Category Archives: Travel

Disney, Travel

May 3, 2019 – Part One

As is the case on way too many mornings at Disney, we were awake extremely early, and by 7:30am we had already taken a Lyft over to the Polynesian hotel.

Every time we step into this lobby, we talk about how much we would love to stay here one day – it’ll happen someday!

Of course we were heading to a breakfast reservation at Kona Cafe, one of Luke’s favourite breakfast places on Disney property. Our reservation was at 7:45am (maybe one day we’ll sleep in while at Disney…). We checked in, and had another great meal here (click here to read all about it!).

After finishing up our meal, we headed out to the monorail. We rarely travel via monorail – but we do enjoy it! We were heading to Epcot, and this method of transportation was amazing – I loved the view of the Flower and Garden Festival as the monorail circled the park on its way to the station.

Before long, we found ourselves through the security check, and scanned into the park. I love Epcot so much, and we planned on spending quite a bit of time in this park on this trip, so we were not in any rush and took the time to soak up the atmosphere.

Of course I quickly spotted a photopass photographer, and made Luke stop for pictures with me. On our first trip, he grumbled about this a bit, but by this point he accepts it, knows how happy it makes me and will actually point out short photopass lines – I married a great one <3

Oh yes – today’s outfit! My pants are from the Disney line at Hot Topic, my shirt is the Rose Gold spirit jersey from the parks, and my hat was found at the Character Outlet on Vineland (originally sold in the parks). Luke skipped the Disney clothes and just wore his Mickey hat (which was purchased in the parks).

We made our way through the park, stopping to check out the topiaries as we went. I think I managed to snap a picture of every single one of them in the park throughout the course of our trip….

Since we were headed to Future World East, we decided to make a quick pit stop at MouseGears so I could grab my Annual Passholder magnet (based on the date, it was the Daisy one) – which I was very excited about! They scanned my AP, which let them know I had not received a Pluto one either – but they still had some left so I left with both!

As an out-of-country Annual Passholder, I have never received the AP magnet in the mail (despite having multiple AP’s over the past few years), and I can’t exactly stop in to the park every single time they release a new magnet – so I treasure these things! So, now you can understand my extreme disappointment/anger when I returned home, and found my Pluto magnet had been stolen from my checked bag. I had the two magnets stuck together, inside a pocket accessible only from the inside of my bag – Daisy was still there but no Pluto to be found anywhere, and a slip from TSA stating they had opened my bag. I’m sorry, but if it just “fell out”, they would have both been gone – I know for a fact they were stuck to one another. I contacted MCO and filed a missing claim, but of course nothing ever came of it. I also reached out to Disney and basically got a “sucks to be you” response. I wasn’t the only one on the Epic trip who had an item go missing from a checked bag either – so yes I am accusing someone who works at the MCO airport of stealing items and more than likely reselling them for profit on Ebay (these magnets are handed out for free – last I checked there are dozens of them listed on Ebay for $15 and up (plus $20-$30 in shipping costs to Canada). I know next time, any AP magnet will be going straight into my carry-on bag. Rant over.

But, back to May 3, 2019 before I knew one would go missing. I left the store so excited, and shared this picture on my social media before tucking them safely into Luke’s backpack.

Here is what our fastpass plans looked like for the day (and yes, that 3:30 one was timed intentionally to line up with the approximate time we’d be leaving the park, so we could hop on Spaceship Earth as we walked past it – and of course our plans are always subject to change haha) –

I stopped to snap a picture of this topiary before heading over to our first Fastpass:

We had timed it so we were towards the end of our fastpass window for Mission Space, allowing us to travel around the Earth on the green side of the motion simulator before walking straight over to our second fastpass on Test Track. We really don’t love Test Track (we’ve been to Disneyland multiple times, Radiator Springs racers is FAR superior) – but we do enjoy building the most ridiculous vehicle possible haha.

Disney, Food Review, Travel

Highway in the Sky – January 4, 2018

Highway in the Sky was announced shortly before our January 2017 trip, but it sold out so quickly we didn’t even have a chance to try and fit it into our schedule. It was one of the top things we wanted to experience on our wedding trip though, so we kept stalking the website waiting for booking to open. We actually had a few nights during our vacation where we could have fit it in, we weren’t 100% sure which nights of the week it would be offered on. 

Finally, Luke texted me one day that booking had opened for the dates of our trip, and he had already paid for and reserved two spots for us on the first Thursday night we were there.

