Every great trip report starts in the days leading up to actually going on a trip! Feel free to skip to the next post, we don’t get to Disney until then… I knew that the week leading up to this trip would be really busy, so we had decided to skip Christmas this year – which broke my heart a little bit since I love decorating so much (I’m typically that person who has multiple trees…). We spent Christmas Day at my mom’s house (where she once again spoiled us by buying us a red KitchenAid stand mixer – something I’ve been eyeing up for years despite the fact I don’t cook), and had a wonderful turkey dinner. On Boxing Day, we did a bit of shopping, although it was mainly last minute things we needed for the trip or pet supplies to last while we were away. We then went to the Olive Garden for unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks haha. December 27th, we both had to work. Since we had been trying to eat through the food in our fridge, and hadn’t bought any new groceries we again went out to eat that night – this time at Famoso. It’s a fantastic Neapolitan style pizza place and on Wednesday nights their prosciutto-wrapped mozza balls are on special – so delicious. We also had a coupon that expired December 31st, so we basically had to go eat there that day haha.

December 28th, we both worked again all day. We had started setting what we needed to take in our spare bedroom a few weeks earlier, but I started seriously packing on this day. December 29th, I was up early to check us into our flight. I was hoping to score an upgrade to first class for a small fee, but no such luck.  Luke had to work again that day, but only a half day. It was my scheduled day off, so I took advantage of that and packed like a crazy person! We had so much stuff to take due to this being a two week long trip and lugging all our wedding stuff, so I had to be very creative in how I packed to make sure nothing would get broken and our suitcases stayed underweight. The pets were all really helpful while I packed…

Eventually, I was satisfied that everything was packed and I wasn’t forgetting anything, so we drove our dogs out to my best friend’s house. She was going to be watching them for the first few days (and my mom would be checking in on our cats and degus) before my co-worker Scott moved into our house on January 2nd to act as our pet/house sitter. The worst part of any trip for me is saying goodbye to my puppies

Luke went to sleep at a decent time, while I stayed awake because I decided I needed to clean our house. I think I was just excited/nervous for the next two weeks haha. It was pretty late by the time I finally went to bed. My mom was going to drive us to the airport the next morning, so we had told her our plan of leaving our house at 5:45am. At 5:52am, she called my phone and woke us up – Luke’s alarm didn’t go off. So, it was a pretty frantic few minutes of pulling on clothes, grabbing our last minute items to be packed (cell phone chargers, etc), and then trying to load all our luggage into my SUV as quickly as possible.  To make everything even better, this was the weather…

yep, it felt like -47oC with the windchill – which meant we couldn’t load up my Rav4 the night before because we had things which could freeze.

Luckily, we had built in a bit of a buffer so we knew we would be fine, but Luke and I like to be at the airport very early for any flight – it’s the one thing in my life I’m always early for haha. About halfway to the airport Luke realized he had forgot his Brita water bottle in the garage, he had set it down to lift a suitcase into the SUV, and he was pretty sad about it. Florida water tastes disgusting, but those Brita bottles really work well to mask the taste! It was too late to turn around, but luckily we had actually bought a bunch of those bottles to put into our welcome bags for our wedding guests, so I told him he could steal one from there so he wouldn’t be without on this trip.

We arrived at the airport, hugged my mom goodbye and headed inside. Typically when we fly, we book the cheapest flight, but for this trip we decided to spend the extra money and fly direct. There’s actually only one flight per week that goes from Edmonton to Orlando direct, and it’s only on Saturdays. Initially, our trip was going to be from January 2nd – 13th, but once we decided we wanted the direct flight, we extended our trip backwards to December 30th.

We checked in and dropped off our four giant suitcases. I was a little nervous watching them disappear on the conveyor belt as my wedding dress and Luke’s suit were inside one… We were going to take our wedding day outfits as carry-on, but we already had so much to carry, and we decided to take the chance that it would all work out – after all, we were flying direct and our wedding wasn’t until the end of our vacation.

The security line for the US departures was the longest we’ve ever seen it. We had our boarding passes scanned, and then everyone was being directed to the left to join the snaking line. However, I was randomly selected, and asked to step to the right. Luke was told to stay with me, since we were travelling together. I had to place my carry-on suitcase on top of a table, and a security lady opened it up and looked inside. I had nothing to hide, so these additional screenings never bother me. Once she was finished, she told us to follow her and she escorted us to the front of the line. We easily saved 20-30 minutes in line just by being randomly selected! Go us! The rest of security and customs was a breeze, “Where are you going?” Walt Disney World. “What is the purpose of your trip?” To get married!

December 30, 2017 – Part Two

Enough time had passed by the time we re-entered the park that we were able to go grab another Fastpass, this time for Buzz Lightyear (and for a time frame that we were almost in already!).

