We Are Doing What?! A September 2010 Honeymoon report (COMPLETED 6/15)!!

[teddygurl28]

HI! Welcome To my much belated trip report. I have been lurking reading so many reports lately, and many make me think back to my last trip, and I decided to write one, since it was an amazing trip. If you want to follow along that is great! Im going to get the hang of inserting photos ( they are currently on a separate computer) and getting links to the reports so hopefully it should be much more helpful to everyone.

So Lets Get Started,

I am Meghan, 27, and Disney-holic! I started going when I was 3 and have been hooked ever since. When I was 5 and the Grand Floridan was only about a year and a half old, I told my parents I was going to get married in the castle and stay at the Floridian-as my house. Hey a girl can dream, can’t she?!
DH, Mike is 31. He went to Disney one time as a child, and was sick for most of his stay. I took him in 2008, and I did a pretty good job convincing him it was the best place. Ever.
When it came time to get married, there was never a question of to where our honeymoon would be-all that we had to figure out was the details.

 

[teddygurl28]

Lets Get The Planning Started

It's 10pm what are you going to do

A Peek Inside

Ew Pulp!

some photopass photos

It's a little Foggy

So How long should we Stay at Animal Kingdom

I remember This park

SO Many Spiders...UGH

Goodbye Beach Club

The Big Reveal...part 1

The Big Reveal...part 2

We Are Doing What?!

They Are evil---but funny

Welcome to a disney downpour

Boo to you

And Now Its Time To Say Goodbye

 

[teddygurl28]

So, now I was planning a wedding, Planning to move into my husband's house (I lived at home with my parents) and planning a trip to Disney. It was some craziness, but I am a super planner so everything was going to work out fine...right?

Our original plan was to leave for our honeymoon early Monday morning. That way we would manage to be in the parks by mid to late afternoon. As I mentioned previously, I had always dreamed of staying at the Floridian, but the prices We eventually decided on renting points and we would spend the first week at The beach Club Villas and get the deluxe dining plan

We would then move to a moderate resort....
Come on guys, I had a year to plan this! No way would that plan last.
And it didn't. I convinced my husband that with our savings on renting points, we would be able to do 3 nights at the Grand Floridian...standard room only of course....
....
Which Turned into club level, then reduced to a theme park room, then maybe the Poly because my husband stayed their on his only trip and he really liked it...
....so where did we end up? I guess you will have to wait and see!

(I am going to do the travel day here as well to get it out of the way!)
As I said, we originally planned to leave monday morning...but then i thought-why not take a later flight out on Sunday. We wouldn't have to get up super early so we would have time to rest and get ourselves together the morning after the wedding-but it would give us full day at the parks on monday instead of a half of a day..Hubby was on board and so the flights were booked!

So fast forward a year, and we just got married, in a wonderful ceremony followed by a great reception with family and friends.
We left the hotel Sunday morning around 10, stopped for some pizza and breadsticks to bring home. Then started to go through all of the great gifts we got. I wanted to bring money and checks to the bank- since we would be gone so long I felt it would be much safer that way....the only problem was? My parents had taken everything with them the night before and I couldn't get in touch with them!!! it was now close to noon and we had to leave for the airport by 230ish

I think i was about to send out the guards to find them, when they showed up We got everything settled and headed for the airport.

Nothing exciting there, we always fly jet blue, so on the way down we just watched tv and took the 3hr flight to finally sit down and relax

We got to orlando at about 730/745, and had a town car pick us up. In no time we were off to our first of two homes!

Check in went okay, and they sent us to our room. The person who requested our room also requested an upper level facing epcot, but because of the trees there is no real "epcot view"

Well, we opened up our door, and almost instantly..."BOOM...BOOM BOOM BOOM" I thought? what

I opened the balcony expecting to see trucks and them moving things, and instead..

well not exactly that...but that was the view! Everything I was hearing was Illuminations...i was so excited, I tried to get photos but it was all happening so fast! when you looked in the other direction..

i couldnt believe my eyes. It was a dream...


Next: well, we are in disney...

 

[teddygurl28]

It may have been night time, but after relaxing on the plane, and still having energy to burn off from the excitement of the weekend, we quickly unpacked and out the door.
Where to go at 10pm in disney?

