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

 

 

 

Eventually, Snow White came out and it was our turn to meet her. We handed her our Record Store Day Disney vinyl to sign (well, just the case, we were smart enough to leave the actual record home). We still haven’t actually done anything with that yet, it’s just sitting beside our record player..,

This was also a really amazing Snow – she looked the part, and her voice/giggle was spot on – I was very impressed by this casting!

This might be one of my favourite character meet and greet pictures ever haha – I didn’t get the memo on how to pose for this one…

After our meet and greet with Snow White, we continued on our way around the World Showcase. Next up was Italy, so we looked around a bit in the shops. Nothing was jumping out at us to purchase, so we journeyed over to the American Adventure. The show was only a few minutes away from starting, and it was something we had never watched before, so we decided to go watch.

The inside of that building is gorgeous! The American Adventure Rotunda is actually a reception venue option for a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, but it’s only for the Wishes collection (we had an Escape wedding), and the minimum guest count is high (I believe it’s a minimum of 80 people – which means big $$$) – so obviously it was not an option for our wedding. I’ve seen gorgeous wedding photos from there though!

Anyways, back to the American Adventure audio-animatronics show… it’s a great place to have a nap? It’s definitely showing its age, and since I’m not American I guess I just don’t care that much about the country’s history (plus almost everything mentioned during that show was taught to us in school). Basically – it’s not something I feel the need to do every trip. I’m glad we did it once, but I almost fell asleep a few times…

Once the show was over, we rushed back over to the Italy Pavilion – it was time for a meal I was really looking forward to after hearing lots of great reviews – Via Napoli! It was….disappointing. The food was fine, but the service left A LOT to be desired. You can read all about it here.

After our pizza and terrible service, we slowly started making our way back to the Mexico side of the World Showcase. We stopped in Norway to see the giant troll –

It wasn’t long before it was time for our second dining reservation of the night – because everyone needs second supper, right? This time we checked in to La Hacienda de San Angel – Luke made this reservation because he wanted to drink margaritas while watching Illuminations from a different angle  – this proved to be a great choice, since it was so cold out that night!

We had to wait a little bit past our reservation time, but we were led to a two-top table shortly before Illuminations began. You can read about our experience here.

Once we settled up our check and left the restaurant, Epcot was officially closed – however there were extra magic hours that evening for guests staying on property. We decided to take advantage of that, and went to meet Baymax.

I was actually wearing my Baymax dress that day, so this meet and greet was a must!

We then crossed over and got into line to meet Joy and Sadness!

After meeting these characters, we decided to head our of the park for the night, but Spaceship Earth was a walk-on as we went past, so of course we had to get on that again!

We headed out to the bus stop (and even remembered to head to the Saratoga Springs stop, since we were checking in to that hotel for the remainder of our stay), and then stood and waited. And waited. And waited. There were quite a few of us at the bus stop, and it was cold out – and it took forever! Finally, 35 minutes later a bus showed up…

By the time we reached the main lobby of Saratoga Springs, we were exhausted – but of course we still had to go check in, get our room number and new Magicbands, and pick up our luggage from bell services. We got in line in the lobby, and figured it wouldn’t be too long of a wait since there was only one family in front of us. Again, we waited. And waited. And then waited some more… the family in front of us took forever! The kids were running around the lobby loudly, the dad kept asking questions – but eventually it was our turn and we were able to check in and get our room. After a quick stop at bell services, we collected our luggage which had been transferred over from Old Key West, and they drove us to our building.

I was going to take pictures of our room, but I was way too tired (and it was pushing midnight by this point), so I just went to bed instead.

Next: We finally make it to Hollywood Studios!

 

I still wanted to check out Journey into Imagination with Figment since it was another ride we had never checked out. We just entered the standby line, and it wasn’t bad at all – under half an hour.

This ride is super cute, I’m glad we waited in the line to do it, but I’m not obsessed like it seems some people are.

After we had used our Soarin’ Fastpass earlier, we had jumped on the app and managed to grab another FP for Test Track – that’s right, three tier one rides in one day!

This time around, we made this beauty:

I really can’t bring myself to make a serious car on this ride haha!

We decided to go spend some time in the World Showcase – we never devote enough time to that area of the park! We had to make a stop in the China Pavilion, a drink had caught Luke’s eye – the Tipsy Ducks in Love: Bourbon whiskey, coffee, black tea, cream and chocolate syrup, $8.95.

