Monthly Archives: July 2018

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What Would Mrs. Potato Head Put In Mr.’s Butt Storage?

*Please note this page contains affiliate links. That means if you click and buy stuff, we get moneys!*

So you’re headed to Walt Disney World. Congratulations – you’re broke for 8 weeks afterwards!!!

Before you go, assuming you haven’t already read Fallon’s post on Park Bag Essentials, here’s some other stuff you’ll want to bring along on your WDW vacation:

  • For starters, get one of those pop-up clothes hampers. It doesn’t so much help. But’s it’s nice to easily dispose of swass & underboob sweat-soaked clothes in a single handy dandy place.
  • Good shoes
  • Another pair of good shoes
  • A third pair of good shoes. Foot-swass and 20,000 steps/day is some for real punishment
  • Good socks too. Performance/athletic ones. With arch support and padding and science stuff.
  • Rain ponchos. Imean, you’ll forget to wear them. But you oughta have them.
  • Bailey’s for breakfast, other booze of choice to help wind down after a day of being around too many people and a half.
  • Water (see point 3)
  • Filtered water bottle
  • Waterbed (hotels don’t supply these like they used to)
  • Jello (for inside your travel waterbed)
  • A toque. AKA a beanie. Because we only seem to get to Orlando in the winter months. I’m told it gets sweltering but if you’re there in December/January like we tend to be – toque up chumps.
  • Tylenol – for foot and general joint pain
  • Advil – for the inevitable headache brought on by being around too many other humans
  • Aleve – cause you drank around the World Showcase
  • Scissors – cause they’re handy
  • Toilet paper – cause even the most magical place on Earth only has 1-ply
  • Gum – cause you can’t buy it anywhere on Disney property. I like Nicorette®. It tastes gross. But I can’t seem to get enough.
  • dollar store knock-off zipper-lock style plastic baggies. I could say Ziploc® itself but let’s face it – you’re gonna cheap out and grab the  Dollarama® “Slide Seal®” ones for your electronics on water rides, leftovers and for packing potentially leaky travel liquids instead of the name brand.
  • The pen you snagged from the hotel
  • However much money you think you need (multiplied by 4)
  • Patience (lolz)
  • Body Glide – unless you love chaffing… you monster
  • A song. Cause if anywhere is going to break out into some sort of grand exposition song + dance number – it’ll happen at Walt Disney World
  • Your appetite. For real. Portions are gigantic.
  • A hat
  • Sunscreen
  • Hand soap for your hotel room (especially if it’s right after Xmas and you’re able to get citrus-wreath Softsoap® on clearance for 27¢) because that cruddy little bar of hand soap you get at your hotel is cruddy
  • Pepsi products if that’s your thing. WDW is a pure Coca-Cola property and some people are very passionate about their carbonated corn-syrup water.
  • Unnecessarily long lists
  • Whatever you need to convince yourself buying a $45 stuffed Dug from Up is a good idea.
  • Your life-partner because loneliness can be crushingly overwhelming.
  • Luck. For additional FP+ choices.
  • Lucky Charms. They’re magically delicious.
  • Prescription medicine. Holy shit you needed a blog post to remember your meds?!?!
  • Sunglasses so you can look cool
  • Baby wipes so you can not look cool cleaning yourself off should you be an adult who got sticky.

That’s about it. Which is to say I’m out of ideas. Thanks for reading. This post was not brought to you by: Ziploc®  although if they want to give us money we’ll take it. Especially if it comes in a sack with a dollar sign that you can tell is sealed because of the purple or green strip.

