Our Uber arrived, and off we went once again to Give Kids the World! Today we had opted to do a different task, and had signed up for Food Delivery (I think it had a different, cute name, but I don’t remember what it was now). We were early this day, and knew where we were going – hurray for us! We checked in for our 11am-2:30pm shift, and were directed on where to go. Once we arrived, we were given a run-down on what to do. This was a little more extensive than yesterday’s instructions (scoop ice cream, wash your hands, wear a hair net, keep the place/scoops/blenders clean, don’t eat the food, etc). Today we were stationed in a little room by the main dining hall, with some telephones and computer screens. The families staying at the Village are allotted a certain amount of dining credits for their week (much like the Disney dining plan), and they are allowed to use these credits for delivery (basically like room service). They would call, Luke or I would answer the phone, ask for their room number and their order, and everything would get punched into the computer. The order would print out on a receipt in the main kitchen, where the volunteers working there would prepare it. The receipt would also print in the room Luke and I were in, and it was our responsibility to gather the drinks requested (cans of pop, bottles of water, milk, juice, etc). Once the order was ready, someone from the kitchen would bring it over to us, and one of us had to go deliver it. Before starting our shift, a manager had made us do a short little training course to prove we knew how to drive a golf cart, and then provided us with site maps so we knew where to go.

We started our shift just as the lunch rush started, so it was actually steadily busy.  I really didn’t love this volunteer shift, I hate talking on the phone and every time I drive a golf cart I feel like I’m going to flip it (I know, I’m weird). Luke used to work at a golf course, so he was much more comfortable driving the cart, so I let him take most of the deliveries. I did enjoy seeing some of the painted fire hydrants around the village though, they are so adorable!

At 2:30, our shift was over and we were relieved by the next set of volunteers. We took our time walking back to the main building, taking some pictures of the village as we walked (since it was dark out when we left the night before).

We called an Uber, and had him drop us off at a Walmart close by. We wanted to pick up a few drinks/snacks to include in our welcome bags for our family, as well as a few things for ourselves to snack on. We figured we’d be there for an hour, maybe an hour and a half… that turned in to over three hours since we were enjoying looking at all of the unique things we don’t have in Canada. We went a little overboard on snacks for our friends and family, and I picked up some cute Disney souvenirs for a fraction of the cost in the parks (like a Mickey Mouse zip-up hoody for $24 – which does show up in later pictures on this trip!) We also picked up some alcohol (because that is sold in Walmart – crazy! Also the prices, so cheap!!

*No, I didn’t buy this, but $3 wine?! Seriously?!

I grabbed the necessities for making Mimosas on the wedding morning, as well as some plastic Disney Princess cups to drink them out of. #Fancy – but they looked cute in our getting ready pictures! (Sneak peek of more wedding pics)

Finally, 3 hours and over $400 later, we made our way out of Walmart pushing an overflowing shopping cart -oops! We knew we couldn’t fit everything into a regular Uber/Lyft, so we decided to stop being cheapskates and ordered the Uber XL (or whatever it’s called)…naturally a 15-person van pulled up for us hahaha. Luke and I just looked at each and laughed, shrugged and said “at least all of our stuff will fit in it”.

By this point, we were behind schedule, so when we pulled up at our hotel for the night, I immediately grabbed a luggage cart for our insane amount of Walmart purchases and a bell services attendant came over to assist. I explained that we were checking in for the night, but we had a dining reservation we were running late for, so we would come grab our stuff after we ate (we also hadn’t ate since our expensive sandwiches that morning, so we were hungry!).  This wasn’t an issue at all, and we headed off to our ADR – 1900 Park Fare!

For some reason, we also had a reservation at California Grill that night, so we headed straight there after finishing up at 1900 Park Fare.

Once we finished our second meal, we headed back to the Grand Floridian to finally check in for a few hours of sleep. I’m a little sad we didn’t have much time to really the room, but it was the most comfortable bed we’ve ever slept in on Disney property. The room was also huge by hotel standards, and it was only a studio (not a 1-bedroom or anything).

                               The view from our room was pretty great!

As great as this room was, I don’t think we’ll ever pay to stay here. It’s very expensive, and – unpopular opinion – it felt a little uppity for us. The night we were there, it was over $800 – we stayed there for free. When you book a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding and set up a room block, the bride and groom are given a free night in any resort of their choice once they hit a certain number of confirmed room nights. We knew we’d never be able to afford to stay at the Grand on our own, so we were quick to choose this as our freebie.

Fitbit Steps: 7670

We woke up relatively early, and called bell services. While we waited for them to arrive, we finished packing up the last few items, before handing over all our luggage. After two nights at Pop, we were moving up to a much fancier hotel for the night!

