The Disneymooners...My Fantasy-tastic Disney Honeymoon!

Well friends, it's been about a month since my new wife and I disembarked from our 8 day honeymoon adventure to WDW and on the DCL Fantasy so I figured it was a perfect time to re-live it all for your reading enjoyment! With 500 pictures, three bags full of goodies, and countless memories, my wife and I had the time of our lives. I must say that this was the greatest way to kick off our lives together and I encourage everyone to try it...

Here are a few photos from our big day, September 14th... A lot of your wedding planning involved a Disney theme. Our showers, our wedding rehersal night as well as the wedding itself.

The wedding was fantastic and I couldn't have had a better experience if I tried. I married the love of my life and she shares the same passion for many of my interests and the biggest is an obvious one, Disney!

The planning for our wedding and honeymoon had a great assist from our(WDWMagic) fearless WDW/DCL guru, Tammy. She was instrumental in helping us plan for the honeymoon, but also helping our guests, friends and family contribute to our honeymoon, and for that Heather and I are greatly appreciative... Take a bow!!

After the wedding, we had to wait a long week for our honeymoon to begin. We counted the hours, minutes, and seconds to the day we were leaving, September 21st...We decided to wait a week after to get things in order for our time away and not have to leave the day after. It also allowed us to book our trip on the Fantasy and begin our "cruise career"(thanks sweetpee and hubs ) on the newest ship.

Many people encouraged us to fly down a night prior to the cruise in case of any misshaps and things, so we booked a night at All-Star Sports, where we stayed on our first WDW trip together, and then begin our cruise adventure the next day, Sept 22...

Sept 21st-4am was the "get up time" we decided on to get us to the airport for our 7am flight. Packing was finished the night before, so it was just a quick shower and jump in the car for the 45 minute ride to Midway Airport. We actually live 15 minutes from Chicago O'hare but Southwest flies there to Orlando and the fares were great for this time of year and no bag fees! We brought an extra garment bag for our suits and dresses so not paying an extra fee for the 3rd bag was good. Heather's dad got us there in no time(lead foot!). Check in and security was a breeze however the gate was at the other end of the terminal so we had to hoof it, thank God for moving walk ways...Got a bite to eat from our vacation staple food source, McDonalds and bought some water for the plane ride. He had about 25 minutes before boarding so we grabbed a seat and
relaxed...

Boarding was quick and painless buuuuut the departure was not! Details next!

 

[Billy6]

Following along!

Thanks Joanna..I hope you had a great time on the other 6 days of your cruise. I am sure glad you guys are safe. We had some mild rough seas one day and I got sick a bit, but I would have lost it if I was on your cruise. Hope you enjoy my report!

Yeah! Congrats! Can't wait to read more!

Thanks love! Can't wait to bring you more!

Following along...love it so far. You and your lovely bride look wonderful in your wedding pic. I love her dress and those shoes!!! *sigh*. I want to go put Disney sayings on the bottom of all my shoes now.

Thank you! Glad you like it! When she showed me the shoe label, I had the biggest smile on my face! "Perfect", I said! When I remember where she got them, I'll pass the info..

Congratulations! And count me in as another girl who LOVES your wife's shoes!! So cute! I wish I had thought to do that for my wedding. What a great idea! I'm cruising on the Fantasy next May so I can't wait to hear what you thought and see some pictures! I can't wait to read the rest of your report.

Thank you,cant remember your name! I told Kelly that I picked the shoes out for Heather. She had gotten some from Zappos but I didnt like them, and she didnt either. So a random trip to the mall, and there they were! $45.00 too!
Fantasy was awesome, phenomenal, etc..Had the best dining experience in my life at Palo...details later on!

 

[Billy6]

With pins in tow, we made our way down Main Street USA, and into Liberty Square. At this point, I was sharing some emails with Tammy(disneyfalcon) about the crowd size and things.She wanted to know the details about the FastPass+ and its workings. As you approach the gates of the mansion, the standby line goes through the furtest left opening and the fastpass+ line went through a larger opening just to the right of that. There are 2 Mickey RFID reader pole, one on each side of the opening with a CM podium on the right. The CM instructed us to hold our cards up to the reader and wait until it turned green. When it does that, a message pops up on the CM podium or on the CMs IPad/tablet with your names on it and it includes any special celebration you may have included in your reservation. I remember adding that to my FastPass+ info as well. Since it was our honeymoon, that's what came up on the screens and the CM's told us to have a great one! This was the case at the other three times we used the FastPass+.

