Walt Disney World | Photo Diary | Art of Animation Resort

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Walt Disney World | Trip Review | Day 1 | The Magic Kingdom

Even before we had booked our trip to Walt Disney World, I knew that the first day would be to The Magic Kingdom. I had watched countless Welcome Show videos online and knew that it was something special that had to be done at the beginning of the trip. We arrived on the bus from the hotel about 8.20am in good time for the welcome show at 8.40. We went through bag check and up to the entrance. It was here that we used our Magic Bands in the parks for the first time! I can't believe how excited I was registering a fingerprint but I knew as soon as it lit up green, I was in and finally at Walt Disney World!

The Welcome Show was lovely, we were lucky to see the Mayor of Main Street on the first day (as we didn't see him at the Welcome Show for the rest of the trip!) All the characters arrive on Casey Jr and Mickey comes to countdown the opening of the park. Once it finished and we were through the gates my first stop was for a pair of Minnie ears! 

We didn't actually have a plan for what to do as soon as we got into the park so we decided to stop for some Photopass pictures with Pluto and Minnie and wander up Main Street to get some photographs in front of Cinderella's Castle. You just can't describe the feeling you get walking down Main Street for the first time and seeing the castle, it's just incredible!

Our first ever ride at the Magic Kingdom was Prince Charming's Carousel. The sun was shining, and I remember just sitting on Briar Rose's horse thinking how lucky I was to finally be here. Our first fast pass was for Splash Mountain so we headed over to Frontierland next. Splash has actually become one of my favourite rides! After Splash we did Big Thunder Mountain Railroad which I was a bit nervous of to start with but actually came to enjoy!

On our way through to Storybook Circus we came across Gaston's meet and greet. Bradley was especially excited for this one as he was wearing his Gaston's Gym t-shirt. They had some brilliant photos taken trying to out flex each other! I also met Ariel in her grotto, something that was on my bucket list to do, The Little Mermaid is one of my favourite Disney movies! 

At Storybook Circus we met Daisy, Minnie, Donald & Goofy. They all looked amazing in their circus costumes. It was at this point though that the day took a little turn. I managed to break my flip flop at the end of the meet & greet with Donald and we were due to have lunch at Be Our Guest restaurant in 5 minutes. We dashed to the shop to find me some new flip flops but they didn't have my size. Not wanting to miss our reservation we headed to Be Our Guest to check in for lunch. I carried my flip flop to the desk and the lady behind the counter told me I couldn't come in unless I wore shoes (which I understand, because of health & safety). It was her delivery which I was completely taken aback by. She was rude and basically barked at me. I put on my shoe as best I could, which I had to slide along the floor because the between toe bit had broken, other families were staring at me which made me feel self conscious and I started to cry. Our food arrived during my teary moment and I couldn't eat. Bradley knew how much I had been looking forward to this lunch and went off to find someone to speak to about the situation. Seconds later, a manager appeared and Bradley explained the situation to her, she was a little more sympathetic and asked me if finding me new shoes would help. I accepted her offer and she told me not to worry and that she would be back soon. In the meantime I tried to eat, the food was nice, we both had the Croque Monsieur and a cupcake with the grey stuff on for dessert. A cast member came up to us during the meal and bought over a card for me from Belle & the Beast with their autographs, and inside was a token for a free fast pass. The manager came back a while later and said "here are your shoes Cinderella" which put a smile on my face. I thanked her for everything she had done and I left the experience feeling much happier than when I went in. It definitely proved to me that some cast members will go out of their way to make your day a little bit special.

Our next fast pass was The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train which was really good. The ride was only about a minute long but I really enjoyed it. As we purchased Memory Maker, we got a video of our ride included which I keep watching! We also rode Splash Mountain again with the fast pass we got from Be Our Guest as we really enjoyed that one.

The park was closing at 7pm that evening for regular guests as there was a halloween party on that evening but we were happy to head out at that time. It was a really long day with lots of walking, rides and meeting characters! We headed back to the hotel to rest and get ready for our second day at Epcot...

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I'm Back...With The Disney Blues...

