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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…

Disney, Travel

January 31, 2017

Fly home day was fairly uneventful- we had prepaid for a Super Shuttle to take us to/from the airport, so it showed up on time to drive us the hour or so to LAX. We breezed through security, and then had quite a bit of time before our flight left. I had packed a slice of cheesecake from the night before so we found some seats and enjoyed that.

Our flight was direct from LAX to Edmonton, so a little over 3 hours.

Disney, Travel

January 30th, 2017 – Part Two

After meeting Olaf, we were getting close to our lunch reservation, so we headed out of DCA and over to Disneyland. We stopped for a few Photopass pictures

We headed over to Cafe Orleans (for the second time on this trip!).

We decided to head over to Fantasyland, and got into line for something we’d never done before – Storybook Canal Boats. As soon as you enter a queue line you can tell which rides are from the 50’s – the queue lines are very narrow and tend to zig-zag in a small space.

This ride was ok, definitely worth going on at least once to see all the little models based on Disney films.

We walked over to Tomorrowland and grabbed a Fastpass for Star Tours for a bit later.

Then we headed to the front of the park – a meet and greet had caught our eye on the app. We had to wait a bit, and we weren’t exactly sure where the line would be (we just knew the door characters came out of to begin their shift, so we hung out close to there).

We waved goodbye to Goofy as he walked past us, then watched as Mickey ran into the villain we were waiting to meet – Cruella de Vil! We followed her over by the train station, where we had a hilarious meet and greet – redemption for earlier that day!

We decided to check out the Main Street Cinema, and we hung out in there for awhile.

Eventually, we headed out and decided to go watch the Storytelling at the Royal Theatre. The show we saw was Tangled, but they were alternating between that and Beauty and the Beast that day. We both really enjoy Tangled, so no complaints from us!

I grabbed a snack from Maurice’s Treats, the snack cart beside the theater. Cheddar Garlic Bagel Twist, $4.79

Delicious! I love bread way too much haha.

The show was really cute, a condensed version of the story with more humour added in. We both agreed we would go back to see another show here at some point!

We decided to go for a walk through Toontown, but we didn’t feel like actually going on any of the rides there or waiting in line for any of the meet and greets, so we headed back to Tomorrowland.

We grabbed a Fastpass for Buzz Lightyear, and then jumped into the standby line for it. Once Luke beat me again and helped defeat Evil Emperor Zurg, we were in the window for the Star Tours Fastpass we had grabbed earlier. As soon as we returned from our flight with C-3PO, we were in the window for the Buzz Lightyear Fastpass we had just grabbed.

We decided to head back over to California Adventure, but we took our time exiting Disneyland, walking slowly down Main Street, checking out some of the shops.

Once we entered DCA, we realized we were hungry and could go for a drink, so we went to the Cove Bar

While we were sitting there, we could see the roller coaster going and we realized we’d never been on it in the dark. Once we finished up our snack and drinks, we went and jumped into the standby line and rode California Screamin’.

By this point it was finally time to use the Radiator Springs Fastpass we had grabbed that morning, so off we went. I love Cars Land at night, it’s so beautiful!

The standby line had a posted wait time of 120 minutes, but the park was only a few minutes from closing. The Fastpass line was actually really long, and it took us about 20-25 minutes before we were boarding a car. By the time our ride through Radiator Springs was over, the entire standby line was gone – so that posted 120 minutes was actually about 30 minutes. This was really the first time we’d noticed how much they inflate the wait times at the end of the night.

So, I had Photopass included with my Annual Pass, but somehow I forgot to download our on-ride photo from our last ride on Radiator Springs. They also only sent three people total in our car, which is a sign of how inflated the wait time was.

DCA was closed by this point, so we headed out and got to Garden Walk as quickly as possible. I wanted to buy my mom a birthday present from the Harley Davidson store there since January 30th is her actual birthday. We arrived there at 8:40, and the store was completely locked up, lights turned off and no one in sight – despite the large sign on the door saying they were open until 9pm. I was so upset, I really wanted to get Mom something from there, but we were flying out the next morning so there wasn’t much I could do at that point.

We ended our trip with a meal at the Cheesecake Factory. Cheesecake makes everything better!

Disney, Travel

January 30th, 2017 – Part One

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For our last full day in California, we again decided to skip rope-drop and start our day in DCA a little later. We immediately headed over and joined the stand-by queue for California Screamin’, where we stood and waited. And waited. And waited some more. The sign had said 20 minutes, but after standing there for almost thirty they announced that the ride was broken. Sigh. As we walked around the pier, we could actually see one of the trains stuck on the track – so I’m glad we weren’t on it!

We thought about stopping for Toy Story Midway Mania, but the queue was over an hour, and this was shortly before they introduced Fastpass for it. So, we skipped that with plans to come back later – it didn’t happen. Luke was pretty sad we didn’t get on TSMM on either one of our Disney trips in January, but we made up for it on the two trips that followed 🙂

We decided to go check out the special character meet and greets for the Chinese New Year. We entered the queue which didn’t move for over 15 minutes. Finally, Chip and Dale came out looking adorable.