Under the red awning, the line for standby was to the left and the fastpass+ line was on the right near the hurse. Once you got to the split where you could choose between the cemetary line and the line to the door, the fastpass went to the right and the standby went into the right into the cemetary and I beleive there was another split off there to keep going through the cemetary or again go right to the door...but didnt get a good look at it. There is another RFID reader right near the merge back from the cemetary and we were asked to repeat the process with our cards. Two CM's were there assisting FP+ guests as well.

So after a nice tour of Master Gracy's estate we made our way to Pinocchio's Village Haus for lunch. Heather and I split the awesome bbq chicken flat bread and a meatball sammich..Good stuff..Sorry no pics of the food but I'm sure your imagination can help you there...It was about time for our next FastPass+ time for BTMRR at 230-330 but we wanted to get some pics of the New Fantasyland Castle Turrets as they had just been unveiled earlier that week.

 

[Billy6]

Sorry for the tilted pic!

Since we were close to Tomorrowland and we had an hour to use your fastpass for BTMRR, we went over to see the wait time for Space and Buzz. Heather had Mobile Magic up and they said 10 and 5 minutes, respectively. She wanted to knock those out for the day because she wanted to stay on the Frontierland/Adventureland side for the rest of the time we would be there. Fine with me. Our last FP+ was for Space Mountain at 5:50- 6:50 but we had 7:10 ADRs at Le Cellier so we werent 100% sure we could do SM and then get to Epcot so we hit it now and then waited to see how the rest of the day went.

Buzz was pretty much walk on, stopped for about 15 seconds for some FP users to go through the queue. I took this picture of this "new" wall that was seperating the stand-by and fastpass line. I said to Heather, "that's new" because I do not remember it from our June trip

Galactic Hero, 999,999 for the second time this year! Heather wasn't impressed...

 

[joanna71985]

Thanks Joanna..I hope you had a great time on the other 6 days of your cruise. I am sure glad you guys are safe. We had some mild rough seas one day and I got sick a bit, but I would have lost it if I was on your cruise. Hope you enjoy my report!

Oh yes! The rest of the days were perfect. That one day has not sworn me off of cruising

 

[Billy6]

After Heather's schelacking on Buzz, we went over to Space Mountain. Standby said 10 minutes so we walked in and went all the way to the ride loading area, 10 minutes my foot!!! I was thinking they may have given a time card to someone on crutches and it took them 10 minutes to walk to the control tower, JK!!!
Our spin through the galaxy was just as great as it always it, my favorite ride.

It was time for FP+ at BTMRR so we headed back to Frontierland via Adventureland and almost got stuck by Splash because of the Parade. Found a small opening and and got through to BTM. Did the FastPass+ routine again and pretty much walked to the CM at the second Mickey reader. That was the theme of the day as the crowds were very light and the need for fastpass was small if any. But since we had the new system cards, we used them during our time there. A survey of our experience came out about a week after we got back.Anywhoo, The wildest ride in the Wilderness was just that and we had fun as always. Love sliding down the seat and squashing Heather into the side of the car during the helix! Sorry babe!

"Ice cream time" said Heather when we got off BTMRR so we headed into Adventureland to this great place!

Heather had the choco/vanilla swirl and I had the citrus swirl, while she finished I snapped a few more pics of the area.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

The planning for our wedding and honeymoon had a great assist from our(WDWMagic) fearless WDW/DCL guru, Tammy. She was instrumental in helping us plan for the honeymoon, but also helping our guests, friends and family contribute to our honeymoon, and for that Heather and I are greatly appreciative... Take a bow!!

Ahh! Thank you, Bill!

I still love the wedding pictures and Heather's shoes are da bomb!

