YES, I'm wearing these ears cuz I WANT to! Our fantasmic Disneymoon 9/23-9/28!

[DCLbrideSept2009]

This may not be the most thorough TR but I will do what I can and hit some highlights.

***Edited to add***

A few things - it was HOT! We come from Texas and it gets hot here, but not the humidity that FL has. And it was actually 55 degrees here when we left our house at 6:00 a.m.! Next time I will definitely wait until a little later in the year (or early in the year). We had been in August and that was HOT. While it was slightly better weather this trip, it was still HOT.

Places we ate:
California Grill
Yachtsman Steakhouse
Sci-Fi
Yak & Yeti
'Ohana dinner
Whispering Canyon
And a couple CS places as well as a few snacks and munched around the Food & Wine Festival!

Looking back, we probably should have bought the dining plan. Just didn't want to pay for it up front. We have APs and didn't do the TIW either and probably should have. Live and learn!

Someone actually made the comment at one point, "So they make you wear those ears cuz you just got married?" Um, NO... I am wearing them by choice... and yes, I wore them EVERY DAY!!

We also did the DVC tour.

A little background info:

Trip was our honeymoon (AKA our fantasmic disneymoon!) So obviously just DH and I. We have 4 kids between us, and it was not easy getting someone to watch them for 5 nights. Originally, our trip was supposed to be 6 nights with us coming in LATE Tuesday night. Because of the situation with the kids, we had to cut it a little short and return EARLY Monday morning instead.

We stayed at Coronado Springs. We have APs and did not have a dining plan.

Day 1: We had an early start with an 8:30 a.m. flight. Got into Orlando about 2:30 p.m. and waited for DME. Took about 20 minutes or so to get a bus. Off to CS! Arrived, got checked in quickly, got our Just Married and Happily Ever After buttons and went to our room in the Casitas. Immediately upon opening the door, it REEKED of smoke! Went back to the front desk to report this. In the meantime, I had Marge from "We Go Shop" meeting me at the front. I left DH to deal with the room change while I met her outside. I would definitely recommend this service! Delivery fee was $17 and then it was just the cost of groceries. We got wine, vodka and Diet Coke (much needed necessities!)

Got to our new room in building 9B Cabanas. We thought this was a pretty good location! We were at the far end of the building, but it really wasn't too bad of a walk to the bus stop or El Centro. We had heard that it wasn't a good location because Bus Stop 1 is always the last to be picked up, but we didn't really find it to be a problem. The hotel might have been pretty booked up, but it seemed to be mostly convention attendees. Our bus stop was never really crowded and we rarely waited long for a bus. We usually got to the bus stop by about 7:45-8:00 a.m. We didn't eat at the hotel at all. Went to Pepper Market one night and were NOT impressed. And we thought the prices were way too high. We did also go to the "lounge" they have there one night and it was packed with convention-goers. Didn't stay long. The hotel gave us each a free glass of champagne since it was our honeymoon. I love champagne, but I did NOT like this one. Neither one of us finished it, which is really not like us.

A few pics of CS:

We had 7:10 ADR for California Grill our first night (Wednesday 9/23). Got checked in at CG, asked for a table by the window and they asked if we were willing to wait up to 30 minutes or so for one and we said yes. But it was less than 5 minutes before we were "paged" to our table and we had an AWESOME view!! Here are some pics of the view including Wishes!!

Pic of us at CG. Oh, I got my Minnie Bride Ears at the Contemporary gift shop before dinner. They didn't have the Groom's ears. And even later when we DID find the Groom's Ears (only saw the top hat version), they were too small for my DH's head. (And be forewarned, I wore them the ENTIRE trip except when it was pouring down rain!)

Now, I TRIED to be good about food porn pics but forgot quite a few times! I got pics of our appetizer and desserts at CG but not the main course!

We had the triple cheese flatbread (YUM!), oak-fired filet of beef (EVEN YUMMIER!) and for dessert, I can't remember the names, they aren't listed on the menu I have a pic of, and i can't find a menu that has these particular desserts on it. One was sort of an apple cobbler (and to DIE FOR!) and the other was a chocolate lava cake with like a caramel ice cream and some pineapple something-or-other... it was also TO DIE FOR!

After our DELICIOUS dinner, we hopped on the monorail over to Epcot for EMH. We were lucky enough to catch the end of Illuminations from the monorail! AWESOME!!

Rode Test Track via the single rider line. Probably about 10-min wait. There really wasn't much else we wanted to do at Epcot. We had just been there a month prior with the kids. This trip was mostly doing some favorites and maybe some things we missed in August. We did get some Photopass pics and rode Spaceship Earth (no wait). Then back to the hotel!

TO BE CONTINUED.....

 

[DCLbrideSept2009]

So Day 2 we got up early enough to get to DHS by rope drop. Actually, we couldn't decide between DHS and AK so we decided that whichever bus got here first, that's the park we would go to! DHS was first!

Hiked it to TSM. Got FP and then got in the standby line, which was only about 10 minutes. First game, Mr versus Mrs... winner = MRS! Well, at least that's the way I remember it. I KNOW he beat me the other times we played, but I'm pretty sure I beat him the first time.

Here are some TSM pics.

Now, I can't remember the order of everything else we did. I know we did RNRC 3 times. Once in standby line, once with a FP and then the CM gave us another FP since it was our honeymoon. We also did the Backlot tour (no wait), Great Movie Ride (LITERALLY walked right onto it), Indiana Jones (was closed when we were there in August)... DH also rode ToT twice. We got 2 FP's but I won't ride it. I went through the line with him the first time and then took the "chicken elevator." Then I felt stupid the second time so I just waited for him at the exit instead of going through the line with him. Kind of embarrassing when little kiddos are going on the ride and a grown 40-yo woman is taking the "chicken elevator" We went back to TSM to use our FPs. Ran into another Bride and Groom who gave us their FPs that they weren't going to use (THANK YOU!) So TSM 2 more times.... YES!! This time, the Mrs wasn't quite so lucky... Mr versus Mrs... winner = Mr both times. Oh, and later on, the next day maybe, I realized I had a blister on one of my fingers and the only thing I could think of was that I got it from pulling the string on TSM!!

