After dropping by the Hollywood Tower hotel, we decided we needed a snack. The location for this seems to change on each trip, but Luke knew where to go on this trip to get the famous Carrot Cake Cookie! According to the picture I have of the receipt, it was at Beverly Sunset? I’m fairly certain that’s a store that sells Pixar merchandise these days, but apparently they sold snacks at one point? Maybe they still do – can anyone confirm or deny this?
I took a picture of this just because I thought it was ridiculous – but I don’t think I’d actually enjoy it…
Anyways, we bought a carrot cake cookie to share, a bottle of Coke for me and a coffee for Luke. We saved 20% with my Annual Pass, so our total was $8.33. We found a table to sit at outside where we enjoyed our treat – we had time to kill before our third fastpass.
It doesn’t look pretty, but these are so good! The “cookie” part is a carrot cake, slightly firm on the outside but nice and soft on the inside. The centre is a cream-cheese style icing (like a traditional carrot cake). We really enjoy these, and actually included them on our wedding day. I just wish they didn’t have stupid raisins – but not to worry, I do some surgery and remove them all before eating haha.
We still had some time before our third and final Fastpass, so we decided to head over to the Star Wars Launch Bay.
We decided to go visit BB-8, which was weird. You go in and stand beside a robot that beeps at you and moves its head… I guess I’m just not a fan of the non-living character meets?
As we were leaving the Launch Bay area, I spotted a popcorn bucket that I needed in my life! As I was buying it, the Cast Member asked me if I was going to give him a name, and if so, what was it? After brainstorming with the cast member for a few seconds, I decided on Frederick… so everyone, meet Frederick the AT-AT <3
Luke took that picture of me after we had walked over to use our third Fastpass of the day at Star Tours. We stopped to watch Jedi Training for a few minutes, I really hope that’s something that still exists when Jocelyn is old enough for it! It’s so cute, and some of the kids are so hilarious, and are so into it!
After Star Tours, we said hello to Gertie and admired her Santa hat haha, before heading out of the park.
I took a picture of Frederick the AT-AT sitting on my lap on the bus haha – I took lots of pictures of all the adventures he had that day haha – just wait for the next part of this trip report!
I figure I should include a warning at the beginning of this post – this one won’t be all sunshine and rainbows and happy Disney stuff. I’m also going to keep it pretty short – the next post will be back in a Disney park.
Our alarm once again went off way too early – but I woke up excited! My Dad was going to be arriving later this evening (with almost everyone else flying in tomorrow), and we were going to Trattoria el Forno for breakfast – a place I’d been looking forward to trying! Luke got up and headed in to take a shower, while I grabbed my phone to quickly check my social media, and see if anyone had any last minute questions about anything before coming to Florida. There was a single text message from my Mom, that was timestamped from the middle of the night – “Call me when you wake up.” I immediately knew it wasn’t good news, so with my heart sinking I called her. It was even worse than I could have imagined.
The evening before, my uncle was in a snowmobile accident, and had to be airlifted to a hospital in the major city I live in (he lived a few hours north of me, in a much smaller city). My Mom also informed me he was currently in a medically-induced coma, he had brain injuries but the full extent was currently unknown – but it wasn’t good. A little background – there was only an 11 year age difference between my uncle and I , so he was more of a big brother when I was younger. He had moved across the country while in his 20’s – and was the sole reason I also moved across the country (I initially lived with him before moving a few hours south to Edmonton). This was tough news.
Luke finished his shower, and started to get mad because I hadn’t started getting ready, and we were going to be late for our breakfast reservation. However, he only had to take one look at my tear-stained face to realize something was wrong. I had lost my appetite and didn’t want to leave our room at that point, so we actually ended up going back to sleep for a few hours. We did end up getting hit with a $20 no-show fee for our missed Trattoria el Forno breakfast, but I did not care about that in that moment – and I didn’t have it in me to call and try to cancel that morning.
After that much needed nap, we both woke up feeling much better. We got ready, and decided to head out hours earlier than we needed to for our evening plans – we wanted to see how the lines were for merchandise at the race expo today (since we didn’t want to wait 2+ hours yesterday).
We arrived at the ESPN Wide World of Sports and it was so quiet! There were no lines anywhere, and we were able to easily just walk into the area with the merch. Seriously – if you’re not running the 5K during Marathon Weekend, there’s no need to go to Race Expo on the Wednesday!