Hi everyone! It seems like a very long time since I've posted anything on here. We are back from our honeymoon and have a full on case of the Disney blues. Today is actually a month since we left! We had such an amazing time, we both loved every second and currently have a mountain of photographs and videos to go through. Since we returned we have been editing some of our videos which I thought I would share with you today. 

Just a side note, these are our own personal videos (and not vlogs) so please remember that if you plan to post comments. Also if you like them, please give them a big thumbs up on YouTube & subscribe to my channel! There are definitely more to come!

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The Disney Series / 014 / The Final Countdown!

I've definitely let this little series lapse a bit lately and for that I can only apologise. We are now down to the final few days before the trip and I am starting to get just a little bit excited! I've packed and repacked my suitcase several times, I've been watching YouTube videos on repeat and have been watching the weather forecast religiously (Tropical Storm Grace needs to disappear asap!).

I have a final few days of work to get through and have my birthday celebrations to look forward to on Saturday (not actually my birthday but I won't be in the UK for it!). I've already opened one of my presents which was the most amazing gift - a Nintendo 3DS from my friends Michelle & Dru so that I can play on the plane. I bought Olaf's Quest (obviously) and so far haven't been able to put it down!

We have become inspired by the many YouTubers we watch together and have decided that for this trip we might try our hand at vlogging. At the very least making videos for ourselves and once we have enough footage, we might but together a few videos for YouTube. We will also be periscoping throughout the trip (wifi permitting - we have heard it's very fleeting and not very strong!). My periscope is @ImpatienceBlog if you would like to follow me beforehand, I will also be tweeting a lot during the trip and using Instagram. We will be creating the hashtag #keyesdisneymoon if you would like to follow along on our adventures!

Over the last few months I have been speaking to other bloggers/vloggers who will be over in Florida the same time as us - I just wanted to give a huge shoutout to Amy at Cocktails in Teacups who hopefully I might bump into while we are there! *waves*

I'm not sure whether this will be my last post before we leave so for now I shall leave it here. Be sure to check back here when I return for photos and videos or come and say hello on Periscope or Instagram!

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The Disney Series / 013 / Photographs I Want To Take

Photographs are a wonderful way of preserving holiday memories. Although I wouldn't say I was particularly good at photography, I do enjoy it and I will be taking A LOT of photos during our trip. I've even bought two extra memory cards...you know...just in case!

Bradley and I have also invested in a Memory Maker for our trip because we figure that this will be a once in a lifetime holiday and we would like to get some amazing photographs. What we also love about the Memory Maker is that we will be able to get all of our ride photos and character dining meal photos too, it takes away some of the stress of capturing photos because someone will be doing it for us and also means we can both be in them! We have done a little bit of research into where the photopass photographers will be and each time we see one we will take the opportunity to have a photo taken but I have also compiled a list of "must have" photos for each of the parks.

Magic Kingdom

- At the entrance to the park, with Main Street Station in the background

- On Main Street with Cinderella's Castle in the background

- Outside Cinderella's Castle

- Meeting Mickey at Town Square Theatre

- Meeting Anna & Elsa

Epcot

- Trying to lift Spaceship Earth

- At the entrance with Spaceship Earth in the background

- Trying on hats around the world!

- Meeting Belle in France

- Illuminations Fireworks

Hollywood Studios

- Hollywood Boulevard

- Tower of Terror

- Trying to defeat Zurg on Toy Story Midway Mania

- Fantasmic

- Photo with the Toy Story Green Army Man

Animal Kingdom

- In front of the Tree Of Life

- Expedition Everest

- Festival of The Lion King Show

- Elephants on the Safari

- Photo with Rafiki at Rafiki's Planet Watch

What photographs would you like to see of Walt Disney World?

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Beauty Trends - Autumn/Winter 2015

Let's face it, we haven't really had that much of a "summer" in the UK, but as far as I'm concerned that's ok with me. I'm not really a summer person and much prefer it when it gets to the time of year where the leaves start to fall from the trees, the weather turns a little colder and you can get the berry tones and boots out! I've recently been given the opportunity to work alongside House of Fraser to create the perfect autumnal make up look and take a look at the key beauty trends that we can look forward to over the coming months.