I also realized I had not taken pictures of our room when we first arrived since we were in a hurray to get to Magic Kingdom – what a bad trip reporter I am! I took the time to take some before we left – so ignore the fact that the bed isn’t perfectly made, etc.

   *I thought the showers were pretty nice!

            *A pocket door and full-length mirror separated the sink area from the toilet/shower

      *I didn’t use it, but there was a hair dryer, iron and full-size ironing board in the room

*Again, ignore the terrible job at making the bed, I just pulled the blankets up so it wasn’t a crumpled mess. The bed itself was decent, and it was really nice to have plug-ins on either side to charge our phones at night.

*Even more plug-ins underneath the TV! I was impressed by the amount in these renovated rooms

 *The safe is small, but more than enough for us to keep our passports safe! It was also used to keep our wedding bands safe, since we couldn’t wear them yet!

 *I think this is a great use of space! Since it was just the two of us, we left it set up as a table for the duration of our stay, but I can see how it’d be a bit cramped if you had to leave it down as a bed during your trip.

*The headboard of the pull-down bed

  *It was incredibly easy to pull down the bed/push it back up, I’m a weakling and I didn’t find it too heavy at all

*The clear-front mini fridges are pretty mini, they really don’t hold much at all…

We had been cutting through the parking lot to get to the buses/main building at Pop, since it was much quicker, but we decided to actually walk through the resort (seeing as how we were leaving, and still hadn’t done this…)

We went to Everything Pop food court, but we realized we didn’t really have time to sit down and have a proper breakfast, so we each grabbed a pre-made sandwich from the refrigerator section. I didn’t take pictures of them or the receipt but I had turkey and Luke had ham – both on white bread with cheddar cheese. If I remember correctly, they didn’t have any type of sauce on them, but they had mayo/mustard/etc packets to put on yourself. This food court typically accepts Tables in Wonderland, but it was still a blackout date so we paid full price – $7.50/sandwich. Not a great deal, but the sandwiches were decent and were enough food to hold us over.

Luke sat down on a bench by the front door to eat, and called an Uber at the same time. I ran over to the front desk to make sure I didn’t need to do anything special to check out of the hotel (there’s sometimes different rules since we’re International, plus I had booked our two night stay at Pop using the room block we had set up for our wedding). By the time I got back over to Luke, his entire sandwich was gone, our Uber was about a minute away and I hadn’t started eating – anyone who knows me, knows I’m the slowest eater on the planet haha. I ate half of that thing so fast! I hate eating in other people’s vehicles, so I shoved the other half into my purse haha.

We said goodbye to Pop Century, and headed off for another volunteer shift at Give Kids the World!

Next: January 1, 2018 – Part Two

We slept in a bit, but we were still up by 9:30 or so. We got ready for the day, and headed towards the main building to call an Uber to take us to the Grand Floridian. 

As soon as we walked in the door, I spotted Richard! For those who don’t know, Richard is a long-time cast member at the Grand who was still working a few days each week as a greeter, despite being in his early 90’s. He’s a bit of a celebrity among the Disney Wedding groups, so of course I had to stop to talk to him, and get a picture with him! 

He was so adorable, and so friendly! I mentioned that we were getting married at Disney, but he was sad we were holding our ceremony at Sea Breeze Point and not the Wedding Pavilion. He’s known for helping Wedding Pavilion brides with the train on their dress while pictures are being taken on the staircase in the Grand Floridian. He unfortunately passed away in June 2018, so I am very glad I stopped to talk to him for a few minutes during this trip <3

The Christmas decorations were all still up at the Grand, and I naturally had to take pictures of the tree (and of course, the lobby itself)!

The entire lobby smelled like gingerbread, I’m sure partly thanks to the giant gingerbread house they had set up there, which was so adorable! I’m fairly certain they were pumping the smell of gingerbread into the lobby as well.

We were starting to get close to our dining reservation, so we headed outside and made our way over to Narcoossee’s for their brunch.

• Narcoossee’s Brunch Review

While we were eating, we received a push-notification that Magic Kingdom had reached capacity- no thank you to being in those crowds! This was as close to the castle as I wanted to be on this day:

Once we finished our meal, we thought we had lots of time, so we decided to go for a walk around the resort. We followed the pathway all the way over to the Wedding Pavilion- even though it was not the location of our wedding ceremony, I thought it was a beautiful venue and I wanted to see Picture Point (located just outside it). They’ve since restructured the pricing, but at the time when we signed our contract for our wedding, it was an extra $2000 to use the Wedding Pavilion for an Escape wedding – I just couldn’t justify that, since that was enough to cover our reception at Homecomin’…

I had to take a picture of the Franck’s door, even though I never got to go through it. Disney offers three packages for weddings – Memories (basically an elopement – for the couple and 4 guests, cost was $2500 when we signed our contract), Escape (the couple plus 18 guests, cost was $5000 for Sea Breeze Point when we signed our contract) and Wishes (started at $12,000 and could go as high as you’re willing to spend). I initially was looking at Memories, and just having parents there, but Luke really wanted more so we jumped up to Escape. With the two lower tier packages, all correspondence is completed through email/phone calls – however if you are having a Wishes wedding you actually have an in-person planning session which is held at Franck’s (including cake tasting!).