This is an expensive event, I believe it was $159/person plus tax when we booked (but that included gratuity), but it was our wedding trip and we felt like treating ourselves. #treatyoself  (Also – the price has increased since this point, and I believe at last look it was up to $170/person)

The evening began by meeting up at the Contemporary, and heading to the Wave to sign in. Once they verified our names against their list, we were handed a lanyard and invited to take a seat in the waiting area of the restaurant.

After a short wait, someone from the Wave came over and talked a bit about the restaurant, before servers appeared with our first drink and food item of the night. Typically they serve a fairly standard cocktail, but it was really cold outside so they switched it up to a hot drink. We each received a warm rum butter apple cider with whiskey and a maple foam. I apologize for the terrible picture of this, it was dark where we were sitting.

I wish this drink was on a regular menu somewhere on property, I would go out of my way just to get it. I absolutely loved it – the Maple wasn’t too overpowering (I’m Canadian, I know my Maple products haha), it wasn’t hot enough to burn my tongue which was nice and it wasn’t too strong – I never want to taste the alcohol in my first drink of the evening. We were off to a delicious start to the night!

They also brought around little cups with butternut squash soup. I’d honestly never tried this before because I just assumed I wouldn’t like it (I don’t like squash at all – but apparently blend it with cream and I’m a fan?). This was a very small serving, but it was really good! (Pictures are before and after I stirred it up)

After a few minutes of chatting with some of the other couples there that night, the cast members came around and rounded us up, leading us to security and up onto the monorail. The three cast members assigned to Highway in the Sky are in constant communication with the monorail drivers, so you never actually have to stand around waiting – the monorail is actually waiting for the group! They also keep the entire front car empty just for your group, which is a nice touch that really makes you feel like a VIP!

After boarding at the Contemporary, we rode the monorail over to the Polynesian. They escorted us inside to the open space on the second floor, where they had set up four-top standing tables decorated with cute little Polynesian touches.

Seating was not assigned, so we just found a table with two empty spots and introduced ourselves to the other couple. A Polynesian Resort cast member came out to tell us all about dining at the resort, while cast members came around putting a Mai Tai in front of each of us.

I loved these slanted glasses, and this drink was strong! The Polynesian Resort cast member described the food we were about to eat before the three small plates were placed in front of us. The ukelele player who I’ve seen at ‘Ohana before then came out and played for us while we ate.

The first small plate was ???? The second one was some kind of sushi and the third one was pork belly. The first two didn’t interest me at all, but the pork belly was delicious!

Once we had finished eating, we were rounded up once again and escorted back to the monorail (this time skipping security). Our destination this time was the Grand Floridian for the entree portion of the evening. We were led to Citricos, and we were called by couple and led to assigned tables in the restaurant. There was a bread basket on each table, and servers came around offering a choice of red or white wine (I went white, Luke went for the red). I’m not a huge wine person, this was dryer than I tend to go for but I still drank it. I can’t tell you anything about it haha – I’m not one of those people who can describe the flavours in a wine.

The main course was a surf and turf – on this night it was a boneless beef short rib and halibut, served with mashed potatoes and green beans. I don’t eat seafood of any kind, so I quickly shoved my fish onto Luke’s plate and just enjoyed the beef (he gave me quite a bit of his beef in return). It was perfect – fall apart tender, the sauce was really tasty and the mashed potatoes were smooth and creamy.

Once we had finished up, we were told to head downstairs to the Tea Room, where we each received a glass of champagne and a charcuterie plate.

The champagne was definitely the Fairy Tale Cuvee that was served at our wedding a few days later – it’s ok (but I don’t love champagne to begin with). The charcuterie doesn’t look like much, but it was tasty! I didn’t try the blue cheese or the pickles or the mustard (I’ve come a long way, but I can still be a bit picky at times haha). I enjoyed everything else on the plate though! Not pictured was a little plate of baguette.

When we headed back upstairs, we had a few minutes before the monorail arrived, so we took a group picture, and tried to see how many characters we could spot on the floor.

There’s a lot more than that, but it’s another one of those little details that I just love about Disney!

