A Magical Anniversary in the WILDERNESS *Pixie Dust Everywhere* Completed 11/19 New TR Link

Loved hearing about California Grill we are so excited to go there in November & see the fireworks!
 
Too funny that you were trying to get your husband to take a particular photo and he was completely oblivious to what you were asking. Sounds like most husbands...

That sunset looked beautiful from California Grill, and wow that was a massive steak! I see why you guys split it!

Wait, that button is discontinued now?!?! Bummer! Glad you were able to get one then!
 
Such nice pics!! Your dinner at CG sounds lovely. So nice of the CM to give you the button and champagne!

It was a perfect anniversary dinner! I had struggled deciding on what restaurant to pick for our actual anniversary but I was so happy I went with California Grill! The ambiance and view alone are just amazing!

Loved hearing about California Grill we are so excited to go there in November & see the fireworks!

Its so amazing! The nice thing is that if the fireworks are during your meal you are more than welcome to go out and watch them and come back to your table after. We were just tight on time since HEA was at 9:15 and DAH started at 10 and I didn't want to lose out on any party time!

Too funny that you were trying to get your husband to take a particular photo and he was completely oblivious to what you were asking. Sounds like most husbands...

Hahaha instagram husband he is not. I mean I should give him credit because he can take some nice photos at times but sometimes he just misses the mark! I think the best was when we were on Waikiki beach and I asked him for a photo and he failed to point out to me that I was standing next to a pile of wet towels :rotfl:



That sunset looked beautiful from California Grill, and wow that was a massive steak! I see why you guys split it!

I think it might have been like 20oz or something, I usually can barely eat 6oz of steak so we figured it would be more than enough! And I don't even think we finished it!

Wait, that button is discontinued now?!?! Bummer! Glad you were able to get one then!

I know isn't that sad! I believe they only give out the first visit, I'm celebrating, birthday and happily ever after pins now. So if you are celebrating anything engagement, wedding or honeymoon related you fall into the HEA pin. I knew ahead of time which was why I ordered the special pins but never even took an official picture holding it up haha but I did wear it!
 


Subbing! I've only read about your first night so far and holy cow! What a rollercoaster way to start your trip! A bunch of annoying things followed by money to make up for it all!? HECK YES! Awesome so far - I can't wait to read more! (and your wedding pics are beautiful BTW!)
 
Got a bit behind.

The bartender decided to spend five minutes “informing” me (basically berating me) about how the prices are already cheap and I shouldn’t be asking if there are any discounts. I am going to shrug it off to maybe she was just having a bad night but I didn’t appreciate the lecture. Especially since I was just like “okay, no problem” when she first sent the barback to tell us (she couldn’t be bothered to come tell us herself until she wanted to scold me about it).
Yeah, that is pretty rude! Like, you were just asking, doesn't need to be a jerk about it!

y Mom has ingrained in me to always take escalator selfies!

Very cute!

The balcony definitely filled up fast with people who had come up from earlier reservations but we ended up with a pretty great spot.
So, note to self - get there early! I have a reservation for sunset (just want dessert), then will go back for the fireworks!
 
Day 3 Part 3

When I left off we were watching HEA from the Contemporary.

Now when I first planned this trip, I had told myself we would not go into a park on our anniversary. Being that our anniversary falls on July 21st and being in a park all hot, sweaty and sticky just did not sound fun. Plus, like I mentioned this trip was supposed to be relaxing! :rotfl:Anyway, when they announced the DAH and the only day available during our trip was our anniversary I decided we had to do it. Plus it would be night time and a fun way to end our evening!

And now, back to our anniversary!

Once the fireworks were over it was time for the After Hours party! We were pretty excited!!



