**This Relaxation Thing Looks GOOD On Us!-Our July 2012 Honeymoon**NEW TR LINK!!!!!!!

[jc040404]

The room with the "un-magical" carpet!! Blake was just going nuts to see your TR up on my screen. These rooms are so cute!! We all agree with you on the fireworks, btw. They need to last just a bit longer. How awesome is that sink!! Love these pics! I'm ready to go back right now.

Glad you were able to save Ben's shirt!

Can't wait to hear about dinner!! I'm hungry!

 

[729tink]

Super cute room! We need to stay someplace new next time, we're always staying at Pop. Can't wait till your next update!

 

[heaven2dc]

I'm having so much fun reading your TR! Congrats on your marriage - love your pics!

The Royal Rooms are beautiful! I would love to take my granddaughter and stay there (she's only 16 mos old so we may wait until next year). Can't wait to read more about your trip

 

[CAStevens218]

The room with the "un-magical" carpet!! Blake was just going nuts to see your TR up on my screen. These rooms are so cute!! We all agree with you on the fireworks, btw. They need to last just a bit longer. How awesome is that sink!! Love these pics! I'm ready to go back right now.

Glad you were able to save Ben's shirt!

Can't wait to hear about dinner!! I'm hungry!

I wish it was an actual carpet instead of just part of the regular carpet. I guess I understand why that isn’t practical, but it would be FUN! The room was a lot of fun…it was great to discover new details all the time!

Dinner was AMAZING, I can’t wait to tell you about it!!!!

Super cute room! We need to stay someplace new next time, we're always staying at Pop. Can't wait till your next update!

The room was great…so many details to look at! We LOVE Pop, but it was nice to try out something new!

I'm having so much fun reading your TR! Congrats on your marriage - love your pics!

The Royal Rooms are beautiful! I would love to take my granddaughter and stay there (she's only 16 mos old so we may wait until next year). Can't wait to read more about your trip

Thanks for the congrats!

The Royal Rooms are really well done. So much detail!!! I’m sure your granddaughter will LOVE it when you take her!

 

[CAStevens218]

I need to start off this next update with some VERY VERY VERY big news! In December, one of my best friends and I are getting on a plane and flying to INDIA for two weeks!!!!!!! She moved to the US from India when she was about eight, and wants to visit in December, and she invited me!!! I am sooooooooo excited to see a part of the world I never dreamed of getting to!

I can’t believe I get to say I am going to the Taj Mahal!!!!

Now…on to your regularly scheduled programming:

________________________________________________________________

I was really excited about this first dinner. Since we were celebrating, I had decided to book a nice dinner for our first night. We were all dressed up and drove our new rental car to the Grand Floridian!

We parked in the self parking lot across the street and made the short walk through the drizzle that was still coming down to the front door.

We played around outside for a few minutes with the cool vehicles:

We made our way inside and admired the beauty that is the Grand Floridian. That lobby is just so classy!

As soon as we walked inside, Ben started complaining that he was STARVING. We still had about an hour and a half before our dinner reservation because we had gotten our rental car so quickly. I knew we could easily spend the time exploring the Grand Floridian, so I dragged Ben upstairs on the pretense of finding him a snack, while I really planned to distract him in the shops!! Ssshhhh!

We took a moment to admire the band that was playing:

And then we headed into our first stop, Basin.

Seriously, if you haven’t been to this store, go! We spent a good twenty or thirty minutes admiring the soaps, scrubs, salts and lotions. Even Ben enjoyed it, and that is not typical!!!

Here is their display or gorgeous soaps:

I loved this one!

Our favorite part was the sinks where you could try out the exfoliating scrubs.

They all smelled so good and they leave your skin incredibly soft!

We knew we would be coming back here to make some purchases, but decided to do it after dinner so we wouldn’t have to carry anything around.

When we left Basin we headed toward the Grand Floridian’s gift shop, but first spent a few more minutes admiring the lobby from above.

The band was switching off with a piano player, and he was playing now. It sounded so pretty!

We headed into the gift shop and browsed all the fun Disney merchandise.

Ben found this hat with a built in fan! Of course, he had to try it on. It looks really funny, but I bet it feels great on those hot summer days!!

