Welcome to Key West!

Ok, Let's face it, I haven't been very good about posting my last trip which was now almost four months ago. I was so good about doing the wedding report but this has become more of a chore and I couldn't seem to figure out why. I'm still thinking it has to do with the fact that we didn't do much, Adam had an awful cold the first few days which made us very dull vacationers.

However, I want to share my pictures and give some brief stories about the things we saw and did. I know I love reading trip reports and I know other people do too. So this is my best shot at doing one for our cruise. Prepare for picture overload!

Adam was pretty sick when we arrived in key west. He was sneezing and coughing all night. I woke up, got ready, and headed out to take some pictures.

 The lovely bar that we frequented

 The beautiful grand piano that filled the atrium with music every night

 Loved these elevators!!!

 Captain Mickey in the atrium

I went up to deck 10 to watch as we headed into Key West. It was very cool to watch as the captain and crew were able to pull it into port. I headed up to Topsiders to grab some breakfast and and found a little table right along the railing where I could eat breakfast and watch everything going on.

I went back to the stateroom and Adam was just getting up and getting ready. I brought him up to topsiders so he could grab some grub and waited for the major rush of people to get off of the boat before we made our way.

Key West was beautiful. We walked around the island, making a stop at a little convenience store to get Adam some dayquil. We didn't have an excursion planned so we walked to see the southern most point, We to the beginning of route one since we travel on route one every day where we live, had sloppy joe's at Sloppy Joe's, and made a stop much needed pit stop to get some key lime pie... because really how could you not??!!

 Absolutely delicious

 The little white house

 There were chickens everywhere!

 Ernest Hemingway's house

 Light house

 Southern most point

We met up with our cruising buddies on our walk back to the boat and we had some laughs at all the little stores that had some rather risque phrases written on tank tops and underwear. Definitely not Disney approved! 

Adam was fading on me fast so we headed back to the boat and the stateroom so he could take a quick nap and get out of the heat. Thank goodness there were a bunch of movies being played on loop on the stateroom TV's or i would've been really bored! I saw Rango about six times ;)

I'm leaving you with our snake, eel animal towel. I promise to keep up with these and get them done soon so I can start tell you all about our next cruise! 

Day 2 - Ready, Set, GO! (Part 1)

Happy Sunday everyone! Day light savings is totally screwing up my internal clock. Even though its only 5:30 I feel like I should be getting ready for bed, not getting ready to cook dinner. I can't believe how dark out it is already! Anyway let's start with day 2 of our amazing trip!

My alarm wasn't even necessary since I didn't really fall asleep that night. I was almost waiting for it to go off so that I could have an excuse to get up and Adam wouldn't be mad at me. When it did go off i jumped in the shower, got dressed, did my make up and had everything back in the luggage bags before Adam even started to get ready. I took a walk down the lobby to see what the weather was like and to check and see how busy the diner was. If Adam got ready fast enough maybe we could grab some breakfast there. When the elevator doors opened all I saw was the buckets of rain coming down outside. It looked like a monsoon! The diner didn't seem busy so I went back up to the room to check on Adams progress. He wasn't moving as quickly as I thought he would be (Try barely moving) and breakfast at the diner went out the window.

We gathered our things and went down to the lobby to check in for the shuttle service to the airport. We must've been the only people under fifty that were heading to the airport that day. I don't know if there is some sort of a senior discount in Vegas during the fall or what but everyone using the shuttle service that morning were eligible for medicare and had fanny packs on that said some sort of "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas..." slogan on it. Meanwhile i'm in my mickey t-shirt and Adam is looking at the food and wine festival information on his phone... We were definitely the minority.

After a quick trip to the airport we said headed to the nearest dunkin doughnuts for some much needed coffee and bagels. The flight was pretty uneventful... flash forward two and a half hours to landing! My first sight of palm trees always gets me insanely excited! We flew through security and down to Magical Express. We walked right up to the next Magical express attendant and I made a terrible discovery... I had packed up my magical express transfers! I almost had a heart attack! The nice man at the desk told me not to worry and looked me up in the system. He printed out a whole new voucher for me and told me to have a "magical day!" to which i replied "I most certainly will!"... God i love hearing "have a magical day!" Lesson learned... Do not panic at disney! They fix everything!

