Trip Report A Magical Spoxy Honeymoon (November 10-21, 2014 - Completed)

Introduction: Hello! My name is Christine (28) and along with my husband Kyle (28), we both celebrated our Honeymoon at Walt Disney World from November 10 - November 21, 2014.

Day One: November 10, 2014

We left for Florida at 6:30 AM after packing the day beforehand and eating dinner at PF Changs with my father. We flew Southwest and flight was pretty uneventful. We arrived at the airport and grabbed our luggage, which actually arrived on time for this trip. I packed WAY too much for this trip, like 2 jackets and 5 pairs of different but very cute shoes too much. There we were, two Texans with our cowboy boots about to embark on a wonderful week and a half at Disney.

It was either Disney or Europe, but as the wedding was pretty costly, we decided to save Europe for our one year anniversary. We took our bags (we both had large rolling bag and a large duffel) and walked over to the car rental terminal(which seemed like it was half way across Florida). Since we booked online, we were able to skip the counter and head straight out to the garage to pick out a car, which to me was pretty nifty. After some discussion(we could have even have chosen a minivan at the same price as an economy car, but as it was just the two of us we didn’t need that much car), Kyle picked a cherry red Ford Fiesta hatchback (he would have a slight love affair with this car for the rest of the trip) and we were on our way.

We drove into Disney and the first thing I noticed was primary colors on the welcome sign. We had arrived at the most magical place on earth! We were able to get free dining for our trip, but as a consequence we ended up in a Pirate Room at Caribbean Beach. Even though we had credits to be activated, we decided to first go to downtown Disney before checking in. We parked by Disney Quest and walked all the way across Downtown Disney to Earl of Sandwich, which was ridiculously crowded. I know people say that it only takes about twenty minutes to get through a long line there, but we weren’t really feeling like waiting that long for a sandwich. Slightly dishearten, we walked back across the land of Downtown Disney to Wolfgang Puck’s Grand Cafe while taking in our surroundings. Downtown Disney is very much under renovation to become Disney Springs, but being the children of planners we loved looking at the renderings of the proposed buildings. I cannot wait to come back when it is all finished.

At the Grand Café, we decided to eat a full meal as the offerings at the express side were not doing it for me that day (come to find out they do have good offerings, just wasn’t in the mood for them). The décor in the restaurant was reminiscent of the early 1990s and brought back strong feelings of nostalgia for us. There was a strong use of primary colors, especially yellow and red which fueled my 1990s nostalgia extravaganza.

I ordered the bacon cheeseburger with fries and Kyle had the BBQ chicken pizza.

Both were excellent, especially after a long day of travel. After lunch we headed to the Caribbean Beach Resort to check into our room before heading to EPCOT.

We checked in at the Customs House, which was pretty neat. It had fans rotating in the ceiling and a very tropical feel. The gentleman who checked us in was very friendly. I believe he was from Norway. He gave us our happily ever after pins and we were off in our Ford Fiesta chariot to see our room.

 

[Spoxy]

Final thoughts on the Honeymoon

We had the best honeymoon ever! After all the drama and stress of the wedding, it was fantastic to just have fun without making any difficult decisions. We were also able to eat our way through Disney with the free dining plan. I think Kyle stalked the Disney website for a few months when that deal came up. I enjoyed the pirate room because it allowed us the dining plan, which allowed us to eat pretty whatever we wanted go and we got three amazing signature meals. We are pretty frugal people, so it was nice to not go with the cheapest thing on the menu because, hey, were not paying for it! (Of course you’re always paying for it) And you need to get the bang for the buck. Speaking of the dining plan, I loved it. It was so nice to know that all your meals were taken care of in advance and all you had to do was scan the magic bands. I would actually purchase a dining plan if we didn’t get one for free. I know it probably doesn’t save any money, but I liked having everything pre-paid. Just personal preference. I would definitely buy the refillable mug if I was not on the dining plan. It was worth the 15 dollars.