Bold Statement Lips
Statement lips are back this season, with bold colours featuring heavily and even black lips were featured by several designers. A key colour to look out for is oxblood red (NARS have a new lipstick available Autumn 2015 called VIP Red Lipstick which is sure to be a sellout this season).

Barefaced Beauty
One of my favourite current beauty trends, the "effortless/minimal make up look" (which to be honest actually takes a lot of effort!) Featuring a natural glow with slightly stained pink or nude lips and groomed brows to create effortless glamour. Complete the look with a sleek side ponytail or natural scrunched waves with a center parting.

Oversized liner 
Just when I was getting to grips with my cat flick, it looks like AW has upped the ante with oversized liner. Think big bold lines above and below the eyes.

Grunge Meets Glamour
Sexy tousled hair with heavily kohled eyes, black lipstick and dark smokey eyes.

Sequins & Glitter
I really wanted to include this trend as I am drawn to all things sparkly! Designers have been featuring glittered eyes and crystal eyeliner! Maybe not an everyday look, but definitely something to consider for the festival season or Christmas party!

I've tried to create my own barefaced beauty everyday look using these products:
Benefit - The Porefessional Primer
Rimmel - Match Perfection Foundation in Ivory
NARS - Radiant Creamy Concealer* £22 House of Fraser
Rimmel - Stay Matte Powder in Ivory 
NARS - Blush in Orgasm* £23 House of Fraser
NARS - Duo Eyeshadow in Silk Road* £25 House of Fraser
Guerlain - Rouge Automatique Lipstick in 168 L'Heure Bleue
MAC Highlighter - Pink Blossom
Benefit - They're Real Mascara

The three key trends this AW are the bold red lip, the flawless "no make up" look and the smokey eye. I think these trends are the most popular are they are easily achievable in real life. Although I love the innovation of the catwalk, especially with eyeliner this AW, these are creative ideas and subject to your own interpretation for everyday wear. I know i'll definitely be trying to perfect my smokey eye and rockin' a bold red lip this year!


What trends are you most looking forward to this AW?



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The Disney Series / 012 / Planning Update - 50 Days To Go!

My apologies for things being a little quiet around here lately, there has been a lot of illness around work at the moment so it was inevitable that it was going to be passed to me. For the last week I've been suffering with the usual cold symptoms, and mostly feeling like I haven't wanted to move from my bed. Usually I plan these posts in advance but as that hasn't been possible this week I thought I'd give you a little update on how the Disney plans are coming along!

Today we are at the 50 day mark, which means that 10 days ago we were able to book our fastpasses! I have been chatting on The DIBB with a few people who advised me that if I wanted to get the sought after fastpasses for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Meeting Anna & Elsa at Princess Fairytale Hall, that I would need to be ready to book as soon as they became available. Great I thought, until I was told that fastpasses become available at midnight Florida (ET) time! Which obviously meant I needed to be awake (a big challenge) and online at 5am GMT! The night before I was too excited to sleep! I can't imagine how I'm going to be when I'm actually going! I woke up at 2, 3 and 4am and then decided it was worth getting up, making some coffee and setting up the computer so that I was primed and ready! All of it paid off in the end though as we managed to get all the fastpasses we wanted (plus a few that we had to get...but more on that in a Fastpass post coming up soon). For someone that has never done anything like this before, the process was surprisingly easy.

Another exciting thing is that the holiday is completely booked and all paid for now..yippee!! I would like to say a massive thanks to my parents for helping us out, this wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for you, thank you! It was very exciting seeing "balance paid in full, thank you" on our account!

We are starting to get our holiday clothes sorted now and over the last few months, I have been collecting lots of* t-shirts mostly from Primark to wear on the trip (I'll be doing a separate post on this too!). We have also bought two carry on suitcases which we managed to get on sale at Tesco's for our hand luggage and will be borrowing some large cases from my parents.

