Third Time Wife

Highway to Happiness: Baking and Bride-Napping

Wedding Recaps

My wedding leave started 2 days before the event, on Halloween. As much as we really do love Halloween, I opted not to don a costume simply to spend the day baking goodies for the reception.

In addition to the cupcakes we ordered from Lucy & Leo’s, I decided to make brownies, lemon bars, a pound cake, and an orange cake to round out the dessert options–a little something for everyone. This may not have been everyone’s ideal way of relaxing before the big day, but the hours of methodical mixing and baking and cooling and packaging was quite soothing.

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Photo by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Mama Leadfoot called shortly after 5pm with a surprise: Dr Aunt and Brother Speedy–not expected in until the next day–drove up a day early (apparently Mama whined a bit about the lack of visiting time their original itinerary afforded) and were ready to head out for supper. Was I game?

Roadie and I had planned to go out that night anyway, but Roadie had to work that day, then pick up his suit on the way home (I’d hoped he’d get to it sooner, just in case something didn’t fit, but that’s not how his schedule played out). When I couldn’t get him on his cell phone the jokes started: “He’s making a run for it!” and the like. Gee, thanks, loving family. But after several calls and my family showing up at my house, the decision was made to kidnap me and hope that Roadie would meet-up with us as soon as he could.

I don’t think any of us expected the restaurant to be as busy as it was, but having the waitstaff in costume was interesting (one person was dressed as Ted, which was a little odd). Our waiter was one of the guys from Anchorman (not my type of humor, so I couldn’t tell you who he was really supposed to be) and then to have them doing their dance-break per the usual–well, hey, dinner and a show, right?

(Commentary supplied mainly by me & Brother Truck–pardon my somewhat maniacal laugh at the mid-point)

Roadie showed up just as our food was being served, so pretty perfect timing there, and at some point it just hit me: Here we all were. It could have been any day, any reason, but this time it was because of Roadie and I. Soon we’d be surrounded by even more family, and then by our friends, and it was all because we met in a chat room one night, decided to meet in person, and followed the road from there wherever it took us. I got a little misty-eyed, even.

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And then Mama started pelting the opposite side of the table with peanuts. My family isn’t known for prolonged sentimentality, so this was perfectly par for the course!

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The Road Trip Wedding Recaps:

*Dishing the Dirt on the Venue
*Baking and Bride-Napping

Honey Lake Plantation Review

Wedding Recaps

We had a total of three vendors for our wedding: the cupcake shop, the photographer, and our venue. While I’ll wait until the end to review the other two, I wanted to get the venue review out of the way, clear the air so to speak, before we get into recapping the wedding itself. Both to avoid ending on a negative note and to state the issues we faced so that it doesn’t seem like I’m harping in the venue every. damn. post.

Those high-top tables were supposed to have chocolate-brown sashes on them. And when I mentioned the lack to the DoC she actually said 'This is what happens when you trust someone else to do it.' Preaching to the chior, sister ;-)

Those high-top tables were supposed to have chocolate-brown sashes on them. And when I mentioned the lack to the DoC she actually said ‘This is what happens when you trust someone else to do it.’ Preaching to the chior, sister 😉 | all photos by Pink Shutterbug Photography

Honey Lake Plantation is a beautiful venue, and that alone may be enough to ignore all the rest. But in my opinion, they have a ways to come before they round out the management and communication issues that were the root of the negatives we experienced.

Take, for instance, 6 months prior to the wedding: I emailed our DoC, an HLP employee, and had my email bounce-back. I tried the main weddings@ address from their website, and that bounced-back as well! Then it took a couple days of calling and leaving messages before I finally found out that the planner we’d signed with the previous year had opted not to return from medical leave. Which, hey, more power to her, but the venue could have made a point to contact her clients so we wouldn’t have this momentary panic when it was time to schedule our first planning meeting.

Our Unity Pour supplies sitting on a little end table, waiting for a high-top table to free-up because they over-committed their supplies.

Our Unity Pour supplies sitting on a little end table, waiting for a high-top table to free up because they over-committed their supplies.

Of course, what we didn’t know at the time was that no one had a way to access the previous planners emails. We found that out while in the meeting with the new planner, Stephanie, who had nothing to work from other than the 2 page contract–not even the proposal that contract was based on.

