Why Does Disney Hate Maleficent? An October 2012 Disneymoon TR! Updated 01/31/13!

[RachVH]

Hello Dear Readers! Well, it has been a few weeks since we returned from the World, but I think I am finally ready to start my TR of our magical Disneymoon!

But wait, some of you don't even know who I am! Well, if you want the full tale with all of the backstory, you will have to turn to my PTR, entitled The Wedding Was Great, But Now for the Disneymoon.

However, if you are looking for the cliffs notes version of things, let me tell you that my DH and I were married in March, after nearly 10 years together. Here we are:

We spent 6 nights in a fabulous room at Port Orleans French Quarter, followed by one night at Loews Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Studios and two more nights at a spa in the Tampa/Clearwater area.

I will admit that it has been a while since we returned (just about a month!), but luckily I have lots of pictures and actually took notes on what we did each day and the hysterical adventures we had on our trip.

To give you a few clues, I will let you know that there were some other options for the title of this TR. Here are some of the other top options:

"Does everyone in Disney World wear size medium pajama pants?"
"Easy for you to say, there aren't 500 people trying to get in front of you!"
"How many bricks are there in Cinderella Castle?"
"Why does everyone trade the lawyer?"
and finally, "The TSA almost didn't let me go home!"

I promise you, all of those alternate titles will be explained (eventually!). So sit back and enjoy the TR!

 

[RachVH]

Chapter Titles

Day One
Day One, Part One - October 5, 2012
Day One, Part Two - October 5, 2012
Day One, Part Three - October 5, 2012

Day Two
Day Two, Part One, October 6, 2012
Day Two, Part Two, October 6, 2012
Day Two, Part Three, October 6,2012

 

[Belle83]

Oooh am I first? Yay! Love Honeymoon TRs!

 

[ghtx]

I'm subscribing too. We were there when you were there; maybe we ran into each other!

 

[MiaBella05]

joining in

 

[Duzzygirl]

Just ran across your PTR. It lead me here. Anxious to read about your trip!!

 

[RachVH]

Oooh am I first? Yay! Love Honeymoon TRs!

Yay for being my first poster! Welcome!

I'm subscribing too. We were there when you were there; maybe we ran into each other!

That's so cool that you were there at the same time! I wonder if any of our days matched up? You'll have to let me know if you see yourself in any pictures!

joining in

Welcome, thanks for joining in!

Just ran across your PTR. It lead me here. Anxious to read about your trip!!

Hope you enjoyed the PTR, thanks for coming over to the TR!

Ok readers, it is almost time to get this show on the road! I will be posting our first segment when I get home from work tonight! I hope to get through our travel day, arrival at POFQ right through heading out to Epcot. I have all of my pictures (including photpass) all loaded and ready to go, so it should be good to go. Talk to you tonight!

 

[RachVH]

In a similar fashion to Day 1 of most people's Disney trips, our day started early, 4:30 a.m. to be exact! Well, the alarm(s) were set for 4:45, but by 4:30 I couldn't stand it anymore and wanted to get started!

We got everything loaded up in the car, including the one suitcase we would be checking that I had packed, weighed, repacked, weighed and repacked until I was sure it was under the weight limit of 50 lbs, said goodbye to our dog (Lily) and headed off into the sunrise. Don't worry about Lily, as she would be well taken care of for the week by a dog walker her loves her.

We we in the car and headed out of the neighborhood at 5:29 a.m. This was when I realized I had forgotten my fleece jacket that I had been planning to wear on the plane (I am notorious for being cold on planes). Ry (my DH for those who don't remember) said that if I was cold on the plane I could always borrow his light zip up hoodie that he had remembered to wear, and since I was already wearing long pants and handknit wool socks, I figured I could bear it for the three hour plane ride. So we continued on our course westward to the airport.

We arrived at the airport at 7:10 and headed for long term parking. The airport we were flying out of is fairly small, so long term parking isn't that far away, but there is still a shuttle to take you to the terminal. The airport is so small and so few people were arriving at that time that the shuttle driver drove the shuttle right behind our parked car and put all of our luggage on the shuttle for us! We love flying out of CAK.