I'm still excited that you were chosen for Fastpass +! Can't wait for more!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Okay! I want your MK day when we have our single World day in January! No lines! And you aren't supposed to schelack the bride on her honeymoon! What are you thinkin??? Oh wait....I guess maybe so but not in the Space Ranger Spin.... I totally did NOT just say that! Back on subject...love the wedding band flash for the Buzz pic. That's a full-on "awwwwww" moment.

 

[Billy6]

Ahh! Thank you, Bill!

I still love the wedding pictures and Heather's shoes are da bomb!

I'm still excited that you were chosen for Fastpass +! Can't wait for more!

You're welcome... credit where credit is due, that's my motto!

I want to try and finish the MK/Epcot day so I can get to the Fantasy portion ASAP!

 

[Billy6]

Okay! I want your MK day when we have our single World day in January! No lines! And you aren't supposed to schelack the bride on her honeymoon! What are you thinkin??? Oh wait....I guess maybe so but not in the Space Ranger Spin.... I totally did NOT just say that! Back on subject...love the wedding band flash for the Buzz pic. That's a full-on "awwwwww" moment.

Uh, yeah....I schelaked Heather on other things....yeah wait, this is a family show, Kelly! Back the truck up!

We also tried that same photo op on Space, that one didnt work so much!

Lines were very bare..I emailed Tammy at one point and she was surprised cause someone posted on her FB page that MK was "sooo crowded"... If we didn't have the FP+, I probably would have waited 5-10 min tops...Granted, we didn't hit many attractions but it was very light. PPF was about 25-30 that day. Hope its that way for you in January...

 

[Disneyfalcon]

You're welcome... credit where credit is due, that's my motto!

I want to try and finish the MK/Epcot day so I can get to the Fantasy portion ASAP!

Yay!

Yes, someone told me they left the Magic Kingdom because it was so packed! So strange! But yay for you not having any waits!

 

[Billy6]

After wiping off the drippy ice cream from my t-shirt, we hit POTC which was walk on. We took the left fork and went directly to the CM. Funny question from the CM after he saw Heather's pin, he asked "how much did you pay her to marry you" in a fine pirate drawl, I might add...To which I replied "6 bottles of rum"...He chuckled and said to her "I would have charged 12 bottles"..She chuckled! Thanks mate, way to stick together, brother!..He then gave us the "love seat" at the back of the next boat...Good form!

Time was close for our FP+ at Jungle Cruise, but a few minutes early. Heather asked what the new system would do if you came in early, in light of the regular FP mandate of early arrivals... So to see what would occur, we went up to the line about 7-9 minutes before our start time, and it worked/let us proceed. Not sure if that will be the norm but that is what happened. We got onto the boat in no time and had a really great skipper, to which I cannot remember her name at this time...But very engaging and funny, in the campy JC way! She let a first time rider(little boy) steer us through the Asian tunnel and he was very excited to do it...Good stuff!

At about the time we got off JC, my cousin and his fiance, who were down on their first WDW vacation together, has texed me that they were headed to Epcot, where they had agreed to meet us after our dinner at Le Cellier for Illuminations. Heather wanted to maybe hit some Epcot rides before dinner and since they were headed there, we would too. We still had our FP+ time for Space Mountain left, but we had already gone in it so we forewent doing it again...

Snapped a couple more Photopass pics and with our own camera then headed to Emporium to keep a promise to my mom. This was the promise!

 

[Billy6]

She asked us to buy the wedding ears and take a pic in front of the castle and MK. So we obliged! You're welcome MOM! We did take a picture on MS-USA with the castle in the back, however, it somehow deleted, cause I swear it was there...OH WELL...

Great day at MK, cool experience with FP+ and some great CM interactions...can't wait til June, for our annual family trip! See ya real soon!

Express Monorail was down for some reason so we headed over to the Resort line to get to TTC. You couldn't tell from the last pic, but the skies to the south were getting dark from some rain clouds. While we were on the Epcot line, it was getting pretty dark and rain was pretty close. We had about an hour and a half for our ADR at Le Cellier, so once we arrived at Epcot we could see my cousin, Zach and Nicole his fiance waiting for us by the entrance fountain. Met them and went over how both of our days went.

