Anniversary Trip to Disney World

If you follow me on Instagram, you've already seen all of these photos from my anniversary trip last week. If not, well it's all new content, hooray! Rhett and I went to Disney World for our honeymoon, and we decided to go back for our first anniversary. It's probably too expensive to do every year, but we'd like to keep going ever so often because we love it so much.

This time I signed up to do a 10 mile race while we were there! While the race itself was pretty fun, I was overall disappointed with the experience. I did it alone, so that probably didn't help. Between them not having women's shirts (seriously?! The run had to have been at least 50% women) and runners having to stand around for what felt like an eternity before starting off, I was just kind of blah about it. The trip was still fun though! We saw all the parks of course, and we even went to a few attractions that we missed last time. I tried to take a few photos each day with my phone since I forgot my point and shoot. I took my dSLR, but never used it. The idea of carrying it around all day, just didn't appeal to me. I didn't want to risk hurting it right before shooting a wedding this coming weekend!

Day 1: We got Magicbands when we arrived! They are testing them out right now. They work as your room key, dining plan and park tickets, and you can connect a credit card to them to charge things you want. Of course it makes buying stuff easier, which is good for Disney. We went to Magic Kingdom first, and we happened to be walking by the castle right as a parade came through! Last year we were ALWAYS peering over people to see the parades, so I was excited to be so close. Day 2: I got up and ran around our resort, which was nice and peaceful with a river. It was so hot, but I guess that's Florida for you. We went to Epcot for the day. Not many things are as mesmerizing as that ball! There's just something about it, I can't help but just stare at it.

Still day 2: We ate at the Germany section of Epcot at Biergarten! It was a buffet and everything was delicious. I tried schnitzel, which was yummy. The entertainment (pictured) was great there too. Day 3: We went to Hollywood Studios for the day. Rhett LOVES Tower of Terror, but I hate it. I honestly feel miserable on that ride, but don't tell him that (I don't think he reads this so...). I like to ride it with him because I know he loves it so much. I always look like I'm about to throw up in the photos from the ride. That top right photo is from when we were waiting in line for T of T. I just thought the mist was gorgeous! We also did the backlot tour, which we missed last year. Still haven't done Toy Story Mania! We don't care enough to rush to the park early enough to get in line. That ride is always a long wait. We went back to Epcot for dinner in the Canada section. Le Cellier was great! Rhett had the bone-in ribeye, which was so tasty.

Day 4: race day! We spent the morning at Animal Kingdom, which is probably my favorite park besides Magic Kingdom. I know most people like Epcot the best, and I really love it too, but I just love the animals so much! Since I was running that night, we went to see Gravity in Downtown Disney to give me a little rest. Of course there's a lot of walking involved getting around DD, so I still ended up feeling really tired by race time. Whatever, I survived, and I did halfway decent. My time was not what I wanted, but it was much hotter than I expected so I didn't push as much as I could have. I don't want to be carried away on a stretcher because I had a heat stroke! I did manage to run the entire thing though, which I never thought I could do. I walked for about 10 seconds at 2 water stops because trying to drink out of a cup while running is just a recipe for disaster/face planting/choking.

Day 5: Our last full day was our anniversary! I convinced Rhett to take this photo and one other one in front of the castle. He HATES getting his picture taken. I honestly think he does it just to aggravate me...and it works. Thankfully, I have at least two pictures of us on our anniversary. We spent the day at Magic Kingdom again, but we didn't do much. We got some floats at the Plaza ice cream place and just enjoyed the sunshine. For dinner we went to Jiko at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Those zebras you see are right outside people's windows! Life goal: stay in a savannah view room at AKL. How awesome would that be?! Jiko was pretty good. Our entree's were decent, but the appetizer we got was so delicious! It was 3 different African breads and 4 sauces. We didn't leave a single bite.

After dinner we headed back to Epcot to watch Illuminations, which we missed last year. It was so wonderful! I'm so glad we did that. It was the perfect end to our anniversary celebration. We packed up and headed back the next day (bye, Port Orleans!) I was sad to be leaving, but also pretty excited to get back home to Chipper. I missed that crazy little dog! I don't think he behaved for his sitters, so I feel really bad. Luckily they are family, so they still love us anyway.

I hope you all have had a great fall so far. I'm really enjoying this beautiful weather! I know it won't last long, so I'm going to soak it up for now.