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Disney Shower Thoughts

  • Mr. Incredible’s alter-ego has a last name of Parr. Par = being average at golf.
  • Eugene Fitzherbert must have severe post-concussion syndrome
  • Anton Ego says “I don’t like food… I love it. If I don’t love what I’m tasting I spit it out!” I feel the same way about songs that aren’t Tomatoa’s “Shiny”
  • Gerald is my spirit animal
  • Anna is the best princess. Merida is the most underrated princess. The worst princess?  I dunno. But Snow White is definitely the wurst princess.
  • I relate way too much to the barcode over Mike Wazowski’s eye gag
  • Sure, the parks could use a proper Pizza Planet. But I’d settle just for somewhere with decent pizza in the first place
  • WALL-E is the story of the last robot of its kind left behind on a ruined planet that’s broken beyond repair, yet tries with complete futility to clean it up every day. Over hundreds of years he’s evolved to yearning for companionship and love. And the tale is often wasted on people who don’t get that.
  • Cars is better than it gets credit for. Cars 3 is as okay as it gets credit for. We don’t talk about Cars 2.
  • Moana is also the best princess. Along with Leia, Suri and Rapunzel.
  • I am Groot.
  • Try and name 5 Disney movies where both parents are still alive at the end. While you’re trying to come up with Inside Out, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmations, Moana & Tangled I’ll be busy STEALING YO GIRL!!!!!
  • If you have a pet, you know that The Good Dinosaur doesn’t get the love it deserves. Unless you have a solitary asshole cat. Then maybe try Lady & the Tramp (all parents alive at the end too btw) and cheer for the Siamese cats.
  • Epcot needs a Wakanda pavilion.
  • Yo, where’s my Sugar Rush ride? Excluding all the glucose fueled snacks pretty much everywhere in every park.
  • I would pay for a fastpass for Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto
  • I feel like 30% of the vitriol Last Jedi gets is just pent up anger that wasn’t able to be vented out from The Phantom Menace
  • The Muppets should meet the X-Men. Then go for milkshakes.
  • Paperman, Feast, Piper, Partly Cloudy, Presto. In that order.
  • Remember the first 9 minutes of Up? They wrote the incinerator scene in Toy Story 3.
  • Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, why are there so many British and American people in guillotine era France?
  • Tiana is also also the best princess
  • 999 happy haunts… but there’s always room for 1 more (as long as Haunted Mansion doesn’t switch to Flight of Passage ride vehicles)
  • Literally nothing good happens in Dumbo except you’re spared from the heartbreak after 64 minutes
  • Sleeping Beauty: Something bad is going to happen to Aurora on her 16th birthday. We know this. But who with a king’s influence, power & resources could protect a single teenager on a very specific day that we are well aware of? Better send her into the woods with some witches who also won’t watch over her on her super sweet 16.
  • I am Groot!
  • It’s called The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh because “The 7.5 Adventures of Winnie The Pooh” lacked pizzazz
  • In Inside Out – the villain is circumstance. Circumstances have got me to this point without refernceing A Bug’s Life
  • For real though – A Bug’s Land should be moved from California Adventure to a corner of Animal Kingdom.
  • The 8th most jealous moment of my life was when my friend Lisa was the rebel spy on StarTours
  • Where’s our Soarin’ movie, pal?
  • And after that – what about a Big Thunder Mountain Railroad move starring The Rock of course.
  • I AM GROOT!!!
  • In Europe, does Nick Wylde call him Flash, Flash, 91-point-4-4 metre dash?
Disney, Travel

December 30, 2017 – Part Three

We got to our room, dropped our stuff and quickly got ready to leave again. Within 20 minutes, we were out the door again and walking back to the bus stops. We only had to wait a few minutes before a bus pulled up to take us to our first park of the trip – Magic Kingdom! It was pushing 6pm by this point, but the park had extra magic hours until 3am. We knew we’d never make it that late after traveling all day, but our aim was to see the midnight fireworks.

Once we reached Magic Kingdom, we had to stop at guest services. Luke had purchased his 10 day park hopper tickets with the Canadian discount, so he had to show his Passport to prove he was Canadian in order to activate them. I had purchased a Premier Passport the previous year (the annual pass which allows you access to both WDW and Disneyland – we had been to Disneyland twice in 2017, and when we did the math we knew I would save money by buying it once we factored in park tickets for the three trips, plus Photopass/Memory Maker plus AP discounts). Since we were already in line at guest services, I took the opportunity to purchase a Tables in Wonderland card. I actually tracked our savings with this card so you can see if it’s worth it, just check my dining reports to see the math!