The Magic Kingdom!!!
It was extra magic hours until 1am. Score
I went straight to city hall (which oddly enough I don't remember ever being in) so that we could get the just married pins...
...the CM was super nice, but she said they were phasing those ones out She gave us these instead

and wrote just married underneath, she put ! marks, but instead of the dot drew mickey heads, it was totally sweet of her and made me feel a little bit better about not getting the just married pins. she also said to ask at the front of the other parks, as they may still have them somewhere


I do not have any photos of tonight. I was just soaking it all in. Our first ride was splash....one of our favorites! Followed by a quick trip on Thunder and then over to space! So we had been in disney for a few short hours and managed to get in the 3 mountains
This was the first time I think I ever noticed how dark the Frontierland area is at night...You would think it would be a little better lit...although maybe it would take away from the theming and atmosphere.

Knowing we had to get up super early tomorrow, we decided to call it a night close to closing time and hopped on a bus back to the beach club

Next: What time do we have to be at the Magic Kingdom?

 

[teddygurl28]

The alarm in our room went off early...and I mean super early....
6:30am to be exact.....
but I was already awake....excited for the week to come.
I quickly showered and dressed, then woke Mike up to do the same. We had someplace to be at 8am....
...so after we were all set, we headed out to the boardwalk to get some breakfast at the boardwalk bakery. A couple of pastries and juice and we were on a bus.....
we stepped off at our destination

The Magic Kingdom again! We were doing the keys to the world tour, at what I thought was 8:30 (so be there by 8am)....
....well at some point I must have thought better about being up so early, and booked the 9am tour, thus not needing to be there until around 8:30am...
...so we had 1 hour to kill in the most beautiful park...even though it was closed.
( i will add photopass pictures when i get the right computer)
We took some photos,
and then watched all the people just outside, anxious to get in..and probably wondering why we were sitting on a park bench by ourselves

There are no photos from the tour, so I will just give a quick review about it...
As I said before, I am a disney nut. I know alot about the parks, the history and rides and all that. So for me, I actually didn't learn anything to knew. My husband learned a ton though! We got to see backstage and the utilidoors so that alone was worth it for me. Also we ate at Columbia Harbour House, which is always a favorite of mine. I wouldn't do the tour again, but I am glad I did it once. It took up a chunck of our day, about 6 hours, but since we were here for a long time and doing a lot of firsts-it was perfect.
After the tour we decided to go back to the resort and hop in the pool. It was really hot out and decided we would be best just to cool off. I stayed at the pool (no photos, but a video somewhere ) and Mike ended up going up to take a nap....

....this became a theme. anytime we went back to the resort for pool time, it meant pool for me and nap for mike. I sometimes just went to the quiet pool by our room at the villas, but did wander over to stormalong bay a few times.
....

For Dinner on our first night, we went to a return favorite

since we were early we went next door to the lounge to grab a drink. We found it funny that they serve both sam adams beer and yuengling together.
You cannot get yuengling in new england. I've been told its because the owner of sam adams won't allow it? But who knows if that is true. I don't drink either anyways, but my husband was happy to get a Yuengling fix!

after a couple of drinks our pager went off and we had a wonderful dinner at The Yatchsman Steakhouse. We finished off with a walk around the boardwalk and caught some of illuminations again...and finally a stop into jellyrolls-our favorite place!

after that we called it a night since the morning birds would be calling us early again.....

Next: Eww I hate Pulp!

 

[teddygurl28]

The alarm went off nice and early, and we started our day at the captains grille. Since we had the deluxe plan we got to do a bunch of sit down places, that normally we would skip out on-so it was kind of nice.
..a little background. I am not an alcohol person. I drink beer and thats it....however about 2 years ago I started having to go to wedding after wedding, and found out that I like champagne...then about a year ago realized what a mimosa was im the pickiest person about food and drink there is so its not suprising.
all vacation I was so excited about being able to get mimosa's with breakfast, and I was about to get my first one
...and then...the pulp I only drink tropicana no pulp original, and occ. the stuff they sell at McDonalds (the pulp is minimal) but here-it was thick!!....i was so dissapointed.....but eh, atleast it meant no OOP expenses for the alcohol.

