Orlando 2012

I figured it was about time I got my Disney trip pics and stuff on here! I've just been so busy within hours of getting back to Baton Rouge from our trip. I won't be able to put all of the pictures in the blog, so check Facebook for those. Anyway, here we go! (Click the pictures to make them larger)

Before I go into day-by-day stuff, here's some of the stuff I bought:
Super cute keychain! It's an "E" with Mickey on it, and it's brushed nickel looking.
A Minnie Mouse skirt apron! I've been wanting an apron, and it was just too cute. I would have bought an entire Mickey and Minnie kitchen set if I could and it wasn't such a cheesy thing to do.
A vintage-style Minnie Mouse ears cap!
I bought Clay an R2D2 Mickey Mouse ears cap, haha.
A little "Vinylmation"- it's little figures shaped like Mickey, but they are all painted different things. They had an "occupations" series, so I bought a teacher one that had an apple painted head, and a books painted body. I got Clay one that is computer themed, since that's what he is studying.
We got Mickey & Minnie Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker.
And a cute scarf! It's white with green polka dots, and some of the dots are really Mickeys.
I can't think if I bought anything else...

DAY ONE
On Friday night, Clay and I arrived in Orlando where his aunt picked us up. It was after 11 PM, so we didn't do anything too exciting. We stayed our first three night at a hotel off of Disney grounds. That's about it...

DAY TWO
On this morning, we had awesome breakfast! It was at this Greek restaurant (at the Boardwalk, if I remember correctly). Clay's aunt let me taste her waffle, and it was the best waffle I've ever had.  Saturday was our first day in a park! We went to Epcot! We rode pretty much all of the rides and shows and whatnot. My fave ride there is Mission Space... intense version of course! We spent a good bit of times in the countries. That's probably what makes me like Epcot so much. All the culture they imitate there is awesome. Clay and I got matching-ish shirts haha. I wasn't aware, since I haven't seen it in about ever, that Snow White was based in Germany. In the Germany gift shop, they had shirts that (in English) said "I Know a Little German" with one of the seven dwarfs on it. Mine has Dopey, and his has Grumpy. PERFECT. It also said the same thing on the back, but in German.

Greek breakfast

Our shirts!

That night, we ate at the Ale House and just relaxed a bit.



DAY THREE
Sunday morning, we went to Property Control. That's where only cast members can go and buy Disney items at a discounted price either because it is slightly defective or isn't selling well. We got a few things there- nothing defective! My favorite is the SUPER soft blanket Clay bought. It might go missing from his house.
We spent the day in Universal Studios and Island of Adventure! Guess what Island of Adventure has!? HARRY POTTER WORLD. It was our third time going on it. Still just as amazing. I love that ride. GO RIDE IT.
Anyway, if I've ever had a Cinnabon cinnamon roll, I can't remember. So I just HAD to get Cinnabon from the City Walk thing at Universal... it was my first one as far as I know. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't fresh. Sort of a let down :(
I love universal because most of the rides are thrill rides. The only problem was that Superman was down for refurbishment, and Rip Ride Rock-It was down just cause it a lot-- and that's one of my favorite rides. Of course, it opened AS we were leaving, and even with our FastPass, we would have had to wait a pretty long time to ride it.
We ate lunch at Finnegan's-- and Irish pub/restaurant-- and that was pretty good. I got my Cinnabon, Clay got his fish&chips.
That night, we went to the bar at the Ale House again. I was stuffed from lunch still, but Clay and his aunt got really good wings and beer!

DAY FOUR
Monday, we switched from the off-grounds hotel to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Clay and I treated ourselves with this stay :) It was so amazing to have the animals right outside the window. Even the inside of the hotel was so well decorated and very, very nice. If I could afford to, I'd stay there every single time. LOVED IT.

At the Animal Kingdom Lodge

The room

We spent the day in Hollywood Studios. I still have a hard time not calling it MGM. We had lunch at the Sci-Fi Drive in Theater. It was so cool! We say in little cars in a dark-ish room and watched old black and white clips on a big movie screen as we ate. The food was pretty good, too!

     

 


Even though Mardi Gras is usually not very busy at all at Disney, it was President's Day weekend so a LOT of families were there for the three-day weekend. We didn't get to ride Rock-N-Roller Coaster of Tower of Terror. I love the coaster and finally prepared myself to ride Tower of Terror for the first time. I was actually bummed for once that we couldn't ride it.