Picture Point is so perfect with Cinderella’s Castle perfectly framed behind it <3

We called an Uber as we walked back towards the main entrance. We sat down on a bench, and watched as the estimated time of arrival kept changing – we had forgot about all the traffic trying to head to Magic Kingdom! We were heading to Give Kids the World for a volunteer shift from 3-6:30, but we were supposed to be there at 2:30 to sign in, get trained, etc. We had gave ourselves plenty of time to get there on a normal day, but not New Years Eve! What a rookie mistake, we should have known better! We eventually realized we were not going to make it there by 2:30, so we called the GKTW Village but they didn’t seem too upset by it. Our Uber finally showed up – no fault of the driver for taking so long, the lines of cars we passed as we drove away from the Magic Kingdom area was insane!

We finally arrived at GKTW around 2:50, so at least we weren’t late for our shift to start. It had taken almost 45 minutes for our Uber to reach us at the Grand Floridian, so we would have been there early if it wasn’t for NYE traffic.

For those who don’t know, GKTW Village is a non-profit resort in Kissimmee which provides week long vacations for the families of children with life-threatening illnesses. They work with groups around the world like Make-A-Wish to make theme park dreams come true. I believe I heard that about 60% of wishes involve the Orlando area (Disney, Universal, etc), so this is where they stay. Everything on site is free for the families – they receive meal credits to use throughout the week, theme park tickets, etc. There are a few little rides on site – a train, Merry-go-Round, etc, and lot of organized activities. A lot of the day-to-day operations of the entire resort are run by volunteers, so we had decided it was a good way to spend NYE since we didn’t want to go to a park.

We checked in and were led to the Ice Cream Palace where a supervisor gave us a quick run-down of what we needed to do. Our shift began at 3, and lasted until 6:30pm.

There were eight kinds of ice cream available, plus non-dairy options were kept in a freezer in the back room to avoid cross-contamination. The families staying at the Village had no limit on what/how much they could order – or when! The ice cream palace opened every day for breakfast! There was hot fudge and hot caramel for sundaes, bananas for banana splits, milk and mixers for milkshakes, sprinkles, Oreo bits, etc for toppings and a Coke freestyle machine for drinks (or floats!).

The ice cream shop itself was decorated with a CandyLand theme, and was very bright, colourful and fun!

Our 3.5 hour shift wasn’t overly busy, but it did stay steady. Even when we had downtime, we kept busy by wiping down tables, restocking ice cream, making sure the napkin dispensers were full, etc.  Creativity was encouraged, and I made some crazy concoctions during our time there! A banana split with hot fudge and Oreo crumbs and a dozen cherries on top? Done! A milkshake with cherries and sprinkles blended into it? Done!

It was a really fun way to spend an afternoon, and all too soon our shift was over. It was dark out by this point, and we took our time walking through the village and seeing it all lit up. They actually celebrate Christmas one day every week, Halloween one day a week and have a birthday party for the children once a week, so I believe it stays decorated year round.

I’ve been asked a few times already how we went about even setting up this volunteer shift. It was actually very easy, you just need to fill out an application on their website, http://www.gktw.org/volunteer/

After we signed out, we called an Uber to take us back to Disney property. We were dropped off at Disney Springs and the driver dropped us off on the east side. I believe they are supposed to do drop offs on the west side by the old Cirque du Solieil building now, so I don’t know if this driver didn’t know that or if it was just easier with the NYE traffic. I prefer being dropped off on the east side, and it worked out perfectly for checking out the Christmas Tree Trail. Enjoy my million pictures from this!

We had lots of time before our supper reservation so we took our time looking at each tree, before walking around a very crowded World of Disney. We also stopped in Amorettes to see their Christmas display, but we decided not to buy anything at that point (which I now regret, as I never made it back there on this trip – Luke did, but he didn’t take pictures).

We were still a bit early, but we decided to go check in for our reservation at Homecomin’. We only had to wait a few minutes before they had a table ready for us!

• Homecomin’ Review

Once we finished eating, we were tired and headed back to Pop Century. We packed up our stuff in preparation for our hotel move the following day, and were both asleep before midnight- we both woke up when we heard the fireworks and sleepily said “Happy New Year” before rolling over and going back to sleep. We are such party animals haha.

Total Fitbit Steps: 11,675

Next: January 1, 2018 – Part One

This was only our second trip to Walt Disney World, but it was one to remember (see: Proposal story!).