But the real chaos started 4 days before the wedding. We’d done our one-week-out planning session over the phone as Stephanie was still on maternity leave (only to have her head to the office, anyway, but leave my file at home) to go over the day’s schedule and all. The Tuesday before the wedding I’d emailed her to add one thing to the schedule and ask at what time the decision would be made to use the rain plan, as the forecast was still pretty iffy for the wedding day. Her reply didn’t actually answer my question, but it did offer these three tidbits of information:

  1. Our rain plan cocktail location had been changed from the White Ballroom to the Lakeside Pavilion, on the other side of the property! Now, that’s rather unfortunate, especially for the timeline, but there wasn’t much we could do about it since…
  2. The other wedding scheduled that day? It was at the same time as ours and they had the run of the inside of the Gathering Hall, while our event was 2/3 outside of it. Now, this really pissed me off because we were assured that while there might be another event that day, it would not be at the same time. And the fact that their ceremony was taking place inside the church (our guaranteed-by-paying-a-higher-rental-fee back-up in case of bad weather) meant that the other guests would have to walk clear around our event and enter through the side or rear of the Gathering Hall–not exactly great for them, either. But that was almost small potatoes compared to the little bomb she dropped on me next!
  3. Chef Bill had left. The chef we’d worked so carefully with to ensure the meal would accommodate my food intolerances without sacrificing the enjoyment of our guests was gone and it was iffy on whether he’d left any notes about our menu or not. While I was urged repeatedly not to panic (seriously?!), it was pretty much a clutch-your-pearls anxiety session for that first afternoon. Three calls from the DoC later and I’d found a ‘whatever happens, happens’ attitude from somewhere and continued on.
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Our view from the front porch of our cottage. I had really wanted to be able to greet our guests as they arrived but since our transportation was late, we missed the first part of our cocktail hour.

The wedding itself was everything we needed it to be, but not without some trying moments courtesy of the venue’s staff. No one gave any thought to making sure the tables outside were level before setting glassware on them. Only to have them fall off and break (twice!) before they realized gravity and slope were not on their side and fixed the issue. There was a communication issue with the transportation that was supposed to bring us to the pre-cermony Cocktail Hour, the planning I did to ensure the music cues were correctly timed were all for naught, and we ended up being rushed to start the ceremony so early that I think my best friend (who couldn’t make it to cocktail hour) might have actually missed most of it.

Yes, that would be a DoC photobombing some of the ceremony pictures as she walked around the porch behind us.

Yes, that would be a DoC photobombing some of the ceremony pictures as she walked around the porch behind us.

As for the reception, having two weddings going on at the same time stretched their staff too thin and there were considerable gaps between courses, not to mention some strange inability to divide the quiches into 24 equal portions–one half of the room received generous slices while the other half received only half as much (this was something pointed out by Mama Leadfoot, so yes: the guests noticed). And it was just was well one of the things I decided not to do that final week was print menus: they wouldn’t have matched what was served, anyway! And the room set-up, while what we’d agreed upon, left barely enough room for our guests to side on either side of the ‘U’, much less move around comfortably; had they set-up the tables when I originally asked if there’d be enough space or even done a to-scale diagram, I think the issue would have been caught and we could have made for a longer, more narrow U-shape and given everyone more room both behind as well as to either side of each place.

Another one of those small, twitchy details: the napkins are folded wrong. Not a big deal if it'd been the only oops, but it was discussed multiple times and included in the written set-up instructions I provided with the decorations.

Another one of those small, twitchy details: the napkins are folded wrong. Not a big deal if it’d been the only oops, but it was discussed multiple times and included in the written set-up instructions I provided with the decorations.

In the end, the planner offered to comp the beer service (i.e. the only thing we hadn’t pre-paid) to try to make up for the multitude of event sins that had been committed. Then we came back from the honeymoon to find they’d billed me for an extra night’s lodging, claiming that someone else’s room had been attached to my reservation. It took 3 calls over almost a week to get them to finally reverse the erroneous charge.

