Two Poorly Girls and a Proposal: April 19th - May 3rd, 2023

What a great start to your trip report! You had such a busy travel day- I got exhausted for you! Looking forward to your next installments :-)
 
I use to dislike coffee to. But after deciding to quite drinking Pepsi I needed a caffeine fixed. Coffee - well black coffee has no calories so now I drink coffee. I stopped Pepsi too lose weight. It worked for awhile until co-vid! .

Looking forward to the rest of your Disney days. TY,
 
April 20th - Day 1: Magic Kingdom!

I woke up at 7:30am after a surprisingly good night’s sleep. I checked to see if there were any more VQ spots left for Tron, but they were all gone, and then woke up Harriet (this will become a running theme). Harriet always takes ages to wake up, and is usually very grumpy at first – I am the opposite; once I’m awake, I’m up and am as coherent as at any other point in the day. This morning was different: Harriet jumped out of bed and was walking around the room as she got ready muttering to herself ‘it’s Disney! It’s Disney!’. It was very sweet.



I showered quickly and we were ready to by 7:50am (a miracle). Early entry started at 8:30am, so we probably weren’t going to make that, but were on track to get there before the park opened for non-resort guests. We got to the bus stop at 8:14am and there was already two MK buses waiting! One was a single and the other was a double, so we were able to hop straight on. It was very, very full.



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(Also, look at my Dapper Dans Loungefly!! I’d been desperate to buy it for about a year but just couldn’t justify it and then Harriet pulled off the surprise of the century and got it for me for Christmas. There were tears from both of us.)



It was all going swimmingly – I was really impressed with the new (may not be new anymore, sorry) airport-like security – until Harriet stepped through the scanner and got pulled aside. The normal security line may have been long, but it was moving steadily. This line was not. With only two people doing thorough bag checks, it took her about 20 minutes to clear this and so we didn’t get into the park until 8:50am!



The plan for the morning: knock out Tomorrowland, get Harriet signed up for DAS and then go grocery shopping.



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Main Street was busy, but not as packed as I’d imagined it would be. We stayed on the right and navigated the crowds easily. We followed the ‘Early Entry’ signage and got to the front of the crowd just as the fireworks for Let the Magic Begin went off. Basically, they scanned our cards and then abandoned ship as entry was opened for everyone.



We made a beeline to Space Mountain (Harriet’s favourite ride on her first trip). The wait said 20 minutes which turned out to be correct! We were very rarely standing still though, so it felt a lot quicker.



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We then went over to Space Ranger Spin. The line was coming out of the door, but it didn’t stop moving and so only took about two minutes! Harriet, I later learned, didn’t really understand this ride although we’d ridden it before. I guess I’d never explained it to her as I was so familiar with it, and the ride doesn’t give you much of an explanation either. This was a bit of a shame for her, but great for me and my score! I obviously came out the champion.



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Next up was Astro Orbiters. As far as I can remember, I never rode this as a child (not that I think I missed out), and so our trip in 2020 was my first time riding this. It’s definitely nothing special, but we were aiming to ride everything at least once! Plus, it was only a 10 minute wait, and so we waited. We decided to go in a rocket together which might not have been the best choice as it was a very tight fit for two adults! But as we waited, so did we fit.



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The views from up there were pretty cool!



After that we walked on to the People Mover. This is my favourite ride. I love the views, the narration, and the tranquillity of it. Plus, it’s usually a less than 10-minute wait which doesn’t hurt!




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We got off this and were both fairly hungry, seeing as it was now 10:30am and we hadn’t eaten anything. The Lunching Pad had a ‘breakfast bowl’ which consisted of tots, pico de gallo, sour cream, meat queso and a cheese omlette, so we shared a portion of this. As strange as all those things sound together, it was actually really good! Or we were just really hungry. Either way, it was hot and filled a hole. This cost $10.49.



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Once we were done we thought about going on Tomorrowland Speedway (which I could and cannot stop calling Autopia, so please forgive me if I slip up and call it that). It said it was a 15 minute wait so we walked over, but after looking at the line we decided it would take longer than that. Harriet had never ridden this before, but I had and knew how lacklustre it was, and so I refused to wait longer than 15 minutes for it. Instead we turned around and headed back toward Main Street.



Next on the list was to get Harriet registered for DAS. The whole morning she’d been saying that she was unsure about it and that she didn’t want to do it, but I persisted. I didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves in for, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt!



We approached a lady under an umbrella outside City Hall, and she asked what we needed help with. I explained what we were there for and she directed us to the line which was behind her. We were in this line for probably less than 10 minutes, but the whole time Harriet was getting more and more anxious and worked up. She was pacing, insisting that she didn’t need it; that the wait was too long; that she was scared of the questions; that she didn’t want to talk to anyone; that she didn’t know what anyone was going to say; that she was going to get turned away anyway, and generally proving to me that it was a good idea to stay in the line. Imagine how she would’ve been in a 60+ minute line!



