Let's sleep late tomorrow, 'til like 8! (A March '19 Disneymoon TR updated 4/12)

Justplainchy

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jan 15, 2019
Hello everyone! I'm Chy or justplainchy and this is my first proper trip report, but I figured it was a good one to start with as we just returned from our absolutely magical Disneymoon! We stayed at Coronado Springs resort from 3/15-3/23, on the Deluxe Dining Plan; so our trip included a lot of food, a lot of desserts and a whole lotta love (for each other, and for Disney!). This was actually a make-up trip for our original Disneymoon which was supposed to be in June of 2018 - but then I broke my ankle 5 days before we were supposed to leave. I think the Universe knew what was up though, because this trip was amazing from start to finish, even with Spring Break Crowds and crazy weather fluctuations that definitely didn't follow the forecast we'd looked at before we left...

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Since I'm new, let's start with introductions.

First up; my name is Chy and I'm a 30-year old special education teacher from Austin, TX. I've been going to Disney World since I was a kid (8 years old!) but I've never been to Disneyland.

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Favorites:
Character - Simba, Princess -Tiana, Ride - BTMRR & FoP, Restaurant - Flying Fish or Tusker House
Trip Role:
I'm the planner/researcher and time manager
Favorite Part of This Trip:
Tie between Epcot Snorkeling and our Donald Interaction

And the better half: The Nala to my Simba, the Water to my Melon, the Salt to my Pepper; Jo. She's a 34-year-old Principal's secretary originally from Stockholm, Sweden but now lives with me in Austin. This was only her third trip to Disney World but she HAS been to Disneyland.

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#purplewall, am I right?

Favorites:
Character - Stitch, Princess- Ariel, Ride - Space Mountain & FoP, Restaurant - Flying Fish or Tusker House
Trip Role:
Keeper of All Important Documents, Packer Extraordinaire and Person Who Keeps Us From Just Going to Bed Like a Hot Mess
Favorite Part of This Trip:
Magical Fireworks Dash and Donald
Since this is just my intro post, I figured I would tantalize with the titles of each day of our trip. I'll try to remember to turn these into links as I actually write out the different days! I promise too many pictures, reviews of food, bad jokes and thrilling sagas of adventures all over the Disney property. Okay maybe not that last one, but the first three for sure. I love a good bad joke.

What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta! See?!?

Anyway....


Trip Report Chapter Titles-

Friday 3/15: The Tale of Kick-offs, Beetle Bites and Our New Favorite Restaurant
Saturday 3/16: Maybe I like Roller Coasters?, How Many Times Can You Do Star Tours Without Throwing Up? And Exactly What Counts as a Monsoon?
Sunday 3/17: Magic Kingdom We Are In You and Can we Make it from BoG to the Contemporary in 15 Minutes?
Monday 3/18: Fireworks Hunt Half-Mile and Also, Florida, WHY?
Tuesday 3/19: Flowers in the Rain, The Hunt for Leia, I Do Need This Simba Pillow
Wednesday 3/20: Donald Becomes Our Favorite Character and; I've Been Avoiding This Ride for 13 Years.
Thursday 3/21: How Many Extra Experiences Can You Do in One Day? OMG, THAT'S A SHARK! and Our Private Magic Kingdom
Friday 3/22: The Only Bows a Man Needs and The Best Table in the House
Saturday 3/23: Debatable Headbands, Epcot Sunshine and the Tragic Express

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Thank you guys for reading along! I'm super excited to share our trip with you!
 


The Tale of Kick-offs, Beetle Bites and Our New Favorite Restaurant
(Part I: Kick-offs!)
Okay I'm working really hard to combat the Disney Blues here, so I figured there was no better way to distract myself from not being at Disney like reliving the great trip we just finished! Let's get this party started. Our trip was the 15th-23rd, but really began on the 14th of March with a packing extravaganza. Our original flight was supposed to leave at noon on the 15th, so we figured we'd have a lot of time to finish up packing that morning after sleeping in. Hah! Jetblue sent us a notice in January that said "changes to your flight!" -- now we were leaving at 6:45 am. Hooray :headache:. Of course, our grumpiness was short lived, because we realized we'd just earned ourselves a few more hours at Disney and the only trade off was going to be being tired! Fair trade in my book. But it did mean we ended up packing all night on Thursday to get everything ready (by all night I mean until Midnight, but that's still late with a 4am wake up!) and dropping our dog off at what we call "Doggy Day Camp", but is really just my grandparent's house. He loves it there, they have a chainlink fence so he can see everything and also three other dogs and they let him in and out as much as he wants. WE ALSO LEARNED when we went to pick him up last night that he has a flowerpot he's claimed as his own and he just hops in there like that's a thing he's allowed to do and sleeps in the dirt. Like I said, he loves it there.

