Lauren and Bob's September Disneymoon Trip Report UPDATED: FINALLY COMPLETED!

Thanks for the good wishes! Feeling MUCH better today and got pretty things at DTD.

Will post photos of all my pretties when we get back. So sad at the thought of going home now. The only thing that will make it bearable is getting to upload all my photos and do my trip report!

Ahem... here goes!

Day 1:

We were mainly traveling on this day so didn't really take any photos. Here's a wee photo of me at Glasgow Central Station (in Scotland, where we live!) waiting for our train.

In summary, we got a train to Manchester England, where we caught up with a friend of mine for coffee, before heading to my Dad's house (just outside of Manchester). Dad took us for dinner that night, then drove us to the airport the next morning. We caught a flight to Chicago - I was sad because we couldn't get seats together for that part of our journey, but it was okay as the journey passed fairly quickly - then transferred onto another plane to Orlando. When we got to Orlando, we caught the Magical Express to Art of Animation resort, where we checked in and picked up our magic bands and Happily Ever After badges.

we had a quick walk round, squeeed over everything, bought resort refillable mugs, split an individual cheese pizza, then went back to our room and crashed out. Day 2 was the first full day.

Day 2:

We woke up early and grabbed breakfast in Landscape of Flavors. I got French Toast with fruit and Bob got French Toast with bacon. We ate the whole thing as we were so hungry from travelling. I think this was the only day we had three whole meals!

After breakfast, we walked back through the Lion King and Little Mermaid sections to our room, and photographed EVERYTHING along the way.


We <3 Scar!

We were staying in a Little Mermaid Standard Room. The area surrounding our room was lovely. We were right in the back, in the Ariel section, which was PERFECT for us as it was nice and quiet, and we had a quiet pool right outside our room! We didn't mind the walk from Animation Hall and actually found it quite pleasant as we enjoy walking.




Our room was just to the left of Ariel!

Here are a few photos of our room:






We loved the octopus.


Towel Mickey!

And Ariel in a clamshell!

We went for a quick swim and lie in the sun before grabbing a quick lunch in the resort. I had the Surf and Surf burger, Bob had the pastrami burger, and we completely forgot to take photos - sorry!

After lunch, it started to rain, but we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring our surroundings and photographing EVERYTHING anyway.

Love this guy.


At this point the rain got really heavy and we had to grab shelter in the Finding Nemo section. We spoke to a nice family from New Jersey about our trip.

When the rain had died down, we continued on our way, and snapped some photos of the rather impressive Animation Hall. The concept art really impressed us.



Dory is one of our favourite characters!

We then decided to head over to Pop Century for a look around the resort.
Here are a few shots of the front of our resort. It looked incredible. When we first arrived, we were both taken aback by the brightness and detail.

We were surprised by how short the walk was to Pop Century, and when we arrived, we squeeed all over again.


I insisted on posing next to my birth year.

Naturally we then had to get Bob posing next to his.

I demanded to walk to the 50s section, because I love the 50s, and Lady and the Tramp is one of my favourite movies.

We were so impressed with Pop Century, we made the decision there and then to stay there soon. I think we will be staying there on our next trip! EXCITE!

After our visit to Pop Century, we walked back to the resort, changed, and met my grandparents. They took us for a buffet dinner off property, then we came back to the apartment they were staying in (opposite Old Town) for a cup of tea. We didn't get any photographs of that evening.

Tired now! Day 3 Magic Kingdom to follow hopefully tomorrow!

hehe we heard them. We are home now though - sad times. Can't wait to go back!

Yay, thanks so much! The best is yet to come, I think.

Day 3:
I woke up early and in tears because the head cold I'd had for a while had got much worse. I remember saying that we were not going to get to the Magic Kingdom as planned and everything was awful! Eventually, we both made the decision to go to MK anyway and come back to the resort if I felt super awful. After lying for a while in our amazingly comfortable beds at AoA, headed down to Landscape of Flavors for breakfast.