We used the Star Tours fastpass we had grabbed earlier in the day, and by then we were already in our window for Buzz, where Luke beat me as per usual.

The sun had set by this point, so we went to check out the castle all lit up.

We decided to grab another Fastpass, this time for one of my favourites, Big Thunder Mountain

We still had some time to go before our next fastpass, so we went to Fantasyland to go on some of the classic rides – Snow White’s Scary Adventure, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

It was our first time going on Mr. Toad – that ride is ridiculous, one scene literally depicts Hell. We had just made it out of Hell when the ride broke, we could hear the people behind us laughing and yelling out that they were stuck in Hell.

Of course, I had to stop for a picture on the ride vehicle located outside the entrance. I also have no idea how to pose for pictures…

Another ride we had never been on at Disneyland was Alice in Wonderland, so that’s where we headed next. It was much better (and longer) than I was expecting- I thought it would be similar to the rides we had just come from, but apparently it has actually undergone a few refurbishments. It’s by no means what I would consider an E-ticket ride, it was just better than I thought it would be.

As we exited the ride, the Main Street Electrical Parade was going by. We had watched this parade on our first trip to WDW, and weren’t really overwhelmed by it, so we made no effort to see it on this trip.

We were finally in our window for Indiana Jones, so we walked across the park to go on that. It’s such a great ride, the attention to detail is spectacular.

Luke decided he could use a snack, and bought himself a Dole Whip float. He ate it while we walked over to Pirates of the Caribbean, and by the time we were getting ready to board our boat he had finished it.

Once we exited Pirates, we were in our window for our Big Thunder Fastpass. I love the California version of this ride so much!

By the time we got off the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness, the park was getting close to closing time, so we headed out and caught an Uber back to our hotel.

We were a little slow moving this morning, and slept in a bit. When we arrived at the park, we entered California Adventure first. The first thing we did was grab a Fastpass for Soarin’ for later that day.

We didn’t have a ton of time before our dining reservation, so we checked wait times and went to the Mickey Fun Wheel (stationary, of course- none of that moving car for me!). I used the zoom on my real camera and got some pretty cool pictures of the mountains in the distance, and a fake mountain much closer (almost all of my pictures are just taken with my phone, which was an iPhone 6 at the time of this trip)

After our short stay in the park, we headed out and walked over to the Disneyland hotel for a reservation at Goofy’s Kitchen

• Goofy’s Kitchen review

We once again entered DCA, and went to use our Soarin’ Fastpass.

After our trip around the world, we entered a short stand-by line and rode California Screamin’

hopped over to Disneyland and grabbed a Fastpass for Star Tours a few hours later.

From there, we headed to the Star Wars Launch Bay to meet Chewbacca and Darth Vader. I get the biggest, cheesiest grin on my face every time I meet Chewie haha…

We were hanging around afterwards, checking out the Star Wars stuff when a cast member came over, commented on our tshirts and then handed us a card with a picture of Bobba Fett and let us know he had seen him hanging around back by the cantina.

We headed back there, where there was a cast member standing by a nondescript door. We just hung out for a bit, waiting for Bobba Fett to appear but after standing around for about 10 minutes we went over and asked the cast member what time he would be showing up. The cast member smiled at us and pushed a button we hadn’t noticed, and within a minute Bobba Fett had emerged. Apparently we had to ask about him.

It was really cool to meet a rare character like that!

We finally headed back outside after spending well over an hour in the Launch Bay, where we ran into some Stormtroopers.

We decided we wanted to meet another character, so we checked the app and decided on Belle.

We were getting close to our dinner reservation in Downtown Disney, but we ran over to grab a Fastpass for Indiana Jones first.

Our supper that evening was at Naples, which I really enjoyed.

• Naples review

Next: January 29, 2017 Part Two

We decided we still wanted to do a few more things in the park, so we put our phones away and headed over to catch the train out to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. We’d never been out there before, and wanted to check it out. There isn’t a lot out there, but I loved the goats and the sheep haha

Rafiki was also out there doing character meets, so of course we had to jump into that line!

After saying goodbye to the goats, we headed back to the main park on the train. As we were walking by, we realized a Birds of Wonder show was just about to start, so we headed in and watched. I didn’t take many pictures, and instead just enjoyed the show (although I did get this one)

We decided to head over to Dinoland.

We jumped in the stand-by line for Primeval Whirl, which was only about a 20 minute wait.

I don’t love this ride, but I don’t hate it either. Crazy Mouse coasters are kind of all the same…

Tri-Ceratop Spin was practically a walk-on, and it was something we’d never been on before, so we headed there next. It’s basically just the Dumbo ride with dinosaurs.