Was our wedding a blast? Yes–because of the people we shared it with, not necessarily the actions of the venue. Is it a great location with a ton of potential? Absolutely. Would I recommend them to other North Florida brides? Only with caution. (Or, as the lovely Mrs. Turkey would put it: Recommend with Reservations) I can only hope they learned that they are not ready to take on two weddings in such close proximity at the same time and that they’ll be more cautious with their bookings in the future. A lot of the frustration we felt could have been alleviated with better systems in place on the managerial side to ensure consistency regardless of any staffing changes and a more thorough vetting of their own theories as to how their event spaces work.

And with that  now out of the way, the Road Trip recaps can finally begin!

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Wine, Women, and Sushi

Wedding Recaps

While I wasn’t expecting (or wanting) a lot of fuss when it came to pre-wedding events and I declined a shower that Friend-ficiant L offered to host, we did agree that a low-key girls night could definitely be fun. Since I’m not really into bar hopping, and about half of my female friends don’t drink, we decided that even a wine bar might be too limiting. Add that to the fact that I like parties with at least some sort of planned activity, and we decided (much like Mrs. Panda) that pottery painting followed by a nice dinner would be just the thing.

Friend-ficiant L arranged for us to meet at Firefly Pottery after work a week and a day before the wedding–cutting it a little close, time-wise, but that’s just how the schedule worked out–and we ended up taking over the unoccupied space that is a paint-and-sip studio next door (which was nice, because there was a kids birthday party going on in the main room). She absolutely forbade me from helping (which felt so odd, I’m so used to being on the hosting side, not the guest-of-honor) and brought in snacks, wine, and sparkling grape juice so everyone would have something to choose from. You’ll have to take my word for it, though–no one thought to get a picture of it!

We did manage to get a few cellphone pics of the evening, though. Clockwise from upper left: the group of us, Friendficiant L working on a Day of the Dead-inspired skull, Guest S two-fisting her brushes, my beachy margarita glass (all photos personal)

We did manage to get a few cellphone pics of the rest of the evening, though. Clockwise from upper left: the group of us, Friend-ficiant L working on a Day of the Dead-inspired skull, Guest S two-fisting her brushes, my beachy margarita glass (all photos personal)

After a few hours of painting, it was time to trade our brushes in for chopsticks as we headed to a favorite sushi spot nearby: Kiku.

a little blurry, but you get the idea

a bit blurry, but you get the idea

There’s not really a whole lot to say about dinner: it was fabulous, as usual–we end up there at least once a month, it seems–and the conversation flowed without a hitch for the entire evening. What I liked best about this night was that it could almost be any other night out with friends–no pressure, no fanfare, me getting married was just a good excuse for us to hang out and have fun.

Friend-ficiant L prefers to be *behind* the camera but I insisted we get at least one together before the night was over.

Friend-ficiant L prefers to be *behind* the camera whenever possible, but I insisted we get at least one shot together before the night was over.

And what was Roadie [’bout time I came up with something to call him, here, right?] up to that evening? He and Friend-ficiant L’s husband decided to have their own guys night of shooting and steaks. Would  you believe they were out later than we were?!

Road Trip Honeymoon: The Really Big Restaurant Round-Up

Wedding Recaps

Sustenance being kind of important, the decision of where to eat each meal on our honeymoon was a matter of some discussion early on. Disney makes it both easy and hard by offering plenty of dining options at various levels of service and price points. (After all, they don’t want you leaving the parks for anything if they can help it, so they try to cater to (yes, I went there) as many different tastes as possible.) They also offer the Disney Dining Plan as a way to pre-pay meal and snack credits and on the plan we chose (Deluxe Dining) it gave our trip the feeling of being at an all-inclusive resort (well, almost–tips and booze were extra, just like on most cruises).

Let’s face it: very little is cheap at a Disney park or resort, but you go more-or-less expecting the mark-up. The Dining Plan isn’t always a money-saving device, but it is a hassle-saving device, and a no-sticker-shock device if you’re the type to get antsy at the thought of $30 entrees. It was just nice not to have to think too much about it in the moment.

Rather than go day-by-day, here’s a breakdown of where we ate by category and a few thoughts on (and plenty of pictures of) our experience with each. Who knows, if you’re still on the fence about where to dine on your Disney honeymoon, this might help sway your decision one way or the other.

