In the end, this turned out to be a much larger, more expensive vacation than we had planned. We ended up eating at many incredible restaurants, bought plenty of souvenirs, and enjoyed our vacation to the fullest. Little did we know what challenges would await us later in 2020. I am so glad we went all out because looking back on this trip was a bright spot as we trudged our way through the rest of the year.
I remember that I was actually excited to go home. We had the perfect honeymoon, but we were ready to go back and start living our normal lives. That’s pretty special… when you want to come home from vacation.
After two days of taking it relatively easy at Epcot, we woke up on Day 6 feeling refreshed for our last day of Disney World….
Epcot is the park we wish we had been able to spend more time at. We had a full day and half planned for it during our honeymoon, but it felt like we weren’t able to really dig into the awesomeness of Epcot due to two factors: we were exhausted and it rained.
Be Our Guest is infamous for selling out almost as soon as the reservations become available, and we barely managed to scrape a breakfast reservation during our trip… We tried the Grey Stuff. Was it delicious?
…We were able to appreciate the park for what was there and the potential we could see coming with Galaxy’s Edge. There wasn’t a WOW moment, like when we entered Animal Kingdom, but it was a worth-while visit and we look forward to seeing how the park grows throughout our lifetimes.
This story starts several months before our trip to Disney World. Our beautiful city of Colorado Springs was particularly taken with the trend of rock painting in the summer of 2018. Adam and I loved finding these painted rocks along our bike route and re-hiding them for other people to find. Also along our bike route was a super cute “fairy door” in a neighbor’s front yard – a place where you could take a rock if you left a rock. One day, we switched out a sunset rock for a Minnie Mouse rock. It was pretty adorable, painted by someone we clearly had a lot in common with.
There is a different kind of magic to Animal Kingdom. Even though it has been carefully manufactured by man, it does make you feel like you are in nature. The textures of the many different types of trees, the sounds pumped through the speakers, even the amount of space between attractions, it makes you feel fully immersed in this land.
The anticipation was crazy! My smile couldn’t get any bigger and Adam was especially enjoying watching me freak out. The first moment of walking in was overwhelming and wonderful. It was similar to Disneyland, but with its own flair. And the castle was AMAZING. It was so tall and beautiful. It was such an incredible experience taking in all the sights, smells, and sounds of this new, fantastical place that was both familiar and foreign.
There are people who hate Disney, people who are neutral toward Disney, people who like Disney, people who love Disney, people who REALLY love Disney, and I’m sure there are a thousand more shades in between those. We would fall firmly into the category of LOVE. We don’t eat, breath, and drink Disney, but it is definitely something that has captured our imaginations and taken us on some incredible adventures.
The Void was an incredible Virtual Reality experience. It blew our minds. It felt like we were in the Star Wars movies. It was the best possible way to start our vacation and we would recommend it highly to any of our friends who visit. The Void is not just located in Florida. We have seen them in Las Vegas and California, as well. If you ever get the opportunity, definitely check out their amazing VR worlds. We will absolutely be going again. It is worth the money.
Our first impression of the room was something like, “Okay. It’s a little outdated, but this is just perfect for what we need. We won’t be in the room much anyway.” And then the shower situation happened…