            I have no idea what is going on in this picture, but it makes me laugh….

We were getting a little hungry by this point, so we went to check out Flame Tree BBQ.

• Flame Tree BBQ review

Also, this sitting area is so pretty!

We stopped for more Tree of Life pictures since there were no lines…

Our third Fastpass was to meet Mickey and Minnie. We had originally planned on doing the Wild Africa Trek today, which is why this Fastpass was so late in the day – we didn’t want to be rushed. After cancelling the tour, we decided to just leave our fastpasses as they were.

Minnie was so excited when she saw our Just Engaged buttons. She started gesturing to ask when we got engaged, and started jumping up and down when we told her it had happened only a few hours earlier. We ended up with cute pictures from this meet and greet 🙂

We checked the MDE app for wait times in the park, and headed over to Expedition Everest and hopped in the stand-by line.

A wait time under 20 minutes for Everest is a huge yes from me every single time!

We also grabbed a Fastpass for the Safaris a little later, so that we could go on it at Twilight.

This was pre-Pandora and pre-Rivers of Light, so most people were still treating Animal Kingdom as a half day park. By this point, it was after 5pm and the crowds were thinning out. We checked wait times again, and headed back to DinoLand to get into the stand-by line for Dinosaur – I believe it was under 10 minutes until we were loading the ride.

We then noticed a 10 minute posted wait time for Expedition Everest, and since it’s my favourite ride, we headed back over to Asia (we were putting some kilometres on today!)

We got off, and immediately decided to get back in line haha.

Luke didn’t think his stomach could handle three rides on it back to back to back, and that was our fourth time on it that day, so we said goodbye to my favourite ride and walked back to Africa to use our Twilight Safari Fastpass.

My review of that – meh. Most animals are already in their enclosures, it’s hard to see the ones that are still out and it was pretty underwhelming. I wouldn’t go out of my way to ride the Safari at that time of day.

While we were walking back through Africa, Luke’s dad called him (Luke had tried calling earlier to tell him we were engaged but his dad was working). Luke sat down on a bench to talk to his dad, and I went to check out Zuri’s Sweets Shop and picked out some treats for us.

• Zuri’s Sweet Shop review

We caught a bit of the Tree of Life Awakening, before heading out of the park and catching a bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge for our late supper reservation at Saana

• Saana review

After our meal, we called an Uber to take us back to Saratoga Springs.

The alarm went way too early this morning, I just wanted to keep sleeping (especially after all the drinks we had the night before). But, we pulled ourselves out of bed, got ready and called an Uber to take us to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for breakfast at Boma! This was our first time seeing AKL, what a beautiful hotel!

Once we finished up with breakfast, we caught a bus to Animal Kingdom- such a quick drive from the hotel! I was really excited about being able to see the progress being made on Pandora – I had not seen the movie Avatar at this point, but I was still excited about the new land being built, it sounded amazing.

Since the park had already been open for about half an hour, the line for security was not bad at all, but the line to scan your Magicbands was backed up a bit. No worries, we just went to the far left and entered Rainforest Cafe, cut through the gift shop and scanned our Magicbands with the cast member at that entrance – which never has a line! It’s one of my favourite Disney Park hacks 🙂

We stopped for a few Photopass pictures in front of the Tree of Life.

We were getting close to our fastpass window for Expedition Everest, so we headed over there. Here’s what our day was going to look like (minus the Wild Africa Trek, we had cancelled that a few days earlier for a full refund).

After going on my favourite ride in the park to see Disco Yeti, we started slowly making our way over to the Africa section of the park. Oh right! Proof we went on Everest (and in the back seat!):

We decided to stop for the Baloo and King Louie meet and greet, we had really enjoyed it the year before.

                                 I was pointing out to Baloo that he was on the record we were getting the characters to sign.

And then, we got engaged.

I know, you were expecting a big lead up to it, if you’ve read my trip report this far you know I can be wordy. But, don’t worry, I’m going to let Luke tell this part of the story.

• Luke’s proposal story
• Fallon’s proposal story

We began making phone calls, first calling our moms, then my grandmother who was in the hospital at the time (and passed away less than 2 months later)- who laughed and gleefully proclaimed“I knew!”. It turns out, instead of being traditional and asking my dad to marry me, Luke had snuck out of the house on our last trip to New Brunswick under the guise of ‘going for a run’, and instead ran to my grandma’s house to ask her permission for my hand in marriage. I consider myself a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need anyone’s permission to marry whomever I want to, but this gesture of asking my Nanny really meant a lot to me.

Luke called his sister and texted the other one (she was out of the country at the time), while I called my Dad.

