MAHALO Walt! A Sept. 2016 DisneyMoon *Completed 10/29*

[kaymil]

Oh my gosh, serious upgrade!! I would have been so disappointed to be in Disney and be eating van's.

Definitely. It was my first breakfast at WDW since having to go GF, though, so I thought it was normal. The first time I had the GF Mickey waffles I was blown away!

great TR! Following along.

Thanks for joining!

Jumping in! Glad to see another KC area DISer.

Yay KC! Thanks for following along!

Yep, that's how my husband and i ended up spending $168 bucks at Trader Sam's! I was like "I want souvenir glasses!!" and drunk hubby was like "sure! we're on vacation!" We ended up with a Nautilus, a pearl, a big tiki glass, and a zombie head

OH MY GOSH!!! I think my husband would have a heart attack. That's a sweet loot of souvenir glasses though!

Thoroughly enjoy your use of office gifs in this update!

#theoffice4lyfe

Is Crystal Palace on of the only places you can get GF mickey waffles? I don't think I've seen them many other places but I'm not GF so I'm not really looking for them.

Actually most table service places have them--I've had them at CP, The Wave, and Kona, and I'm having them at Boma in...5 days!
They're definitely the best GF waffles I've ever had; I'd love to steal their recipe!

 

[kaymil]

Real life: it's our one year anniversary today, and we leave for WDW in 4 days!

Now back to the TR



Wednesday, September 28th
Day 3, Part 2

After our short shopping break on Main Street, we caught a bus to Hollywood Studios for our evening plans.

We had a late lunch reservation at Sci-Fi, so we had a little time to kill when we arrived. Which means...more pictures! Yay!





The photopass photographer was a really sweet old man who chatted with us about our wedding and what makes a marriage last and he was just adorable.


Ken really wanted to see the Indian Jones show since he'd never done it before, and there was a showtime about to start, so we headed that way.

I hadn't seen this show since my first time at WDW back in 2007, so it felt mostly new to me, too. It's neat to watch, but not anything I would consider a must-see.





After we got out of the theater, Ken realized that he had lost his magic band. We talked to a cast member at the entrance and she sent someone in to see if it was on the bench still. We chatted with her for a second and she noticed our honeymoon pins and gave us four paper fastpasses! Yay for pixie dust!

Ken's magicband was nowhere to be found, so we headed to guest services, and luckily someone had turned it in there, so crisis averted.

After all that, it was almost time for our lunch ressie, so it was off to Sci-FI. This was a new restaurant for us and I hadn't told Ken anything about it, so I was excited to see his reaction to the scenery!




We loved our experience here! The old movie clips are super fun, and our server was great. We both loved our food, but sadly I forgot to take pics of it. I know we both got burgers that we liked, but my favorite part of the meal was my sweet potato fries. They had a little dusting of cinnamon on them and they are just mmmmmm.



After lunch, it was time for our first fastpass of the day!

Aaaaand it was NOT fast. Turns out the ride had been down, and they had just re-opened it for fastpass holders only. I think only one of the tracks was back up and running, because we waited about 40 minutes to ride.

On the bright side, they gave us another fastpass to use on any ride, so we now had 3 extra fastpasses each!



The details in this queue can never be rivaled.



The fact that I didn't take a picture of our scores probably means Ken won

After TSMM, we headed to use our next FP for Star Tours, then decided we needed some dessert, so we stopped in at Sweet Spells and found a seat at one of the covered tables on Sunset Blvd.




Ken's pumpkin whoopee pie, which he said was delicious.




My sad looking marshmallow, which was a disappointment



Mildly replenished, we headed to check in to our resort for the night with our last FP, but it turns out no one has checked in here in a loooooong time.






This is one of my favorite ride photos from the trip:




We rode again with one of our paper fastpasses, but Ken did not execute his pose on this one:



The guy in the blue shirt in the front row

I wanted to ride RnR, but Ken was feeling a little off his game, so I rode solo with another paper fastpass.

