Trip Report *Completed* That time we went to Florida and didn't tell anyone...

Hi everyone! I have a surprise trip to tell you about :)

Who?:
My Mom and I (Mary and Megan)
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Where?:

The Contemporary :) This is/was my dream resort so I am so happy we were able to stay there!

When?:
September 30 – October 3, 2016

Why?:

Well, on a rainy afternoon a few weeks ago my Mom and I were making tip envelopes for our November trip and in conversation I mentioned flights and hotels were on sale again. Collectively we convinced each other we should go back down to see if we could possibly see the MSEP once more. Also, we realized our dates would coincide with Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and my Mom knows I have always wanted to go to that - so that solidified our decision! We asked my sister Jill if she wanted to come, but she couldn't take a day off from work. We asked my Dad and he politely declined so it was just the two of us!

Why a secret?
1. I was sick of my fellow residents asking me why I always go to Disney and not anywhere else 2. I was given permission by my attending on my current rotation to miss a day of work, but was worried that would cause issues and 3. I'm an incredibly superstitious person and was worried that because I talked so much about wanting to see MSEP one last time on our last trip that I jinxed us so I refused to talk about it. A few of my closest friends knew I was going, obviously our family, and @Tuvalu because she saw me there :) Also @DisneyJeff may have known because we are snapchat friends haha.

T-1 day until we leave
I had an insanely busy day at work because we were interviewing potential residency candidates. Still, I managed to call our office and make sure that my schedule was blocked off from 2:20 pm on so I could leave on time for the airport. No problem everything was all set!

September 30, 2016
After a long morning I left the hospital to head to clinic. On the way I got a text that our room was ready! Hooray!!
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Unfortunately when I get to clinic what do I see? A full schedule! AHHHHH!!!!! :confused::mad:. They booked over the part that said "do not book." Luckily, I have a nice attending who took my last 3 patients for me so I was still able to leave by three. I rushed to my parent's house and we got got the car packed and headed to the airport! I didn't even have time to put contacts in haha
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We got to the airport at 4:00 pm. Southwest was dead so they again checked us in without having to use the computers. We both had TSA pre-check (yay, didn't have to take my computer out!)! Unsurprisingly the metal detector went off when I went through (again...no clue why), but when they wanded me all was good. I'm convinced there is some sort of metal in my body my parents forgot to tell me about!
We needed to eat dinner so sat down in the Anchor Bar (the best Anchor Bar in my opinion...in case no one knows what the Anchor Bar is its the birthplace of chicken wings) and I looked at my phone and it was 4:08 pm. No lie. We checked our luggage, went through security and sat down to eat in 8 minutes!!!
For dinner we split Buffalo bites (aka boneless wings) YUM!!!
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My mom was convinced that because we had plastic silverware someone was going to spill while cutting up the chicken. Well I did, but I had black pants on. Unfortunately, she did too but she had kakis on :( She predicted it correctly!
Sad stain :(
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We sat next to a really annoying woman who was in no hurry to order, but complained when it took too long because she had a flight to catch :joyfull:
Well, we still had plenty of time to kill at the gate so I worked on some TR notes.
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Actually some guy sitting across from us was also writing notes, but he seemed to be writing them about us, because he kept staring at us...:oops::eek:
Airport selfie!
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Soon enough it was time to board. You know how for Southwest you wait a little bit while everyone figures out where they are supposed to be in line? This was a great opportunity for us to hear a woman on the phone super upset with her doctor for not sending in her son's acne medication right away. "He needs it because he is a Freshman in college." I get being upset about waiting for a medication, but having been on after hour Friday call before it hurt my heart a little for the poor recipient of the call :oops:. She then proceeded to call her son and let him know it was all set. At this point her son informs her (I could hear everything) that they are "dropping part of his scholarship" and he doesn't know why. One could guess why as he also proceeded to tell her he had a couple C's. She didn't seem to think that had anything to do with it. Poor lady :confused:. We were also boarding at this time and she stayed on the phone and proceeded to knock into everyone with her bags :banghead:.
Luckily we didn't sit near her on the plane :)
We actually had a layover this time and I had a mild panic attack because we were not cleared for takeoff right away due to rain in Chicago. Luckily we still landed at 6:30 Chicago time - 15 minutes early! We rushed to the complete opposite side of the airport to make it to our connecting flight and we did. Everyone who was getting on our flight seemed to be drunk...no lie...everyone was drinking haha.
Time for Magic Bands!
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The gang was ready (in Halloween gear)
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Next up: traveling to the MCO
 
