any “Dreams” so I used this “Dream” as a way to say Dream. I’m a dork I know. When we checked in the whole place was packed. I was going nuts in my head about if we would miss the diver:scared: :worried: :ssst: . I seriously would have died if we had missed it. I would have cried and let it ruin my trip. Honestly!!!! I’m totally like that. As soon as we found an open spot on the wall to park ourselves DH saw there was a bathroom right there, so he went in. It was like they were stalking us, as soon as he came out, the hostess called my name. We grabbed everything and approached her. I saw the 2 sets of menus and hoped to God that the small paper ones were not drink menus, but the special ones.

We sat down at a booth near the tank (they have regular tables against the tank) 2nd to the end, in front of the far right window. I peeked in the menu and saw our pics and almost screamed of happiness:jumping1:. I quickly closed mine until he opened his. But he was not interested in the menu, but the tank had mesmerized him. Did I mention I had forgotten only one thing at home. I had all my ressie #, my contacts and everything. I had left my camera at home!!! That made me so mad when I realized it. So I got my phone and took some pictures of the tank. Then he opened his menu, after he put his napkin on his lap and set up the silverware, of course, just to kill me. He shot me this weird look. He said, “How-“, then I interrupted, “I told you I had a few surprises for you!!!” Just then this group of divers jumped in the water. Any minute now, any second now. It drove me nuts. I was holding the camera waiting for the photo, lying saying I was waiting for the stingray to pass. I got tired of waiting and realized that they all must be in Dive Quest, or something. So I started looking at the menu for food. I decided I was going to have the Strawberry Stinger (the virgin Daiquiri) and the Shrimp Caesar salad. I look up the same time as DH. A diver just dove in and is making a beeline for us. Camera, turn on, Darn Phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The diver pointed at me and I shook my head yes. He put the sign to the window. Brian said, “Aww, they got that little girl a diver.” I said, “No, he’s yours. The sign says the same as the menu.” He got so embarrassed. Everyone started clapping and a few people clinked their glasses. All the while I was trying to get his picture. Then the diver started blowing bubbles and clapping. My DH grabbed my phone and kissed and hugged me thank you:love: :hug: . That was the whole point of the trip. That moment. That one moment.

After all the excitement was over, our waitress came and took our order. Brian told her about his surprises and she said, “Oh no! I missed it! I’m so sorry.” I said, “It’s ok. I’m glad it happened so quickly, I’ve been a nervous wreck about not missing him.” When she came back with our drinks she had 2 flutes and a bottle of champagne. She poured our glasses and took our picture. To this day this was his favorite moment ever.

To be continued… Our first view of the room and Epcot part 2
 
Sorry I was sick and have been dog sitting and unable to upload anything lately. But I will go ahead and continue the report without pics for now.

After lunch at the Coral Reef we went outside and called the hotel. It was now 3pm and we should be assigned to a room by now, hopefully. After a 20 minute conversation, we found out that the room we were supposed to have had not been released by Maintenance and may have plumbing problems, and that it may not be until tomorrow that it would be released. She told us that when we return to the hotel to go by the Lobby and have someone at the check-in counter give us new keys to a new room and eerything should work out fine.

So, I had planned on going to the hotel to dry off a bit and relax, so we went. When we got to the hotel, we fixed everything. The only thing that I was not happy about was that they were unable to get us in the 50s section like I had requested, but we did get a king size bed. We were locaated in the 80s section, right next to the huge Roger Rabbit. We had a handicap room on the first floor. I hated the shower from the beginning and contemplated changing rooms. But then I realized we would have a free fridge, and the extra large shower would allow us the opportunity to efficiently save time in the morning, and my husband reminded me of traveling with his mother, who always ruins the check in process by having to have specific rooms. So I called luggage and they brought us our luggage.

We hung around long enough to relax abit and me to unpack, then we returned to Epcot. We started back by going to Canada, and watched the new movie. The new movie was cute, we both liked it.

Then we went to France and shopped around. Once we got in France my Dh decides he needs to go to the bathrooom. So I ask a Cm and she says the closest was in Morocco, just on this side.So I tell my DH to go there, it's before the main building. Wouldn't you know that he can't find it. So I run him there and it's really raining now. I patiently wait for him, and there is this guy standing 2 inches away smoking. I did not see a smoking sign so I let it go that it may be, but my DH couldn't have been fast enough. I tried to move further away, but the rain just kept the smoke coming. I have a breathing problem that has not been diagnosed and man was it upsetting me. By the time he put his cigarette out and tossed it in the flower bed (I thought, "Great! Kill those birds that try to eat that! Gross!") right behind me and walked away, my Dh came out. The man literally walked 10-15 feet just to flick it behind me. I guess my coughing upset him. Jerk! My Dh saw my inhaler and asked what was wrong. I showed him and told him and he got so mad. (I don't think he has the right to complain about the acts of smoking, as he dips, but the way he wen out of his way to flick it behind me POed him).

So we went back to France and ordered a bottle of wine. I tried this awesome glass the the description said Light, Fruity taste. That's my kind there. It tasted slightly watered down at first, but the more I tried, the more I loved. I would have bought that bottle, but I knew it would cost more than I was budgeted for. We walked around the stores and then headed to Morocco. As soon as we got under cover, the rain just started downpouring. It was so bad that we decided that ponchos and the umbrella wouldn't be enough. I wish I had brought guloshes (sp?), even though I was wearing rubber flip flops. We saw a bunch of great things.

To be continued
 












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