Trip Report: YC/Portobello/Disneymoon 4.23.07; COMPLETE as of 6.3.07!!!

[purplegirl247]

On Wednesday, we got up at 5 am to get ready for our MK photo shoot. I was a little nervous because some other Disbrides have had some trouble with the attitude of some of Disney’s photographers. Luckily, we never ran into that. Our photographer, Tom, even called us to make sure we were awake, treated us very courteously, and said that Randy was a good guy. I think my favorite part about the whole experience was being driven on the streets of MK before it opened. Very surreal. I think I liked that part even more than the pics themselves!

Link to our pics, including our honeymoon shots that we took later in the week...

Actually, skipping ahead, our honeymoon shoot was on Friday afternoon at 3:30 pm. That photographer, Bryan, was super nice and quite the trooper. Apparently they usually schedule these things in the morning for a reason: it was pretty crowded and RIDICULOUSLY hot. But because Bryan is some sort of GENIUS, you can’t tell either of those things in the photos he took. I honestly think his photos are my most favorite of them all, even including Randy's. I can’t wait for three years to go by so we can buy them.

Oh, and if you click on the favorites folder, you’ll see which ones we liked best.

http://www.collages.net/disneyweddings

Username: Persons / Pratt Wedding
Password: 1971

OK, back to regularly scheduled programming. On Wednesday we took the Hidden Treasures of the World Showcase tour, which was also phenomenal. We learned so much about the countries that I sort of felt like a bad Disney fan for not knowing more than half the stuff was there. For example, a saying in Morocco is that true beauty lies beneath the veil so the real pretty stuff is *inside* the buildings. And all the stuff is handmade by workers sent here as a gift from the King of Morocco. Wait, that sounds funny. The *work* by the Morocccans was the gift, not the workers themselves. They weren’t slaves or anything!

They said they were changing this tour so only people in town for conferences could go, which is a shame because it was great fun. Maybe they're just going to rename it to something else? Who knows. There's a listing of all the tours offered and their prices on allears.net, if you're interested.

For lunch we ate at Le Cellier, where we finally got to taste the pretzel bread, steak, and cheddar cheese soup. Just as divine as promised. Our favorite place we ate by far.

The waitress surprised us with some sort of congratulatory honeymoon mousse dessert, which was delicious.

Did you notice the hidden Mickey? Sorry it's blurry. It was too delicious for me to take the pic again!

Went back to the hotel to take a nap, then headed out to Animal Kingdom to take advantage of Magical Evening Hours or whatever it’s called and take lots and lots of random PhotoPass pics!

A word about PhotoPass. Some photographers are better than others, both in personality and in talent, so be sure to take lots of different shots so you can pick your favorites. For example, that one up there in front of Expedition Everest was super fun because the photographer was playful (he told me to "be one with the Yeti"), but I’m all in shadows so he didn’t have a good technical eye.

This is what happened when we asked a photographer to take a pic of us in front of the Canada totem thingies. Notice you can't really tell what you're looking at.

If you decide in advance to buy your CD, you can have a lot of fun picking random places and poses. Also, if you tell your photographer you’re going to buy the CD, they tend to have more fun with it. And the CD holds like 500 pics, so the odds of you filling them up are slim. We felt like we took pics for days and days but only came away with 113 or so.

The guy who took this pic had never thought to take it on this little guy. But he was a good sport and we had so much fun!

Also, be clear what you want a pic of. Some did a great job of putting the big ta-da behind us…

And some didn’t “get it.”

I could take this pic at home; why would I go to Disney to get it done?? Can you even tell that's the castle back there?

Here’s that pic of me over his shoulder that we always do.

This is by far my favorite, and if I remember correctly, it was the photographer who suggested we switch. Genius!

Anyway, we had fun at Animal Kingdom. Up next, the Segway tour, eating at the castle, the stunt show, and Bob Jackson at Riverside. Yeah, a little busy!

 

[luv4mylittleones]

You guys are so cute!!! It looks like you had a blast!

 

[princessdisneybelle]

Aw I love the pic where you switch ears!

 

[Ticky Toria 78]

Just a quick note to say your pictures are lovely.
We just got married at the YC Gazebo and we stayed at PO Riverside.

 

[Maggimus]

love your photos-- both of you are so cute together!

 

[AbbyPan]

You both look so happy, it makes me excited! Love your Epcot pics!

 

[chiefdragon]

Love your photos. Both of you look Awesome

 

[purplegirl247]

Yay, thanks for all the kind words! I'll probably finish off this bad boy this week or weekend. I've had so much fun writing this; I hope you all enjoyed reading it as well!

 

[AshleyLynn]

I am loving reading your TR! I actually got chills while looking at your pictures because I will be honeymooning there in about a month and a half! Thanks for posting this...you look like you had a great time.