ANYWAY.

Here we are; all packed:
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Yes, it does look like we're going to Disney for a month, but half of that grey suitcase is filled with bottled water, and we do like to be over-prepared. I say we, but really it's Jo. She's an amazing packer. I'm a disaster. I just throw things in really fast and then am like "YEAH I'M DONE" and then we get to where we're going and I don't have socks, or a hairbrush, or one memorable time: pants. Jo is in charge of the packing. At some point on the 14th, I paid for us to take two bags but when I printed our boarding passes they said "FARE INCLUDES 0 BAGS", which was exactly the sort of thing I needed to panic about ALL NIGHT :rolleyes1:rolleyes1

But I did eventually sleep and mercifully didn't dream all night about our bags not coming with us, and I even managed not to grump too much when the alarm went off at 4:00am. Ugh. We drug ourselves out of bed, made coffee, chugged it and did a last few things around the house (food for the cats, etc., etc.) before I requested the Lyft. This was my other fear - usually we would drive to the airport, but 8 days at 8 dollars a day plus tax adds up, AND because it was SXSW at home and the airport decided THIS was a great time to resurface three of their lots, we'd heard from a couple friends that there wasn't any parking at the airport. We also didn't feel comfortable asking someone to drive us that early in the morning; so we were counting on a Lyft being available to come to our house that's a bit out of the way and take us. Thankfully one did pick up our ride after only about 5 minutes of waiting.


Of course, he was supposed to arrive in a car and instead came in a giant truck. :worried: It always makes me nervous when they're not in the car I expect! But he seemed nice and it was the right driver, but it was obviously his work truck so the back was full of tools and construction equipment. No room for bags! So he ended up stacking them all in the front seat and driving one handed so the leaning tower didn't fall on him :tilt:. If only this was the weirdest/worst lyft experience of our trip....

BUT! We made it unscathed, and our bags didn't topple over. We unloaded, thanked him and headed inside. I braced myself for an argument about the bags and the fee annnnddd it wasn't an issue at all. Apparently their computer showed we paid even though our boarding passes didn't. We sent our bags off on their Magical journey, and then we joined a long security line that got much, much longer right after we joined it.
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Good news, neither of us is a danger to a plane, so we passed through with relative ease and set about finding breakfast since it was about 5:30 now.

Our options were bagels or breakfast tacos and while we'd usually pick the latter, bagels won out just this once.

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Bagel cheers! We're going to Disney!

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Jo loves a bagel. She does not love having her picture taken this early in the morning as she eats a bagel. "Is this for your trip report?" "Yep!" "nrghh." It was a conversation we'd have a cooouppleee more times this trip. :rolleyes1

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Look at us, we're so cute and excited!! It's finally starting to sink in! It's our honeymoon! I didn't break my ankle this time! Neither one of us has the flu or a cold! We're finally going! Two years of waiting and it's finally here! Jo called her folks in Sweden to let them know about an awesome pre-honeymoon present we'd gotten -- her permanent (for ten years!) green card had been approved without us having to do the interview or provide more information! Hooray! I texted my family we were headed out (they weren't awake yet, smart people) and we finally got ready to board our plane! We were toward the front, but apparently Jetblue boards from the back to the front (I know it makes sense and it goes faster, but man I just wanted to BE ON THAT PLANE ALREADY) so we were the last to board. Still plenty of room for our carry ons. No delays in take off and suddenly we were AIRBORNE. HEADED TO DISNEY. HEADED TO OUR HONEYMOON! YES!

Jo celebrated by napping. I watched four episodes of flea market flip and drank my body-weight in coffee.

Stay tuned next time for Day 1- Part II: Us almost forgetting to get off the faux-o-rail, two of the best meals we had all trip, Jo's first venture to Disney Springs, our amazing room and me fighting a beetle and it almost winning.
 


The Tale of Kick-offs, Beetle Bites and Our New Favorite Restaurant
(Part II: Beetle Bites! - subpart a because I've hit 10 pictures and my linked photos aren't working!)

So, when I left off, we were had just gotten on the plane and were busy celebrating in the most exciting way two young adults can! Coffee, HGTV shows and naps. Man, we're the life of the party, I'm telling you. Our plane landed without much fanfare (I think everyone else was as tired as we were!) and suddenly we were here! Orlando! We did break into song a little-- "Or-laaaan-doo! I love you, Or-laaaan-do. Sea woorrrlld and Disneeeey and Put-Put Goooolfinggg..." Any Book of Mormon fans out there??