We finished breakfast, and walked through the back entrance to Epcot...it was cool since it was only around opening time and World showcase is obviously closed..

We made our way to the first stop...Soarin' and grabbed a couple of fast passes then hopped in line. We didn't wait long at all, maybe like 15 minutes (my cut off for most lines this time of year is generally 20).
After that we headed off for mission space, and then got FP for Test track ( i will never wait in that line )
If you remember from our first night the CM at city hall mentioned trying other parks for the Just Married Pins. Up to this point nobody had mentioned anything to us with our pins on ( i won't lie-i was kind of dissapointed, but i also figured whatever- I was having a great time anyway!) So we get to the area at Epcot where the pins are and......
nope
We decided to check out sum of all thrills and then the characters before our lunch date at Le Chefs De France.....
The line for sum of all thrills was decently long, i think we waited about 25 minutes-i wasnt happy about that (im spoiled with no lines!) but i was happy we got to do it, although i don't think i would wait in a longer line for that again.
We hopped over to the character spot and it had about a 45 minute wait...but if you do the math its like waiting in a 9 minute line for each character (yup thats how i rationalized it)
Here is mike waiting and being oh so happy

(again the rest of my photopass pics are on a computer i should get to tomorrow)
but here are two good ones taken with my camera

Of course Minnie was all excited about my ring, and pulled Mickey over to politely remind him that she was still waiting
I also think it was Minnie's photopass photographer who asked us why we didn't have just married buttons- so i told her the situation..
...not even a minute later she found us at the next character and gave us these..

I was so happy and i think i thanked her a thousand times.

We got out of there...and hoofed it to world showcase.
Within a few minutes we were seated by the window overlooking WS lagoon.
Now, I picked this place because it had french onion soup-mike's favorite. As for me? I was really torn about this meal because I ate NOTHING. However, in my lurking of reports i saw on the dining thread the kids meal....chicken strips and plain pasta...yum! I had that and we also ordered a bottle of champagne...so to recap...chicken tenders, plain ziti (i put some butter on it) and champagne the lunch of champions!!

We saw Marie walk by 3 or 4 times, but I never had my camera ready. She waved every time though
After lunch we backtracked over to test track, and hopped on soarin one more time with our fast passes- but this time the CM noticed our buttons, and let us keep our fast passes!!!
...too bad we were leaving epcot for the day
I was able to give them another couple on the walk back over to the resort (some of you may think this isn't right, and im sorry. however, the CM gave us a little magic and I wanted to be able to pass it on)

After some relaxation we grabbed a taxi to our next spot...

so sweet!
We checked in then walked around the deck outside

I cannot remember what mike ordered, but I got the roasted chicken and a salad and it was great.
The restaurant also gave us a bottle of champagne for dinner
sounded good to me!
We spent a little time afterwards in the lounge at the Floridian (still loved the look of that resort ) before calling it a night...
...Wednesday was going to be another early day...
....and there were going to be some great unexpected surprises!

 

[adelheid1976]

Gosh, your TR is going up incredibly fast! I'm so glad they found Just Married for you, we're celebrating our 7th Anniversary and DD's 4th birthday, I wonder if they still have the Anniversary pins?

 

[teddygurl28]

Gosh, your TR is going up incredibly fast! I'm so glad they found Just Married for you, we're celebrating our 7th Anniversary and DD's 4th birthday, I wonder if they still have the Anniversary pins?

haha, i think because it is not as detailed, or include so many photos like the pros do! I am learning though


I saw plenty of anniversary buttons, and i have read reports since my trip that shows people with them.

I am not entirely sure they are phasing out the just married, or were just out at that time, as much as the cm was super sweet, i don't always trust what they say!

Happy anniversary btw! and i do hope they have the buttons for you....when i update again you will see that we got some fun perks for having the buttons on

 

[teddygurl28]

instead of inserting photos to prior posts...i thought i would just upload some photopass photos from monday and tuesday here to check out!

you can see our keys to the kingdom tour pass on our necks

the big cheese

hmmm okay guess i didnt take many these days...