I didn’t take pictures of our purchases, but I bought a generic RunDisney hoody, Luke picked up a few shirts specific to this race weekend and we picked up the sneaker Christmas ornament. We weren’t in a rush, and just took our time looking around. Eventually we made our way back to the buses – but instead of going back to OKW we caught a bus heading for the Contemporary!
We were so excited about our evening plans – we were celebrating our upcoming wedding by splurging on Highway in the Sky for ourselves! But, we arrived early at the Contemporary and were feeling a bit hungry, since we’d only ate snacks in our room up to this point of the day, so we headed to the Contempo Cafe (review here). We killed enough time and it was eventually time to head down to the Wave to check in for Highway in the Sky (HITS) (full review here!).
HITS ended with the 9pm Magic Kingdom fireworks viewing from the 5th floor of the Contemporary. We still had energy from our nap earlier in the day, so we decided to walk over to Magic Kingdom to enjoy a few hours in the park (they were open until midnight that night).
My photos from this night ended up out of order, and I didn’t take any notes this night – so I can’t remember the exact order of attractions we hit up during these few hours. But I do know we went to visit a few princesses. Some of these pictures make me laugh so hard – so awkward at times hahahaha
At one point, we went on Pirates of the Caribbean. I had to take a few pictures of the auction scene, since this was before the Redhead scene was changed, but it was known that it would be changing soon.
We also made it on The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh. I’ve always loved all the 100 Acre Wood characters, and even though this attraction is nothing special I really love it.
We decided to try something new to us, and went to Enchanted Tales with Belle. As we entered the queue line, a cast member stopped me – and handed me the red card! I was the chosen one! It’s kind of stupid how excited I get about this thing haha –
Also – it was still cold, in case you couldn’t tell by how bundled up I was haha.
This is such a cute little… show? Attraction? Whatever you call it – go see it at some point! Now that I actually have a daughter, I’m really excited to take her to this one day! I didn’t really take any pictures, because I think it’s weird to take photos of other people’s children – but I did take this one of the wardrobe –
And Luke took this quick video of the wardrobe talking –
We ended our night with a ride on Haunted Mansion, one of our favourites!
Luke took this video of the “Kiss Goodnight” shortly after midnight –
As we were leaving, we stopped in a few shops along Main Street. This was when Rose Gold was the hot “it” colour, and the cast members were actually rolling out an entire rack of Rose Gold spirit jerseys in preparation for the next morning. These things were impossible to find at this point, so I was really excited to see them and I definitely left the store with one that night!
It was quite late by the time we got back to our room at Old Key West, but I had a very important task to attend to before heading to bed – putting together our welcome bags for our wedding guests! The first guest (my Dad) would be arriving the following evening, with the large majority arriving the next day. It was almost time to actually kick off wedding week!
I pulled out everything we had for our welcome bags – some of it we had lugged with us from Canada and some we had purchased on our Walmart run at the beginning of our trip. We had tossed around a few ideas for actual bags to put everything into, but we had already gone over our budget for welcome bags so we ended up just asking for extra Disney parks bags at a gift shop, and once we explained what they were for there was no issue giving us a stack of them. Score!
We had shirts made for everyone (you’ll see them later in the trip!) –
This picture was of the Rubbermaid tote we’d been storing all the wedding stuff in back home – part of the reason we needed to check four full sized bags on our flight! We had a lot of stuff to bring with us!
I laid everything out on the spare bed, separated by person/couple – turns out we had a lot more than I thought we did for these bags!
Here’s a close-up of my Dad’s stuff so you can see everything we had – custom shirt, Body Glide, hand sanitizer, wet wipes, bandaids, Disney pens (some people also got Disney notepads/sticky notes), a couple packs of gum, Brita water bottle, a few bottles of water (we bought multiple cases at Walmart – it’s so cheap in the States!), travel pack of Q-Tips (we mainly bought these because of the cute Disney tin they came in), travel-sized Kleenex, Tylenol and snacks (chips, chocolates, granola bars – Disney themed of course, and water flavour pouches). There were also nail files for all the females, and a necklace for each of my Bridesmaids/Maid of Honour (they actually ended up wearing them on the wedding day)
It was really late by the time we finally crashed for the night (like 2:30am). I also didn’t realize how much my life was about the change the next morning…
After enjoying all the holiday decor, we headed down the hallway and headed into Crew’s Cup Lounge. This was pretty high on Luke’s list of places to try, and it was fantastic! You can read all about it over here!
