A Whirlwind Honeymoon at Disney World

As the story goes, my new wife Sara and I had just recently gotten married in a nearly perfect ceremony on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico over on St. Pete Beach near Tampa.  Despite plenty of last-minute panicking by yours truly, the festivities somehow managed to go off without a hitch, everyone ate and drank and danced until the last song ended sometime around 11:00pm, and honestly, we couldn’t have asked for a better turnout.  Considering that we were basically asking the majority of our family to travel either from New York or Michigan, it was a wonder that so many of them even showed up at all! 

So that said, when it came time to plan our honeymoon afterwards, knowing that due to scheduling all we really had time for was a long weekend anyways, we thought what better way to unwind after a crazy, anxiety-ridden week of last-minute wedding planning than with some time spent in one of our favorite places with family and friends!  Well, that was the plan, anyways…

Beach Club Concierge
For our room itself, we had decided to splurge just a bit and not only stay at a new deluxe resort (we’d only ever stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge before), but also go all out and vie for Concierge Level as well.  Sure, I’d seen the math and know that realistically you’re paying about $100/extra per day for what amounts to snacks, but hey, it was our honeymoon so it sounded kind of neat!  And frankly, I think the fun that we derived simply from needing to use our key cards in the elevator to reach our floor was good enough – hey, it made us feel exclusive, despite our wonderfully romantic, garden view of the valet parking area in front of the lobby…

Ok, so we weren’t exactly too thrilled about the “view,” but we tried to take enough free cookies and crackers and evening cordials to reconcile that fact!

Too Many People, Not Enough Time
Unfortunately, one very real problem that we encountered as we tried to shuffle schedules with our various friends and family members was that simply put, we just couldn’t be seven different places at the same time. Seriously, I checked and the physics just didn’t work out, which really sucked because we didn’t want anyone to feel like we were neglecting them, but at the same time unless all nineteen people were on the same page and wanted to do the same thing at the exact same time (yeah, right!), no matter what we did, we were going to miss spending time with somebody.  Eventually we decided to stop worrying about it and did the best that we could because that’s all we could do, but that said…

For any of you in our party who felt gypped for not getting enough Scott & Sara time during your visit, please accept this meager offer to come back to Florida and see us again and we promise that we’ll show you anything that you want to see around Disney World! Just as long as there’s nobody else also visiting us during that exact same timeframe, anyways…

PIC – US w/friends

A Big, Old Family Clambake
One thing that we were quite happy about being able to coordinate during our stay, though, was a group dinner at one of the restaurants in our resort, Cape May Cafe. It may have only been for a couple of hours, but it was nice to have both of our families, along with a few close friends all there together for a chance to share their day’s explorations and to give us one last goodbye for a few that would be departing shortly after dinner.  Plus, the folks at Cape May were fantastic about accommodating even such a large group – I had made reservations a few months in advance, but they were all ready for us and had us seated off at two large tables in a separate room off the main dining area so that we could all be together without disturbing the rest of the guests too much!  It’s really a great restaurant – good food, nice variety, and just a laid back, pleasant atmosphere, and I’d recommend it highly for anyone who frequents the Boardwalk area.

Rest and Relaxation, Short as It May Be…
Now despite an awful lot of running around to spend whatever precious time with friends and family that we could muster before their own individual departures, believe it or not we did also manage to enjoy some quiet time of our own in spurts here or there!  The day we arrived, we snuck over to the Food & Wine Festival over at Epcot for some assorted dinner treats after getting settled; throughout the weekend we actually enjoyed several opportunities to get photos with some of the characters, bride and groom Mickey ears and all; and at the culmination of our stay after checking out, we even managed to slip down to Stormalong Bay for our very first dip in that legendary pool of theirs … which didn’t take long to conclude that we should’ve spent a lot more time down there!

But that’s what follow-up trips are for – our “honeymoon trip” was most certainly unique, just like our wedding itself and I guess we are to some extent, too!  And despite feeling a little guilty about being so short of time along the way, I’m fairly certain that everyone who traveled along with us was happy for whatever time they were able to spend with us amidst the magic as well.  I know that we both had fun, and really, what better way to start a marriage???