We resisted the urge to wander through the EARport store (still one of my favorite puns), had a brief moment seeing the Harry Potter store where we panicked about not building a day for HP world this trip, but it quickly passed as we reminded ourselves about our amazing plans. Phew. We walked, walked, walked and then there it was! The highlight of every Disney Trip! The faux-o-rail! Okay, I don't think this is the highlight of anyone's trip, but it didn't take long to come and we got on for my favorite game: "Spot The Alligator". I have only won this game one time in my life, but I have to play it with all bodies of water around Orlando/Disney. Needless to say, I lost this time too. No alligator spotting for me; but the faux-o-rail pulled into the station and everyone got off and Jo and I were just like "doo doo doo, this isn't us, we're headed to B, this says A!" because apparently we can't remember from DECEMBER to MARCH that A & B are just two sides of the same terminal :guilty:. To our credit we'd only slept like 4 hours? Thankfully, the announcement came back on that the faux-o-rail was headed back to where we came from and we clued in and jumped off really fast. I'm pretty sure I saw some people laughing. It's cool, I may have chuckled too -- we must have looked a little ridiculous with how quickly we were trying to get off a thing that wasn't even closing its doors yet.

First potential crisis averted!

We put on our Honeymoon ears I had made for this trip (which turned out to be AMAZING FOR PEOPLE NOT ASKING IF WE WERE SISTERS AND/OR TWINS THE WHOLE TRIP I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT 12/10) and as we walked to the Magical Express, a little girl whispered to her mother "Look! Beautiful Princesses!" and my heart melted and I think my excitement level finally trumped the tired and I was SO READY TO BE THERE. We checked in to DME with very little wait and we were the first on the bus for Coronado Springs, our home for the next eight days! Since the bus was pretty sparsely populated I figured we were in the long haul for the wait. Selfie time!

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Our selfie game gets stronger as the trip goes on, don't fear!

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Oh hey there, friend! Fancy seeing you here!!

We got on at 10:35 and I figured I'd just take a nap until we were supposed to leave, but then a few more families trickled in and our bus driver got on the bus at 10:50 and closed the doors! Yes! She started welcoming us---only to get a knock on the door as another family showed up. She grumped a little, got off the bus, and helped them load their stuff. They got on. Doors closed. Welcome speech begun--one word in and there's ANOTHER family being sent out. She gets off the bus and grumps at the people that if her door is closed they have to NOT SEND PEOPLE. She loaded up their stuff and they joined the bus looking guilty (even though it wasn't their fault!), and at 10:55, we were off!

Jo and I meant to take a nap on the ME, but I think we were just too excited. And pretty soon! There is was!
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WE WERE HERE!!!

Coronado Springs ended up being the first stop (First time that's ever happened to me!) so we pulled in -- and immediately got stuck in a traffic jam due to construction. No worries though; with only a five minute delay, we were pulling up to our home for the week:

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Okay so apparently this is the ONLY picture I took of Coronado's beautiful lobby. I fail. It's stunning, is the thing. I read a lot before we stayed here that this was the least "Disney" hotel and that it felt a little soulless, but we didn't find that at all. It was warm, welcoming and incredibly romantic. We waited a bit in line to check in, and then met with a lovely lady who immediately gave us our buttons and congratulated us on our honeymoon. I had used TP to request a room with a king bed in Casitas 5. I had such high hopes. I also expected to have to wait for a room since it was only about 11:30 by now. But! Our room was ready! We were so pumped. Everything was coming up roses! Best Honeymoon everrrrr--- We were promptly handed this:
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Oh dear. Cabanas, 8C.

If you're keeping track, this is the furthest possible place away from the first stop on the Bus line, and the closest to the construction and arguably the FURTHEST from El Centro. Maybe some of the ranchos are further, I'm not sure. My gut sank. I meekly asked if there was a king bed; she confirmed that which made me feel a least a little better. That would have been an extra $300 for the week to book, so it was nice to get for free. Somewhat demoralized, we grabbed our luggage, wandered to Rix to get our refillable mugs (easy peasy!) and then waded out into the heat to make it to our building. This is probably the grumpiest we were all trip -- it was hot, our carry ons were heavy, we were REALLY FAR AWAY and there was construction RIGHT NEXT TO OUR ROOM and we didn't even have a view of the lagoon. Plop, plop, plop. It took us AGES to find the right room too -- we went to 8C and went around the far side, only to realize our room was actually right next to 8B...