After filling our bellies, we left the Yacht Club and began walking back to Epcot. It was such a beautiful walk, and there weren’t that many people out and about due to the freezing cold temperatures.
We took a detour, and walked over to see Sea Breeze Point. We took some photos and posted them in our Facebook group we had created for our wedding – our friends and family were only days away from arriving and we wanted them to see the location where our ceremony would be held in exactly one week <3
After entering Epcot through the International Gateway, we stopped in Canada to watch the band. They were playing some Great Big Sea, and there was a group of kids having a great time dancing up by the stage – we sang along for a few minutes before continuing on to our destination.
Our destination – our third Fastpass selection of the day! It’s rare for us to make a Fastpass this late in the day, but we had scheduled it to coincide with meeting another couple – my first true DisMeet! We were meeting up with Meghan and Nathan at the Character Spot (Mickey, Minnie and Goofy). We found each other, and entered the Fastpass line. Since the line is inside, and it was such a cold day, it was busy. Even with a FP, it still took over half an hour before we met Mickey – which was fine! It allowed us time to chat and get to know each other better! Meghan and I had met on the Disboards, an online Disney forum – but we both came from the same small province, had both attended the same University (just a few years apart) and we both had our weddings through DFTW with the Escape package (which is something not even offered anymore). Conversation was easy, and before we knew it we were at the front of the line. For each character, we did a quick picture with all of us, then couple shots (no individual pictures since we didn’t want to be the ones holding up the line).
Next up was Goofy!
This next picture cracks me up – sorry Meghan for sharing it! We both look so awkward and unsure of what to do haha –
Before meeting Minnie, I apparently changed my hat?
Minnie had to see the ring after she saw Luke’s Happily Ever After button <3
We headed out and spent a few more minutes chatting before saying goodbye. All four of us were running the 5k the next day, but Meghan and Nathan were in a much earlier corral so we wouldn’t be able to run it together.
Luke and I probably should have left the park and went back to OWK to get a good night’s sleep before the 5K, but instead we closed down the park… We hit up Soarin’ with a Fastpass that Luke had grabbed while we were in line to meet Mickey, before stopping at Club Cool to sample some Coca-Cola products from around the world (RIP Club Cool!)
After scanning in for Soarin’, we managed to snag a fifth Fastpass for Spaceship Earth.
Luke and I love to make a crazy face for our picture on this ride haha –
I stopped by the exit for a picture with the Bubblegum wall, but it was a bit too dark so it didn’t turn out great.
We had a bit of time before the park closed, so Luke decided to buy the Epcot Starbucks mug tonight. I went in to Starbucks with him, but decided I’d run to the bathroom while he waited in line. As I was exiting, I was caught up in the beauty of Spaceship Earth at night, looking at the lights, and I ended up missing the last two steps on the stairs (facepalm). I didn’t fall down, but I definitely hurt something – impeccable timing the night before a runDisney event.
Once Luke had his mug, we made our way to the bus stop with me hobbling along. By the time we got back to our room, I was in a lot of pain, I felt like I had pulled a muscle so I took a hot shower and went straight to bed, just hoping for the best when the alarm went off in a few hours…
During our trip to WDW in January 2017, we ate at Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ on our arrival night, and we both declared it as one of the best meals we’d ever ate. After Luke proposed and we started discussing the very real possibility of holding our wedding at Walt Disney World (and we had agreed that a Wishes Wedding – which includes a reception catered by Disney – was too far out of our budget), we decided we needed a reception venue. I almost immediately suggested Homecomin’, I remembered reading about another couple who had great things to say about hosting private functions there – and it didn’t take much convincing to get Luke on board!
The first thing we did to get the ball rolling was to go onto their website, http://www.homecominkitchen.com. At the bottom it mentioned Group Events, with an email to contact them for groups of 25 or more. At the time, we had no idea how many people we would have, but we used that anyways. We were also still a few months out from being able to lock in our date with Disney, but we wanted to see pricing so we could begin setting a budget.
I received an email back from Homecomin’ the next day – communication was excellent throughout the entire planning process for this! They sent us two options for menus – a $55/person one and $70/person one (this has since changed, and I’ve heard the cost is now dependent on the time of day you are holding your event). This is what the $55/person menu looked like:
The only difference between this one and the $70/person menu we were sent was the addition of one appetizer (three appetizers instead of two – which seemed like a lot of money for such a small difference).
