Day 2

Our flight didn't leave until around 1pm, so we grabbed some breakfast from Whispering Canyon Cafe' - just a typical skillet breakfast- nothing to write home about.  The real excitement was in the fact that we were about to be on our way to Hawaii!

There really isn't a whole lot to say about this day.  We spent most of it in flight.  We touched down in Los Angeles at the halfway point.  It was strange to be so close to family yet unable to visit them.

By the time we got to the Big Island, it was about 3am our time and around 9pm Hawaii time.  We arrived at the Kona airport exhausted yet excited.  I wore a plastic flower clip in my hair for the occasion.  The Kona airport is a very interesting place.  It is made up entirely of outdoor pavillions and has no true indoors to speak of!  We were definitely not on the mainland anymore!  The night air felt nice and warm.  There were pretty statues in the courtyard and Hawaiian music playing in the background.  The words aloha and mahalo (thank you) peppered every conversation.

We had reserved a shuttle service to take us to the hotel.  Our driver had on one of those Hawaiian shirts.  We discovered that the people of Hawaii really did seem to love wearing Hawaiian print shirts and dresses, and women of all ages had flowers in their hair.  The driver was very kind and chatty. We discovered that he and many others we'd met later were transplants and not originally from the islands.

Since night had already fallen, there wasn't much to see along the way.  Hawaii has a lot of rules to prevent too much light pollution.  The street lamps are all yellow and angled downward making it very dark- glad I wasn't the one driving!

Our hotel for the first few nights was the Hilton Waikola.  Derek had stayed there on his previous visit and liked it.  Like the Kona airport, the resort was very open.  They must not get a lot of rain there.  You enter the main lobby, and it looks as if you are going into a building except the fourth wall is missing, and the room extends into the outside.

The resort was so big, they had a little tram to take you to each building.  We noticed with amusement that here, the default language was not Spanish as in Florida, but rather Japanese!  We saw a number of Japanese families on vacation, and Japanese translations were on everything.

Our room was, naturally, all the way on the end.  The trams were so slow that had we not been exhausted and carrying large suitcases, we would have walked.

We pretty much crashed once we got to our room.  The room was lovely though- nice and big with a couch and a coffee table and our own balcony over-looking the ocean.  I couldn't wait to see what the place looked like in daylight.

Our Honeymoon Nov. 14-26, 2011

Day 1

We got a late start to our pre-honeymoon Disney day because we had some post wedding stuff to take care of- bringing everything home and of course opening gifts!

We made it to Magic Kingdom around 4 or 5 pm bringing along Derek's cousin Allison and her adorable 8 year old daughter Jordyn whom we'd be getting into the park.  A few weeks earlier, Derek and I had bought personalized bride and groom mouse ears which we wore to breakfast that morning at the hotel where we stayed along with our guests.  Everyone got a huge kick out of them!  Of course, we wore them to MK too.

We hung out with Allison and Jordyn for a little while- riding Winnie the Pooh, munching on breadsticks from Pinocchio's- before they continued on to Epcot.

I had really wanted to get some cute pictures of us with princesses, but the line was unusually long.  Mickey and Minnie on the other hand had a manageable one.  We figured we could get a picture with Disney's main mice instead.  Their new meet and greet area looks like a theatrical green room- so cute!  There were so many neat details in there like a rehearsal schedule on the wall.  Mickey and Minnie were excited to see newlyweds, although I'm sure they see quite a number of them each day judging by how many other pairs of ears we saw.

We headed back to our resort for the night to check in- Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort.  I've always wanted to stay there.- it is one of Disney's most beautiful resorts with the whole turn of the century vacation home in the woods thing.  It reminds me of Samantha's Piney Point from the American Girl books.  I kept thinking it must have looked very odd that we were dragging around these big suitcases yet only checking in for one night!

We had dinner booked for Artist Point, a fine dining location inside the lodge and a Disney restaurant I had actually never experienced before.  There was a sign at the entrance stating no hats, but we figured they'd make an exception for bride and groom mouse ears.  Sure enough, our waitress offered to take our picture and even brought us complimentary champagne.  I was surprised, however, that our waitress made no effort to make any small talk with us- not even asking the details of our wedding such as when and where.  Why is it always the *other* table that gets the fun server?

This place definitely had some interesting menu items.  We shared a cheese tray of cheeses from different parts of the country.  For the main course, Derek actually tried buffalo and liked it while I had some sort of pumpkin pesto fettuccine that was quite tasty too.  We followed this with a delicious chocolate something that came with a little light up Tinker Bell usually given as part of a child's specialty drink.  I got far too much pleasure from that toy.

After dinner, we had time to head back into the park.  We decided to take the boats to the entrance.  There was a family in front of us with two energetic little boys.  As we waited, I suddenly heard a little voice go "Hit me, Baby, One More Time!"  Is this boy of about 5 really singing Brittany Spears?!?  I couldn't hide the shock and laughter on my face.  His mother was mortified!  We chatted with the family a bit, and as we left, the dad said, "Seeya in a few years when you have your first!"

We didn't have too long until the park closed so we stopped at the Photopass guy in front of the castle to get a picture.  He turned out to be a guy I knew from work who hadn't known I was getting married.   He flipped out when he recognized me and noticed the mouse ears.  The pictures looked great with the castle all lite up for the holidays.

We had just enough time for a couple of rides so we got on the Jungle Cruise and Pirates.  By the time we got to Pirates, it was nearly closing time.  We had an entire boat to ourselves.  Another bride and groom came in behind us, but they wanted their own boat too.  When we got off the ride, we walked towards the exit at a very slow pace in hopes of catching the other couple to say hello.  We were just about to give up when we finally saw them.  We asked them when they married.  They replied one week ago, but didn't try to keep the conversation going and kept walking.  I got the distinct impression that they had no interest in conversing with us.

There was a surprise waiting for us when we got back to our room- a solid white chocolate Donald surrounded by dark chocolate shavings and Mickey sprinkles!  He was a congratulations from the hotel.  We'd seen one being delivered to another room earlier but weren't expecting to find one of our own.  We nibbled on him throughout the first week of the trip.

The room had a homey woodsy motif and even included bunkbeds- perfect for a family although we had no use for them.  Our window overlooked a little nondescript pond.  I wish we'd had the chance to stay there more than one night.