 

[JackieSparrow]

Great TR ! You're right- your honeymoon pictures are fabulous!! it seems the photographer used the backgrounds perfectly to capture stunning shots (unlike the photopass one who got the, ahem, "castle" in the background... ) and you for sure can't tell it's the afternoon in a crowded park! It looks like you guys had a lot of fun... your pics make me want to go NOW! haha.. can't wait to read more

 

[lajones81]

Great photos!!

 

[purplegirl247]

Thursday, our busiest day. Looking back at my journal, I have no idea how we managed to do so much in one day!

Thursday morning we head to Epcot for…the Segway Tour! This was the most fun I think I’ve ever had at Disney, hands down. The first thirty minutes or so, they teach you how to get on, get off, and maneuver them. Then you’re off to the World Showcase (which wasn’t open yet so we had full reign!) to tour the countries in style! I strongly urge everyone to take this tour if they have the time and the finances because it was super super fun.

Lesson learned: the Segway Tour is awesome!

After the tour we hopped on the Monorail to the MK, where we had reservations for CRT. This is yet another instance where I went on assumptions and didn’t do my homework. See, when I was a kid, the restaurant inside the castle was something we aspired to, because we couldn’t afford to eat there ever. From what I gathered, it was fine dining at its best. That’s why I was so excited to go on our honeymoon. Did I bother to take a look at what it’s like now over at the restaurant boards? Um, no, unfortunately.

Lesson learned: CRT is a character restaurant.

I was completely unprepared for my fantasy fine dining locale to be one step up from my local Burger King playground. We were literally the only people there without kids. The food was good and the pics turned out very cute, but I doubt we’d go there again (and yes, I know Disney is all about kids, and usually it isn't a big deal; it's just that I was expecting one thing and wound up with something crazily, totally different!).

Me and Belle

I think this one is my favorite. I love that Snow White is doing that with her hands.

Mmmm, majordomo pie!

At one point, the waitress came over and shoved a box at me. Well, I guess she more like threw it on the table in my general direction. I was a little confused because it was an odd-shaped box and we hadn’t ordered anything to go yet (we did end up taking one of the desserts home because it was too much for us and it was yummy yummy). Turns out it was champagne glasses! I was so grateful and they were so cool, but thought it was sort of odd the way the waitress handled it, though to be fair, she was very harried.

Our delicious dessert

The fairy godmother came over as we were leaving and told us to open our box. When we did, she threw a handful of confetti inside and told us that it was something magical for us to enjoy. She suggested putting it in a clear plastic or glass globe and hanging it on the Christmas tree. She was really sweet and made us feel a little better.

Went back to the hotel for a nap, then took a Disney bus to MGM to catch the Stunt Show Spectacular, which we had never seen before.

They even included me in the show!

OK, not really. That was the answer to one of the pre-show questions; something to do with Stephen King’s book about the evil car.

We weren’t sure what to do for dinner until Steve reminded me that I had promised he could have some “authentic” fish and chips at some point of the honeymoon, with some Guinness (as per our wedding vows; lol). So we took the bus to Epcot.

Steve is very happy here, though for some reason he doesn't look it...

Funny story about the guy over his left shoulder. He was wearing the exact same shirt as Steve, an In and Out Burger shirt. Steve loves that place and loves talking about it, so he started to chat the guy up. The guy apparently had been drinking for quite some time because he didn’t quite “get” that they were wearing the same shirt. He kept turning around and asking us to describe what was on the back of his shirt (“Is is a Corvette? Is it blue?”). I kept telling him to just look at the back of Steve’s shirt, which was the exact same thing, but he just kept asking what was on the back of his own. It was a very Dude, Where’s My Car moment, if anyone has seen it and remembers the “dude!” “sweet!” tattoo bit.

I’m not a fan of fish and chips, but do love me some nachos, so we went over to Mexico to get some. Then we rode the new Mexico ride, which incorporates the Three Caballeros. It was cute. I missed the little vendor lady at the end who tries to chase you down and get you to buy some sombreros or whatever, but it definitely revitalized the ride (although why they chose a cartoon that no one has seen in twenty years or whatever to modernize a ride today is sort of beyond me! ). Oh, and the lady was nice enough to give us a “wedding present”…

Our very own boat to ourselves (you can sort of see the empty rows behind us). Very sweet.

Took the bus back to the hotel. Decided the night was still young so took a stroll on the grounds. Very romantic. We grabbed some drinks at the pool bar, then headed to the main lobby to take a look around. There was a guy named Bob Jackson performing at the River Roost, the little bar they have there. He was awesome. He told stories, sang songs, and encourage audience participation. The best part was that you could sit up front, and participate more, or sit toward the back, and just sort of watch. We just watched because, well, I’m not a drinker and the one Orange Creamsicle I had was enough to make me a little tipsy.