We knew there would be more than enough food without the addition of another appetizer, so the $55 menu it was! I let my contact at Homecomin’ know our choices for dates for our wedding (first choice January 10th, second choice January 9th), and told her I would let her know as soon as I was able to confirm the date with Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings. Luckily, both of those dates were available at Homecomin’ – not a huge surprise since they were a Tuesday and Wednesday.
Once everything was confirmed, and we had our dates set, we set our menu and paid a 50% deposit. At the time, we still didn’t have final numbers, so we based it on 20 people total.
As our wedding day got closer and we had a better number, I contacted Homecomin’ again and updated our guest list to 21 adults, 1 child and 1 infant. We also added on one moonshine cocktail (or drink of choice) for everyone. Looking back now, I wish I had left off the drink for everyone, and just picked up the tab at the end of our reception- we had to pay $12/drink up front, but some people ordered $7 beer, some people didn’t drink at all, etc. Those who had more than one drink were brought a bill to pay the difference, and I really didn’t like that. The cost to add an open bar was insane, but I should have just had it all added to the bill Luke and I paid at the end of the night. They weren’t very clear on offering a bill on consumption bill – but that’s honestly my biggest complaint about the entire experience dealing with them.
Our guest list included 3 vegans and 1 vegan/gluten free – not the greatest food restriction when eating at Homecomin’. However, I contacted them and they sent me options. The day of the wedding I didn’t sit with any of the vegans so I didn’t see their food, but they told me it was delicious and they were all full. I believe they had a large salad specially made for them, and topped with a chopped up vegan patty – sorry I have no photos of it. They were also brought french fries I think? And possibly a few other things?
On the day of the wedding, we arrived a little bit early. They weren’t finished setting up, but they let me go out to the porch area since I had the centerpieces (I just never had time to drop them off in the days leading up to the wedding). Everyone was staring at me as I made my way through the restaurant in my wedding dress haha.
I handed over my little box that had the centerpieces, and they set them out for me. I kept it simple, and we used the bridesmaids paper bouquets to fill out the centerpieces. The rest of the sparkly things I had purchased from the Christmas section at Michael’s Craft Store, and the vases were plain ones that I wrapped a single strand of rhinestone ribbon around (you can kind of see the shimmer from the rhinestones towards the bottom). They fit our colourful, Up-theme perfectly, and they didn’t cost an arm and a leg. I can guarantee I’m the only one who even remembers what the centerpieces looked like that day – so save your money brides!
They also had an extra table for us to set up our guest book and Polaroid camera, and we set our Mickey balloons from our ceremony beside that. And yes – we had even bought Disney-themed Polaroid film!
We had the entire back part of the patio, with three tables to accommodate our guests. We also had two dedicated servers – they had no other tables in the restaurant and they were only there to assist the 20 of us – it was unbelievable service!
We all made our way to the tables, and shortly afterwards the food began to arrive! It was served family style, with a serving dish placed on each table.
First up was the Jasper Board – Assortment of pimento cheese, buttermilk crackers, smoked sausage, shaved ham, bread & butter pickles and candied pecans (and here’s a picture from my professional photographer of it – )
And here’s the picture I snapped of it quickly with my phone after it was already half-eaten –
This was slightly different than the description, as that stuff in the center was a fish dip, and I don’t remember any smoked sausage on there. I also didn’t eat much from here, I knew how many other delicious things were heading our way and I had to save room in my belly! I did try a small piece of ham and a candied pecan – and both were very tasty! I did find out afterwards that they would keep refilling this board as requested – the table that Luke’s family was sitting at went through three servings of pimento cheese haha – so it was clearly a big hit!
Our second choice for an appetizer was the Church Lady Deviled Eggs – Homecomin’ Kitchen style whole deviled eggs
These are always a hard pass for me, I don’t really like eggs at all. But Luke loves these, so this was a choice for him. Most people seemed to enjoy them though, and I don’t think there were any left by the end of the meal.
Next was the salad: Harvest Salad – mixed greens tossed with fire-roasted red peppers and corn, shredded white cheddar cheese, heirloom cherry tomatoes and house-made balsamic dressing. Topped with avocado and hushpuppy croutons.