Our monorail arrived, and we piled back in to head to our final stop of the night – back to the Contemporary. The final part of Highway in the Sky is a private viewing of the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the fourth floor balcony, along with some desserts. Typically the desserts and drinks (canned soft drinks, coffee, tea, Bailey’s, Kahula, Frangelico, etc) are set up outside, but due to how cold it was on this evening, they set up it up inside. We each grabbed a plate with some desserts, I had a can of Coke and Luke had a coffee with Bailey’s. We were able to sit on the couches just inside the fourth floor balcony enjoying our final snacks of the evening until shortly before the fireworks started.

As we headed outside to watch the fireworks, the cast members handed us a blanket to wrap up in so we would stay warm. Obviously you are too far away to see the castle projections, but the view of the fireworks from here is great!

As we exited and handed the blankets back in, we were each handed a small box with the Contemporary Resort logo and chocolate truffles inside. It was a nice little parting gift after a wonderful evening!

Overall, we really enjoyed this experience, and did it again on our May 2019 trip. I didn’t love all the food on this night (but that’s just because I’m a bit picky and don’t like seafood) – but I still felt the value was there! Since they keep the groups small, you really feel like a VIP, and the food that I actually did eat was all great!


Disney, Travel

January 2, 2018 – Part Three

After our Dinoland photoshoot, we decided we wanted to sit down for a bit, so we headed over to check out Nomad Lounge, which we loved!

While we were sitting down, eating and resting, we checked the app and decided to check out a show we’d never watched before – The Finding Nemo show. We took our time at Nomad Lounge, and made our way over and made it into the show. We arrived about fifteen minutes before the show started, so obviously our seats weren’t the greatest – but we were inside and that’s all we cared about!

The show was really cute! Festival of the Lion King is still my favourite show at Animal Kingdom, but I can’t believe it took us until our third trip to actually go see Nemo – we’ll definitely go see this again (although that didn’t happen on trip #4 or trip #5….)

After the show let out, we still had quite a bit of time before the first showing of Rivers of Light (which we had managed to grab as a fourth fastpass after using up our initial three) – so we decided to put on even more steps and walk all the way back over to the other side of the park so we could hit up Starbucks. As I mentioned earlier, it was a really cold day, and apparently everyone wanted something hot to drink – it was a really long line. But, since we had nothing but time, we got into line and waited over 20 minutes before ordering a coffee for Luke, and a hot chocolate for me. We collected our drinks, and found a table in a quiet spot in Africa to just sit down and enjoy the warmth of our beverages. I love that Starbucks has special cups just for the Disney Parks <3

After warming up a bit, we once again headed back across the park to get into the amphitheater for Rivers of Light. It was our first time seeing the show, it didn’t even exist on our previous trip.

The show was…ok. It wasn’t terrible, but it was a bit boring – I was also tired from the crowds and being cold all day so my opinion isn’t always the best to go by. The show was visually beautiful though!

Since it was now dark outside, we decided we had to go see Pandora at night! It was just so cool! I love what they’ve done with that area so much.

At this point, it was time for us to leave the park. But of course we didn’t head to our hotel – instead we jumped on the Animal Kingdom Lodge bus and got off at Kidani House. We had a late dinner reservation at Saana <3.

We called an Uber after our meal, and headed to our third and final hotel of the trip, our home for the next 11 nights – Old Key West! We were tired, it was late and I did not take any pictures before we crashed for the night, but we were actually in the exact same building we’d been in the year before – Building 35 in the Turtle Pond section of the resort.

Total Fitbit Steps for the Day: 18,737

Disney, Travel

January 2, 2018 – Part Two

After our Tree of Life photoshoot, we decided we could use something warm – so we headed over to Flame Tree BBQ. We made a new friend while we were sitting there – even though we refused to share our fries with him. Birds freak me out a bit, so this was terrifying to me haha –

After warming up with our coffee and hot chocolate, we made our way over to Africa for our third Fastpass of the day – Kilimanjaro Safaris! Enjoy my obligatory multitude of safari pictures – it’s basically a must-do in any trip report, right?

After our bumpy ride through Africa, we decided to check out the Gorilla Falls walking trail.

Luke is a big fan of the naked mole rats haha – mainly because of the clip from Brooklyn Nine-Nine posted below –

I really enjoy the walking trails at Animal Kingdom. It’s a great, leisurely way to see more animals up close. The park was also crazy busy – it was one of the busiest times of the year at Disney so it wasn’t a huge surprise to us – but the walking trail was a great way to get away from shoulder to shoulder people for a bit while checking out some more animals.