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Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3
We yet again did not set the alarm to get up because we had a long day ahead of us. I slept so soundly that my Mom actually had to wake me up at 7:30 and she was already dressed :jawdrop:.
I rushed around to get ready and we skipped breakfast so we could try and get to Epcot at the opening because we had plans!
We hopped on the monorail which was empty!
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*once we transferred to the TTC/Epcot monorail it was not so empty haha
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We got to Epcot about 45 minutes before it opened and I am glad we did because the line to get in was crazy!
We had some time to kill so took some pictures...shocker, I know
It was a Sunday so of course we were in Bills gear to represent!
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While waiting in line, and even after the park opened, we noticed tons of line skippers :confused: It happened all the time at DL, but I really don't see it too much at WDW!
Finally we got into the park and power walked to....
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Thats right, we were the crazy people going to Frozen! We had some good half marathon training that morning because we walked so fast we knocked off about 10 people :D.
The wait was listed at 15 minutes, but we probably waited about 30-ish minutes. No problem!
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Some line pictures...
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My Mom was probably going to kill me if I said "big summer blowout" one more time in line...
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I won't get into too many details, but the line was very cute!
When it was our turn to ride we were seated in the front row! We got a little wet when we sat down, but otherwise not too bad!
LOL this picture though...
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We really enjoyed the ride, especially since we both love Olaf!

Next up: a first for us!
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 continued:
When we got out of the ride the wait was listed at 90 minutes!
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We were starving after this and thought about heading to France for breakfast, but instead hopped into the Kringla Bakeri Og Kafe. I had heard so much about school bread and even though I don't like coconut I really wanted to try it. I wanted to make sure my Mom would eat something there and she spotted something she would like so we stayed.
School bread for me...
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And Anna's Birthday cupcake for my Mom!
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This cupcake was so pretty looking!
Dessert for breakfast? No problem!
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Despite the coconut I really enjoyed the School Bread and so did my Mom! My Mom said the cupcake was good, but not super great.
After eating we thought we would head to The Land because Soarin' was actually listed as a short wait
First my usual picture, only it was roped off....
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We sent it to my sisters and moved on...
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We passed The Chew stage on the way. I never actually watched that show, but thought the stage was neat!
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When we got into The Land the line for Soarin' was all the way up the stairs so we obviously knew we weren't going to get on. Instead we headed to our first FP!
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Next up: a morning at Epcot
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 continued
We took a nice trip though the seas
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My Mom isn't super into animals, but we did take a quick peek at the fish and were able to see the divers feeding the fish!
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After this we sat for a few minutes outside The Seas just enjoying the sunshine. Then we headed over to our next FP
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As we were walking through the line we ran into a bunch of Patriot's :depressed: fans who were essentially yelling at us for wearing Bill's clothes and saying "NOT TODAY BILLS FANS!!!" o_O.
I will never get a good picture of this ride, so enjoy this incredibly dark and blurry one :geek:
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PS the pictures are STILL not working on this ride :eek:
We had a dining reservation coming up, but still had a little bit of time to kill so we headed to the Gran Fiesta Tour! We missed it last time and I hear this may soonish be on the chopping block so we wanted to make sure we saw it.
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Donald as a piñata :)
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After this we made our way through the Food and Wine crowds and headed towards Italy! Along the way we met a few fellow Bill's fans that were more friendly than the Patriot's fans :)
Where was lunch?
....
The same place we always go: Via Napoli !
I did notice that the pizza window is open again (as a Food and Wine hidden booth type thing)!
We sat one table over from last time, and had this guy as our company!
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We got the same meal...and had the same waitress as a month prior :rolleyes:
YUM!!!
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We enjoyed our meal as always and headed back to World Showcase!
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Next up: finishing up at Epcot
 
