Hi Everyone! We've returned from a (spoiler alert) wonderful week at Walt Disney World! I'll be posting my trip report here on Magic And Chic in between my other fashion and food posts. And trust me... there will be plenty of food and my own personal brand of fashion in these reports.

Many of you reading might have read previous trip reports by me but some of you may not have so I'll introduce my small cast of characters anyway.

Steevin: This is my husband. We've been married for just over a year and together for 6 and a half. He's not a fan of Disneyland so even though we live so close he doesn't often go with me. But he loves going to Walt Disney World with me so that makes up for the Disneyland thing. We've been lucky enough to manage to go to WDW multiple times and this would be our 4th trip together. Hmmmm... what else about Steevin? He is an artist, graphic designer, he never plans anything and is a whole lot of fun to hang out with.

Betsy: Thats me! I go by Beth or Betsy so you'll hear people call me either. I love Disney (Duh!) and I run this little blog here. I would live inside a Disney Theme park if I could. But I also have a real passion for learning about Walt Disney himself. What a complex and inspirational guy! I have worked for Disney in the past a looooooong time ago. It definitely didn't ruin the magic. I find all the "backstage" stuff part of that magic. I am the planner of the relationship so I made all the plans and Steevin was along for whatever I decided. And thats just how I like it.

Here we are together on our last trip to WDW! <3

And now.... on with the shooooowwww...

Our story starts on Friday Feb 6th, 2015. Steevin and I work for the same company and usually carpool to work. But, I usually have Thursdays and Fridays off so a kind friend and co-worker picked Steevin up and THEY carpooled to work so I could use the car for last minute errands and get us all ready to go.

Now in the past, I would have had DAYS of making lists and charts and planning and errand running and bugging Steevin if he had grabbed this or that but the week we left was so hectic at work prepping for us being gone, I never really had a chance to do it. When I woke up, it didn't even feel like the start of my vacation because so much of my pre-packing lists hadn't even been made! (No one make fun of me... I just REALLY love making lists!!)

My day was filled with strange little errands that needed to be done. I walked to Starbucks and got myself a coffee AND a Bacon Gouda sandwich instead of my usual Reduced fat Turkey Bacon sandwich because who cares about calories! I needed to get myself in that vacation mindset. And ignoring the diet is the perfect way to start the process. Then I cleaned the apartment from top to bottom because its always way nicer to come back to a clean home to help ease the post-Disney blues. After Cinderella-ing the apartment, I was off to the grocery store in the very early afternnoon for a six-pack of Shock Tops and a bottle of Hennesy. I am sure it looked like I was about to have the most rockin' "Real Housewives of Glendale" Friday afternoon, but in reality they were for my cousin who was coming to house and kittysit for us and I wanted to get her a little "Thank You". I spent the rest of the afternoon visiting with my kitty, Mable, who knew something was up because all our luggage was out. (P.S. Mable is the worlds CUTEST cat... this is not an opinion... its fact.)

Proof that Mable is the cutest!

After soaking up as much snuggle time as my kitty would allow, I kissed her on the head once more earning myself a scowl of epic proportions because she could sense I was about to leave. I gathered up all of our luggage, told Mable her cat-sitter would be here soon, and precariously  made my way down two floors to the garage trying not to drop anything. I loaded it all into the trunk, quickly hopped I didn't forget anything and then fought my way through LA traffic to pick up Steevin. He was finishing up some last minute things at work so I parked and watched Grey's Anatomy on my phone until he was ready.

My feet were ready to hit that magical pavement in Orlando!

He finally finished up and we were ON OUR WAY... to San Diego. Now, you might be wondering to yourself, why we would be driving all the way to San Diego when we had multiple airports near us? Well, I was able to save us almost $500 flying out of San Diego rather than out of LAX plus... LAX sucks, is awful and I avoid traveling from it when I can. And we could park our car at Steevin's mom's house so we didn't have to pay for parking and it gave us a chance to see some friends for a bit. So off we drove on Friday night down to our old stomping grounds. We blasted 90's music all the way down and sang pretty amazingly, if I do say so myself.