Earlier in the day, we had saw a Timon meet-and-greet but the line was really long. We had checked the times and knew he was currently on a break, but would be coming out soon so we headed over and got into the very short line. We didn’t have much of a wait at all before it was our turn. I love the joy on Luke’s face when he realized we were next (and also the point he realized the Photopass photographer was facing us – but he didn’t bother telling me to pose….)

We had nowhere in particular to be; we had already used our three Fastpasses for the day, and we had grabbed a fourth one for Rivers of Light for that night. So we began just wandering around the busy park, and stopping at any Photopass photographer we saw that didn’t have too long of a line.

I think Luke was trying to tickle me – and I was believe I was punching him. True love, am I right?

I’m including this one because it makes me laugh – I think the photopass photographer might need a bit more training since we were clearly standing still here hahaha

We eventually found ourselves in Dinoland, and found a Photopass photographer with more props!

Disney, Travel

January 2, 2018 – Part One

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After our quick one-night stay at the Grand, we woke up really early and called bell services to come gather our luggage for our final hotel transfer of the trip. Once our room was empty, we said goodbye to the most comfortable bed ever, and headed out to the main lobby – of course I took some pictures along the way 🙂

I also took some pictures of the grounds at the Grand, and the main lobby – where they were refreshing the flowers for the day.

We knew we would be taking an Uber/Lyft to our breakfast ADR, so we decided to be a little extra and ordered ourselves a Minnie Van – so stinking cute! (This was during the time when it was still a flat rate of $25 – I don’t think I’ll be taking one now that they charge by mile – it’s so much cheaper to just use a regular Lyft).

We arrived at Animal Kingdom Lodge, and headed downstairs to check in for breakfast at Boma – one of Luke’s favourites! Review here 🙂

After finishing up breakfast, we were ready to get into the parks, so we took the very short bus ride to Animal Kingdom! Did I mention – it was cold this day! This Canadian is pretty soft, and was bundled up…

We arrived, and decided to head towards Dinoland after checking on the wait times. We got into the standby line for Dinosaur, and since it was still within the first hour of the park being open, the wait wasn’t too long at all- within 10 minutes we were seat-belted into the ride

This ride consistently gets a “just ok” from me. I think I would have a much higher opinion of it if I’d never been to Disneyland, but it’s a very similar ride to Indiana Jones in California – and Indy easily wins in the comparison to Dinosaur!

Also – most of our family and friends who were due to arrive in a few days had never been to Disney, so I had been asked by a few of them about what to do with their park bags while on rides – so I took a bunch of pictures to show them how accommodating the Disney rides are for backpacks! This one is to show how large the storage pouches are on Dinosaur –

We then decided to was time to finally see Pandora for the first time! We walked in, and wow! What an amazing Land Imagineering has created, with the floating mountains and the waterfalls and all the plants. Just incredible.

We stopped for a few Photopass pictures –

… before we headed over to use our first Fastpass of the day – on Flight of Passage! I was so excited for this ride, and it did not disappoint! We were also very lucky to have a Fastpass – the wait time was listed at 240 minutes (4 hours!) for most of the day.

After our exciting ride on the back of a Banshee, we spent a bit more time exploring the land (and yes, of course I took a bunch more pictures, the land is just so pretty and deserves to be photographed!)

The park was really busy this day, but we had another Fastpass to use so we made our way over to Asia for my favourite Disney ride – Expedition Everest!

I again took a picture for our wedding guests to see that there was nothing to worry about when it came to space on the rides for their backpacks – hopefully these pictures can help anyone currently planning their first Disney trip!

The ride was as great as always! We still had quite a bit of time to kill before our next Fastpass window, so we headed back out to the main area in front of the Tree of Life. By this point some of the huge crowds that gather for Photopass pictures first thing in the morning had dissipated, so we decided to stop for some pictures

Disney, Food Review, Travel

Amorette’s Patisserie – May 2, 2019



After another satisfying meal at Homecomin’, we took a leisurely stroll around Disney Springs. I didn’t take many pictures, but we enjoyed some window shopping and a very slow-paced evening. At one point we decided to stop for a beverage that was on our must-try list: the Mango Moscato wine slushy from Amorette’s Patisserie, $9.

