Smelley Love: Disney Vacation: Day 1

Hi guys, so instead of just sending you all an album of pictures with no explanation of what you were looking at... So here is a little photo blog post of our days! I'll break it up into days just for ease.

The cruise left on Friday (January 24) and we had to be there at 11am in Port Canaveral (the east coast of Florida - almost directly across from us) since it was a weekday, we didn't want to chance traffic and missing the ship. SO we drove up Thursday and stayed one night in Disney World! That's where I'll start this, Day 1 (Thursday) Oh, and it was 4 of us, Tyler and I, and then Ryan (Tyler's brother) and his girlfriend, Summer.

The plan was to be at Summer's house and pick her up as soon as she got home from class (215pm) Now back to reality and what REALLY happened, we left to pick up Ryan at 2:45pm... Then we had to run by the recruiter's office so Ryan could drop off some last minute paperwork THEN on to Summer's... Around 3pm maybe? Awesome, as you all know, I'm late to everything... ie. wedding.

We drove straight to Disney, and thankfully only hit very little traffic. We attempted to navigate through Disney to find our hotel (they should really word their signs better!) Once we found ours, All-Star Sports Resort, we checked in. We were allowed to participate in their newest technology that they are working on, MagicBands.

They are bracelets that you can personalize (choose your color and name you want on them. They are then shipped to you and when your bring them to your resort stay, they act as your room key, Disney park tickets, credit card, Fast Passes (for skipping lines at rides) etc. Basically it is a 'one stop shot' for everything you could need. It eliminates needing to carry your credit card (for security purposes and potentially losing it) and room keys, park ticket cards... Even kids get the MagicBands!

The band has a Mickey head on top (where the sensor is) and to use it for the room key, you simply tap it to the sensor on the door, and it unlocks! SO cool, and fantastic for when we were carrying all of our bags! Long gone are the days of rummaging through pockets to find your room key!

In gift shops or restaurants, you can choose to pay with your MagicBand as well, similarly to the room key, you just tap the band to Mickey head on the card reader and it pops up asking for your PIN number!

Back to the resort, it was all sports themed. We walked through the resort, and there was a pool in a 'baseball diamond' area, complete with Home and Visitor signs, and stadium lights!

There was a football field, complete with over sized helmets, field goal posts, and yard lines. We also briefly passed a surf area too, but it was FAR too cold to explore.

Both of our rooms were lined with sports borders, and a Mickey head towel animal! The first of many we would experience on our trip!

We headed back to the main building to catch a bus to the Downtown Disney area to get dinner (around 745pm by now!)

We ate at Earl of Sandwich, a great little tavern feel sandwich shop. We explored around some of the other shops. I tried a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free, agave-sweetened french toast cupcake. It was weird, I'm sure if I really needed to be without all of those things, it would be great, but I don't, so I didn't enjoy it too much. (at all.) It was still FREEZING, so as we started to head back to the bus pickup, we passed T-REX cafe (think Rainforest cafe, with dinosaurs instead) Their final 'experience' was just starting, their volcano building shoots fire and sounds, and the animatronic alligator moves and snaps etc.

The fire was nice and warm so we stuck around until the end (a few minutes long) Then we made the very cold walk back to the bus pick up.

Here's a few more random pictures from that day, that really have no story but are cool none-the-less.