They met with guests for about 25 minutes, then when there were only 4 families in front of us, a cast member let us know that Chip and Dale were leaving, but Mulan and Mushu would be right out. This was exciting! Rare characters!

They came out, and in their 25 minute set they met three of the families in front of us. Three. And then they left. I understand wanting to spend time with each person, but the parents of one family in particular were ridiculous. Seriously, your children do not need to spend 15 minutes getting pictures from every angle/pose/showing Mulan every toy you have with you/etc. You could see the cast members trying to hurry them along, but nope. I know that Luke and I are two adults without children, but we would have taken about 90 seconds – say hello, give a hug, smile for a few pictures, done. Needless to say, Luke was fuming. We had spent over an hour in the line by this point, and we were being told it would be 20-30 minutes before the next character would be out (Minnie Mouse). We were not the only people in line a little upset by this point, and we were not the only ones who decided to leave the line. In a lot of ways, I prefer Disneyland but I have to give WDW the edge in character meets on this day (this comes up again later on this day).

We were both tired and cranky by this point – we had been in the park for almost two hours and had done nothing but stand in lines – for nothing. We decided we needed to go on a ride to get this day back on track , and since we were right there we grabbed a Fastpass for Goofy’s Sky School.

We didn’t have too long of a wait before we were in the window for the fastpass, but we bought a churro and found a spot to sit down and regroup. Once our FP window opened, we rode Goofy’s Sky School – which is just a crazy Mouse style coaster.

We checked the app and noticed there were still Fastpasses available for Radiator Springs for that evening, so we ran over and grabbed one of those.

Also while on the app, a character meet caught our attention- Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps! They were in Hollywood Land by Stage 17, so off we went! There was barely any line when we got over there, and before long we were meeting Zootopia’s finest!

After pictures with Nick and Judy, we realized Olaf was about to start meeting people just around the corner, so we joined that line. There were only two groups in front of us – a young couple and a mother with her son (who I’d guess was 3-4). Olaf came out, and the young couple had their picture taken, gave him a warm hug and moved along. Then, the mother and her son moved up to meet Olaf – and cue another meet-and-greet reminiscent of that morning. The little boy had zero interest in actually meeting Olaf and taking a picture with him. It was cute at first, but after over 10 minutes of him trying to pull down the backdrop behind Olaf, throwing his teddy bear at Olaf, running in circles around Olaf screaming all while the mother smiled at her sweet little offspring – it was a bit much. Even the Photopass photographer was getting annoyed, he would audilbly sigh, then repeat “ok, let’s smile for a picture so the other people in line can give Olaf a hug”. Huge shoutout to that photographer, he was very polite and kept his cool while still giving the mother very obvious hints that she should reign in her child. I don’t mind waiting my turn, but this was painful to watch. Yes, I understand I am at a theme park created for children, but come on.

We finally got to go up and give Olaf a warm hug and get a few pictures.

Next: Part Two

Disney, Food Review

Trader Sam’s – November 13, 2017

We had went to Trader Sams on our last trip to Disneyland on our first night there, it was Luke’s request for his birthday after enjoying our first experience at the Trader Sam’s in Florida a few weeks earlier. We knew we wanted to go at some point during this trip, so once we were both starting to feel hungry  and a little cranky, we decided it was time for a drink.

Trader Sam’s is a small, heavily themed bar located by the Disneyland Hotel.

It is based off the Jungle Cruise ride, and has no shortage of things to look at on the walls.

I wasn’t feeling great by the time we got there, so I decided alcohol was not a good idea, so I tried one of the non-alcoholic drinks on the menu, the Schweitzer Falls – the AMAZING… the COLOSSAL… the STUPENDOUS…the eighth wonder of the world… Dr. Albert Falls’ favourite (over the rocks). Tropical juices and Sam’s Gorilla Grog topped with Sprite – $5.25

I enjoyed this (and not just because it had a glow cube – although that didn’t hurt haha). It was sweet, which I’m a fan of.

Luke wanted alcohol, and he wanted to try something he hadn’t tried before, so his choice was the Krakatoa Punch – there’s no escaping falling in lava with this exotic eruption of flavor! Reserve and Spiced rums, orgeat (almond) syrup, Sam’s Gorilla Grog and hibiscus grenadine. Served in a souvenir Tiki mug. $23.50 with a souvenir mug

I did try his drink – it was good, but very strong (like all drinks at Trader Sam’s). They also were not serving the drinks in souvenir mugs, but hey did have these ones in stock for us to bring home.

We also decided to split some food, and once again ordered the Pu-Pu Platter – sweet and spicy Asian wings, fried spring rolls, panko-crusted Chinese long beans, lettuce mix and sriracha aioli, $17

I always think I like spring rolls, but after my first bite I remember I’m not a huge fan haha. No worries though, Luke really liked these so he ate them both. The Asian wings were a little too spicy for my liking, so again, Luke had those. The beans though – yum!  I loved these in January when we had them, and, despite me not feeling the greatest at this point, I was able to assist in putting a decent dent in that pile of beans. The Sriracha aioli was really good with the beans, I didn’t find it too spicy at all.