My sad face for having to ride alone:




Our early morning was starting to catch up with us at this point, so we opted to relax again with a margarita from Anaheim Produce. We finished it off pretty quick, then decided we were ready to head to the hotel. It was after 7:30 and we were staying at Port Orleans Riverside tonight and would have to get our luggage, so it seemed like a good time to head out.


We caught a bus to POR and asked for our luggage to be delivered, then we picked up some dinner to-go from Riverside Mill Food Court and ventured to our room, which took forever like it always does at Riverside. I have a theory that this resort likes to expand on you when its late and you're tired and hungry and WHERE THE HECK IS OUR ROOM.

Don't worry, we found it eventually.

We scarfed our food down pretty quickly and then waited for our luggage for what felt like forever. We couldn't figure out what an appropriate tip was for luggage delivery, and we only had a $1 bill and a $10 bill, which really put us in a dilemma because we thought it would be rude to ask for change. So dude got himself a $10 tip


Once we got our luggage and got comfortable, it didn't take long for both of us to crash. It was a long and busy day, and we were ready for some sleep before shopping and MNSSHP tomorrow!

Click Here for Day 4, Part 1!





​

 

[Raeven]

Real life: it's our one year anniversary today, and we leave for WDW in 4 days!

Congrats & yay!

 

[MeghanEmily]

Happy Anniversary! And I hope you have an amazing trip!!

The photopass photographer was a really sweet old man who chatted with us about our wedding and what makes a marriage last and he was just adorable.

So cute! We also found that whenever people saw we were "just married" that they all have stories and advice for us...some were cute...and some were weirder than others.

We chatted with her for a second and she noticed our honeymoon pins and gave us four paper fastpasses! Yay for pixie dust!

Wooh! Pixie dusted!!

Ken's pumpkin whoopee pie, which he said was delicious.

Oh my goodness, yum!!

The guy in the blue shirt in the front row

Bahaha fantastic!!

which took forever like it always does at Riverside. I have a theory that this resort likes to expand on you when its late and you're tired and hungry and WHERE THE HECK IS OUR ROOM.

We had a similar phenomenon at Coronado!!

 

[Neverland_Girl]

Real life: it's our one year anniversary today, and we leave for WDW in 4 days!

Happy Anniversary!!! And YAY have an amazing time!

After we got out of the theater, Ken realized that he had lost his magic band. We talked to a cast member at the entrance and she sent someone in to see if it was on the bench still. We chatted with her for a second and she noticed our honeymoon pins and gave us four paper fastpasses! Yay for pixie dust!

Extra FP are the best kind!

The guy in the blue shirt in the front row

Hahaha it's even better when you zoom in!!!

 

[Heidi Lou]

Happy anniversary!!! Have another magical year!

 

[kaymil]

Congrats & yay!

Thank you!!!

Happy Anniversary! And I hope you have an amazing trip!!

Thanks! I'm more than ready for some F&W Festival action!

Bahaha fantastic!!

Isn't it though?

Happy Anniversary!!! And YAY have an amazing time!

Thank you so much!

Hahaha it's even better when you zoom in!!!

OH MY GOD IT IS

Happy anniversary!!! Have another magical year!

Thank you!!!

 

[kaymil]

Thursday, September 29th
Day 4, Part 1

Today is MNSSHP day! Woohoooo!

I'm a big Halloween fan, so I was especially pumped for the party. Ken was not nearly as excited as I was considering how much we were paying, but he didn't have a choice

Riverside is one of our favorite resorts, so we started off slow so we could enjoy a little of the resort since we were only staying here the one night (the Poly and Beach Club both didn't have a reasonably priced room available for this night for some reason).




We took a nice walk over to FQ to get some beignets. I forgot to mention that my mom gave as a card as we left that we weren't allowed to open until we got on the plane. Ken and I got married on my mom and dad's wedding anniversary, so my mom had written in our card that we had to go to FQ to get beignets one morning because that's what my parents did on their honeymoon in New Orleans, and she included a gift card for us to use on them

So we were off to fulfill that task! Luckily FQ has GF beignets, so I was pumped.
Ken and I shared and we got raspberry sauce for dipping, which was a great choice.