I had already printed our boarding passes and pre-paid for our one checked bag (remember that? The one I had triple checked to make sure it was under 50lbs?) Well, when we arrived at the terminal to hand over the bag, it clocked in at 50.5 lbs. (I don't want to know what the scale would have said I weighed!) Luckily, the agent took a look at my shirt and pleading face, said congratulations and took the bag anyway (though he did recommend that we not pack the bag as fully on the way home!)

What shirt you ask? Well, if you had read my PTR you would know exactly which shirt, but I will tell you anyway. We were wearing these:

We got our first real comments on our shirts as we passed through security, but they would not be the last! I joked with everyone that I was going to milk the fact that we were on our honeymoon for all it was worth, and the shirts were just part of my scheme. They did come though for us on a number of occasions.

Our arrival at our gate made for our first pixie dust of the trip, when I asked if there was any way we could get seats together closer to the front of the plane and the gate agent offered us a free upgrade to exit row seating! It meant that I had to sit in the middle, but it was so worth it to me (at 5'9") and my DH (at 6'1"). Usually we feel all squashed into any airline seat, but with these there was truly room to spare.

We boarded and got in the air right on time, in fact we ended up landing about 10 minutes early! We had two flight attendants on our plane. The first was a young woman who seemed to be fairly new to the position and concerned with doing everything exactly right. The second was a gentleman who looked to be about my age (30) who appeared that he only goal was to get the young woman to laugh. She was towards the back of the plane, facing the back of the plane and performing the safety procedures (you know, this is how you put the seatbelt into the buckle, here's where your oxygen mask will fall from in an emergency, etc.) and the guy was in the front of the plane and would act all normal when she was looking over her shoulder to check that she was in sync, but as soon as she was looking away from him he would break into what can only be described as "vogue-ing" meaning that he would stop the safety performance to break into some pretty spot on Madonna moves from the 80's. Of course, every time he did this the whole plane would laugh, the girl would look over her shoulder and he would be there, straight faced and performing the safety spiel like everything was normal. It was hysterical to watch and the first time I had ever been on a plane when the whole plane actually eruputed into applause following the safety demonstration. Ry's comment on the whole thing was "I think that's the first time I've paid attention to that since my first plane ride.

So the trip was definitely off on the right foot. I pulled out my brand-spanking-new iPad and started watching the movie I had rented ("The Avengers") . I also pulled out the pair of socks I was knitting and settled in for our approximately 2 1/2 hour flight. Ry spent the flight grading (he's a professor, remember?) so I don't think he enjoyed it quite as much as I did.

As I said before, we arrived a little early, and when I turned my phone on I had text messages from both Garden Grocer confirming that our order had been delivered to POFQ and was being held at bell services, and also from Happy Limo confirming that our driver was waiting for us at baggage claim.

We headed down to baggage claim with all of our related carry-ons, and I took my first picture of the trip.

Hi Mickey!

Hello Harry! We'll be seeing you, but not for a week!

As we rode down the escalator towards baggage claim, we saw this sight before us:

If you look all the way to the right, you will see the driver holding an iPad with our name on it. We booked a town car transfer as a little honeymoon perk for ourselves and it was well worth it. Our driver collected our 50.5 lb bag, through it and everything else in the car and whisked us out of the airport and had us arriving here before 12 noon.

Stupid purple truck ruining my picture!

Finally, we were here!

Up next, checking in to POFQ!

 

[RachVH]

We arrived at POFQ just after 12 noon. We had already done online check in and I had called three days prior to request a corner room on the third floor. We also had our honeymoon on our reservation, so I admit, I was hoping for a little extra pixie dust.

We walked straight up to the online check in desk, and spoke to a very pleasant young man who's name I unfortunately did not write down. He congratulated us on our honeymoon and said the phrase that perked my ears up immediately. "I see you originally reserved a standard view room." We has been upgraded all the way up past water view straight to river view, and got my corner room request as well! Sure, it was on the second floor and not the third, but who am I to complain about that? We were also given those lovely "Happily Ever After" buttons.

Our room wasn't quite ready yet (and since it was such a fabulous room I was happy to wait), so I headed into the bathroom to change out of my jeans and wool socks into something more FL in early October appropriate, and the we schlepped all of our stuff over to luggage storage to be held while we were out gallivanting in the parks.