This week, I also managed to finally get hold of a copy of a book I have been after since it's release back in May. I ordered The Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World 2nd Edition, by Susan Veness from Waterstones and Amazon both of which had a 5 day waiting period but when I placed my order, it jumped to 2 months! Last week the book finally arrived though and so far I've read the Magic Kingdom section. It's great learning about all the secrets and things that we can look out for whilst walking around which we probably would have overlooked had we not read about it.

We have also now started watching our Disney movie countdown as we have gone past the 60 day mark. We wrote a list of 30 Disney movies we wanted to watch before our trip and are planning on watching one every other day. With both of us having different work schedules this is proving a little difficult but we have managed, The Black Cauldron, Mulan, Cinderella, Lilo & Stitch and Hercules so far! 

Thanks for making it this far if you've made it to the end of this post, sorry it's a bit rambly! If there is anything you would like me to talk about in future posts, be sure to leave me a comment below!

*lots of, might be a slight under exaggeration. I literally have so many I don't think I need to take them all!

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The Disney Series / 011 / Disney Pandora Wishlist

One thing I want to make sure I don't do when I visit Disney is spend a lot of money on souvenir items that I really don't need or that are just going to sit around the house gathering dust on our return. I've heard that there is a shop on Main Street in Magic Kingdom where you can buy Pandora charms which are exclusive to Disney parks so I've decided to invest my money in some of these as a beautiful everyday reminder of our trip.

Although there are a lot pictured above, I'm going to limit myself to three. Two of them I am going to buy myself and the third one is going to be my birthday present from Bradley as it's my birthday during the trip.

The charm that I am hoping to get the most is the Cinderella's Castle charm. I really hope they have this when I go. I love that it will hang down from the bracelet and every time I see it, it will remind me of our holiday.

I'm also really hoping to be able to get the "A dream is a wish your heart makes" charm. This is my favourite Disney song and I always get a bit emotional whenever I hear it, When I went to see the Cinderella movie at the cinema earlier in the year I was really disappointed they didn't play it until the end credits and I even waited for it, in the screen on my own just so I could hear it!

I can't decide between these next two charms as my third charm (so I might just have to get them both!) I love the Mickey charm with the American flag on it. I think this would be a great reminder that I went to Florida, plus it would add a little colour to my bracelet as all my current charms are just sliver. The other charm I can't decide on is Ariel's sea shell. The Little Mermaid is one of my favourite movies and the shell is really pretty.

There are also a large selection of other charms available, I had a look on the US Pandora website to see these.

Have you got any of the Disney Pandora charms on your bracelet?

Which ones do you think I should buy?

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The Disney Series / 010 / DIY Minnie Mouse Hair Bobble

I've seen lots of these little hair bobbles around recently, in the shops and online but I didn't see any with patterns on that I liked or wanted enough so after watching a few YouTube tutorials I decided to have a go myself. They were really easy to make, all you need are three items, some ribbon elastic in the colour of your choice (I bought mine from eBay, 99p for 2m), a lighter and some scissors.

To get the right length for your hair elastic I put the elastic around my wrist and then measured out an additional two inches (because you lose some of the length when you tie up the ends. Once you have cut your desired length, make a knot in the end so that you get a hair tie shape.

Use a lighter to fix the cut ends of the ribbon so that they don't fray. You can do this by switching on the lighter and running it up and down the ends briefly so that they seal (make sure somebody responsible does this so you don't set fire to the elastic!).

And it's as simple as that, a quick easy DIY to make hair bobbles. I have had a look on eBay recently and there seem to be lots of Disney ribbon elastic on there at the moment although I am happy with my Minnie Mouse inspired hair ties and will definitely be using these on my upcoming trip!

What do you think to these? 

Do you think you'll have a go at making them?

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A Make Up Bag Staple

It's been a long time since I've written a beauty related post, mostly because I don't seem to buying that much make up these days. Partly because I'm saving all my extra pennies for Disney but also because I've got into a bit of a routine using the same products every day or sometimes not even wearing any make up at all (shock horror!).

One item that has been consistently making its way into my make up bag is the Maybelline Colour Tattoo in On And On Bronze. For a neutral lover like me, it's perfect and the creamy formula makes application super easy, which is great for when I'm having a lazy make up day (more like every day nowadays!).