After our SUPER sugary breakfast, we headed to catch a boat to our next destination: Disney Springs!




We did a little shopping in World of Disney and a few other spots that I didn't photograph, then headed to Deluxe Burger for some lunch.

I got the Cluck burger but with a beef patty instead of chicken on a GF bun, and Ken got the veggie burger. We both really enjoyed them, and I was happy to find that the GF bun didn't fall apart until close to the end





After lunch, we stopped by Erin McKenna's Bakery and I got a GF pumpkin whoopie pie, which I was SO happy about since Ken had one at Hollywood Studios and I was jealous of it

We then headed to the Customer Relations building because Ken had signed up for a new Disney Visa and needed to get our free gift card. I waited outside for him so I could eat my whoopie pie on these awesome wood rocking chairs, and when he came out he joined me for a little while since they are just so fantastic.



We stopped by a few more shops on what we thought was our way to the buses, but it SO wasn't. Since we took a boat here, we hadn't been dropped off at the new bus location...

It was a LONG walk through the entirety of Disney Springs I really think they should have more obvious signage that says "IF YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE AND THINK THE BUSES ARE STILL BY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS, YOU ARE WRONG. TURN AROUND."

When we *finally* got in the bus line, we remembered that we were heading to a new resort! Yay! Off to Beach Club!

The bus stop at Beach Club was under renovation, so we had a temporary stop over by the DVC villas. That meant we had to walk through their lobby every day, which OBVIOUSLY made me want to buy a DVC property even more

Too bad they cost money...

It's just so classy



We headed to the lobby to get our luggage that was sent over from POR, and it took quite a while. They brought us the wrong bags to start with, so they were really having a hard time.

Eventually we got our bags and headed to our room. I LOVED the style of it. The renovated rooms are just so relaxing and spacious. We were disappointed in our tiny bathroom after having a ginormous one at the Poly, but the amazing plush bed made up for it. Once again, I forgot to take pictures of the room itself Our room was located on the second floor of this building, on the right hand side, though. So we had a view of the volleyball court that no one ever used, as well as a lovely view of the Boardwalk.

Since we still had 3 hours before the party started, we decided to check out the pool everyone always raves about. It was a bit cloudy so there weren't a ton of people around, which was nice.









I see you, Epcot!





This pool really is great. It's nice and big with plenty of chairs and spots to get away from people. The pirate ship slide is also pretty dang cool. Ken loved the pool so much I think he would have moved in

After our pool time we headed back to our room to get ready for the party!

Click here for Day 4, Part 2! ​

 

[MeghanEmily]

So we were off to fulfill that task! Luckily FQ has GF beignets, so I was pumped.
Ken and I shared and we got raspberry sauce for dipping, which was a great choice.

That's so cool! And OMG yum, GF beignets! These are way tasty.

I was happy to find that the GF bun didn't fall apart until close to the end

Always a plus! I'm pretty impressed with the GF offerings here! Yumm....D-Luxe burger...*mouth waters*

After lunch, we stopped by Erin McKenna's Bakery and I got a GF pumpkin whoopie pie, which I was SO happy about since Ken had one at Hollywood Studios and I was jealous of it

Oh. my. gosh. That sounds amazing! I luuuurrvve Erin McKenna's! I think most of the weight I gained on our last trip was due EM's frosting alone...

I really think they should have more obvious signage that says "IF YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE AND THINK THE BUSES ARE STILL BY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS, YOU ARE WRONG. TURN AROUND."

RIGHT!?? Been there.

This pool really is great. It's nice and big with plenty of chairs and spots to get away from people. The pirate ship slide is also pretty dang cool. Ken loved the pool so much I think he would have moved in

So cool! Bahaha about Ken

After our pool time we headed back to our room to get ready for the party!

Omg yay!! Can't wait to hear about it!

