Happily Ever After: Kat's Land and Sea Disneymoon: UPDATED: Day 1 Posted!

10 days and we'll be in the World (and MARRIED...eek!)

Today I tackled packing...I like to pack in advance, especially because a) I don't need any of my warm weather clothes here anyway (it SNOWED yesterday...and it's late April, jeez!) and b) Next week with the wedding, I'll have last-minute stuff to do so it's nice to get packing out of the way.

My lovely mom gave Ethan and I matching luggage sets for a wedding present! This is the luggage we got, it's carry-on (we don't like bothering with checked luggage) and an olive color we really like!

And I wanted a new purse for the parks so I got this cute cross-body from Etsy Seller Regan's Sweat Shoppe:

And I filled up old travel bottles with my toiletries; I didn't want them to have the wrong labels on them though so I covered them in Disney stickers!

Ha Kristen, that image is totally how I feel about only being TEN days away!!!

Aaaannnd...we're back, and our honeymoon was absolutely magical!! We had so many incredible moments, and my brand new HUSBAND (just love saying that!!!), for whom it was his first Disney trip, absolutely loved it--he's the one who suggested we go back in three years (I was thinking 5!), and he wasn't even sure he'd like Disney (pssh, everyone i know whose tried it does!). So anyway, it was so wonderful and our trip report will be coming very soon!!!

Well that was a crazy month...sorry for being gone so long, everyone! Everything's been quite the whirlwind and we had a big change of plans--we planned on working on an island this summer but they didn't have any housing for couples and even though we're married we weren't even allowed to visit each other, so we moved into our Ohio apartment that we planned to move into in August a month early. I have some other big news too, but that'll be announced in another post Anyway, I'm going to try to churn out at least the first day of my trip report (I have no idea where the pictures after the first day are; somewhere I'm sure!!) soon!

Alright, let's (finally!) get this TR started!

Saturday, May 4th: Our Wedding Day in Michigan! After arriving to the church at 9 AM (for the girls; the guys didn't have to show up til later), our ceremony at 1 PM, and our lunch reception following, we left at around 4:45 with a ribbon wand send-off! It was absolutely a lovely day, and a perfect wedding: you can see pictures from it by clicking on the link in my signature! We headed to my parent's house, changed out of our dress/suit, teased the darn veil out of my hair (by far the most difficult endeavor!) and drove to Detroit, MI, where we had booked at a Fairfield Inn & Suites that was upgraded to a King Suite, which was lovely and featured a HUGE walk-in shower. We showered, I ate some of the leftovers from the wedding that they had saved for us, and we went to bed momentously early after our very busy day in preparation for a very early next morning!

Sunday, May 5th: Official First Day of Our Honeymoon!

We had a wake-up call at 5:30 for our pick-up from the hotel shuttle to the airport at 6:00 AM: Ethan was surprisingly awake, but that didn't last long! While waiting for our flight, we got upgraded to better seats so I could operate the emergency row: although I did get asked if I was older than 15, sigh. (To which I said--as politely as possible, I hope, "Umm, I'm almost 22! We're on our honeymoon!") I swear, this "looking-like-a-teenager" thing will be a gift in 20 years...I hope...

After our flight (which was extremely smooth--unlike our return flight, but more on that later), we quickly boarded Disney's Magic Express! I'd never taken the one at Disney World before, only Disneyland in California, since I've never stayed on-property before, so this was a new experience for me: and one I would definitely repeat! I loved the videos and Disney cartoons they showed, and it made me so excited for Disney! I definitely teared up during the promotional video: I'm mushy, and it was so sweet! My poor husband, however, was a little less excited--more exhausted (he's not used to waking up so early: neither am I, but I'm definitely more of a morning person than he is!). The first two stops were Old Key West and Saratoga Springs, which both had beautiful landscaping and buildings, but once we reached POR I biasedly thought it was most beautiful--we both loved it, and even my worldly traveler new husband deemed it the third most beautiful resort he'd ever stayed in (after two in Australia--how do you even compete with that?)

We made our way to the beautiful lobby: I was pleased to even see the name of my hometown! Granted, I'm pretty sure they were referring to the famous Mississippi battleground town, not my tiny Michigan one of the same name, but it was still cool to see it! And the hidden Mickeys in the framework were very cool too--everything was so ornate and detailed, but not in an overly fancy way. I mean, I've never stayed in a deluxe before, so maybe I'm just easily impressed by Imagineering, but it's definitely the best hotel I've ever stayed at: no more staying off-property for this girl!