The room however needs sound proofing in the worst way. We could hear people having conversations and could have joined in the action if we so chose. Also, I will not for the life of me understand the people who were down right abusive to their children at Disney. The gentleman in the room next to us threatened and yelled expletives at his children all day and night (when he wasn’t snoring). I also feel like Caribbean Beach needs to update the food court and add some new dishes to the menu. We did not end up eating there one day. Next time we go, I think unless there is a free dining plan in the mix(or maybe we will just buy the dining plan), I will stay at a Value Resort until I can convince Kyle that DVC is the way to go.

I would also purchase the PhotoPass again. It allowed us to have so many wonderful pictures that I will now be able to cherish. In fact, I liked our PhotoPass pictures more than our wedding photos (bad photographer), and one currently has the place of honor on mantle/bookshelf. I do wish that they would do a progressive rate on the PhotoPass. If you are only there for a day or two, it may not be cost efficient to pay the onetime $180, but you do get ride photos which are awesome. They truly capture the moment! We got over 450 pictures of the two of us, which we never would have gotten beyond roaming the park and taking 450 selfies. I would probably always buck up and get the PhotoPass.

I think we will always do a rental car when we go to Disney. It was so nice to be able to drive to the parks each day and not have to wait on the busses. I feel like we got to see more and do more because our transportation wasn’t reliant upon others. Kyle stalked the rental car website and got a great deal, which amounted to about $15 a day. We also could have had a minivan for that rate, so if we had to transport more people, that would have been a great deal.

Finally the parks. I love me some Disney parks, but there does need to be more attractions at each park. DHS really need some more attractions, but poor EPCOT used to be much more robust. The first time I went there last year with Kyle, I kept telling about this awesome pavilion with Food Rocks and Body Wars. We finally found the place and I remember thinking no, this can’t be it since there were all kinds of things going on and this is an just empty space with a cooking demonstration. Kyle looked it up on Wikipedia and sure enough, this was my beloved pavilion of my childhood stripped of everything.

I feel that the World Showcase needs more rides and rest the rest of them need to be updated (except SSE don’t touch, Disney ). I did love the New Fantasyland, however. It was so beautiful, spacious and very well themed. I love the fact that the fairytales I grew up with such as The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast are now attractions. This is something they should be doing with all the parks, as Walt Disney says the parks are suppose to be ever changing and growing. But in the end, I still had the time of my life and I love looking though our pictures and reminiscing about that trip and thinking about our trips in the future, hopefully with children and grandchildren someday. Disney has a feeling that really is magical for me and I cannot wait to be able to create and recreate memories with Kyle in the future at those four (or more someday, you never know) parks.

One last thing, our Spot has developed a strange jealousy/attachment to the Pluto pillow pet from Day 2. I think he would like to go to Disney too! They do have that dog at Disney day thing, hint hint Kyle.

Next up for us is an anniversary trip to Europe in November. We will definitely be hitting up Disneyland Paris on that trip, so look out for that trip report.

I am also turning 30 next year so maybe a quick Disney trip to get that cake, Kyle?

Thanks for reading!

 

[Raven66]

Really enjoyed your trip report and pictures. Congrats on your marriage. Many happy years to both of you!!

 

[Spoxy]

Really enjoyed your trip report and pictures. Congrats on your marriage. Many happy years to both of you!!

Thank you!

 

[brb1006]

Day Eight: Behind the Scenes on the Keys to the Kingdom Tour

In 7th grade (yikes, I’m getting old), my class was afforded the awesome opportunity to have a behind the scenes tour of MK and learn about how the different rides and special effects worked. I was able to ride Space Mountain with the lights on, go behind the scenes (the control room right off the ballroom/dining room scene) of Haunted Mansion and learn about People Movers’ magnets. It was pretty darn awesome. I wanted to recreate that experience with Kyle, so I booked the Keys to the Kingdom tour for us.

