Life with the Leibrocks: Babymoon at Disney

Even though this trip happened back in January, I thought that it still deserved a shout out on the blog.

For those of you who have never heard of a babymoon, it's special trip that a couple takes as sort of a last hurrah before baby comes. Most women go between 20 and 25 weeks, when they are in the middle of the second trimester high and before they are restricted to traveling.

Since before we got married, Matt and I have been talking about taking a trip to Disney, sans kiddos. We both had great memories of going there as a kid and thought it would be a lot of fun to experience it together as adults. Plus, the planner in me thought it might be a good idea to scope it out and re-familiarize ourselves before we go as a family so we can be even more prepared. : )

When I was asked to go out and attend a sales meeting for work in Orlando in early January, the perfect opportunity presented itself to tack on our "babymoon" and hit up some of the Disney park. We did our research and decided to take advantage of some of Disney's off season promotions as well as splurge a bit, and stay at one of the luxurious on-site hotels. We chose the Animal Kingdom Lodge because of Matt's love of the outdoors and the draw of waking up to giraffes outside of our window every morning. We also decided to do 5 days in just the Disney parks and forgo a visit to Universal Studios since there wasn't going to be a ton of rides that I could go on while pregnant. And honestly, I thought I'd cry if I went to Harry Potter World and couldn't actually go on the ride : (

We also opted for the Disney dining plan as part of our package and it was one of the best decisions that we made. We knew that I was going to be restricted by the rides, but if there was one thing that I could do, it was eat! And eat we did! The dining plan gives you one sit down and one quick service meal per day as well as one snack. It ended up being a ton of food and I wish I would have added up how much we would have spent on all of that if we were paying out of pocket, but I know the plan paid for itself at least twice over. Plus, there are so many fun restaurants at Disney that skipping them would be a shame.

Overall, this was one of our best vacations ever but it got off to kind of a rocky start. Matt flew in the last night of my work conference so we could take off right away the next day. When he got there, we drove over to CityWalk, near Universal Studios for dinner and ended up eating at Margaritaville. The fact that I was still stressed from the work event, coupled with the loud music and tons of margaritas that I wasn't able to drink, made me a bit crabby. Things got better the next day though, when we drove to Cape Canaveral to go and see the Kennedy Space Center. Something Matt was really looking forward to.

The weather was kind of cold and windy so our time at the beach didn't pan out exactly as we had hoped. We decided to partake in a pre-dinner work out at our hotel when suddenly the hotel manager came in and told us that we needed to leave do a to an issue with the "fire alarm." The fire alarm issue turned out to be an actual fire, which caused us to stand outside shivering for the next several hours. We were without our car keys and wallets so we couldn't even go anywhere and come back. Finally, after about 4 hours, they moved us to another hotel. But, we did have a great dinner that night and go the hotel room free so that was a bonus.

The next day was fantastic and Matt loved the Kennedy Space Center. I have to admit, it was pretty cool. Highlights were the 1950s style launch room as well as the 3D movie of the nebulas. Already Matt is itching to go back.

Matt in his element

Cool NASA building that you see on TV during launches

Bus/van that they used to take astronauts to the space shuttle for launch

I'm sure Matt knows more about this than I do, but I think it's one of the lunar module from an Apollo mission

Then after our fantastic (and redeeming) day at the Kennedy Space Center we headed back to Orlando to check into the Animal Kingdom Lodge and begin the next leg of our journey. This is when things really got hairy! The GPS on my phone could not find the hotel and kept trying to take us to some back Disney lot where no tourists should ever go. We drove in circles for almost 2 hours, missed our dinner reservation and almost called it quits and went to the airport. Seriously, stress city! The kicker too was that none of the helpful Disney signs mentioned anything about the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Just the theme park. So frustrating.

Eventually the helpful dining reservation lady helped us get to the resort and after going to the wrong lodge within the resort (of course!) we made it to our room. Fast forward another hour and two trips back to the front desk (about a mile away) because our keys didn't work, we were settled into our room. So happy we didn't have little ones along for that experience. I'm not sure we would have made it.