I seem to remember this having more of a ranch-style dressing (like a house-made ice-box dressing) instead of balsamic – which would be much more up my alley. I ate a bit of this – I skipped the red peppers and tomatoes, but everything else was nice and fresh – and I always appreciate vegetables while at Disney since I never seem to eat enough of them!
On to the entrees! Three of the five offered involved seafood – which I don’t eat. So that made my decision easy – chicken (which was non-negotiable, it was always going to be part of our menu), and pork.
Art’s Fabulous Fried Chicken – buttermilk brined for 24 hours then perfectly fried and garnished with fresh herbs
Right after the main entrees were brought out, the chef in charge of our meal came out to introduce himself and to personally ask if everything tasted fine – again, the service we received here was spectacular! I mentioned that I wouldn’t mind a few more pieces of white meat chicken, and he went into the kitchen and came back with a full platter of it! Obviously, we couldn’t eat it all so they packed it up for me to take with me at the end of the night 🙂
Chopped Barbecue Pork – dressed with HFK sweet and spicy barbecue sauce
This doesn’t come close to the fried chicken, but it’s very tasty pork! It’s tender and the sauce is clearly house-made. I’m pretty sure the platter that was placed on our table was polished off by the time everyone finished eating. The pickles and coleslaw were nice little touches too!
We also selected three side dishes. The first one was a no-brainer: Cheddar Drop Biscuits
I LOVE these things – they are so amazing here. Every single time we come to this restaurant, I must have these biscuits! I don’t know what it is about them, but they are the best ones I’ve ever had.
Our other two picks were: Creamy Mashed Potatoes and Southern Style Green Beans
Pretty straight forward, but I do love my mashed potatoes! We chose the green beans because we felt we needed a vegetable – and collard greens are gross.
Since we only had two underage guests – one was my gluten free/vegan cousin and the other was our five month old niece, we decided to go for the Shine Cake – an adult only buttercake soaked with moonshine syrup. We figured they would just bring out a slice for each person – and they did. But, the head chef working that day didn’t realize we were a wedding reception until we arrived (he just knew he had to prepare for a private function) – so he took it upon himself to bake an entire Shine cake just for Luke and I so we had something to cut! We were not expecting this, and it was such a nice gesture! Plus, look at how gorgeous this thing is!
After having a small slice each, they brought out a box and packed up the rest of the cake for us to take with us – and yes it made it all the way back to Canada! We froze it, and ate it over a year later and it still tasted awesome!
Obviously, this wasn’t going to work for the gluten free and vegans in our group, so I had called ahead and ordered a cake from Erin Mckenna’s Bakery in Disney Springs. It was the smallest size they offered – 6″ I think? But it was so thick and huge! I prepaid the $55 (I think?), and my cousin picked it up and brought it with her to Homecomin’ – the servers there took it and cut it and plated it nicely, which I thought was a really nice touch. I didn’t even get a picture of it, and I can’t remember what kind I even ordered for them… but just know I didn’t forgot about them!
After everyone was completely stuffed, we took a bit of time for speeches from my Maid of Honour, my best friend Ashley, and Luke’s Best Woman, his sister Jill (with an adorable little poem by his youngest sister, Callie)
By this point, we had long overstayed our welcome, and we still had one more wedding day event to get to! So we settled up the remaining balance we owed, we told the servers to keep the centerpieces (minus the bouquets – they were actually so excited and one of the ladies immediately shoved one of the glittery fake flower-looking things into her hair), we grabbed our boxed up food leftovers and off we went!
It was seriously an amazing experience – one that took me an entire novel to write about haha. The level of service we received was top notch, and we felt that it was worth every penny we paid. Plus, it was a slightly unique wedding reception menu with incredible food – and no one left hungry!
I don’t have the exact total cost for this, but it was built into our wedding budget (not our food budget for the trip) and we felt the price was comparable to a wedding reception menu anywhere at about $100/person (and that’s after adding a drink, tax, service charge, gratuity, etc). We also left a huge tip, since we were so impressed and our dedicated servers were fantastic! If you ever find yourself needing to book a Disney Springs restaurant for a private function, I can’t recommend this enough!
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!
I met Jill on May 6,1984. The day she was born. She had a smushed nose. She’s been my sister ever since. She’s bossy. I don’t remember specifically asking her to be best man. In all likelihood she muscled her way into it because that’s how Jill is. But she’s also the life of the party, extremely loyal, caring, considerate, uncomfortable with being praised like this so I’ll deviate and say she’s had my back my entire life and couldn’t be prouder to have her on my team.
