Before we went to Walt Disney World for our honeymoon, I’d already been lucky enough to do 10 (I think?!) trips over my life there, and Ben had done 3. You’d think because of that that we’d have already done everything there is to do in a theme park, right? A lot of people don’t quite realise the sheer scale of WDW though – did you know it’s 43 sq miles, approximately the size of Edinburgh or San Francisco?!
As well as never being able to fit everything into a single trip, there are always new things happening too – new rides launching, new lands being opened, new foods, drinks and snacks being launched. We booked 9 days in Disney, thinking we’d be able to get pretty much everything we wanted done, but as it turns out, we really didn’t!
See more of our Disney honeymoon posts here:
Being our honeymoon, there were a few more specific things that we wouldn’t have on a bucket list for a normal Disney trip – things that were slightly more expensive or more “romantic”, but in the main, they were basically just things we wanted to try and do for the first time this trip.
I’m writing this list after our honeymoon so I could tick off the things we managed and things we didn’t. I’ll also be updating the blog with posts about specific experiences too, so make sure to check this post out every so often to see more about the ones we did manage to do.
1. Take a picture in front of an “Instagram Wall”
DONE!
Such a “basic” one, but fun! I’ll be sharing a post on all the Instagram walls I managed to persuade Ben to stop in front of in the near future.
2. Get the Night Blossom drink at Pongu Pongu in Pandora
INCOMPLETE!
I got a Pandoran Sunrise at Satu’li Canteen when we had lunch there (I have a Disney Dining review of this to come), which meant I wasn’t ready for another drink yet there. Next time!
3. Attend Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party
DONE!
We booked this for half way through our trip and collected ALL the candy. I have a post coming up about this.
4. Get into Magic Kingdom before park opening
DONE!
We booked breakfast at Be Our Guest (review to come!) and managed to get into the park at 7.45am. We were among the first down Main Street then because people had stopped for photos, we were the first in front of the castle!
5. Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour
INCOMPLETE!
What with being pregnant and all the other stuff we had planned, we didn’t end up booking this tour. Always another time!
6. Make the most of the dining plan
PARTIALLY DONE!
We managed to eat in loads of different restaurants and tried lots of snacks, but we barely made a dent in our “snack wishlist”.
7. See a new land
DONE X2!
We’d just missed out on Pandora’s opening in May 2017 by about 2 weeks, so this was our first time seeing it! We also managed to see Toy Story Land not long after its opening – and our first experience was SO quiet as it was just after a storm that had cancelled Fantasmic!
8. See Pandora at night
INCOMPLETE!
The night we had planned to see Pandora and Rivers of Light, we’d had an early morning at Animal Kingdom, so we headed back for a rest at the hotel but had a bit of a nightmare journey with missed buses and canceled monorails in storms, so we ended up going to Epcot in the evening instead.
9. Eat at a “date night” restaurant
DONE!
And kind of x2 again, I’d say! We ate at the Ale & Compass at the Yacht Club early on in the trip (and LOVED it) then at California Grill at the Contemporary (those views!!) later in the trip.
10. Get a Flight of Passage Fastpass
DONE X2!
We were SUPER organised with our Fastpass planning – we had 2 laptops, 2 phones and a tablet all ready to book things in the best order we could – which resulted in us snapping up two Flight of Passage fastpasses! The queues weren’t horrendous when we were there for it, but I much preferred waiting only 10 minutes in Fastpass to waiting 2-3 hours in the normal queue!
11. Get a Dole Whip Pineapple Upside Down Cake at Aloha Isle
INCOMPLETE!
We considered getting this after our Skipper Canteen meal (review to come!), but we were a little bit too full, and unfortunately, didn’t end up back in this area afterwards!
12. Stay on property
DONE!
We stayed at Wilderness Lodge and it was wonderful!
13. Try 5 snacks at Food & Wine
DONE!
This was our first time visiting during the International Food & Wine Festival at Epcot so we wanted to try as many things as possible. We had:
- Le Cellier Wild Mushroom Beef Filet Mignon with mushrooms (SO good) – Canada
- Beijing Roasted Duck Bao Bun – China
- Mango Bubble Tea – China
- New England Lobster Roll – USA
- Liquid Nitro Chocolate-Almond Truffle – The Chocolate Studio
14. Watch the Magic Kingdom opening show
PARTIALLY INCOMPLETE!
Well, we made the show! We stood and waited for it, heard the “Magic Kingdom is now open” announcement as the ropes were dropped…then nothing! We stood a bit more among the crowd, right in front of the castle, then Ben asked a nearby cast member: “Was that…the welcome show?!” He looked sheepishly at the ground and admitted that, yes, the stage was broken so that was the show that morning!
15. Make Extra Magic Hours in at least one park
DONE!
We made Extra Magic Hours in every park, and pretty much every day! This was amazing and such a fantastic perk of staying on property.
16. Watch Happily Ever After fireworks
DONE!
During our trip in 2017, we saw one of the very last showings of Wishes so this was our firt opportunity to see Happily Ever After, and we managed it – twice! Our first night, we went straight over and caught it from the end of Main Street USA, then we also watched it from the roof of the Contemporary after our California Grill meal. Confession: I loved it, but I prefer Wishes!
17. Meet vloggers IRL
DONE!
We are HUGE Disney vlogger fans – after discovering Tim Tracker after our trip last year, we now follow ALL the vloggers. Basically all we now watch is Disney YouTubers (I blame Ben!), so we were hoping to see some. And we did! We bumped into the very lovely See Ya Reel Soon. We also saw Lou Mongello from WDW Radio but were too nervous to approach as he was busy!
18. Take a Disney Starbucks Instagram picture
DONE!
Interestingly more Ben’s bucket list than mine since he’s always wanted Starbucks in Disney! Thanks to our dining plan snack credits, he got a Caramel Frappuccino practically every day!
19. Make rope drop
DONE!
On our first day, we headed straight to Epcot when we woke up and were the first waiting at the rope – so much fun!
20. Ride Frozen Ever After
DONE!
We didn’t Fastpass this ride as we had other priorities in Epcot, but we ended up walking past Norway just before the rest of the World Showcase opened and noticed a 20 minute wait time…we decided that sounded awesome so jumped in the queue, only to find it was a walk on – unheard of!!
21. See the Dapper Dans
DONE!
I’ve wanted to see them for ages, and luckily we caught the end of a set on Main Street so got a quick picture, but we also heard them at Mickey’s Not So Scary too.
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