Look, this is going to be long. My blog primarily serves as a personal diary, but if you don't mind my personal brand of weird, read on!
Sunday, Dec 15:
I woke up at 5a, partially due to a hangover, partially because of the excitement of being newly married and our honeymoon. I accidentally woke Elizabeth up as well, so we decided to open up our cards. Our friends and family were very generous, as well as hilarious. One check was written out to us as payment for laundry services and tennis lessons.
We had a mediocre breakfast at an otherwise wonderful hotel, said goodbye to Eliz' family, and Brittany Beatrice, and headed off to the airport.
Southwest is lucky I didn't murder one of their employees. After canceling our flight on our wedding night, we were downgraded in their boarding hopper system, which almost kept us from sitting together. The woman at the gate in Chicago was a b.
Long story short, we arrived in Orlando to warm air and night skies, and headed to our resort: Floridays, I highly recommend it. The front lobby smelled wonderful. Everything was high quality, clean, and there was a lot of open space and warm lighting. Our room was more of the same. I say room, it was really an apartment. Amazing. A relaxing burger and beer at the hotel poolside bar rounded out our evening. We slept like bears.
Monday Dec 16:
Disney day! We planned to spend 14 hours in the park, and we did just that. I had never been before, so Eliz was the tour guide for the day. We rushed to Space Mountain and got right in with no lines. That is a herky jerky way to start your day. After that we enjoyed the rest of the Tomorrowland offerings. The Carousel of Progress was a creepy yet delightful way to spend 10 mins. After that we huddled close for warmth on the people mover, and finished up with a intergalactic battle with Emperor Zurg. Eliz scored roughly 16k pts, I think I got somewheres around 10 times that :)
From there we went to beat the crowds at Tony's restaurant, like from the Lady and the Tramp. A barbershop quartet sang to us and we had our only quality meal of the day :( For future brownie points, I'd like to point out my willingness to wear matching tshirts and a "happily ever after button".
Our first real wait was for Peter Pan. To a modern audience, it was pretty simple. But I found the charm and whimsy of this ride un paralleled. Floating above nighttime London with my new wife was one of my favorite experiences of the day.
Then we went to the line for the Haunted Mansion. Amazing. Without knowing it was her favorite as well, I instantly declared it to be the best part of the park. Just the right blend of creepy, wit, and technological razzmatazz. We rode it twice :)
The hall of presidents, pirates of the Caribbean, it's a small world, a fruitless search for a good meal, gross hot dogs, passable ice cream. Thunder mountain.
That brings us to our final leg of the evening. It was getting dark, and we found a number of charming / lesser known rides. We flew on Dumbo, rode the teacups, and rode Goofy's roller coaster. This brought us up to the fireworks over the two castles. I will let it be known that I choked up a few times that day. Namely any time I saw a Princess, and also during the fireworks. That Jiminy (sp) Crickett sure can speak.
Exhausted and sore, we treaded on for a few more hours and had a wonderful time on a new Little Mermaid ride. Our last exhibit was a tour through Belle's castle where we all participated in a re telling of the day Belle met the Beast. Given that Belle is a Princess, you can assume how I reacted.
It was a bittersweet walk out of the park. We truly made that day our bitch, but I was sad that it was over. I can now say that I believe in the magic of Disney. Nuff said.
Tuesday Dec 17:
So, Disney day pretty much took it out of us. No really, we were beat. We ran a few errands, brought food back to the "apartment", and relaxed.
After another hotel bar burger, we headed out to Downtown Disney for a bit of light shopping. Said shopping was accompanied by some heavy handed margaritas at this random stand. Good feelings.
We found a life size lego Hulk, and a number of other huge lego sculptures on the boardwalk. Despite 'ol Walt's best efforts, we still went home with most of our money. A few nifty gifts were purchased though.
The MO for the evening was RELAX. Cocktails, pizza, jacuzzi. Perfect. I think I fell asleep watching The Mindy Project. I wouldn't know, you'd have to ask Elizabeth.
Wednesday, Dec 18:
No major plans during the day, so we headed to the Universal Citywalk, were I got my first taste of Potterphanalia. I wanted everything. They had wands, cloaks, hoodies, scarfs, keychains, Marauder's Maps, etc. If I had $1000, I would've dropped it all there. Alas, I was wise. That is until we ate at Bubba Gump's. That place adds up haha.