 

[Heidi Lou]

We took a nice walk over to FQ to get some beignets. I forgot to mention that my mom gave as a card as we left that we weren't allowed to open until we got on the plane. Ken and I got married on my mom and dad's wedding anniversary, so my mom had written in our card that we had to go to FQ to get beignets one morning because that's what my parents did on their honeymoon in New Orleans, and she included a gift card for us to use on them

This just made me a little misty eyed! I am from new Orleans and every important life event from graduations and weddings to birthdays...include beignets! That is really sweet to read and made me reminiscent of my sisters wedding...she got married in the St Louis cathedral in new Orleans and the next morning she wanted our family to get beignets across the street at café du monde (the most famous beignets in NO) together. So beignets hold a special place in my heart!

 

[kaymil]

Thursday, September 29th
Day 4, Part 2

Real life: As I post this, my flight for Orlando leaves in 2.5 hours!


Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

After we freshened up from the pool and got our costumes on, we were ready to head to MNSSHP! We arrived at Magic Kingdom about 5 minutes before 7 and were given our wristbands as we entered the park. We were funneled over to the walkway behind Tony's where we were given a really nice trick-or-treat bag each that had several full-sized candy bars and granola bars. We were impressed!

We had to stop for some photos of course!

​

We were both pretty hungry, so we decided to stop at Columbia Harbor House for some chicken fingers to start things off. And...you guessed it! I forgot to take pictures

After dinner we hit up our first ride of the trip, The Haunted Mansion!
Madame Leota was a vision.



The line for the special photopass pic was twice as long as the line for the ride, and it was still only a 10 minutes wait





After HM, we ventured over to Space Mountain for a quick ride, then circled back around to do Peter Pan. The wait was only about 20 minutes because the first parade was just starting, so we decided to wait since we'd never done the standby queue before. It's so adorable!



After Peter we considered getting candy from a stop that was right next door, but there were a ton of people in line. It looked like it was moving quickly, but we really didn't care that much about the candy anyways. Although in retrospect, the we did sort of pay for it...

Instead we headed to our fav, Splash Mountain, then stopped for another photopass on our way back to Main Street. This one was SO WEIRD when the photographer directed us what to do. I had no idea what to expect when we went to look at the finished product. The flash kind of kills the ambiance





We found a good spot along the railing near the partner statue and settled in for all the evening entertainment. First up was Celebrate the Magic, which was not noticeably different from the original. I know this one was supposed to have villains in it...but I don't remember any...

Next was what I was most excited for: Hallowishes! I LOVE that the music is HM themed for this show. So fun.





After Hallowishes we stayed put for the Hocus Pocus show, and we were so impressed. I think we actually both thought it was the best part of the party!



When Hocus Pocus ended, almost all of the crowds dispersed, so we moved up Main Street a little for the parade. I found a good spot right by a trash can, which is my favorite parade spot strategy as it keeps people from crowding in front of you Ken wanted to sit, so he found a nice little wall behind me. You can see him awkwardly staring in this picture





Boo to you and you and you and you Happy Halloween!

The parade was a lot of fun. I especially loved the HM float, of course. And singing the song incessantly and annoying my new husband We didn't stay for the whole thing as we were really starting to drag. We normally go to bed at 10 PM at home, so it being almost midnight was really pushin' it for us

We had to stop for a final photopass on the way out, though! These are definitely my favorite ones of the night.






Next up: more pool time and another round at F&W!

Click Here for Day 5, Part 1​

​

 

[Neverland_Girl]

I love your costumes!

I want to go to MVMCP so bad it looks so fun!

 

[thumper*]

What a Grand view, pun intended.

[
Too cute

Real life: it's our one year anniversary today, and we leave for WDW in 4 days!
Congratulations.

staying at Port Orleans Riverside
Nice resort we enjoyed it on our last visit.