Oh that's right! When I was in the bathroom changing I found two refillable mugs sitting on top of the toilet paper dispenser. Knowing how much those things cost I checked to make sure the owner wasn't in the bathroom anymore and then turned them into a CM I found just outside the bathroom. She seemed shocked when I told her I was turning them in because someone had lost them. I guess she would have expected me to just consider it "finders keepers"?

After turning everything over to luggage storage we headed out towards the bus stop to go to Epcot...and my cell phone went off. I had a text message. Our room was ready! So yes, we turned right around and got everything back from luggage storage. We headed to our room, which was number:

Here's what we found when we went inside:

I cannot explain how much I loved POFQ and the room that we got. I took some pictures of our view and the resort the next morning, so I will talk about that more when I post them, but this was the perfect resort for us. It was quiet most of the time, being right on the water was amazing, and we loved how small the resort was. We will definitely be staying there in the future.

We unpacked, called bell services to get our Garden Grocer order delivered to our room and finalized our plans for the rest of the night. After we got all settled in we finally headed out to Epcot around 2:30 p.m. Here's what we both looked like waiting for our first bus, on our first day, headed to our first park!

[

Next up, Epcot! Then on to DtD!

 

[Duzzygirl]

Sounds great so far!

 

[wiscbugs]

Great report so far...ready for more!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Hi Joining in! DH and I also had our honeymoon at Disney and I am so glad that we did. I can't wait to read more

 

[RachVH]

Sounds great so far!

Thanks! Sorry about the delay, new installment coming up.

Great report so far...ready for more!

Thank you..ask and ye shall receive (just a little later than I had hoped for.)

Hi Joining in! DH and I also had our honeymoon at Disney and I am so glad that we did. I can't wait to read more

Yay, another Disneymooner is our mist. That's a word, right? Glad you are (hopefully still) along for the ride!

 

[RachVH]

When last we left our heroes...I mean I left off on this Disneymoon TR with waiting for our first Disney bus to take us to Epcot. We didn't have to wait too long when a bus for EP came our way and we were off!

We arrived at EP and had our first photopass pictures taken at the entrance. I had prepaid for a CD, so I knew I wanted to get as many pictures as I could without feeling like it was interrupting our touring plans. Here we are in our first official Disneymoon picture:

Our photographer took a look at our pins and our shirts and we got one of our first "congratulations" of the trip. Any of you who have worn these buttons in the past know that it would not be the last.

After taking our pictures and taking in the fact that we were actually here after how many months of planning, we headed off in search of why we were here, food!

We checked out Soarin! but the wait time was 90 minutes and the FP return time was between 6:15 and 7:15 and we knew we wanted to be on our way to DtD by then so we headed toward the WS for our first taste of the Food and Wine Festival. We decided to head clockwise towards Mexico, but first I headed over to the Hawaii stand for something I knew I would like - the Kahlua Pork Slider with sweet and sour dole pineapple chutney and spicy mayonnaise.

Oh my goodness. This. Was. So. Good. I mean, it is hard to screw up a pulled pork slider, but the sweet and tangy of the pineapple chutney with the spicy mayonnaise kicked it up to a 10. Definitely something I would like to get the recipe for. I also had the Rice Pudding with strawberries from Scandinavia and the Spicy Hand Roll (tuna and salmon with chili peppers) from Japan. The rice pudding was honestly disappointing, but the sushi was awesome and HUGE! One of the best values we for what you got definitely.

Ry went to grab a craft beer, while I decided to give my mom a call on her cell to check in on their travels. My parents were also flying to FL that day, but in the afternoon and to Tampa. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "Hi Mom, just checking in to see how your travels are going."
My Mom: "Hi sweetie, not too bad, our plane is delayed a little but we should be boarding soon. How is your traveling going?"
Me: "Pretty good, we're at Epcot."
My Mom: *mumbles something to my father about watching to see when the plane is boarding and yelling at him not to go for food because the plane is boarding soon* "That's great sweetie, so you've arrived at the airport too! When did you land?"
Me: "No, we're already here, we're at Epcot."
My mom: *more mumbling to my father, who has apparently determined he must get something to eat even though they have apparently announced pre-boarding for their flight.* "Oh, so you haven't left yet either? Was your flight delayed too?"
Me: "No mom, we are here. In Florida. At Disneyworld. I am standing in the World Showcase at Epcot."
My mom: (finally starts to listen to me after she has lost my father to the world of bad airport food) "Oh, you're IN Epcot! That's great!

