Were home... Sad, but ready to plan the next one! Warning: FIRST TRIP REPORT

[Bethany2008]

Hello everyone!

Let me first warn everyone I am new to the whole forum board world, and this is my first trip report, so bear with me! My husband loves boards and has a couple that he follows regularly (ie. cars, camping, ect) for which I used to make jokes about often... So imagine how happy he was when I happen to be googling WDW questions and ended up here, and well, frankly, am addicted!
I really wanted to do a trip report because One:I can't contain my DiSnEy Excitement Two:To help tide others over till their next Disney trip, as they did for me Three:Challenge myself to live up to all of you others who have made such wonderful trip reports and Four:Did I mention I can't contain my DiSnEy Excitement!

Now: Let me introduce myself, my name is Bethany, I am 23, and am an NICU RN. I am short, at only 5 feet and I get excited easily, I have a tendency to act like I am a child, which is maybe why I fit in so well in WDW Oh yeah, and my dream job is to be a Cast Member!
My Husband is Ben, he is also 23 and a is Compliance Manager for the Sams Club/Walmart Co. For those of you who work in hospitals, he is pretty much the JACHO/OSHA person. He is wonderful, and is very supportive of my love of everything Disney and he truly is my other half.

Last year, we went to WDW for the first time and had an escape wedding at the Boardwalk with our immediate families and two friends. It was an absolute blast! This year we went back for our anniversary to use our 'Wedding Annual Passes' that we got with our package ONE LAST TIME! And this is where our Trip Report Begins.....

I promise to post pics soon, Ben, who promised to help me do this, went to bed but I couldn't wait to start... Sorry.

CoMiNg SoOn:
Day One: Traveling from Fargo to Orlando and Mexico to Canada!

 

[KatMark]

Welcome to your first Trip Report, and a great start, Bethany. I'll be here reading yours and the others I am following (in between finishing up my own report).

 

[Dizneydawn]

Hi North Dakota! I am organizing a Dis Meet at the end of October in the Twin Cities! maybe you can come! Go to the "Just for Fun" forumn and look up Dis Meets - Ours is the one that says Mall of America/Minnesota meet!

I keep going back and forth about an escape wedding and a wedding at Disney's Vero Beach. Right now settled on Vero but would love to hear about your wedding as well. We at first thought Escape but if our number is over 18 - you know that goes to the bigger wedding and a whole lot more money!

My TR is at the bottom - go take a look so you know who I am here - I find it helpful to put names and faces and avatars together to get to know people a bit better and maybe that will help you!

You write well and your enthusiasm is congtagious - so I am excited to be on board!

Dawn

 

[Bethany2008]

Thanks for joining in you guys!

Dizneydawn- A meet at MoA would be so fun! I will definatly look into it! I don't usually look at the meets since I always assume I am too far away from everyone to go, but I sometimes forget how close I am to the cities (we just moved to Fargo from Western ND a year ago)!
Also, an escape wedding was perfect for us because we knew we wouldn't have more than 18 guests (plus it was kind of our excuse to NOT invite all the uncles, aunts, and cousins ect.. But that would be the main downfall of the escapes.

Day 0: The night before we left!

OK, so since flights out of North Dakota are SO darn expensive we decided to travel to Minneapolis (3 1/2 hour drive) and fly out of MSP. It actually cut $200 off each ticket!
Since we were going for our anniversary, we decided to eat our 1 year old frozen top cake tier and drink our Fairytale Cuvee before we left (Both of which were carefully brought back with us from our Escape Wedding in WDW!).

We set it up with the original cake topper too

It actually was decently good, considering it spent a week in the resort refrigerator, a full day traveling in the plane and then the car, and THEN froze for almost a year, lol. The fondant was NOT good though, it was very hard. I give the fondant the credit for it freezing so well and coming out so moist.

Anyways, the rest of the night we spent packing and eating.. and packing .. and eating lol. We got up the next morning and started on the road at 5am in order to make our 10:30 flight out of MSP. NEXT STOP DISNEY WORLD!

 

[Bethany2008]

Ok, so on with the show!

DAY ONE: Traveling from Fargo to Orlando, and from Mexico to Canada!

Like I said earlier, you have to remember that this is my first trip report. With that being said, I didn't take many pictures in anticipation of posting them, so they all have me, Ben, or both of us in them.. Sorry!

