Two Castles in 24 Hours...Bring it On! A Sept 2013 PTR NEW 10/14 w/ TR Link

Disneyluvr81 · May 25, 2013

Hi Everybody! :wave2:

Seeing as today is officially our double-digit dance day :cool1:

, I couldn't think of a better day to start my first first PTR ever!

So excited that in just 99 LONG days, we will finally be back here:

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Disneyluvr81 · May 25, 2013

So Who Are the DisneyLuvrs Anyways?

Thats a perfectly good question...seeing as how I think the only picture related to us on the Dis is my Avatar and the last time I checked, the only bunny ears Ive ever had were strategically placed on my head by my niece or nephew! So without further ado, I officially say Hello Disboards, my name is Krista, I am an almost 32 year old marketing manager who has lived in Southern California all of my life.

Haha, I dont have very many pics of just me, but yes, I love me some Spaceballs Cosplay - he was a fantastically funny Dark Helmet at Wondercon this year (kind of a scaled down version of San Diegos Comic Con that is held in Anaheim)

My partner in crime of the last 7 years, is my wonderful husband Brian (or as we all affectionately call him, B).

Hes 32, a network field technician who has also lived in SoCal all of his life. What is funny is that we lived within 15-20 minutes of each other almost all of our lives but did not officially meet until 2006. We fell for each other pretty instantly and the mutual love of Disneyland certainly helped the sparks. Within a week of our first date, we had annual passes together.

According to the Passholder counter on Disneylands site we have been to Disneyland 302 times since getting our passes 4/29/2006 but this will only be our 6th trip to Walt Disney World...we have some catching up to do!!

We were married on August 30th, 2008 at the Rose Court Garden at the Disneyland Hotel. Never in a million years did I think getting married within the Disneyland Resort would be in my cards, but my dad surprised all of us when it became his top choice for a venue...and seriously, whos gonna argue with that?!?! Considering how much the Disneyland Hotel has changed, having pictures at the now extinct waterfalls and around grounds that are no longer there or changed makes them feel even more special.

It still is one of the most magical days of my entire lives and I can not praise Disney highly enough for how seamless not only the planning leading up to the wedding but the day of was. We quite literally just had to show up, get ready and step out to our family and friends. No surprise that our honeymoon was at the happiest place on earth and it just seemed fitting to return to the scene of the crime to celebrate our 5th Wedding Anniversary....

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JoanneDisFan · May 25, 2013

Subscribing. Yay for going back to Disney!

Disneyluvr81 · May 25, 2013

Yay!! My first follower!! :welcome:

and thank you!! I've subscribed to your PTR too. Your DD's costume in the first picture is beautiful (and you guys are too cute...love the little one as Peter!!)

WDWKOOK · May 26, 2013

I'm fashionably late and in as NUMBER TWO :goodvibes

I love your wedding photos (and the screencap). What is the writing on the gorgeous cake? I can't believe how many times you've been to DLR! You certainly are experts. Looks like this is going to be a fun PTR popcorn::

Disneyluvr81 · May 26, 2013

WDWKOOK said:
I'm fashionably late and in as NUMBER TWO

I love your wedding photos (and the screencap). What is the writing on the gorgeous cake? I can't believe how many times you've been to DLR! You certainly are experts. Looks like this is going to be a fun PTR

and thank you!! The cake said "Happily Ever After" on the layers. I'll have to dig up my portable hard drive as I'm sure I've got a closer up picture I can post. It was one of the many gorgeous designs Disney had to pick from.

I was shocked the last time I logged in to the AP site and saw the number. For the first couple years of our relationship at least every Wednesday or every other Wednesday night we would head to Disneyland for a date night - we went a ton after we got our passes. Now life (i.e. work) seems to get in the way and we are lucky to do a mid week Disney Date night once a month or two.

I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend so far. I am going to try to get the "How the Trip Came to Be" post up today before we head out for BBQ festivities but if I run out of time, I promise to get it up tomorrow (did not realize how much time getting the pictures up on a photo site, resized, etc actually takes...makes me have an even greater appreciation for all of you pre-trip and trip report writers out there!!) :goodvibes

OrangeJuice · May 26, 2013

Hey!
I'm joining in!