It was our first time doing a split stay on Disney property, and it was so easy! Bell services were fantastic and it was so nice to not have to move our luggage ourselves. I’m not sure if we’ll ever do a full stay in one place again.

It was also our first time renting DVC points, and it was a smooth process- one which we’ve already used again multiple times! I don’t think we could ever afford to pay rack rate for the Deluxe Resorts, so DVC makes it affordable for us. We also loved both Old Key West and Saratoga Springs.

We used the dining plan on our first trip, but opted to pay for all meals out of pocket this time – which we definitely preferred. I don’t see us using the dining plan again.

It sucks that the half marathon was cancelled for Luke, but it gave us an excuse to attend a runDisney event in California since they allowed him to transfer his registration. I also ran my first ever 5k during this trip, which was so well organized and fun (I don’t see myself ever running a regular 5k though, runDisney events only!)

Overall, it was a great trip, and I’m so lucky that Luke loves Disney just as much as I do, and that we get to make these memories together <3

It was the worst day of the trip – time to go home. Magical Express was picking us up around 11am, so we finished packing up and headed over to the main building by 10am. We decided to grab some food at the Artist’s Palette – the quick service location. I like the ceiling in there a lot, it’s very cute.

We had time, so Luke sat and enjoyed his food. We said our goodbyes to Walt Disney World, got on the Tragical Express and headed home to Canada.

I just realized I didn’t really take any pictures of our room, other than a detail shot of the little thing that laid across the bottom of the bed – I have no idea what it’s actually called, but I loved it! It was so subtly Disney – you don’t even notice the Fox and the Hound at first glance!

We also had a nice view from our balcony (which we never really used…)

Next: Final Thoughts

There was a short posted wait time for Mad Tea Party – and you can’t go to Magic Kingdom and NOT ride the teacups!

We decided to continue our relaxing day, and headed over to the Carousel of Progress to see the Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow…

We found a Photopass Photographer by the side of the castle, so we decided to stop for some more pictures

 

We then headed back into Fantasyland to use a Fastpass we had grabbed to meet some princesses! The other side didn’t have too long of a wait, so we decided to meet all four of them!

I find Cinderella to be an incredibly boring princess, much too prim and proper to be entertaining. We didn’t spend much time with her, just said hello, she commented on our Just Engaged buttons, we took a few pictures and that was about it.

       *more unexpected Photopass pictures haha*

So, we had no idea who Elena of Avalor was, but she was probably our favourite princess we met that day – she was very bubbly and adorable. I wish I could remember our conversation with her, but of course I’m writing this a year and a half after it happened… I love these pictures of Elena and Luke though  <3

This Magicshot was clearly meant for Cinderella, not Elena – and I find most of these things weird… but here you go!

We then headed to the other side of Princess Hall – to meet Tiana and Rapunzel! Both were great, and really excited to learn we had just got engaged the day before.

By the time we finished meeting the princesses, I felt like a snack, so I grabbed a churro. This was actually the first one I’ve ever had in Florida – and it was kind of gross. It had clearly been sitting under a heat lamp for a little bit too long – the ones I’ve had at Disneyland have always been hot and fresh. I was disappointed, but I still ate it.

We wandered around a bit, I think we went to see Enchanted Tales with Belle (but I have no pictures to prove this, so you’ll just have to believe me…), before jumping in line for The Little Mermaid ride – where I was once again handed a red card! Twice in one day!

We caught the train over by The Barnstormer, and rode it all the way around to Frontierland.

We had never been on Splash Mountain in the dark, and the wait time was basically non-existent so it was a great time to try it out! We came oh-so-close to have a boat to ourselves! Maybe one day…

It was getting close to time for Wishes, so we decided to watch from the bridge in Frontierland. It’s not the best viewing location, but we could see the fireworks and it wasn’t crowded at all.

There were Extra Magic Hours this night, so we did not join the rush of people leaving the park after the fireworks. Luke realized he hadn’t ate since lunch, and decided it was time for him to have a snack. He decided to grab one of his favourites, a Dole Whip Float.

He enjoyed it, as always. We sat for a few minutes while he ate it, and we realized we didn’t have many things we wanted to accomplish during Extra Magic Hours, that we would just go on rides with short wait times. We walked over and The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh was a walk-on so we hopped in a honey pot and went to visit the 100-Acre Wood. We then headed over to Tomorrowland for our final ride of our trip – Buzz Lightyear.

After Luke beat me yet again on Buzz, we decided to say goodbye to the parks for this trip and headed out to the bus stop. We headed back to Saratoga Springs, and finished packing up. We ate some of the snacks/leftovers we had in the room – we realized we had forgot to eat supper haha. Whoops?! After shoving some food in, we crashed pretty quickly – we had a relaxing day, but it was still a long day.