The conversation did go on from there, but that's what 41 years of marriage sounds like, ladies and gentlemen! Things to look forward to. Honestly, my parents really have a great marriage, but I cannot say that the phone conversation with my mother was out of the ordinary!

Having procured his craft beer (a Florida Beer Co. Devil's triangle which he deemed a good IPA, not too bitter), my DH went off in search of his first food item, the Grilled Lamb Chops with mint pesto and potato crunchies.

First, let's be clear, those are really just crushed up potato chips. Ry felt the lamb chop was good overall, but a little salty. Definitely not one of our favorites.

Ry also tried the Morocco Merguey (sp?) sausage, which he felt was good, flavored traditionally, but very well. He also had the Griddled Greek Cheese with pistachios and honey. That was AMAZING. We had it again, because we loved it so much. So hard to describe though, because it was definitely just a slab of cheese which was fried, drizzled with honey and sprinkled with chopped pistachios. Doesn't sound good but tasted heavenly.

After our little taste of Greece we headed off towards our first official ride on our Disneymoon. Was it one of WDW's beloved headliners, perhaps Mission Space or maybe even Spaceship Earth? Not so much. Our first official ride on our Disneymoon was this:

I had never ridden it before, but the movie is one of Ry's favorites so he was singing along the whole time!

After we rode on It's a Mexican Small World we stopped for some pork pot stickers in China...

...and more importantly, my first official Grey Goose Citron Lemon Slush! Which I loved!

After that, the afternoon went a little downhill, well, more specifically downpour! Now, I am used to FL afternoon thunderstorms, but this would just not let up! The WS turned into a raging river as we watched lollipops, cardboard containers, plastic cutlery and other items get washed down the river that used to be the walkway. It was interesting. We waited under an umbrella (luckily we happened to actually be sitting down on a bench under an umbrella when the heavens opened up), but once an hour had past and I could tell that it wasn't going to let up soon based on the doppler radar on my phone we finally threw on the poncho's at about 5:00 p.m. and made our way across the International Gateway to the Beach Club.

We arrived at the Beach Club looking like drowned rats and walked through the beautiful lobby. I pointed out Cape May as one of the restaurants I wanted to get an ADR for on our next trip and we headed out to their bus stop...to see a bus for Downtown Disney pulling away from the stop. Oh well.

We waited for what was to be our longest bus wait of the trip (not counting the hellish trip to TL that will be recounted later) and finally another bus to DtD showed up about 25 minutes later.

Now although we were there first and clearly waiting, I was nice enough to let the family that arrived after us with small children get on first, as they had two strollers and a total of five children between them. I was happy to do this until they climbed on the bus, sat the children down and stood right at the front of the bus, completely ignoring the bus drivers request to move back to the empty back of the bus to enable more people to get on. This would become a recurring theme for our trip and was honestly the thing that ticked me off the most.

Now, had they looked at us and said, we'd like to stay with our kids but please go past us, again, that would have been fine. But no! They ignored the bus driver, ignored us and refused to make eye contact when both my DH and I were staring at them to move! We were also not the only people who wanted to be on the bus, there were a good 10 people behind us and there was plenty of standing room on the bus to accommodate everyone who was waiting.

Finally my DH said, just push by them. And so I did. Excuse me, I said as I pushed Mr. Stroller Holder out of the way to let myself and the 10 people behind me on the bus. When everyone was finally on the guy that was standing behind us as we were waiting said "thank you" and rolled his eyes at the people still standing obliviously in the front of the bus.

It all ended well though, because we ended up standing next to someone we dubbed "awesome Canadian guy," with whom we spent the entire bus ride talking about hockey.

We made it safely to DtD and headed straight to our chosen dinner destination. Earl of Sandwich. The place was PACKED, but we dutifully waited in line to procure our selections. I had the Holiday, and Ry had the Full Montagu. Both were absolutely delish! I may have also had one of their amazing chocolate brownies. Refreshed and overfull we headed off to explore a bit. Since it was our first night we didn't buy anything tonight. I will just treat you to some of the pictures I took that night.

