Wedding Trip Recap- September 15, 2012

The next morning Eliot and I got up and started our trip the same way we start every Walt Disney World trip: with the Magic Kingdom!

The Magic Kingdom is our favorite and it’s not officially a trip to Disney until I see Cinderella Castle.  So we started out at the Magic Kingdom in our matching tie-dye Mickey Mouse shirts.  We have a tradition that we always take a picture in front of the train station before we go into the park.

Let the Memories Begin!!!

We were so excited to be there!  Eliot took this photo of our first look at the castle.  I love the Halloween and fall decorations along Main Street.  The holidays at Disney are truly magical.  

Ahh... we're home!

We went on the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, probably my favorite two rides at Disney. We also started taking pictures on our PhotoPass card.  I pre-bought the Archival CD since we planned on taking wedding party pictures in front of the castle.  We also were instructing everyone to take pictures and to give us their card number to put on our account.  (This is the best way to do PhotoPass if you're going with a large group!  If you pre-order the CD you save $50 too!)

The beginning of our Happily Ever After WDW trip!

Before leaving the Magic Kingdom, we decided to check out the Emporium and I let in to my holiday decoration weakness.  While we were there, I found a Halloween Duffy.  He was so cute.  I had him wave at Eliot with his little arm and I fell completely in love with him.  Eliot laughed at me and asked if he needed to come home with us.  I told him yes and Halloween Duffy had a new home.

Duffy got a few hugs on the bus from the Magic Kingdom to Typhoon Lagoon.

After purchasing my first Duffy bear, we were on our way over to Typhoon Lagoon for a fun and relaxing afternoon at the water park.  At this point, a few rides around the lazy river were just what this Disney Bride (only 5 days out from her wedding) needed.

We had so much fun at Typhoon Lagoon.  It was kind of overcast and not extremely hot out.  Therefore, the park was pretty quiet.  For the two of us, it was perfect.  The lazy river turned out to be exactly what the doctor ordered.  We also went down the Crush 'n' Gusher water coaster a few times before it started to sprinkle a little.

Typhoon Lagoon park map. (Photo from Disney.)

We ended up sitting in the shallow end of the Hideaway Bay pool next to Crush 'n' Gusher as the rain picked up and it basically poured over us.  It was so peaceful and relaxing.  I loved watching the rain make ripples as it hit the pool water all around us.  A lot of people were running for cover, but hello people!  We’re in a water park.  You’re already wet anyways!  Eliot and I got a chuckle with a few others in the pool who were also waiting out the storm.  The pool water was really warm compared to the rain so it was perfect.  I have to say that it was a great relaxing thing to do together to freeze out some of those pre-wedding jitters.

We eventually left our quiet safe haven at Typhoon Lagoon and headed back to Pop Century.  Eliot’s family was arriving later on that night so we wanted to be at the hotel when they got there.  We ended up finding out that our friends BJ and Katie, and her parents, were relaxing at the hotel as well.  (They had also arrived the day before, but they wanted to show Katie’s parents the parks since they’d never been to WDW and we agreed to meet up with them later on in the trip.)  We all decided that we wanted to go in the pool so we had an impromptu group swim.

We had been unsure of staying in the 50’s section of the hotel since it was a long walk for my grandparents, but it ended up being a blast.  The only other time Eliot and I had stayed at Pop, we were in the 80’s and had the computer pool near us.  We ended up loving the long bowling pin pool, which was great to do laps in.  It is huge.  There is plenty of room for everyone to have their own area to play in without crowding other families.  We had quite a few laughs together before heading back to our rooms.

A few hours later, Eliot’s mother and two sisters arrived and we showed them around the resort and let them settle in. The next day, the rest of our group was arriving so we didn’t want to stay out late.  We ended up hanging out at Everything Pop to get some food and check out the store before calling it a night.  °o°