Bob got the Bounty Platter. I think he was slightly overwhelmed by his first big American breakfast.

I got chocolate chip pancakes, which come with bacon, but I don't eat meat of the pig variety so I swapped Bob for some eggs and everyone was a winner. These pancakes were glorious btw.

We jumped on a bus to Magic Kingdom. We were at the front of the bus queue and the journey was really quick and took us right to the door. We were very impressed with the bus service in general.

We both freaked out with excitement when we saw the Magic Kingdom sign.

The novelty of the Magic Kingdom did not wear off, ever.


Our first park day got off to an amazing start when we walked in and saw one of my favourite all-time characters, Marie, on Main Street. I decided I wanted to meet her so we got in line.


Queue pictures.

I was nervous as this was my first character meet since I was a child, and I felt a bit silly. My fears were quickly cast aside and this turned out to be the best character interaction of our entire trip.

Marie loved me! I think it was because I was wearing pink and had Hello Kitty sunglasses on, but she seriously freaked over me and made me feel so special!

She was holding my hand and swinging my arm back and forth.

She refused to let me go, and the cast member said, 'You can't keep her, Marie.'

This was one of the most magical experiences of the whole trip for me, and remained a big highlight for me even when we'd been round all the parks.

I managed to snap a couple of shots of Marie with Bob. She LOVED his cat tshirt.

I love this photo!

Afterwards, Marie grabbed me again and refused to let me go until the cast member said she had to.

We both sulked.

After meeting Marie, I was feeling much more positive even though I was ill. It really was the perfect start to our first park day.

Halloween stuff was everywhere!

We hadn't even gone past the castle yet, and I'd already experienced some crazy Disney magic!

Bob was very proud of this photograph.

When we got to the castle, we headed straight for Tomorrowland. Bob loves sci-fi so he got super excited by Tomorrrowland. He said it was best to get all the sci-fi stuff out the way early as I wasn't feeling well and if we did it later, when I'd run out of energy, I'd just be grumpy about it, but I'd be guaranteed to get excited over Fantasyland no matter how ill/tired I was.


Stitch's Great Escape was just starting as we walked past, so we went in.


It was okay, nothing spectacular. The chilli dog bit grossed us both out. We were still on a major high just from being in Magic Kingdom though.



We headed onto Buzz Lightyear. We had heard it got busy but there was barely any wait for it. Bob LOVED this ride. Didn't manage to snap a photo of the scores. I did okayish but Bob still beat me as he's way better at shooting games.

After Buzz, we went straight onto one of my favourite rides, Space Mountain. It was Bob's first ever proper rollercoaster and he wasn't feeling so good after it. He didn't really enjoy the experience as he found it very disorientating. I felt guilty for dragging him on it, so we went on Carousel of Progress to give him a chance to sit down and recover!

Bob was very amused by the 80s style virtual reality bit.

After Carousel of Progress, we decided it was time for an ice cream to cool us off, as it was getting really hot in the park.

We both grabbed a Mickey ice cream bar. They were super good but melted in about a second in the heat!

We went up to Fantasyland and sat outside the Teacups where we ate the ice cream. My chocolate melted and I got some on my dress. I was sad about this. Alice was outside the Teacups but I was lacking in energy so we skipped out on meeting her.

Despite Bob's disinterest, I demanded a spin on the Teacups, as 'it's not Disneyworld without them!' We got a yellow and pink teacup. Here is my manic excited Teacups face.

Bob perked up when he saw the Sword in the Stone and demanded a photo. 'Make it look like you're actually pulling it.' 'I don't have to because I'm a King.' 'Yes dear.'

We had a quick look at Gaston's Tavern and it was time for me to get a photo. I'm a bit of a Gaston fangirl, y'see.

Bob marched us in the direction of The Little Mermaid ride to make sure I got a chance to ride it. I was buzzing with excitement as I love Little Mermaid so much!