We actually had a Fastpass for the Safari that we wanted to use, so we headed over there and used that at the very end of our fastpass window.

After our Safari, I kept checking the MDE app but our pictures of Luke proposing had not shown up yet, so we headed out to the Photopass store located by the main gate. Once we explained what the pictures were of that we were missing, the Cast Members assured us that they would find them. It only took them a few minutes to locate our missing pictures, and then they even printed one off as a 5×7 for us free of charge 🙂

We had called our immediate family, but we decided to start texting extended family and our friends to let them know we were engaged. We found a spot on a bench and sat there for the next hour and a bit just letting the world know our happy news – our phones were going crazy with text messages of congratulations. It was a really amazing experience, sitting beside my fiancé in one of our favourite places in the world, feeling such an outpouring of love from all the important people in our lives.

We had purchased a FuelRod at the beginning of this trip, and we definitely got our money’s worth out of that thing just on this day! I think by the end of the day, we had swapped it out 4 times because we spent so much time on our phones haha. We typically only swapped it once/day, and only because I tend to take a lot of pictures.

Next: January 10, 2017 Part Two

 

Our original plan this morning was toget up and be at the park early to try and avoid long wait times. However, once our alarm went I was still really tired after a late night the night before, so I made the decision for us to sleep in a bit more. Luckily our Fastpasses were made for the afternoon, so we weren’t missing any of those by sleeping longer.

Eventually, we did get up and got ready for the day. By the time we reached Hollywood Studios, we didn’t have a ton of time before we’d need to leave for our lunch reservation. We checked the wait times on the app, and headed straight for the Star Wars Launch Bay.

I had just watched all of the Star Wars movies before this trip (8 of them at that point, Rogue One was still in theaters, but we had even saw that before leaving Canada) – so I was really interested in the character meet and greets.

We went to meet Kylo Ren. He wasn’t pleased when I called him Ben and refused to join the First Order.

After meeting Ben Solo, we ran into some Jawas.

Afterwards, we headed out of the park – I know, so much accomplished haha. We caught the boat, and headed over to the Beach/Yacht Club for a lunch reservation at Beaches & Cream <3. I love these resorts, I think they are so pretty!

I also took a picture of Sea Breeze Point. I was aware of Disney weddings at the time, and I thought this was such a gorgeous venue – I had no idea I’d actually be getting married there 366 days after taking this picture (Luke and I weren’t even engaged yet at this point)!

After lunch, it was time to head back to the park to do some Fastpasses!

Since it was the middle of the afternoon, the Photopass lineups were not too bad at all, so we stopped for some pictures before heading in to the park.

Once we entered the park, we stopped at a bunch of Photopass Photographers, because I have a weird thing with trying to justify the cost (even though I can’t imagine not having Photopass on a WDW trip…)

We had heard rumours about The Great Movie Ride being on the chopping block, so we wanted to make sure we went on it in case it was gone by the next time we took a trip to WDW (it closed in August 2017, so this was a good move on our part). The line was a little longer than I typically will wait, but we did it anyways. Posted time said 45 minutes, it was closer to 30. I am glad we got to on it once before it was shut down.

We were now getting close to the end of our window for Rock N’ Roller Coaster. I don’t love this ride, but I don’t hate it either. I’m just a weird height where my ears slam back and forth from side to side against the safety bar, and since I was dealing with severe psoriasis on my head/ears/neck at the time,  I got off the ride in pain.

Since Luke had made me suffer through that ride, I made him suffer through more Photopass pictures haha.

We were within our Tower of Terror window by this point, which is a ride we both love (although I fought pretty hard against going on it during our first trip to Disneyland haha)

We left Sunset Boulevard, and found another Photopass photographer.

We headed over to Star Tours for our third and final Fastpass of the day. We both love this ride, and it’s always worth going on at least once every trip for us. Plus the queue is fantastic – sometimes I’m a little sad that the Fastpass line moves along so quickly…. I’m also a big fan of the personalization they offer with some of the rides now – notice the names on the screen behind this guy 😉

I really wanted to meet Chewbacca, so we checked the app and saw that the wait time was fairly short so we headed in that direction and got into line.

What a great meet and greet! Chewie is so huggable, and you couldn’t wipe the grin off my face afterwards.

We ran into some Jawas afterwards.

We spent some time looking around at the Star Wars stuff,  until it was time for us to check in for the Star Wars dessert party.

After the fireworks were over, we headed out to the buses and caught our bus back to Saratoga Springs. We weren’t sure if there would be enough non-dessert type food at the party to hold us over, so we had made a reservation at The Turf Club for late that night. Once we finished eating, we walked back to our room and fell asleep almost instantly.

Next: Animal Kingdom, January 10th Part One