Quick Service/Counter Service

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(left) Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory breakfasts (right) Sunshine Seasons

This is the Disney-equivalent to fast food and we used it mainly for breakfasts at the resort and once in EPCOT (Sunshine Seasons in The Land). Breakfast fare at Disney is pretty standard: eggs in various ways, breakfast meats and sandwiches, with some specialties depending on your resort. For instance, there were beignets available at our resort seeing as it was French Quarter-themed. I stuck to simple, safe dishes like cheese omelets and oatmeal most mornings rather than having to go through the allergy procedure of calling over one of the chefs or managers and going through the big book of ingredients.

Be Our Guest | (top) T's Carved Roast Beef Sandwich & Triple Chocolate Cupcake (bottom) my Gluten-Free Lemon-Raspberry Cream Puff & Tuna Nicoise Salad

Be Our Guest | (top) T’s Carved Roast Beef Sandwich & Triple Chocolate Cupcake (bottom) my Gluten-Free Lemon-Raspberry Cream Puff & Tuna Nicoise Salad

The one non-breakfast Counter Service meal we had almost doesn’t even count: lunch at Be Our Guest is sort of in limbo between Counter Service and Table Service. You stand in line and order your meal via touch-screen kiosks but then they seat you and bring out your food using either a “rose” pager-like device to match your meal to your table or, in our case, your Magic Bands. The fare is also somewhat elevated compared to most CS lunch menus and (it’s a small thing, but a nice one at that) is served on actual china; no paper plates or plastic cutlery. It was worth the 45-minute wait in line to eat here (the longest wait of the week for anything), but I’ll be really happy if they go ahead with the FastPass option for lunch. (It was being tested during our stay but we weren’t part of the random sample picked: rats!)

Table Service

This was where most of our dining fell, both in deference to my food intolerances (easier to work around in a full kitchen vs the abbreviated CS-location facilities) and as a nice break from walking around the parks. It’s a good idea to allow 1-1.5 hours for a table service meal.

Yak and Yeti (left) T's Pork Pot Stickers, Duck with Anandapur Glaze, and Fried Wontons (right) my Seared Ahi Tuna, Kobe Beef Burger, and fruit cup

Yak and Yeti (left) T’s Pork Pot Stickers, Duck with Anandapur Glaze, and Fried Wontons (right) my Seared Ahi Tuna, Kobe Beef Burger, and fruit cup

In Animal Kingdom we had lunch our first park day at Yak & Yeti and, unfortunately, it was the let-down of our trip. Despite my best efforts to notify the special diets department in advance of our trip, none of my information had been passed along to the restaurants and at Yak & Yeti they had the least flexibility due to the type of cuisine they served. Now, I will say that the chef who “helped” us could have been a bit better in his delivery of my options–describing everything as “plain” doesn’t exactly make my heart go pitter-patter, you know? But service counts for a lot, and our waitress as well as the manager who stopped by to chat after the meal really saved this experience for me, at least. This was also the only location to have a problem scanning our Magic Bands and they were having plumbing issues that day so they were just having a bad day, all around. What can you do?

SciFi Dine In (whose lighting does not make for good photography and I didn't want to be that girl using her flash in a darkened room) | (top) T's Onion

Sci-Fi Dine In (whose lighting does not make for good photography and I didn’t want to be that girl using her flash in a darkened room) | (top) T’s Onion Rings, Picnic Burger, and Candy Bar (bottom) my Area 51 Salad (adjusted), Smoked Turkey Sandwich, and fruit salad

That night we headed over to the Studios for dinner at the SciFi Dine-In which is known more for it’s atmosphere and milkshakes than amazing food, but we have no complaints. I was able to get a tasty turkey sandwich on a gluten-free wrap and T dug into their “Picnic Burger” (which features a burger topped with a split hot dog and sauerkraut) followed by their SciFi Candy Bar dessert which looked amazing.  Of course we ordered milkshakes (lactose being the one problem “food” I can medicate for) and a tip for the dining plan: milkshakes can count as a beverage OR a dessert, you get to pick.