Warning: Disappointment ahead: ... At this time the skies were about to open up so Heather and I put the new camera away for the rest of the night. We headed to the Land to try to get on Soarin and hit LWTL and when we exited, it was semi pouring...Didn't make it on Soarin..it was 45 minutes wait and would have cut into our ADR time..A quick duck into Imagination to see what Figment was up to and get out of the rain. It slowed down some, so we headed to World Showcase to Canada to try out luck at getting in early. Zach and Nicole had ADR's at one of the Japan restaurants and they headed that way. As soon as we got into the door Le Cellier, the skies opened up big time. That was close! We had about 20 minutes before our 7:10 and we waited about 10 minutes before we were called.

Ok, now because of the lack of photos(sorry) and because it was our first time at Le Cellier, please use your imagination and it's ok to lick your lips thinking of the great fare we had at this place. I used everyone's recommendations and relayed them to Heather when we chose our items from the menu. She had a Reisling wine and I had a Molson bottle (haven't had one of them since college). Tasted great!

We both had the cheddar cheese soup and fought over the pretzel rolls(yes, we fought )...Soup was very good! But the pies de resistance, the Filet Mignon!... Magnifique! Tres Bien! We both thoroughly enjoyed them, the mushroom risotto was very good too. Not a speck left on our plates. We ordered a side of roasted potatos but we didnt finish those, they were just ok in my opinion.

We had the cheesecake for dessert and each had another drink to finish off our great meal.

A side note to our meal was it was free! Well sort of...

 

[Billy6]

I am a salesman for the most recognized home/small business security company, starts with an A then, D and ends with T..(shameless plug, sorry). Over the past six months we had a ongoing contests for sales and I had accumulated, to my surprise, $230.00. My manager said we could pick any gift card we wanted and I went straight to the Disney store that very day. The gift card paid for our entire first day at MK and Epcot as well as breakfast the next morning before our cruise. Our meals, snacks, and souveniers. Super score!

We left Le Cellier about 815ish and my cousin was still having dinner so we decided that we were probably going to head back to the resort instead of brave the rain to watch Illuminations. Heather wanted to do a little walking around but wanted to grab ponchos for the walk back to the busses. Stopped in the shop at Canada then headed to UK for a beer and to see the Soccer stuff they had this time around. Picked up a nice Arsenal t-shirt on clearence for $15.00, Sweet!

Heather checked Mobile Magic for the Soarin time and it was only 25 minutes. We didnt get on it earlier as well as when we came in June, so we decided to make one more stop before leaving and rode Soarin. 25 minutes was pretty spot on and our flight over California was great as ever. Zach texted me and said he and Nicole would stay for the show but we were already headed towards the door. Bus came as soon as we walked up to the stop.

Our bags had been delivered to the room, so when we got back we shifted our stuff to prepare for our cruise the next day. You can tell our excitement was building as our great day at WDW was ending but our honeymoon was far from over. Got our cruise carry-on bag packed and our cruise outfits ready..yes, cruise outfits... and hit the bed!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I have cruise outfits!!! You're speaking my language!

Congrats on the gift card. Aren't those bonus deals wonderful?? '

I would beat Tracey up for pretzel bread. Just sayin'...

Glad y'all scored a round on Soarin' after all.

Cannot wait for the cruise stuff to start!!!!

 

[Billy6]

Sept 22nd-Woke up around 8:00 to get ready and finish packing because the bell services were to pick up our checked luggage at 9:00. They promptly came at said time and took our bags. I gave him a few dollars extra because Heather's bags were extra heavy..JK! But I did tip him...When we finished up our morning routine, we headed to End Zone Food Court for breakfast.. We both decieded on bounty platters and boy were they good..They just kept piling on the food! I know, what you are thinking...they aren't that good...but we enjoyed them.

Made a stop at Sport Goofy and grabbed some water and small gifts for my daughter and headed back to the room. We had about 10 bucks left on the gift card so we finished it off there. Thanks, ADT! (i worked hard for the money )...We had about an hour before our meeting time of 11:50 to check in for the DCL bus to Port Canaveral. I also had to call Sprint to register my phone for international use and Heather used the time to sleep...SHOCKER! I organized our stuff and sat down to jot down our day at MK on my IPad for this report(thanks for the tip, Fractal).