As I’m sure I’ve said previously, we didn’t really know what DAS was going to look like for us. I’d tried to register her online, but the link on the UK Disney website was broken and when I emailed in to enquire about it, they told me that pre-registration was unavailable for overseas guests – whilst I was watching vlogs of other British tourists saying they’d had no problem pre-registering just a few weeks before. From what I’d read, if you pre-registered you could also prebook 3 DAS passes for each day, and then also get them on the fly once you had swiped into the parks. So, this meant no prebooked passes. But I still didn’t know how the other passes worked, or how many you got, or whether I was able to go in at the same time as Harriet or whether I would have to wait in line, and she would join me later. Luckily, most of my questions were about to be answered.



We were directed over to a cast member with an iPad and I explained that we wanted to get Harriet signed up for DAS. He had her swipe her card on the back of his iPad to bring up our booking whilst he explained how it worked; that it wouldn’t grant an instant Lightning Lane but would give us a return time which reflected the current wait time, enabling us to wait elsewhere and then come back to the ride once that amount of time had passed. Once there, we would scan into the Lightning Lane queue and would get on the ride that way. We could get as many DAS passes as we wanted but could only have one live one at a time. Once we’d scanned into our current one, we would then be able to book another.



Things we learned about the DAS pass which were not explained:

  • Harriet needed to scan in first. Instead of green, the light lit up blue and the cast member would have to ‘approve’ her to go on the ride. Once done, I could then scan in and we could both go through the line.
  • The return times we were given very rarely matched the wait times listed. If a wait time was 20 minutes or less, most of the time we were given a return time within the next five minutes. The closest return times we got were when the wait times were 40/45 minutes, and the return times were around 30 minutes later.
  • The DAS pass is basically a free version of Genie+, but way, way better. I’m so glad and so thankful that I made Harriet wait in that 10-minute line as it saved us HOURS upon hours, and probably a myriad of meltdowns.

After he’d explained how the scheme worked, the cast member double checked that we still wanted to go ahead with signing up for it. We agreed, and he then turned to Harriet and asked what difficulties she had waiting in line. Her face turned bright red and she immediately got the jitters (she’s not good with being put on the spot, and had I waited I was pretty sure she would’ve burst into tears considering how she was already feeling) soooo I butted in. I explained her diagnoses, how anxious she got, how she panics very easily and gets very flighty if she doesn’t know what she’s going into or is unfamiliar or unsure about the situation. I also pointed out that just waiting for this conversation she was pacing and trying to worm her way out of it. He agreed that the service would benefit her.



He quickly added DAS to Harriet’s account, took a picture of her (so cast members could verify Harriet was the one using it when we swiped into rides) and then asked what Harriet wanted to ride first, and she looked at me again. I told her that it was her pass, and so she should pick the ride. She gave me a panicked look and shouted (I’m not joking) ‘PIRATES!’. The cast member looked a little confused for a moment, but tapped away on his iPad and told us we would be able to ride Pirates in 20 minutes, and that was that!



We walked out of City Hall and Harriet was transformed. She was bouncing and chattering about riding Pirates and talking about how easy it had been to sign up. I tried to get her to say that I was right and it was a good idea, but she wasn’t ready to admit that yet.



We weren’t sure whether we wanted to head out of the park or stick around to ride Pirates in 20 minutes, so we walked through the Emporium to see if we could kill the time there, but found ourselves to be very disappointed. As we would later learn, if you’re not into Disney’s current big projects (Star Wars, Pandora, Tron, Marvel etc), there wasn’t much in the way of merch for you.



It took us about two minutes to decide that we didn’t want to stay and so we headed out of the park. The Pop bus stop is one of the very first you come to on your way out of MK, which was a pleasant surprise and, even better, a bus was waiting for us! We hopped on and were back at the hotel by 11:30am after a pretty productive few hours.


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We went back to the room to freshen up and dump our bags to go shopping! We were headed to Vineland Outlets, both for the outlets and because there was a Publix within walking distance where we wanted to get some groceries to try save money on food in the parks.


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A/N: I know I've only done the morning but this got very long and I'm almost at my photo limit, so I guess I'll split the day into two posts! Sorry!!
 
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I just want to say- you two are absolutely adorable! Looking forward to the rest of your report and hope it was awesome!
 
April 20th – Day 1: Magic Kingdom! Part 2


A/N: I'm sorry that this took so, so so soo sos oso soos oso so so os sooooooo long!! I've started a new job which is currently taking up the majority of my mental capacity. This has been written in stops and starts since the day I posted my last update, so my apologies if it doesn't feel as concise! Hopefully my next update won't take so long. Thanks for sticking with me!


We got back to the room at 11:52am. We grabbed our cups and headed back down to the food court to fill up and wander round Everything Pop. Once we’d finished our drinks, we both got a coffee and headed back up to the room. Look at this view!



