Land & Sea Honeymoon w/ a Reluctant DH (06/17-06/24) **Updated 7/30** - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Pt. 3, Epcot...Land & Sea Honeymoon w/ a Reluctant DH (06/17-06/24)
Part 3, EPCOT
Lou kept arguing with me over and over about wanting to sleep in on our honeymoon. That was his biggest complaint about other trips we’ve taken. I would always drag him out of bed early to go on tours or visit museums, you know stuff like that. See for me, I like to get up early right away and start touring. I don’t want to feel like I’ve missed anything. I realized that I had to compromise. I guess it was his honeymoon too.
I was so glad when I found out about Evening EMH! Plus even without EMH the parks were all open until 9pm or so. I didn’t stress too much about waking up “late” because I knew we would send the entire afternoon and night in the parks. Lou and I did compromise; we would get up and leave the hotel by 11:00pm. I got up early and visited the hotel shops and walked around while he slept. This was a great time for me to investigate all the different areas of the GF. And just to annoy him I set a Disney wake up call for him every morning. If you dial (think it was) 7 from the room phone you can schedule a wakeup call from Mickey Mouse and Stitch.
We caught the monorail at the GF main building. The monorail didn’t take long at all. In fact, through the whole trip the monorail was the fastest and most dependable form of transportation. We were pretty lucky when we caught it because the main car was empty so Lou and I jumped in to ride with the driver. Its such an awesome view! You can see everything! We passed by the MK and through the Contemporary on our way to the Ticket Center We also had great views of the Poly and the GF. The ticket center is where you would transfer for the Epcot monorail.
Right off the bad Lou started to complain that he was hungry. Normally I would trek through Future World and the World Showcase, but seeing that he was “starving” WS it was. I had planned it so that we would eat our way around WS.
But first things first, we went to go get a fastpass for Soarin'. When we got there all of the fastpasses were taken until late in the afternoon. We figured we’d visit WS and then go back to Future World later.
We started at Canada and worked our way around. Everything was CS – counter service or stands because we didn’t make ADR’s. After I told Lou about the Cheddar Cheese soup in Canada’s Le Cellier I thought it was worth a shot to see if they had any openings…nope by 12 they were booked the whole day, I even called Dinning reservations. That didn’t help. Oh well.
Here’s where we stopped at ate. And boy did we eat (we had to stretch our tummies for the cruise. At least that’s what we told ourselves)
France: Boulangerie Patisserie
Ham and Cheese Quiche
Cheese Plate
Morocco: Tangierine Café
Marinated Olives (Lou- I hate olives)
Japan: Sushi Stand right at the edge of the Lagoon
California Roll / Spicy Tuna Roll combo (4 pieces of the Tuna and 4 of the C.R)
America: Stands
Funnel Cake w/ cherries
Turkey Leg (our first ever! We had to get one after seeing it on the Food Network’s DW special)
And then we had to stop, (at least until Dinner) we couldn’t make it around the world! There was just too much to eat!
I was really excited to ride the Grand Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros. This was one of my favorite movies and when I learned about the updated ride I knew it was a must see. The CM at the front of the line saw our buttons and gave Lou and I our own boat to ride in. This button thing was great! Everywhere we went everyone was so nice and told us “Congratulations!” I don’t think there was one cast member who didn’t! Lou said that I like that kind of attention…well ok, I did it made everything a little more magical!
After WS we headed back to Future World. We were able to get on Spaceship Earth, The Seas with Nemo, and Soarin' with little to no wait. We bounced around FW for a while but did stop later for dinner. We wanted to go back to WS and try a country that we didn’t eat at like Germany or China. We wanted to try something different, something we normal wouldn’t have tried back home. The one place I was weary about trying. We decided to go back to the Tangierine Cafe. The Café has indoor seating as well as an out door patio. We had the Chicken & Lamb platters - served with side of hummus, tabbouleh salad, CousCous and Moroccan bread. It was great! And the tabbouleh salad was definitely my favorite! (the meal was so good, that we decided to go to a Mediterranean / Middle Eastern restaurant near my work. I saw a take out menu the other day and saw that they have my tabbouleh salad!!) After dinner we watched Illuminations right in front of Morrocco. We had a great view in front of the entrance to the boat launch. We were able to see everything clearly.
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What a wonderful day at Epcot! We've never tried viewing Illuminations from Morocco. Sounds like we'll have to try it on one of our future trips!! Can't wait to hear more about your room!!
Sounds like you had a magical time so far!!! What a great view you had from your balcony at the GF! I think your DH has become a disney convert. Hurry back with more.
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Congratulations!!!!
I've just caught up on your report. It sounds like a wonderful trip so far, can't wait to hear the rest. And I love your approach for converting your DH to a Disney guy. I'll have to steal some of your tips!