Here are lots of super cute Little Mermaid shots!




I think we had a pretty romantic moment at the 'Kiss the Girl' bit on this ride. The shells you ride in are so cute and there is totally a super adorable moment when you can have a little kiss. This was one of my favourite rides of the trip - even better than I remembered and the perfect Honeymoon ride!

I love this bit! It's so pretty!

After the ride, we queued for 20 minutes to meet Ariel.

I have to be honest and say that I was pretty disappointed with my Ariel meeting. Maybe it's that my expectations were too high because I love Ariel so much. I didn't feel that the Ariel we met fitted the role well. She asked us a lot of questions and I found her quite over-bearing. Bob commented that she was 'a bit Valley Girl', and I have to say that I agree. I was so disappointed by my Ariel meeting that I was put off meeting Princesses until close to the end of the holiday.

To cheer me up after my disappointing Ariel encounter, we went on Small World.

We snapped an obligatory photo of the Scottish piper.


I used to make my parents ride this over and over with me when I was little.

The Hula Girls were always my favourite. I don't care what anyone says, this is still one of my favourite attractions at the Magic Kingdom. It fills my heart with joy.

When we got out, we got a photo of the Tangled section. Tangled is our joint favourite Disney movie and 'I See the Light' was my coming up the aisle song. We really identify with Rapunzel and Flynn.

Suddenly it was time for lunch. We headed to Liberty Square. I had heard good things about Columbia Harbour House's veggie sandwiches, so we went there.

We got one hummus and broccoli slaw sandwich, and one tuna, then took half of each. This was the best lunch I ate on our trip! This is now a MUST DO for us and we will be eating here every time we go to MK.


After lunch, we went on Haunted Mansion. It was awesome, but the ride stopped for ages at the end where the skull is repeatedly jumping out of the grave, so that was pretty funny.

My computer is running really slowly so I'm going to pause here and continue with Day 3 in the next comment! Nearly done!

Day 3 Continued:

Next up on the day's agenda was Adventureland, and Pirates of the Carribean. I loved this ride so was anxious to see what it was like now Jack Sparrow had been added.

I think Johnny Depp is still pretty hot even when he's not a real human. Pleased to say I still enjoyed the ride with added Jack Sparrow.

Final stop on the day's agenda was Frontierland!

We hopped straight on Splash Mountain. It was even better than I remembered!

I was pretty wet afterwards.

We lucked out and found Woody and Jessie right after we got off the ride.

They were excited by our badges and wedding rings. (Bob's badge was on his bag at this stage).

Jessie is one of my heroes! I was so excited I got to meet her!

Final attraction of the day was Big Thunder Mountain. This was Bob's favourite Magic Kingdom attraction.
When we came off, we grabbed a Lemonade Slushie each and had a seat on a bench in Frontierland. We realised pretty quickly that we were completely wiped out and so decided to call it a day.

We caught the very end of this as we were leaving.

When we got back to the room, we noticed that the cleaner had arranged my Minnie/Mickey ears in an adorable way. By evening time, I was feeling ill and emotional so we grabbed a quick unimaginative resort dinner and crashed out early.

Lauren's Favourite Moment/Attraction: Meeting Marie.
Bob's Favourite Moment/Attraction: Thunder Mountain or Splash Mountain.
What I Learned That Day: It's impossible not to have fun in the Magic Kingdom even if you are really ill.

Thanks! Nah, we only used flash when we knew it was okay - Bob's just got quite a good camera. Some of the ride photos aren't so great - it's pretty variable.

Ahahaha no, we definitely did not use flash! Actually most of our Pirates pictures came out way too dark to use. We only managed to get the one decent Jack Sparrow. It really annoys me when people ignore the 'no flash photography' thing. People were ignoring it at the Festival of the Lion King and that annoyed me as I thought it would be distracting to the acrobats.