I did have some thoughts of changing into a pair of shorts and a tshirt but the dress was actually pretty comfortable so I just went with it! Plus, there were pictures I wanted to get this night so I decided it was just easier to stay fancy! :cheer2:

We chose to walk over from the Contemporary because with the fireworks just ending we knew the monorails would be jammed and I didn’t want to lose out on party time if one broke down! So we made the short walk to MK literally swimming upstream past everyone who was leaving the park. Someone even loudly commented as we walked by “don’t they know they are only going to have 8 minutes in the park” :rotfl2: It was cool to see so few people entering the park at this time. You definitely felt extra special! I mean there were seas of people exiting Magic Kingdom!



We checked in for the party and received our lanyards. Thanks to the Disboards I was aware that there was a separate entrance for the party versus the normal turnstiles. Not that it would have matter much for me with an AP but it would have caused problems for Dan with his 6 day ticket!





Main street was still pretty busy as we walked in but it wasn’t as bad as I expected it might be. We decided to head to the Peoplemover first to let some of the regular day park crowds empty from the rides. In hindsight the Peoplemover is a pretty long ride and is a walk on most of the time so we probably shouldn't have wasted precious party time on it but its Dan's favorite so I think he was happy to ride it first!





We got stuck for a few minutes on the Peoplemover but it was right by the castle so we got to see some of Once Upon a Time. After the Peoplemover we went to Buzz Lightyear and walked right on. We were hoping for galactic hero but no such luck! We looked up the targets to hit as we were walking on and somehow completely missed the claw in the first room lol galactic heros we are not. Although Dan did get it the last time we came so I'm not sure what our issue was this time!




Next up we went for Space Mountain. It was about a ten-minute wait and you could choose which side you wanted to ride on. We went for left since we always get sent right for fastpass and we almost never do Space Mountain standby anymore.




We were a bit disappointed the cut through for Space wasn’t open to ride multiple times easily but with the longer line I’m sure they couldn’t. So we made the long trek out through the new path to our next ride. We stopped for two waters and two ice cream sandwiches before making our way out of Tomorrowland. The line was about five or six parties deep but moved fairly quickly. We ate our ice creams on the walk over to Fantasyland to ride Mine Train which also had a bit of a line but we definitely expected one here. I had actually booked a FP for the end of the night to avoid this line but we never made it back here in time before the park officially closed for the day but that was okay! It wasn’t worth rushing through the park just for the FP.

After about 15 minutes in line we were at the front and ready to ride! We were seated towards the back which is my favorite place to ride so we had a blast! Plus, any rollercoaster at night always feel more thrilling and magical to me!



After Mine Train we decided to mosey on over to Winnie the Pooh and ride that. Surprisingly neither of us had even ridden it before so it was fun to have something new to see! Very trippy ride :earseek: but Dan loved Winnie the Pooh growing up so he really enjoyed seeing all of his old friends in the 100 Acre Woods. :tigger::eeyore:

We stopped for another drink and snack after this ride. They were out of water at this point and from this point on in the night every other stand would be out of ALL drinks :confused3 That was really the only disappointing aspect to this nights After Hours party. It definitely felt busier than the ones we’d seen vlogged from the summer and they definitely seemed to not have enough waters stocked or any drinks for that matter. I think it may have been because the vloggers were given tickets to the week prior so it was the first night after that had been advertised or maybe it was just one of the busier nights! It was a very hot and muggy night and we were really hurting for some waters by nights’ end but we survived! So since this stand was out of water I got a diet coke and Dan got a coke and another mickey ice cream sandwich because, why not!

I realized after we picked up our snacks that we would need to backtrack a little because I wanted to ride Dumbo at night! Plus, it gave us some more time to eat our snacks on the way over. Dumbo was a complete walk-on and we only waited for the ride before us to empty.




After Dumbo we walked through the deserted path by Journey of the Little Mermaid and continued through Fantasyland. We skipped Little Mermaid and It’s a Small World mostly because they are longer rides and we didn’t want to waste valuable party time on them. We also skipped Peter Pan because they line looked like it was at least 15 minutes (I think every family with a young child at the party was in this line) so we just decided to skip it.