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We spent a little while figuring out which outlets we wanted to go to and the route we were going to take and priced up our rides. Initially I had planned for us to take the Disney transportation bus to Disney Springs and get an Uber/Lyft from there as it’s a lot closer. However, when we checked the rideshare apps it was only $1 more to go straight from Pop. And so, in the spirit of saving time, we decided to just go from the hotel. Lyft said $17.00 but if you were willing to wait up to 15 minutes then it went down to $12. We chose to wait and had to wait all of 2 minutes! We got picked up at 1:17pm from the lobby and got dropped off at Vineland Outlets at 1:30pm. The ride itself was $10.99 and we tipped $2, so $12.99 total.



First, we headed to the Character Warehouse (obviously). This was amazing! For those who don’t know, it’s where Disney sends stuff that isn’t selling well in the parks and marks it down by up to 80%. However, we later saw the exact same stuff in the parks being sold at full price! I got a $40 shirt for $10, and we both got $35 shorts for $12!. We also meant to get a really cute oven glove, but one of us must have put it down somewhere and neither of us noticed until we were back at the hotel.



We then walked over to Publix, which probably took less than 10 minutes but felt like it took longer as we weren’t entirely sure where we were going and there was no WIFI. Now, the UK is currently going through a cost of living crisis and I thought our prices were crazy, but this was insane. For four (would’ve been three, had we packed them correctly) bags of groceries, the price came to $100! That’s just food. I’ll give you a full breakdown of what we got:



Two packs of bagels, a jar of PB, a jar of jelly, two boxes of cereal bars (buy one get one free), a pack of cookies, a bag of mini m&ms, two sharing bags of crisps/chips, a box of mini croissants, two packs of cheese slices (buy one get one free), a tub of hummus, a pack of chicken slices, a bag of grapes, a bag of carrot sticks, a little tub of onion and chive cream cheese, two boxes of mini naan breads (buy one get one free), a ready made salad and a ready made sandwich. That was it! For $100! Crazy! Harriet and I just did a re-stocking (so bigger than normal) food shop for the month which only cost £137 in the UK!!!!


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We got another Lyft back to Pop ($14.99 with $2 tip) and arrived back at 3:47pm. We unpacked then ate a salad and sandwich we’d got at Publix. It was 4pm and we hadn’t eaten anything apart from the shared tots, and I swear this was the best lunch I’ve ever had in my life! It was actually a really good salad, and I’m going to try recreate it at work this week. I think it was avocado ranch and turkey, and the sandwich was turkey and cheese.



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Once we’d eaten enough we relaxed and both fell asleep for 40 minutes. Luckily, I’d had the foresight to set an alarm for 5:30pm to head back to MK at 6pm. We got ready to go and left at 5:45pm. I’d been sneezing a lot whilst we’d been grocery shopping which is my body’s way of warning me that I’m about to get sick (more on this soon) so we filled one of our mugs with vitamin water (yes, I know it’s not actually good for you but I was hoping for some psychosomatic healing) and one with coffee. We got out to the bus stop and there was already a bus waiting for us!



We headed straight to Pirates to use our first ever DAS. As it was our first time using it and we still weren’t sure what kind of experience it would grant us, we were thrilled to just walk on to the ride! Someone was very excited:


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I managed to get a DAS for BTM whilst we were in line for Pirates, so we headed right there after. Princess and the Frog is Harriet’s favourite Disney princess movie, so it was very cool seeing the signage up around Tiana’s Bayou Adventure! We both loved Splash and are even more excited for the new ride.



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Whilst we were in line for BTM I tried to get another DAS, but the one for Big Thunder wouldn’t clear. I had thought it was the spotty wifi in this area of the park but even once we were off the ride MDE still showed the pass for BTM. Once we were off I went to the cast member who was at the front of the Lightning Lane and she took it off our account no problem. That was great, but as I walked away I was suddenly thinking – could we have gotten away with riding Big Thunder twice in a row? Probably!



I got our next DAS lined up: Jungle Cruise. However, the line was 50 minutes and our return time wasn’t for another half an hour, so we hopped in line for Tiki Room! This is another favourite of mine and I was thrilled to fit it in so early in the holiday. After Tiki Room we went to ride Aladdin’s carpets as there was practically no one in line. However, as we got to our spot in line Harriet noticed her bag was wet. We tried to pull ourselves to the side to assess the situation, but the space in that line is so small that we had to walk back out of the ride and then figure out what was going on.



It turned out that one of us had left one of our resort mugs open and with the almost-constant jostling of bags in WDW, some of the contents of our coffee mug had spilled out. We hurried over to the rest rooms between Adventureland and Frontierland where we emptied out her backpack and tried to paper-towel it dry. Everything was ok, apart from the bottom (the most important part!) of her phone had been sat in coffee. She tested it out and the speaker was crackly, which made us both nervous. Harriet said she was scared that it wouldn’t charge later when we got to the room, but I plugged all of the holes I could with paper towels and we soldiered on.



