I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures of this day. I hadn't gotten into the mode of taking pictures yet and there wasn't too much to photograph anyways. So pictures are provided by wherever I could find them 
. Also, I decided to do the "Glad I Did/Wish I Had Done" for the end of the trip report.
No matter how many lists or how much I plan, I am always up late packing, cleaning, stressing the night before we go on vacation. After checking my list numerous times and making sure things were as organized as they were going to get, I finally decided to lie down at midnight. And then I stared at my ceiling for an hour or so
. My mind was racing with a thousand different details and the excitement of thinking about the upcoming week. I had the alarm set for 3 a.m. We needed to leave by 5:15 a.m. to catch our 7 a.m. flight (the airport is about 20 minutes away, but I wanted to leave plenty of time in case anything should happen!).
After getting about two hours of sleep, the alarm goes off. I got up and showered, obsessed over my lists dozens of times, tried cleaning the house some, and eventually woke Matt up. Matt had dropped the dogs off at the boarding facility the day before and it was so strange not to have them around that morning! Matt gets up and it takes him all of fifteen minutes to get ready.
After loading up the car, we start heading for the airport. I realized I had a few checks I wanted to deposit before we left so we stopped by the bank’s ATM and made a quick deposit. Matt made an illegal U-turn, which we realized too late. I was digging in my purse before looking up to see the no U-turn sign and said something to Matt. He said he was so busy looking at some crazy bush/tree on the side of the road he hadn’t noticed. Luckily, there are zero cars on the road at 5 a.m. on a Saturday and we continued on our way joking about how it would be our luck to get pulled over and miss our flight because of an illegal U-turn.
We uneventfully arrive at the Norfolk airport and park in the long term parking garage. I was way too excited and just wanted to get this part of the trip over! We dropped off our luggage at the Southwest desk (our suitcases were already 48 and 49 lbs.!
). My parents had taken a lot of our wedding related stuff (including my wedding dress) so that really helped. We go through the longest, slowest security line and I went to buy a Coke Zero while Matt was putting on his shoes (for the bargain price of $3.50! The soda not the shoes…
). We wait for what seems like forever at a packed terminal gate. I like that you don’t pick your seat in advance with Southwest, but I always find it annoying that there’s no organization to the line of people waiting to board. I have been B5 before and have seen people with B40 a few people in line in front of me and everyone gives you death stares if you ask them what their ticket number is to find your place in the group. We eventually make it on the plane and we’re about 5 rows from the back of the plane, but have the whole row to ourselves. Our plane departs on time and after about ten minutes in the air, I am over it. I am so excited and the tiredness is starting to set in and I just want to keep moving! I can’t sleep on planes (or cars, or really anywhere that isn’t a bed or couch). I tried to keep myself busy with iTouch games and writing Christmas cards, but nothing could distract me. Matt pretty much slept the whole time or made shadow puppets on the backs of the seats in front of us whenever the sun would come through the window just right
.
FINALLY the pilot comes on and announces our descent. We get off the plane (without bulldozing the incredibly slow people in front of us) and hightail it over to the Magical Express area. I knew what floor it was on, having used it before, so I confidently take Matt’s hand and guide us to the right floor. However, we’re on the wrong side
. Whoops. It’s about 10 a.m. at this point and I try to get myself to slow down and just enjoy being in the moment. Even if that moment is sitting across from a Dad yelling at their kid by a rental car desk waiting for Matt to use the restroom before we head to the other side.
We eventually made it to Magical Express before I realize the vouchers I had were for when we were leaving Florida! I had to do two different Magical Express reservations since our arrival was at the Polynesian booked through Disney and we were leaving from Old Key West booked through a member. We were directed to a different desk to get new vouchers printed before proceeding to the Magical Express lines. Matt was impressed with the newness of the bus and the little video that they played. I was impressed that the Polynesian was our first stop! Woo hoo!
It was about this time that Matt starts saying how he hadn’t had the time to get a haircut and a list of things he forgot to bring or purchase before the trip. I know what he’s doing. He’s hoping if he does this enough trips that I will take over packing for him
. Not working. I told him our only opportunity for him to get his haircut will be right after we check in because, otherwise, the next two days were packed.
Magical Express drops us off at the Polynesian and we proceed to walk over to the Ticket & Transportation Center. I needed to buy my annual pass before checking in to be able to get the 35% annual pass discount on the room. The weather was so beautiful and it was about this time it was starting to hit me that we were finally here and what a wonderful trip this was going to be. We wait in line at the T&TC and get my pass. We had bought $2,000 in $50 Disney gift cards at Target (in groups of $200-$500 in the months leading up to the trip) to be able to get 5% off. I used $600 of the gift cards to buy the pass and another $400 in gift cards on the balance of the room at the Polynesian. We also used a few of them for our family dinners at Ohana’s and Biergarten and Matt used some when he went to ESPN club. Needless to say, they went fast!