Next up was Haunted Mansion! Another walk-on which was awesome!

After Haunted Mansion, we needed a bathroom break so I suggested we go back to the Tangled Restrooms because I wanted to see how long the line was for the Lantern photo. So that’s what we did and I was so happy we did that! The line had like maybe three parties waiting and didn’t take long at all. It was even more special to do on this night too because our first dance was to I See the Light from Tangled. So to be able to take the picture on our anniversary was super special. (Plus HEA has I See the Light in it so we had a double dose of anniversary-specialness! haha)




Next up was Frontierland! We had a wild ride in the WILDERNESS to get to (I wish I could insert the way Dan would say wilderness the whole trip in these reports!). We did stop for a fun photopass in the stocks along the way since there was no wait.



It was such a peaceful walk over.



BTMR was a walk-on as well, I think we were somewhere in the middle of the train. I do wish BTMR had a photo, I feel like I always have a good time on this ride so the photos would probably be amazing!

After BTMR we went to Splash Mountain. It was just us and a father and daughter in the log. And I think there were empty ones in front of us and behind us. Was kinda spooky! Because the little girl was sitting in front of Dan the water jumped over her head and soaked him. I didn’t get too wet haha





One of our last rides of the night was Pirates of the Caribbean. We actually ended up with our own boat which was so cool! I normally never talk on rides because I never want to be the person who distracts someone else from the ride especially if its their first time. So it was cool to be able to talk to Dan throughout the ride. I could point out the new red head scene to him and the things they’ve changed. And it was the first time I was able to clearly hear the Red Head’s new dialogue. Every other time it seemed muffled so idk if they’ve made it clearer or I was just able to hear it better. Either way it was such a cool experience to ride by ourselves!



Our dog Joy always lays on her side when she's REALLY tired and this little piggy on the Pirates ride reminded us of her



It was nearing the end of the party once we got off of Pirates so we had a decision to make. Do we choose to ride Jungle Cruise which would definitely be our last ride for the night OR do we stop in the hub for some PP pictures and then grab one last ride on Space Mtn? We opted for the second option. Jungle Cruise is a classic but I was just feeling one last ride on Space over it.

So first we stopped in the hub for some photos (I was very happy we did because the lines after the party ended were INSANE for photopass photographers). My main reason for wanting a photo here was because on our wedding night we took a photo out in front of our wedding venue right before the night ended. I feel like it might be a fun tradition to continue in years to come!




After our photos we were off to Tomorrowland for one last ride!




We chose the right side this time but I kind of wish we would have picked left since we rode right with our other fastpasses during the rest of the trip. But we still had a blast! And I’m happy to say that whatever motion sickness I was feeling the during the last two trips after riding Space Mtn seems to have gone away! I would be devastated if I had to stop riding it so I was glad it didn’t happen again. Even though at this point in the night our anniversary had technically ended I still went for a ring pose!




On our way out I had Dan take some photos of me



And I did manage to get Dan to stop for one more photopass on main street.




The CMs would normally ask if the person standing with you was a special friend and if so would you like to take a kissing picture. Which me and Dan had wondered how awkward that might be if it was siblings or just friends. So on this night when the CM asked us we started to kiss and Dan jokingly exclaimed “my sister!” right before we kissed and we both laughed so hard the photo came out blurry.

[

I will definitely do this event again in the future if it’s offered while I’m there. In fact, I am SUPER bummed they skipped over the weekend in December I will be there. Especially because by their pattern we could do it our last night and spend one more night in Disney! But oh well. It was such a fun experience and we had a blast! It’s crazy that you can even do most of the park in just a few hours without all of the lines!

Since the Wilderness Lodge boats had stopped for the night we had to take the bus back to the resort and there was a very long line waiting for the bus. We were pretty sure we were going to have to wait for another bus but thankfully we were two of the last four people they were able to squish on the bus. I found it interesting that the bus stopped at the Contemporary first but I guess because the monorail was down they had to offer another option? But the bus walk was almost as far as the Contemporary so who knows!

