I suppose we should catch up. Work is alright. I'm finally on part-time hours so I get four days to do everything else I need to do. I don't really have much to say about it. Work is work.
The wedding went smoothly. The majority of you were there and/or have already seen the pictures on facebook. The weather for it was great. I'm glad because we really wanted to have the cocktail hour and pictures outside.
Ok there's not much to say on that, too. You were there. It's done, it went smoothly, and I'm now married. Woot!
The Honeymoon was fantastic
We went on a 4 night Disney Cruise to Nassau, Bahamas and Castaway Cay. The cruise was amazing. I catch myself missing it nearly every day. They definitely pamper you. Nearly everything is included and everyone is so incredibly friendly. The atmosphere is amazing. It really was relaxing and a lot of fun. We got pictures with Belle and Donald Duck. Turns out Donald Duck is John's favorite and it was one of the cuter photos. We didn't spend too much time ON Nassau because we signed up to scuba dive during our visit and it was fantastic. The water was so warm. Supposedly the bottom temperature was 85 degrees so we went in without wetsuits and didn't even notice.
The next day we went to Castaway Cay, which is a Disney owned island. My calves were so sore from a little gym time and then diving afterwards that I had trouble walking! Thankfully we had plans for swedish massages at their open air cabanas. That was absolutely marvelous. It was just what we needed. After the massage we went on the stingray adventure where you are given the chance to feed them and then swim around with a large amount of them. It was so funny! The one got my finger, but you can barely tell. It was nothing compared to when little miss decides to attack me and that's not a big deal either.
I would definitely recommend that, if given the option, you go on a Disney Cruise. It was wonderful.
Universal wasn't so great. I mainly blame the hotel. We decided that since it was a honeymoon we could pay the price to stay at one of the resorts. It seemed like a really good idea. It was walking distance, had a boat shuttle, the key was an included fast pass, you can get packages sent back to your room, and you could pay for things with your key. All of that seemed like fun perks and kept you from having to carry extra stuff throughout the day. All you needed was your key, right? Well I wouldn't recommend ANYONE stay at the hotels. For the $$$$ price, you don't get many things included. They nickle and dime you for food. It doesn't even have a complimentary breakfast! So on top of paying more than a Best Western, you're paying for food that BW would have given you for free.
We should have just stayed at an outside hotel. Most hotels have shuttles to the park. They take a little longer, but aren't problematic. With the extra money saved from the "resort" we could have BOUGHT the fast passes and probably still had money left over. We wouldn't have had to pay for breakfast. Many of the stores had an option to pick up packages at the gate in the front AND with the resort, we could only send the packages back on the first day because they didn't get delivered until the next day anyway so the park pickup is actually more convenient. Being able to charge things to the room key and thus not carry other cards was useless because it was a $100 limit. On the first day we were forced to pay for our FOURTY DOLLAR BREAKFAST (that's a whole different frustrating story involving annoying waiters and bad communication on their part) with our hotel key because the credit card machine wasn't working and we didn't want to carry a lot of cash at the park. That left us with $60 for merchandise and food for the whole day meaning we had to carry to other cards anyway. $60 may get you through most days, but John intended on buying something at Jurassic Park and I intended on buying things at Harry Potter World which we were going to that day.
It was very frustrating. The whole time we had to watch what we did at the hotel or buy at the park because on day two we had to carry what we got with us. That would have been more of a hassle, but we didn't want much at the second park anyway so it was ok.
I did spend a lot of time missing the Disney Cruise though because as soon as we got off the boat we were in the land of mean people. Those Mears shuttle people (how we got to our hotel and back) are VERY cranky. OH that's another thing! I looked and looked online for something about shuttles and Leows never mentioned it so I booked through Mears. Turns out they do have shuttles, they just don't bother telling you until you get there.
The actual park of Universal was fun. The Harry Potter world is rather small. All the stores are so tiny you have to wait in line just to get in and then you're crammed in. The line to the Hogwarts ride had no fast pass so it was an hour wait. That ride was very very awesome though so it was worth the wait. I hate the ones that have you waiting for an hour and leave you bored and disappointed.
Another neat thing, though, was that the Universal Studios park turns into a giant Halloween/Haunted Park thinger at night in October. It costs extra to go to, but decided it would be fun and it was! It opens at 730 and dear lord, the line to get in is LOOONGGG. It was terrible. John and I were both pretty cranky by then because of our hotel and John forgot the ticket for that part so we ended up having to turn around and go back. It turned out to be a very lucky mistake though because when we got back to the park with the tickets the line to get in was shorter and we came across a couple who was leaving and they gave us their fast passes. Our keys didn't work for this special event bit. Those fast passes were an absolute blessing. We were able to do so much with them and the lines were much longer than any I've seen. It might be comparable to Disney on Christmas. It was fun to do something Halloween related since we usually aren't able to nowadays. We ended up really enjoying it. A couple of the rides were still open at night, while others had their back studios turned into Haunted houses. In addition to that they had various parts of the streets turned into haunted alleys so we often walked up on zombies with chainsaws. I can see why it's so popular!
I definitely enjoyed our honeymoon, minus the Loews fiasco. I definitely wouldn't recommend staying at a resort, it really isn't work the money.
Hey, that was really interesting. I'm so glad you've caught up on the blog. Could you write something about the Humane Society too? I guess there might be some interesting dog and cat tales.
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