Every good story has to start somewhere, this one is no different.

This is the story of how I died. No, wait, that’s the beginning of Tangled. In the beginning, there was only ocean. Hmm, nope. That’s Moana. Wait, I think I got it!

Once upon a time, a couple of Canadian hockey fans named Fallon and Luke decided to be spontaneous and book a last minute trip to see the Winnipeg Jets battle the Anaheim Ducks during the  first round of the 2015 NHL playoffs (April 2015). They decided to check out Disneyland; “might as well since we’re already here”; and a love was born. Within a few weeks of being back in Canada, a trip was booked to visit Walt Disney World for the first time, and a great 7 night trip occurred in January 2016. While on that trip that was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, they decided they would return to Orlando in January 2018, and go on a shorter/cheaper trip to Disneyland in 2017 to give them their Disney fix… Fast forward a month, to February 2016, and Luke wins a contest, sending them back to SoCal and allowing them to spend a day at Disneyland. Many discussions followed that trip before it was decided- they would be returning to Orlando in January 2017 for 9 nights, with the plan still in place for January 2018 as well. In the fall of 2016, a deposit was placed on a Disney Cruise for the 2018 trip, boarding the day after the full marathon.

Flash forward to the January 2017 trip, and this happens:

It didn’t take long to decide that a Disney Fairytale Wedding would be perfect- no matter what they decided for a wedding venue, most of their families would be required to travel. With that decision, the Disney Cruise was canceled, the 2018 trip extended and family and friends were invited along. What a trip this would be!

So now that you have the backstory, I’m sure you want to know a bit more. Here are the answers to the five W’s:

Who: I’m Fallon, I’ll be the main trip writer for this. I was 29 years old on this trip, and turned 30 on the day we flew home. This was my third trip to Walt Disney World, and 7th Disney trip overall (in addition to the trips mentioned above, we also went to Disneyland in January and November 2017 – where we did an engagement photo shoot as seen below). 

My favourites:

• Park: Animal Kingdom
• Overall Ride: Expedition Everest (although my #1 Disney ride goes to Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout in California)
• MK Ride: Big Thunder Mountain (although California’s is better….)                                                                  
• HS Ride: Toy Story Midway Mania (and my undefeated streak!)
• Epcot Ride: Soarin’
• AK Ride: Expedition Everest (Flight of Passage is incredible, but Everest still wins for me)                       
• WDW Show: Happily Ever After (MK)
• Table Service Restaurant: Homecomin’ Kitchen (DS)
• Character Meal:  1900 Park Fare (GF)
• Quick Service Restaurant: Crew’s Cup Lounge (Yacht Club)    
• Disney Snack: Werther’s Caramel Popcorn from Karamel Kuche
• Disney Drink: Jenn’s Tattoo (Nomad Lounge – AK)   
• Hidden Gem: Olivia’s (OKW)

Luke, my (now) husband, and partner since May 2013. He loves Disney just as much as I do, although he sometimes tries to deny that fact (I’d like to point out that I told him I didn’t care what he wore for these engagement photos, and he went out and bought himself the Jack Skellington sweater you see below…but nope, he doesn’t love Disney as much as I do….).

His favourites:

• Park: Animal Kingdom  
• Overall Ride: Expedition Everest (but his #1 Disney Ride is Radiator Springs or the Hyperspace Mountain overlay – both in California)
• MK Ride: Haunted Mansion
• HS Ride: Star Tours                                                                                                       
• Epcot Ride: Soarin’
• AK Ride: Expedition Everest
• WDW Show: Star Wars Galactic Spectacular (HS)
• Table Service Restaurant: Homecomin’ Kitchen (DS)
• Character Meal: Tusker House (AK)  
• Quick Service Restaurant: Earl of Sandwich (DS)
• Disney Snack: Dole Whip or Carrot Cake Cookie                                      
• Disney Drink: Tipsy Ducks in Love (China Pavilion – Epcot)
• Hidden Gem: Crew’s Cup Lounge (Yacht Club)

Together, we live in Alberta, Canada (although neither of us are from this province originally). We purchased a house together back in 2015, and adopted two dogs the same year.

Luke already had two cats when we met, and in the summer of 2017 we added two more cats to our family after rescuing a mother cat and 3 of her kittens (our neighbours adopted the Momma, another neighbour gave a kitten to a friend and we kept the two grey female kittens).

  *No, the slow cooker is not plugged in – he’s just a goof and tried to prove if he fits, he sits*

We also own degus, a type of rodent related to guinea pigs (but smaller). For years, we had seven of them, but five of them have passed away between March 2017 and April 2018, leaving us with only two. It still makes for a full house!

There were quite a few others involved in the trip as well: my dad (Perry), my mom (Faith), Luke’s mom (Laura), both of Luke’s sisters (Jill and Callie), his 5.5 month old niece (Isabella), Luke’s aunt (Cathy), my cousin (Mandy), her boyfriend (Jeff – who was upgraded to husband status recently) and her son (Seb) and a group of our closest friends (Ashley, Mike, Steph, Ryan, Lauren, Lisa, Trevor, Larissa and Devin). You’ll hear more about them as the trip progresses. I should add – I made all the fastpasses and all the dining reservations for the entire group (and not all the same either, fastpasses were customized based on what each person liked – I enjoy planning!). This trip involved a lot of spreadsheets – I had a Fastpass spreadsheet for the entire group that I saved as a Google document and sent out a link to everyone.

What: a trip to Walt Disney World! Luke would be attempting his first full marathon, we would be running the 5k together, I would turn 30 and we would be celebrating our love by getting married!

When: December 30, 2017 – January 13, 2018, a full two weeks! The first week would be just Luke and I, everyone else would start trickling in on January 5th.

Where: 2 nights at Pop Century, 1 night at the Grand Floridian and 11 nights at Old Key West

Why: to get married in our favourite place with our favourite people!

Here are a few of the things we did during the two weeks, all of which I’ll go in depth on (besides getting married of course!):

• Private Epcot dessert party on our wedding day
• Highway in the Sky
• Happily Ever After dessert party
• Volunteering at Give Kids the World
• Star Wars Galactic Spectacular dessert party
• Marathon weekend – 5k and full
• Dismeets
• Staying at 3 different hotels
• Eating meals at a total of 10 different Disney hotels (and inside every park of course)
• Introducing WDW to friends and family, most of whom were first timers
• 11 Park days!
• An NBA game

Warning: I’m sometimes slow at writing updates. I will finish this, it just might take some time…the wedding day was also near the end of the trip, so it might be awhile until I get to that part of the trip report. Here’s a few wedding pictures to hold you over until then 🙂

Also – this entire report won’t be a happy one. There was a death in my immediate family while we were in Florida, so it did affect a few of our days while I dealt with my grief. I’ll try to be as real as possible as I write about this trip.

Worth noting: I had every single person linked up to me as Friends and Family through the Disney website, and I’m the one with Photopass so I have everyone’s pictures- there were over 600 pictures before I even started adding frames, stickers, etc, plus I took close to a thousand pictures on my phone during the two weeks. Our wedding photographer gave us almost a thousand pictures from our wedding day as well – so I easily have over 2000 pictures to sort through for this trip report. Hope everyone enjoys lots of pictures!! I also have a tendency to be a bit wordy – so this could get long – this is your warning!

December 30, 2017 – Part One