Our next stop was Commander Porter’s where Ben enjoyed checking out the golf gear.

This was a nice store but I was done with it pretty quickly. The CM at the counter was very nice and talked to us for a bit about where we were from and then started telling us about how he was from California. We chatted about the rain and our plans for the trip. It seems like the chat would never end, and I can understand why because the poor guy was probably bored. We were the only ones in the store! But, eventually, we made our excuses and got away!

It was now close enough to dinner that Ben didn’t need a snack anymore. My scheme had succeeded!!!!!

We headed back down to the lobby to pass the time before we could go check in for dinner.

Look down at the tiles when you are walking around the lobby of the Grand Floridian!

We found a comfy couch in the lobby area and listened to the band play.

They eventually switched with the piano player, so we got to enjoy him as well.

We were so impressed by this décor and atmosphere of this lobby! I could have sat there for hours, and even Ben was happy to sit and relax for a bit.

After about 15 minutes, at 5:15, we decided it was reasonable to go check in for our 5:50PM reservation at Narcoosee’s, with the hopes of being seated early.

I knew we had to walk outside to get to the restaurant, so we headed toward an exit. We found ourselves at the Grand Floridian Café before stepping outside. Since we could see that it was now pouring rain, we stopped to ask directions to make sure we were going the right way.

We entered the restaurant at exactly 5:30 and were handed warm towels to dry off with. That was such a nice touch!

The CM checking us in congratulated us on our Honeymoon and directed us to have a seat in the waiting area. They would seat us as soon as seating began, in about 5 minutes.

While we relaxed, a few more groups joined us to wait for their tables. Sure enough, within 5 minutes we were led to a wonderful window table.

We would be spending our first dinner of the trip gazing at the castle and watching the monorail go by! Does it get any better than that?!!?

When we were seated, our waiter greeted us and took our drink orders. I ordered a white sangria and a glass of water with lemon, and Ben ordered some sort of pomegranate adult beverage and a coke.

My sangria was yummy, but Ben wasn’t a big fan of his drink.

With our drinks came yummy warm bread with butter sprinkled with sea salt. I love when they add the sea salt to the butter. That crunch adds so much!

We were using the dining plan but discussed paying out of pocket for an appetizer, as we were doing with our alcoholic beverages, but nothing really stood out to us.

When our waiter came back, we went straight to ordering our entrees.

I ordered the lobster tail and filet medallions, and Ben ordered the filet.

We relaxed with our drinks and enjoyed our bread and the view while we waited for our meals to be prepared.

They didn’t come up super quickly, but we didn’t wait long. We took our first bites and OH. MY. GOODNESS. Everything was DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!

We were pretty quiet for the rest of the meal aside from the noises of contentment we made while we ate!!!!

The filet was juicy and flavorful and completely lean, just how I like it!

The lobster tail was sweet and tasted amazing dipped in the warm butter.

The potatoes were fabulous as well!!!

We ate every single bite on our plates and would have licked them clean if that was socially acceptable behavior!!!!

Our waiter came back to clear our plates and take our dessert orders.

We decided to order two different desserts to share, so we settled on the almond crusted cheesecake and the chocolate mousse. I also ordered a hot chamomile tea as my one non-alcoholic beverage on the dining plan. It seemed like the perfect idea for a rainy night!

We enjoyed looking at the décor of the restaurant and the view outside while we waited for our dessert.

Our dessert came quickly and looked amazing!!

We really loved the almond crusted cheesecake. It was just the right texture and the almond crust added so much flavor and a nice crunch!

The chocolate mousse was kind of blah. It had an odd texture and was a little warm for my liking.

Seriously….this is one of the best meals I have EVER had. I HIGHLY recommend Narcoosee’s!

Our original plan had been to head over to the Polynesian to watch Wishes from the beach, but the rain didn’t seem to be ready to stop any time soon. We made the decision to go back to Port Orleans Riverside and get a good night’s sleep.

Of course, we had to stop at Basin again before we left.

We got one of the exfoliating scrubs for me, a pretty soap for each of my bridesmaids and lotion for one of them and bath salts for the other.

We made the walk back to the car through the rain and started driving back to Port Orleans Riverside.

