Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Honeymoon


So Ken's amazing aunt and uncle bought us a trip to Disneyworld for our honeymoon as our wedding present! We had visited them last summer and were discussing where we wanted to go on our Honeymoon, but it was more just fun talk, since we knew we wouldn't be able to afford it. We were really planning on just getting a room and having a little stay-cation here in Vegas after the wedding. A couple months before the wedding, they surprised us with the trip! Flight, park hoppers, room and meal plan. We couldn't believe it. It such an awesome gift and I still don't really know how to thank them! 

The night of the wedding, my sister Nolen got us a beautiful room at the Red Rock, as well as a town car to drive us there. While we were walking to the room, we had about five sets of people say, "Oh my God! Did you guys just get married?!" Uhhhhh, no, I just walk around casinos in a wedding dress. Ken carried me over the threshold, which was not easy since hotel room doors are heavy and like to shut on their own, PLUS my dress was huge and heavy, lol. Poor Ken. It took us like 3 tries, and I was forbidden from taking pictures of it, but we eventually made it work. 



The next morning, Nolen came to pick us up to run us to the bank to deposit all the cash we got at the wedding and take us to the airport. We had some lunch and made our way to our gate. 



This rabbit had no eyes. PS: Like my shirt? Our pilot complimented it. :D



We had a quick flight to San Francisco with an hour layover, which makes zero sense to me...why west when your final destination is wayyyy east? Weird.




So the flight from San Francisco to Orlando was the longest of all the flights we had. Five hours. Total hell. I hate flying to begin with, and the seats are so cramped, and the dude next to me shut his window so I couldn't see outside. Boring as hell. 

We got snacks on the long flight. 


Obligatory bathroom shot.

Parks and Red for in flight entertainment. It was about this point I fell asleep though. It's hard for me to relax when I know were going 250 mph in a big steel tube on top of thousands of gallons of jet fuel, so it took a while for me to doze off. 

Once we finally got to Orlando, it was about 1:00 am their time, so we were all kinds of exhausted. Very long day traveling.


Disney shuttle! Lucky for us, they run all night!



Port Orleans Riverside Resort. It was New Orleans themed.


We had to ride a golf cart to our room and once we were there, we were greeted with Disney towels! (Or as Nolen referred to them: Disney cock rings) We also got an adorable message on our phone from Mickey and Minnie congratulating us, which I meant to record but forgot. 



We pretty much passed right out and slept almost through noon the next day. Time changed messed us up. We planned on doing Magic Kingdom on day one, since it's pretty much a clone of Disneyland, so there was less to sightsee. We got up and got ready and headed to the bus stop, which has shuttles that pick you up and take you to each park every 15 minutes. Very convenient. 




The view off our balcony.




Once we got there (YAY!!), I was on the hunt for honeymoon pins. We popped around Main Street for a while trying to find them, and were eventually directed to City Hall. While waiting, this old man tripped up the stairs and totally ate it right in front of us. He was wearing flip flops, so when he tripped, he smashed his big toenail into like 4 pieces. It was bleeding everywhere and was so disgusting. He tried to hold on to his popcorn so he hit the ground pretty hard. I felt bad but he was ok. I was too focused on his nasty toenail hanging off to really react to him falling. I almost puked. Once we got the pins, we headed for rides! We hit Space Mountain first. 




They had games you could play while you waited in line!


I snapped this pretty quick and didn't really look at it til later cause I didn't want the employees yelling at me. I really wish I would have taken a better look at it cause it's hilarious. I would have bought it. 


Next on the agenda, I wanted pictures with Cinderella's Castle.  This proved to be a problem as there seemed to be a bee infestation right in front of the castle (as you can see, there is NOBODY there, haha) and Ken is allergic to bees. I put him in a really bad mood trying to get this one, lmao. 


The back of the castle was ok. No bees.


Next, I HAD to get the wedding Mickey ears. I mean, when else would we have the opportunity to get to wear these?! At this point, Ken was getting really irritated with me, as we had been there for a couple hours already and had only ridden one ride. We were just running around trying to get pictures and souvenirs and stuff. Plus, he didn't want to wear the ears so he was not a happy camper, haha. His mood worsened even more when my hat got stuck in the embroidery machine and they had to start over not once, but twice. It took like 45 minutes to get them. They ended up refunding the embroidery, which was nice. When you have those pins and the wedding hats on, you get treated SO NICELY by all the employees. We got extra fast passes and every employee we passed yelled, "Congratulations!" So nice.


They say "Erkinger May 3, 2013."


Next was Pirates of the Caribbean (which sucked compared to the Disneyland one) and Splash Mountain.







Spitting camel. He got me, and I was freaking out cause I didn't know why a bunch of water had just hit me in the back. Some guy had to explain it to me, lol.

Then we ate lunch, and at this point, I realized I was getting a cold sore! So we had to go back to the hotel so I could get my medicine so it didn't get all big and gross. By the time we got back, we were tired and didn't feel like going back to the park so we stayed at the hotel and took a nap. 


More shots outside of our hotel room.






Once we woke up, we decided to hit Downtown Disney for a couple hours so as not to waste a whole half a day. 



This dragon is made completely out of legos!



The next day was Epcot!


Spaceship Earth.