This was so good! I don’t love mango flavour, but I do love moscato! I’m a huge fan of all these new adult slushies that are popping up everywhere – it’s a trend I can definitely get behind! We enjoyed this so much – it was not the only one we had on this trip 🙂



Disney, Travel

May 2, 2019 – Part Two

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Our next park was Hollywood Studios. As we arrived, there were cast members waiting for us with baskets of snacks – Skittles, chips, etc – and bottled water. We weren’t expecting this, but it was a very nice little touch since we were getting hungry. We headed straight for Toy Story Land – Luke and I had seen the land on our December trip, but it was the first time for many of our group. We went to Slinky Dog Dash – the first time riding for Luke and I! The queue for this ride is great, I love the small details that Disney incorporates – like the price sticker that references the original release date of Toy Story 1.

Karamie’s eye roll behind me makes me laugh every single time!

Kelly was ready for this picture!

Luke and I had no idea where the camera was for this ride – but clearly Su-Lynn and Steve knew where to look haha.

Jon and Amanda asked us what else we wanted to do at Hollywood Studios, and there was mention of heading over to Tower of Terror. However, a decision was made to just ride Slinky Dog Dash for a second time – again through the Fastpass line. Also – we clearly still had no idea where the camera was hahaha.

After our second ride on Slinky Dog, we stopped for group photo #2 – and the infamous ChunkyDump was invented by Liesa….

We headed back to the vans, and were instructed to place a mobile order while we drove to park #3 of the day – Animal Kingdom!

Our first stop was Pandora for our third group picture (where the ChunkyDump once again made an appearance) –

We then split up – a few went over to Navi River while the rest of us headed to Flight of Passage. Luke and I have been on this ride quite a few times now, but always with a Fastpass so we’ve never seen the standby queue. Jon actually took us into one part of the standby queue to point out one of the murals – I can’t remember what this guy was named, but he shows up during FOP.

We actually had enough of us to fill an entire room for the pre-show, so there were many laughs during this part of the ride…

The ride itself was as fantastic as always! I love taking a few glances around at the other riders, and seeing the pure joy on everyone face’s as they soar on the back of a banshee.

As we exited the ride, we were told to click the “I’m here, prepare my order” button on the orders we had placed from Satu’li Canteen. You can read my review by clicking here 🙂

After our meal – which was much needed, we were all starving by that point – we had a discussion on what to do next, and the decision was made to head over to the Safari.

When we arrived, the line was insane! Even the Fastpass line was backed up, but Jon apparently knew every cast member we met that day, and led us into the handicapped line. We still had quite a bit of a wait, but eventually we boarded our vehicle and set off on a safari together!

Enjoy the following onslaught of obligatory safari pictures:

Once we finished our safari, we realized we were running out of time on our VIP Tour, and we still wanted to get to Park #4 of the day. A few people decided to stay at Animal Kingdom, while the rest of us went back to the vans and headed off to Magic Kingdom. When we arrived, cast members were once again waiting for us with bottled water and baskets of snacks. Jon and Amanda took us down the pathway that’s typically used for the Halloween/Christmas parties so we could avoid the crowds on Main Street. We stopped for our group photo in the Hub – we had successfully completed all four parks in one day (actually, all 4 parks in 7 hours!).

Quite a few of us pulled out the ChunkyDump for this group picture…

We were basically out of time, but were told we had time for one single ride. We quickly all agreed upon Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, so we headed back to Fantasyland. Once we had entered the Fastpass line, Jon and Amanda said their goodbyes, and gave each of a VIP pin (with strict instructions to not trade or sell it).

SDMT is an ok ride, I enjoy it at least once every trip, but I would never wait hours in the standby queue for it. I am very happy we got to go on it as part of our tour however, as this ended up being the only time Luke and I went on it during our entire two week trip.

Jackie managed to Mike Wazowski me in the second picture hahaha –

And with that, our amazing VIP Tour had ended! Once we exited, we said “See you later”, and split into smaller groups. Luke and I had grabbed a Fastpass for Buzz Lightyear, which we were already in the window for.

It was a pretty big day – for the first time ever, I actually beat Luke! I tend to destroy him at Toy Story Midway Mania, but he has my number when it comes to Space Ranger Spin – but I won! Of course I had to take pictures to document the moment!

We stopped for a few pictures –

Tshirt from TeePublic, Skirt from Kay Pop Art, ears from an Independent Seller

It was then time to head out of the park for our supper reservation! For the second night in a row, we were eating at Homecomin’ – what can I say, we’re big fans! We did at least change up our typical orders – you can read my review here.