As we were making the last turn the resort, I gasped. I realized that I had plugged my camera battery into the wall at our table and left it there! I had plugged it in just in case we went to the fireworks, because I would need it. Now, it seemed like a dumb idea and I was so mad at myself!

The last thing we wanted to do was drive all the way back to the Grand Floridian, park across the street, and walk to Narcoosee’s in the rain.

We decided to go to the concierge desk at our hotel to see if there was anything they could do for us.

We parked in the parking lot near the main building at Port Orleans Riverside and headed inside to get in the concierge line.

The CM who had checked us in was still working and she came over to chat with us and see how our trip was going. I told her what a dummy I was and she said she was sure concierge could help.

We explained the problem to Irene, the CM at the concierge desk. She was very nice and helpful and put in a lot of time and energy to get in touch with Narcoosee’s. For some reason, it seemed that no matter who she called, they didn’t understand where she was asking to be connected.

She did eventually speak to them and they had the battery and charger! The problem was, the Grand Floridian had no runners on that night to bring it to us. We said that, if necessary, we could go back and pick it up.

Irene told us to hold off on that. She said go back to the room, relax, and she would see if Port Orleans had anyone who could go get it for us.

We decided to head to the food court first to pick up the refillable mugs that came with our dining plan. It was SO crowded in there we could barely move and the lines looked like they would take forever, so we decided to wait on that.

Back in the room, we unpacked a bit and got organized since our luggage had arrived from the Magical Express while we were out. Everything had arrived despite the fact that only two of the four bags had the yellow tags on them, so rest assured the Magical Express can be counted on!!

After waiting about an hour to hear back, I jumped in the shower and asked Ben to call the concierge desk to check. As he was on the phone, someone arrived at the door with the charger in hand. He yelled through the bathroom door to make sure they brought the right thing, and it was!!!!

Ben thanked the CM profusely and gave him a tip for his trouble. We were SO appreciative of everything they did to help us!!!!!! (Stay tuned…this was only my first airheaded moment of leaving something behind somewhere!!!!)

We were now very relieved and could sleep easy! We got ready for bed and the lights were out by 10:00PM. It had been a fabulous first day and we were exhausted! I’m pretty sure I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow!

Next time: Our favorite Disney breakfast and our first park!!

 

[CAStevens218]

We woke up on our first morning to a 6:30AM alarm. I groaned when it went off, but within a few seconds I realized where I was and I jumped right up!

I stepped outside to check the weather and, thankfully, the rain had moved out. It was cloudy but clearing up, and the temperature felt great!

My phone wasn’t working well in the room, so while I was outside I used it to check for a breakfast ADR at our favorite breakfast spot…Kona! I easily secured an 8:00AM ADR.

I headed back inside to get ready for the day, and Ben did the same after his alarm went off at 7:00AM.

We were in the car by 7:40AM and drove to the Transportation and Ticket Center. We chose to drive there instead of the Polynesian because we were heading straight to the Magic Kingdom after breakfast and figured it was better to leave the car there.

I was so happy to be driving through these gates:

We were there super early, so we got a great spot right in the front row! This next picture is from the car…you can see the TTC right across the road.

We took the quick walk across the street, snapping photos along the way. We were so excited!

We jumped on the resort monorail, and the 1st stop was the Polynesian, so we barely had time to settle in before we were getting off again!

It was great to be at the Polynesian. We LOVE that resort….everything from the great restaurants to the atmosphere….it even has its own smell!!

When we walked in we went straight to Kona and checked in. We were seated immediately, at a booth for two on the right side of the restaurant.

We ordered right away for a couple of reasons. 1st…we had been discussing what we would get for months, so we didn’t need to think about it at all. 2nd…we were determined to be at Magic Kingdom for rope drop!!

We ordered orange juice for Ben, Lilikoi juice for me, and Tonga Toast and a fruit plate to share.

Our food came out quickly, and it was everything we had been drooling over every time we talked about it!

Tonga Toast cut in half:

Syrup, butter and strawberry sauce:

Everything was seriously delicious! We ate every single bite! The Tonga Toast was warm and sugary and the fruit was perfectly ripe and sweet.

Kona is our go-to spot for our first morning in Disney World. I wish I had some Tonga Toast right now!!!!!

