A Small Part Of Me: October 2011

So, I wrote all of this a long time ago and was supposed to post it but didn't quite finish it until now. There's so much that could be added, but I wanted to go ahead and get this posted.

Our honeymoon was incredibly awesome, wonderful, amazing, and every other strong positive adjective. We really didn't have much money to spend, but thanks to generous friends and family, we had a honeymoon that was just incredible.

Our first night was spent at this cabin, courtesy of Hearthside Cabin Rentals. Me and my brother do website and software work for them, as well as keep their computers and everything running in their office, and they were generous and let us stay in one of the cabins they own paying nothing but the cleaning fee.

View from our cabin

The following day we drove all the way down to Orlando Florida where Chase's parents had used their RCI points to book us 6 nights at the Hilton Grand Vacations Club on International Drive. The drive was beautiful and a lot of fun!

It was by far the nicest place I've ever stayed in my life, and at least to me was absolutely THE perfect place for our honeymoon. The suites were extremely nice, with a full kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, and even our own private screened-in balcony/porch. The resort was built around a small lake with a one-mile walking trail all the way around it and a bridge across the middle. It had two large swimming pools, several hot tubs, ping-pong, basketball, and, our favorite -- a game/arcade room. We played pool, air hockey, checkers, chess, and all of the arcade games they had there just about every day of our honeymoon I think. I taught Chase to play chess, and we even played it on a HUGE chess board by the pool where the hollow plastic pawns were over a foot tall.

We got a 5 day park-to-park pass for Universal Sudios and Island of Adventure. We were just going to get 1 day and maybe try to go to Disneyland or somewhere else also, but the attractions guy at the resort offered us a special deal on the package we got and I'm glad we did because that way we didn't feel like we needed to cram everything into one day. Instead we got to stay as long as we felt like staying and then come back the next day or whatever we felt like doing. I'd never been to any amusement parks besides Dollywood, so Universal Orlando was absolutely amazing for me! I couldn't stop smiling from the minute we parked. Just walking towards it from parking made my heart beat with excitement every time. It's like walking towards a whole other world full of incredible contraptions and fun things to do! I absolutely LOVED it! I was like a kid, totally fascinated and delighted to take it all in, but without any parents having to try and keep track of me and everything I wanted to look at, climb on, ride, eat and take pictures of. Overall, I think this other-world magical feel of the entire place was perhaps the best thing of all.

I can't really even say what my favorite ride was. I loved the technology in "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" and "The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man" rides. They combined a moving roller-coaster and projection screens (3D for the Spiderman ride) to make an incredible experience. I think I perhaps loved the thrill of the Dragon Challenge the most -- two roller coasters zooming through and around each other creating an exceptionally exciting ride.

While at Universal Orlando one day, we stopped at Hard Rock cafe and ate this incredibly delicious "Local Legendary" burger.

We shared it and it was more than enough. It was really good too! Will definitely have to get it again if/when we're in Orlando again.

We also go to go to a Pirates dinner show, which was a lot of fun. I'd never been to a dinner show except for a LONG time ago at Dixie Stampede, which I remember as being one of the coolest things in my life. Unfortunately, due to the lighting and stuff in there, none of the pictures came out very well, but here's one.