We took a nice walk over to FQ to get some beignets. I forgot to mention that my mom gave as a card as we left that we weren't allowed to open until we got on the plane. Ken and I got married on my mom and dad's wedding anniversary, so my mom had written in our card that we had to go to FQ to get beignets one morning because that's what my parents did on their honeymoon in New Orleans, and she included a gift card for us to use on them
Nom Nom, what a great idea from your folks


Off to Beach Club!
I'm hoping we get to stay here on a future trip


I love those clouds in the background

Real life: As I post this, my flight for Orlando leaves in 2.5 hours!
Woot woot hope it's a great vacay

 

[MeghanEmily]

Real life: As I post this, my flight for Orlando leaves in 2.5 hours!

OMG YAY!! Have an amazing time!!

After dinner we hit up our first ride of the trip, The Haunted Mansion!
Madame Leota was a vision.

The line for the special photopass pic was twice as long as the line for the ride, and it was still only a 10 minutes wait

Awesome! Your costumes are amazing!!

After Hallowishes we stayed put for the Hocus Pocus show, and we were so impressed. I think we actually both thought it was the best part of the party!

Such a great show! We missed about 2/3 of it due to having it end early for rain

The parade was a lot of fun. I especially loved the HM float, of course. And singing the song incessantly and annoying my new husband

Bahaha best wife!

We normally go to bed at 10 PM at home, so it being almost midnight was really pushin' it for us

Oh my gosh, me too, party nights are hard!!

We had to stop for a final photopass on the way out, though! These are definitely my favorite ones of the night.

Excellent photos!

 

[Raeven]

Real life: As I post this, my flight for Orlando leaves in 2.5 hours!

Yay, have fun!

The line for the special photopass pic was twice as long as the line for the ride, and it was still only a 10 minutes wait

That's my favorite one they do at the Halloween party. And I love your costumes!

 

[kaymil]

Friday, September 30th
Day 5, Part 1 (and only!)

After our late night out at MNSSHP, we took our Friday morning nice and slow. We slept in until 9, then decided to head downstairs and grab a little breakfast from the Beach Club Marketplace.

We found a nice place to sit in the Solarium as we were walking back to our room with our food, so we hung out there for a little while. Naturally I took no photos

After our chilling and eating, we decided to head back to the pool!

We walked along the beach a little first and played some frisbee with one we had in our pool bag.




Whenever I ask Ken to take a picture, he has to be goofy



After our quick beach break, we made it to the pool and decided to find a place on the top level by the pool tables, where there was literally zero people. Looking down on the pool from above is kind of fun!





A few ours and a nap later, headed back to our room to get ready for an afternoon on the Boardwalk and a chill Epcot evening.



We had never spent much time on the Boardwalk before, and because it was early, there wasn't much open, but we kind of liked it that way. We wandered around the fancy art store where we obviously were never going to buy anything. I wonder sometimes if the employees ask if you need anything over and over just to entertain themselves by making you feel awkward.

No matter, a lovely Margarita from Joe's was all we really needed.






We grabbed some pizza from the pizza window for a late lunch, but, guess what? I didn't take a picture

Around 4 we headed to World Showcase for our final F&W time--anyone else in love with the World Showcase back entrance? There's never ANYONE there. It's awesome.

We asked a nice couple to take our pics by the F&W sign, then did the same for them. Who needs a Photopass photographer, ya know?



We stumbled upon Serveur Amusant, our favorite World Showcase entertainment, then stopped in Italy for another drink





Me trying to squeeze out some final Photopass pics:






Eventually it was time for our Frozen FP, and it was our first ride! We both really enjoyed it--and were obviously not prepared for this ride photo, unlike every other person in our boat



We decided to hit up the standby line for Test Track because it had just re-opened after a quick passing thunderstorm, and we were able to get on in about 20 minutes Ken had never done this one before, and I hadn't done it since the re-boot, so we had fun designing our car.






Ken said this was one of his favorite rides of the trip.

I forced Ken into a few more photopass pics on our way back to World Showcase for our dinner ressie:









And soon it was time for dinner! We had reservations at Chefs de France, a brand new restaurant for us. Do you think I took any photos?

Our dinner was delicious, though, and we had a great server who talked to me some about my recent trip to the south of France.