Mission Space. I seriously thought I was gonna die on this ride. This is the one ride you hear of people dying on and since I'm prone to migraines, I thought a blood vessel in my head was gonna pop or something. It wasn't even that bad though. I was kinda disappointed in it cause I was expecting something way more intense. It was cool though. 




They had the Garden Festival going on.





In front of the World Showcase.

Mexico.




Norway (I think).




China.

Germany.



Italy.



USA.

Japan (I think).

France.

Test Track.




Circle of Life show. Which is when Ken's first nap of the day happened.




Aquarium.






My phone started tripping out a couple times throughout the trip. Don't know if it was because I was taking so many pictures, or the humidity, or what...no idea.

Funnel cakes and beer samplers.


Fireworks show!






And the end of the night.


Day three was Hollywood Studios.


The sun was seriously so bright, it was painful. Also, it was Ken's idea to wear the hats this day! Probably cause he felt bad about making such a stink about it the first day. 


Beauty and the Beast show.




Tower of Terror.



Aerosmith's Rockin Rollercoaster.





It was at this point, after we'd been walking around for a couple hours, that I realized that my park map was rubbing ink all over me (the sunscreen I had on plus the humidity made the ink bleed). So it looked like I had purple and green bruises all over my arm and leg. People probably thought Ken beat me or something, lol.

The biggest beetle I've ever seen. 

Little Mermaid show.




Toy Story ride. A nice couple spotted our wedding ears and gave us their fast passes to be nice! Aww! The ride had like a two hour wait and they weren't going to use them so they gave them to us so we could hop right on! So nice! Ken won, of course.



Pirates of the Caribbean show.




Backlot Tour.









We wandered around for a bit longer and found Star Tours and rode that, then headed back to the hotel. They had horse and carriage rides but we didn't get a chance to ride one. :(


More shots of the hotel.


Dinner that night. I seriously ate that whole pizza closest to me.

Day four was Animal Kingdom.





Dinoland USA




Mango rum lemonade and Mickey pretzels. Yum.

Expedition Everest. We got picked to monitor how long the wait time was.







Kali River Rapids.



More drinks after lunch.

Tigers!

Bald eagle. Oh so magestic.


Tree of Life.


I've never seen a tampon/pad machine like this.

Time for the safari!


















Rafiki's Island and petting zoo.





Lion King show. We were on Simba's side, so we had to "roar."







End of the day. This park closes the earliest, which sucks, cause it's the best one.

More shots of the gorgeous hotel.








Day five we did Downtown Disney, Disneyquest and Pleasure Island.

Lots of skywriting the whole time we were there.





Disneyquest. It's a giant, four story arcade where everything is free to play (we had this included in the park hopper tickets).






Bumper cars.

Lego dragon again.

We had to get fish and chips while we were there.



We decided to see Iron Man 3. I control my butter? Yes please!

HUGE theater.

ORGASM.


Creepy speedo man.

 Cute Mickey rice krispie treat!

Day six was Universal Studios AKA WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER!! We were supposed to go the previous day, but for some reason, my alarm didn't go off and we missed our shuttle. So we tried again for day six!

94% humidity. Blech.



I was geeking the hell out at this point. Seriously could not contain my excitement!







Forbidden Journey. My phone being out was also forbidden but whatever, ha.

Sorting Hat.

Marauder's Map.

Flight of the Hippogriff.

Butterbeer! aka cream soda with froth, lol.






Dragon Challenge.




Pumpkin juice! So yummy!




Frozen butterbeer.




Marvel Island was Ken's geek out area.







Ripsaw Falls. Best water ride I've ever been on. It was like a 2 hour wait, but it was awesome. There was like, four BIG drops, with the last one being super long and took you up and down through waterfalls and spraying water. We got drenched on it and it felt so good cause it was soooo hot. We asked if we could stay on it and ride again but they said no. :(


The only picture we got in Jurassic Park. The main ride was closed and the only other ride there was a kids ride we were too tall for.

Our dinner that night. Ken's aunt got us this meal plan with SO much food on it, and by the end of the trip, we still had like 16 meals left, so we were trying to use them all. We have a full pizza, chicken pesto alfredo pasta, a pulled pork sandwich and a Caesar salad, with like six rice krispie treats and a bunch of drinks. We didn't eat a lot of it, lol.

The next day it was time to go. :( Good timing too cause a freak thunderstorm hit right as we were leaving!





Our flight was delayed like 45 minutes cause of the storm so we almost missed our connecting flight. I was freaking out cause we were on the last flight out of Houston so we would have had to stay overnight in Texas. Not that it would have been a problem really, but I didn't know Houston and I didn't know how to get a hotel room on such short notice or how to get to a hotel or anything. Thank God we barely made it. We were off our first flight and literally right on to our connecting flight.


Bored on the flight.




Finally headed home!

Look what was waiting for us at the airport! Missy and Anthony and a green and yellow sign! Adorable!

And the mess we got home to at 1:00 am.


We really had such an amazing time and we didn't even get to do everything! We missed a big chunk of the Magic Kingdom and we didn't get to do either of the water parks. I would love to go back for another week sometime soon to finish everything up and just get to experience it all again! I'm such a Disney nerd so this was so amazing! It went by way too fast of course, but hopefully we'll get the chance to go back and do it again sometime. :)