Walt Disney World Honeymoon: The Flight Down; Groceries; Coffee; Dinner at Boma
[dc]I[/dc] don’t enjoy flying, but our Disney World honeymoon required a plane. I long for teleportation to become a reality. And talking robot dogs (see: Rush, K9, Dynomutt).
Stephanie gave me that look A LOT on our Disney honeymoon. Photo by me, duh. Taken with my 50mm lens.
Drink the Friendly Skies
I will fly, of course. Flying just leaves me a wreck for the rest of the day. Flights are easier to handle in my thirties than my teens though, because I can order booze. Even at 10 o’clock in the morning (God bless America). Sure, $7 for a micro-bottle of Dewar’s Scotch might seem much, but between paying $7 for Scotch, or a can of Bud Light, Scotch always wins.
“What are you doing?” Stephanie asked as I scooped the ice from the plastic cup accompanying my micro-Scotch into my water bottle.
Me: “I want my Scotch neat.”
Stephanie: “Just drink it out of the mini-bottle.”
Me: “It is probably bad enough I’m drinking Scotch at 10 AM, drinking out of the bottle won’t look too good. Think of the CHILDREN.”
I swirled a small puddle of Scotch around the plastic cup as Stephanie shook her head and went back to reading Ender’s Game.
I Can’t Hear You and I Love It
This time around, I brought a secret weapon for the flight (besides whisky): Noise cancelling headphones. Yes, I bit the bullet and bought a pair of Bose QuietComfort 15’s.
The sweet sound of silence. Photo via Amazon.
I already love my Bose noise-cancelling headphones on terra firma,¹ and they worked better than I hoped on the airplane. Instead of suffering through two hours of airplane engines and screaming kids, I caught up on episodes of Marek vs. Wyshynski (an NHL podcast). Other times, I listened to my instrumental playlist as background music while reading Fellowship of The Ring.
Hockey and Tolkien: what could be better?
Magic Bus
Since we were staying, to use the Disney vernacular, ‘On Property,’ we took the Disney Magical Express shuttle to our resort from the airport. We didn’t have to claim our luggage either, as it would get sent to the resort on its own. We searched for our paperwork as we approached the Magical Express check-in area, when a Cast Member asked, “Do you have your MagicBands?”
MagicBands! Photo by me.
We did. “Put them on,” she said. A quick scan, and she pointed us to the correct waiting spot for our shuttle. Handy. Or should I say, wristy? No. Probably not.
Grocery Run
Our suite at the resort featured a kitchen. A real honest-to-Batman kitchen: oven/stove, fridge, microwave, dishwasher, sink, and coffee maker, as well as plates, cups, pots, pans, and more.
Mickey is everywhere! Photo by me. Taken with a 50mm lens.
Looking to stick it to the Mouse in terms of saving money on food, Stephanie and I walked about two miles to the nearest grocery store. Yes. Walked. In 80+ degree weather. But think of the money we saved! The resort featured a shop, of sorts, but everything there was about twice as much as it would be at a normal store. So, if a two-mile walk (well, four round trip) meant I could save $1.23 on a jar of peanut butter, then GIDDY-UP.
“We’ll Send Some Right Over.”
Perhaps my favorite feature of our hotel room was our coffee maker. Stephanie loved the jacuzzi bathtub, but whatever: you can’t make coffee with a bathtub. Our coffee maker wasn’t the small, one cup deal you see in most hotel rooms: it was a full-sized 12-cup coffee maker. Huzzah!
One snag: we quickly went through the coffee pod-filter-things in our room. I swung by the concierge desk and asked if they could send more coffee pod-filter-things to our room. “Certainly sir, how many do you need?”
“How many can I get?”
“As many as you would like.”
“How about five?”
Disney, being Disney, basically doubled my request. MAGICAL!
Dinner With Friends and a Special Treat
On our trip to Walt Disney World this time around, Stephanie and I managed to cross paths with a couple of Lansing friends—they were leaving, and we were just arriving.
After trading Facebook messages, we managed to meet up for dinner at Boma, a restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Boma is a buffet style restaurant, yet it is pricey and can have a very long wait (even with reservations).
Is Boma worth the hassle? Hell yes, it is. The food, which features an African focus, is super-delicious. After several plates of food, our waiter presented Stephanie and I with a surprise ‘happy honeymoon’ desert dessert (we were wearing our Just Married pins).
Yummy. Photo by me. 50mm lens.
I think I managed to eat a millimeter thin slice of this, as I the Boma buffet left me overstuffed.
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¹ Stephanie hates my Bose QuietComfort 15’s because they work too well: I can’t hear her at all if I’m listening to something. Bwahaha. I love ’em.
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