We got up a little late and had a hard time getting going, which was not helped by Kyle deciding that we needed to stop for coffee and breakfast. We stopped at the Old Port Royale, got our coffee and cheese Danish (so good!) and as we were leaving we were stopped by the DVC guy. He was telling us all about DVC and how if we went to a meeting tomorrow we would get a $50 Disney gift card. Sounded good, but by that time, we were running out of time and wanted to maximize our time in the parks. Maybe next time.

We made it to the parking lot and huffed it to the Monorail. By this time, our tour was scheduled to leave in 15 minutes. We were doing fine until…the monorail stopped! We had to wait for like another five minutes for it to be back up and running. By this point, we had 5 minutes to get from the station and into the park and to our meeting point. We ran from the Monorail while people gave us dirty looks. I tried to explain over my shoulder that we had a tour but that only brought on the comments… Well fine then. I didn’t knock anyone over, nor was I inhibiting anyone else from getting to their destination.

We made it into the parks and wowie! It was empty and beautiful. The picture people were out taking pics and I was so mad that we did not get there earlier to take advantage of an empty Main Street. We made our way to City Hall where the tour was set to begin. We were not only just in time but also not the last people to arrive! Yay! They asked us what we wanted for lunch from Columbia Harbor House, and we were given our badges and a bottle of water. Our guide was super friendly and loved him some mouse, which was nice. He was actually one of those people who did the college internship not once but twice and liked it so much he came back to work at Disney. He had slowly moved his way up to guest relations through being one of the ferry boat captains.

We had a pretty eclectic group to say the least. It included a perfectly able bodied woman and her son who were using electric scooters. This would not have been a problem if they were nice about it, but alas, they slowed things down, tried to mow the rest of us over and then hopped out of the scooter to walk up to the second floor for lunch so fast that all I could feel was the wind rushing behind them as they ran.

I won’t go too much into the specifics of the tour, except to say it was really fun and we got to see a lot of things including a flip flop in the retention pool for Splash Mountain (apparently this happens more than one would think). They forbid you from taking pictures during the duration of the tour, so no picture sadly. We got to see some MSEP floats, a little of the backlot behind adventure land, the trash compactor system, the utilidors and learned a bunch of fun facts. We also got special front of the line rides on Jungle Cruise and Haunted Mansion. It was not the behind scenes, all inclusive tour I remember and honestly, most of the information can be found on the interwebs nowadays.

We did not see the Cinderella’s castle suite, despite the pleading of several people on the tour. Lunch was included at the Columbia Harbor House. I decided on the fried shrimp and Kyle got the chicken strips. The food would have been good had it been hot, but it had already been placed at our table and we noticed that next tour group’s food was also out even though they were not expected for another 1/2 hour . The shrimp was stone cold, but the cocktail sauce was good, so we made due. We were sat with an older couple from Maryland. They had just driven down the day before with their 20 something year old son. He had elected not to go on the tour and was instead playing the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game as he doesn’t like rides. They had decided to go to Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner and were excited about the all you can eat. We almost went there ourselves on a different day, but decided the ooey gooey cake was not worth the rest of the meal (which can be the blessing or curse of looking at WDW food **** obsessively for 6 months before our trip). It looks like something that was good at one time, but has gone downhill. Anyhow, we finished the tour and realized that while they warn you that you will be walking, we had no where met our step count for that time in the day. So, it was time to rides some rides!

First, we had to get a picture with Marie, she was so cute and congratulated us on getting married by pawing us. There we met a very nice man and his son who were from my hometown! Go Cards! After our picture with Marie, we got more ice cream. I know, I have a problem, but so tasty and so not part of my usual diet. As we sat there eating our ice cream in the now semi closed Tomorrowland Terrace. I love this place because it is the place we ate when I was 5 and remember it from the trip.

About that time it started to rain, like really hard. And with that, everyone left except a few hearty (or fool hearty) souls like us. We decided to get some ponchos, which strangely enough Disney was more than happy to sell us at the Merchant of Venus.

Do you still have the picture of Marie?

 

[Spoxy]

We do!

 

[brb1006]

We do!

That first photo of Marie looks so cute!