But then we opened the door and all of our grumpiness sort of just melted away. The room was beautiful.
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(I forgot to turn the light on for this one, oops. #besttripreportever)
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So. Much. Storage. TWO VANITIES. We're two ladies and we don't even have two vanities at home! Living the luxury life! YES. AND IS THAT A CEILING FAN IN A HOTEL ROOM IT IS MY DREAMS HAVE ALL COME TRUE.

We unpacked a little...well, I say we, but really it was Jo who unpacked and I laid on the bed being helpful and also squeaking in excitement because I'm a really useful travel buddy! If I'd have let her, she would have finished unpacking for us; but we were getting dangerously close to our 2:00pm dining reservation (it was like 12:30 y'all, but the last memory I have of Disney buses was during Christmas-New Years Hell Week, so I didn't exactly have a lot of faith...) and so I made her stop and we headed out to locate the bus stop.

Thankfully the bus stop was only about a four minute walk from our room across the parking lot, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day--the gorgeous day part, because RIGHT as we started across the parking lot, a Disney Springs bus pulled away :(:( Goodbye, bus!

But the wait was actually really lovely too: cool breeze, sunshine and birds singing. We had to debate for a second over whether or not the birds were real (they were), until I pointed them out in the trees to Jo. She acquiesced. My goodness this got long and we haven't even gotten to the beetle story yet! Stay tuned!
 
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The Tale of Kick-offs, Beetle Bites and Our New Favorite Restaurant
(Part II: Beetle Bites! - the rest of that story!)
When I left off I'd just convinced Jo that while Disney was magical, they do not in fact pipe in birdsong: those are just real birds! She responded by just looking gorgeous in the spring sun:
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Guys, I'm just besotted.

We had worn fancy dresses for this day because we wanted to look nice and it fulfilled some dream of mine to wear fancy dresses to go off on our Honeymoon, even if it was two years after the wedding. Eventually another Disney Springs bus pulled up and we were off! I forgot what a sucker I am for a Disney bus -- I don't know what it is. I figure maybe it finally tells my brain we're at Disney World; but despite the encroaching tired, I was so excited!

I will say this: CSR is really ideally located. No trip took us longer than 15 minutes once we were on the bus! Now, I hadn't been to Disney Springs since it was Downtown Disney -- so walking into all the high-end shops was a shock for me! But I had to admit it was beautiful. So here's the other thing you need to know about us: on her first Disney trip, I converted Jo to Pin Trading. I've been doing it since 2004 (back when there weren't quite so many scrappers!). I love both trading off lanyards and buying rack pins (especially limited editions), but Jo is all about the hunt! She will chase a cast member down if she spies a good pin on their lanyard and 9 times out of 10 if we're walking in a park and I lose her, it's because she's five steps behind me checking out pins! It's awesome though and how we've gotten some of our favorites in our collection.

This is a long lead in to let you know that because she loves me, she said we could go to the big pin store first! YES! I have such fond memories of this pin store because I used to do Disney as a teen with my mom while she had a conference in one of the Disney Springs hotels and I just entertained myself until 3:00 when she was done and we could go to the parks. I entertained myself a LOT at this pin store. I was also hunting a new LE pin that had been released on the 14th. I had prepped Jo that we might spend our first day chasing all over the parks to find it; but we rolled up to the pin store and:

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YES! I am of the exact right age that I remember playing this level over and over again on my friend's super nintendo because IT WAS SO HARD. But The Lion King is still my favorite, and my place of pride in my pin collection is for my Lion King pins, but they're pretty rare, so this was RIGHT UP MY ALLEY. I was so pumped. Also, pardon my nail-polish. We had these great plans that we would re-paint them some night we got back early from the parks (hah!) but it just never happened (spoiler alert).

We did some more pin trading and we were about to head over to World of Disney to try and find Jo a stuffed Stitch when we spotted two of the custodial team with a huge pin board! YES! We wandered over and traded pins and chatted with them (which is honestly one of my favorite parts of the pin trading) and we got our first bit of Honeymoon Magic (TM). Right as we were walking away Shelly (the cast member) called us over and said she had something for us:
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I think my face almost broke from smiling so hard. It was just the perfect little touch of Pixie Dust that made it so real that we were here in Disney! It really reaffirmed our decision to come here for such a big celebration too.


After that it was finally time for our 2:00 reservation at Morimotos! I love Iron Chef and Jo and I both love adventurous food, and I have previously seen Morimoto at the MGM (creepily, through a window of his restaurant as he filmed something for the hotel) so I was super excited to eat here. We arrived and checked in and they asked us to wait for a second before we got our table, so we settled in for a bit expected to read the menus but almost as soon as we sat they were calling our names! We hustled to our seats and wondered why it was so hot in there before we got distracted by the beautiful decor.

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It's absolutely stunning!