When she’s not being a Best Gal, Jill can be found chilling with her tinysweetheart watching NFL action (Go Steelers!), kickin’ it on the 1s & 2s as DJ Wing Wednesdays, cooking, book clubbing, and living her best life.
Lisa Glover – Groomswoman
The unstoppable force that is Luke and Lisa was forged in the fires of conflict from mid-to-late-2000s MTV reality shows, specifically ones focused on identical twins who were into girls and dudes. Their shared passion for potatoes – even baking cakes with perogy-shaped cookies on them, karaoke and Metric shows is unrivaled. Whether it’s yelling “sports” at Oiler/Eskimo games, or saying “Woooooooooo!!!” at concerts, this cat-loving duo has been an immense force of awesomeness going back to ’05. This has nothing to with anything hut The Gaslight Anthem is a great band. Luke recently the attendant in Lisa’s wedding to Handsome Trevor West and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive somehow. In all seriousness though – Lisa saved my life and I couldn’t be happier that she’s going to be at my side as I marry Fallon. Lisa is one of my all-time favourite people, a pickleball champion, and I’m proud to have her in our party.
Devin Patterson – Groomsman
2005 was a very good year. That’s when i had the fortune of meeting Devin Patterson. I was new to Edmonton from then Regina. We worked at the station together and lived blocks apart. What started as Onowayan hospitality over Ugandan magic Pepsi cocktails had led to a lifelong friendship. I know I can always count on Devin if I need help. He’s as honest, hard-working, genuine and kind a person as you’ll ever meet. Fun fact: one night in summer ’06 Devin was at a wedding near my Whyte Ave apartment. He called me to come meet up. I arrive at the venue and Devin’s all the way up a tree. I call him on my cell and he says “When Chuck Norris jumps into water, he doesn’t get wet… the water gets Chuck Norris’d” then jumps down almost onto my car. It’s like midnight and we head back to my place. Devin decides he’s not ready to crash so we head out to Hudsons. Devin gives the doorman $20 and we walk right in. While inside we meet some mutual friends and he starts hitting it off with this Matthew Good fan named Larissa. A few of us head back to my place, snack on Premium Plus crackers and peanut butter, then head out onto the roof to mess with tipsy passers-by. All in all a good night. In 2010 – I was a groomsman in Devin and Larissa’s wedding. I’m so happy the tables have turned and they both get to be here for me.
Isabella Nicole Perez Antle – Flower Girl
Look at my niece! Isn’t she cute? Just wait till she’s a flower girl. Oh man. So much damned cute!!!
Now that we finally have our room block set up, anyone who was looking to reserve a room at a value resort can now do so for our reduced group rate!
Message me directly for the link to our room block website 🙂
Once you have the link from me, this is the first page you’ll see:
Click on the dropbox where it says “Select your guest type”. The two options are Accessible Room (which is for those with a wheelchair/limited mobility) or Attendee (which is what I selected for this tutorial).
You will now be taken to this page.
You can search the dates (where you can see our discounted group rates are valid from December 27th, 2017 until January 18th, 2018 – but you must check in by January 9th)
Another option is to click browse all hotels as a list. (see above picture). That will take you to this page. Ignore that $830/night Grand Floridian, no one wants to spend that much on a hotel!
There really isn’t much difference between All Star Music and Pop Century, although Pop is currently being renovated and most rooms will be completely refinished by the time this trip happens. The theming at both is over the top and really fun, go check out my information on the hotels page to read more.
I decided to go with Pop Century for this example. You can click anywhere in the box with the hotel name, and it will bring up the available room types which you can book. (For this one, it’s only the standard view room)
Now, click on the date you wish to check in. For this example, I clicked January 7th. As soon as you select a date, a green “select” button appears.
Now, select your check-out date. I clicked January 14th just for this example. Also – you can see that January 5th is not available – which more than likely means the hotel is sold out of standard rooms for that night. After selecting your dates, click the green “Next” button.
Before you click Next, you will see this along the side with your information – you will need to make sure you are booking your room for the correct number of people. Also – note that the price shown on this screen is subtotal only, taxes will be added (it works out to about $13/night in taxes)
It will now bring you to a page where you must fill out your personal information – name, address, email address, etc. Do this for each guest in your room. Click next, and you will be taken to another page to fill out your credit card information to book the room.