Check-in took a little while, but we didn't really mind because it was because the employees take a lot of individual time with each person. Our hotel didn't have the Happily Ever After buttons, so they made us "We're Celebrating" buttons on which they wrote "Just Married!" (we got the actual HEA buttons at Epcot an hour or so later, but we definitely appreciated the super-kind gesture!). Since we got there at noon our room wasn't ready yet, so we explored the grounds a little (read: found a place to buy a Diet Coke so Ethan could get some caffeine in his system!!) and headed to EPCOT for our Akershus reservation.

Akershus was easily Ethan's favorite restaurant of the vacation, and I loved it too--we definitely plan to go back on our next trip with our Little One! First, there was the food--incredibly delicious. Seriously, if you like seafood, especially cold smoked seafood like I do, make a reservation at Akershus, pronto. Oh and cheese--there were some delicious cheeses on the cold bar too. Seriously, I could have eaten that cold bar ALL VACATION and not gotten sick of it. The restaurant is extremely gluten-allergy-friendly as well--the chef visited our table before we went over to the cold buffet and told me what I could and couldn't eat. I could order pretty much everything on the menu except for the pasta, and were told the Salmon Cakes were naturally gluten-free; they bind them with potato starch! So I ordered those. The only things I couldn't eat on the cold bar were a pasta salad and the bread, and they brought me out some warm gluten-free rolls. I was so excited to have rolls, and they were warm, buttery, and delicious! Secondly, there is the character interaction, and it was absolutely tops here. The princesses all came to our table and spent time interacting with both of us, even though most of the other people there were families, and were incredibly in character. Cinderella (the only one who didn't have time to take a picture with us because she was behind, but that was OK) pointed out the carriage on our Happily Ever After buttons and said they were really the best form of transporation, and everyone commented on the fact that we were Just Married and we were True Loves: it definitely made us feel very special and was an incredible experience.

Us before our Akershus meal while waiting for our server:

Snow White & I!

Ethan & Snow White!

My absolutely amazing first plate from the cold buffet (I definitely went back up and got a second plate too, everything was DIVINE!):

Jasmine & I:

Jasmine & Ethan doing the "Aladdin" pose:

My salmon cakes, I loved the relish on top and cool salad underneath, and they were extremely flavorful and flaky:

Ethan's chicken, which was some of the best chicken we've ever had--it was so buttery and literally melted in your mouth! I didn't even know chicken could do that! He's also making a peace sign for the camera...

Ariel & I--she was so perfect and so in character! We both loved her!

Ariel & Ethan: he was ecstatic that she held his arm like that for the rest of the day

Dessert! We were SO stuffed from our meals at this point, but they brought out a raspberry sorbet for me since I couldn't eat most of the other desserts, and it was quite good! Honestly, dessert was the most mediocre part of the meal, but since everything else was so incredible we didn't mind!

Exploring Norway:

An amazing Panda Family topiary in China!

Also in China, an amazing dragon topiary that breathed mist!

There was a fantastic little butterfly garden filled with fairy topiaries! We both LOVE the Disney Fairies (I've been obsessed with Tinkerbell since Middle School!) so this was a huge highlight of our day.

Me with my favorite fairy, Rosetta the Garden-Talent Fairy:

We were able to see quite a bit of Epcot: we were given fastpasses by a very kind couple for the new Test Track, which we really enjoyed, but we were more focused on making our car look sweet than actually performing well so while it was very environmentally friendly it came in almost last in every other category! Oh well: still a sweet ride and I enjoyed it just as much as the previous incarnation. Soarin! had already sold out all its fastpasses for the day so we didn't ride; I enjoy it but Ethan said he wasn't really into it so we didn't bother. We did Living with the Land, one of my underrated favorites, the ride in the Mexico pavilion, another underrated of my favorites (can you tell I really love boat rides? Pretty much all my favorites are boat rides!), Mission Space--we did the "Green Team" version and Ethan loved it, and we were paired with an adorable little girl and her mom who made the ride even more fun. We planned to stay for Illuminations, but by 7:30 we were so beat and had done everything we wanted to do that we just couldn't imagine staying any longer, so we headed back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the night. It was an excellent choice, and we were able to rest and conserve energy for our next park day--Magic Kingdom!!

Photos of our hotel room I took on the first day are to come--they're on my husband's computer.

Highlight of the day:
-My husband loving Disney as much as I do! He wasn't sure and thought Disney World would be "just another amusement park" (he grew up less than an hour from Cedar Point), but as soon as he got there he really saw the Disney Difference! By the end of the trip, HE was the one already talking about our next trip in 3 years (which has been pushed back to about 5 years thanks to our little prince or princess on the way!). He also really enjoyed the topiaries: I LOVE topiaries and it was one of the reasons I wanted to go in May. He thought they'd just be shaped plants, but was impressed with how Disney really incorporated flowers and the like, too. All in all, I had my husband already sold on Disney--and it was only the first day! Just wait until he saw the Magic Kingdom (his favorite park)...