Our server was by quickly and scanned us for the DxDP - and then remarked how many credits we had! We explained this was our first meal and he promised a run down after he checked on some other tables. He was quick and came back and explained the basics -- which were pretty much the same since the last time I'd used the plan except now we could add alcohol! Jo doesn't drink, so it fell to me to drink two cocktails every dinner, because her frugal mind refuses to order a $4 soda when we could order a $19 cocktail and it's included. I kept trying to convince her to get mocktails all week but it never really worked. She really does just like water with her meals...unless there's POG juice, but that's for a later part of this story...

We ordered our apps and entrees:
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Delicious cilantro chicken dim sum and crab sticks (not pictured) -- these were both delicious.

I liked the crab more, but that's just because I adore crab. Jo liked it enough for it being crab (high praise) but we both really enjoyed the mix of flavors in the dim sum. Also I'm a sucker for the presentation. Apps out the way, it was time for the main course!

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Peking Duck for two! I've never had Peking Duck before. Omg, guys. It's to die for!

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See? Delicious. Though -- I will say their "steamed pancakes" they served it with were definitely just flour tortillas. Whatever, it was amazing. The duck sauce was the stuff of legend. The duck meat was moist and flavorful without being gamey and the skin was crisp and just... yes. I would have eaten this for days if I wasn't trying to save a little room for dessert...

...but wait, what is that weird feeling on my sandal? It's kind of like a sticker? It's weird that it's moving? Oh, weird it's stopped moving now, let me just brush over my foot -- huh, nothing there. OH GOD IT IS MOVING AND IT'S UNDER THE STRAP OF MY SHOE AND IT'S ALIVE AND IT'S BITING ME A LOT BECAUSE IT'S BEING SMOOSHED BY MY SANDAL AND IT DOESN'T WANT TO BE THERE BUT I ALSO DON'T WANT IT TO BE THERE GET IT OUT. I got out of my shoe real fast to release the BEETLE that had decided I was as delicious as I thought the duck was. We didn't get along. I have a general rule that bugs get carried outside, but I was 1) freaked the expletive out because it had just come from no-where and had been biting me and 2) not feeling very generous BECAUSE IT HAD BEEN BITING ME, so I stepped on it and won the battle of the beetle for good. Sorry Disney beetle. You were not invited to this lunch.

I spent the rest of the meal with my feet up on my chair. Because like I said - pretty freaked out. We didn't tell anyone because it wasn't anyone's fault -- the front door was wide open and he was just a little beetle and I'm pretty sure he didn't want to be there either. Unfortunately his wanderings were fatal for him. :(

We finished the duck beetle-free, and then ordered dessert. Jo got the Mochi Mochi which was described as "annin tofu, coconut mango soup, fruit boba, frozen mango, lemon-yogurt powder" and I got the chocolate cream & crunch: "oreo tempura, mandarin orange jelly,dark chocolate gelato, hazelnut chocolate crunchies".
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And, as you can see: they came with a bit of Disney Magic! Jo's dessert was like nothing we had ever tasted before. It was delicious, but totally different. Mine was amazingggg and chocolaty and there was a tempura oreo that was just the perfect amount of fried! We blew out our candles and talked to a table next to us that was partially (or all?) french, visiting one of the girls and they had a celebrate dessert too! They congratulated us on our honeymoon, and we congratulated them on their birthday? The girl being visited laughed and said it wasn't her birthday, but she had just finished her medical boards and they were celebrating that! Still awesome. I love the random moments you get to have with Disney friends -- almost everyone is having a wonderful time and is open and kind!

So that brings us to the end of the beetle saga and one of our favorite meals of the week! Tune in next time for a quick wrap up of our Disney Springs adventure and our first exploration of the Boardwalk and our experience falling in LOVE with Flying Fish. Thanks for reading along!
 
Omg my husband and I are going to Coronado springs tomorrow...I am even more excited now after seeing your pics!!!!
 
Congrats on your Disneymoon. Looking forward to hearing more soon and seeing lots of pictures!
 
Omg my husband and I are going to Coronado springs tomorrow...I am even more excited now after seeing your pics!!!!

Get so excited! It's beautiful!! I wasn't going to share it yet (spoiler alert!), but here's a spoiler pic of what the lagoon looks like at night:
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Congrats on your Disneymoon. Looking forward to hearing more soon and seeing lots of pictures!

Thank you so much! Trust me, I have so many pictures. Pictures all day erry day. Thanks for following along! :)
 
Jo doesn't drink, so it fell to me to drink two cocktails every dinner, because her frugal mind refuses to order a $4 soda when we could order a $19 cocktail and it's included

More for you. :)
 

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