After dinner I wanted to get another chocolate pudding from Ireland for dessert, so we pushed our way through the CRAZY crowds that had descended upon F&W while we were in dinner. We made it a grab-and-go because there was literally wall-to-wall people around us.



High quality photography


We were able to make it to the World Showcase exit and took the short walk back home to the Beach Club to wrap up our final night at Epcot!

Up next: our first ever tour AND the 45th anniversary of MK AND Ohana!

Click Here for Day 6, Part 1 ​

 

[kaymil]

I love your costumes!

I want to go to MVMCP so bad it looks so fun!

Thank You! It really is a lot of fun, at least to have done once

What a Grand view, pun intended.

Nice resort we enjoyed it on our last visit.

We love Riverside--it's so relaxing.

OMG YAY!! Have an amazing time!!

It was awesome, as always!

Such a great show! We missed about 2/3 of it due to having it end early for rain

What a bummer! Puts a new meaning to raining on your parade

That's my favorite one they do at the Halloween party. And I love your costumes!

Thank you! When we rode HM one of the cast members said "Welcome home" to us It was one of my favorite things that happened all night!

 

[MeghanEmily]

What a nice relaxing day!! Your Frozen ride photo is hilarious! How nice to be able to enjoy Food and Wine. I'm sitting at home right now envious of everyone who gets to be there for the festival this year!

Up next: our first ever tour AND the 45th anniversary of MK AND Ohana!

Wow! Lots of excitement to come!

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

Just found your trip report and I'm loving it. Congratulations on becoming husband and wife.

Now back to reading the rest.

 

[kaymil]

Saturday, October 1
Day 6, Part 1

Somehow, before we knew it, we woke up to the final full day of our Disneymoon

We had an early morning to experience our first ever guided tour, so we got ready pretty quickly and brought granola bars with us for breakfast.

They let tours in with the early dining reservations back when the welcome show was still at the train station, so we were let in to the park at about 7:30.

I had totally forgotten that today was the 45th anniversary of Magic Kingdom opening, but I very quickly remembered when I saw all the higher-up cast members swarming the place! We got lots of people saying "Good morning!" and "Happy 45th Anniversary" to us on our way to the theater!

After we were given our name tags and tour radios, we grabbed some bottled water they offered us and took seats in the theater while we waited to depart. We were taking the Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour, which had a little bit bigger group, I think because it's the cheaper option. We watched the crowds come in after the welcome show from the porch of the theater, and HOLY COW.

We were so glad we had a tour and didn't have to attempt to fight those crowds ourselves, because it was NUTSO.

Our tour departed just a few minutes after 8, and from the start I was in heaven. Walt trivia + Magic Kingdom = my ideal morning.



Once we got through Main Street, the crowds weren't nearly as bad, so our walk through Liberty Square was pretty chill. We stopped outside of the Hall of Presidents where our guide talked about the history of the show.




Our second stop was the Haunted Mansion! We spent the most amount of time throughout the whole tour here. I LOVED hearing all the info about the different aspects of the queue and the imagineers who had roles in the ride. I didn't know that these busts were a riddle--so fun!







It was really great to just spend time in the queue enjoying all the aspects of it without having to worry about people in line being annoyed with you. And once we were done learning everything about the queue, we were ushered on to the ride without waiting and got to learn all kinds of interesting things about the ride itself! Having our guide talking in our ear while on the ride was a bit disorienting, as he was competing with the ghost host, but we both really enjoyed everything we learned.

After exiting the ride, our guide told us we were going to take a quick detour from for something important. We once again had forgotten it was the 45th anniversary today, so we were pleasantly surprised when we were ushered to a clear spot to watch the short presentation on the castle stage!




The next stop on our tour was backstage! We've both been backstage only once before when we were on Splash and had to be evacuated thanks to a ride malfunction, but this experience was much more exciting. I won't spoil all the details in case you take the tour, but it's Haunted Mansion related!

We took a short pitstop at the Tangled bathrooms next, then continued on through Fantasyland with a stop inside the castle as we learned more about Walt's history and influence on this part of the park.