We finally entered our first park of the trip! We didn’t have much time to soak in the atmosphere though, we had to hurry if we wanted to make it to our first Fastpass, we were already closing in on the end of our window. We walked down Main Street, pausing to take in the beauty that is Cinderella’s Castle at Christmas before entering Adventureland. As we were speed walking along, I stopped. I looked over my shoulder at a man we had just walked past, then looked at Luke and said ‘I think I know him! I’m pretty sure it’s someone from the Disboards who writes trip reports that I follow!’ I had never had never met anyone in person from the Disney websites I follow, so I shyly turned around and asked ‘are you Adam?’ It was, I told him who I was (I had commented on his planning report, so he knew who I was too). We chatted for a few minutes, but we had to get going in order to make our first fastpass, so we said goodbye. I totally didn’t think to get a picture with him to prove the Dismeet had happened!

Luke and I made it to Splash Mountain and scanned our Magicbands. The Mickey on the scanner turned green, we had made it in time! We knew the ride was going to be closed for a lengthy refurbishment starting in the second week of our vacation,  so it was important to us to get on it before that. Also, Splash Mountain was our very first ride at Walt Disney World back on our 2016 trip, so it just felt right for it to be the first ride on this trip.

By the time we got off Splash, we were within our next fastpass window so we walked straight over to Big Thunder Mountain.

We didn’t ask for it, but we lucked out and were assigned the back row – the best row on BTMR! This trip was off to a great start 🙂

After our wildest ride in the wilderness, we had some time to kill before our third fastpass. We walked around, revelling in the fact that after months of insane planning for this trip and wedding, there was nothing left we could do and our vacation had begun! It was a bit surreal, and I was very excited for the next two weeks.

We made our way over to Fantasyland where I snapped this picture of the back of the castle. So pretty!

Our third fastpass was for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. This is such a cute ride, I’d prefer it to be a bit longer but it’s such a smooth roller coaster.

Afterwards, we started making our way to the front of the park. Of course, I had to stop to take more castle pictures along the way, the Christmas lights are my favourite!

We walked down Main Street – 

and checked in for our 9:20pm dining reservation at Tony’s.

After our meal, we stopped for our first (of many) Photopass pictures of the trip.

We still had some time before the fireworks display at midnight, and the hub around the castle wasn’t too crowded yet, so we spent some time just walking around, soaking everything in. We knew the show started about 10 minutes before midnight, but we didn’t head over to the Hub until about 11:35. Since it was just the rehearsal for the real NYE, and they had shot off the same fireworks earlier that evening (I believe at 6pm, before we arrived at the park), we were able to get a really great spot to stand and watch from – and less than a 15 minute wait until it started! 

I don’t consider myself a huge fan of fireworks (don’t let the number of times I watched Happily Ever After on this trip fool you haha), but this show – whoa. Just, whoa. Incredible. I would never in a million years brave the crowds on NYE to see it, but in a decent-sized crowd on December 30th? Absolutely.

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Once the fireworks ended, I decided I was ready to leave. The park was open until 1am, with Extra Magic Hours until 3am, but I was exhausted after travelling, and just wanted to go to sleep. We probably should have went and waited in line for something, it ended up taking quite awhile to get down Main Street and out of Magic Kingdom to the buses. Of course I had to stop for a picture of the train station with the red and green Christmas lights…

But, we made it to the bus stop eventually and didn’t have too long of a wait for a bus to take us back to Pop Century. It was after 1am by the time we got to our room though, I was falling asleep on my feet and crashed pretty quickly. Day one was in the books!