 

[teddygurl28]

bright and early we were out the door. Today we were at animal kingdom, and had an 815 breakfast at Tusker House...no photos from inside..we wait 45 minutes and no characters came to our table
we atleast met donald outside!

so we left the restaurant full...but a little dissapointed...i had a few other character meals planned and hoped we were not going to be ignored...esp for a plan i had later in the trip...
the park was empty

have i mentioned yet that i love going in september! its going to be a bummer when i become a teacher that i wont get to do september until i retire!

animal kingdom is not my favorite park...its nice and i like some of the rides, but nothing special to me....we grabbed fast passes to the safari then headed over to EE.
on the walkway over

[

there was a 5 minute wait so we hopped in line, road to the top of the mountain, then did it all over again!!
now- i have never seen the yeti in action, however, i definately feel like something is missing, and would like one day to be able to see it the right way...but i digress..
...we went over to dinosaur and then over to get tickets to kali. we then walked to the safari and made sure all the animals were safe

our plan now was to catch up with some characters ride kali and then head out of the park and maybe go mini golfing...
...so we go back to camp minnie/mickey

after thumper i saw chip and dale..i was so excited and was pulling my husband by his arm...i know people have the best interactions with them so i was hoping to be a lucky one...
..but suddenly a manager looking person got in my way...ugh i thought it was a survey person..but then noticed he didnt have the same computer looking thingy...hmmm?

so he began asking how we were enjoying our hunnymoon and what parks we were at already...i was pleasant but getting anxious..mike doesnt really like lines for characters,and i cant blame him..but then manager guy asked us how long we were going to stay at AK...i knew what that meant so i quickly anwered with "probably the whole day, we don't really have any plans until dinner tonight" mike i think looked at me like i had 50 heads...stray from my plan? its been in place for a year?! yupyupyup.....well this guy had some interesting news for us...which meant we had to stay at the park all day...but i was totally content with us...
..whats the news? you have to wait until we get there!

After our meeting we were able to meet chip and dale....they were awesome!! they spent so much time with us and were so excited about my ring and were making it shiny and one of them tried to run away with me (cant remember which one though lol) i have 13 photopass photos from them

playing with my ring

we headed over to kali, which a photo stop on the way

we rode kali...then tried its a bug life.
spiders...ughhhhh that part had freaked me out...i calmed down until the end..you know. when the little ones leave first....totally jumped a mile!!

we had about an hour to kill until we had to meet manager man.
so we went to the dawa bar. 2 yrs ago we were there on our first full day and met a bartender from the south shore of boston, we live on the northshore..so it was pretty cool. Well, you guessed it, we found him again. We played catch up for a little bit then headed to the meeting spot....anyone know what we are doing...?
here is a hint.

still not sure?? How about this

thats right! we were grand marshalls in the animal kingdom parade.
How absolutely awesome is that?!?!?!?!
i was allll day and pretty much set for life..lol....
after the parade ended and we were backstage we met a CM who mentioned that she heard we met chip and dale earlier...i laughed and wondered which one she was!
before we left, we headed to see one last character. MEEKO! (i named my new cat after him/her...is it a him or her?)
well meeko was out, with one kid in front of us-however he told meeko he didnt want to meet him but only pocahontas
well poor meeko was hurt, so he hung his head and started to sulk off, until i told him that i wanted to meet him!
he came running back and hugged me lol

after that it was time to go back to the resort...we had dinner tonight at a place i havent eaten at since i was 8..and mike never had...

we headed out and since it was close to 7 the carts were set up for illuminations...so i bought a paid of light up ears

we had a wonderful service, i think her name was katie or kristin...well it was definately one of those two..im leaning towards kristin.
i had the prime rib and mike had the filet. and the bread...yummmm!!
we really like steakhouses..and were so happy to eat here. i wonder what the changes are like...?
after dinner we strolled the showcase and got a couple of drinks to watch illuminations

after the show i was not feeling good so we called it a night...
tomorrow was our F! day...so it was probably good to get an early night sleep

one more photopass photo!

coming up...how much can you do in one day?!