LOVE LOVE LOVE YOUR WEDDING PICTURES :O Getting married in Disneyland must of been amazing. Looking forward to hearing more about your plans for WDW!

Blessedwithboys · May 26, 2013

I am joining in!!
Your wedding photos are absolutely gorgeous!!
can't wait to hear more about your trip

rosanab1031 · May 26, 2013

Joining in! Your wedding pictures are BEAUTIFUL! It is my dream to get married at Disneyland

I have actually looked into it already and I am not even engaged yet! HAHA! Can't wait to see all of your WDW plans! I will be there for the first time in just 1 week!

Disneyluvr81 · May 27, 2013

OrangeJuice said:
Hey!
I'm joining in!
LOVE LOVE LOVE YOUR WEDDING PICTURES :O Getting married in Disneyland must of been amazing. Looking forward to hearing more about your plans for WDW!

It truly was awesome. They made everything so easy that there really wasn't any stress.

Blessedwithboys said:
I am joining in!!
Your wedding photos are absolutely gorgeous!!
can't wait to hear more about your trip

Thank you so much and :welcome:

rosanab1031 said:
Joining in! Your wedding pictures are BEAUTIFUL! It is my dream to get married at Disneyland I have actually looked into it already and I am not even engaged yet! HAHA! Can't wait to see all of your WDW plans! I will be there for the first time in just 1 week!

Thank you so much! I can relate. Getting married at the Disneyland was always my big dream. Bigger dream was inside of Disneyland but being able to have Cinderella's Carriage made up for that! I hope you have an amazing first trip!!

As soon as Photobucket start cooperating :rolleyes2

I will get the update up this morning!

Disneyluvr81 · May 27, 2013

Happy Memorial Day everyone!! I hope everyone is having a great day! :daisy:

So How Did this Trip Come to Be?

Going to WDW in September wasnt even a blip on our radar when the calendar officially changed to 2013. Over 3 years ago, I started running (well run/walking) with my SIL (DBs wife) which eventually led to my first Disneyland 1/2 marathon in 2011.

I missed the registration for the inaugural Tinkerbell marathon in 2012 and when I was looking up the information about the 2013 race I stumbled upon the 20th Anniversary of the WDW Marathon. Never, ever in my life had I ever considered myself a runner and never in my wildest dreams would I have pictured myself doing a full marathon but there I was, registering for the full marathon that just happened to fall on Bs birthday. My SIL and I follow the Jeff Galloway programs and his program just happened to work out that if I continued on with my mileage after the 2012 Disneyland half it lined up perfectly for the training for a full marathon.

Fast forward to January 2013. Our trip to the WDW was a short one. We arrived middle of the day Friday and left for home early afternoon Tuesday. Really, the reason we were there was the Marathon, a WDW vacation in January had not been in our grand scheme of things. The trip officially started on Thursday the 10th with a red-eye flight out of John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa. We flew United and I will never fly United for personal travel ever again because of this flight. Short story, they dropped our seat assignments without letting us know and by the time we figured out what happened the only seats left together were the priority seats that were extra. Well, we paid for the upgrade but still got lumped in to Group 5 and by the time we were allowed to board we had the check our carry-ons...the one I so carefully packed with all of my race gear that couldnt get lost. So I scrambled to put as much in to Bs backpack as I could and everything I left in my carry-on were items that could be replaced at the expo if it did get lost. Luckily, my carry-on made it to Orlando but not without them damaging part of it..yup..never again for United for me.

Redeyes are hard ones from me because I almost never sleep, B on the other hand can sleep standing up. By some freak, opposite world phenomenon I slept almost the entire way to Newark, NJ where we had our stop over and B hardly slept at all. We had about 2 hours to kill and found something we just dont have around us in a SoCal:

It was probably because we were both tired and it was only like 5am ET but man those were so good doughnuts, haha! Before we knew it it was time to board the final leg of our flight and after takeoff, I was able to see New York City from the air (or so my dad says it was New York...). No pics unfortunately, but for a girl who has never been to New York, being able to see it (or what I thought was it) was super exciting. The remaining flight down was uneventful and we both dozed on and off. Before we knew it, we were off the plane and heading towards Magical Express. Again, no pics but we actually got a true ME bus. No yellow Mears Shuttle or DCL bus for us!! The bus was pretty full when we got on and we sat towards the back. The bus got moving, the movie started playing and before long we were finally passing under here (couldn't get the epic overhead sign pic this trip):

We were the first stop of the hotels...someplace we had never stayed before...stay tuned to find out (and I promise I have more pics of our January trip, only one food pic but when I was looking through the marathon photos last night to use, realized between my pics and Photopass I DO have enough pics to do a sort of mini trip report). I hope everyone enjoys and doesn't mind a little trip down memory lane!!