A few hours later we were pulling up to one of our favorite taco shops ready to eat some real tacos. (Psst... LA doesn't know anything about tacos. You would think they would. You wouldn't think that few hours drive past the border makes too much of a difference but let me tell you... it does. Since we moved to LA in June we've been searching desperately for just a kick-ass hole-in-the-wall taco shop and have come up empty handed). We texted local friends and Steevin's mom on the way down and those that could met up with us for dinner and we chowed down on pastor and carne asada with habenero salsa. I have no photos so you'll just have to trust me.

After dinner, a few of us made a stop at Fry's because Steevin realized earlier that day that he couldn't find the remote to his camera and we love setting it up and taking photos together when there are no photopass people to be found. We had our Fry's  adventure and had a great, although very brief, time with our friends and found the remote we needed. We had originally planned to stop and visit with Steevin's sister but even though it was only 9:30pm, we were exhausted. Maybe our bodies were trying to shift to Orlando time already. But since we knew we'd see his sister, Erika, in the morning since she was taking us to the airport we decided to head to our hotel.

Steevin's mom, Nhora, had offered to let us stay there for the night but their house is so full anyway we decided to look on Priceline and found a cheap room at an Extended Stay America for the night. But first we stopped by a grocery store to get water and giant cans of Angry Orchard cider to kick off the vacation with. Well it was a nice plan at least. We checked in to our clean if not run-down room that smelled slightly of wet dog, checked the bed for bedbugs or other creepy crawlies, popped open our beers drank about a quarter each and then fell asleep for the night.

Proof that we tried to party that night... bonus Betsy and Steevin shot in the mirror

But that's okay because the morning came really quickly and we were soon up, with luggage repacked grabbing granola bars from the motel's "Continental Breakfast". I texted Erika on the way to her place and in true Erika form, she slept past her alarm but she was surprisingly quick and easy to wake up once we arrived and she was ready to drive us to the airport. It was a nice drive and we had a good chat and very soon we were pulling up to the airport and hugging her goodbye.

*Now for this part of the story please envisions wavy-flashback squiggles and harp sounds*

Several weeks before our vacation we had been returning home from a work trip. Somewhere between the Uber car and our apartment, Steevin managed to lose his entire wallet. We called Uber and searched everywhere the next morning when we realized it was missing but no luck. Steevin took a day off work to go to the DMV to get a new license but the new one did NOT arrive before we left. (And as a side note, the wallet WAS found by our apartment complex while we were gone and after we had cancelled all the cards... oh well at least nothing was stolen!) 

*Back to "present day"*
So with no ID we brought everything we could think of, a credit card with a photo, SSN card, marriage license, and the temp ID the DMV had given him. And we got to the airport super early. I had already checked us in so I just dropped off the luggage and we headed to security. In case you wanted to know, they checked all of the documents we brought except the marriage licence. Plus, Steevin did have to have his own special pat-down and very through screening of his carry-on luggage. There was very little line so I was through in about 5 minutes but Steevin's procedure was about 25 minutes. Well, that was why we got there early.

Finally we were all done with security and I felt like I could breathe easier since I hadn't known what to expect when not having an ID. It was really hard to find any information on it other than it COULD be done with extra steps but with no elaboration on what those steps MIGHT be. Well, now you know too! The more you know! *star with a rainbow tail* To celebrate officially being on our way, I went to get us Peet's Coffee and we relaxed before the flight.

LOL! Steevin is being a huge goof for some reason.

Soon enough we were flying over states in a distinct west to east pattern and bound for Orlando! Steevin worked on art and I read. Steevin sat next to a gentleman that he described as smelling like "Onion and Fart" and asked if I wanted to switch places with him. As tempting as that offer sounded, I kept my window seat and Steevin survived. As lunch/snack on the plane Steevin enjoyed what he called an "Adult Lunchable" with cheeses, sausages and crackers while I enjoyed the cheese, cracker and fruit plate with wine. And then I had a little cat nap in the sun beaming through the plane window.

Almost 5 hours later we were landing in Orlando International Airport! Land of Oranges, Gators and Mickey Mouse! The pixie dust was now fully ingrained in my system and I practically floated my way over to the fake monorail (with only a brief detail of me almost getting us lost in all my excitement) and right to Disney's Magical Express. YEAH!!! First Magic Band experience of the trip. I popped on my blue band, scanned it and BOOM! Green Mickey head. We were ready to go!