When we made it back to the Wilderness Lodge we were pretty exhausted since it was 1:30 in the morning. But when we walked in our room we definitely perked up. On our bed was an anniversary gift waiting for us! :tinker:




I at first thought maybe Dan had done it or even my parents because my Dad did send my sister a present one time when we were in Disney for her cheer comp. But nope! It was the wonderful women from the club level. I must have left my anniversary pin there and they returned it along with just the sweetest gift and card. It was such a magical end to our anniversary and we were so thankful for everything!

It was the best first anniversary I think either of us could have asked for.

Here's Dan's thoughts on whether or not the day was overall relaxing or exhausting :rolleyes1



:rotfl:

But all joking aside if was an amazing, magical day!! :butterfly

Miles walked: 6
 
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Sounds like an amazing night! You guys got a ton of rides ton! And lots of cute pics! I'm glad you were able to get the lantern shot, it's so gorgeous!

What a sweet gift from the CM! And you got your button back!
 
Joining in!

That's awesome how much Pixie Dust you guys got!

I am dying to do DAH, but they never offer it when we are there…how cool that all the rides are walk-on!

Can't wait to read more :-)
 
Wow! What an amazing anniversary day! I had never even heard of this After Hours Party before! How cool! Several years ago, we stayed for MK EMH until 3am and it was great because everything was a walk-on but man were we TIRED!

Side note: I walked down the aisle at my wedding to a piano version of “I See The Light”! And your wedding dress is gorgeous! May I ask what designer it was? It looks so similar to the dress I wanted from Essense Of Australia but there isn’t a single bridal shop in CT that sells them! I ended up with a dress by Allure, which was still amazing but I had such a hard time giving up my dream dress!
 
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You guys make a beautiful couple. I can’t believe all the pixie dust you received in just the first few days. What a wonderful start to your vacation.
 
You seriously did get all the pixie dust! And it’s funny because I just did a quick skim of your PTR and you were talking about how your cousin got upgraded to club at YC!
 
Wow what a wonderful anniversary trip, lots of pixie dustpixiedust:. You guys are so cute looking forward to the rest of your review.
 
Hi, there. I just found your trip and have enjoyed reading everything!
Happy belated anniversary. Wow! what amazing extra magic. I know it was such a hassle to have to move rooms, but I'm glad the manager took such good care of you. I'm sure he has a very difficult job, but Disney does customer service so well.
I think it's sweet you honored your parents with the copycat picture of theirs.
Your photopass photos are beautiful.
My husband and I will be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary at The Boardwalk in November. Extra pixie dust or not, I hope our trip is as pleasant as yours.
 
Sounds like an amazing night! You guys got a ton of rides ton! And lots of cute pics! I'm glad you were able to get the lantern shot, it's so gorgeous!

What a sweet gift from the CM! And you got your button back!

It was so much fun! I hope to be able to do it again!

And yes! I think that was maybe what prompted them to give us a gift because they wanted us to get our pin back. Whatever it was we were so appreciative!

Joining in!

That's awesome how much Pixie Dust you guys got!

I am dying to do DAH, but they never offer it when we are there…how cool that all the rides are walk-on!

Can't wait to read more :-)

We couldn't believe all the pixie dust! I love Disney but I am never that lucky haha

If DAH is ever offered while you are there, do it! I am so bummed they skipped over my weekend I'll be there in December because I definitely would have done it again!

Wow! What an amazing anniversary day! I had never even heard of this After Hours Party before! How cool! Several years ago, we stayed for MK EMH until 3am and it was great because everything was a walk-on but man were we TIRED!

Side note: I walked down the aisle at my wedding to a piano version of “I See The Light”! And your wedding dress is gorgeous! May I ask what designer it was? It looks so similar to the dress I wanted from Essense Of Australia but there isn’t a single bridal shop in CT that sells them! I ended up with a dress by Allure, which was still amazing but I had such a hard time giving up my dream dress!