We were done eating by 8:30AM, paid our bill, and took a minute to wander around the shop across from Kona. We just couldn’t enjoy ourselves shopping though..we were too excited to get to the Magic Kingdom!!!!!

We got on the monorail at 8:40AM and took in the sights as we rode to the park.

Very soon, we were getting our first glimpses of the Magic Kingdom…it felt so good to be there!

Up Next: Our morning at the Magic Kingdom

 

[729tink]

OH MY GOODNESS!! India?? That's so exciting! We have a friend who was born in India as well and I'm always bugging him to go back with him. You're a lucky duck!
I'm glad that they took care of the charger for you - love Disney service! Your meal looked delicious. What a great start to your honeymoon! Keep the updates coming

 

[CAStevens218]

OH MY GOODNESS!! India?? That's so exciting! We have a friend who was born in India as well and I'm always bugging him to go back with him. You're a lucky duck!
I'm glad that they took care of the charger for you - love Disney service! Your meal looked delicious. What a great start to your honeymoon! Keep the updates coming

I could not be more excited about India!!!!!!! Its one of those places I never dreamed that I would get to see and now I'm going! I still can't believe it!

I was so thrilled that Disney was able to take care of getting the charger back to me. I was especially thankful not to have to go back out in the rain!!!

 

[happy2012]

Great TR so far!! Love the bride's man!! Unconventional weddings are always the best! The Royal room looks so pretty!! I'm super excited for our 1st Narcoossee's meal coming up but now you have me wanting to add Kona's breakfast!! The fruit is beautiful!!

 

[CAStevens218]

Great TR so far!! Love the bride's man!! Unconventional weddings are always the best! The Royal room looks so pretty!! I'm super excited for our 1st Narcoossee's meal coming up but now you have me wanting to add Kona's breakfast!! The fruit is beautiful!!

It was a lot of fun to have a "bridesman"...everyone got a kick out of it!!! I made him hold my flowers during the ceremony!!!!

The Royal Room was gorgeous, and you will LOVE Narcoosee's! Kona is amazing as well...you don't even really have to plan it if you go early enough...we made that ADR the day of!

 

[CAStevens218]

There is nothing like arriving at the Magic Kingdom for the first time on a trip!

The monorail pulled into the station and we made our way down the ramp toward the gates.

This was our first glimpse of summer at Walt Disney World. It was about 8:45AM and the area in front of the train station was at least three times as full as we had ever seen it at the same time on one of our winter trips.

It was a little bit of a shock, but we knew that we had a good plan and knew what we were doing, so we quickly made our way through the gate. We entered at a ticket machine toward the left, and were able to find a spot to the left of the train station near the tunnel where we would enter.

Here was our view:

And here we are….excited!!

We barely had to wait at all…the welcome show started at 8:50AM!

As soon as the show ended, we joined the crowds entering the park.

We took our time and soaked in the moment as we walked down Main Street!

To me, this is one of the most magical times of day at the Magic Kingdom. The music is playing, the CMs are outside waving hello, everyone is excited, and, on this day, Chip and Dale and Alice were walking down the street heading to their meet and greet spots!

We decided to stop for some photopass pictures first…we could already feel how hot the day would be and I knew this was probably the only time I would look decent enough for a nice photo!!

We continued to head up Main Street and turned right to cut through the Noodle Station on our way to Tomorrowland.

Our first ride of the day would be Space Mountain. We always try to make this our first ride, since it was the first one we did on our first trip together. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t, but on this trip, it was first on the list!

As we approached the ride, we noticed a huge line outside. It went almost all the way to the Lunching Pad! We figured there must be some hold up in letting people inside and jumped in line.

The wait time said twenty minutes, and it probably took that long from the end of the long line outside the ride to the time we were finished riding.

This ride was a lot of fun, as always! On the way out, we had the cutest, most excited little kids behind us! The whole walk about they kept yelling about how AWESOME the ride was! Their excitement was contagious!!!!

Our next plan was to get fastpasses for Buzz, but the wait was only 5 minutes, so we jumped right in line.

The ride was walk on, and we were soon battling the aliens!