Guess which hotel we were headed to???

You'll find out soon!

Adorable DME story... the man in front of us was sitting with his very young daughter and he was speaking in a very lovely British accent. He was telling his daughter all of the fun things they were going to see and do. And then he told her "Do you know what's odd? They drive on the wrong side of the road here, you'll see!" and she was VERY excited about that part of the trip. LOL!

We were off and not too long of a trip later we were pulling up in front of our home away from home... Port Orleans Riverside. Now... it took me quite a bit of convincing to get Steevin to agree to come here. We LOVE the Boardwalk Inn. And he really wanted to stay there this trip but we could save almost $1000 by staying at a Moderate resort. However... we weren't too impressed with the last Moderate we stayed at which was the Caribbean Beach. But I had heard such good things about this resort and then... I found out they had the Royal Rooms. Steevin loves himself some Disney Princesses so that sealed the deal for him. And I am SO glad we did. Besides Boardwalk, (which will probably always be our VERY favorite) POR was definitely the best Disney World resort we've stayed in. We were checked in by a lovely Cast Member named Sue from Minnesota, dontchaknow. And she loved our "California" way of talking with our "Like"-peppered speech habits. She was a dear and asked us how long we'd been married and we told her just over a year and she said "Well my goodness! You're still just newlyweds and you just missed your anniversary here. Take these and wear them!" and she gave us Happy Anniversary buttons. And with that our trip became a Valentines/Anniversary celebration.

The room was great with lots of details! I wish I had photos of the room as a whole but those photos got lost somehow. Don't worry, they're the only ones that did! But I do have some photos of the great little touches through out the room. It was dark when we arrived so we didn't see much of the grounds yet but once we did explore it was really serene and beautiful.

Lobby Chandelier

Genie's magic lamp from Aladdin

Bed and magical Headboard

Lighting feature with hidden Mickeys

Big mirror!

Royal Bedding

Cinderella's coach on the coat and purse hook

Seating Area

Relaxing in the room before dinner

We unpacked and rested up for just a bit. Steevin then realized he had forgotten to bring a charger for his camera battery. I was borrowing a camera from a friend so we still had a way to take photos but he wanted to use his as well. So he just ordered one on Amazon and it was delivered in a few days. And then we were off to dinner! We hopped a boat to Downtown Disney (great to have it right there!) and then because of all the construction and because the line for the water taxi was so long, we hoofed it ALLLLLLLL the way around to the other end of Downtown Disney to Bongo's Cuban Cafe.

Our goal was to only eat at table restaurants that we've never tried before and this was first on our list. And I am glad we made reservations, even though we were a little late for them because they seated us in about 10 minutes but other parties were waiting 45 or more. This was a fun place to eat. My husband is Colombian and the food reminded him of his childhood (Yes, I know Cuba and Colombia are not the same but they share a lot of the same flavors). It was delicious and there was a lot of fun energy and dancing through out dinner. I would definitely recommend it!

A view of Fultons Crab House from our boat on the way to Downtown Disney

Our view from inside Bongos. Always lots of dancing on the stairs!

I had a Mojito and Steevin had the Pina Colada

Our Appetizer: Tostones con Mojo

My meal: Bistec de Palomilla with a side of chimichurri

Steevin's meal: Masitas de Puerco

We skipped dessert tonight because, although we paid for this meal out of pocket, we knew we'd be on the dinning plan after this and we knew there were many more desserts to come. We window shopped around Downtown Disney for a bit before catching the bus back to our resort. We realized after we got on the bus however that because we took the boat over... we didn't know which bus stop was closest to our room. We just waited for the one that we hoped looked familiar and got off there. We did it! I stopped by the hotel room briefly to grab my wallet and then we headed to the hotel bar, River Roost, for last call. Yehaa Bob is a staple of the resort and plays at the bar several nights a week. He was just ending as we got there but we figured we'd see him again. I ordered a Gin and Tonic for me and a Rum and Coke for Steevin. We soaked up the hotel atmosphere and listened to the Cheer Moms gossiping next to us (There was a cheer convention/competition while we were there but it never caused too much crowding) before heading back to the room for a full night of rest before our first day in a park the next day.

Fountain in the lawn in front of out hotel building