We boarded the bus headed to the Wilderness Lodge. I could hardly contain myself! The entire time I was tweeting and facebooking that I was on my way! We arrived at the Wilderness Lodge and went to the check in desk. I got a really nice cast member who chatted with me about Disney Cruise Line and told me all about the fun things that were going on around the world the few days i'd be there. Our room wasn't ready yet but we did the text thing that would let us know when it was ready and what room number we were in. It was so convenient. By this time Adam and I were pretty hungry. We went to the roaring fork and grabbed some chicken fingers and a pizza. I was so happy to be back in my happy place!

Excuse my finger in this one

After lunch we jumped on the next boat to Magic Kingdom. The first thing I wanted to do was ride the haunted mansion! I hadn't been on it since the new queue refurb. It was so much fun. I won't spoil it for those who haven't done it yet but just know that we loved it! After Haunted mansion we did Space Mountain. The whole time we were in line I was praying that we got the back... I LOVE the back of the train on space.. I feel like it goes faster and you get whipped around more. Guess what we got... the back! woohoo! I had my hands up and scream/laughed the whole time! Space is one of my most favorite rides! 

After space mountain I think the early morning, the flight, and running around got to us. It suddenly felt like we were moving in slow motion. We sat down in tomorrowland when I started tweeting with Scott from Collect the mouse and a Disney Driven Life. He and his wife Peggy were in the park that day and wanted to meet up with us! After some tweeting and a quick phone call we found each other and rode the TTA together. Scott and his wife are such nice people, it was like we'd known them for a long time.  It was so nice to just sit and relax on the TTA and have a nice chat with cool people! I wish I had gotten a picture with them but somewhere my brain totally blanked out and i forgot! :( 

After our TTA ride we said goodbye to Scott and Peggy. Next up was Pirates of the Caribbean, I can't go to Magic Kingdom and NOT do it! I still know all the words to the song and sing it in my head through the whole ride. Sadly this wasn't my favorite trip on pirates... there was some guy behind us who clearly didn't care about the "no flash photography" rule and kept blinding me! It was so bad that they stopped the ride twice and asked him to stop and he still didn't. At the end of the ride a cast member did pull him aside and said something to him but at that point the ride was over. I love a good photo but don't ruin someone's ride with a blinding flash! 

After that bad experience and our energy levels going down the tubes we thought we'd try one more ride... Splash Mountain. We got over to the queue area and the line was super long... we tried fast pass but the fast pass return wasn't until 5 o'clock and we had a dining reservation 5:30. Feeling defeated I heard the train whistle... it was sitting in the frontier land station. PERFECT! We ran up the stairs with every last bit of energy and were the last two people they let on. 

Adam and I started talking and as much as we wanted to keep going in Magic Kingdom we knew we were pushing it. We decided to go back to the Wilderness lodge for a quick nap, shower, and change before heading to the yacht club for dinner and Hollywood Studios that night. I checked my phone and sure enough we had a text telling us our room was ready. The train pulled out of the frontierland station and we were on our way to the main gate. We kept trying to peak behind the fences to see the fantasyland expansion construction but we couldn't see much. What we did see though looked super cool!  

We pulled into the main gate station and went down the ramp to leave...WAIT! I can't leave without a castle picture! I told Adam I need to get our picture in front of the castle and he reluctantly agreed, I think the poor guy was falling asleep on me. We got the nearest photopass photographer to snap this picture of us. 

Not our best photo but we're going to blame it on the crane in the background and not the fact that we look exhausted....hahaha

Wow this post is long... Ok i'm going to stop here. Don't want to loose you guys to too much in one post! Things to look forward to next include, Dinner at yachtsman Steak House...ummm omg yum!, Mulch Sweat and Tears, Star Tours meltdown, and Passing out!

Thanks for reading! And don't forget to leave a comment so I know you were here! 

xoxo

Let's start at the very beginning

Waiting for my chocolate chip cookies to finish baking seems like the perfect time for me to start my trip report.... YAY! ::Applause applause!:: Ok who guessed where I was in that last picture???.... If you said we were on the Magic Kingdom Railroad train then you are right! :)

I'm going to start at the very beginning (like the title says) on Wednesday September the 28th. Technically I didn't get to WDW until the 29th but I feel that I should include the 28th too.