Anyway, that was (thankfully!) the last of the drama and we spent the next 5 days blissfully exploring the parks. We really had a great time and there was a ton of fun stuff for us to do and lots of great food to eat. Matt did go on almost all of the thrill rides and dutifully described them in detail to me. We also took advantage of the great Fast Pass system so really didn't wait long at all, even though the parks were pretty packed due to the Martin Luther King holiday weekend.

Here's a list of our top 10 favorite Disney memories:

10) First dinner at our resort after all of the drama getting there. A meal never tasted so good!

9) Giraffes sleeping outside of our room every night. We hardly ever saw them during the day, but if you got up to go to the bathroom at night and looked out the window, you'd see them sleeping there, without fail.

8) Space Mountain. Matt's favorite ride. He went on it three times in a row and even met another single rider "friend" who's wife was waiting with their kids.

7) Epcot. We loved so many things about this park, including the new Soarin hang gliding ride, Matt loved the dino ride and we both loved the planet earth ride. I also had fun with Matt and took him on a drinks of the world tour making him try tequila in Mexico, sake in Japan, a margarita in Morocco and some icky liquorice in the UK.

6) Eating at awesome restaurants, including the Sci Fi theater at MGM and the Aquarium at Epcot.

5) Toy story ride at MGM, it's a 3D arcade style ride that both Matt and I absolutely loved.

4) Mickey's Philharmagic show in Fantasyland, 3D show that goes through some of the best music and moments from all of our favorite Disney movies. Made me tear up a few times since it really captured the "magic" of the whole place.

3) Lunch at Beauty and the Beast castle. It's a brand-new restaurant in Fantasyland and impossible to get into for dinner. But we rearranged some of our meals and was able to eat lunch there in the West
Wing room. The food was really good and the atmosphere was so cool. Complete with a rose that dropped a petal and a lighting flash that revealed a torn picture of the prince/beast.

2) Castle light show at Magic Kingdom. One of the best things about the whole trip. We got to see this show twice and it was just so magical. The way they use lights to transform the castle into different scenes from movies is breath-taking and you can just feel the magic in the air. We even go back and listen to that light show song on You Tube just to relive it.

1) There were so many wonderful memories, but our favorite was dreaming out bringing our own little princess there one day. We saw hundreds of cute little girls in princess dresses and tiaras, including one little girl who was just mesmerized by the parade. I caught myself tearing up several times just dreaming about the future and having our little one there with us.

Overall, it was a spectacular trip but in some ways, I think it reminded us that Disney is just a place. When you're a kid, I swear you think it's heaven on earth, but going there as an adult you begin to realize that it's a business, run by imperfect humans. Every moment of every day is not magical, but that's real life, this side of heaven. It is however filled with a child-like hope and wonder that does everyone's heart good to experience. No matter what age you are. It was wonderful spending time together as a couple and remember that feeling.

Closing with a few, well okay, a ton of pictures:

Hotel room at Animal Kingdom Lodge

Not the bes pic, but the inside of the Animal Kingdom Lodge was amazing!

At our lunch at the Beauty and the Beast castle

Entrance to the Beauty and the Beast castle

Liquorice drink at the "pub" in the UK

Margarita from Morocco

Morocco

Japan

Having fun with Mattie trying drinks from around the world

Not looking forward to his tequila sampler. Hehe

Really full after the big lunch in China

There's a smile!

Trying to recreate a similar picture that I have of me at age four on a bench like this at Epcot with a pink parasol

Me having fun at the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House

Mattie really having fun at the tree house

It all started with a mouse

This one is cute because Mattie was really worried about me going on the safari ride at Animal Kingdom. It was technically restricted for preggo people but I did my research and felt safe. Afterwards, he agreed that it was fine too but was nervous to start!

In front of the "mountains" of Nepal

Really cool scenery and props at the Everest ride in Animal Kingdom

Matt getting yelled at for having his hand on the dude's head

Monsters Inc. dude being creepy to me

This photo is funny because Matt did a terrible job packing and ended up wearing the same gray long sleeve shirt over his t-shirts almost every day. In the comments you can see he's described as wearing it!