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rosanab1031 · May 27, 2013

Disneyluvr81 said:
It truly was awesome. They made everything so easy that there really wasn't any stress.

Thank you so much and

Thank you so much! I can relate. Getting married at the Disneyland was always my big dream. Bigger dream was inside of Disneyland but being able to have Cinderella's Carriage made up for that! I hope you have an amazing first trip!!

As soon as Photobucket start cooperating I will get the update up this morning!

Oh yeah! The castle is my ULTIMATE dream! We will see how close I get :rotfl:

Disneyluvr81 · May 27, 2013

A January Mini TR - Checking in & Day 1

Since our January trip was kind of impromtu and really just so I could run the marathon, we decided to be more economical and try a moderate resort as opposed to staying at the WL. We chose Port Orleans Riverside and ended up absolutely loving the resort! We stayed in a Royal Room with a river view, did not do the dining plan and we purchased our tickets through Undercover Tourist and because we had a room only reservation, were able to get a nice discount on the room.

After exploring the room and loving all of the Disney touches (the headboard is such a cute surprise)

my first and most important order of business was getting over to the Expo to pick up my bib and to try to get 20th anniversary merchandise. Each resort had a special bus specifically for the expo/race day and, all weekend, we were super lucky with that bus. Trying to get over to the Wide World of Sports took forever, there was so much traffic.

Picking up my bib was easy enough but the 20th Anniversary merchandise was so picked over. I was able to find a Tech shirt, a couple of magnets, a keychain and a long sleeve hoodie that I liked but the one shirt I couldnt find and really wanted was the I Did It shirt.

So with race bib and merchandise in hand we headed over to the expo...well, more like we headed over to the line to get in to the expo.

(looking back at the line - I wish I had taken one that showed how it wrapped all of the way around the grassy area).

Once inside, it didnt get much better. I was thought I was used to Disney expos from the Disneyland races but this was nuts!

Right next to the stairs we came down, I believe it was New Balance that had a wall up that had everyones name who was taking part in the 20th Anniversary Marathon. It took a few moments but I was able to find my name...so cool!!

The expo was so nuts that I didnt even look at any of the vendors but did find another section of Disney official merchandise that had the I Did It Shirt....mission accomplished!!

By the time I was done checking out we were both done with WWoS and getting pretty hungry. There wasnt really anything of interest at the complex so we headed back to POR to try out Riverside Mill - their counter service location. Oh my, Roaring Fork at WL pales in comparison - we were shocked at how large it was and all of the choices. We both got pizzas and I cant confirm if they were actually as good as we thought they were cause by the time we ate, we were starving but we thought they were pretty tasty.

Our bellies full, we headed back to the room to freshen up (and yay our luggage had been delivered) - we had a park to head off to for the remainder of the afternoon/evening...

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klacey1 · May 28, 2013

Joining in! I'm loving reading about your January trip-- we stay at POR and just love it!
Your wedding pictures are so wonderful-- your dress was gorgeous!
We're also going in September!

Disneyluvr81 · May 28, 2013

January Mini TR - Hitting Our First Park

Our first park of the trip was a different one for us...weve never done Hollywood Studios first. It is the least favorite of the parks and I think the only reason is that its just too much like DCA (before we got Carsland). But, Friday was the only day we would be able to hit the park and we really wanted to eat at 50s Prime Time that trip. Our first stop once we arrived was to pick up our Photopass+ and grab our first Photopass pic.