I asked Harriet if she felt ok to stay (because honestly I was nervous) but she assured me that she was good and we set off.



By the time the coffee fiasco was over, our DAS for Jungle Cruise was ready. Whilst we waited in line I got our next DAS for Haunted Mansion for 8:30pm. We got on our boat whilst it was still light at 8:06 pm, but by the time we were finished on Jungle Cruise it was completely dark!



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By the time we finished cruising it was 8:30pm – perfect timing for our next DAS. However, we realised that if we headed to Haunted Mansion at that moment, we would probably miss HEA and that simply was not an option. Also, during our last trip I hadn’t been that taken with 7DMT, but had read lots about how it’s far better at night time. So, we cancelled our DAS for Haunted Mansion, got one for 9:18pm for 7DMT and headed to the hub to secure a spot.



We ended up in the front part of the hub, slightly to the Adventureland side of the Castle. Not bad for around 20 minutes before the show began! I sat on the floor for a moment to rest my feet, but that didn’t last long as we were so close to the fireworks starting.



The lights dimmed. The crowd hushed… The woman beside us immediately began filming with her flash on and shining it in our eyes.



After a few minutes she got the hint to turn off her flash (after filming those around us several times and having people grumble and wave hands at her to shoo her away), but continued to record. However, she wasn’t paying attention to what her camera was capturing and so Harriet and I found it fairly funny that she filmed the crowd practically the whole time. Thanks karma!



Happily Ever After was wonderful, of course, and definitely had us teary-eyed, but not as full-on-sobbing as our previous trip. I’m sure this is down to the fact that the music became the soundtrack to our lives for a while, so we had immunised ourselves to being so overwhelmed by it.



Once the fireworks were finished, we turned into salmon swimming upstream and tried to cross the hub whilst everyone else headed to the exit. We managed to wiggle through and got to 7DMT. Just as we slipped into the Lightning Lane queue a cast member showed up with a ‘Lightning Lane Starts Here’ sign and seemed to walk half way across Fantasyland putting up ropes.



We walked straight onto the first cart and, unsurprisingly, everyone who said it’s better at night was correct! It felt like an entirely different ride. I remember it as being short, boring and a very simple track. At night the ride was so much more exciting, and having Fantasyland all lit up around you was a beautiful sight too!



I had lined up Peter Pan as our next DAS whilst we walked through the 7DMT line, but we had some time to kill before that. First we hit up the carousel, which always looks delightful at night, and then Small World where I was treated to another wonky thumb!



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We then went back to Peter Pan and then got a DAS for Pooh. It was at that moment that we realised Haunted Mansion was showing as a 13 minute wait, so we went that way!



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By the time we were finished it was 10:36pm and we just couldn’t keep going, so it was time to head back to Pop. We walked out through the Emporium and Harriet found a magicband she liked – the baby pink magicband+. She’d toyed with the idea of getting a normal one, but this one was only $10 more than a non-plus, so she went for it. Also, on the way out Mickey and Minnie were waving at everyone which was very sweet.



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Luckily there was a bus waiting for us at the stop and so we jumped on. The ride was easy and just as we pulled in to Pop the macarena came on. Someone declared that everyone who was standing up had to dance, and most people joined in! It was nice that even after an exhausting day everyone was still willing to get a little silly.



We rinsed and re-filled our mugs at Petals on our way back to the room with powerade and vitamin water, which we shared. Once we were back in the room our main worry was checking that Harriet’s phone charged – which it did! Thank god. I have no idea what we would’ve done if her phone was a goner on day 1. The speakers also sounded fine by this point.



We then had a bed picnic (not sure if this is a term that only my family use or if other people get it, but I’m sure you can all work out what I’m trying to say) whilst strategising for EPCOT tomorrow. The last photo in my camera roll was taken at midnight exactly, so we had about 6.5 hours to sleep!

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April 21st – Day 2: EPCOT! Part 1

Hello all! My apologies for the past several months of radio silence. Both Harriet and I started new jobs, and then it was summer and we wanted to be outside all the time, and then before you know it it’s Christmas, and then it’s been almost a year since the start of our trip. Long story short: life got in the way.

There are a couple of reasons I have come back to this trip report; the first, as of the date I’m writing this (March 13th), it is the four-year anniversary of our first trip to WDW together! It seems like a millennia ago that we were there, going from rope drop to close for ten days on the trot. The second reason is because it’s the end of winter, we’re finally making it out of the dark ages, and with that comes the travel bug! So, Harriet and I have been doing nothing but consuming Disney vlogs and documentaries. And the third, most important reason is that we have booked our next Disney trip!

