A Hidden Mickey Wedding and a Disneymoon with a newbie - TR - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
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There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
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To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
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FINALLY catching up here!! Gorgeous. Absolutely every photo is amazing!! You had my stomach in knots too about you being nervous as I was reading along - I was that way too 12 years ago on our wedding day. I laughed when I read about your shoe. My shoe, actually my heel, got stuck on the runner in the church and I just about fell flat on my face! Have a nice trip? my bridesmaid asked me later!! So I totally understand that feeling! But it sure made for such a cute photo and story.
Hope you're feeling better soon cuz now we're ready to hear about the Disneymoon!!!
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
What a beautiful wedding! I totally understand your dress situation...my corset was so tight I was afraid I might pass out! Your cake was amazing ~ it!
Day 1 - Travel Day "Buffalo Wings in Buffalo?" "That was the most magical flight ever...hope we didn't max out all the pixie dust on the first day"
Thanks everyone for all the pixies!! It must of helped since my back is finally getting better!
I apologize for the delay and hope to keep going with this TR as often as possible....but on the weekend we fell in love with and put an offer on our first house so my updates may be a little less frequent these next few weeks....
but without further adieu ...here begins my TR!
Day 1 - Travel Day "Buffalo Wings in Buffalo?" "That was the most magical flight ever...hope we didn't max out all the pixie dust on the first day"
When I woke up Sunday morning I was exhausted. We didn’t get to bed until so late Saturday night and even though I was tired it took forever for me to fall asleep. My mind was just a whirlwind of activity trying to take in everything that had happened throughout the day – but then I realized....in a few hours we’ll be at Disney!!
We were up around 8 am and went to the lobby to have breakfast with family and friends before we had to say goodbye. The plan was to leave no later than 10:00 just in case we ran into delays at the border but with trying to get everything packed in different cars and cleaned up we didn’t leave until closer to 10:30.
Ken’s sister volunteered to drive us to Buffalo so at least me and Ken could relax on the drive out. We made really good time and didn’t run into much traffic at all...we did make a quick stop at Tim Hortons for lunch and still made it to Buffalo Airport for just after 1 pm. There was next to no wait at the border which really helped – we crossed at Ft. Erie on the advice of a friend in case your wondering.
We were pretty early (our flight wasn’t scheduled to depart until 3:45) but we had never been to Buffalo Airport before and we didn’t know what to expect for wait times or for traffic. We checked in smoothly at the Southwest check-in counter. The girl behind the desk noticed my “just married” t-shirt with Mickey and Minnie on it and struck up a big conversation with us – turns out she was getting married next month too! This was our first time flying Southwest and they made a very good impression so far...but that was nothing compared to what was about to happen on the plane (but we’ll talk about that a bit later)! I knew that we wouldn’t be around at the 24 hr mark to print off boarding passes/check-in so we paid for early bird check-in both ways and boy did it pay off. We had boarding A 16/17 on the way out and only had one passenger board in front of us.
We passed through security fairly quickly and efficiently and the staff was even quite friendly (again I think the “just married” shirt had something to do with this). By this time we had just over 2 hours to kill and decided to stop for wings at the Anchor Bar. They were pretty good – I got the regular hot and Ken got some spicy, honey garlic, teriyaki wings... He always seems to pick the better food where ever we go I need him to start ordering for me from now on...By the time we finished and looked around the gift shops for some magazines it was almost time!
I have to say that, given it was my first experience with it, I was pretty impressed with the boarding procedures on Southwest. There was no pushing, shoving, elbows digging their way to the front of the line. It was orderly and efficient..I think it really made for quicker boarding. We even boarded a bit earlier than what I thought we would and pushed back from the gate a few minutes ahead of time too. Thanks to the EBCI that got us the great boarding group we had our pick of the seats on the plane and we were able to get an exit row so Ken had a little extra leg room.
I don’t think I have ever been on a flight where we were actually accelerating down the runway at the exact time we were to take-off. If this is a sign of things to come when in Disney it was going to be a great trip! Overall the flight was uneventful. It was pretty turbulent for the first half – which meant I was a nervous wreck for half the flight. I have flown all over the world and traveled since I was an infant but for some reason as soon as I got into my 20’s I developed this fear of flying..don’t know why...maybe it’s because I watch too much Mayday on the Discovery channel.
We were ahead of schedule and got the announcement we’d be beginning our decent into Orlando at around 5:40 pm.
This is when IT happened.
One of the flight attendants made an announcement and asked for Ken to raise his hand and identify himself. The flight attendant announced that we had just gotten married and that she had something special they wanted to do for us. She then asked everyone on the plane to close their window shade and she dimmed the lights in the cabin. She then had every person turn on their call button above their seat so every seat had a little white fairy light lit above. She said that the little lights in the cabin were like candles on a cake...all the flight attendants got together and sang Happy Wedding (instead of Happy Birthday) and had everyone turn off their call button at the same time – like blowing out candles on a cake.... They then brought us crowns they had made out of stir sticks and packets of peanuts and pretzels and gave us a huge bottle of champagne. It was the sweetest thing anyone had done for us...we were both in shock...it was such a magical way to start our honeymoon – it was really touching.
On top of that we landed ahead of schedule. We were at the gate by 6:10 rather than 6:25 and headed down to catch the Magical Express. It was weird to go down to ME without bringing any luggage with you...in the past I have always picked up my own luggage so this was a new one for us.
The CM scanned our ME package and directed us to the line for the Animal Kingdom Lodge.
I was worried that it would be a long wait – since we were only the 2nd family in line but after about 10 minutes they led us out to a bus. We were even able to get a front row seat (I always like to get a good shot of the entrance). We did end up waiting about 20 minutes on the bus before leaving but that wasn’t so bad – although I think Ken was getting impatient by this point in the day. Even I’ll admit that the ME ride was pretty long. We made stops at the Caribbean Beach Resort and POP before stopping at AKL (Kidani first and then Jambo House). Around 7:30 we were finally there.
We walked into AKL with little wait to check-in. We didn’t do online check-in since this was a room only, one night addition, booked on Travelocity. Our CM was amazing. He was so friendly and knowledgeable about the lodge. I did ask in passing if they happened to have a king bed available but the majority of their king beds were in accessible rooms and I didn’t want to take up one of those rooms should someone who actually needs an accessible room can’t get one. He was apologetic and offered to find us a better room than what we were already assigned (booked a Savannah view). He moved us to the end of the Arush Savannah so that we would have a good view of the whole savannah....awesome! And then he showed us where our room was on the map... I knew ahead of time that one of the complaints AKL gets is the distance of some of the rooms from the lobby but this was quite a hike!
We were tired and hungry from a long day of traveling and lack of sleep the night before so we opted to find our room first and rest for a little then search for something to eat...
Coming Up...
Will we find our room before we have to check out tomorrow?
How will Ken react to his first taste of Disney food?
Will our bags ever show up to our room?
Will we get to see any animals?
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Your flight sounded awesome!! What a way to start the trip. Tim Horton's.
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com