Did I mention that I really stink at this game? I can never tell where my laser is!!!!!!!!!

Obviously, Ben kicked my you-know-what!

Our next mission was to conquer Frontierland, so we made our way there through the hub so that we could admire the beautiful castle along the way!

Despite the crowd at rope drop, we couldn’t seem to figure out where they all went, because this is what we were seeing:

No complaints, of course!

We made our way to Big Thunder Mountain and walked right on!

We love this ride! It was so much fun!

We exited the ride and made our way toward Splash Mountain, where we grabbed fastpasses.

The wait was only 10 minutes, but we decided to take advantage of short waits in other places before we got all wet!

We started to make our way toward the Haunted Mansion next, but we found a friend to visit with first!

Our first character of the trip!

After our visit, we continued to make our way to our next ride. The crowd level was still not a problem!

We stopped to admire the view along the way. I love this next shot!

...continued in next post...

 

[CAStevens218]

We finally made it to the Haunted Mansion. We decided to go through the regular line and save the interactive side for a night time ride!

As we entered the stretching room, there was a little girl who was NOT having it. She was screaming, screeching, crying, kicking, and trying to run out. Her family just kept saying, she’s fine, she’s fine, and pulling her along. Now, obviously, I know she WAS fine and would most likely enjoy the ride once she got on it…but that screaming was so loud it hurt my head in that tiny little stretching room!

On the ride, we got stuck in the graveyard scene for a few minutes, and it was a lot of fun to look around! I wish I could get stuck in every scene!!

After our ride, we checked the Mobile Magic app and saw that the wait for Splash Mountain had gone up to 40 minutes. We decided to wait for our fastpasses to be ready, and made our way to Pirates of the Caribbean instead.

We saw the adorable Mickey shaped pretzels along the way!

The crowds in the walkways were still nonexistent. I was so surprised…definitely not what I had expected in July!!

I just love looking at all the buildings in this area!

As we were walking into the area of Pirates, I was telling Ben how much I wanted to meet Pirate Goofy….and there he was!!!!!!

I was so excited! We jumped right in line.

Of course, I managed to close my eyes in the picture…oh well, I guess my excitement got the best of me!

We jumped in line for the ride next.

This one is always fun!

I always wish I could just walk through rides like this (Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Pooh, etc…) and take photos without the ride movement!!!!

We made our way back to Splash Mountain next to use our fastpasses.

The standby line was SUPER long….and I got quite a bit of satisfaction from speeding right past in the fastpass line!!

**Related side note: Ben and I were at Six Flags New England a few weeks ago and they have a fastpass type deal that costs $40. Of course, we didn’t buy it, but when we were in the water park area we were waiting for this really cool looking water coaster that was the slowest loading ride EVER! The fastpass people just kept speeding past us. I told Ben this was my pay back for getting so much satisfaction out of it at Splash Mountain!!!**

Anyway…as we got onto the ride, there was a man with two kids in the front row of our log and we were in the second row. He asked us if we wanted to switch, because he didn’t want the kids to be scared in the front row. The funny part was that, for the whole ride, he was the one freaking out at every drop. Each time we came to one of the little drops, he would say “Oh man, here is comes. Is this it? Ohhhhh boy.”

At the end of the ride, he turned to the kids and said “That wasn’t so bad, I could do that again!” I asked him who was REALLY scared of the front row, and he pointed to himself!!!!

Anyway….enjoy the ride to the briar patch!

This one is super blurry but I think it looks kind of cool!

By the time we got off the ride, it was 11:30AM and we were starving! All that riding makes you hungry!

We already knew we wanted to go to Columbia Harbor House for lunch. At this time, there was absolutely no line, and we walked right up to the cashier to order.

We ordered one meal to share, since we had a dinner ADR later and wanted to be hungry. We ordered the chicken nuggets and fish basket with French fries. We got the apple crisp for dessert and a large lemonade to drink.

We had to wait a few minutes for our food, so I looked around the restaurant from where we were standing. I love the décor here!

Once we got our food, we decided to head upstairs to eat. We found a nice table by the window to enjoy our lunch.

Here is the view from our table:

Our lunch was hot and delicious! This meal is soooo good!

The nuggets, fish and fries are hot, crisp and flavorful.