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NutsForFlorida

Well-Known Member
Day 3 continued
We took a nice trip though the seas
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My Mom isn't super into animals, but we did take a quick peek at the fish and were able to see the divers feeding the fish!
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After this we sat for a few minutes outside The Seas just enjoying the sunshine. Then we headed over to our next FP
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As we were walking through the line we ran into a bunch of Patriot's :)hungover:) fans who were essentially yelling at us for wearing Bill's clothes and saying "NOT TODAY BILLS FANS!!!" o_O.
I will never get a good picture of this ride, so enjoy this incredibly dark and blurry one :geek:
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PS the pictures are STILL not working on this ride :eek:
We had a dining reservation coming up, but still had a little bit of time to kill so we headed to the Gran Fiesta Tour! We missed it last time and I hear this may soonish be on the chopping block so we wanted to make sure we saw it.
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Donald as a piñata :)
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After this we made our way through the Food and Wine crowds and headed towards Italy! Along the way we met a few fellow Bill's fans that were more friendly than the Patriot's fans :)
Where was lunch?
....
The same place we always go: Via Napoli !
I did notice that the pizza window is open again (as a Food and Wine hidden booth type thing)!
We sat one table over from last time, and had this guy as our company!
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We got the same meal...and had the same waitress as a month prior :rolleyes:
YUM!!!
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We enjoyed our meal as always and headed back to World Showcase!
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Next up: finishing up at Epcot

Via Napoli has some really good pizza. Now I'm hungry!! Ha!!
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
That pizza is huge!!!!!!!! Love your coordinating bills shirts.. super cute! Should I bring my browns jersey to Disney? They haven't won a game yet! Lol

Its not like the Bills are much better :) You candefintcly rock some Browns gear :) The pizza is huge...and still yet we ate it all :oops:

Via Napoli has some really good pizza. Now I'm hungry!! Ha!!

I love their pizza.....I look at my pictures of it all the time like a weirdo haha
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
sorry for the short update yesterday, was in a Bills depression as per usual :)
Day 3 continued
After eating we had one FP left before we planned on leaving Epcot
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We love Test Track and feel like we missed out the last short trip so decided to head back in!
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We made this lovely car....
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We enjoyed our ride as usual and ended up with a pretty decent score!
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I got someone else's TT picture, otherwise would share it :)
After our ride we headed out. We did check on the Visa M and G line, but it was crazy so settled for some pictures on the way out
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We just missed the monorail, so had a lot of time to kill (and take selfies)
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We met a fellow Buffalonian and we both watched the score of the Bills game and looked at the updates :)
When the monorail finally came we felt like we had the longest monorail ride between the Epcot and the resort ones. When we transferred to the resort monorail at least there was a puppy with us so that was entertaining. Still we waited like 10 or so minutes at each stop and the air conditioning wasn't working :(
When we finally got back to the hotel we immediately headed down to the pool!
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Next up: more pool time and heading back to the MK
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 continued:
We aren't huge drinkers, but figured its not a day at the pool at Disney without a drink so we went to the bar to grab something. Its kind of weird that the bar is inside a little building, but whatever :)
My Mom had a Moscato Colada
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And I had a white sangria
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We sent this picture back to our family back home ;)
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After our pool time we headed back up to the room. My Mom wanted a Mickey pumpkin so she headed to the gift shop. I, meanwhile, face-timed my sister to watch the end of the Bills game!
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This happened....
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Woohoo!! Bills beat the Patriots! I wish I could go back to those Pats fans in Epcot and say "YES, TODAY!!!" Was Brady playing? No....thats OK I will take the win. I would keep going on about how great it was except they blew up yesterday against Miami so I'm annoyed at them again...:joyfull:
Anyway, as I was running around the room singing the Shout Song at the top of my lungs (Bill's song) I also got dressed for the Halloween party!
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Does it surprise anyone we dressed the same?!
The pirate skirts are actually what we will be running in for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon. When I was thinking of a costume for us I figured we should use what we already have and then bought the shirts on amazon for super cheap!
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The gang is all here!
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At this point it was pouring rain, but it was already after 5 so we decided to head over to the MK anyway!
Blurry monorail picture!
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Next up: MNSSHP!
 