We walked back over to the Polynesian and went back to the valet area. I had learned from a previous trip staying at the Polynesian club level that if you walk over to the concierge check-in area without assistance that you will, apparently, throw a huge monkey wrench in all that is organizational at the Polynesian concierge. There was a lady waiting with a clip board back by the valet area. We told her who we were and she walkie-talkied to someone else that she was walking us back. She was very friendly as we walked and I was just so very excited. I will probably say that a lot in this trip report, but I really just could not believe that I was there and that everything was happening and how lucky we are. She walks us into the Hawaii club level building and to the check-in area. We had a very nice CM checking us in who even had “Just Married” buttons waiting for us (which I proceeded to tell Matt in an excited whisper that these buttons are “rare”. He just looked at me like I was crazy, but then said “like, make money off of Ebay rare?”
). I was even more excited when he told us they had a room ready for us. I had secretly hoped for an upgrade to a theme park view, but having a room ready was a very welcome surprise. Especially when everyone else who came in while we were checking in was told that their room wasn’t ready.
We walked to our room and dumped our carry on stuff and the beds looked awfully inviting, but we were on a mission! First and foremost, we were starving. Not having eaten any breakfast and it being about 11:30 by this point, we walked over to Capt. Cook’s and enjoyed a nice lunch outside on the patio. He had the pork sandwich and I had the grilled cheese. Both were good, but not as oh-my-goodness-best-food-ever good as some websites tout them to be. After lunch, we hopped on the monorail for the Contemporary. He was going to get a haircut in the salon there and I was just going to waste time eating cupcakes
. He said his flip flops were bothering him and he really wanted some new shoes (even though he had 3 other pairs of shoes in his suitcase...). I didn’t know where he was going with that as it wasn’t like there was a Rack Room shoes in the Contemporary or anything. I should’ve known he had been eyeing someone’s shoes on the monorail ride over that had a Mickey on them. We stopped at the gift shop at the Contemporary and sure enough, they had the shoes. So $60 later, Matt owned his very own first pair of
Crocs, which he then proceeded to tell anyone who would listen the following, “These are Crocs! Can you believe it?! They don’t even look like Crocs, do they? You know, because I don’t want to be one of “those” people. These totally don’t count as Crocs…right??”
Picture of shoes that he bought and still loves:
I can't find a picture online of the exact shoe, but they look like this with a tiny standing Mickey silhouette on the upper corner.
After some searching, we eventually found the salon on some hidden floor that nothing else was on. I just heard today that the salon closed and I can see why! Talk about hidden and out of the way. The one stylist was very friendly and said she would be right with him. She was finishing up some other guy’s haircut. Really? It’s an epidemic of men not getting haircuts prior to trips?
I left Matt to wait and headed up (or down?) to the Contempo Café. It was pretty busy, but I grabbed a soda and a Worms ‘n Dirt cupcake. It was a chocolate cupcake with a sort of chocolate ganache top with, of course, “worms” coming out of the top (and all throughout the cupcake). I found one empty table and made myself at home. I ate a couple of bites of the cupcake, but really wasn’t a fan. It tasted very processed or “fake”. I had a few of our guests texting me that they had just arrived or other friends just wanting to chat so that kept me busy. However, being a party of one at a four person table at a busy counter service restaurant didn’t go over well. I had a few people ask me, “Are you almost done?” There really was no other place for me to go and sit (even the benches and seating areas on this floor were packed) and since Matt had left his cell phone with a co-worker to handle business while on the trip, I had no way of communicating to him that I had left the floor I told him I would be on.
Worms 'n Dirt Cupcake
About 5 minutes before Matt arrived, I had a very nice lady ask me if she could just sit down long enough to feed her toddler/baby. I told her sure and she looked so grateful. Matt showed up and gave me a strange look for sitting at someone else’s table. He ate half of my cupcake in about 2 minutes declaring it delicious. The woman at our table had other people in her family that were going through the line and they were all trying to find tables/chairs. We told her we were leaving (as Matt was still trying to shove cupcake in his mouth) and her group was thankful to be able to sit together. We took the rest of the cupcake and my drink down to the pool area and sat at one of the patio tables. It was such a beautiful day and I could have sat there forever enjoying the sounds of the boats going to/from Magic Kingdom and the kids laughing and playing in the pool, but the day was starting to catch up with both of us. We headed back upstairs and took the monorail back to the Polynesian for a well-deserved nap.
Up next end of day 1! Running errands with my parents, dinner at House of Blues, and fireworks at the club lounge at the Polynesian!
Congratulations!
Congrats on the success of your wedding diets. I think that deserves a minicake.
Happy Wedding Day!!!
His was blue and green and had flowers all over the trim. 
with suspense at how your mini cake turned out!).
Have you seen the snickers commercials where people turn into mean celebrities when they're hungry? It makes me laugh!
Truly! We took a big extended family trip in '96 and then one with Matt and I, my brother, and parents in '12. I think Disney is done best with just your group of people (in our case, just the two of us!)!
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