 

[teddygurl28]

also just to note...the necklace you can see in the epcot photos...i got from the pick a pearl in epcot

 

[teddygurl28]

I was hoping to get through this quickly for everyone...but apparently 18th century literary theory is consuming my life...and its not enjoyable

but lets get through atleast one more day...
Onto thursday!

Today was our fantasmic day, and even though we had park hoppers, I still like to stick close to the same park. Even though it was september and the crowds were super light, i decided i still wanted to do a F! package...because lets face it...who wants to wait in line?!
Today, though, since I knew I had two days planned at the studios, we decided to take the morning off and head to typhoon lagoon....
Quick back story...i have been to all 3 of disney's waterparks...exactly one time each. So my knowledge of them was pretty slim. I just remember liking typhoon lagoon...alot....
we got there close to opening and it was super quiet!!!
I dont have any photos because i forgot my waterproof camera--and i couldn't find any photopass people?
We spent half of a day here...
our favorite was the crush n' gusher....
we did each one!
we also did the swimming with the sharks...i liked it, although its very restrictive...my husband didn't since he couldnt keep his eye on me?
I am a faster and more advanced swimmer than him so i am not entirely sure why he was trying to see where i was anyways..but thats besides the point!
We hung around the lazy river, and then i laid out in the sand while mike went off to explore the wave pool....
after a few hours we took off for the hotel to change. As I mentioned it was our F! day
We took the walking path over to DHS..

and took some photos along the walk

We figured we would not get toy story fast passes
but the weirdest thing happened....a CM came over and asked us some trivia questions in order to win fast passes
except the questions were all about the hall of presidents...which i havent been to since i was about 8
He still gave them to us anyways..and they were for toy story AND tower of terror!!! it was heaven!!
Before using the fast passes however..
we..took a little walk to see an old friend (actually he was a new old friend..i had never met him before!)

we actually saw a stuffed lotso at our local disney store this weekend, and i almost bought him since he smells like strawberries. but then he is kind of dirty looking (on purpose i know) but trying to explain that to my sister-in-law (since i would have given it to my nephew) would have been too much...
after lotso, we decided it was time for toy story!
[

this is one of our favorite rides! We have the game at home for wii...kind of makes me want to play it now....Mike won (as usual) he always seems to beat me in the last window..its so unfair!!

After the ride we checked in for dinner....we did Hollywood and Vine this time...
I was not thrilled with Mama Melrose's...and The brown derby (thats its name right?) did not appeal to me....
Hollywood and vine is a simple buffet...but it worked out well for us. We were sat in no time, and we got ourselves a couple of beers and then headed up to the buffet line...twice
We spent the rest of the early evening just roaming around

Until it was time for F! ( no pictures in there)
After that we went to ride rockin roller coaster
(i took this from the line)

and one more on the way out

It seems like we didn't do much at DHS...and we didn't....we more just soaked up the atmosphere, and enjoyed each others company...
Which is why I like this park and doing it in 2 days...we do the fun rides, but its more just time for us...Obviously on a shorter trip this wouldn't happen...but it worked out for us this time around

up next...visiting the enemy!!

 

[teddygurl28]

Fair warning:
There are no photos (well okay 2) from today. I just never got around to it…


I left off leaving Hollywood studios. But that wasn’t the end of our night.
We decided that tonight was the night to go to jellyrolls. ALL. NIGHT. LONG.
We closed the place down….in hindsight not a good idea..but it was fun for a while!

Our plan for Friday was a 650am wake up followed by a 715 breakfast and a shuttle ride to
Universal!
Yey! I always take a day to do universal and islands of adventure.
I was really excited this time for Harry Potter…it looked so awesome.

So 6:50 came…
And went.

I finally got out of bed at 7:20…I felt bad for missing breakfast, but that half hour of sleep was heavenly.
We ended up grabbing some juice and pastries at the marketplace and headed over to universal.

Our plan was to do Harry Potter, the rest of IOA and then get some lunch and head over to the universal side.
Last time we came in 2008, we did the same thing, except as soon as we hit lunch, a monsoon came though. We still got through Universal side but the rain came with us and at times it felt like we were swimming through the streets.