As the title gives away, we got engaged in our April 2023 trip, and so we have booked our honeymoon for September 2025! Of course, we haven’t booked the wedding yet, but that’s not the important part. What matters is Disney.

We will be staying at POFQ for sixteen (16!!!!!!!!) nights, so that we have 14 park days and two resort/rest/shopping days. This trip feels like a dream. As a kid growing up, I was so certain that I would be going to WDW every other year or so, like I did when I was younger. But as I aged, I realised that probably wasn’t attainable. Now that I can afford to go for more than two weeks, and stay on site at a moderate resort (not that there’s anything wrong with values or staying offsite, we ADORED Pop), I feel really accomplished. Never mind the whole getting married part too!

SO, with that being said I really want to finish this trip report! I made extensive notes and took so many photos, and I don’t want to waste them! Plus, I want to finish it so that I can do one for our next trip too.

I may not be as thorough as before, as it’s now a lot further back in my memories, but I’ll try my best.

Let’s get to it.

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I woke up at 6:50am for our first EPCOT day. EPCOT is my favourite park, but Harriet is dead set on us doing MK on our first day as that’s what we did on our first trip together, so now it’s a tradition. This was my first time using boarding groups and I’d watched lots of videos to prepare myself. At 7am on the dot I managed to snag boarding group 60 for GOTG! Not too bad.

I then woke Harriet up and gave her the good news, grabbed our mugs and headed down to Everything Pop for some coffee. By the time I got back Harriet had just about finished in the shower (she’s v speedy). We packed our bags – mini croissants for breakfast, a few snacks, a hydro full of ice water and sun cream.

We headed down to the Skyliner and were really pleased to see that the line was very short. In the picture, you can see it finishes before the blue yoyo! We’d heard horror stories of lines stretching for almost an hour, but our wait was less than five minutes, and we had a gondola to ourselves! We fell in love with the Skyliner on our trip. The journey from Pop to EPCOT took 23 minutes in total, and we entered the park through the International Gateway at 8:17am.

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The Skyliner hub looked beautiful in the early morning light!

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Wanting to beat the rush, we zoomed across the bridge to Paris to get in line for Remy. There were very few people around, which was lovely, but unfortunately as we approached the queue the CMs told us the ride was down. They said we could still queue if we wanted, but they didn’t know how long it would be until it was back up. We decided to forego Remy for now and hopefully we would be able to get a DAS for it later in the day.

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The World Showcase is so peaceful in those early morning hours. The next 15 minutes or so as we wandered around to Norway were some of my favourite memories of the whole trip. It’s just so pretty! We ate our croissants as we walked and took advantage of the empty pavilions and sunrise to get some photos.

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By the time we got to Frozen the posted wait time was only 25 minutes, which I was impressed with – but I was even more impressed when the actual wait time was only 8 minutes! The ride was pleasant and we perused the shop for a few minutes, and by the time we left the ride was down! I was glad that we had decided to skip Remy, otherwise the morning would’ve been very long.

I booked a DAS for Test Track and we slowly headed over there, taking in the topiaries and shops as we went. We also saw the brand new 100 EPCOT sign, and rode The Three Caballeros. By the time we got to the end of the World Showcase, the crowds had started to form. And, in those crowds, I spotted Quincy from AllEars! She was deep in conversation with someone, so I obviously didn’t interrupt, but it was cool to see her from afar. Harriet and I had hoped to bump into Molly and Alan at some point, but they’d just left for their vacation in California, so no luck there.

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We made it to Test Track and zoomed through the LL queue, where we made our very pink car. We ended up being the highest scorer of our ride vehicle! We scored 202, and the top score so far that day was 226, so we were pleased with that!

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Once we were off, I booked a DAS for Remy which was up in about 50 minutes. We had a rest and realised we were both hungry (turns out one mini croissant doesn’t sustain you much), and Connections Eatery had literally just opened, so we went straight in. In retrospect, I’m so disappointed we did this; knowing what great food options there are in EPCOT and we went for a theme park burger. It filled a hole and was what we needed at the time, but I won’t let us make that mistake next year.

(Too many pics, stand by for the next post...)
 


April 21st – Day 2: EPCOT! Part 2

We each had our own burger; I had the French Bistro ($13.79) and Harriet had the American Classic ($12.79). One of us got fries and (in an attempt to be somewhat healthy) the other got coleslaw, and we shared both. We’re both huge coleslaw fans and that coleslaw was NOT good. Lunch came to a total of $28.31, which we used our dining money for, so no additional cost to us.

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By the time we were finished with our food it was time for our boarding group for GOTG! Neither Harriet or I have ever really watched or interacted with the GOTG universe, so we had no idea what we were in for.

We came off speechless. I was crying.

It was amazing! It didn’t matter that we didn’t know the universe, it was easy to follow; we are going on a tour of the good guys’ planet when bad guy comes along and steals something important. We need to help good guys defeat bad guy. It was so, so enjoyable. I haven’t been wow-ed like that by a ride ever! We were already looking forward to our next EPCOT day when we could ride again.