We ordered Luke’s drink, then stepped off to the side to wait for it to be made, as we’re supposed to. There were two women in front of us, but obviously I hadn’t been paying attention when they ordered. One of them picked up her drink and started walking away, then the other one grabbed the next drink the cast members set down. The two women gave each other funny smiles and started giggling as they walked away. I found this all to be odd, and I thought the second drink looked like Tipsy Ducks in Love. I told Luke I thought that his drink might have just been stolen out from under him, but he didn’t want to believe that, and trust in the honesty of people. I took a step backwards to get a little closer to the two women (who had just moved over a few steps to take selfies with their drinks), and I was able to overhear them talking – the first one was questioning what the second one was drinking, since “I didn’t think you ordered anything”. The second woman giggled, said “I didn’t!” and they both laughed. Meanwhile, Luke was still standing by the counter waiting for his drink, but everyone who had been behind him in line was getting their’s first. At this point, he finally realized that his drink had been stolen by the women in front of us,  so he spoke up and told the cast members. They didn’t seem to believe him at first, but he hadn’t left his spot from in front of the counter and he was still holding his receipt, and when they looked over at the two women I pointed out, they could see one of them holding a Tipsy Ducks in Love drink. So, eventually, Luke did finally get his own drink! I just couldn’t believe it though, I’ve never seen anything like that before! What a terrible human being, I hope that drink made her sick.

Anyways, once Luke finally had it, he loved it. I didn’t even try it, I hate coffee, but he raved about how good that thing was.

We stopped for a few pictures in the China Pavilion (although I’m sure Luke only did that so he could get more pictures of his Tipsy Ducks in Love…)

That giant brown paper bag I’m holding? No clue as to what was inside haha. It must have been pretty big to not fit into the backpack Luke was wearing… this is the problem with waiting over a year to actually write up these trip reports haha.

After China, our next stop was Germany. Luke had one thing on his mind – Schofferhofer Grapefruit Beer.

I’m not a beer person at all, but I really enjoyed this! It’s so light, only 2.5% alcohol, so it barely even tastes like beer. We’ve since been able to find it here in Edmonton, so it makes an appearance in our fridge from time to time 🙂

I had more important things on my mind though – I HAD to go to Karamell-Kuche! Just stepping inside that place is amazing, the smell of warm caramel and chocolate, mmmm.

I bought a large bag of the caramel popcorn, and a chocolate covered caramel (which I didn’t end up eating until we were back home – and it was still really good!).

This popcorn. Oh man. I don’t even know where to start. This is now my favourite snack in Disney World, and it’s up there as one of my favourite snacks anywhere – I loved this. The popcorn is not at all soggy (as sometimes happens with caramel popcorn), and it is coated with a nice, generous layer of Werther’s Caramel.

Honestly, we both loved this so much we added it as part of our wedding day dessert party, and all of our friends and family seemed to love it just as much as we did.

Since we were in Germany, we decided to meet Snow White. She wasn’t out at that exact moment, but we checked and she would be coming out fairly soon, so we joined the growing line of people for her meet and greet. It was nice to just stand still for a few minutes, I was enjoying my popcorn and Luke, his beer.

 

January 8th, 2017 – Part Three

 

As we were walking through Downtown Disney, we realized we were feeling a bit hungry, so we decided to go see if we could get in to the Rainforest Cafe.

• Rainforest Cafe review

After we left Rainforest, we still didn’t feel like going back to the parks just yet. Instead, we headed into the Grand Californian Hotel, and found some comfy chairs in a hallway to sit in. We were right by some large windows, so there was lots of natural light streaming in, and people were coming and going, but somehow Luke fell asleep and napped for about an hour while sitting up haha. I spent the time people-watching and checking in on social media (since the parks did not have Wi-fi at the time, but the Grand did).

Once Luke woke up, we decided it was time to go back to the park, so we entered DCA through the Grand – so convenient! I understand why people love staying there!

We walked around a for a bit, before it was time for our World of Colour dining package at Wine Country Trattoria. If you like negative reviews, you can check it out here...

After our not-so-great meal, I wasn’t feeling great (it was a pretty early morning that day, and unlike Luke, I hadn’t taken a nap). It was also a bit cold, so we decided to go to the Animation Academy building in Hollywood Land. We just sat on a bench in there watching the video on the screens surrounding the room for awhile. We could see the line to meet Anna and Elsa, and as it got shorter we decided to jump into line and meet them. I do like that you can get both of them in a picture together in California, but I thought the pair we met in Florida were a little  better (more in character, and more wiling to joke around with us).

We had never gone into the Sorcerer’s Workshop (located in the same building), so we headed there. It was kind of neat, but I find it weird how it just comes to a dead end, and then you need to back-track in order to get out.

We headed out of the Animation Building, and went to buy some matching Star Wars shirts I had seen earlier in the day (I finally convinced Luke to wear matching shirts with me, I was very excited haha). We made our purchase (and saved 15% with my annual pass!),  then continued looking around in the shops. After a few minutes, Luke realized that his FitBit was missing, and couldn’t remember the last time he saw it 🙁 We retraced our steps, and went back to ask the cast members in the stores we were just in, but no sign of it anywhere. We even walked out to Lost and Found to file an official report, but we have never heard back – it is lost forever (or someone found it, picked it up and got themselves a barely used FitBit Flex…). It ended up working out in the end – my company introduced an initiative where they subsidized the cost of purchasing a FitBit – so I was able to upgrade to a Charge for under $60, and I gave Luke my FitBit flex which was only a month old.