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Tanya
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Land & Sea Honeymoon w/ a Reluctant DH (06/17-06/24) **Updated 7/19**
Part 3.5….More on our Room at the GF
We woke up this morning to tons of racket! Apparently they were doing some renovations at the GF when we were saying there and we kept hearing drilling and hammering. A letter was placed under the door explaining that they we doing renovations on one of the floors. We didn’t complain or anything, by the time the started making all of the racket, we were getting ready to leave. Plus once you put the T.V on we couldn’t hear it at all. The T.V stations on their T.V had news channels, regular Florida stations and some Disney channels. One Disney channel showed classic cartoons and one was a synopsis of all of the parks. I think it had a part with the top 10 attractions/ rides at Disney. I loved to listen to all the Disney info while we were getting ready for our day in the parks.
The room had a beautiful veranda with two chairs and a small table. The sliding door that was the entrance could be locked and bolted for safety. The curtains were made up of 2 layers of very heavy fabric. When they were pulled completely closed it became really dark, almost night like. If you didn’t have a light on you wouldn’t be able to see your hand right in front of your face. Lou loved this seeing that he wanted to get some sleep while at DW.
Next to the veranda doors was a wooden table and chairs. Across of them was a sofa, large wall mirror and a coffee table. The sofa had a cute pillow with a print from Alice and Wonderland along with her tea cups. Next to the sofa was the entertainment center. Placed on top was the famous Mickey lamps that were being sold in the GF store. Next to the entertainment center was the best stocked Mini Bar I think I’ve ever seen! The prices we ok too, nothing too steep. I have pictures below of the contents! Talk about stocked! Everything from candy, chips, different types of liquor, juice, milk, water…you name it! They even had 2 of the refillable mugs!
The bed we had was a king sized and the print was another Alice and Wonderland print. This print was of her with the flowers and one image was of the Queen of Hearts. It also had two gold throw pillows that had the lyrics to “When you wish upon a star”. Every night we had a turn down service. The staff would leave chocolates that were wrapped in with a picture of the GF on the front.
Last edited by Disneydiana; 12-30-2008 at 10:17 AM..
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Land & Sea Honeymoon w/ a Reluctant DH (06/17-06/24) **Updated 7/30**
Pt 4 MGM Studios / Fantasmic Dinner Package
(Sorry its been so long, I’ve been super busy the last couple of weeks with ebay listings and reading the new Harry Potter book! )
I was really happy to know that Lou was having such a great time so far. I knew that he would like Epcot, but I didn’t think he would like it that much. Lou was really starting to see that DW is more than just Mickey Mouse and the Tea cups.
I knew he would like MGM too. I kept sending him emails at work with summary’s of some of the different attractions/ rides. He was interested in doing almost everything at MGM so I knew we were going to have a full day.
The must see of the day was going to be the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. Lou plays guitar in a rock band (Lucid Ground - you can check them out at www.myspace.com/lucidground ) and we love music, so this ride was the must see. The only problem was that Lou has never ridden a “real” roller coaster before; he’s afraid of heights and has high blood pressure.
This is why I totally said he couldn’t do Mission Space and the TOT was totally out of the question (which was fine by me because I don’t like the TOT anyway) - we did go on Soarin’- he was fine and loved it. He knew it wasn’t “real” and we were not that far off the ground so he was fine with that ride. We did go on Space Mountain, he said that he would be fine because it was all indoors and in the dark. It went off pretty good; his only complaint was the jerking of the cars. (He said that it hurt his neck.)
Our first stop was to grab a Fastpass for the Aerosmith ride. We went there first because we had lunch reservations for the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theatre. On our way there we saw the High School Musical Parade. It was a giant float with dancing cheerleaders and basketball players everywhere. Lost of kids and their parents were able to follow the float up the street and join the fun. Boy, Disney worked those kids like crazy. I think we saw the parade at least 4 or 5 times by the end of the night! Oh well, I’m sure it was an awesome summer job!
I remembered going to the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theatre on my first trip to DW and I knew Lou would love it. We made our ADR’s at the 180 day mark so we didn’t have to worry about waiting around for a booth/car. We were seated immediately. If you haven’t been to the the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theatre, it’s a must see! The atmosphere is great. We were seated in the back seat of a car in the center of the drive in. Our waitress of course said that she didn’t want any funny business seeing that we were newlyweds! HAHA. We ordered:
BLT Soup - A creamy tomato basil soup, topped with an herb crouton, freshly shredded lettuce and bacon. It was ok, nothing spectacular. I think next time I’d order something else.
I had: The Reuben - Corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese, thousand island dressing on marble rye bread served with a pickle spear and a choice of cucumber-melon salad or french fries. This was really good. There was so much meat that I had to take some out of my sandwich just to eat it!