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When that was done it was time for our Remy DAS, but we were both flagging and probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it. I was also very aware that I was coming down with something by this point, and wanted to rest. Therefore, we got the Skyliner back to Pop.

We grabbed our mugs and went to Petals, but found it was only dispensing water from every tap, so went inside and got our drinks. We went back to our room and had expected mousekeeping, but realised they hadn’t come. This was at the weird time post-COVID where no one was really sure when your rooms were supposed to be cleaned (are they even sure now?!), so we were a bit confused.

We put up our bunting that we’d packed, and then laid down and talked about going swimming, but instead fell asleep. Luckily, I’d had a feeling this might happen and had had the forethought to set an alarm for an hour’s time.

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As soon as we were awake, we got ready and were back on the Skyliner! We headed straight for Remy to use our DAS. It was my first time riding in WDW but could remember not being fond of the one in DLP due to it stopping several times during my ride, and so I think this clouded my judgement. In my notes I’ve written that Harriet loved it and I thought it was just ok, but thinking back now I have only fond memories of the ride. Plus I got another wonky thumb pic.

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After Remy we wandered through France, which wasn’t too busy in the late afternoon, and saw there was a film on so decided to go watch it. There were lots of movie costumes in the waiting room which were cool, but that was about the best part of the whole experience.

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The movie was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast as a singalong, but had been edited so that LeFeu was basically orchestrating the whole thing (?!). It was a huge waste of time. Please do not go and watch this. I wouldn’t even go sit in there again if I needed a break from the sun, as it was hot in there! There were literally no high points.

It was obviously very warm at that part of the day, and my throat was not happy, so Harriet suggested we get ice cream! The line was short, but took forever, but it was worth it! I got the cinnamon, caramelised apple crumble crunch and Harriet had coconut white chocolate. They were both amazing.

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We then went back over the bridge and wandered through the UK. I always find it so entertaining to see what they’re selling in the shops as peak ‘UK culture’ – and at what prices they have it! They’re always extortionate. Whilst we were meandering through, I booked us a DAS for Soarin’ so it would be ready by the time we got there. I believe the line was about 20 minutes, but it gave us an almost immediate return time, so we headed over to The Land pavilion.

Soarin’ was great, of course, but Harriet and I were talking a few days ago and have decided we will always ask to be in B Concourse in future. Every time we rode on this trip, we were right at the edge of the screen and it did detract from the experience. The Eiffel tower always looks so wonky.

I then got a DAS for LWTL which was an immediate return time too. I admittedly didn’t need to get this as when we got to the attraction there was literally no line. I love this ride; it’s in my top three in all of WDW. Someone once said that it’s for taking a 20-minute nap, and that really upset me! It’s so calming and informative and pretty and serene.

After finishing up in The Land we decided to call it a night as I was flagging again. We headed back to Pop and went swimming so to escape the heat and take the weight off our feet for a while. We then got dinner from Everything Pop – chicken parm and a Greek Salad. Again; salad = healthy = not sick. We ate outside which was lovely, then grabbed ourselves a hot chocolate each for an evening in the room relaxing.

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The Hunger Games was on TV, so I put that on whilst we got into bed and recounted the day (and I made my notes), and we were asleep by 9pm! It was a good first day, but I was furious that I was getting sick on the second day of our holiday – especially considering what I’d got planned.

And then. The neighbours arrived. Around 9:45pm I was woken by the slam of next door’s door and the sound of a pair of feet running around, and tiny yelling. I can understand the excitement of a child, and it wasn’t that late so really it shouldn’t have been a problem, but all I wanted to do was rest so I could get over whatever was brewing inside me. The kid kept me up for over two hours, until I gave up and shoved a towel beneath the adjoining door to try limit the disturbance. It helped; I could still hear them, but I could at least sleep.

And that brings us to the end of our first EPCOT day! Thanks for coming back and reading along, and I promise the next instalment won’t be such a long wait.
 
I’m hoping you don’t get sick! That’s the worst on vacation.

Your 16 night honeymoon will be amazing!
 
April 22nd – Day 3: Resort Tour & The Big Day! Part 1

Our third day was planned as a resort hop without us even touching the parks, so we were in no hurry to get up early. I woke up at 9am and felt like I’d been hit by a train. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, my eyes and nose were streaming, my head was foggy and my chest was heavy. Immediately, I wanted to cry: today was supposed to be proposal day! How could I pull it off when I felt so rough?

Harriet got up and showered whilst I tried to figure out whether I wanted to still do it today or postpone it. The issue was I’d booked Ohana for dinner as our celebratory meal that evening, and it was our fanciest meal booked. I could’ve put it off, but we wouldn’t have done anything big (bigger than being on holiday) to celebrate.