So..the time has come to make our way to the front desk for check-in for the DCL bus...Chills and goosebumps for sure from me and Heather... Ann, our nice DCL CM checked us in with four other groups and had a handful of problem guests who didn't have their required cruise documents and they franticly sifted through their bags to find them. Ann said to stop at the port and they would reprint them and that she needed to get us going. About 10 minutes after we checked in the bus pulled up and the goosebumps got bigger! We all streamed on the bus after a quick check of our IDs and documents and we picked a seat where I knew we would get a great view of the ship when we pulled into port. Ann got on the mike and wished us all a great cruise and told us we had two more stops before heading to the port.

These were our cruise outfits! T-shirts Heather's aunt made for us and gave us at one of our showers!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I love the shirts!!! I'm getting goosebumps, too!!! It's so exciting!!!!!

 

[Billy6]

First stop was Coronado Springs for a couple who was on their honeymoon as well, then onto AoA Resort. I didn't mind that stop cause I wanted to see the resort up close. As we pulled in I snapped some pics of the entrance. It looked like there was a photo shoot or a something being filmed on the lawn in front of the sign.

This stop pretty much filled up the remainder of the bus as there was a good number of people that streamed out of the building. After another CM greeting, we were on our way to Port Canaveral and the Fantasy!

It was about an hour or so before we got to the port. I kept tabs on our location with my map app(hey, that rhymes) on my IPad and elbowed Heather a few times when we were very close....and then...

 

[Billy6]

My jaw dropped through the floor! It was definately a sight to behold! We just looked through the window in complete awe! I messaged Tammy and asked her if she heard my reaction(jokingly, ). She promptly replied and said she was very startled, but in a good way!

We pulled up to the bus depot area and a CM got on and gave us some short instructions when walking into the port terminal. A couple seated in front of us could tell that it was our first cruise and and we could tell if was not their first..They were decked out in cruise gear!. They let us know that we were in for a great time and to enjoy everything we could....Our carry on bags were unloaded and we walked off of the bus and into the terminal. After the security check, we headed up the escalators as I gathered our passports and documents. By this time, it was around 1:30-1:45 and on the bus we were told it was "open boarding" so as soon as we stopped at check in so we wouldnt have to wait long to get on the boat. We were directed to the CM and she got our photos, checked our docs and passports and gave us our Keys to the World. I pulled out my video camera and did a quick shoot of the terminal as we were very anxious to get on the boat. We took turns in the potty(sorry, I have a seven year old daughter and we still say potty) and then headed for the Mickey head!

At this point, I had my video camera out and Heather had the camera stashed in her purse and didnt take it out until we got into the stateroom. We stopped at the photo op before boarding and took the picture and then headed on the boat. WE MADE IT! The CM's announced us and we made our way in and up to our stateroom. The atrium was beautiful and empty! We came back down and took photos later in the day...

We got to our stateroom, #8114(which to my deduction, if you add the first two numbers, became 9, and the last two numbers, are 1 and 4, became 9-14, which was our wedding date! I am so clever). We had booked a deluxe stateroom with a verandah but got a surprise upgrade according to Tammy to another catergory type which gave us a larger room. We were very excited about that. Heather did the honors and opened the door and boy were we happy!

 

[Billy6]

Our stateroom was on the Port side and about Midship. It was a short walk to both Mid and Aft elevator areas so you could say we were Mid-Mid ship and slightly Aft. I told Heather numerous times during the cruise that she has a really nice aft..badum bum!

Heather had some work to do for her salon so while she did that I took some shots of the room and outside on the verandah.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Yay for the gift card!

I love love the cruise outfits! That's my hubby's birthday too!

Our stateroom was on the Port side and about Midship. It was a short walk to both Mid and Aft elevator areas so you could say we were Mid-Mid ship and slightly Aft. I told Heather numerous times during the cruise that she has a really nice aft..badum bum!

Lol!

Yay for upgrades! Did you love the shower? I love that shower in the round bath tubs!!