Total Fitbit Steps: 7820

Next: December 31, 2017

Disney, Travel

December 30, 2017 – Part Two

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After getting through customs, we decided to go to our old faithful in the US terminal of the Edmonton airport, and hit up Quiznos. First food report fail of the trip – I didn’t take any pictures (don’t worry, overall I was really good about remembering). I had a turkey, ranch and Swiss on rosemary Parmesan bread, and I have no idea what Luke ate. It was probably on whole wheat bread though. I took some time to run over to the convenience store in the terminal and stocked up on snacks for the plane – ketchup chips for dayzz! Seriously though, USA – you are missing out by not selling ketchup chips – I’m fairly certain my body composition is ~40% ketchup chips due to how often I eat them…

We headed over to our gate as it approached boarding time, only to hear an announcement that our flight would be delayed due to one flight attendant not being there. Remember how cold I mentioned it was that morning? Apparently her car wouldn’t start, so she was going to catch a taxi to the airport. Ok, fine. My car is brand new and we own a garage, and it wasn’t happy about starting that day, so it’s something out of that flight attendants hands. Another half an hour goes by when we hear another announcement that for whatever reason, that flight attendant is now not going to make it, but a different flight attendant has stepped up and volunteered to be on our flight to help out. The only problem – he’s currently in the air and won’t land at the Edmonton airport for another 35 minutes. Luke and I were now patting ourselves on the backs for spending the extra money to fly direct – if this had happened any other time we’ve flown to Orlando we would have missed our connection.

Since we still had a bit of a wait, Luke went to get us a Starbucks – Very Berry Hibiscus refresher for me and a normal coffee for him. Sorry no pictures, but I’m sure everyone can picture a Starbucks cup haha. While we were waiting, we started chatting with a very friendly couple sitting beside us. They had been to Disney many times, but were very interested in hearing about our upcoming wedding and Marathon Weekend – they didn’t even realize runDisney was something that existed.

Eventually, our final flight attendant arrived and received a round of applause. Boarding began shortly afterwards. We were in row 12, an emergency exit row so we were able to be among the first group to board the plane, which was nice since we had so many things and it allowed us time to get situated for a long flight.

We had pre-ordered food, even though I was very sad when I received the email. WestJet changed their onboard menu, and my beloved ham and Swiss on a croissant was gone! Their menu is now Chopped Leaf, and filled with really healthy stuff, who wants that on vacation?!

There were two things on the menu that we thought we might like, so we decided to order one of each. I went for the California Chicken salad – spinach, oranges, green apples, sunflower seeds and sun dried cranberries topped with grilled chicken breast and creamy feta. Raspberry vinaigrette served on the side.

Luke ordered the Chopped Leaf Baja Bowl – brown basmati rice, grilled chicken breast, heritage blend lettuce, cheddar cheese, red and yellow peppers, Chopped Leaf signature black bean and corn salsa finished with a dash of cilantro. Sour cream and salsa served on the side.

I’m not sure what we were expecting, but cold rice is gross. Luke wasn’t super impressed by his choice at all, I tried it and wouldn’t order it myself. I was apprehensive of my selection, I don’t love spinach… or seeds of any kind… or feta… or cranberries – but I figured at least I could eat the chicken. I’m not sure if I was really hungry, but I ended up quite enjoying this salad. I just wish there was a bit more of the raspberry vinaigrette.

To kick off our vacation right, we both ordered alcohol on the flight (something we rarely do).

Luke went for a classic, and had rum and Coke. I decided to really celebrate the right way, and ordered sparkling wine. I’m not a huge wine drinker, but it just seemed so fitting to toast the next two weeks.

Our flight was ~5 hours, we passed the time by playing games on our phones, and watching Frozen through the WestJet app. Finally, we started making our descent into Orlando. Since we had been delayed leaving by about 90 minutes, we were much later than anticipated arriving at MCO, but it still wasn’t even 5pm. We got off the plane, stopped for a bathroom break and then hopped on the fake-o-rail! Am I the only one who considers this to be the first ride of the trip?

I stopped to snap some pictures of the signs in the airport for the Magical Express – none of our friends and family arriving the next week had been to WDW before (those who had been had never stayed on site), before we arrived to check in for our bus ride. They always ask to scan magicbands, but since Disney only mails out Magicbands within the US, I just hand over the letter we receive from DME and it’s never been an issue.