The apple crisp has delicious crust and the apples are perfectly cooked to be soft and yummy!

We wolfed this meal down pretty quickly! Sharing was just enough to fill us up without being stuffed.

...continued in next post...

 

[CAStevens218]

We left happy and headed toward Main Street to exit the park. We wanted to relax a bit before our evening plans.

The crowds were still not that bad as we made our way out.

Is it possible to walk past the castle without taking pictures??

We walked slowly down Main Street and enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells.

We saw these guys putting on a show, so we stopped to watch.

They were almost done when we walked up, but it was nice to see the little bit that we did!

Before we exited, we walked up to the train station platform to enjoy the view.

This is just magical to me. You can see Pluto and Daisy meeting guests, and everyone on Main Street having a wonderful time.

Sigh…I wish I was there right now!

We walked back to the monorail to head back to the TTC.

We got excited to see Narcoosee’s from the monorail!

When we got back to the TTC, we knew that it had been a short walk from the car to the monorail, but we couldn’t figure out where we had walked from!!!

We did see the shuttle stop to take guests to the parking lot, so we decided to ride since we couldn’t figure out where to walk!

We had to wait a few minutes for a shuttle, definitely could have walked faster if we could find out way! Oh well, we got to the car soon enough and made the quick drive back to POR.

Up Next: Hollywood Studios!

 

[jc040404]

Have I said how much I love your picture recently? I don't know what it is about the colors, but you make WDW look amazing.

I've been reading, but not the best at comments since school started again..

How awesome about India!! Hope you have a great time!!

Fun MK day!! Loved the guy on Splash. That's so Andrew at all the small drops, even though he loves it. I'm still scared of that one!

Those Mickey pretzels are so cute!!

Main Streets looks crazy busy in those last few pics, but it didn't seem like you had much a crowd issue!

 

[CandleontheWater]

I saw you TR and I decided to join along!

I was hooked when I saw you got married at Mystic Aquarium! I grew up in CT and all my family still lives there. We actually thought about having our reception there ourselves! It looked awesome.

I'm also loving the Disney aspects of your TR. You guys are off to a great start at the MK, and its great you were able to get there so early and beat the crowds!

 

[librarymouse]

Hi, I'm just joining in! You guys had such a productive morning in MK! Can't believe how much you had done by lunch time! Your pictures are great, they really make you feel like you're there!

 

[scottny]

Hi,
Great report and pics.

The wedding pics with the whale are great. Looks like it was a beautiful wedding.

The Royal Room is really nice.

Crowd level looked good.

Never tried CHH but maybe one day.

Looking forward to more.

 

[CAStevens218]

Have I said how much I love your picture recently? I don't know what it is about the colors, but you make WDW look amazing.

I've been reading, but not the best at comments since school started again..

How awesome about India!! Hope you have a great time!!

Fun MK day!! Loved the guy on Splash. That's so Andrew at all the small drops, even though he loves it. I'm still scared of that one!

Those Mickey pretzels are so cute!!

Main Streets looks crazy busy in those last few pics, but it didn't seem like you had much a crowd issue!

Thanks for the picture compliment…I usually don’t take too much time to edit my pictures but I spent some time on it this time around!

I’m sure you are super busy now that Andrew is back in school…and a 1st grader!!!!!

I could not possibly be more excited about India! I got my passport renewed with my new married name on Wednesday!

The guy on Splash cracked me up! He decided he loved it at the end though!

I was never hungry when I saw the Mickey pretzels so I didn’t get to eat one…but they are super cute!

It definitely started to get crowded as we were leaving, but our morning was pretty crowd-free. Those Main Street pictures are some of my favorites!

I saw you TR and I decided to join along!

I was hooked when I saw you got married at Mystic Aquarium! I grew up in CT and all my family still lives there. We actually thought about having our reception there ourselves! It looked awesome.

I'm also loving the Disney aspects of your TR. You guys are off to a great start at the MK, and its great you were able to get there so early and beat the crowds!

Welcome, thanks for reading!!!!

We LOVED having our wedding at the aquarium! I should have my professional photos really soon, so I will have to share some!

Getting there early is the best!! It is so nice to be able to get so much done, especially in the summer!!

