Sadly, I'm back from the most magical place on earth. If you read my previous post, then you'll remember that Nick surprised me with a trip to Disney World for our anniversary. I was originally bummed because we had to postpone the trip, but it ended up being the best thing for us!
First of all, with our original plans, Nick was going to request leave for Friday (because they certainly wouldn't grant him anymore than that.) This would allow us to arrive late Thursday night and have all day Friday and Saturday at the parks, and possibly some of Sunday, depending on his schedule on Monday (which would knew would be intense because he's just in that crazy part of training.)
We decided to postpone until Fourth of July weekend and it was the best decision ever!!!!!! The 4th fell on a Thursday and Nick's leave was approved for Friday. This allowed us three full days at the parks and Sunday we didn't need to rush out of Orlando because that Monday, Nick only had an 8 hour class, which meant he didn't need to study or prep Sunday night for a flight like he normally does. Not to mention, he's passed the super crazy stressful part of Advanced which means he was fully able to relax and thoroughly enjoy our little vacation.
We had an amazing time!!!! I honestly cannot begin to describe how awesome our weekend was. Wednesday morning, my sister packed her car, including my two dogs, and headed back home to Alabama. I took Mom to the airport and said yet another emotional "see ya later". Then it was home to pack and go pick Nick up from base. As usual, the Navy can't allow things to go smoothly so we headed out of town later than we had hoped and arrived at our hotel around 2am (ET).
{{Our hotel was so nice! Nick found it and was really worried what it would look like. Although the pictures and location seemed great online, it was significantly cheaper than the hotels surrounding it, so we wondered what mess we might be getting ourselves into. But the worrying was for nothing. We cannot figure out why it was so much cheaper because it was so nice. It is located in Downtown Disney, right on the edge of all the shops, bars, and restaurants. It's also the closest to Disney World parks (which meant we were the first dropped off from the shuttle after leaving the parks and the last picked up on the way to the parks, which was awesome!) We had a room in the tower with a view of Downtown Disney and Epcot on the 25th floor and it was amazing! So for anyone traveling to Disney World, I suggest checking out Buena Vista Palace Hotel and Spa.}}
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| Our park passes! (Nick got to pick our characters) |
Thursday the 4th we woke up and headed to Epcot. It was so awesome to see the Epcot ball, something I've only ever seen on television! While walking around the gift shop searching for Minnie Ears (of course I had to have them for my first trip here! I don't care that I'm 28 years old, I love Disney!) I overheard someone mention fireworks. I then asked a Disney employee and sure enough, Epcot was also having their own fireworks display! Cue excitement!!!!
Nick and I wandered the park, grabbing fast passes when we could and waiting in other rides' lines. It was an awesome day and you couldn't smack the giddy child-like smile off my face if you tried!
Later in the day, Nick saw that Belle would be posing for pictures with guests in France. Despite how incredibly hot he was (Nick gets hot VERY easily and is miserable when he's hot), he suggested booking it across Epcot to find her. I asked if he was okay with doing it and he didn't even bat at eye and said "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Oh the things he does for me ;) We made it across the park in time to see her and my trip was made!! She is definitely the best princess, in my opinion. After getting my picture with her, she asked "Is this your beast?", pointing to Nick, and we had him join us for a picture as well.
Afterwards, we wandered around World Showcase, which is a really cool area that portrays the culture and cuisine from countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Norway, China, United States, Japan, Morocco, United Kingdom, and Canada. Each place has buildings and landscaping to represent their culture, as well as various restaurants of their unique cuisines and of course gift shops. We had a really good time walking through each country. I even got to see Snow White during this! (She too, asked for Nick to join us in a picture asking "Is this your prince?").
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| Nick in the Japanese Garden |
After taking in the countries, we went to claim a spot for the fireworks show. It was AWESOME!!!!!! It was the best fireworks display I've ever seen. The fireworks were perfectly coordinated to music and they honored our country so well.
This was by far the best Fourth of July I've ever had. I was with my absolute best friend, in the most magical place on earth, watching a phenomenal fireworks display, and celebrating my anniversary. It truly doesn't get any better!
Friday we headed to Magic Kingdom and I was just in awe of Cinderella's Castle. I've seen it all over...the beginning of every Disney movie, in television shows, in movies, and here I was, standing in front of it...walking through it! With meeting Belle and standing in front of the castle, my trip had been complete.
We spent the rest of Friday wandering around Magic Kingdom. We had breakfast in Gaston's Tavern (of course his cinnamon rolls are ginormous!) and I even got to go inside Belle's library!!!
The rides were fun and we managed to hit everything we wanted to.
That night, we again claimed a spot to watch the evening's entertainment. It started with an awesome Electrical Parade. It's just large lighted floats and characters strolling down the streets towards the Castle.
Afterwards was Celebrate the Magic. They projected images on Cinderella's Castle and it was amazing. My iPhone camera didn't capture it all that well but it's definitely something everyone should see!
Following that was a fireworks show. I thought Epcot's were the best I'd seen but this display put that to shame! This was AMAZING! So incredibly patriotic! The Castle again had images upon it with music perfectly set to the fireworks. It was the best thing ever. I was on cloud nine! Between the 4th and this day, I was just overwhelmed, but in a good way!