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Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 continued
By the time we got to MK the rain stopped! Hooray (although it did start up again for like one second when we were going into the party). I was super nervous because I did not have a hard ticket to the party, but I was assured that the ticket was on my Magic Band. Thankfully the Mickey turned green and we were on our way!
I was happy to see plenty of other adults dressed up because I felt like when we were in the monorail everyone was looking at us weird for being dressed up!
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You can see a poncho in my Mom's hand. We put them on for literally 5 seconds haha then the rain completely stopped!
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Some Main Street pictures...
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Um....I guess we took even more pictures!
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We had a FP for IASW after this so we headed over there!
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While in line I was looking up things about the party and realized it said that the 7 Dwarfs come out earlier than 7 pm (up to 2 hours early). My Mom and I had high hopes of meeting them so I was super nervous about missing them because the line would be too long, but we stayed in line for Small World.
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After our ride we immediately headed over to where the Dwarfs meet. They thankfully were not out yet and we hopped in line at 6:20 pm. They came out shortly after that! We waited in line for almost an hour....here are some random pictures I took haha
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Next up: More Dwarfs
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 continued
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Grumpy is our favorite!!!
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Finally it was our time to meet them!! They were so sweet and really took their time with us!
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While we absolutely loved meeting them, I probably would never wait to meet them again :)
After meeting them we headed into the circus tent to do some trick or treating, then headed over to Main Street. We were in line when the party officially started so we were so surprised to see how cool Main Street looked!
So many cool colors!!!
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Next up: Party continued
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 continued
Oh! Forgot this picture!
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We were a little hungry and made the mistake when we went to the Christmas party last year to not eat so decided to grab something at Casey's Corner
Mini- corn dogs and fries.
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I was surprised the restaurant was pretty dead and we found a great table where we could see some of the stage show!
Sadly, there was a family next to us who did not have bands and the CMs kept kindly trying to get them to leave, or buy tickets, and they said they had a right to sit there to buy food. My Mom said while she was waiting for me to get the food they asked them to leave several other times too and didn't budge. I get buying food, but they had apparently been sitting there for over an hour :confused:.
Finally they got someone higher up to come and get them to leave!
After eating we headed to find a spot for the parade! They were constantly checking bands and kept finding people who did not have any!!
Considering we sat down for the parade like 20 minutes before it started we had a great spot!
The Headless Horseman came down first. My picture is awful because I was so distracted by how cool it was!
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Since the parade starts at the other end we had a bit to wait so they brought some performers out, including Nick Wilde
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I still could not get over how much less crowded this party was compared the Christmas Party we were at last year!
Finally the parade came around!!
Boo to You!!!
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I'm just going to post a ton of pictures...
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Next up: more parade!
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 continued
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We LOVED the parade!! I absolutely loved the Haunted Mansion part!
After the parade we decided to head to Tomorrowland and go trick or treating :) It was so cool to see all the characters out and about like the Monster's Inc guys and Lotso from Toy Story!
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We took a rest on the people mover of course....
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After our ride we hit up the rest of the trick or treating in Tomorrowland. We then went to see if we could hop in line to see Winnie the Pooh. However, they are not out all night and the CM informed us that it would be about a 45 minute wait which would mean we miss Hallowishes. We also checked out Mickey and friends in Fantasyland, but they also had a super long wait. Instead we hopped on the teacups!
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My Mom said she was afraid of the fellow guests on the ride with us who were dressed like hitchhiking ghosts because they looked so realistic! haha
After the tea cups we headed towards the castle to catch Celebrate the Magic and Wishes. Literally we had no trouble finding a spot and actually sat down like 15 minutes before it started!
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Next up: finishing off the night!
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 continued
Celebrate the Magic was the same as the usual one :)
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Hallowishes!
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After Hallowishes (which we loved!) we decided to head out and back to the hotel.
Some pictures first...
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Dancing ghosts...
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Creepy train station!
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This one is probably my favorite bahahha too funny!
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We walked back to the hotel after this and fell right into bed! Literally can not say enough about how much we loved the party! I was worried I had built it up in my mind too much but it really was so great! AND it didn't rain :)

Next up: last day :(
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
LOVE the Halloween party magic shots! We got the horseman one, but not the dancers. Guess we gotta go back next year! :D

The horseman one is my favorite! Its so funny!!!
Everything about the party was so cool! Esp the random Magic Shots :)
There should always be a reason to go back...
 

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