We were directed into our row, and almost immediately shown to our bus. It was already about half full, so we weren’t able to get seats in the front to try for a picture of the Walt Disney World sign. Oh well. We didn’t have to sit on the bus for long before pulling away from the airport – our vacation was truly starting! The welcome video on the bus had been updated from the year before, it now included Pandora so that was nice to see!

About 25 minutes later, we arrived at Pop Century. I know for sure we were sharing a Magical Express bus with Art of Animation, and possibly another resort, but we were the first stop so I’m not 100% sure. We gathered up our carry-on items, and headed inside to check in. Americans who receive their Magicbands ahead of time can opt in to a text message telling them their room number which allows them to bypass the main lobby, but as Canadians we can’t do this. No big deal, we only waited a few minutes before being called up. I had requested a room in the 80’s or 90’s section since I knew those were the newly renovated rooms, and our request was granted, we were in the 90’s building on the 4th floor. The walk from the main building was not bad at all, and we walked right past the bus stops for all of Pop Century.

Next: December 30, 2017 – Part Three!

Disney, Travel, Wedding

Introduction: Wedding Trip

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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

Disney, Travel

January 11, 2017 – Part One

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Today was our final full day in Florida, and our last park day. We were awake extremely early, and took an Uber to the Contemporary, then walked along the path to the Magic Kingdom. I love that little path, and that security entrance is never too busy. The park wasn’t opening until 9am, but we had a breakfast reservation for 8am at Be Our Guest, so we scanned our Magicbands and entered the park. The previous year we had also made a PPO ADR at Be Our Guest, and ended up getting amazing pictures in front of the castle with no one else around. However, this was right after they changed the welcome show, and were allowing people to enter the park and crowd the Hub for the welcome show (I think they were doing renovations on the train platform or something?). Anyways, it was really crowded, and there was no way we could get empty castle pictures again 🙁

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(Can you tell we were only a little bit exhausted by this point?)

We fought our way through the crowd to the cast member that was checking for dining reservations (you couldn’t leave Main Street or the Hub unless you could prove you had a reservation). It was around this time that Luke realized he had forgot to pack my wallet (it’s his job to make sure our park bag is ready to go each day – also, he was super weird about that on this trip, because he’d been carrying around my engagement ring waiting to propose to me). We try to stick to cash only on our Disney trips, and of course the majority of our money was in my wallet, which was sitting in the safe in our room at Saratoga Springs. At least we had Luke’s credit card.

We arrived at the Beast’s castle, and checked in for our meal.

By 9:10 we had already been on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Peter Pan’s Flight and by 9:16 we were standing in the stretching room on the Haunted Mansion. 

We decided we wanted to do some character meet and greets, so we headed over to Ariel’s Grotto to meet everyone’s favourite Mermaid.

We then headed over to the Storybook Circus area for the meet and greets there. We decided to start with the ladies, and joined a pretty much non-existent line to meet Daisy Duck and Minnie Mouse.

Daisy was adorable! She immediatedly noticed our “Just Engaged” buttons and was so excited when we let her know it had just happened the day before 🙂

Daisy checking out my ring <3

Next was Minnie Mouse in her adorable pink outfit!

After meeting the girls, we noticed the line to meet the boys was very short, so we hopped in line to meet Donald and Goofy!

 

Disney, Food Review

Tusker House – January 11, 2018

One of Luke’s favourite character meals on property is at Tusker House at Animal Kingdom, and it has become one of our go-to’s on every trip. I made this reservation for 12 people, but only 5 of us actually ended up making it there for it – a few people were flying home that day, a group had went to Universal Studios for the day and a few were enjoying the hotel pool for the day. The cast members didn’t seem to mind too much when we checked in that our numbers were lower than expected. Enjoying this  meal would be Luke, my Dad, Ashley, Mike and I.

I checked in for our 10:45 reservation pretty much on time, and we only had to wait a few minutes before being called. We were led to a table in the room to the right of the buffet. Our waitress came over right away to take our drink orders (coffee, water and POG juice – or jungle juice as I believe they call it there), and we headed up to the buffet. I only took pictures of my own plates.

Plate #1: some bacon, a biscuit with gravy, banana bread pudding with a vanilla sauce.