We had a great time and some great drinks at the restaurant, and made our way back to the resort with some horribly garish glassware (which we immediately used again). I had declared I wanted a fruity drink by golly, so we carpe'd some diem and got the hotel special frozen mango/raspberry smoothy: a double of course. We both very truthfully got into the pool, we enjoyed the hot tub, and I did some drunken cardio in the lap pool.
An hour or so later, we suited up and headed out for my special dinner at Medieval Times! Red Knight's goin down! Only when he did I was supposed to be sad, because he was on our team.. The castle was cool, and I was a giddy school girl. That is, until we toured the torture chamber museum. That was a buzzkill.
Our knight was yellow, and while he got our section excited, I could tell he didn't have the killer instinct. That, and he passed my wife over about 3 times when giving out carnations. But Eliz bought me a flag, we ate with our hands, and I had them make a special announcement for us for our honeymoon. It was almost a surprise but she pees too quickly and caught me.
Upon arrival at the resort, we rested. For the next day was...
Thursday, Dec 19:
...HARRY POTTER DAY!!!!
Wake up, make coffee for the wife, shake her out of bed, drive to park, run past Asians, make beeline for HOGSMEADE! I was in HOGSMEADE!! You guys, I went to Hogwarts! I'm not sure if you know how big of a deal that is, so let me make this clear: I cried when I saw the castle. Life=Complete.
We beat the lines and whizzed through the castle to get on to the ride. Minor spoiler alert: it was amazingly magical, and I'm told there was a section with large spiders. I wouldn't know, because my eyes were closed once I saw webs.
It went so quickly that we immediately toured the castle again so I could take it all in. The "holograms" or projectors they used are awesome. So much attention to detail. I was truly in awe.
We then stepped outside into Hogsmeade, grabbed some butterbeers (frozen of course), and did some window shopping. I'll try not to spoil, but it was so much fun! We decided to beat the crowd and at lunch early at the Three Broomsticks. Pretty good food, better in quality and in price than Disney, and that was park wide. Pro Tip- inside the three broomsticks look up to the second story to see shadows of house elves doing their work :)
We skipped Jurassic Park and Toon Lagoon because it wasn't hot enough for water rides. Marvel was an adequate replacement. Upon arrival we were greeted by a heroes motorcycle parade, and I got a pic with Captain America! Eliz got hers with Rogue and Storm. The Spider-Man ride was the best use of elements and effects I've ever seen on a simulator ride. Hulk was a flippy adrenaline rush. Doom drop left my stomach somewhere on the deck while I was a few hundred feet in the air. Since we fast pass'd all of the lines, three rides and Storm's teacups in an hour had me feeling drunk haha.
Lunch was pretty good, and again, affordable. Since we were still woozy, we headed to Seussville for some kiddie rides. How bad could a Dr. Seuss ride be, right? Remember the boat ride from Willy Wonka? Try that but add spinning. Creepy-ass Seuss..
After doing all the Seuss stuff, we decided we had done what we set out to do, but in record time. Thanks for the fast passes mom! So we did what any reasonable person would do and went back to Hogsmeade. This time we stood in line and did the wand selection show at Ollivanders. So cute! The woman working the line struck up a conversation with us, and once we left the show she made a point to find us and give us a commemorative badge for the Harry Potter world at the park. People loved our "I solemnly swear I am up to no good" shirts, and once they learned we were honeymooning, they swooned :)
Since the morning ride on the Forbidden Journey went so quickly, we hopped in line and enjoyed our wait in various parts of the castle. After the second ride we once more rode the Hippogriff. The girl who worked that line also loved us, and when we finished, she gave us a magic set of words to tell folks at the castle which allowed us to skip the line and ride the Forbidden Journey a third time! I love these people!
Closing time drew near, we were tired, so we made a couple more quick runs on Spider-Man. A few quick kisses at various points along our journey back to Hogsmeade made the walk more bearable. I picked up a gift at a store which shall remain a secret, and we embraced one last time beneath the moon, Hogwarts castle, and the snow capped roofs of Hogsmeade. We said our goodbyes to the town that has served as such a deep point of mutual interest, knowing that essentially our honeymoon had come to an end. But if there is a better way to end, I've not heard of it.