After another satisfying meal at Homecomin’, we took a leisurely stroll around Disney Springs. I didn’t take many pictures, but we enjoyed some window shopping and a very slow-paced evening. At one point we decided to stop for a beverage that was on our must-try list: the Mango Moscato wine slushy from Amorette’s Patisserie, $9.

This was so good! I don’t love mango flavour, but I do love moscato! I’m a huge fan of all these new adult slushies that are popping up everywhere – it’s a trend I can definitely get behind! We enjoyed this so much – it was not the only one we had on this trip 🙂

We called it an early night – Jetlag was still kicking us in the butt, and we had a busy itinerary for the next few days!

Disney, Travel

May 2, 2019 – Part One

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Our original plan for this day, our first park day of our trip, looked something like this:

A pretty standard Magic Kingdom day, with an evening at Disney Springs…

A few weeks before leaving for this trip however, one of the ladies from the Disboards who was a part of the Epic Girls Weekend messaged us all, asking who would be around on May 2nd and have a park hopper ticket. Another Disboarder, who has asked to remain anonymous, had decided to gift us with a VIP Tour that day! I couldn’t believe it, it was honestly one of those crazy bucket list items Luke and I had, but never believed we could make it happen due to the high cost associated with it. For those who aren’t aware of what this even is, you can read a bit more here on the Disney website. Basically, you hire a tour guide (or a plaid, named for their plaid vests that they wear) for a minimum of 7 hours at a cost of $425/hour (in the low season – pricing will increase during peak seasons) – so $3000. This allows up to ten guests – we actually had 19 of us on our tour which required two tour guides…

Anyways, once we found out what this amazing, kind-hearted benefactor had offered to us, Luke and I canceled our fastpasses and our breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare. I will make it there at some point, on some future trip! Strawberry soup for breakfast?! Count me in! We decided to hold on to our Homecomin’ reservation just in case we had time though – it’s our favourite so we figured we’d risk the chance of paying a no-show fee if we had to.

That morning, I was feeling a bit of jet-lag, especially with the red-eye flight the day before, so we decided to sleep a few extra minutes and just call a Lyft to take us to the park instead of using the Disney buses. This actually turned out to be well worth it, since the security lines on the bus side were insane that morning, but our Lyft dropped us off on the side where people parking their cars enter – so there was maybe one single person in line ahead of us at security.

Since we had cancelled our breakfast reservation, we just ate leftover Cheddar Drop Biscuits from Homecomin’ – a fantastic breakfast option if you ask me! I was so nervous though, I could only manage to eat about half of one – I had pitched an idea almost a year prior to a few girls on Facebook who I met through the Disboards about setting up a meet-up trip – and I was about to meet over a dozen of them today! We even had our own logo for the trip, designed by the wonderful Su-Queen <3

Once we were through security and found the correct line to scan into the park – it was an extra magic hours morning – we entered a mostly empty, slightly wet park:

We headed straight for Guest Services to the right of Spaceship Earth, afraid we were going to be late. We ended up being the third ones there – Karamie had also taken a Lyft over, and our incredible new anonymous friend had drove, so we had all entered from the much quieter side of security. We all introduced ourselves, and I handed out the first of my Canadian treat bags I had prepared 🙂

Eventually, the rest of our group made it through the crazy long security lines and joined us. Our two Plaids for the day arrived, introduced themselves and handed out rain ponchos to each of us just in case. I’ve always been too cheap to buy myself one of the Disney rain ponchos ($13USD for something I can get from the Dollarama for $3CAD? Pass.) – but they are actually well made and quite thick! I brought ours home with me to save for future trips.

At 8:37am, we approached our first ride of the day – Test Track. We entered through the Fastpass line with our VIP Guides – we felt pretty special all day!

Luke and I worked together to design our car – our goal is always ugly. We call this one “An Ode to Alberta” due to it’s sweet lift-kit. Behold its beauty:

I also have this picture of someone else’s car – I think it’s Karamie’s?

Each car on Test Track only holds 6 people, but there were 19 of us so obviously we had to split up into smaller groups. We sat with Karamie, and her car kicked our car’s butt in the simulations haha. I also stole these next two pictures from Lesley, since they are hilarious haha:

And of course, our on-ride photo:

It was Military Appreciation Month in the US, so the Blue Angels were doing a special fly-over of Spaceship Earth that morning. We went and found a spot to stand with a great view, and spent a few minutes chatting and getting to know each other.