The bacon was standard Disney bacon, the biscuit and gravy was ok, but the star of this plate was the bread pudding. I wish it didn’t have raisins in it, but that just gives me something to pick out haha.

Plate #2 (starting at 12 o’clock and going clockwise): ham, a roll with butter, curry chicken and basmati rice, roasted carrots, breakfast potatoes, a single corn dog nugget and mashed potatoes with gravy.

I enjoyed everything on this plate.  I didn’t really take any notes from this meal, sorry – I was pretty exhausted after the wedding the day before!

10:45am is the sweet spot for a reservation at Tusker House, since it allows you to hit both the breakfast buffet and the lunch buffet as they switch it over – this makes me very happy as I don’t really care for breakfast foods.

Of course, Tusker House is a character meal with four Safari-clad characters making their way around the restaurant while you eat. The first one to approach our table was the one and only Mr. Donald Duck. I wish Ashley and Mike would come with us to Disney every time just so I can watch Mike with the characters – I absolutely loved how happy it made him!

Next up was Daisy Duck, followed by the main mouse himself, and finally Goofy.

       This is the first character at this meal that my Dad agreed to have his picture taken with – he’s just not super into the character meet and greets.

By this point, we had all finished eating, but there’s always room for desserts when at Disney! We headed up for some sweets – and apparently I changed my mind once I got up there haha.

From 12 o’clock going clockwise: some kind of strawberry cake thing, a slice of pork, some green beans, a single cube of cheese (who gets just one cube?!), a few grapes, some kind of chocolate tart-like thing and a double chocolate muffin? brownie? Again, my notes on this day were terrible.

I remember liking the muffin/brownie thing the best of the desserts – but have nothing on the other items.

Donald and Mickey both stopped by again, and I made Dad take pictures with me.

When the bill came out, my Dad offered to pay for the entire table, which was so nice of him! I had already pulled out my Annual Pass and my Tables in Wonderland card, and our waitress told us she would apply the discount even though it wouldn’t be paid on my card (I thought the name on the TIW card had to match the card used to pay for the meal – hence why we’d been all paying cash at meals, but she assured us it would be fine). The total for all 5 of us came to $175.44 after the discount (and including the 18% auto gratuity that comes with using TIW). The waitress charged us for breakfast pricing of $34/person – typically when Luke and I go at that time we’ve always been charged the lunch pricing of $45. During our meal we had chatted with our waitress about our wedding the day before, so I’m not sure if this was just a bit of pixie dust or if they are supposed to charge you based on when you sat down compared to when you finished eating.

Tables in Wonderland Original Cost: $150                                            Break Even Point Before this Meal: $0                                                 Savings this Meal: $34                                                                                           Total Saved: Full cost of card +$297.34

Predicted food budget: $2631.67                                                                            Estimated Cost of this meal: $95.85 (Luke and I, based on $45/each – the lunch price)                                                                                                                   Actual Cost: $0 – thanks Dad!                                                                                   Over/Under: Under by $95.85                                                                  Remaining: $531.67

Next meal: Nomad Lounge

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(Unofficial) Rules For a Successful(ish) Time at Disney World

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Luke here. You can tell it’s me because I’ve decided whenever I write on Fallon’s blog – it’s going to be in italics. It was either that, or CAPSLOCK but I’m only trying to seem like I’m yelling at you 37% of the time. So that kinda defeats the purpose.

Earlier today the ol’ ball-and-chain PERFECT WIFE & I were chatting about a few things we’d never do at WDW knowing what we know and it gave me an idea for a list of things that through acquired expertise – we’d never do at Disney if we didn’t have to. Without further adieu – a list. 