This is also a good time to explain my husband and rides. He is a total baby…in 2008 EVERY single ride we went on he would ask what is it like, is it fast/slow dark, inside/outside. I atleast have a good idea what it will be like to travel with a small child.
He is even gullible like a small child…I told him dinosaur was like it’s a small world (yes I took that idea from someone here on the DIS) and that it was a story of dinosaurs through time. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with me after that ride. SO when it came time for universal he promised he would try a roller coaster for me. He HATES them, he constantly thinks he is going to fall out- apparently the laws of physics don’t apply to him. But again he promised, so I took him on hulk-my reasoning was that he was sitting with his feet on the ride, not hanging and feeling more exposed like he would on dueling dragons. So the ride started and he shut his eyes. For the entire ride. He came off a nice shade of white and refused to speak to me for about 20 minutes. Which was fine because I spent those 20 minutes laughing at him.
Fast forward to this year. I had no intention of taking him on hulk or dueling dragons. But when it came to forbidden journey…I had no clue what the ride was like?

Back to present day:
We show up at IOA and head to the back where WWOHP is located. We finally get there and its relatively quiet (here is my plug for why September is awesome)
I took a photo of Hogwarts

And we proceeded to the line for the ride. We waited about 35-30 minutes, but it was fine by me because we got to walk through the castle. WOW. Universal did an amazing job with the castle, and in fact the area as a whole. Kuddos to them.
The ride? NEVER AGAIN. NEVER EVER.
Spiders…so many spiders..big spiders.
Hated it.

That’s all I will say on it.
Total disappointment. So to make myself feel better, I went on a favorite ride of mine-dueling dragons..both fire and ice. I again like how they rethemed the castle to a harry potter motif.
After WWOHP and its disappointment, we wandered over to jurrasic park…fun times!
By the time we got off I was feeling a little off though, between the early morning and late night-I decided that I needed food, so at 11am I bought some chicken fingers and French fries- yum!!! (this is a staple and any time I have counter service in Disney you can rest assured you know what I got)
We mosied on down to toon lagoon. My favorite area of IOA. I love splash mountain, and kali river rapids is okay- but this is the one area I think Universal beat Disney.
The drop in ripshaw falls wins-hands down. I wish splash was entirely the same-but have the ripshaw falls drop. Then it would be the best ride ever. Popeyes rapids beat kali any day. Riding kali is like riding a shortened version of castaway creek (another favorite of mine-but not the point). Popeyes is just awesome there are drops and waves and just a great river ride-we did it twice!

In quick fashion we did the marvel area and also stopped in suess landing. We skipped the other area though- don’t know the name of it?
We thought since it was about 1 it would be a good idea to go to lunch-at the hardcover of course….and as we start walking it felt like dejavu
The clouds opened up, and I mean opened up hard. We made it to hardcover only slightly wet, and after a quick lunch trekked out to the universal side.
People were hiding everywhere taking cover from the storm….if you remember we went on the water rides about a million times-so we were soaked anyways.
We were able to get onto the mummy, jaws, the simpsons, ET and I think that’s it?
Hollywood rip ride rocket didn’t seem to be opened  I was totally disappointed.
We still had a few hours before our ride was supposed to be picking us up. And I was exhausted. I am not a friendly person when im that tired and sick. SO mike decided to pay for a taxi. Cost us about $40-$45.
In my mind, it was priceless!

That’s a lot for one post with no photos…so I will leave it with that and come back later with details of the night

 

[teddygurl28]

After we got home from universal it was definately nap time....since it was raining out and i was very cranky, i took advantage of the fact that we had about 4 hours before dinner.

When we finally got up and dressed we headed to the international gateway
but because of the rain we stopped at the store right at the entrance and got a rain coat for me. Its nice because its one that folds up into a pouch so i now leave it in my car incase i need it.

...dinner tonight was at one of our favorites...
Coral Reef!
I know this is hit or miss for some people, but I like the atmosphere-we have been able to sit close to the tank in the two times we have been here, so its always great.