I had asked about a month prior to going if anyone wanted anything in particular from Canada, and Billie had responded with Ryan Reynolds – so I presented her with her very own Ryan for the front of her scooter during this time haha. Someone had a bandaid in their bag, and used that to stick him on there…

At 9:30am, the Blue Angels did their first flyover of Spaceship Earth:

An announcer came over the speakers in the park to let everyone know to stay put, as there would be a second flyover once they were back into position. We once again had our camera ready, and captured the second flyover:

This was so amazing to see – and I’m not even American. I’m so glad we took the time to see this!

Our VIP Guides, Jon and Amanda, gathered us together again and led us off to Norway. Our next ride was Frozen Ever After – which we once again entered through the Fastpass line. I love Frozen, and I love this ride – I never rode Maelstrom, so this is all I know for the Norway Pavilion. For this ride, we sat with Jackie, Caroline and Kelly – and the rest of our boat was filled with random strangers.

After Frozen, our VIP Tour Guides took us out a side door I had never noticed before that allowed us to skip the gift shop. We headed back to Future World for our final stop at Epcot – Soarin’. Again, we entered the Fastpass line – by 10:15am we had been through the fastpass line for all three tier one rides at Epcot! This VIP Tour was really spoiling me!

Nice work pal!

Again, another picture stolen from Lesley –

Our group took up almost two full rows, and the ride was as great as always!

Afterwards, we took our first official group photo before heading out a Cast Member’s Only door to our awaiting vans.

From left to right: Luke, Molly, me, Kara, Karamie, Steve, Ariana, Caroline, Billie, Kelly, Su-Queen, Liesa, Jackie, Su-Lynn, Lesley, Jenny and Joe

We split into two groups. I was in the van that Amanda drove, but she didn’t really say much as we drove through backstage areas to our next park. It was pretty cool to drive through the backstage of Epcot to see some of the Festival booths not currently in use, the construction on the Guardians of the Galaxy Coaster, etc. We were not allowed to take any photos while in the backstage areas, so nothing to share, sorry.

Disney, Travel

May 1, 2019

We arrived at Old Key West, and headed in to the main lobby to pick up our new Magicbands – blue for me, red for Luke. The cast member helping us let us know our room was not yet ready – not a huge surprise seeing as it was just a little past 11:30am by this point. While we were on the Magical Express I had received a text message from my boss asking for my help with something, so I sat down on a bench in the lobby and pulled out my work laptop which I had brought with me. Luke decided to go check out the little store and enjoy some of the free lemon water in the lobby. It didn’t take me too long to finish up what I had to do, and we went out to drop off our carry-ons with bell services. We called our first Lyft of the trip, and headed off to the Vineland Outlets. I’m not much of a shopper these days, but I do enjoy starting our vacation with a trip to the Disney Outlet there!

A trip to the Disney Outlet (I believe it’s actually called the Disney Character Warehouse) can be hit or miss – you never really know what you’ll find when you visit). We had decent luck on this trip, and I found a single Monsters University spirit jersey in my exact size for $20! Luke also found the Wall-E zip-up hoody he’d been looking at last year in his size for $20, and a Dark Wing Duck mug for $5. I also picked up an Epcot 35 ornament for $5, a Pascal baseball hat for $8 and a Minnie Mouse baseball hat for $5.

We were hungry, so we decided to just eat in the food court there. It was nothing exciting, but Luke had a burrito and I went to Charley’s Philly Cheesesteaks.

After eating, we called a Lyft to take us to our next stop – Walmart! So exciting, right?! We love browsing and seeing what is different than in Canada, and picking up a few supplies for our trip. Water is like $4/bottle in the parks, or a case of 40 bottles was $4 at Walmart. We picked up a few of the unique to the US items we love (like Garlic Butter Ritz, Big Chewy Nerds, Almond Joy chocolate bars, etc) and took our time going up and down each aisle. We always enjoy looking at the prices of alcohol, it’s so cheap compared to Canada! (For comparison, that same bottle of wine is $12-$15).

I always ask my coworkers if they’d like anything, and they always ask for unique candy. So I picked up these three kinds of Twizzlers that I’ve never seen up here for them (the orange ones are seriously amazing! The watermelon ones were gross, and the cherry and citrus ones were good).

Luke also ran to the liquor store next to Walmart and picked up a small bottle of Bailey’s – when on vacation why not start your day with a Bailey’s and coffee!