Besides dinner, our one and only goal for the entire afternoon/evening at the park was to see:

In all of our previous trips we had never seen the stunt show. Every year we would go and say we are DEFINITELY seeing it this year, well, 2013 was finally that year. We arrived about 15 mins before the show started and got good seats:

We both really enjoyed it and it totally was not what we were expecting. Its on our definite to do list again for September. After Indy, we still had time to kill before our dinner reservation so we went and grabbed a fastpass for Tower of Terror then hit up:

I dont think we have ever gotten anything but the gangster on the ride...hoping for some pixie dust in September to get the cowboy. I told myself I was going to be brave and keep my eyes open during the Alien scene and actually get a pic in that room (I am a complete scaredy cat when it comes to horror/scary movies). Yup, once again, I chickened out and my eyes remained firmly closed...maybe in September :rolleyes1

By the time we got done, it was close enough to our dinner reservation that we headed over to check in at 50s Prime Time.

We waited only a couple short minutes before being called back. Our Cousin was excellent, I wish I could remember his name. He was so in character and sarcastic and funny. He made the experience. Once again, no food pics (dont worry, September is going to have lots of food pics) but I had the Chicken Caesar Salad and a Vanilla shake. The salad totally counteracts the calories of the shake, right?!?! Teehee. B had the fried chicken and while I cleaned my plate B couldnt finish off his veggies and one little chicken wing. Our Cousin was a moment away from going full airplane with B and giving him grief about the chicken wing when I made some crack about penguins not being able to fly that made our Cousin almost lose it and the food fork was promptly put down so he could walk away to not break character. Yeah, I know, story would have been funnier if I could have remembered my own joke...Ill just put out there a you had to be there :rotfl:

. We both gave 50s Prime Time a big :thumbsup2

.

After dinner, we walked around enjoying the atmosphere until our Fastpass for Tower was up.

We love WDW version over DCAs. The way it comes off the track and the ever changing drop sequences just makes it so much fun. I wish I could post our first ride photo of the trip but B and I both had hands/arms completely covering us and unfortunately we didnt get a chance to ride again.

Tower now behind us, we headed out of the park and back to the resort to head to bed. We were both pretty wiped out from taking the red eye and were looking forward to a full nights sleep.

Coming up...Day Two = Two Parks

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Disneyluvr81 · May 28, 2013

klacey1 said:
Joining in! I'm loving reading about your January trip-- we stay at POR and just love it!
Your wedding pictures are so wonderful-- your dress was gorgeous!
We're also going in September!

Aw, thank you so much and welcome!! We debated booking back at POR for September but ultimately, the call of the air conditioned hallways of WL won out. I put POR right up with WL as my favorite resort though!

Our tickers match for September - that's so cool. I've seen tickers close to mine but never exactly the same. It's gonna be a great time to be there!!! :cheer2:

Thank you much for the compliments. I loved my dress. I actually bought it before B had officially proposed (hehe, we had Disney booked before he had proposed but no one knew until the engagement was official, we wanted to make sure got the date we wanted...totally didn't put the carriage before the big gray draft horse with our wedding

). I stumbled upon it in a magazine only to find out it was the prior year's style and almost no one was carrying it in the stores anymore. As soon as we found a local shop that had one still, my mom and I went down, I tried it on and that was that. I tried on a couple similar dresses and a couple others from the same designer (Maggie Sottero) but kept going back to my dress.

WDWKOOK said:
What is the writing on the gorgeous cake?

I found a couple close up shots of the cake (and as much as my family likes to razz me for it, the "K" on the cake topper is actually for our last name...not my fault my first name starts with the same initial!

)

And for good measure, one of B's favorite photos from the day. Especially since the giant Lego is no longer at our Lego shop in DTD.

rosanab1031 · May 29, 2013

Disneyluvr81 said:
Aw, thank you so much and welcome!! We debated booking back at POR for September but ultimately, the call of the air conditioned hallways of WL won out. I put POR right up with WL as my favorite resort though!

Our tickers match for September - that's so cool. I've seen tickers close to mine but never exactly the same. It's gonna be a great time to be there!!!

Thank you much for the compliments. I loved my dress. I actually bought it before B had officially proposed (hehe, we had Disney booked before he had proposed but no one knew until the engagement was official, we wanted to make sure got the date we wanted...totally didn't put the carriage before the big gray draft horse with our wedding ). I stumbled upon it in a magazine only to find out it was the prior year's style and almost no one was carrying it in the stores anymore. As soon as we found a local shop that had one still, my mom and I went down, I tried it on and that was that. I tried on a couple similar dresses and a couple others from the same designer (Maggie Sottero) but kept going back to my dress.