I am not a seafood person though so I got the strip steak and fries, yumm!!
for dessert they sent this out to us

after dinner we hung around future world and hopped on mission space and spaceship earth.
As usual we stayed for illuminations. (i love that music!)

we got some photopass shots at the golf ball...although i never had us get one wher eyou could see the entire sphere from the front entrance.. oh well next time!

as you can see after the rain it got cool (maybe 70? haha) so i had a light long sleeve shirt on

i am kind of dissapointed this photo didnt come out...they are all foggy..i guess again because of the weather the lens kind of screwed up?

We called it a night, because tomorrow i wanted to get to hollywood studios early! (and we of course had an early morning breakfast!!!)

 

[teddygurl28]

Hmmm...I guess my report is not interesting bc nobody seems to comment on it
no biggie though, someone is reading it, and besides i like reliving the week....the more entertaining stuff is coming up soon though, since it centers around our second half of the split stay...

but back to today..or today in the trip report...which would have been Saturday (september 25 incase you were wondering)
Today was our last full day at the beach club and we were checking out early sunday morning....
So we figured it was a good idea to eat at cape may for breakfast...smalll backstory- there is a photo of me from when i was 3 at the poly character breakfast with minnie, who was my favorite at the time (and is still a very close second after tink)...well that poly breakfast does not exist anymore (im definately dating myself but thats okay) so I wanted to find another breakfast where i could see minnie....i thought about chef mickeys but i haven't heard anything good...and then i figured out she was at cape may, and that was our hotel and how perfect...so nice and early we got to hang out with some friends

and of course, mike's favorite..

For some reason i told goofy that mike was really happy to see him as he was his favorite, so he went over for the photo with him, but then walked away before i could get one ( we eventually did though )....i dont know, this was the only character experience i felt out of place at...i mean yes i know we are two adults..but still arent we all kids here
....
oh well...after breakfast we took a nice walk over to DHS.....we always walk over....the boat is nice but always a little to hot for me...
as usual our first stop was for fast passes for toy story. Since we weren't there at rope drop the wait was already around 45-60 minutes ...too high by our standards...no biggie..off to the other rides!
we were heading to TOT when we had to stop so they could film!

I'll admit, i have been coming to this park since opening and not once have i ever stopped to watch any of these interactions...it was really funny..especially since they are practically right next to you!

we did our usual tour of TOT and RNR....with the customary photopass stop

and then headed over to the muppets 3D ....earlier in the week i was trying to get my picture taken in front of the fountain....we had just the right time, when some kids started jumping IN the fountain...we waited about 5-10 minutes hoping they would leave..but they didn't...and i have no idea where their parents were....so oh well...it was time to try the shot again.
even though it was a saturday morning on a F! day, it was pretty quiet so we managed to get it!

i think it was worth the wait because we got it perfect!
We didn't do the show, and instead headed over to toy story ... and its down....
we decide not to stress too much...but didn't know what to do...until mike came up with the perfect idea..

Mini Golf!! Last time we came we played at winter/summerland....this time we figured we could walk right over to fantasia gardens....we had a coupon from some tourguide book so it was nice..and we got complimentary gift golf balls...with tink on them! (i have mine but no idea where mikes went?..he probably used it already)
To make a long story short...i won....again...just like i did at the other course...which is comical because mike is a huge huge golfer...i golf...terribly..and i am actually not to fond of the sport-esp when i play with him...but it felt good to win!
We took a boat from the swan/dolphin back over to DHS so we could check on toy story...and it was up! we took a journey on that...then headed out. I will be honest-i have absolutely no clue where we ate dinner.
I do know (thanks to my pictures) that tonight was the night we went to downtown disney.....how do i know that?
because i took this photo in the world of disney store.....

he looks aweful in hats!! But he always tries to wear them?!
We called it a night early...since tomorrow morning we had to be up to move....

 

[DisneyFanDC]

Really enjoying your report and especially like your great pics! Looking forward to reading more.

 

[blondie7]

I am enjoying your trip report. You were there just before we arrived for our Wedding and Honeymoon. We stayed at the BCV for a few nights of our honeymoon. So exciting that you got to be grand marshalls at the AK. I had hoped for something like that to happen to us but no such luck. I can't wait to read the rest.

 

[NMW]

Subscribing and enjoying your tr

 

[teddygurl28]

Thanks for saying hi!