Tokyo Dining | (left) my Green Salad, Matsu sushi.sashimi plate, Green Tea Soft Serve (right) T's Karaage, Ginza plate, and Chocolate Ginger Cake (bottom right) A celebratory candy and origami ring

Tokyo Dining | (left) my Green Salad, Matsu sushi.sashimi plate, Green Tea Soft Serve (right) T’s Karaage, Ginza plate, and Chocolate Ginger Cake (bottom right) A celebratory candy and origami ring

In EPCOT we chose Tokyo Dining in Japan. When I started the Low-FODMAP diet to combat my IBS, I was overjoyed to find that most sushi (one of our favorite night-out treats) is generally safe and if there are problematic ingredients they’re easy to switch out or avoid. Because of this I wasn’t anticipating any problems at Tokyo Dining and we had exactly that along with a very good meal. One thing to know about Tokyo Dining: it shares a building with Teppan Edo, the Japanese steakhouse, a popular choice among families with small kids for the entertainment factor. This led to slightly higher-than-expected noise levels but not uncomfortably so. If you’re not generally a sake fan but you enjoy Moscato and other sweeter wines, give the Hana Awaka sparkling sake a try–it was so good we picked up a bottle to take home with us!

Tony's Town Square | (top) T's Calamari and Chicken Parmesan (bottom) my Prosciutto-Wrapped Melon and NY Strip

Tony’s Town Square | (top) T’s Calamari and Chicken Parmesan (bottom) my Prosciutto-Wrapped Melon and NY Strip

Before the Christmas Party we had reservations at Tony’s Town Square in the Magic Kingdom. An Italian-style eatery with touches of Lady & the Tramp, this restaurant was extremely busy and I don’t think it was just because of the party. One woman who walked up to the hostess stand after us was told it was an hour and a half wait without a reservation! We’d had a late in-room lunch that afternoon which turned out to be unfortunate as Tony’s is one of the few eateries we encountered with the over-sized portions most American restaurants are known for (all of our other Table Service meals served much more reasonable portion sizes). We couldn’t do our entrees justice, though they were incredibly tasty, and I skipped the inevitable fruit bowl dessert. T got his tiramisu to go.

Character Dining

A bit of a subset of Table Service dining at Disney are the character meals, many of which are buffets or otherwise prix fixe. You’re paying as much for the character interaction as you are for the meal, but we think they’re worth it for the experience. There aren’t many places where Tigger comes over and sits down next to your new husband and starts checking his plate for leftovers. (Tigger was out of luck on that score.)

Crystal Palace | (top) T's smorgasbord, celebratory cupcake (bottom) my salad and salmon plate

Crystal Palace | (top) T’s smorgasbord, celebratory cupcake (bottom) my salad and salmon plate

Wednesday night we ate at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom, which is home to Winnie the Pooh and friends. I’m actually not big on buffets in general (food quality usually suffers from holding under heat lamps, after all), but for characters I’ll make an exception. T definitely found enough to keep him happy and the chef made me a plate of salmon, rice, potatoes, and green beans that were all sans onion and garlic. (Seriously, those are the two hardest ingredients to avoid at restaurants and I hated telling the chefs that was one of my restrictions almost as much as I hated giving up the ingredients themselves!) They sweetly sent out a celebration cupcake at the end of our meal, as well.

Chef Mickey's | His & Hers Mickey Waffles!

Chef Mickey’s | His & Hers Mickey Waffles!

Our other character meal was at Chef Mickey’s in the Contemporary Resort. Again, it’s a buffet , and at breakfast you find all the usual suspects (waffles, pancakes, sausage, bacon, fruit, pastries, potatoes in various forms, etc.). I was able to get some fruit and smoked salmon from the buffet but the highlight of this meal for me was getting some wheat-free Mickey waffles and maple syrup. I know it’s just a waffle in a fun shape, but it’s quintessential Disney to me. We all have our things.

Chef Mickey’s was also where our PhotoPass+ came in handy once again. Not only did we get to take advantage of every photo taken of us in the parks by the park photographers as well as many ride photos, PP+ also included the souvenir photos from Chef Mickeys (and other select Character Meals) both in digital form and print, the spiffy folder of which was delivered to us at the end of our meal. (For the curious, we pre-ordered our PhotoPass+ for $149. That sounds like a lot until you do the math: the 158 pictures we received on the PhotoPass disc would normally be $14.95 each, so we “saved” over $2000 in souvenir photos. Granted, we wouldn’t have bought them all if that had been the case, but now we don’t have to worry about it!)

