Walt Disney World Vacation

*Have you entered for your chance to win $100 gift card to Green Bride Guide?! Hurry, enter today! *

Oh Disney World...how I love thee. Chris and I had a really fun time in Florida two weeks ago with some old friends, and some completely new friends. I can't thank our friend (Chris's college roommate), Matt, enough for inviting us down for the week! I miss it already. A place where this was my view every morning.

A place where THIS happens if it's your birthday.

Where the new pizzeria Via Napoli in Italy, Epcot served up amazing pizzas and Italian desserts. This is my new favorite Disney restaurant.

A place where this sucker at the Main Street Bakery in Magic Kingdom, was one of the best ice cream cookie sandwiches ever.

I miss the Biergarten Restaurant in Germany, where we'd stop for some beer (Oktoberfest) and amazing soft pretzels.

No picture of my soft pretzel, but this squirrel seemed to be enjoying his immensely. Even the wild animals in Disney World are cuter...how does Disney do it??

And just when I thought it couldn't get more magical, this happened...

A proposal right in front of my eyes at Magic Kingdom! I missed the getting down on one knee part..doh! Overnight, Magic Kingdom had completely been turned over to the new season. Pumpkins, hay bales, and orange, yellow, and brown banners hung everywhere down Main Street.

The cast members stay in character, all the time.

And even getting stuck on Splash Mountain is a ton of fun....sort of. We had to be escorted off the ride and walk down through Brer Rabbit's briar partch.

 

 

And a place where this ode to Anchorman exists:

Well played Disney...well played. Until next time Disney! (Which just so happens to be 3 months from now!) Let the countdown begin.

California Vacation Part 11: Universal Studios and Santa Monica/Venice Beach

Our favorite day in Hollywood was our day at Universal Studios. Chris and I are suckers for theme parks. Give us Hershey Park, Universal Studios, or especially Disney World and we are Happy, HAPPY people!

The most exciting part was that we got to ride the brand new Transformers ride before it even officially opened a week later. This was a HUGE deal to Chris who loves his Transformers.

He had to try the special Energon Cream Soda drink after the ride, with collectors cup, of course.

We were at Universal on a Thursday and literally walked onto every single ride with virtually no wait times and even rode a few rides more than once. The Universal Studios Lot Tour is always neat to see movie sets, and production studios. I believe this was part of the War of the Worlds set:

That night we ate at Samba Brazilian Steakhouse and Lounge at Universal CityWalk. Here, the waiters bring different kinds of meat on skewers around to your table and you pick out what you want, as you want it. I got to sample a ton of different things, and had my choice of many different sides at their salad bar.

They also had live dancers and I had 2 of these amazing caipirinhas!

Finally, on our last day of vacation we headed out to Venice Beach and Santa Monica Pier. This day was mostly walking along the beach and people watching...which resulted in me getting pretty sunburned!

I started off the day with an iced soy latte!

Santa Monica Pier

and dipped my toes in the pacific

I don't think Universal Studios hired this man...he seemed pretty non-legit...and crazy. He seemed to honestly believe that Transformers will ultimately bring the end of our world. Let's just say Venice Beach was a little bit "cray-cray" with some of the people around...

We ended our vacation with a dip in the pool and hot tub at our hotel for a relaxing last night. And that, my friends, concludes our San Francisco/Hollywood Vacation!

 California Vacation Recaps: 

San Francisco Part 1

San Francisco Part 2

Napa Valley
Alcatraz

Cable Cars and Irish Coffee

Ghiradelli Square
Chinatown
Lombard Street

Driving Down the Coast - Big Sur
Hollywood
Universal Studios and Venice Beach/Santa Monica

California Vacation Part 10: Hollywood

Our first day out and about in Hollywood, our first order of business was, of course, to see the Hollywood sign!

Then we headed over to the Grauman's Chinese Theatre

My hands just happen to be the same exact size as Julie Andrews!

We passed this Transformer (Chris' favorite one) at Ripley's Believe it or Not on Hollywood Blvd.

 Drove down Rodeo Drive (but NO shopping!)

And visited the Hollywood Forever Cemetery...which mostly consisted of old famous and extremely wealthy people whom we had never heard of. However, it was beautiful and some of these tombstones were amaaazing. Many of them had full on picnic benches and tables built into the grave-site for families to get together and I guess...picnic?

 But we did see the statue of Johnny Ramone of the Ramones!

And finally ate at the Famous Pink's Hot dogs! (Seen in the recent Muppet movie!)

I think what really makes Pink's different and unique are all the different options you have to prepare your hot dog. Relish, Mustard, saurkraut, chili, you name it...it's an option.

I wavered back and forth between three different options for the 30 minutes it took us to wait in line and order. I finally settled on a plain old chili cheese dog, and Chris got a bacon chili cheese dog with fries. It was very good...I wouldn't say life changing...it is a hot dog after all...but good, and I'm glad I can say I've been there.

California Vacation Part 9: Big Sur - CA's coastline

It took us 10 hours to drive from San Francisco to our hotel in West Hollywood. We made a few stops along the way for pictures, bathroom breaks, and lunch. But all in all it was a long, but nice, day!

It was foggy in the morning as we started our way along the coast:

I was so surprised by all the livestock we saw along the way. I don't think I've ever seen so much farm-land with farm animals right along the ocean and beach like that.

 We stopped for lunch at a place called Nepenthe, part of Big Sur. This offered amazing views overlooking the pacific!

This was the view from our table!

I really enjoyed this light and tasty salad with a turkey sandwich!

Breathtaking views!

and I ate the best.cookie.ever!

As we got near the end of Big Sure, we came across the seal rookery! Many, dozens, I think actually hundreds of seals lined the beaches! Seal Lovers?

Look at them all!!

We were sad we missed the last tour of Hearst Castle. You can see it at the very tip top of the mountain here. But it would have added two hours to our trip anyway and we were anxious to get to our destination.

We arrived at the Beverly Garland Hotel around 8:00 that night, excited for our next day at Universal Studios!