We totally lucked out being the GM for the parade...I sometimes can be a lucky person (my sis-in-law is convinced) so it was cool...but i will also say kind of awkward.....your on this float, and they tell you to wave so you do..and some people wave back, but others i think are looking at us like who are you?! and the parade moves really really slow...i just never noticed it until i was sitting through it!

 

[teddygurl28]

Today was checkout day at the beach club.
We got up around 730/8 and showered before heading downstairs to check out. I am sort of OCD, and didn't want bell services to transfer the bags, i prefered to do them, so we grabbed a taxi and headed for the magic kingdom...
...rewind to my planning phase of the trip and i booked sun-tues night at the Floridian....then i upgraded to a theme park view..then to club level. Then I switched it to the poly-because its the only place my husband ever stayed on property as a kid and i love the beach theme.....i concidered the contemporary bc of the views, but i just wasnt feeling it.....so up until the last day i could i went back and forth about the poly or the GF...
.....
and we ended up...
here!

Not sure where it is? Yeh those were my thoughts when i opened the balcony door...but im getting ahead of myself....lets start from the taxi ride over...

We got to the hotel early and checked in, since the room was not ready we set our bags at the bell services and headed for breakfast.
I had a 10am ressie set for Kona...we got there in plenty of time and went to look through all the gift stores. I found a hawaiian shirt I wanted to get for my dad but wasnt 100% sure he would want it, so i called my mom but had to leave her a message.
Breakfast was uneventful, and while we were finishing up we got a text that the room was ready
Leaving breakfast i took a quick couple of pics to show the area

by now you must have figured it out....yup i went with the Grand Floridian. My husband said as long as we could take a walk over to the Poly so he could see it again, he would much rather see me happy at the GF...so hence the breakfast at Kona.

We walked back over and we were heading up the stairs when my mom called me back.....i was explaining the shirt to her as i was opening the door to the room.
I was in heaven ....still talking to my mom i opened the balcony door and....
well i won't repost it again since the first time was bad enough. That view was concidered a theme park view.....
I'll admit, I started to cry...and sob...to my mom. I had booked the theme park view at a more expensive rate because i knew this would be my only time staying here, and i wanted it to be magical, i had dreams of just leaving the balcony window shades open and just sleep by castle light ..and this was not happening..
....my mom told me to call downstairs, but my husband was already on it! Poor guy didn't know what was wrong and literally told the front desk he had no clue why but i was crying and this room was not okay.
We eventually explained to them the view issues. They said they would be happy to change us, but that it would take up to an hour for bell services to come get our bags and then the new room wouldn't be ready until close to 3pm. It was only about 11:15am at this point...for some people they may have settled...but we said no problem, we will come bring our own bags back to bell services and take the day to see the resort and head to a park.
And thats what we did...
we took the boat over, since it was something we had never done and had some fun ..
we continued on with our "lets do something new" mentality..

any guesses? Probably pretty easy...it was the treehouse, I hadn't done it in ages....great views from up there!
We were browsing through some shops after, over by pirates, when i found these awesome mouse ears..
i regret not buying them, and mike thinks its not fair that i can still manage to look somewhat normal even in mickey ears

Next we were off to lunch at the liberty tree tavern...again another first...
quick back story on this- while browsing the dis boards i came across a post from someone whos daughter had lost the clip on tinkerbell from the souvenier cups ...i told her i would get a new one while i was down here..
and i did i think maybe the second day into the trip? but i thought it was so cute and kept talking about it...so while i was in the bathroom mike asked the waitress if i could have my soda in it (obviously pay for it- i just dont like juice drinks)

Yeeeey tink!

After lunch we decided to head back to the resort. Our room was ready....again...
this time I was pretty sure we hit the jackpot...
and I was right (atleast in my eyes, and thats pretty much all that matters!)

and somehow Mike Managed to get this photo

I was so happy.
The resort also gave us a bottle of champagne...Not sure if it was because it was our honeymoon...or they felt bad for the room switch ordeal? or maybe both....either way it was nice....
We had big plans that night, so we planned to take a rest for the afternoon....

Up next: That's for us?...