That night we ate at Victoria and Albert's- the night we were looking forward to the whole trip. If you haven't heard of Victoria and Albert's, it's a very very fancy (therefore, expensive) restaurant in the Grand Floridian Resort. When you eat there, you can eat at the Chef's table (table where you interact with the chef the entire time), Queen Victoria's Room (which only has 4 tables), or the regular dining room. The first two include 10-course meals. The latter is a six-course meal.
We ate in Queen Victoria's Room. There was only one other table reserved and they wound up cancelling, so Clay and I had a romantic dinner to ourselves in the cozy room by the fireplace. We had two servers, a husband and wife. They were so fantastic. It was being treated like royalty.

The lamb! Our favorite course.

We also got a personalized copy of our menu. In the actual leather-bound menu they presented us with at the beginning of dinner, they had a sheet with our names and it said "Happy Anniversary!" Clay told them it was our anniversary even though it is really May 18 haha. Although, we did make 21 months a few nights before...

        

The menus

They also gave me a single rose that had it's own mini watering vase, and a little breakfast cake for the next morning.
The meal was a little over $200 for each of us, not including Clay's alcoholic beverages. It was BY FAR the best food either of us had EVER eaten. Even though each course was generally just a few bites each, those bites added up quick. I can't believe I nearly completed every single one of them. Unfortunately, the awesomeness of all the different flavors and foods I had never had before didn't settle too well with my stomach. I got sick, but it was still totally worth it. I would highly recommend doing it at least once. It was such an awesome experience. If we go back, we will definitely stick with the six-course meal!

After dinner, we watched the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the Grand Floridian Marina. It had a perfect view of the backside of the castle. We got to enjoy the fireworks with very few people around. It was nice!

After fireworks, we went back to MGM because they had Extra Magic Hours until 1 AM. We had a FastPass to ride Toy Story since we didn't get to earlier, so I got to ride it for the first time and I loved it! Even with the Extra Magic Hours, we didn't ride Tower of Terror... I wasn't feeling so hot. Toy Story alone mixed me up. I will definitely ride it next time though! We did the walking museum-like tour of Walt Disney's life. It was really interesting. Now I want to read a biography on him!

At 1 AM, we went to the hotel and crashed.

DAY FIVE
Tuesday, we got up and went to Magic Kingdom. I love this park because it has more rides, and my favorite- SPACE MOUNTAIN! I can't get enough of that ride. Except we could only ride it once. We each wore a Mardi Gras shirt and saw a lot of other folks doing the same! We walked around and rode a good bit of rides.

The Buzz Lightyear Ride

Fantasyland being built in Magic Kingdom

We left a little early to go shower for dinner. We went Downtown and did a little shopping/walking around, the went to dinner at Portobello. It was awful. The food sucked, and the waitress was even worse. It got a 10 star rating, so hopefully it was just a bad night. Not to mention, I was pretty much falling asleep at the table haha, so that didn't help. Needless to say, we went to the hotel and crashed for the last night.

Before dinner!

DAY SIX
Our last day :( We got up packed, then checked out. We then went to Shades of Green, a really nice Military/Golf resort right next to Magic Kingdom. They had a military store where you could buy stuff tax free. It is the only store you can get Mickey affiliated with any military branch! I bought Clay a nice polo that had Mickey and it said USAF Orlando on it. He also bought one for his pops.

After that, we went back to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to eat at Sanaa. I urge EVERYONE to go eat there the next time you go to Disney World! It is an African restaurant with awesome, flavorful food. Clay has eaten there a few times, and I had eaten there once before. It's both of our favorite restaurant at Disney World. Just go try it! You also get a view of the Savanna while you eat. We got a window table, and a beautiful bird was by our window the whole time. He was a cool dude. Three or four zebras got pretty close, too. Our waitress was cool-- she was nice and had an accent. The waiter for the table next to us was from Baton Rouge!

Our view at lunch

After our lunch, we went to spend our last day at Animal Kingdom. There aren't too many rides there, so we got to ride them all. We actually rode Mount Everest twice. I really wanted to see The Lion King performance, and we did :) So cool. It was a nice park to spend our last day in. The crowds had died down a bit, and it is a more relaxed park to go to.
Then, we went to the hotel and caught a bus to the airport. Sad stuff. Our plane got delayed like an hour... so we didn't get to NOLA till late, then had to go to Slidell and get the pup and my car, then go to Baton Rouge. Got into BR around 1 and went to bed around 2.

You can see all of the pictures on Facebook!

Back to liiife, back to realityyyy.... BOOO.

Love you all :)
Xoxo,
E