So our plans were to originally leave at 5am.. yeah, DH calls it Bethany-Time... which means, 30 minutes late... at least. SO, we walked out the door at 5:30. After stopping at the gas station to get some breakfast, oh and gas of course, we left Fargo, about 5:45.
Doing the math:
*3 1/2 hours to drive
*4 3/4 hours till the plane takes off
*Minneapolis traffic
*A Garmin who doesn't calculate road construction
*Road Construction
+ *ME DRIVING
BAD NEWS BEARS

After missing the first exit (I blame this on the Garmin, telling me to keep left, when, with the road construction I was really on the opposite side of the road, so it would ACTUALLY have be 'keep right') I ended up staying on I94 instead of exiting. which, well, put us behind a little more. I was doing just fine because hey, our plane doesn't take off for an hour!
We got to the airport and parked, trammed it to where we needed to be (NOTE: we don't travel that often, in North Dakota we usually drive places, since airfare is so $$$, so I don't do airports often). Anyways, apparently it was a big deal that we got through security with a half hour to go... It was kinda cool hearing our names over the intercom I don't think the Airport people were in good moods, they strictly said that we were the last people to check in so we were given random seats. I smiled and said, 'why thank you, have a magical day!' Ok, so i didn't say the last part, but I sure wanted to! I do like to kill 'em with kindness WE MADE IT!

We landed and were in the Magical Express line by 3:30ish.
Next stop, ALL STAR MUSIC!

On the Magical Express! I was starving, oh, and catching up on my Disney knowledge! (Unofficial Guide to WDW 2009)

At our resort, All Star Music
Last time (which was our first visit) we stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort, so this was... a little different, needless to say.

 

[Bethany2008]

Day 1 Continued

So, we got to the hotel and checked in and ate some food court pizza. We had plans to go to EPCOT since it was Futureworld Evening EMH. Even though our intentions were more towards World Showcase and The Food and Wine Festival!

This is the F&W shirt Ben and I both got them and love them The Female one is baby blue and fitted, but I liked the brown one better.
Once we got there, I had mentioned to the whole 'drinking around the world' idea and with no explanation, Ben was on board!
(Please NOTE that we got there around 6ish, which gave us approximately 3 hours)
SO WE STARTED IN MEXICO!

We got frozen house margaritas... Mmmmm However, we soon realized that the trip to Norway was not a plane ride, nor a bus ride, but a measly 2 minute walk... which meant we had some serious brain freeze! We quickly found out that if we wanted to make it around the world in 3 hours we needed to SHARE full drinks at each pavilion!

AND ON TO NORWAY

Carlsberg Beer from Norway! In our souvenir cup of course!

NEXT UP.. CHINA

This is a Green Tea Plum Wine Cooler. It was very good and refreshing, but not my first pick after margaritas and beer. By this time, we realized we would not have time to get random people to take a picture of both of us, so you will begin to either see me or Ben.

GERMANY!

I am sad to say, I don't remember the name of this beer. Now, we had started feeling a little tipsy and having fun with the challenge of choosing drinks and hoping we'll make it!

AND ON TO ITALY

Merlot... Mmmm...Really, by this time we were tipsy and having a blast! You must also know, that our baggage hadn't been brought to our room yet so we are in our traveling clothes... which I have been in since 4 am, this why I look like a hobo, I actually do like to dress nicer when I go to the parks, but the world doesn't wait for the Magical Express!

Half way there in our home country of..
AMERICA!

Sam Adams Boston Lager. We were looking for something American for this picture and just couldn't find anything perfect. So we found this towel and we took the first picture just beside it and THEN realized it was ALL of the country flags, so I made him find the American Mickey head and pose

JAPAN-CANADA TO BE CONTINUED...

 

[Bethany2008]

NEXT STOP... JAPAN!

Warm Sake. We ended up stopping for a bit here because we needed a potty break and frankly, everyone else in the world rotfl: no pun intended) decided to stop at the Yakitori House at the same moment we did!

ON TO MOROCCO

Yummy Sangria! By now, we were attempting to find places that were cool photos (because Ben was very excited I was going to start a thread on a board lol) We got many photos... however we looked like goobers in 95% of them lol

A QUICK STOP IN FRANCE

Now, we were running out of time and we were determined to make it! I staid in line in France for Champagne (which came in a light up glass.. ouuuu) and Ben hurried to the United Kingdom. As you can see, I got to the UK before we got a picture.. SAD.

RUNNING TO THE UK

Bass Ale for Ben And only one more stop, however, it was 9:10... we were convinced that we were done, but we walked to Canada anyways.. just in case (not to mention we had to in order to get out of the park period.. but... thats just the optimism in me )

OH CANADA!

Guess what! The Canada stand we found is actually open until 10! I honestly don't remember the beer that we got, but it was another souvenir glass! As for the picture, trust me, I don't know what was up their either, but apparently, it was interesting, and made for a hilarious picture!

After Canada, and a pit stop at the restrooms lol, we were STARVING! So off to the electric umbrella for some food, then back to the ASMu.
If anyone is contemplating Drinking around the world.. I highly recommend it, what a blast!

Just a little foreshadowing... we didn't make it for rope drop the next morning

TO BE CONTINUED... Thanks for the patience everyone!

 

[Emily222]

I'm so jealous!! October is by far the best month to go to WDW!! Food and Wine Festival, MNSSHP, temps and crowds are great!! I'm sad we never got to drink around the world, but that just means we'll have to go back!!

 

[CoP Luv]

Great start! I just started my first TR too!

 

[jessily]

A trip that starts with drinking around the world is a good trip in my books