Once we re-entered the park we still had some time before we needed to head over to watch World of Colour, so we headed into A Bug’s Life Land and went to watch it’s Tough to Be A Bug – and no, I still didn’t sit back in the seat for the poke in the back part haha. Of course we had to go on Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train afterwards to help him search for candy corn – it’s the simplest most little kid ride in the entire park, but we find a way to go on it every single trip.

We headed over to the Preferred Viewing area for WOC, but made a stop at the Little Mermaid ride when we saw that it was practically a walk-on 🙂

We had an amazing spot to watch World of Colour thanks to the dining package. The show itself was as fantastic as always, It’s a show I never take pictures of, I just put my phone/camera away and enjoy it to it’s fullest. Of course I did snap a few pics of the Mickey wheel before the show started though 🙂

After WOC was over, we headed out of the park, caught an Uber back to our hotel and called it a night.

When we woke up, the first thing we noticed was how cool it was. The temperature had dropped overnight, and we woke up to it being only +2 degrees Celsius. We weren’t going to let that stop us though, it just meant we needed to bring our jackets with us for the day.

We were up fairly early this morning, since we had asked bell services to stop by our room around 8am. We were saying goodbye to Old Key West, and would be checking in to Saratoga Springs for the remainder of the trip. Bell services was on time, and we handed over all of our luggage, just taking our park bag with us. We headed out to the bus stop, and the internal shuttle pulled up almost immediately so we jumped on that and rode it to Hospitality House. We checked out, then went to sit and wait for the bus to Epcot…and we sat and waited, and then waited some more. The estimated arrival time on the screen kept changing, and after about a 40 minute wait it finally showed up. That’s the longest we’ve ever waited for a bus, but we knew it was due to all the road closures on property to accommodate the full marathon happening that morning.

Luke’s only request for scheduling our park days was that we go to Epcot on the morning of the full marathon. His plan was to sign up for his first ever full in 2018, and he had found watching some of the race in 2016 very inspiring.

We arrived at Epcot, and it was fairly busy despite the cold temperature. Eventually, we were through the security line and entering the park. We stopped to cheer on some of the marathon runners while checking current wait times in the park. We noticed a low wait time for Soarin’, so we decided to go for a trip around the world 🙂

It was great as always 🙂 Once we exited, we realized we were kind of hungry, so we grabbed a table by Sunshine Seasons and split the Mickey Mousse we had purchased the day before from Amorette’s Patisserie.  

Once we finished our treat (who doesn’t love cake for breakfast?!), we were well within our window for our first Fastpass. You definitely do not need a FP for the Seas with Nemo and Friends, but I think it’s a cute ride and worth going on at least once each trip (and this was our second day at Epcot, plus you need to choose something from tier 2).

We then went and watched/cheered on some of the marathoners! I think this is such an awesome thing, it’s really quite amazing to see all the training and hard work these people have put in, and to see them so close to the end of their run. Seriously, if you are ever around Epcot on a marathon day, make sure you take some time to watch the race and clap for the accomplishment these people are about to achieve.

From there, we made our way over to Test Track for our next Fastpass!

We scanned our Magicbands and entered the Fastpass line, and 12 minutes later (according to the time stamps on my phone), we were designing this beauty…

I named her Alberta, after the province we live in – where people seem to love their jacked-up trucks hahahaha.

The ride was great as always (but not as great as Radiator Springs at Disneyland…)

We decided to start walking towards World Showcase, and entered on the Mexico Pavilion side. Since we had never done it before, we went inside the pyramid and saw there was no line up for the Grand Fiesta Tour! Off we went on a journey through Mexico with Donald Duck 🙂

We did not go any farther into World Showcase at this point, and instead starting making our way over to Canada for our lunch ADR. Of course, we had to stop to watch more marathoners! And I had to take a picture of the wonderful signs these ladies had made haha!

After seeing some people run by with absolutely fantastic costumes, we finally entered the Canada Pavilion – gosh it’s pretty!

We checked in, and had lunch at Le Cellier (review here).

Since we were already in the Canada Pavilion, we had to stop and ask for some of the Canada 150 Buttons they had created in celebration of Canada’s 150th Birthday this year. The cast member (who was from Regina, Saskatchewan according to her nametag) even wrote our hometowns on our pins for us (and dotted all the i’s with Mickey Heads!), and then covered the writing with a piece of tape to protect it.

While we were eating, we had decided to drop our Figment Fastpass, and were able to pick one up for Soarin’.

Soarin’ is such a great ride! I can’t believe we had never been on it prior to this trip (although it was closed for refurbishment on our only WDW trip before this one, and it was closed on 1 of our Disneyland trips as well).

Next: Epcot, Part Two