Hi, I'm just joining in! You guys had such a productive morning in MK! Can't believe how much you had done by lunch time! Your pictures are great, they really make you feel like you're there!

Welcome!! Thanks for joining in!!

We had a GREAT first morning…we got so much done and were eating lunch by 11:30AM!

Hi,
Great report and pics.

The wedding pics with the whale are great. Looks like it was a beautiful wedding.

The Royal Room is really nice.

Crowd level looked good.

Never tried CHH but maybe one day.

Looking forward to more.

Thanks for reading along!

We had a fabulous time at our wedding, thanks for the compliments!

The Royal Rooms were a lot of fun…so many details!

The crowds in the morning weren’t bad at all. It was much more crowded than we are used in the winter, of course, but that morning worked out great for us!

We love Columbia Harbor House! Give it a shot when you get a chance!

 

[CAStevens218]

Once we finally figured out how to get to our car at the TTC, we made our way easily back to Port Orleans Riverside to take an afternoon break. We went to the room to change and made our way to Ol’ Man Island.

As you can see, it was a gorgeous day!

Our first stop was actually the food court to fill up our refillable mugs. Then we walked across the bridge to the pool.

We had a little trouble finding empty pool chairs, but we finally found two together in a shaded back area near the waterslide.

We got settled and then went to jump into the pool. It was the perfect temperature, and, despite the lack of available chairs, not very crowded at all!

Ben decided to enter via the waterslide, which he said was just okay.

We spent about an hour floating around and enjoying the refreshing water. We played along (between the two of us) with the “guess the movie quote” game that the kids were playing.

After a while, Ben decided to head back to the room to take a nap, and I decided to stay and nap in the pool chair. It was perfect and comfortable in the shaded area we had found, so I got comfortable and was asleep within seconds!

I woke up chilly, and opened my eyes to see some dark clouds rolling in. I packed up my things and made the walk back to our room.

This next shot is looking back at the pool as I walked away. Our spot is just outside the frame, to the left.

I took my time walking back, snapping pictures as I went.

POR really is a beautiful resort! I enjoyed every time we walked somewhere because there was so much to look at!

I made my way past the quiet pool around the corner from our room and made a mental note to spend some time there!

As I was entering the room, the skies opened up and a downpour started! Perfect timing!!

Ben was still napping, so I jumped in the shower and started getting ready to head out for the night. While I was in the shower, a CM came to the door and dropped of this Congratulations card with a photopass card attached.

We thought that was a really nice touch!

Ben had woken up when the CM knocked on the door, so he got up and got ready, and we headed out to our next destination, Hollywood Studios.

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We had originally planned to take the bus to Hollywood Studios, but taking the car was just SO convenient that morning that we decided to stick with it.

We ended up getting a parking spot within walking distance of the entrance, and were through the turnstiles at 4:50PM.

I had a very specific goal for this day, so we headed straight to the Animation Building, where I knew we would find a bunch of characters!

“Characterpalooza”, which I had found out about here on the Dis, did not disappoint!

The characters there included: Mary Poppins & penguins, Chip & Dale, Max, Minnie & Pluto, Rafiki, Belle, Stitch and Meeko.

We chose to get in line for the characters that we hadn’t seen before:

And a couple of our favorites as well!!!

I love those chipmunks!

A cute moment happened while we were waiting in line for Mary Poppins. Chip &
Dale came out from the back and stopped to say hi to Pooh, who was out doing meet & greets in his area. They all hugged and waved and acted all excited to see each other.

I got my camera out too late…but it was a fun moment!

After our character pictures, we headed back out to my favorite part of Hollywood Studios.

Anyone? Anyone?

Tower of Terror of course!

The line was too long for us to want to wait in, so we grabbed fastpasses with a return time of 9:00-10:00PM.

As we were walking away, we saw that the 5:30PM Beauty and the Beast was about to start, so we headed into the theater. It was already really full, so we ended up sitting in the bleachers wwwaaaayyyy in the back. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked out fine for us.

We were so far back that we could actually see this from out seats:

I really love this show! I think it is so well done, and nothing beats that music!

I want to wear one of those pink dresses so badly!!!!

I hope you enjoyed the show!!

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