At this point it was almost 11 and Ken was getting pretty hangry. We soon made it to our final stop of the tour, which was Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress. Somehow I had never ridden this before, but I'm so glad it was part of the tour. It again was a little weird trying to listen to our guide and the show at the same time, but we learned so much about the ride, and it's now one of my favorites!

Thanks to our detour for the anniversary show, the tour didn't end until almost 11:30. We headed straight to Pinocchio Village Haus to get some flatbreads, and at that point the full extent of the anniversary crowds really hit us. The last time we had seen it that crowded, it was 4 days before Christmas It took a while for us to get our food and the dining room was CRAZY crowded, but our flatbreads were as good as always.



We headed straight out of the park after lunch thanks to the craziness, which made me sad since it was our last time at Magic Kingdom Goodbye, dear friend!

Once we made it back to Beach Club, we decided to enjoy the pool one last time. It was much more crowded than our first time there because it was sunnier, so we didn't stay super long.



We had a 7:45 dinner reservation at O'hana, but we had fastpasses at Hollywood Studios first. We got ready and headed out for our final park of the trip around 5. We took the boat over to HS, which was fun but crowded.



We took one final ride on Tower of Terror, then capped off our trip with one more round of TSMM.

We said goodbye to HS with our last photopass pic, then caught a bus for the Poly!



I was SO happy to be back at the Poly again





We checked in for our reservation at 7:30 and then perused the gift shop. It had started POURING about 23 seconds after we stepped in the lobby, which did not bode well for us being able to see the fireworks...





Our buzzer went off 10 minutes later, and we were quickly seated in the main dining area. We'd heard a lot of good things about O'hana, but we didn't know it was going to be THIS good.




The chef came out and talked to me about GF options, and he made me a special noodle bowl that he *said* was made with GF noodles. It was delicious, I ate a ton of it, and I even took what was left togo (and then subsequently forgot it in the fridge when we left the next morning...) However, when we were at O'hana on our most recent trip in October, I showed the picture of the noodle bowl to a different chef and he told me those are the normal noodles, and the chef who had made it for me had been fired for precisely that reason. Uh...

I did remember not feeling super well after dinner, but nothing severe, so I was a little surprised by that. My reaction can differ quite a bit from time to time, but I usually don't experience any digestive issues until a few days later, which always makes it hard to pinpoint what I ate that my body didn't approve of. That amount of gluten would usually make me feel pretty bad within 20-30 minutes of eating, though. Call it an O'hana miracle.

But back to the meal. The meat was delicious, especially the chicken, and Ken loved the dumplings. We were both totally stuffed by the time dessert came, but bread pudding is one of Ken's favorites, so he couldn't pass it up. My dessert was ice cream with some fruit and a gluten free cookie; it was fine, but nothing to rave about.




After as much bread pudding as he could muster, Ken was done for.



We wrote this Haunted Mansion headstone for him in memorial:

Here lies Ken
The fullest of men
He ate too much chicken
And it did him in



It was still pouring, so much so that there was a flash flood warning for the area. Safe to say there would be no fireworks to enjoy.

After we paid, we stopped in Boutiki just to say goodbye, but we found this tikiman and I begged Ken to get him as a reminder of the Poly. He has a hard time saying no to me, so he's now residing on our sofa table I just love him.




We sat in the lobby for a little while to delay the inevitable end to our trip, but we were tired and full, and so we caught the monorail to MK and then bolted through the rain to the buses.



And that's a wrap on our final day of our trip!

I don't have any photos from our early flight home the next morning, so I think I'll end things here. This trip was definitely my favorite to date, not only because it was our honeymoon, but because we had so many fun new experiences and a good deal of time to just relax, enjoy the resorts, and take things slow. We loved both the Poly and the Beach Club, and they provided the perfect amount of variety for us. I can't wait for the day that we get to go back!

We returned from our most recent trip a few weeks ago, so my newest trip report will be coming very soon!

Click here to read "A Rhino Was Eating a Jayhawk!" An Oct. 2017 TR



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