The Top 8 (Unofficial) Rules For a Successful(ish) Time at Disney World:

  1. Do not, under any circumstance, go to Magic Kingdom on a Saturday. MK is the one park that people prioritize at WDW. It’s got the most going on. Mountains of splash, larger than average thunder, space even. Mansions of a haunted nature. Animatronic bear jamboree singular. The last remaining Tomorrowland Transit Authority Peoplemover. A larger than average contingent of people who’ve “paid a lot of money for this so [reason to yell at a college program cast member here]. 😐 An alright kiddie rolller coaster that people wait 2 hours for for some reason. A Peter Pan ride that people wait 75 minutes for for no good reason whatsoever (don’t @ me “But Peter Pan is my favourite…” people). While the land of Cinderella’s castle is pretty impressive – it’s never worth competing for space with locals with annual passes, first-timers, the under-prepared and the general incessant throngs on the obviously busiest day of the week. Go get a drink or seven at Epcot and leave this park to the folks going for the one and only time in their lives. This should pretty much be common sense, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (unrelated – shrug guy in italics looks like it stuck to its New Year’s resolutions)
  2. Nothing good happens in the parks between noon and 4. Unless you’re into watching kids have sugar fueled sensory overload meltdowns around 2 or so. Or if you grew up in communism and long for a good line-wait.
  3. Hydrate. Also hydrate. And hydrate. Get a Brita water bottle to take the swampy edge off FLA tap water. Get ice water from anywhere with a Coke fountain. Buy 32 bottles of water for $3.33 from WalMart. Or get booze. Tasty, delicious, take-the-edge-off-having-to-be-around-somewhat-too-many people booze. Beers and cocktails and Tipsy Ducks in Love – oh my!
  4. Take the entrance through the Rainforest Cafe into AK every single time. As a bonus – stop for an Icee if the bar is open too. Carbonated blue raspberry (as they totally appear in nature) slushies are the nectar of the flabby gods.
  5. If you don’t have an in-park dining reservation – go somewhere else to eat. At MK? Escape for a peanut butter pie at Contempo Cafe. Take a boat to Wilderness Lodge and get some catsup at Whispering Canyon. Or even GTFO to the Poly and try to sneak into Trader Sam’s. At Epcot or Hollywood Studios?  It’s easy to escape to Beaches & Cream or Crew’s Cup  Lounge. At Animal Kingdom? If you’re not choosing to chillax at Nomad Lounge, definitely get steppin’ to Boma. Or just go back to your hotel or campsite or RV in a Walmart parking lot for a nap. A nap is the most delicious of meals. See point 2 for added reference: because it’s fun to re-read and I did a good job of that one. (This point was not made in a peanut free facility. Although it is rich in maltodextrin)
  6. Extra Magic Hours – don’t. Just don’t. Any park that has this extra hour or two post-close has significantly more people in it than the other parks by 22% according to statistics compiled by me by guessing. At best you’ll get 2 extra rides in when you’re most tired and want to go back to your room and not go to bed promptly because you’re catching up on Facebook. Nothing happened. All this said I assume the extra magic hour pre-park open is worthwhile but I’m not getting up at 5:30AM on my vacation to find out. 6:15AM + 2-3 snoozes on the other hand – totally reasonable. Human nature is weird.
  7. Save time. Take a Lyft. I say Lyft and not Uber because Lyft is easier to set for a specific pickup at your hotel on Disney property. Plus Lyft doesn’t dip into surge pricing as often. Plus plus if you’ve got 4 or more people in your group it becomes worthwhile to call a Minnie Van (and these don’t even have to drop off at the TTC at MK BTW). “But Lyft costs money” you say! “Well yeah… everything costs money at Disney. How much is your time worth? Probably more than taking 2 to 3 times longer to get where you’re going too.” *insert Kermit Teacup meme here*
  8. You know how those people who go “Don’t even talk to me before I have my coffee?” are annoying and a half? Well they are. That said, Starbucks Via Brew + Bailey’s + a travel mug = a good start to every day.  And every day deserves a new start…

Thanks for getting this far if you did. Congrats on being bored too, I guess? I’m going to try to write some stuff for Fallon more often because it’ll be a solid way to keep myself off the mean streets of middle class suburban Canada.

P.S. I swear I don’t drink as much as it may seem. I’m just terribly introverted and being around three or more people makes me wildly uncomfortable. Libations (consumed responsibly) do help take the edge off though. Just keep it together. Unlike Uncle Darryl…