I was still undecided when Harriet got out of the shower. She tried to encourage me out of bed, but instead I just began to cry because I was so frustrated and disappointed. I wanted today to be so full of joy, but I felt the complete opposite. She kept trying to get me up by pointing out that today was an easy day; we could relax at all the other resorts we were visiting and then have a nice dinner later on. It would be a relaxing day, in all fairness, and I’m thankful that we’d planned it and it happened to fall on the day I felt the worst – I think the fact that it was such a calm day did allow me to recuperate somewhat, but still. The ring!

In the end, I sat her down and explained why I was so upset that I was ill. She was very understanding and we talked through our options; either I replan quickly, or I go ahead and do it anyway with both of us knowing. Considering her hate of surprises, I didn’t mind that she knew, and I knew it was completely up to me whether I did it that day or not.

Whilst I contemplated, I took a shower (after taking an effervescent tablet and almost throwing up), and we continued to talk about the engagement whilst I got ready. Harriet was being very coy and suggested we do an ‘intimate’ proposal where we both knew it was going to happen, and it could be more of a conversation than a question.

The bunting we’d put up had fallen down overnight, so I asked Harriet to go put it back up and slipped the ring into my backpack whilst she wasn’t looking. I then went to the toilet and, when I came back out, Harriet was putting sun cream on. She immediately confessed that she’d got it out of my bag and, in doing so, had seen the ring. Even when I tried to create a surprise, I couldn’t pull it off!

I started to whine and get stubborn and swear that I wasn’t going to do it today now, but Harriet insisted that today was good, so I left it in my bag.

We finally left the room and headed down to Petals to fill up on Vitamin water, then went to the Skyliner. By the time we got there it was 10:50am.

The Skyliner was very stoppy-starty, but we weren’t in a hurry so this was fine. Plus, we had our own gondola.

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We arrived at the International Gateway and started off in the direction of the Beach Club Marketplace. We’d packed a picnic brunch of turkey and cheese bagels, carrot sticks with hummus and grapes, but wanted ranch for our bagels. We also filled our mugs whilst we were there and were amazed to find that rich people (aka those who stay at deluxe resorts) got coffee syrups by the hot drinks, and root beer and cherry coke on their soft drinks fountain!

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Once we’d pulled our jaws off the floor (and perused the shop), we found an empty swinging bench on the sandy shore of the lake and sat to eat our food and catch some rays.

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Harriet took advantage of the sun loungers.

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After we’d hung out for a while, we then went back into the Beach Club and walked through to the Yacht Club. This was the resort I used to stay at when I was younger, and I still adore it so much. Every time I visit WDW I have to visit the Yacht Club, just to check up on it.

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It was still as beautiful and peaceful as I remember, and after going to their shop, we were astounded to realise that the Yacht Club had even better drinks dispensers! Freestyle machines knock the Pop and BC normal dispensers out of the water.

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After YC we walked around the Boardwalk and through all the shops there. As we passed the marina we spotted a bird trying to commandeer one of the boats! (Stood at the shaded towel)

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Of course, we loved all the incredibly fancy (and expensive) tables, and I adored the Moana paintings. If only I had bags of money laying around!

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We then went into the Boardwalk Inn. I’m sure I’d popped in and out of this resort before, but Harriet and I had a good poke around and we both loved this resort! It’s so quaint and the theming was beautiful. Also, the location is fantastic.

Next up on the tour was Seabreeze Point. As a child I was certain I would get married here but, as I got older, I realised this wasn’t really attainable. However, one thing I could afford was to get engaged here!

So, I did.

We had to wait a few minutes for a few other people to clear out, and for the boats to go by, but then I got down on one knee and she said yes!

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We spent some time there, chatting and taking in the moment and waving at the boats, then decided to continue on with our journey.

(A/N: look at how speedy this next post was! I deserve a medal!)
 
April 22nd – Day 3: Resort Tour & The Big Day! Part 2

After boarding a Friendship Boat headed for HS, we got off at the park and transferred to a bus to PORS. This resort was very nice, but we both found it a bit daunting as it’s fairly spread out. However, the theming was really nice, and we spent a lot of time taking photos out the back of the main building on the bridge and boardwalk. We also filled up our mugs, as we had at every resort.

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Next was a boat to POFQ. We LOVED it here. It felt like a literal town; like we’d walked straight in to New Orleans (also, my favourite video game is Red Dead Redemption 2 which has a city based on NOLA, so I felt like I was in Saint Denis!). I think this love that we found here is a huge part of the reason why we’ve booked to stay there next year.

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The hotel shop was sweet with a lot of niche items, and we wandered around the pool and through some of the buildings before noticing the boat to Disney Springs. There was always one waiting there for us, so we hopped on and enjoyed the voyage!

We had a single aim for this trip: purchase a Skyliner Christmas bauble for our tree, so we made a beeline for Days of Christmas. There wasn’t one which was just the Skyliner, which was a shame. We did notice the personalised baubles and were enticed by those, but decided to think about it for a few days and then make a decision when we came back in a few days.