Friday night we made a plan for Saturday since we wanted to hit two parks in one day. We'd start with Animal Kingdom, hit the rides and attractions we wanted to see and then head over to Hollywood Studios. Having a plan in place was the best decision ever. It made tackling these two parks in one day so easy. We didn't even get to Animal Kingdom until about noon and we were finished at both parks by 7pm! We ended the trip with Rock n Roller Coaster and it was by far our favorite ride. We are roller coaster junkies and unfortunately, these parks are geared towards smaller children so they don't have a lot of the extremely fast, upside down type coasters. But this was one of them and it was so awesome! The entire coaster is a limousine, indoors, and in the dark (for the most part.) You take off at an insane speed (for my STL friends, you shoot out just as fast as Mr. Freeze at Six Flags.) Then the coaster flips you upside down and whatnot all the while you have various Aerosmith songs blasting from the speakers next to your head! As you go throughout the ride, various signs are lit by black light as if you're driving down the streets of LA on the way to a concert. I mean, what's better than a coaster with Aerosmith blaring the entire time? Nothing, that's what!
That evening, we headed back to the hotel, cleaned up, then headed to Downtown Disney. This place was so fun! It's just a large area with various bars, restaurants, shops, and entertainment. Every other bar/restaurant seemed to have a live performer out front. We finally picked a restaurant to have dinner, settled on the second floor patio, and enjoyed a freaking awesome performer. He performed everything from classic rock to current mainstream music. We had a great time talking about how amazing this trip had been, talking about our future, and enjoying the evening.
Afterwards, we walked around the shops and just enjoyed the atmosphere. If you're ever in Disney World, definitely plan to spend a night at Downtown Disney. I wish we had spent more than one night there; but now we definitely know where to go when we come back. And our hotel is the perfect location for that! It's also nice because it's open until 2am so even after the nighttime entertainment ends at the Disney parks, you still have time to head here. I wish we had known that on our first two nights!
After we got back to our hotel room, we changed into comfy clothes, opened a bottle of wine, climbed in bed, and toasted to the wonderful past two years and to an even more exciting third year!
Sunday we decided we didn't need to head back to the parks. We had accomplished everything we wanted to. Instead we headed to the local mall so that Nick could visit Apple (we don't have one in Pensacola) and get his phone fixed. For the past 5ish months, his sleep/wake button on the top of his iPhone 5 doesn't work. Which means no turning it off, no locking it, and no screen shotting. It's been rather annoying for him. But we were in and out within 10 minutes with a new phone.
We decided to grab lunch at the food court before hitting the road. Upon checking out what they had, we saw they had a Cheesecake Factory. It's one of our favorite chain joints so we decided it was a must. It's vacation so we indulged in oh so bad for you food (I got the Macaroni and Cheese Burger....a burger topped with cheddar cheese and a giant patty of fried mac and cheese!)
With our bellies full, we headed home.
The trip home wasn't that bad. We stopped in Enterprise, Alabama to pick up our two exhausted dogs and then continued on our way home, arriving back in Pensacola around 8pm.
This was the best trip ever. This was actually Nick and my first getaway vacation as a married couple (other than our honeymoon) and it was a great one! I love Disney and love being a little kid. When it comes to amusement/theme parks, Nick is just as much a little kid so he had a blast too. We thoroughly enjoyed this time together and it was great to finally get this time with him. The last two month have been so incredibly stressful for him. We really haven't seen or talked to each other outside of the necessary "Let's pay the bills", "What do we need from the store?" "What's your schedule tomorrow?" (that last one is always a stupid question because it's inevitably a 12 hour day followed by a long night of studying). Nick was finally able to relax and smile and laugh this weekend. We were able to be our silly and cuddly selves. I was finally able to hear all about what he's doing in training and discuss what our Navy life will be looking like in the next few months.
I cannot thank Nick enough for preparing and planning this trip. Even though it was our anniversary, this trip was more for me than him. Yes, he had a lot of fun and loved seeing me so happy, but if he had his way, he would have visited Harry Potter at Universal Studios or possibly some other city (Vegas?). But it's just like Nick to be incredibly selfless and put me before him. But don't worry, he had a lot of fun and I made this trip worth it for him as well.
As for gifts...mine to Nick is a secret to you all. Sorry. As stated in my card, Nick told me to pick a cotton t-shirt from the gift shop. Unfortunately, the only shirts I liked were small children's shirt. I might be tiny but I'm not THAT tiny. They'd have been belly shirts with my long torso. So the t-shirt was nixed but we each got a beach towel (which works out because living the beach life and always having so many guests, we realized we don't have nearly enough beach towels.) We also added an ornament to our collection (we buy an ornament for almost any occasion...one for each duty station, each vacation, each experience, etc.). As mentioned earlier, I also got some Minnie ears. And for my last souvenir, a beautiful Belle mug to drink my teas (and rare occasion of coffee) out of. (I'm still on the hunt for a Chip tea cup.)
Thank you, Nick, for a fabulous weekend! It honestly could not have been any more perfect! I will always wonder why God chose you for me, but I am forever grateful! I know life for you has been incredibly busy and you barely have time to sleep and eat, so I truly appreciate you taking the time to plan this all for me and for us. I'm so happy we were finally able to experience Disney World together!!! It was a perfect first weekend getaway! I Love you!!!!
[To view all our photos (because I don't use Facebook too much anymore) you can check them out HERE. I warn you, there are a LOT because I also use this sight as a third back-up system for my photos. But you can skip through the phases of photos you might not find interesting such as all the DinosaurLand pics I took for my brother or all the firework pics if you aren't into that sort of thing.)
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