Hello, friends! I'm back with more Trip Report Tuesday fun! Thank you for joining me as I kick off the newest addition to TRT! This time around I'll be recapping the trip for two that Jason and I enjoyed in celebration of two decades of marriage! Over the course of the next couple of months you'll find fresh new trip reports here each Tuesday morning, yet the memories captured within them have been long cherished. This trip was taken back in the fall of 2018. I've regretted not capturing it here in trip report form, so I'm about to change that right now! Let's travel back to a simpler time, during the one of my favorite weeks of 2018!
Day 1 - Friday, November 9th, 2018
There's nothing quite like a morning at the airport as you prepare to fly off on an adventure! This sweet Saturday morn, we could hardly wait to head out for a long anticipated celebratory getaway!
We breezed through the check-in and security process and grabbed a mini Godfather's breakfast pizza to share as we awaited boarding time. To my knowledge this is the only place you can get a breakfast pizza from a Godfather's Pizza and it is scrumptiousness by the slice!
It's always fun to leave the house with snow on the ground and fly out to the Sunshine State!
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away!
We arrived after nightfall, picked up a rental car, and headed straight to Disney property!
We had a dinner reservation at Beaches & Cream Soda Shop at Disney's Beach Club Resort. As you'll see from our wide smiles in the snapshots that follow, we were pretty thrilled to be out on our first date night in a week of dates!
This is the menu from November 2018, so please be aware if you're looking at this now in 2021 or beyond their offerings may differ.
Prepping to celebrate two decades of marriage and still smitten with each other!
This soda shop is such a sweet spot! I adore every darling detail throughout this place!
Perhaps I should start by saying we'd been faithfully doing Keto up until this vacation, making even something as simple as this plate of fries (and all that would follow) extra enjoyable!
Always smiling when they're some cheesy goodness plated before me! :)
On to the real draw of Beaches and Cream, ice cream! The "No Way Jose" is our favorite ice cream dessert on Disney property. So good!
The No Way Jose is a staple of this shop and remains on the menu. It's huge making it a great sharable treat. I highly recommend if you visit Beaches & Cream!
This snapshot makes my heart smile! :)
We wrapped up our dinner, then fully satisfied took a stroll through Disney's Beach Club Resort as we made our way out to our rental car.
Not our rental car, but too cute to resist a photo of. ;)
Fountains create such lovely evening ambience.
While I don't have a pic to include here, I do remember something very sweet that happened along the drive to our resort. Jason turned on SiriusXM's Hallmark Channel that was playing all Christmas music! My hubby isn't a fan of Christmas music outside of December, but knew I was excited about all the christmastime goodness that awaited us during this trip, making this such a sweet and thoughtful gesture/surprise! It's the little things!
Soon it was time to check in to our resort for the night. We would go on to spend November 11th through the 17th in a savanna view studio at our DVC home, Animal Kingdom Lodge, but our trip began with an evening in the then newly renovated section of Disney's Pop Century Resort.
When our girls were little we spent their first few trips at the All-Star Movies and Music resorts by necessity as the price point fit our budget nicely in those days and our girls loved the over the top theming. This was to be our first visit to Pop. I have to say this is a fantastic value level resort! Wanna look around? . . .
In the corner of the pic you can see Jason taking some video for a vlog on our family's Eat, Sleep, Dis, Repeat YouTube channel. He didn't get around to putting together vids from this trip either. Perhaps one day he will. If you're an ESDR viewer and you'd enjoy seeing those videos, feel free to encourage him to do so in the comments section below. ;)
Pop's buildings are themed after decades. We stayed in the peachy-keen 50s section.
As previously mentioned Pop Century's rooms had just finished being fully renovated that year. We were excited to check out the updated rooms. Personally, I prefer this style over the previous value room looks. I thought the hard floors paired with the crisp white and cool blues seemed so fresh and clean in comparison to old carpeting and outdated wallpaper borders previously prevalent in value rooms. I do understand why some don't care for it though as what I thought seemed crisp and clean that night could also came across as cold and sterile. To each their own. :)
What appears to be a tall wooden cabinet just behind the table and chairs can actually be pulled down to reveal a murphy bed lending this room sleeping space for two additional guests.
Pluto makes me think that if our girls had joined us they'd have some doggone sweet dreams in this bed. ;)
This bright orange door could lead to an adjoining room had we booked it. Instead it was just a locked door in Jason's favorite color. :)
The bath tiles reminded me of the shapes from It's a Small World
I'm one of those Disney fans who always enjoyed having a supply of Disney H2O resort products to bring home at the end of each trip. This was the first Disney trip we took after they began using these bottles fixed to the wall to be refilled by mousekeeping. I'm still not quite over it yet. ;)
I may be one of the many guests that inspired their switch to this style of fridge. Let's just say I've forgotten a few Disney desserts in hotel rooms with only the Mickey ears eaten from them! Ha! The fridges with the clear doors might just remedy that situation for future guests.
With a release date of 1955 this large Lady was perfection for our section of the resort!
I've always found these oversized iconic structures that encapsulate the staircases in value resort buildings to be fun! Ours here was a jumbo bowling pin.
Another thing I do enjoy about Disney's value resorts are their fun food courts and gift shops. We still had full tummies from our delicious dinner, yet I couldn't resist popping inside the food court to take a peek at the rapid refill mugs and cute cupcakes and sweet treats. It was a feast for the eyes!
I absolutely adore holiday themed Disney rapid refill mugs and was over the moon to spot this super sweet design!
We added to our Disney resort magnet collection picking up a Pop magnet, then made our way outside for another evening stroll. In 2018 the Skyliner was still in the production process. Jason, a lover of unique transportation, was excited to catch a glimpse of it.
A little more cuteness in large scale ...
Back to our building for a good night's rest before a great big beautiful tomorrow!
Thanks so much for joining me here today! I'd like to extended a warm welcome for your return this time next week! I look forward to sharing Food & Wine Festival goodness at Epcot, a trip to Disney Springs, evening in Magic Kindgom all dressed up in its Christmas best, and the start of our stay at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge! Hope to see you then!