Goofy’s Candy Co was calling out to us by this time, so we went in. We both had great memories of this shop from our last trip, but the staff this time around seemed very blunt and wanted to get us out quickly. We got a Mickey cupcake, using our Dining credits, and sat on the wall outside to eat. Once we were done, we realised we were still fairly hungry and so ate the cheese puffs we’d packed earlier that morning.

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We walked through TrenD, washed our hands in Basin and then made our way to World of Disney to pick up our gift card. $500 was sent to us via email, but the remaining $200 was loaded onto a gift card. I don’t know why they did it this way, and it was a struggle to find and collect, but we got it in the end.

Next up was Uni Qlo, which I found to be a disappointment. Harriet and I had watched so many vlogs of people going in here and picking up cute and cheap Disney t-shirts, but it seemed that there was nothing for us – or if there was, it was just as expensive as normal Disney merch. So, we crossed the street to Ron Jon.

I can remember that by this time I was feeling really rough and my feet hurt, so I found a stool to sit on and idle whilst Harriet shopped for half an hour. She didn’t end up getting anything.

By this point I was finished, so we went out to the bus stop. The stop for Pop is the furthest one away, which just made me even more miserable! And then, on top of that, we had to wait over half an hour for a bus! I was ready to give up.

When we arrived back at Pop I went to the front desk to pick up our celebration badges whilst Harriet went ahead and went up to the room. We then relaxed for an hour before getting ready for dinner.

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Our reservation was for 9pm, and we left the room at 8pm. Looking back now, we probably should’ve given ourselves at least an extra 30 minutes. You’ll see why.

Pop looked very pretty on our way out!

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There was a bus to Magic Kingdom waiting for us, which was lovely, and as soon as we got on it left. We arrived at the boat to the Polynesian at 8:25pm, so I had high hopes, but we didn’t leave until 8:40pm despite us being the last people to get on. We just sat there, full boat, for 15 minutes! I was really hoping we would be seated by the start of HEA, and was starting to get anxious.

The boat arrived at the Poly at 8:55pm, so we zoomed through the hotel trying to find Ohana – which was not as easy as I’d anticipated in the dark! Once we’d found Ohana, we then struggled to find the check in podium. Then, once we were checked in, I realised my phone didn’t have any signal to receive the ‘table ready’ text, so I went back and the waitress checked, then said our table was ready!

We were taken through the restaurant to our table which was one table back from the windows, so we had a great view of the fireworks!

We hadn’t realised that soda was included. We’d assumed we would be drinking water, so it was a nice surprise to find that we could order whatever soft drinks we wanted and it was included.

The fireworks started, but business as usual continued inside Ohana. The bread and salad came out almost immediately. The bread was so soft and pillowy, and the honey butter was a great addition.

The noodles/broccoli/wings/pot stickers arrived very soon, and the chicken almost immediately after that. The steak arrived within the next five minutes too! Everything was on our table and we were still eating the salad and bread! Neither of us eat shrimp, so we asked them to hold off on these.

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Everything was delicious, although it unfortunately went cold very quickly. Harriet’s favourite part was the pot stickers. I enjoyed those, and the chicken. Some of the steak was really tender, and then others were really chewy and tough, which was a shame. It was still very tasty though.

The ukulele guy (apologies, I don’t know his name) was wondering around and had started going to each table asking if they were celebrating. More often than not, they were. He applauded everyone, but this slowly died out and became fairly awkward. By the time he got to us he’d already been round half of the dining room so I wasn’t expecting much when I told him we’d got engaged earlier that day, but we surprisingly got a pretty big cheer!

Unsurprisingly, we didn’t finish our food. Our server gave us two boxes and I managed to pack everything in – steak in one, chicken and noodles in the other. The dessert came out and it was huge!

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I shaved off one tiny spoonful, and Harriet had two, but we were stuffed. Luckily, I’d had the forethought to bring my own boxes and I quickly slipped it into our backpack. Harriet was terrified of me doing this and was concerned we would get told off for doing so, but no one noticed. So much so that our server was impressed with how quickly we’d eaten it and offered to bring out another piece! We refused, obviously, whilst Harriet finished up the ice cream.

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The total for our bill was $125. There was no acknowledgement of our celebration – apart from ukulele man – which I was a little disappointed with, especially seeing as they’d made a point of noting it on our table ticket. Maybe that's just me being entitled because it was a huge day in my life.

We struggled to find the monorail and went up and down the stairs several times before finding the station. We had the whole carriage to ourselves on the way back to MK which was nice! Once we were there, we walked across the front of the park to the bus stops and found one already waiting to take us back to Pop.

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We were back in our room by 11pm, and were both ready for bed and all washed up by 11:13pm. Goodnight!
 

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