I didn't really understand they hype when every blogger was buying this and normally I like to wait a while before I jump in and buy a product because initial reviews always seem positive and then quickly change, but I'm so glad I bought this. Just one swipe across the lid and you're ready to go, Easy peasy!

It's really easy to blend with your finger or an eyeshadow brush and I like to add a few more shadows from my Urban Decay Naked 2 to get a more defined smokey look.

At £4.99 they also don't break the bank and so far I've had this since April and pretty much used it every day since and I've still barely touched the surface.

Have you tried anything from the Colour Tattoo range?

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The Disney Series / 009 / Disney Style

Whilst I would love to dress up in fancy dress and do some disneybounding all the time, it's not always appropriate! ASOS have some beautiful dresses at the moment which are perfect for adding a subtle amount of Disney to your next event!

The Jovonna Neon Town Dress (£40) is the perfect Ariel dress. The mint green floaty dress reminds me of Ariels fins and the purple bandeau styling at the top is perfect for recreating her seashells. A seashell necklace would also be the perfect accompaniment to this look.

The next dress reminds me of Elsa. Its the Beaded Mesh Strip Skater Dress (£85) and has beads and sequins all over the front and back and it's the perfect length for a shortie like me! I can just imagine singing "Let It Go" at the top of my voice whilst twirling around!

The third dress is perfect for Rapunzel! It's the Forever Unique Prom Dress (£275) which is a little on the pricey side but I love the embellishments on the halter, they remind me of the flowers she has in her hair when she visits the kingdom.

Next, is a beautiful Cinderella inspired dress. I loved the recent Cinderella movie and would love the big princess style dress she wore, however I think it would be a little awkward to wear! The John Zack Bandeau Midi Prom Dress (£48) is a scaled down version with beautiful detailing on the bodice and a mesh overlay to fill out the skirt.

Finally, the last dress is perfect for recreating Aurora's princess look. The Mesh Fit And Flare Dress (£55) has a beautiful pleated floaty skirt which reminds me of the end scene in Sleeping Beauty where Aurora is dancing with Prince Philip.

Have you ever tried to include Disney into your day to day wear?

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The Disney Series / 008 / Breakfast Pizza "See Ya Reel Soon Style"

Followers of YouTube channel "See Ya Reel Soon" will know that Joe & Ashley recently uploaded a video showing how you can bring Disney home with you by recreating recipes from meals found in Disney parks.

Bradley and I recently had a few days off work so decided to have a go at creating the "Breakfast Pizza" one morning.

The ingredients you will need for this are:

Pizza bases (depending on how many you want to make, we had a small one each)

2 Eggs (or egg white if you prefer)

Cheese (we use Low Low)

Sausages (we used turkey sausages because they are lower in fat)

Bacon lardons/bits

You can also use anything else that you want to add like mushrooms/peppers/onions etc

We followed Joe & Ashley's video, which you can watch here, but here is a quick run through of how we made it.

1 | Firstly we preheated the oven to 180C (we have a fan oven)

2 | Then we took the sausages out of their casings and cut the meat up into small pieces, we sprayed a frying pan with Frylight and cooked the sausage meat on a medium heat until cooked through.

3 | Whist cooking the sausages we cracked the two eggs and whisked them in a bowl, then we added the cheese (we used pre-grated as we accidentally broke our grater and haven't replaced it yet!) we added it by eye so it's not an exact measurement, we just added a little bit to taste so you can add as much or as little as you like.

4 | Once the egg mixture was ready we placed our pizza bases onto oven trays and then loaded the mixture on top - be warned - this can get a little messy!

5 | We then added the sausage and bacon lardons on top evenly so that the entire "pizza" was covered and popped it into the oven until it was nicely cooked (about 12 minutes).

6 | Then we sliced it up and poured ourselves some tropical juice to have with it - how adorable are the Mickey and Minnie cups my sister bought us for our anniversary!

We really enjoyed making this together (and eating it!)

Have you ever made anything like this before? Le us know if you have a go!

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