Signature Dining

You could almost consider Signature Dining as Table Service+. With the exception of Victoria & Alberts (which is a level unto itself), Signature Dining restaurants are the upper tier of Disney dining (and on the Dining Plan count as 2 TS credits per person). Originally we’d only scheduled one Signature meal, the Jiko experience I mentioned in part 1 of the honeymoon recaps. But when we changed some of our plans around during the week we realized we had extra dining credits that would otherwise go to waste, so switched on of our Hollywood Studios reservations from 50’s Prime Time Diner to the Hollywood Brown Derby and opted for a last minute reservation at Wolfgang Puck Cafe in Downtown Disney’s West Side before heading home on Saturday.

Wolfgang Puck Cafe | Crab Cakes, Mac & Cheese, Brownie Sundae, Sunomono Salad, Pellegrino, Fruit Salad, Sushi Platter

Wolfgang Puck Cafe | Crab Cakes, Mac & Cheese, Brownie Sundae, Sunomono Salad, Pellegrino, Fruit Salad, Sushi Platter

Actually, there’s still some debate about the Wolfgang Puck reservation. When we searched for DTD lunch Signature Dining on the My Disney Experience App it came up, but our check only reflected 2 credits used instead of 4. Oh, well, it’s not the end of the world. And it was a very good meal, regardless, and that’s what matters. I went with sushi again (safe and delicious) and continued my love affair with Pellegrino–I was never a huge fan of mineral water before, but I wanted something carbonated that wasn’t soda and I know it sounds silly but the more delicate bubbles in Pellegrino vs. any other mineral water I’ve tried make all the difference. But I digress. Mr. RT went with the more American side of the menu and got the Mac & Cheese and a delectable Brownie Sundae.

Hollywood Brown Derby | (clockwise from top left) Banana White Chocolate Toffee Tower, Lobster Bisque, Cobb Salad, Duck with Herbed Goat Cheese Polenta Cake, Champagne

Hollywood Brown Derby | (clockwise from top left) Banana White Chocolate Toffee Tower, Lobster Bisque, Cobb Salad, Duck with Herbed Goat Cheese Polenta Cake, Champagne

Service at the Hollywood Brown Derby is everything you’d expect from such a storied location (well, a replica of such a storied location), and the food matched the atmosphere to a T! My petite Cobb Salad followed by Duck with Herbed Goat Cheese Polenta Cake was divine and T went with a seafood theme and followed his Lobster Bisque with the Seafood Cioppino. We were seated at a corner banquette and had an excellent view of the dining room for people-watching, including one woman who wanted to know if she could be seated any farther away from a nearby child. Look, it might be the Hollywood Brown Derby but it’s still Disney!

Sipping the complimentary Champagne after lunch was a nice touch, too.

Snacks

Each version of the Dining Plan comes with a certain number of snack credits, in addition to the meal credits, that can be used for ice cream, pop corn, sodas and bottled water (among other things). We, however, used most of our snack credits (the DxDP credits 2 per person, per night’s stay, so we had 24) for use at the Food & Wine Festival booths. Grazing away 2 meals is why we also ended up with so many leftover meal credits to use on Signature Dining.

Small Plates from the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival

Small Plates from the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival

We had a ball going from booth to booth of the Festival, though we didn’t try nearly as many items as we thought we might when looking over the lists at home. We also didn’t indulge in as many adult beverages as we might have–we just weren’t in the mood to drink much on this trip. Several people have asked us for favorites from the Festival and I’m here to say it’s just not possible to choose a favorite. We do want to go back next year, though, and do more of the Festival events that we didn’t make time for this go-round.

Okay, if you’ve made it this far (I know, it was long, but I wanted to wrap this up), I apologize for any hunger pains this post may have instigated. The tl;dr breakdown: Disney does a very good job of feeding people at various levels of service and cuisine. We really enjoyed the convenience of the Disney Dining Plan. PhotoPass+ is an awesome thing if you really like souvenir photos and want to make sure both you and your new spouse are in some together.

Thus concludes the Road Trip honeymoon recaps. As soon as the rest of the wedding photos are in I’ll be back with the wedding recaps in all their errant (yes, that’s really the word I meant to use) glory.

