Sunday we woke up way before the 8am alarm - mainly because of the torture devices, er, beds we were subjected to the first night of our trip - those and the car alarm going off outside our window. The combination of those two things woke us up around 7am, but the excitement that I was FINALLY getting to stay at the Grand Floridian is what got me moving. I'd been wanting to stay there as long as I could remember and we were finally splurging on it for the wedding week. We'd decided that even though check in wasn't until later, we'd go there first anyway, then go run our other disney errands until our room was ready.
Once we were up we decided we should go to the restaurant next door and get breakfast. My parents had food we could cook, but we were on vacation, and all the food was in the condo next door with my sister, her husband and kids, and we weren't guessing they were up at 7:30 (we were right). So, we took a nice stroll next door and went to Perkins. I have an unexplained love for Perkins. Ok, there's an explanation - they used to have killer salads served in a giant bowl made out of some sort of french/italian bread. I LOVED those salads and would drive way out of my way to get one on a regular basis. This fall some genious decided to nix the bread bowls and raise the price of the salads.
So, now dh and I just go there for breakfast. Anyway, back to the story. We head to Perkins very early on Sunday morning. There are only about 4 other parties there, but one of them happens to be a group of about 15 or so teenage cheerleaders and their chaperones. They were there for the HS cheerleading competition being held at DHS that weekend. To say they were annoying is definitely an understatment. Really, the adults were the worst. We heard every detail of every routine and squad they had seen the day before with detailed critique. On top of that, our waitress seemed to have a lot of trouble managing the crowd - we never got refills or a check. We just left a $20 knowing that would cover it. We ate fast and got the heck out of there!!
So we made it back to the condo to see my parents had rolled out of bed. We showered, played with my sister's kids for a little bit, packed our overnight bag (we'd packed a bag just for that night so as not to have to unload everything out of our packed car) and headed out to the GF around 11. They were all planning to go to DHS early that day, when we left they were still getting ready
We traveled with them once before at Disney and DF and I lost our minds waiting on them, so now we just plan lunches or dinners with them and arrive separately.
When we drove up to the GF I could hardly contain my excitement. We're not used to that level of service, so we kept trying to get our own bags and things, but we got the hang of it. We headed inside to a row of CM's waiting to check us in. On our way in about 10 CM's congratulated us
The CM we had was really nice, she congratulated us (I was wearing my ears of course) and she gave us the just married buttons. DF insisted it was too soon to put on the buttons, so I tucked them in my purse.
She checked and our room was ready. She sent us off with directions and our bags were just a couple minutes behind us. DF was impressed with the service, I was in shock of the whole thing finally happening. It was all really surreal. It took me a couple hours before I got myself back to reality!! Here are a few GF pictures I have from our planning trip since we didn't take any this time!
We wandered over to our room in Sago. We were on the 4th floor in a dormer room with a king bed
DF and I have a king at home, and it just seemed way more honeymoonish to have a King bed and not 2 queen beds. It spoied us though, when we go back for free dining I paid for a King bed upgrade... I was slightly disappointed that we didn't get a concierge or MK view upgrade like so many brides have recieved, but I was happy with the room and didn't want to pout about it, so I let it go. Anyway, I do have pics of the room!! Ok, mostly I have pics of the view and a couple pics I took really quick before we left as I finally remembered we had no pics!!
Our messy room
Dresser and desk
and a bunch of pics of the balcony and our view
Our luggage showed up about 3 minutes after we got in our room. We unloaded it all, unpacked all the clothes into the dresser (well, it's a small dresser, so as much as we could). As soon as that was done we decided to get some lunch and headed down to the GF Cafe. DF is a huge fan of TS dining so we ate at the GF cafe a lot this trip. Of course we didn't have a reservation, but the GF cafe was always empty, so we were seated right away. We had a nice waiter who sat right down and started asking us how we met and when the wedding would be and all that. I was thinking we'd get one of those free desserts that seem to show up like ants to a picnic for some couples, but nothing for us. I did get him to give us the 10% AP discount even though we hadn't yet gone and activated our passes. oops
From there we wandered around the resort for a few minutes and headed off to get our AP's and our DDE card. For those of you planning to do either of these tasks at the MK, know that it's a bit harder than at some of the other parks. First, we headed out on the monorail to the TTC as we assumed we'd do everything there. We were right about the AP's. It took about 10 minutes to get everything done. Of course DF got a pic of Cinderella and Prince Charming (same pic as on the just married buttons) on his AP and I got one with Mickey
How come it always works that way? Last year he had tinkerbell and I had goofy... Anyway, that nice CM put my AP in my soon to be married name for easier use next trip!
and then told us we had to go to guest services in the town hall on main street to get our DDE. Not that it was a big hardship, but it was a lot of back and forth. So, we headed into the MK, got the DDE card, which by the way was only $60. I had an old form in my wedding binder that I was going to mail in before they started doing them on the spot, and on the form it was $65 - $5 saved right off the bat
As we left the town hall the parade was coming by - guess that means it was around 3:30 by then. The park really wasn't that crowded and we were able to watch from the steps of town hall with the AC coming out the door behind us feeling great!! We aren't normally parade watchers, so it was fun to see it from a good spot like that for once.
As soon as we saw the last float about to come into the circle we ducked back out of the park and hopped on the monorail before the rush coming out after the parade. We headed back to the GF, got a cocktail by the pool and hung out in the lobby some. By that time DF's family was almost into Orlando, so we headed out to buy a case of water and meet them at Coronado.
By the time we ran our errand they were in their room already. They got a nice corner room on the first floor with parking right in front of it, but it was about as far as it could be from the food court or the main pool. I know they used the food court for breakfasts that week, but I have no idea if any of them swam, so it probably didn't matter anyway. (CS shot from our trip last year)
They piled into our car (DFil, DBil and DFil's girlfriend) and we took them to the GF for dinner so they could see the WP and get a feel for the size of WDW - they were rookies. They loved the GF (of course) and we wound up eating at GF Cafe again. This time we got our DDE discount! Service for dinner was turtle slow, but we weren't going anywhere anyway, so we didn't mind. Again though, no pixie dust. We took them over to our room before we drove them back so they could see the difference to their room. When we got there we'd finally been visited by tinkerbell!!
We had a rose, a mini bottle of champagne with glasses and a card from mickey and minnie congratulating us. Of course DF's name was spelled wrong (see post 1 for more on that saga) but it was really nice!! That was also our first night of turndown service - LOVE THAT!!
After we returned DF's family to CS, we came back and watched Wishes before calling it a night.
Up next: Day 3 - Animal Kingdom and the great Chef Mickey's drama! (with pictures!!)