Luke had enjoyed it so much last time that he also decided to order the Angus 1/3 LB Hawaiian Cheeseburger – ground angus burger with teriyaki sauce, fresh caramelized pineapple, havarti cheese, bacon, lettuce and tomato on a brioche bun. Includes your choice of one of the following sides: sweet potato fries, classic french fries or island fruit – $13

I wasn’t interested in the burger, but Luke liked it a lot. I was excited when I saw shoestring fries, and I might have claimed quite a few of those for myself…

Basically, my entire meal here consisted of french fries and beans haha, but it was delicious and I wouldn’t change it – vacation mode!

We happened to overhear a server talking about the limited edition Haunted Mansion mugs that had been released a few weeks earlier – we had just assumed they were sold out, but turns out they weren’t! We excitedly asked for one of those to take home, and didn’t even care about the cost haha (it was $25 for the mug alone). It’s so amazing though!

Our total bill was $84.54 after saving 15% using my Annual Pass.

Food Review, Travel

Cheesecake Factory – January 30th, 2017

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This was our third trip to Anaheim, and our second time at the Cheesecake Factory – I’m a fan. The food itself is fairly generic – but the menu is huge, there are so many options! My favourite part is the cheesecake display – look how beautiful it is haha.

I’ll apologize now – this restaurant is really dark, which makes it really difficult to get good pictures, especially with my phone (and I don’t want to be that person using my flash).

They started us off with some bread – pumpernickel I believe? I liked it, but I tend to like most things with carbs.

I decided to go for the Chicken Riesling – chicken breast,  mushrooms, bacon, onions, and garlic in a white wine riesling cream sauce. Served with buttered parmesan pasta – $13.95

This was pretty decent! I’m a simpleton who loves nothing but butter on my noodles, so this was perfect for me. I also quite enjoyed the white wine sauce on the chicken – but again, I’m not a food connoisseur, so I’m not always the best one to take food advice from haha.

Luke wanted a cocktail, and ordered the Cucumber Mojito – Hendrick’s and St. Germain with cucumber, basil and fresh mint, $12.25

Luke said this was good, but a drink that costs almost as much as my entire meal?! Seems a little ridiculous.

Luke didn’t feel like a big meal, and ordered an appetizer sized Caesar Salad – the almost traditional recipe with croutons, parmesan cheese, and our special caesar dressing, with chicken added, $13.95.

This was a salad – nothing special, but it was exactly what Luke wanted and it hit the spot.

Of course we had to have cheesecake! Luke ordered the Key Lime Cheesecake – Key Lime Pie in a Cheesecake! Deliciously tart and creamy on a vanilla crumb crust – $7.95. I forgot to take a picture of this – it was our last night and I was tired!

I wasn’t hungry, so I ordered my cheesecake to go and ate it the next day at the airport. I went for the Adam’s Peanut Butter Fudge – creamy cheesecake swirled with caramel, peanut butter, Butterfingers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – $7.95

This is such an odd choice for me, considering I’m not a huge fan of peanut butter, but I love this cheesecake so much. I didn’t take the picture until the next day, so the whipped cream had seen better days haha. It was still delicious, and I would absolutely order this again.

Our total bill came to $60.39.

Food Review

Canucks Bar & Grill – June 9, 2018

We had a lengthy layover at the Vancouver airport, so once we were through customs Luke and I immediately headed to Starbucks for some drinks – a Berry Hibiscus Refresher for me and a coffee for Luke. They asked for a name, and since my name gets butchered at places like that, we gave Luke’s… and naturally they wrote Lou on my drink. Seriously Starbucks?! I feel like they do that on purpose sometimes.

While we were in line for our drinks, Mom and Rhonda had wandered over towards our gate and found the Canucks Bar & Grill. Mom texted me to let me know that they had grabbed a table for four, so we headed over once we had drinks in hand. I personally hate the Canucks (it happens when you’re an Oilers fan), but when in Vancouver, amiright?

It was only about 8:30am at this point, so obviously they were only serving breakfast. The breakfast menu was fairly small, but it is just an airport restaurant.

Luke ordered his most common breakfast item- Eggs Benedict – poached farm fresh eggs, English muffin, Canadian back bacon, hollandaise sauce, $15

All he really said about this is that it was “good, especially for airport food”. He ate it all, so clearly he had no complaints.

I don’t typically eat eggs, but I ordered the Traditional Two Egg Breakfast – two eggs any style, choice of bacon, sausage or Canadian back bacon, breakfast potatoes, toast, $14.50.

This was decent. There was strawberry jam for my toast, the back bacon was tasty and the breakfast potatoes were cooked well. Breakfast is still my least favourite meal of the day, but this hit the spot since I was pretty hungry. I even ate a few bites of the scrambled eggs, and they were pretty good – I’m no expert but they seemed like good eggs – cage free or organic or something.

I didn’t take pictures, but Rhonda ordered the same thing I did, only with over-easy eggs and regular bacon. Mom had the Gameday Breakfast Scramble – egg, bacon, cartelized onion, BC mushrooms, cheddar, breakfast potatoes, $14.50.

The total for Luke and I came to $30.98 – a little pricey, but airport prices were just trying to prepare us for Disney pricing haha.