Road Trip Honeymoon: 4 Parks, 5 Days

Wedding Recaps
images via PhotoPass photographers

images via PhotoPass photographers

Early in the honeymoon planning we’d mapped out our park days (both to help make our dining decisions as well as have a general plan), this also came in handy when we were given the option of scheduling FastPass+ attractions. The basic plan was:

  • Monday: Animal Kingdom, plus Hollywood Studios in the evening
  • Tuesday: EPCOT
  • Wednesday: Magic Kingdom
  • Thursday: Hollywood Studios, plus EPCOT in the evening
  • Friday: catch up on any missed attractions, Magic Kingdom for MVMCP in the evening

Mr. RT hadn’t been to Animal Kingdom before, so that was our obvious first park. We  had FastPasses for Dinosaur, Expedition Everest, and Kilimanjaro Safari in that order. While a lot of Disney fans consider scheduling rides like this to be way on the micro-managing side of things, we loved the convenience of it and not having to go from one side of the park to the other and back again collecting the paper passes. It also allowed us to get the big rides taken care of first thing in the morning, so if we wanted to take a break after lunch we weren’t in danger of missing much of anything.

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Short days mean short hours at Animal Kingdom, so we had time at DHS to ride a ride and see a couple of shows before our dinner reservation.

We have over 1500 photos from this week, it's tough to choose just a few highlights for these recaps!

We have over 1500 photos from this week, it’s tough to choose just a few highlights for these recaps!

Tuesday was EPCOT all the way. Considering we Road Trips are not morning people I was happily surprised at making Rope Drop this morning! We had a few hours and some FastPasses to use up before the World Showcase and the Food & Wine Festival opened, so it was Mission:Space for T and characters for me. Unfortunately, once we got into the World Showcase, Monday’s full day and our early Tuesday start was beginning to get to me, so we took a break to go back to the room for a while. We returned that evening to hit more of the F&WF booths and see the fireworks show–Illuminations is my favorite of all the Disney shows.

EPCOT Fun

EPCOT Fun

Even with that afternoon rest, I was starting to lose steam (and to realize that the plantar fasciitis in my right foot is far worse than I thought–ouch!) so we made the decision Tuesday night not to set an alarm for Wednesday morning and get to the Magic Kingdom around lunch time. This turned out to be one of our better ideas. And it was no trouble at all to change our a.m. FastPasses for afternoon using the Disney app. We started with pictures on Main Street, progressed to lunch at Be Our Guest, and I got to introduce T to classics such as the Enchanted Tiki Room and Jungle Cruise. Then that night we had dinner with the 100 Acre Wood crew at Crystal Palace.

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Thursday was our second stop at Hollywood Studios and another not-too-early start. As before, we’d shifted our FastPass times but we weren’t paying full attention to the clock and missed T’s Tower of Terror time. Oops! Rescheduling the day before was easy, but during the day in question we weren’t having much luck–the available return times conflicted with our dinner plans. Oh, well, we decided to just wing the rest of the day and I figured we’d come back on Friday to make up the missed rides. That night we were heading back to EPCOT to see both Dennis DeYoung’s Eat to the Beat concert and have dinner in Japan.

jvanderbeek_day4

Friday we had a morning appointment with Chef Mickey and then Mr. RT surprised me by choosing EPCOT to return to this morning and not Animal Kingdom or DHS. I wasn’t going to complain as I was interested in doing a bit more shopping in World Showcase and T had a few more blanks to fill in his passport. Mid-afternoon found us back in the room and then we were back to Magic Kingdom for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. The great thing about the separate-ticket events is that, even at sold-out capacity, the crowds are so low that you can walk onto just about any ride in the park (especially if you go during the parades).

jvanderbeek_day5_part1While it was kinda sad to know our honeymoon was coming to an end, there are far worse ways to end a trip than with a spectacular fireworks show around the glittery castle.

jvanderbeek_day5_part2Besides, it wasn’t really the end. On Saturday we ended as we began: with another trip to Downtown Disney, this time to use the Disney Quest passes that came with our package. It was a good way to ease us out of the Disney “bubble” and by 7 p.m. we’d made it back to Tallahassee and what passes for reality.

Next up: The big restaurant run-down!