I woke up that morning totally amped! The entire time I was getting ready for work I was humming Disney songs, imagining seeing the Disney Magic for the first time, EPCOT! ect. It wasn't until I grabbed my keys that I realized I had to actually work ALL DAY before we would be starting our journey. During my hour commute into work I tried giving myself a pep talk, if I didn't bring my excitement level down a notch I wouldn't be able to handle working and my day would seem so much longer. Unfortunately no matter what I did I couldn't stop day dreaming! My ten and a half hour, 6:30am - 5pm shift felt like an eternity! The dentists would ask me questions and half the time I found myself responding with Disney jibberish. Finally after watching every painstaking second of the day go by it was quitting time! I grabbed my things and sprinted to my car. I squealed like a little girl the whole way home!

At the house Adam and his brother were there waiting for me. We decided to get a pizza and go over any last minute details. We gave my brother in law the vet information, instructions on the dogs eating schedule, the cruise and hotel information, the number to the local police and fire department, and made sure to emphasize NO PARTIES! After we ate dinner we loaded up my truck with all the luggage. Then it was time to say good-bye to my babies. For those of you who don't know I'm some what neurotic, especially when it comes to my puppies... they are my children and I worry about them like crazy. After a tearful fifteen minute "so-long" it was time to hit the road.

After another good hour in the car we arrived at the Holiday Inn in Manchester New Hampshire. By this time it was 8:30 at night and i'd been up since 4:50 in the morning. I was totally exhausted. We checked in and made our way to our room. It was a nice enough room for just a night... and we really liked that there was a diner located right down stairs. Adam thought it would be a good idea to go down and grab alittle dessert before we went to bed. The diner was themed like an old airport pilot bar. The food on the menu looked really good and had I known that I would've suggested we ate there instead of grabbing the pizza at home. I got the strawberry short cake and Adam got this insanely sized grasshopper pie. We chit chatted about our schedule for the following day and about how excited we were to be going back to the place we love and where we got married. It was really nice having that time to relax before all the traveling we'd have to do in the morning.

After we finished our yummy desserts we headed back up to the room to hit the hay. Our flight was leaving at 6:50 in the morning so we had to be in the lobby for the airport shuttle at 5:15. I set the alarm on my phone and got into bed. Adam was asleep in SECONDS! I swear that man can fall asleep anywhere! I however was too excited to sleep. I turned on the TV and watched the news, then I picked up my book and read, nothing would get me to sleep. I even went as far as trying to count sheep! (lame!) The last time I looked at the clock it said 1:14am (don't ask me why I remember that but I do) I know I fell asleep sometime after that... needless to say I didn't get the proper amount of sleep one needs for an early morning.

So that is how this crazy trip started. I will say that I am VERY glad we stayed at the hotel near the airport the night before. It was extremely convenient and if we ever do an early morning flight I will be sure to stay close by again. I am also glad that I went to work... even though it seemed like it was the longest day ever, I think if i took the day off to prepare and pack I would've gone stir crazy! Being at work made me focus on something else other than flying, and disney, and worrying about travel.... well most of the time.

My next post will be more exciting and will have many more pictures! But until then i'll leave you with this one...

Guess who was extremely tired and on a plane!

Defeated

So in my last post I said I was going to be getting my passport... didn't happen. I was (and still am) extremely frustrated. I printed out the forms, had both of our IDs and birth certificates and I looked up where we could apply for them. I thought I was neurotically prepared enough that this would be quick and painless.... how wrong I was.

Adam got home from work and we filled our forms and made copies of our licenses and headed to the post office in the next town over. I checked to make sure we could have our photos done and apply there. I also checked their hours of operation and they were open until 5. We arrived, excited and ready to get our ticket to travel. It was 3:30 and the man at the desk said "oh we only do passports until 3" WHAT!! I said I checked the website but he didn't care, he wasn't doing it. Fine!

We got in the truck and looked on our phones for another location. The closest was 20 mins away... I called to make sure they were open and that we could apply for them and they said yes so on we went.

As we got closer the weather turned terrible.... we had down pours and crazy lightening. So much for my beautiful hair and make up I had for the picture. We ran in and handed over all of our paper work. I thought everything was fine when the clerk said "I can't accept this"......::turns bright red::..... why not?!?! Apparently the birth certificates we had with the state seal and legal documentation on it is not valid. I guess the certificate was good enough for my marriage license and my drivers license applications but not for my passport.

The problem with this is that Adam and I not longer live in our home state. So now we have to make phone calls to town halls and have them mail us this insanely long birth certificate. So we are with out passports for at least another week. I was so upset because I thought I was doing the right thing and that this would be somewhat easy... I guess not!

Has anyone else ever had this problem?? Why the need for the extra long version of a birth certificate? Is this new? Why was my small one from town hall good enough two years ago but not now??

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