Once we finished up our shopping, we called an Uber XL to get back to OKW. We arrived back there around 3:45, but our room still wasn’t ready so we passed the time by chatting to some of the bell services people (check in for a DVC room is 4pm). I kept refreshing my email and at 3:57 I finally found out our room number! I was very excited to see we were in building 35, as that’s the same building we’ve been in every single time we’ve stayed at OKW. I love that Disney tries to keep it familiar when you do repeat stays at resorts, although I’m not sure if they just do that for DVC stays?

Our other luggage had arrived with the Magical Express tags, so one of the cast members from Bell Services drove us to our room in a golf cart with all of our luggage and Walmart purchases. Of course, once we arrived our Magicbands wouldn’t work – but he was able to open the door with his master key so we could at least drop off all our stuff (I showed him the My Disney Experience app to confirm we were at the correct room that had been assigned to us). He then drove us back to the main building so we could figure out our Magicband issue. Since we were there, we also took some time to walk around the main pool area since we’d never really checked it out before (all of our previous stays at OKW have been in January when it’s too cold for us to go swimming). We started walking the 7-8 minutes back to our building when the same bell services saw us and pulled over, motioning for us to hop back in his golf cart. I guess it was worth it to tip him generously when he dropped us off the first time!

Once we got back, I took obligatory room pictures before we made a huge mess by unpacking. Our room was 3526 and it had been recently renovated, so the beds were new. I prefer the new style, it’s nice to be able to shove a suitcase underneath the bed out of the way. The carpet looked like the same old stuff, but it was fine.

The bathrooms had been completely renovated, and were really nice! The flooring was nice, and the bathroom felt very big. It did now have the wall-attached shampoo/conditioner instead of the travel-sized ones from years past, but we don’t mind that.

We were on the second floor, and I loved our view from our balcony!

Luke took a shower while I unpacked a bit and changed into clean clothes for supper – including my new MU spirit jersey from the outlet. These were still being sold on property for full price, so I have no idea why this one was at the outlet, I haven’t been able to find anything wrong with it… but for $20 I’m very happy to have found it! For those interested, my leggings are from Silver Icing, which is one of the multi-level selling companies but they are some of the nicest leggings I own (I’d say comparable in price and quality to Lulu Lemon).

Our dining reservation was in Disney Springs, so we decided we wanted to take the boat (there is an option for a bus from OKW as well). The only place to catch the boat is from the main building, so we walked back out there. I enjoyed this Captain Marvel bus way too much, and had to take a picture of it…

We had perfect timing, and the boat pulled up to the dock about 90 seconds after we arrived.

Taking the boat from OKW to Disney Springs is such a nice, relaxing way to spend 20 minutes! We arrived and our first stop was the new ticket center. My annual pass had been active since December, but Luke had purchased a 10-day Park Hopper ticket with the Canadian discount for this trip. The next morning we had very specific plans so we made sure his tickets were active tonight.

We then headed off to our supper reservation at our favourite Disney restaurant – Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ (or Che Fartsmith if you will…).

After eating, we were exhausted so we hopped a bus back to OKW and went straight to bed after I took a shower. Tomorrow promised to be a very exciting day!

I also took screenshots of my Fitbit data for each day. I’m positive mine doesn’t read correctly, Luke will always have a few thousand more steps than I will in a day at Disney, but it’s not like he’s running laps around me …

Disney, Food Review, Travel

Charley’s Philly Steaks – May 1, 2019

1 Comment

While we were at the Vineland Outlets, we were hungry and decided to just grab something from the food court there. There isn’t a huge selection, but we each found something. Luke grabbed a burrito from Currito (sorry, no pictures) and I went to Charley’s Philly Steaks because it’s not something we have in Canada.

I ordered a regular Philly Cheesesteak with nothing on it – no onions, mushrooms, green peppers, tomato, pickles, lettuce or mayo. I honestly would have been fine with mayo, but the cashier seemed a bit confused when I was saying what I didn’t want on it, so it was just easier to say nothing except the meat and cheese.

I also made it into a combo with the Ultimate Fries and a drink.

They went a little crazy with the bacon on the fries – I actually had to scrape some off, it was just too much. You can’t really tell, but these also had that weird plastic cheese sauce America loves and ranch dressing.

Total was $14.82. The food was ok, nothing really special(but we didn’t expect spectacular from a food court). It was food, and it held us over until our dining reservation that evening.