Once your credit card information is entered, and you’ve clicked accept on the terms and conditions, you will see a pop-up with your confirmation number on it! You should also receive an email within a few minutes with your confirmation.
Once you have your confirmation, it’s time to go set up your Disney account, which you can see a step-by-step guide here 🙂
Luke and I had discussed marriage a few times over the years, and we both knew it would happen eventually. However, I wanted to leave it completely up to him on when we would get engaged.
I had mentioned to him more than once that I did not want him spending crazy amounts of money on a ring. I’m not a big jewelry person, and I already had the ring I wanted. When my grandparents celebrated their 25th Wedding Anniversary, my Poppy gave my Nanny a new set of rings. A few years after Poppy died, Nanny gave the set to my mom. My mom wore it for years. Then, in 2015 my Mom handed the set down to me once she received her own from my now-step-dad. So, I had a ring that meant a lot to me, and I wore it everyday for quite awhile (just not on the proper finger). Then, around Halloween 2016 while we were cleaning out some pumpkins I took my ring off so it wouldn’t get covered in pumpkin guts, and placed it into a little dish we had bought in the Dominican a few years back. Then, I just left it sitting on our kitchen island. I thought about it a few times, and how I should put it back on, but I never did.
I had a bit of a suspicion that it would happen in Disney, since it just felt like us, but I had no idea when or how or even which trip it would happen on (we had plans in place to go to both Florida and California in January 2017, and we knew we’d be going back to Florida in January 2018). Before leaving work for Christmas break in December 2016 one of my co-workers was joking with me, “maybe we’ll both come back with new rings on our fingers!” (we were both taking the first two weeks of January off for vacation – I was heading to Florida for our Disney trip and he was off to Hawaii for his wedding). I laughed, but it was something I had considered…
As our trip went on, I pushed the idea farther into the back of my mind – it wasn’t going to happen on this trip. Then, on the second last day of our trip, it happened. We were walking along the pathway between Africa and Asia at Animal Kingdom, when Luke suggested we “go down here! Let’s check it out!”. I was not being very co-operative, I was dealing with a major psoriasis flare up (which I wasn’t diagnosed with for another month), and I was cranky because of my sore skin. I think I said something along the lines of “ugh, why?! There’s nothing down there!”, but I agreed because I love him. A photopass photographer was actually walking down ahead of us, just about to start his shift, so Luke suggested we get some pictures taken. I was so done with pictures at that point – I hadn’t been able to brush my hair in a few days due to the painful skin on my scalp, I was wearing a scarf to hide the rash on my neck (which I ended up on antibiotics for less than a week later), and I was tired (we were already a week deep in our trip). But, again, I agreed – after all, Luke agreed to the hundreds of other Photopass pictures I’d already made him take…
So, we got some cute pictures of the back-side of the Tree of Life. Luke was acting kind of weird, then he reached into his pocket, pulled something out and asked me if we should get more pictures taken with “these” and held out a Just Engaged button.
According to everything we’ve read, these buttons have been discontinued, and Luke knew that ahead of time. So he went on eBay and actually bought a set of them months and months prior to our trip (of course I didn’t find this out until afterwards).
Once my brain comprehended what was happening, Luke dropped to one knee and pulled out his Winnipeg Jets lanyard which had my grandmother’s ring attached – he had managed to get it out of the house and all the way to Florida without me noticing!
Of course I said yes! The Photopass Photographer had quickly realized what was happening, and had us move over slightly due to the sun affecting his photos. So, we don’t have the Tree in the background, but there’s also no glaring sun.
He took at least 20 pictures for us before being the first to congratulate us. Of course, I started checking my MDE app like crazy, waiting for the pictures to show up – and of course they hadn’t shown up 2 hours later, so we actually had to go to the Photopass store by the front gate at Animal Kingdom – we NEEDED those pictures haha. Of course once we explained to the cast members working at the Photopass store, they were so excited and were able to find out pictures right away. They even let us pick one of our favourites and they printed it off for us as a 5×7 – so nice!
I’m so happy Luke proposed in front of a photographer who was able to capture the entire thing <3
*No, the slow cooker is not plugged in – he’s just a goof and tried to prove if he fits, he sits*