Bride and Groom Mickey and Minnie!

Darkwing Duck!

We headed back to POFQ by boat, the perfect end to our long first day. We went to bed relatively early that night, and for good reason. We had RD plans for AK the next day!

Next up, Animal Kingdom!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Caught up! That sounds like quite the downpour! Buses always seem to bring out the worst in people… at least you managed to squish through and let those other people on the bus. Great pics from DTD! I look forward to seeing more.

 

[Pixie*Pirate]

Congrats on the Disneymoon! I can't wait to read more!!

 

[Alysa]

Hi Rach, Great start on your report, just saw it now. Looking forward to reading more! Beautiful photos, you both look so happy!

 

[RachVH]

Caught up! That sounds like quite the downpour! Buses always seem to bring out the worst in people… at least you managed to squish through and let those other people on the bus. Great pics from DTD! I look forward to seeing more.

I agree, buses make adults act like children sometimes! More coming right up!

Congrats on the Disneymoon! I can't wait to read more!!

Thank you! New installment up next!

Hi Rach, Great start on your report, just saw it now. Looking forward to reading more! Beautiful photos, you both look so happy!

Thanks for stopping by Alysa! You have a very good reason to be a little behind on your DisBoards reading, hope your family are doing well. I need to catch up on your PTR again!

 

[RachVH]

Hello readers! It appears that I have to apologize again for such a delay in my posting to this TR. My only explanation is that the Christmas season was absolutely insane for us. We had my BIL's wedding the weekend of the 15th, and my DH was in the wedding that meant we were away for the weekend. We were at my MIL's for both Christmas and New Years, and traveled 2 hours away to a volleyball tourney the weekend in between! Needless to say I was very grateful that they only time I left my house this weekend was to go grocery shopping!

Anyway back to the report. OH! First things first I need to add something on to our DtD Friday night! While I was planning this trip Ry and I were already mulling another the following year. I knew from my research that the "break even" point for AP to make sens was about 10 days of park tickets. I also knew that we had Victoria and Albert's reservations for during our Disneymoon, so having a TiW card would pay for itself with only that meal... Long story short, I convinced my DH that taking two trips in a 12 month period made more monetary sense than taking one trip each year back to back, so we upgraded to AP's at DtD and purchased our first TiW card! We also asked about the elusive "Just Married" pins at guest services. They sad they didn't have any, but advised us to check at one of the water parks, as people rarely ask for pins there because they aren't wearing anything suitable to pin them onto! You will just have to stick around to find out if we got them! Ok, now that I've handled what I forgot in my last installment, here's todays!

Day Two, Part One, October 6, 2012

I got up first this morning, determined to make RD on our first full Disney day. In what would become our pattern for the trip, I got up first, showered and then headed to the QS restaurant to fill up our refillable mugs. Diet Coke for me and coffee for my DH. (A few days later I also started bringing down our bagels to toast in the toasters there too). When I got back to the room Ry would have already showered and we would eat breakfast and drink out refillable drinks before heading out to the buses.

As this was my first morning to really appreciate the resort, I took some early morning pictures. The resort was so quiet and peaceful.

This was the view from right outside our room:

Poor lost balloons in the tree!

Everything was just so still

As it was still early, I allowed myself to take a little photo tour around the central area of the resort:

After we were fully caffeinated and fed, we headed out to the bus stop at about 8:15 a.m. When we arrived we noticed that there were an awful lot of people waiting for the stop for DHS and MK. Here's the conversation that ensued.

Ry: Why are there so many people at that bus stop and practically nobody at this one.

Me: They probably want to go to DHS, it has EMH this morning...

We wait and notice that yes, everyone does get on the bus to DHS when it arrives before the AK bus.

Ry: Why are they going to DHS? It's already *consults his watch* 8:20, by the time they get to the park EMH will be almost over and the park will be extra crowded because it is an EMH day. That's stupid, didn't they do their research?

Me: I love you.

Seriously though, sometimes it is awesome being married to an engineer. Logic and a reasoned argument supported by facts will win them over every time.

We eventually boarded our bus and arrived here with 15 minutes to spare before RD.

There were a few people in front of us...

Well, at least we made RD right? Up next, the start of our only AK day!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

I love your early morning shots at the resort! Everything looks so peaceful.