So many memories. I have so many memories of past trips to the World, the people I've gone with, the rides, the food, the fun. I don't think that you'll fully be able to understand me or why I love this place so much if I don't offer you some of my memories, and my dreams.
I feel as though there are so many to choose from. As I lie in my hammock at night aboard the Black Pearl, the gentle sway of the ship lulling me to sleep, its easy to get lost in my memories and dreams.
So if you'd like to join me, come aboard, mates.
We'll begin with the one.
Since this trip is A Pirate's Life for 3, I think it most important to start with the man who made that 3 possible.
And that is my wonderful DH. For the beginning of us, I'll give you the abbreviated version.
We met in college while I was dating someone else. DH sort of lost hope for a while, and then said to himself, forget about it, she's the one. And started flirting with me and subtly persuing me in his oh so suave Italian way. Didn't take long folks. I didn't stand a chance.
Three months after we met, we were engaged. We remained engaged all through college, and married a year after we graduated. I felt it was important to take that time to work, save some money, and just be ourselves out of school. I didn't want to feel like I went straight into a marriage without any breathing room. I was a wise girl.
We took many trips to Disney during our courtship, but I have three favorites. One was our first trip alone to Disney. It was the end of the school year and I was tooling around on the internet and came across a really good deal on a room at All Star Sports. I swear to this day, it must have been someone's cancelled vacation. I don't remember how long we went for. I don't remember every park we went to, or every ride we rode. I just remember that it was great. We slept as long as we wanted, woke up when we wanted, and ate when we wanted, before all the hoopla about dining plans and ADRs and all of that. And it was great!
Another was after we were married and got an awesome AP discount on the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Our mousekeeper was hilarious. We would come back to the room to find the stuffed dog that we won had "wet" the newspaper, with a little note that said, "Oops, sorry." The plush dino we won in AK we found one day with his head in our popcorn bucket from MK. The next day, we left him with the TV remote in his paw, watching TV. When we returned, he was tucked in with a note that said "no, no, time for bed." Every night we went back to the room, I would about die from laughing to see what our mousekeeper had done. Obviously, we had a great time at the parks and all, but that was seriously a fun resort stay.
My favorite is obviously our honeymoon. I was a cast member at the
Disney Store in my state, and I got a 50% discount on the Grand Floridan concierge. Now, that, my friends, is the way to honeymoon. I would really venture to say that is one of the best vacations I've ever taken in my entire life. We went for ten days, made very few reservations, and had a fantastic time. The CM who booked our stay knew we were on our honeymoon, so a photo and autos from Beauty and the Beast were waiting for us in the room. My mom had the bridal ears and top hat delivered, but she also had them painted on with our names and the date of our wedding. We got so many compliments when we wore those, and I have a great picture of us in front of Spaceship Earth on our last day. We had booked Citricos for our first night dinner, and at the end of the meal discovered my mother had picked up the whole tab. There will be a whole chapter about her too, don't worry.
I specifically remember that the day we went to the AK and went on Kali River Rapids, it started raining. Since we were already wet, we thought, what they hey, and stayed to watch the parade. As we were making our way out of the park to our bus to the Grand Flo, it got heavier and heavier. When we got out of the bus, it was pouring! It was so bad that it was flooding in front of our building and ducks were waddling through the walkway like they were happy as pie. DH and I were hysterical, trying to run through the water to get to our building, and eventually he looked at me and said, take off your sandals!
They were those big chunky platform Mickey sandals, anyone remember those? Not good for running.
So I did, and we made it so much faster. DH always, always knows how to make me laugh. That is without a doubt one of my favorite honeymoon moments, because into everyone's life a little rain must fall. It's all what you do with it.
I remember how much money we saved on dining by staying concierge, because they always had wonderful, decadent gourmet snack items out. And I remember the night we went to Gasparilla Grill and Games and got my favorite chicken strips ever for dinner, and happened upon the Magic Kingdom fireworks outside. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
I've had some really good trips with DH, just the two of us.
But then we became three....
To be cont'd...