Lou had: Angus Chuck Burger - Flame broiled beef patty topped with your choice of cheddar or swiss cheese, sauteed onions, mushrooms or crispy bacon. Served with a choice of cucumber-melon salad or french fries. Lou loved this burger, he still salivates when he sees the picture!
We were able to squeeze in the Muppets movie and the Star Wars ride before our window opened for our fastpass to the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. One of my favorite memories was when we were in the Star Wars ride. Right in the middle of the ride I looked over and saw the expression on Lou’s face. He had the biggest smile! Just knowing that he was having a great time at DW was made me feel so happy. He had so many preconceived notions about DW that I was afraid he wouldn’t have a good time. For me, my heart races and I get teary eyed just seeing the castle and hearing “When you Wish Upon a Star”, I knew I’d have to work harder for him.
Our next stop was back to the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. All I can say are, FASTPASSES ROCK!! We got in so fast it wasn’t funny! We went through to the opening sequence in the sound studio first. Lou was really liked the fact that they had real (and expensive) equipment in the studio that Areosmith would have used. As we entered the loading dock we saw people sitting in the caster ready for to take off….and then…zoom!!!!! It went from 0-60mph in 2.8 seconds! That’s when I started to silently freak out! Lou can’t do this! I was so worried. I kept asking him, are you sure?? He was telling me, you’re making me more nervous, stop! I kept telling him not be brave and that Disney always has a “last chance” exit before boarding the ride. He said, no way, I have to do this! We got up to the front of the line and the attendant said we could load into the first front car….No Way! I said “please can you put us somewhere in the middle?” We boarded the 3rd car and then we were on our way. Once the ride ended Lou was so excited. As I stumbled out of the seat, I kept hearing Lou say, “that was so cool!” I on the other hand, lost my balance and almost tripped out of the car!! HAHAH. And I was worried about Lou?! We went to go see the picture that they take of you once you take of, Lou had an enormous gin on his face, I looked like I just saw a ghost.
We were on the “Backlot tour” when we could see and hear the stunt drivers practicing the “Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show”. After the tour we only had about 5min. before the show started so we quickly ran over to the entrance. As we walked into the stands, we notice that it was PACKED! We were going to head to the very top of the stands until a cast member (seeing our “just married” buttons) ushered us to a VIP section. We were right in the very front, next to all the action (by the announcer/ lights? Booth) . The view was fantastic!
After touring for a while it was time to head off the dinner. We booked a Fantasmic Dinner Package which included a meal and reserved seating for the Fantasmic performance. I decided to book our ADR’s at Hollywood and Vine
His restaurant offers a full buffet. You can’t go wrong with all of the great choices they had. The atmosphere was nothing spectacular, but the selection was very good! On our visit they had items like:
Peal and eat shrimp
Garden salad
Cesar Salad
Seafood pasta (scallops/ muscles/ shrimp)
Carved beef
Baked salmon
Cream of corn bread
Pasta
Mediterranean chicken breast…
Kids’ section from what I can remember: Mac and cheese, meatballs, chicken fingers…
The Dessert section was great it had items like: fruit tarts, chocolate cups filled with chocolate mouse, mini carrot cakes, mini cheese cakes with fruit toppings….
Lots of good food here!
When we placed our drink order, the waitress gave us our ticket for the Fantasmic show. She told us to make sure that we did not loose them because we would not be able to receive a replacement should we misplace it.
As soon as we left the restaurant, it started to rain. But I was prepared! I learned a great tip, purchase disposable ponchos at your local dollar store and carry them with you to the parks. I bought several packs and used them throughout our trip. This was a great tip, because while families headed for cover during afternoon showers, we were still out and about touring. We noticed that a lot of families we buying their ponchos at the park. Each one cost about $10, some people were spending $40-$60 so that their family could stay dry during the show! It only cost us $1 for 2 ponchos, what a deal!
It started to rain pretty hard by the time we made it over the reserved seating entrance. I was really worried that they would cancel the show. On of the cast members at the information booth assured us that the show was not cancelled. The only time they cancel a Fantasmic performance is when it is thundering and lightning out.
The entrance to the reserved section is near the front of the park entrance. We had to walk through the back lot of the park and came to the back entrance of the Fantasmic theatre. The reserved seating section was very large and it was roped off to ensure that everyone would get a seat. Even though we showed up about 25-30min. before the start of the show the seats were already 75% full. After the show tossed out our ponchos and headed back to the hotel.
Next, Pt 5 our 2 hour visit to the AK and Spirit of Aloha Polynesian Luau
Last edited by Disneydiana; 12-30-2008 at 10:20 AM..
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