After taking a day to recover from the wedding, we flew off Monday morning to Disney World.

We only had five days at Disney and we figured that we wouldn't even have enough time to do everything we wanted just within Disney World.  Because of this we decided to stay on the property.  Originally we considered staying at the Grand Floridian (Ok, it was more me than Melissa).  The phrase "It *is* our honeymoon" was used repeatedly.  In the end we decided that since the resort in St. Lucia was going to be fairly up-scale and since we didn't expect to spend much time in the hotel at Disney we opted for a "fun" place.  This led us to the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  Although it shares the name with the Animal Kingdom, they are not really attached.  However, the great thing about this hotel is that it's surrounded by animals!  See the Animal Kingdom Lodge page for more info.

With the Animal Kingdom Lodge as our base of operations we travelled to the four Disney World parks: The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, The Animal Kingdom and MGM.  We had a great time everywhere although MGM was probably our least favorite.  On the other hand, Melissa got a picture with Minnie Mouse there.

One of the great things about staying on the property was the ease of getting from place to place.  There is a bus system that goes between all the parks and almost all the hotels (some hotels require a boat ride!).  We took these busses (and boats) everywhere so we didn't need a car and we never needed a cab.  The only downside is that to get to another hotel you need to first go to one of the parks then wait there for a bus to the other hotel.  We only did this once, and it turned out we needed a boat, not a bus!  It worked out pretty well.

We chose to go with a package at Disney.  I believe it was called the Bronze Package.  From what we hear they change the names every year, so it doesn't matter too much anyway.  The important thing is what it gives you.  We chose this package because it gave us two "wishes" per person per day.  A Wish is basically a prepaid virtual coupon.  The wishes can be used to pay for any number of things including meals, some merchandise, Cirque du Soleil tickets, and other things.  We chose to use them almost exclusively for meals.  For a meal this gives you an appetizer, entree and dessert.  Let me tell you, that is a LOT of food!  Some restaurants are one wish, some are two.  One of the best meals we had was at Artist's Point and it was two points.  We figure that a point is worth somewhere around $25 to $30.  Also with our package was one coupon for a limit list of things.  One of the things on this list was for a Leave a Legacy tile at Epcot.  We decided to do this (and got suckered into buying a second tile, of course).  We thought that was pretty cool.  For the next twenty years you can see our faces and reference to our honeymoon at Epcot.  You can find our two tiles at: East 2-B-28-10-34 and East 2-B-28-10-35.  If you go there and see them, let us know!

You can read our experiences and thoughts on all the places we visited on the pages to the left, but here are our general recommendations:

Recommended

The Animal Kingdom : This was our favorite park of the four.  We both really like animals, so your milage may vary.

Maharajah Jungle Trek : This is in Asia at the Animal Kingdom.  It's just a walking tour along animal enclosures.  It was the best way to see animals at the Park.  This is also where the tigers are.

The Animal Kingdom Lodge :  It's really cool having the animals right off your balcony.  Be careful on room choice!  We're fairly sure that the best rooms are those that point inward as this is the largest savannah.

Fast Pass :  Without this our lives would have been miserable.  At certain rides and attractions you can scan your ticket and it gives you a pass to the ride or attraction for a specific time range.  Depending on how busy it is the time range can be sooner or later.  These special passes then allow you to come back to the attraction during the specified time period and go into a special line which was rarely longer than ten people for us.  You then get to bypass all those poor suckers waiting in the normal line!  You can only hold one fast pass ticket at a time, and the ticket tells you when you can next get a fast pass.  Use it wisely!

Artist's Point : This is the "upscale" restaurant at the Wilderness Lodge.  This was our best meal at Disney.

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin: This is a ride in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom.  It's sort of a ride/video game.  We went on it three times.

Marrakesh: This is the restaurant in Morroco at Epcot.  The food was good, the place was not crowded (no reservations necessary, unlike at Mexico which is always packed), and our waitress was very nice (especially after we let it slip we were on our honeymoon).  They have live belly dancing as well!

McDonald's: You would not believe how good McDonald's french fries taste after sweating all day.  We particularly enjoyed the one at Epcot.  All they serve are McNuggets and french fries, but that was awesome!

Visit other Disney hotels: Each hotel offers something unique.  We didn't do this much, but with our experience of Artist's Point we would certainly recommend branching out.

Aerosmith Rockin' Rollercoaster: Don't eat before going on it, but even us rollercoaster wimps really enjoyed it.

MGM Animation Tour: This tour gives you a peek into how Disney makes their animate movies.

Boma for brunch: Boma was one of the restaurants at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  We only ate there for brunch one day but they put on a great spread.  They had typical American breakfast foods as well as what they claimed were African foods (never having been there I can't verify that!).  I got one of my curry fixes there.

Bug spray and umbrella: Melissa wanted me to mention the bug spray (I didn't have a problem) but the umbrella saved us a few times!

Discouraged

Innoventions: Innoventions makes up two of the pavilions at Epcot.  This is corporate sponsorship gone awry.  It's basically a bunch of companies trying to display their new stuff.  This would be ok if it was more fun.  The only thing we did here that was any fun was a video game where you had to dance on a pad on the floor according to what the screen told you to do.  Yes folks, that was the highpoint.

Imagination: Imagination is another pavilion at Epcot.  I honestly can't even tell you what was in there.  It does have some cool fountains outside though.  Mostly I remember as a kid wanting to spend more time there, but having gone back I was really disappointed.

Alien Encounter: This "ride" is in Tomorrowland at The Magic Kingdom.  A friend of mine raved about this so I had to do it.  Kids (not too young!) might find it interesting, but we found it boring.  It would certainly frighten any young children.