I remember those 3AM days! When we used to park hop we ended up at MK for their late EMH and my poor little sister who was maybe four or five at the time was completely wiped out but was trying to keep up with me and my brother and had a total crying breakdown on Splash Mtn! She had been on before but she was so tired she made it much worse than it was! Every little hill on the ride she'd start crying, it was so pitiful! haha I do miss those days though! I guess now you need to pay for it! :rotfl:

I feel like Disney songs add so much to a wedding! We walked out to You'll be in My Heart by our string quartet and it was just perfect! This is going to sound terrible but I don't 100%y remember who the designer was! I believe it was Allure as well!

You guys make a beautiful couple. I can’t believe all the pixie dust you received in just the first few days. What a wonderful start to your vacation.

Thank you! It truly was!

You seriously did get all the pixie dust! And it’s funny because I just did a quick skim of your PTR and you were talking about how your cousin got upgraded to club at YC!

Yes! We were so shocked that we got lucky enough to be given club level access! It made for an amazing trip! It actually made it hard to leave WL and head to our cruise at the end of our Disney stay!

Wow what a wonderful anniversary trip, lots of pixie dustpixiedust:. You guys are so cute looking forward to the rest of your review.

Thank you!

Hi, there. I just found your trip and have enjoyed reading everything!
Happy belated anniversary. Wow! what amazing extra magic. I know it was such a hassle to have to move rooms, but I'm glad the manager took such good care of you. I'm sure he has a very difficult job, but Disney does customer service so well.
I think it's sweet you honored your parents with the copycat picture of theirs.
Your photopass photos are beautiful.
My husband and I will be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary at The Boardwalk in November. Extra pixie dust or not, I hope our trip is as pleasant as yours.

Thank you for joining in! And thank you! Disney certainly takes customer service to another level, it really helped turn around a rocky start to our trip! I hope your trip is magical as well! The Boardwalk is so amazing, any of the deluxe EPCOT resorts are next on my bucketlist!
 
What an incredible start to your Anniversary trip!! SO MUCH pixie dust already and it's only the end of night #2!! Excited to see what the rest of your trip held for you :)

Also, where did you get your amazing Cinderella bag?!!
 
Day 4 Part 1

Rise and shine it’s time for EPCOT! We slept in until about 10 this morning so we would feel refreshed after our late night in the Magic Kingdom at DAH. Before heading out to the parks we decided to stop by the Club Level and see if there were any good snacks to have this morning. I think we grabbed some muffins and waters and watched a bit of Inside Out before heading out for the day. I actually don’t really love Inside Out but I like it a lot more now that my dog is named Joy!



We really loved being able to grab a couple of drinks and snacks here before heading out to the parks! Because we were definitely hungry but we usually had pretty early lunches so it wasn't worth us spending the money on breakfast!

We made it to EPCOT by 11:30 and it was a beautiful day!




Sidenote: The rose gold ears are the only Disney made ears I've bought in a while and they seriously hurt my head SO BAD!

We decided to take the tram to the entrance this morning and it was kind of a mistake in terms of waiting because it took us like ten minutes to get from the parking lot to the entrance :confused3 we definitely could have walked faster! (I think we boarded as soon as it pulled up and they waited for a full load before moving)

We stopped for some photopass photos together in front of Spaceship Earth on our way in.




And I also had Dan take some of just me



Our first FP was for SE but the FP line looked like it was probably 20 minutes long itself so we decided to change our FP to later and just head straight to lunch since our reservation was starting soon. Lunch today was at Coral Reef. Neither of us had ever eaten there before and were excited to try it. For me, its always been on my list of places I wanted to eat since they ate here during the episode of Full House haha so its been on my list for awhile!

We had a reservation right after they opened for lunch so we were lucky to get a table right next to the window. It was so cool to have sharks swimming next to you while eating and all of the fish swimming by.




