First of all, I have to say Omigosh Disney was so much fun!!!!!!!
Warning, this is a super long post. Key takeaways are at the bottom for anyone schedule a girl's trip to Disney in the future :)
*All images courtesy of Disney's site and moi*
Thursday morning the girls and I headed to the airport for our 7 am flight (which wasn't very difficult because we were all running on pure adrenaline). We had a stop over in Kansas City, and then continued on to Orlando. We hadn't all been together in quite some time so we had plenty to chat about on the trip down there (yes we were those loud women on the plane but we could care less).
Once in Orlando, another girl's flight arrived from Michigan and she met up with some of us while some of the other girls were grabbing the (sweet) rental van. Then we were off to the hotel, which was awesome, and the POOL, which was just as awesome as the room. It felt good to sit by the pool in the hot sun, it was then that we all looked around and knew we were on vacation :)
Hotel That evening we went to one of the girl's aunt and uncle's home about 20 minutes away and enjoyed a delicious meal complete with great conversation and yummy wine.
Friday, we were poolside again, swam a little, picked up another girl from the airport who came from Texas (yep, there were 6 of us) then started getting ready for our night out and little did she know, one of the girl's surprise bachelorette party. Moments like getting ready all together are what I miss most about college. You can usually find me doing most of the girl's makeup and some of the girl's hair while drinking some wine and watching silly TV (one of the first seasons of The Hills just happened to be on). Pure bliss.
Right before we were about to leave, I kept asking the bachelorette (who still did not know about the surprise) if she reaaalllyyy wanted to wear the shirt she was wearing. Of course she was super confused and annoyed by the time I asked her 3 times, which is when I pulled out the shirt she'd be sporting for the rest of the evening...
It was a hit! Got this from Skreened.com. The dude I spoke with on the phone was really cool.
This is another moment I really took in, we haven't all gone out and danced all together in over a year, which was always so much fun. Our version of dancing is mostly goofy and fun, and we really took it easy on the drinks because we were going to Disney the next day (and no one wants to go to Disney with a hangover).
Saturday got up bright and early and headed straight to Where Dreams Come True :) This is the day all of us had been so excited about, and we got a great deal on getting into the parks because TBF's dad scored us some free tickets. Awesome.
Anywho, on to MGM where we ran straight up to the Aerosmith ride.
Now, remember, it's 9:01 am at this point, I haven't had my caffeine, I'm so excited to be there, and I'm trying to calm one of the nervous roller coaster riders with us.
"Should I put my hair back? Should I keep my head straight? Should I cross my toes??"
Those of you who have ridden the Aerosmith ride can agree with me that this is a pretty medium to high level rollercoaster ride where you are throttled from 1 to 60ish mph in 2 seconds and fly through flips and curves and cork screws. So by the time I'm in the VERY front seat of the ride, it's 9:05 am, I haven't assessed my own feelings about the ride yet, I'm still just on cloud 9 because we got through the line super quickly and we're AT DISNEY!!?! Then the ride begins and..
HOLY HELL IT'S SO MUCH FREAKING FASTER THAN I REMEMBER AND I'M PRACTICALLY STILL SLEEPING BUT I'M NOT BECAUSE I'M FLYING THROUGH THIS ROLLER COASTER OF INSANITY.
It went something like that. It was a blast, and the nervous roller coaster girl loved it :) We then continued onto Tower Of Terror (my favorite!), the Star Trek ride (so old school and awesome),and the Great American Movie Ride (a classic).
Next, onto Magic Kingdom!!!! At this point we were S.T.A.R.V.I.N.G, so we went straight to Space Mountain, grabbed some Fast Passes (yeah, I know, Disney pros), then noshed on some pretty decent food in TomorrowLand. After that, we digested on the People Mover, very chill and slow, killed some time at the Monsters Inc. comedy show (which, I'm not kidding, I'd totally do again because it was hilarious) then used our Fast Passes at Space Mountain. Man, that ride will never get old. Well, I mean it's old, but I could ride it over and over.
Next, on to the Tea Cups, It's A Small World (of course), the Haunted Mansion (LOVE THIS RIDE!) then Thunder Mountain (always a good ender). Ok, by this point, we were tired and seriously thinking no more. Did we stop?
No.
When in Rome people!
Onto Epcot we went where we began our cocktails around the world. Okay, if you went to Epcot before you were 21, you probably, just like me, thought Epcot was SUPER LAME. Well, my oh my how cocktails make it so much more fun.
I'm not kidding, you must end your Disney day at Epcot if you only have one day.
We started in Mexico with some margs (sugar helped us wake up too), took some funny pictures with some sombreros, then continued on to Norway, China, then Germany where we saw...
SNOW WHITE! Pro - picture with Snow White. Con - she was super lame, made us put our drinks down for the picture (understandable), but in a super high princess voice, and she wasn't very nice. No, we weren't being stupid(, we had had AN sip of our margs by this point).
Anywho, onto Italy, (where we ran into Belle who was very kind and pretty!),
US (kind of lame),
Japan,
Morocco (Very cool!), France,
then the UK (where we ran into Sleeping Beauty, who looked like she slept in her makeup). We took a pit stop here and went into an Irish bar to grab some more cocktails and relax for awhile. Our dogs were barking at this point so the brewskis definitely helped.
Next was Canada (pit stop at Niagara falls). Then off to the hotel we went.
Sunday, we checked out of the hotel, filled the rest of the day with mini golf, a nice meal, and a movie before our flight left at 7 that evening (which was delayed a couple of hours for the record because of a storm).
Key takeaways from our girl's trip to Orlando:
-Yes, you can squeeze 6 girls into a suite hotel comfortably.
-Get groceries when you arrive, if you have a suite, you'll have a full kitchen and will save so.much.money. Breakfast,snacks and booz were the main items we got, then bread (less than $2), cheese, deli meat, and pb & j are cheap and go a long way.
-Grab some extra towels at the pool, they'll come in handy.
-Ask around for Disney tickets and passes, including your Concierge. Be nice. Kindness goes a loonnng way, especially with the concierge who ended up giving us tons of free cards for Universal. Let them know if it's a special occassion.
-Take advantage of the fast passes and I definitely recommend getting to the park as early as possible to avoid long lines. Long lines can be huge buzzkills.
-Wear sunscreen, you will get burnt, even if you "tan easily."
-Something that we didn't do that I will definitely do next time, schedule an extra vacation day for when you return home. I was A ZOMBIE (hence my lack of posting) when I had to go to work on Monday after my flight was delayed and I got home late on Sunday night.
Any questions? Let me know. We had such a blast and our next girl's trip will be in Vegas next year so if anyone has any tips, please share! Can't wait!
Happy Thursday!!
TBF's turn to go giddy: this is Boccalone, where you can find the mouth watering meats I mentioned....in a cone :)
See? This was full of prosciutto, ham and other salty meats that were stored...
in here! It really was so yummy!
Oh, and did I mention it's run by one of the guys from Chef Vs. City?
Wine shop!
Fresh oyster's being shucked by this young fella.
Fresh flowers everywhere! You know I wanted to pick up those hydrangea's...
We found it! We found it! Miette! That gingerbread cupcake definitely earned it's title as The Best Gingerbread Cupcake in America!
Here's the last picture of the day. I was silly and didn't take pictures of Comstock Saloon, an extremely delicious and unique restaurant near Union Square. TBF particularly loved it because it had his favorite gin. This place was soo good!
