Honeymoon Part 1: Disney

So our story starts off in a very magical place. Sky Harbor Airport. Actually it was great because Adam, Michelle, and Catherine flew out the same day and our flights were only about 20 minutes apart so after Brady and I checked our bags, we walked down the very long corridor of Terminal 4. We chatted with Adam and Michelle, I made a bunch of silly faces at Catherine, and Brady got the Elmo's World song stuck in our heads for the next two days.

I think this picture is adorable too.

So we headed off to our gate and boarded our 4 hour flight to Orlando. It was pretty painless actually and went by very quickly. A little Sudoku, a couple chapters, and part of Hitch and we were already landing in Florida. We picked up our rental car (we drove from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale), checked into our hotel, and were off to Downtown Disney...where it was FREEEEEZING!! My teeth were chattering even wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Brady was in shorts and a t-shirt. Yeeeeeah. So we were slightly concerned about the weather on our honeymoon as we ran from warm store to warm store (but as it turned out, 90 degree heat was awaiting us). Here we are in front of the Irish restaurant/store:

In the gigantic Emporium-like store, we got an obligatory bride and groom mouse ears photo...

but we put them back in favor of something a little more my style...

After wandering about, dinner at the House of Blues (where we were bummed to find out we missed the Blues Brothers by a couple weeks, featuring Dan Ackroyd and James Belushi), some shopping, and feeling like the Jamaican Bobsled Team when they landed in Canada in Cool Runnings, we headed back to the hotel to rest up for our early morning at Epcot.

Our full Disney day started off at Epcot for the Segway tour. Now, I will be the first one to say that my balance, gracefulness, whatever you would like to call it, is not, shall we say, fine tuned. I've had some very not fun experiences with roller skates, roller blades, bicycles, and I still cannot master ice skating. I also nearly crashed a mo-ped into a wall on the training course. I'm really a liability...and that's probably exactly what our Segway instructor was thinking during our training time. I moved forward when I was supposed to stay still, I knocked over one cone, ran over another, and finally graduated to simply nudging a cone as I breezed by, and I was really not feeling at ease at all. Brady, on the other hand, was calm and at ease. The instructor warned about the Segways taking off at full speed if you don't realize your posture and sure enough, when they first let us out in the park, I was the one jetting by with the out of control Segway squealing like a little girl.

I will say after a little practice, I got used to the movement of the Segway, how to press with my toes or heels depending on what I was wanting to do, and soon I got the hang of it. By the halfway point, I was zipping around quite happily. This was when we stopped for a photo op just outside a wedding reception. (We had breezed by the couple and the bridal party taking photos earlier)

At this point, we ended up at the back of our tour line, but we didn't mind at all. It gave us the opportunity to goof off, go weaving around places we weren't supposed to, completely disobey the no going backwards rule :) It was a lot of fun, I'm really glad we did it, in spite of my early whimpers.

So I failed to mention that when we entered the park, we were given "Just Married" buttons to wear. For the rest of the day, every and I do mean EVERY park employee congratulated us. It failed to get us Fast Passes, however, but the lines weren't too bad anyways.

After Segway, we waited in the longest line of the day for Soarin', then we headed over to Mission Space.

The before picture (including the Red Sox hat that went MIA):

Okay so we didn't get an after picture. We did the non-wimpy version of the ride and survived. I even completed my tasks as Navigator. (Last time I was Commander and didn't do a darn thing except stare at the screen because that's what everybody told me would keep me from getting sick so Brady and Adam had to fill in.) Actually we kind of had that stomach flying up to your throat feeling, but that didn't stop us from getting the all-American funnel cake in the USA part of the countries. We ate the funnel cake in Japan. Yup. Only at Disney.

After said funnel cake, we stopped in Morocco, where on the Segway tour we learned the King of Morocco actually paid for the construction of the Epcot version. The fountain tiles were handmade and everything. That was great and all, but the reason for our second visit was to get the Fez head shot. It's a tradition.

So we concluded our Around the World tour, this time on foot, and took the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom, which was all decorated for Halloween. We started off in my favorite land of all, simply for the atmosphere...Adventureland!

We're trying to be pirates in front of Pirates. Really.

Brady wanted to get a picture of us in front of Splash Mountain that didn't have one of the logs going into my head, but alas, there was no riding Splash on that particular day. There was a chill in the air and we didn't feel like shivering the rest of the day.

We did, however, very much enjoy Philharmagic. It's one of the best things at Disney AND you get to wear really spiffy "opera glasses."

Must-take castle shot.

Over in Tomorrowland, we took on Space Mountain, kicked back on the people mover thing, had Stitch burp in our faces (oh what a girl will do for the man she loves), and before heading back for another ride on Pirates, we joined Buzz Lightyear and used lasers to shoot a bunch of bad guys. This ride is actually a game, though we have no idea how the points really work. I was way ahead and then Brady somehow got like a 600,000 bonus. Notice the focus and determination in the picture of the picture of us from the monitors?

A beauty shot of the castle.

Because Halloween was the next day, the Magic Kingdom was hosting a party and closed the park at 7pm. We headed back over to Epcot for dinner and fireworks. Surprisingly, France was our country of choice for dinner. The service was horrible, but the food was good. I had escargot for the second time. Brady decided the occasion needed to be documented...or he wanted evidence that I did, in fact, eat snails.

Then it was time for fireworks.

As we walked out of the park, we noticed the reflection of colored lights against the smoke of the fireworks. It was a really eery looking backdrop for this old style building.

That concludes the Disney part of our honeymoon blog. Remember that you are parked in parking lot Goofy.

I'll post part two with the start of our cruise soon!