To start we shared the crab Oscar (basically a crab cake) and the lobster bisque.



[Crab cake count - 2]

These were both really good. Honestly I probably could have just eaten both of these as my meal but Dan was pretty hungry so we got some other food as well! So for our meals I had the Caesar salad and Dan had the mahi mahi.




Everything was so delicious! I think the restaurant gets a bad wrap for some reason but we didn’t have any complaints and the restaurant didn’t smell either like some people say so I would definitely go back!



I was definitely feeling the asthetic of the restaurant since it matched me pretty well




Since we were over by the Seas we decided to take a ride on Finding Nemo. There was only a five-minute wait so we didn’t bother using one of our free FPs. We haven’t ridden it in a long time so it was nice to ride through, especially with how air conditioned it is! I like the ride but the EAC part makes me feel so sick! Too many things going in different directions lol but we still enjoyed it!



After Finding Nemo we took a quick walk through the Seas but to be honest since we had just sat next to the aquarium all through lunch so we didn’t feel the need to spend too much time there. Next up was our FP for Test Track!



(I think I mentioned this in my last TR but my Mom always loves pictures of our feet/shoes in line so I had to keep up the tradition!)

I pretty much let Dan design the car and he created a pretty cool blue one.




Test Track is always a fun ride (I do miss the old crash test dummy part though)! I guess I was the only one enjoying the ride and wooing though because Dan told me after I was officially a woo-girl (How I met your mother reference haha!) I'm just not sure how you go on a thrill ride and sit there in absolute silence :confused3 that has to diminish the fun!



Dan wanted to check out some of the cars in the show room so we took a look and played with the screen backdrops. I very rarely stop and look at any of these cars unless Im with Dan or my brother haha




We did Mission Space next but we just went with the green side. I’m just too afraid that I’ll feel sick if I do the orange, there’s nothing worse than being in a park all day feeling nauseous and sick! As we were walking up we had planned to use one of our FPs but again there was only a five-minute wait so we didn’t bother. We enjoyed our ride through space and were safely back on land wondering what to do next.

It was pretty hot out so I suggested we go wait to meet Joy and Sadness since their area is cool and has a/c. The line didn’t look that long but it was one of the longest waits of our whole trip (I would have forfeited all three of our anytime FPs to use one here lol). We waited 45 minutes and I'm not really sure what the holdup was. From what I could gather I think we got in line during one of their breaks, and then I think there also may have been a new character attendant cast member who was standing in the wrong spot so she would wait too long to send more people back to meet them. Even with the wait I was happy we did because meeting them (mostly Joy) was something I’ve wanted to do since we got our dog, Joy. I even showed Joy (from Inside Out) a picture of our dog and she was so sweet. Sadness was sad we didn’t have a dog named after her :rotfl2:







After meeting Joy and Sadness it was time for our Living with the Land FP. I really enjoy this ride but is it bad if I say I could take or leave the first few rooms and would love more greenhouses? I love the greenhouse part and seeing all of the different fruits and veggies and plants! But I get they are trying to give more of a story to the ride.

After LWTL we used our first anytime FP for Soarin. I’m not sure how we ended up so lucky but when we reached the section where they send you to stand on a number, they called for a group of two and then had us wait by the railing with three other people for section B row 1. I didn’t know what was going on so we just went with it and waited. I’m thinking they thought they needed two more people for a row but instead they had us waiting with the people who were waiting another round to sit in concourse B row 1 which I was so happy about! It just makes such a difference when everything looks normal on the ride! :tinker:little bit of pixie dust!




After Soarin we were off to travel the World! Which I will put in my next update! :flower1:
 
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Disney ears definitely hurt the head!!

Oh yay a recent review of Coral Reef! I booked a meal there for my upcoming trip (basically for the same reason you did haha). I'm so glad to hear it was good!

Sounds like a great afternoon!
 

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