About 11:00 we decided to see if we could get lunch at Sci-Fi without an ADR. No problem! Had to wait about 10 minutes, but we got a table pretty easily! Here are a couple pics. We shared a burger and shared dessert. Forgot to take a pic of the burger but I took a pic of the dessert. It was the cheesecake with the candies (M&M type) and caramel corn... pretty good! Here's a pic of us in our "car" and a pic of the dessert. After the pic of us, the camera died... boo-hoo! totally forgot to charge it the night before! So the rest of the pics of the day were taken with the iPhone. Not the best quality, sorry!

Day 2 TO BE CONTINUED with Block Party Bash and dinner at Yachtsman!

 

[DCLbrideSept2009]

Then we caught the Block Party Bash!

Not enough time to go back to our hotel before our ADR, so we took the boat from DHS to Yacht Club. Once again, I forgot to take pics of the main course at Yachtsman!

For appetizers, DH had the shrimp cocktail (which he said was very good!)

I had the Heirloom Tomato Salad (YUMMY!)

DH had the Sam Adams beer flight with the cherry wheat, Oktoberfest, and I forget what the third one was! He said all were good!

We shared the Porterhouse steak (yummy, but sorry, no pic!)

Passed on dessert, but the waitress brought us this.

There was one more of the peach/apricot/whatever that one was but DH popped it into his mouth before I could take a pic. They were yummy and just the right amount of sweetness after a very filling dinner! Here's a view of the Boardwalk from YC (once again, taken with my iPhone, sorry... pics will be better tomorrow cuz we charged the camera!! )

After dinner, we walked over to Boardwalk for a bit. Saw a little of the Boardwalk entertainment and then headed back to our hotel. It was still kinda early, so we put on our swimming suits and headed to the HOT TUB to relax! The hot tub was pretty dang hot - 104 degrees! But after ya got used to it, it was pretty relaxing. Couldn't stay in long, though. There were other people out at the hot tub that we chatted with for a while. That was nice. Everyone was telling of their experiences with lines, etc, that day.

A side note... my engagement ring is white gold. My "real" wedding band is still in layaway (also white gold). I have a "temporary" wedding band that is sterling silver. After being in the hot tub for a while, I noticed my ring was discolored! I was VERY upset thinking I had ruined my wedding ring (albeit the temporary ring, but still...) and the honeymoon wasn't even over yet! Well, it still looked discolored the next day but by the end of the trip was back to normal. Whew!!

Next up: Day 3 (Friday) MK, AK and DHS!

 

[DCLbrideSept2009]

Day 3 - Friday. According to our "research," this was a perfect day for MK (even though I know DH really wanted to go to AK and ride EE over and over until he puked!)

Got to MK right around rope drop. Went straight to BTMRR. Got FPs and got in the short stand-by line. In fact, there wasn't really anyone there at all and we rode it 3 times in a row without getting off!!! Then people were starting to get in line, so we got off. Again, there weren't a lot of "must-do"s for MK this trip. BTMRR is one of my fav rides, so obviously had to do that. We also did Hall of Presidents (nice and cool!), Goofy's Barnstormer (again, Toon Town was almost deserted and we rode that twice without getting off - then got off just cuz we wanted to do other things - there was still nobody there!) Got pics taken with Mickey and Minnie in the Judge's Tent where Minnie admired my ring and poor Mickey knew he was in trouble!!

We also got the cream cheese stuffed pretzel that I had been wanting since the last trip and never got. It was YUMMY!! You can get it at Scuttle's Landing in Fantasyland. Oh, and we got Dole Whip floats too. YUMMY!!

Rode Pirates. Did Stitch's Great Escape, which was VERY LAME. We didn't do it last trip cuz of bad reviews but decided to give it a try for ourselves this time (no lines) and we agree that it was LAME. There weren't any lines for anything at MK this morning, really. We also did Buzz as pretty much a walk-on. We happened to be walking by the castle stage when Dream Along with Mickey had just started and there was hardly anyone standing around! So we got a great spot to watch the show and took a TON of pics! Here are a few!

I think that's about it for MK for Friday morning. Then we took the bus over to AK cuz we had an ADR for Yak and Yeti and DH was secretly hoping that by some odd chance he'd able to get at least ONE ride in on EE!

At AK we got a few more photopass pics taken (we tried to take as many as possible this trip and we got quite a few!). We got FP's for EE. Standby line was too long, about 30 minutes. For some reason, it was unbearably hot for me at AK in mid afternoon. Hit our Y&Y ADR a little early. We were NOT impressed! Our waiter was HORRIBLE. And the food was almost as bad. I know people rave about this place, which is why DH really wanted to do it!

We had the pot stickers appetizer:

DH had some sort of "very berry lemonade" (non-alcoholic) and I had an "adult" drink that I can't recall the exact name of but it had either "expedition" or "everest" in the name!

We also had the fried green beans appetizer and split the sweet and sour chicken. (sorry, forgot to take pics!) Again, NOT impressed with the food. It was OKAY, but not great and certainly not worth the money we spent!

After Y&Y we used our FP for EE and rode Dinosaur (with no wait).

Then KS:

We also got in a ride on Kali River Rapids.

Then back to the hotel to decide whether to brave DHS for Fantasmic or Epcot for Illuminations!