I found a couple close up shots of the cake (and as much as my family likes to razz me for it, the "K" on the cake topper is actually for our last name...not my fault my first name starts with the same initial! )

And for good measure, one of B's favorite photos from the day. Especially since the giant Lego is no longer at our Lego shop in DTD.

Beautiful cake! I am considering the same design for when I get married... some day! Haha!

And thank you for posting those pics from the Great Movie Ride! Makes me pretty excited about it now

Disneyluvr81 · May 29, 2013

rosanab1031 said:
Beautiful cake! I am considering the same design for when I get married... some day! Haha!

And thank you for posting those pics from the Great Movie Ride! Makes me pretty excited about it now

Thank you! We liked it for its simplicity but there were so many amazing cake designs to choose from. I am sure there are even more now! Makes me wonder how much has changed in the past 5 years.

You're very welcome - glad you enjoyed the pics. GMR is a great ride if you are looking to sit and relax in air conditioning and while a little hokey in its own Disney way, I like going through the different movie scenes.

Disneyluvr81 · May 29, 2013

January Mini TR - Day Two = Two Parks

We were up bright and early on Saturday morning. Walking from our room to the bus stop, we couldnt get over how glassy the water was without any boats running yet. It was so peaceful and beautiful and one of my favorites parts about POR.

We could have sat and relaxed longer but we had a park to get to! Our first part of the day was:

I love AK...it contains Expedition Everest which is my favorite ride in Florida. After stopping for Photopass pics:

We saw Dug and Russell out for meet and greet (I think it was on the path heading to the right towards Dinoland). Up is one of my absolute FAVORITE movies and Dug is the animated/talking version of my parent's Golden. I love Dug!! So disappointed with how our Photopass pics turned out though...darn stinky lighting!!

After saying goodbye to Dug and Russell we continued on to hit up our first ride of the day:

Gah, did I mention I love this ride haha?!?! The details in the queue are incredible. I love when the line is short enough that we are able to go through the normal queue instead of the Fastpass:

We literally walked right on and were soon taking on the mighty Yeti (or Betty the Disco Yeti as she has so been deemed by the interwebs...heres the link to the YouTube video...dont blame me if the song gets stuck in your head!!). We were lucky enough to see the Yeti in all of its arm swinging glory back in 2007 - wish we would have known back then how special seeing the Yeti in full A-Mode was...I think we would have ridden it even more.

Our first ride done, we grabbed a Fastpass for later and headed over to Dinoland.

We had an Iguanodon to catch. Truth be told, I REALLY dont like this ride. I kept my eyes closed for most of it on all previous rides, up until this one where B did a genius thing. He gave me the idea to picture riding Indy because the tracks we think are identical. So that is exactly what I did and for the first time in the upteen millions times we have ridden, I actually enjoyed the ride (although the end still scares me)...

After making our way back to the present, we took on the Yeti again and grabbed one more set of fast passes because we had we had another mission.

Like the Indy Stunt Show, Finding Nemo the Musical was another show where on all previous trips we said we would see it and it never happened. Well, not in 2013, we finally saw Nemo!!

Much like Indy, we showed up about 15 mins before start and got great seats again. Oh my goodness I loved this show - it is just too cute and the puppets are phenomenal.

Like Indy, Nemo is on our must see list for September and I highly recommend it! With Nemo now behind us we headed back to Everest for one final ride before heading out of the park.

We were hungry and on a mission for a counter service we had never tried before...

**I hope to get my next update up sooner rather than later but I am traveling for work tomorrow through Saturday and not sure how much time I will have on the road. So there may not be another update until Saturday or Sunday but I will definitely try to respond to any comments in between. I hope everyone is having a fantastic week so far!!

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JoanneDisFan · May 30, 2013

Disneyluvr81 said:
I love AK...it contains Expedition Everest which is my favorite ride in Florida.

I have to agree that Everest is a pretty good ride. I'm not huge into rollercoasters (Haven't done RNR) but I love doing EE.

Two Castles in 24 Hours...Bring it On! A Sept 2013 PTR **NEW 10/14 w/ TR Link**

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Two Castles in 24 Hours...Bring it On! A Sept 2013 PTR NEW 10/14 w/ TR Link