Getting ready to attend a Disney wedding! August 2013 - Wild Africa Trek

[librarygeek]

Hello everyone, and welcome! I am currently in the middle of planning 3 different Disney trips! It's a little overwhelming, to be honest, so I'm trying to make a few PTR to keep all of my thoughts and plans straight. I had planned to go twice in 2013 (I'll be going in February and April). Then we got invited to a friend's wedding there in August and I couldn't pass up the chance to go to a Disney wedding and be there to support my friend! It will be a shorter trip, from Wed. 7/31 to Sunday 8/4. The wedding is on the 3rd.

It will be just me and my husband on this trip. I'm 24 years old (will be 25 by this trip), and just finished grad school with a masters degree in library science. I currently work as a tutor and drama teacher but I'm hoping to find a library job soon! My love for Disney has grown every year. The last time I went was for our honeymoon in September 2011. I also write for a Disney blog and am on a Disney podcast called Come Home to Disney - all about ways to bring Disney into your home and your every day life!

DH is not as much of a Disney fan as I am, but he still enjoys the trips. He likes to do anything new and different. He is 23 (24 by the trip) and works as a computer software engineer. In his free time he likes to play video games and also design and develop his own video games/apps!

Here we are on our honeymoon trip, when we stayed at POR:



More info to come in the next post!

[librarygeek]

I haven't really thought much about this trip with two others before it, to be honest, but with our 180 day dining reservation coming up Feb. 1st I decided it was time to start thinking!

Where we're staying: We'll be at POP Century. It will be our first time there and I'm excited for it! We got a pretty good deal with the room block for the wedding. We'll have 4 nights there. I requested the 80's section since the I like the Pac-man decorations and think DH might appreciate that!



Our plans: This is all really up in the air right now! We know two things for certain:
* Saturday 8/3 we'll be doing wedding stuff for the majority of the day
* Friday 8/4 we are having an anniversary photo shoot at the art of animation resort

I'm super excited about the photo shoot! We hired Orlando area photographers David and Vicki Arndt and they seem super sweet so far! I'm excited to get some cool pictures there. That will take place from about 6-7pm Friday night.

But what to do with the rest of our time? I will have an annual pass but DH doesn't, so we're not going to go into the parks too much. Here's the possibilities so far:

Wednesday: arrival day. Depending on the time we could maybe go to a water park. The bride and groom are having an informal, pay your own way welcome dinner at Earl of Sandwich, so we could head to DTD for the evening (though we were thinking about doing that on Friday, so maybe we'd go somewhere else for dinner? It would be nice to see our friends though!)

Thursday: I think the bride and groom are having their "bachelorette/bachelor parties" this day, though it's really just a girls day and boys day. She's going with the girls into MK and he's going with the guys into Epcot. I'm going to join the girls for the MK day. I'm not sure about DH yet. He's deciding if he wants to spend the money for a one day ticket. He's also fine just staying in the room on his laptop. I don't know if he'd want to do anything else on his own. He does like to golf but it's going to be so gosh darn hot in August. I'm not sure yet if we're doing a full day including dinner with the bachelorette party or not... once I find that out we'll decide on dinner plans. If DH does decide to go to Epcot I'll probably hop over there and join him for dinner somewhere!

Friday: This is our most "open" day. We have the photo shoot from 6-7 but that's it. Our options for the day are pretty much either a water park or DTD. Or maybe mini golf. I've never done Disney Quest and it sounds like the sort of thing that DH would really enjoy. We also want to check out Splitsville - not 100% sure on the bowling yet but we both love sushi and want to try that! I also really want to dine at one of the Animal Kingdom Lodge restaurants (maybe Sanaa). If we did dinner after our anniversary shoot we probably couldn't get there til 8 or 8:30. Is it going to be too dark by then to see the animals? Is there much lighting? We might also consider lunch there.

Saturday: Pretty much wedding stuff for the majority of the day! Ceremony is at noon and reception at 1:30. Then there's the dessert party at Epcot at 8. It seems like we'll have a break in between there but I'm not sure what to do with it. After the dessert party if we're up for it we might head to Jellyrolls.

Sunday: We leave! Don't know what time yet. They're having a farewell breakfast at Whispering Canyon so we'll probably join for that. Don't know what we'll do if we're leaving later in the day - probably one of the things we didn't get to before (water park, mini golf, Disney Quest, or something!).

I almost never spend time outside the 4 parks so this is all pretty new to me! Any other good suggestions? We're also trying not to spend a fortune (otherwise I would've been interested in doing one of the backstage tours that didn't require park admission!)

[librarygeek]

No major updates. I can't believe I'm only about three weeks from ADRs and I have no idea what I'm doing yet!

I talked to DH and he's pretty sure he'd like to go to Epcot the day that I'm going to MK with the girls, so that takes care of him for that day. I'll probably hop over to have dinner with him. Not sure where yet, we'll have to to talk about it. I might try to snag Le Cellier, since we've never tried it. However we're also intrigued by the Moroccan restaurant. And Tutto Italia. And Japan, since Japanese food is probably his favorite (loves both sushi and hibachi). I just love the options in the world showcase!

[librarygeek]

Still waiting to hear about what else might be going on while we're down there concerning the wedding, but one definite thing that we decided is that for our Epcot dinner we'll do Tokyo dining. DH loves Japanese food and I don't love the new menu at Le Cellier. Right now here is what I'm contemplating:

Wednesday (arrival day):
Dinner: Earl of Sandwich (for wedding welcome party)

Thursday:
Lunch: MK with girls for me, Epcot with guys for DH
Dinner: Tokyo dining

Friday:
Lunch: Sanaa
Dinner: Splitsville

Saturday: Wedding
The ceremony starts at noon. I'm thinking we'll want to do a breakfast/brunch somewhere. But we've already done 1900 Park Fare at the GF, which is where the wedding ceremony is. I'm thinking about perhaps Ohana or Kona, and then we could hop over on the monorail. Or we'll just be lazy and sleep in before grabbing breakfast at Pop.
Late lunch/early dinner at wedding reception
Dessert party that night
I don't know if we'll be hungry enough to get dinner... I want to save room for the dessert party! I'll talk to my friend, and if we do decide dinner is a good idea, we'll be at the boardwalk anyway. So either Kouzzina (which we did on our honeymoon and loved) or Flying Fish.

Sunday:
Breakfast: Whispering Canyon cafe
I don't know what time we're leaving, so any other meals are still up in the air

[happybelle]

A Disney wedding sounds fun, looking forward to reading more.

[librarygeek]

Originally Posted by happybelle

A Disney wedding sounds fun, looking forward to reading more.

Thanks for following along! I'm really excited about getting to see a Disney wedding