Bob was great and I think we may go back to see him again even if we aren’t staying on property! He’s there from 7 to midnight, I think, and has been there for five years.

Off to bed we went. Up next, our last day at Disney and "what do you mean there are no rooms on Disney property??"

 

[Maggimus]

how fun! Im glad you mentioned the new ride in Mexico-- we were just talking about how they updated it over on the "off topic" thread. Do you think its better than the old?

 

[purplegirl247]

It was definitely time for a facelift! But I don't think I've ever seen the Three Caballeros cartoon, so I didn't really recognize the characters or anything. They did a good job with leaving the framework in place but updating the interaction (so all the rooms and set up are the same; they just dropped Donald into certain spots; does that make sense?).

It's definitely a new attraction I'd recommend seeing at least once for the novelty of it (unlike the new Monsters Inc. show that did nothing for us, and we wouldn't recommend even though we loooooove the movie).

 

[purplegirl247]

To back up a little, when I first made the hotel reservations several months before the wedding, we had grand plans of checking out Friday morning, loading our stuff into the car, then heading for the parks for the day, going home afterward (we're local). As we got closer, I realized that my idea wasn't going to work because we had recently made plans to do Hoop de Doo with our officiant and his girlfriend that night, and we wouldn't have anywhere to hang out for the afternoon (see what happened on Tuesday for reasons why we couldn't just wander around in the heat the whole time ).

So earlier in the week we called reservations and told them we wanted to extend. They said we couldn't; there weren't any rooms at Port Orleans. Actually, there weren't any rooms at any of the moderate resorts. Actually, there weren't any rooms at any of the resorts. ALL HOTELS ON DISNEY PROPERTY WERE BOOKED!

Holy crap, how did that happen? Apparently it was the weekend of both the Disney Channel All-Stars games and the Disney's Magical Musical Something or Other for high school and middle school band students. There were no rooms. Very sad and also very unusual. So since we knew we wouldn't be able to get up early and do the Future World Tour we had planned and last the rest of the day, with heavy hearts we cancelled the tour (and of course it was too late to get a refund ). Ah, well.

Lesson learned: Even with Disney's gazillion hotel rooms, they can get booked up fast!

Anywho, back to Friday. We slept in a little (our first time the whole week!), ate a leisurely breakfast, packed up our stuff, and bade goodbye to our little room. We still had lots of fun stuff to do though, so I wouldn't let the sadness keep us down for too long!

Went to Epcot. Hung out with Figment for a bit, who we love and are super sad that they updated Journey to Imagination without a starring role with him and the Dream Maker in it.

Appreciated the fountain and especially, the cooling mist that came from it. It was getting pretty warm at this point.

Went to Garden Grille for lunch. It was delicious.

Plus, the atmosphere was awesome.

Pluto even stole Steve’s hat.

He also cracked me up because he was making these smacking kissy noises from inside the costume.

They gave us a lovely cake and certificate to commemorate our grand event.

We also got to meet what had to be the shortest Mickey ever. Seriously, I know Mickeys must be short by design…

But what you can’t tell is that Steve is on his knees there!

This is Mickey’s actual height. It made for a pretty realistic Mickey experience!

To be continued (too many pics in this post)...

 

[purplegirl247]

After lunch we went to Test Track to use a FastPass we had picked up earlier. We heard this was the only ride you can get your ride photo put on your PhotoPass, so we were pretty excited. Exited the ride, saw our photo, put our little PhotoPass card in, and…it disappeared. ACK! That card had ALL of our photos from the week on it! We tell the CM, who goes behind the scenes to pick it up for us. When he goes to load it onto the computer, he couldn’t find our Test Track photo to put on the card manually and…couldn’t find any of our other photos!

The CM tells us not to freak out, that if you know the time and location of any of your recent pics, they can pull it up that way, but of course, we’re freaking out anyway. We run over to the photo store beneath the ball and…the pics were there all the time. The computers at Test Track don’t have enough memory to properly load all the pics on our card. Thank goodness!

Lesson learned: be wary about putting your Photopass card into some of the slots that may whisk it away forever.

Lesson learned, part II: allegedly, if something goes awry, you can still get your pics back, but it’s still a scary thing!

Anyway, now it’s time to meet our next Disney photographer and get our honeymoon shots that we swapped out when we used Randy for our actual wedding. We met Bryan at the International Gateway and man oh man, is it hot. I was under the impression that you just pic a country or two, they snap some shots, then you’re on your merry way. Bryan had no such thing in mind! He took us around to every country, set us up in places I wouldn’t even have though of, and managed to do it sweating buckets and with eighty million other guests roaming around (see my earlier comment about all the rooms being booked by all the band kids). He was excellent.

