ARRIVAL AT POLYNESIAN, CHEF MICKEY and MVMCP
Previously on Our Very Merry DISNEYmoon Celebration:
http://www.intercot.com/discussion/s...d.php?t=187818
and now the story continues…..
PHOTOS TO GO ALONG WITH DAY 1 STORY:
http://photobucket.com/DISNEYmoon1
We passed under the welcome sign on World Drive and YO! took some pictures on her iPhone as I was driving. Because we stayed off site for our engagement party last october I still had a good feeling of the lay of the land onsite. I love how as you are driving towards the Magic Kingdom Parking lot you can pace the Monorails on the right… its the first feeling of being "there". We explained to the Guard that we were heading to the Poly to check-in and he pointed us to the infamous right lane. Within 4 mins we were turing right into the Poly entrance. The guard here asked for my Drivers License and Resort confirmation, both of which I already had ready to go. It was not 2:24pm and We parked over in the main Poly parking lot. Surprised by the amount of parking spots, but liked the fact that we did not have to valet. Meaning we could take our own luggage up (save some $'s) and not have to pay for or tip valets (save even more $'s).
I did online check-in at the 10day mark so we could just jump in the short line. However, again to our surprise, no one was in either line. The CM was very friendly and explaining everything to us. He told us however that our room was not ready yet. He kept hinting about the room and said, "I can tell you its in the Tahiti building and its on the 3rd floor" In fact he even said the first 2 digits of our room number was 30xx. I jokingly said… Oh 3022 (because 22 is my lucky number) and he looked at me with a confused looked and turned his monitor away from me. Not that I could see what was on it anyways with those glare guards they put on them… but I guess I guessed the room number correctly LOL!!! He gave us our yellow lei's and our welcome package and said we would be texted when it was ready and then we could just go right up there. Just as we were walking away from the counter another older CM came up to us and said, "hold it…. take those lei's off… we have an official ceremony for those who were just married" he then took two REAL lei's out of a florist box and we proceeded to place them on each other. It was absolutely amazing!
We decided to just go out the beach and relax a bit… amazing that just 7 hours earlier we were having our plane de-iced. Time kept passing by and I was getting a bit anxious because we had a 5pm Chef Mickeys reservation and we really wanted to freshen up in our room before we left. Clock kept ticking and actually I went up to the desk to see if i missed the text.. It was now 4:15pm. The CM that checked us in was in shock we weren't texted, but upon looking it up our room was still not ready… What the heck are they doing up there? We decided to walk out to the car to get our suitcases ready and just then i received the text… room 3022 is now available. So we grabbed all of our bags and made the super long walk (not knowing the distance or that there was another parking lot closer to Tahiti) to our room…. we made it in there about 4:35pm.
Upon entering the room the first thing you noticed was right out of the sliding door was the Castle and just the right of that was Space mountain! amazing view. Surprisingly there was nothing "special" about our room that seemed to delay the entry by 1-1/2 hour past check in time. There was a towel wreath on our bed, what we learned to be the traditional disney first day towel creature. This sadly despite some tips was the last of the Specialness we received via Mousekeeping at the Poly. But did I mention that the view was amazing?! Another thing we noticed was that we were given a room with 2 separate queen beds… Totally a honeymoon suite (rolls eyes) but actually those separate beds led to the best night sleeps of our lives. The joys of not having to share covers and having a bed to yourself is long forgot when in a relationship! But we didn't have any time waste, Chef Mickey's and the MVMCP was calling quickly. Especially didn't want to be late at get charged $10 each.
I didn't realize that when we booked a 5pm chef mickeys that we would be there for the ceremonial opening, that was such a treat. The little boy was so excited. we checked in exactly at 5pm, phew! We were seated in the back but actually that was a perfect seat. All the characters came to our section first and within 25mins we had seen all 5 of them. But that wouldn't be the last time, they kept coming over and messing with us all dinner long haha. Now i am not complaining but I have heard others complain about the live birds that are found in Chef Mickeys and how unsanitary that is… I have to wonder if they felt the same about having the entire restaurant wave used napkin around their heads… that seems way worse to me lol
We were STUFFED being it was our first and only scheduled meal on the first day. Just as we were getting ready to leave our waitress Debbie K (ironically the same name as our wonderful MJ agent
) came over with a mickey shaped plate with two cupcakes in the ears and heart made out of sugar circles… how special but we could barely eat it we were so full. Now donald came over a little bit later and decided he would try to mess up the heart. Poor guy didn't realize it was held in place with honey…. he got honey all over his hand lol oops!
So we finished up and jumped on the monorail to head over to the MK for MVMCP 1 of 3! This was our first time visiting at Christmas so we were excited to see all the stuff. Upon exiting the monorail we were greeted with the soothing sounds of christmas… its not like our radio stations here had been playing xmas music since Nov 1st or anything. The first step under the railroad station and into the magic kingdom is always so special… entering for the first time during a Holiday part was extra special!!! Seeing the Castle, the "snow", the lights, the tree was awesome! In fact, I think the Icicle lighting on the Castle made it the best looking castle i have ever seen in person! The Cocoa and Cookie stations were pretty decent and they didn't skimp on the cookies… You almost had to tell them, "no i only want 2" ha.
We went on a few rides but we really wanted to just walk around and take in all the sights and sounds. Of the highlights were the Its a small world (its been under refurb the last 2 times i had been there), Tea Cups, TTA, Winnie the pooh and the haunted mansion. Like last trip we made a rule that we would only do an attraction that was 15mins or less.. We managed to get on all the rides we really wanted to do. as we were walking towards frontierland we spotted Cinderella and Prince Charming over in the stroller parking spot next to its a small world. The line was short and we found out why. They would be staying for the next 15mins then take a 15min break and then come back. We were far enough back in the line where we would have to wait at least 30mins now to see them. YO!s favorite character is Cinderella, so it was a no brainer to sit and wait. It was worth it, both were extremely friendly and talked to us about marriage and prince charming informed me of the two most important words, "Yes Dear" followed by "I'm Sorry" haha
I wanted to catch the Holiday Wishes so we realized it was about 9pm and we needed to work our way up front to get a good spot. This would be my first time using my Canon t3i Camera for fire works and I was super excited. It skipped my mind that they have that Memories and You show before wishes and we happened to see it from the side of the castle… Oh man, that is an amazing show!!! I managed to take some pictures of the castle throughout it, i can't believe how awesome it looked. We then worked our way to the top of mainstream where I got to take some Fireworks pictures. I didn't have a tripod with me so the ones you see are all from me just trying to hold the camera still while the shutter stayed open for a 2 seconds at a time. After the parade we secured our spot in frontierland for the parade. This is such an amazing parade! The gingerbread and toy soldiers were my favorites. After the parade we walked around a bit more and then decided head up to the front to try to meet the princesses. Sadly they stopped letting people in at 11pm and it was now 11:30pm. So we decided to call it a night because we had a full day the next day with Cinderella's Castle breakfast (SNOW WHITE!!!!) and Crystal Palace for dinner!
I did manage to set up my tripod on the balcony and take some cool night shots of space mountain, grand floridian, Castle and Contemporary.
Overall, i would have to say that I liked the atmosphere and the overall experience of MNSSHP better than the MVMCP, but I still have two more to see if that changes!
stay tuned for Day 2!
PreTrip report:
http://www.intercot.com/discussion/s...d.php?t=183080
Our Very Merry DISNEYmoon Celebration - 12/9/2011 - Day 1 (Part 2)
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