Lesson learned: I’ve read some complaints about Disney photography, but it definitely depends on whom you get. Tom, our first guy, was very nice and got some decent shots. Bryan was also very nice and took PHENOMENAL shots.

After we bid a fond, sweaty farewell to Bryan (Sorry to be graphic but it’s true! We were gross.). We wanted to leave in time to get home and take a nap (depending on traffic, we’re at least thirty or so minutes from Disney) before our friends picked us up to take us right back out to Disney. On the way we stopped back at the photo shop under the ball to get our official CD. We picked out the three “free” 5”x7” we wanted and were on our merry way.

To interrupt myself for a sec, there’s two ways you can get the CD: online or at Disney. If you buy in the parks, you get the 5”x7”s and don’t have to pay shipping, but if you wait until you’re home, you can add borders and such (no free prints though). The pro about the borders is that somehow the program is smart enough to know what park you were in at the time, and you can put that park’s logo on your pic. The con about the borders is that somehow the program *isn’t* smart enough to let you move the logo, so they’re always in the same place on every photo, which is sort of restrictive.

Lesson learned: You may want to wait until you get home to order the CD. You can also have the people in the photo store put the borders on for you, but if you had over 100 photos like we did, you’d be standing there for quite some time! As for the “free” 5”x7” (I keep adding the “ around it because the CD used to be $100, no prints, and is now $125, with prints), you can just buy the CD, upload the pics to snapfish or something, and order your own prints in whatever sizes you like.

Anyway…we went home, took a nap, woke up refreshed (if not a little depressed), and were ready for our friends to pick us up. None of us had ever been to Hoop Dee Doo, but we all had a GREAT TIME. We couldn’t believe how much food there was! Ribs, corn bread, salad, beans, fried chicken, yum yum!

While we were there, we saw this guy.

He claims he’s the only one officially allowed to have Disney tattoos or something like that (I think if you google “Disney tattoo guy” he comes up. No, seriously). His body is COVERED with all kinds of Disney tattoos. Not just of characters and locations either. He has the original cast of the Hoop Dee Doo, for example. Nice guy, but I don’t think he’s nearly as famous as he thinks he is!

Steve had a swell time playing the washboard thingy.

As you can see, they also have free-flowing beer pitchers, sangria, but also sodas.

The show was over. The honeymoon was over. We were officially married. Briefly, I experienced the post-wedding depression that everyone talks about, when the planning is over and what do you do next?? I’ve sustained myself by looking at all the pics and planning what to do with them all (searching for the perfect album, picture frame, whatever).

All in all, we had a great time. Disney is still fabulous. We’ve been married for almost six weeks and are just now starting to get used to calling each other “my husband” and “my wife” without giggling. OK, it’s mostly me. DH has gotten quite adept at it. Who’d have thought??

Lesson learned: Disney really is the happiest place on earth.

 

[lajones81]

LOVE all of the pictures!! It sounds like you had an amazing time!

I have seen the Disney Tattoo Guy on television before.

Here is his website: http://www.disneytattooguy.com/

Here is a list of his appearances: http://www.disneytattooguy.com/appearances.htm

Truthfully, I love Disney, but don't think I'm that devoted!!

 

[Maggimus]

Great TR-- im going to miss it..

One thing though-- the Disney Tattoo Guy is a lot more famous than you might think. Ive been on his website NUMBEROUS times in the past-- and his house is CARAZY!! I always look out for him when we are at WDW (he lives in PA- he isnt even LOCAL!)--- but ive always wondered if he was a little off.. ya know? Have you ever checked out his house online? There was a huge long long thread on the community board about him at one time. I knew him right away when I saw the photo and you mentioned his tattoo's!

Check out these photos of his house... he's definitely a fanATIC!
http://www.disneytattooguy.com/housepics.htm

love your TR though-- had a great time reliving WDW and my wedding with you!!

 

[purplegirl247]

Yeah, I checked out his site. And the stuff he has *is* pretty crazy. But from the way he was talking to us, it was almost like he was offended that we didn't know who he was. Plus, he worded it like this: "I come down to Orlando and do "this" at least twice a month" (or whatever the frequency is), which led us to believe he signs autographs or interacts with people or does a little show or...something. But what he meant was, he sits up front at Hoop Dee Doo and waits for people to comment about his tattoos! He was silly. And yes, perhaps a little off. Isn't he on like his ninth wife?

He also has a Mickey head shaved into the back of his head. Sort of like a hidden Mickey, ha ha.

 

[Lynn5700]

Yeah I saw that tat guy on a talk show,I forget what one it may have been live with Regis. He is awesome!!