Anniversary Adventures: From Food & Wine Feasts to Halloween Horror Nights Screams - Complete

[C4rla]

I have been trying hard to delay starting this until a bit closer until we go, but I'm just so excited this weekend that it can't wait any longer!

On Wednesday I'm off to have hair and nails done - then we'll head to Raddison Blu at Manchester Airport. Our normal M&S haul for pre-travel day is at risk of being overthrown as a Japanese/Korean takeaway has opened in our local town with some nice sushi and other options and it feels like the kind of place we really want to support. We shall see what happens on Wednesday.

Flying Thursday with Virgin, a later flight than we've done for a while going out at 13:25.

It will be our 10th wedding anniversary while we're out there and this trip has some definite nostalgic moments as we both got engaged at SSR and honeymooned there, so are very happy to be going back. We're also happy to (hopefully) be so close to Disney Springs, as we have a preferred room purely for this purpose. Looking to enjoy some old favourite QS's there (Blaze, D-Luxe) and also some new options (Eet, Pepe, Polite Pig - I know some of these aren't that new, but we've not been there).

After 9 nights at SSR, we're then moving to Sapphire Falls at Universal for a week. We love this hotel, however last time we didn't get to Strong Water Tavern, so really looking forward to trying this. We had a lovely time at the pool in September last year, but this May we managed to make the lady serving think we didn't want food/drinks - whereas we were just too hot to want anything right away - then couldn't get her attention for several hours after! We will do better this time

Our food report will have a good variety of vegan and omnivorous options and cocktails and non-alcoholic options, so between us we have most covered. We're really looking forward to the Food & Wine options and also some of the HHN treats - although the food offerings there don't excite me as much as they have in previous years.

We have 14 day Disney tickets, Universal APs, a trip to Kennedy Space Centre (new), one night SeaWorld Howl O Scream tickets (new) and Rush of Fear tickets for HHN. So that should keep us busy enough.

Our actual wedding anniversary is right at the end of our trip on 20th September and I have a couple of HHN surprises planned for DH. He doesn't tend to read the DIBB (although he keeps looking over to see what I'm typing right now!) so I won't write too much more about these at the moment.

We have three ADRs booked at the moment:

Shiki Sai
Morimoto Asia
Takumai Tai

While we do love Japanese food, I promise it's not all we eat. But two of these are new to us and Morimoto Asia has some interesting lunch options.

We always plan to eat at lounges and then never actually do, so we will see how we do this year. But these are high up on our list to try:

Steakhouse 71 Lounge
Nomad Lounge
Geyser Point
Three Bridges
Baseline Taphouse

We have three days LLMP booked. Our first day at MK and two HS days. This was properly DH enabling me, as he knows how much fun I have with this kind of thing. He's not wrong, as already I've managed to move our 3:00 - 4:00 Tiana's on day 1 to be 9:20 - 10:20 and I'm feeling very smug and proud of myself.

We definitely have our favourite treats when we're on holiday. Mine would be a margaritas and DH's would be a cinnamon roll, so we may need to keep a count of each. Although I think DH's favourite treat of all was the pretzel bread pudding. Here's some photos of these from 2022 as there's far too much text in this post.

When I went to look, these were both from day 1 of our 2022 trip, so we obviously had a strong start there!

Just a little disclaimer, I had a brain injury in July 2023. I have no desire to go on about it, but if I ever forget myself or repeat myself in ways that seem unnecessary I like to give context. But if I ramble on about how much I love holidays in Florida, that happened long before the brain injury, so I can't blame that on it!

That's all for now and I look forward to starting the updates in a few days. Our plans have definitely been influenced by some of the great trip reports we've read recently - so huge thanks to you guys and I'll do my best to keep up the high standards.

[Sparksy72]

Lots of great plans and well done on moving your times on your LL’s. I’m looking forward to following along. 💖

[LemonSpritz]

Sounds perfect - looking forward to reading along 😊

[4holibobs]

Yay!

One of my fellow September crew… will be counting down this week with you.

Your plans sound amazing, what a great way to spend your 10th wedding anniversary.

I’ll also be posting live whilst away so can’t promise how much I’ll read, but will definitely catch up when I’m back and have the Disney blues.

We’re on the 13.25pm flight too, so interested to hear about that and what time you actually get in and to your resort.

Have the best time!

[Rescuer]

Sounds brilliant. We really enjoyed Shiki Sai this year.

Howl o scream will be new for us this year too so looking forward to hearing how you get on and of course looking forward to hearing all about HHN.

[Goldia]

Hurrah I'm glad to see lots of lounges on your must do list! It looks like you're going to have a fab trip and I can't wait to read all about your adventures.

[C4rla]

Originally Posted by Sparksy72

Lots of great plans and well done on moving your times on your LL’s. I’m looking forward to following along. 💖

See more...

Thanks, we have enjoyed follow along with your recent trip so much - you really had some great food in there

Originally Posted by LemonSpritz

Sounds perfect - looking forward to reading along 😊

See more...

I'm sorry to say there's a very low chance of key lime pie on our trips, not really DHs taste (he prefers deserts to be focused on cinnamon or chocolate generally) and not the easiest thing for me to find to eat. But I'm sure we'll have plenty of other treats to share.

Originally Posted by 4holibobs

Yay!

One of my fellow September crew… will be counting down this week with you.

Your plans sound amazing, what a great way to spend your 10th wedding anniversary.

I’ll also be posting live whilst away so can’t promise how much I’ll read, but will definitely catch up when I’m back and have the Disney blues.

We’re on the 13.25pm flight too, so interested to hear about that and what time you actually get in and to your resort.

Have the best time!

See more...

I know what you mean, I'm very impressed by those who can follow trip reports while they're out, I tend to leave them so I have lots to catch up on when I'm back and feeling sad.

I will let you know how the flight out goes.

Originally Posted by Rescuer

Sounds brilliant. We really enjoyed Shiki Sai this year.

Howl o scream will be new for us this year too so looking forward to hearing how you get on and of course looking forward to hearing all about HHN.

See more...

We weren't going to book Shiki Sai, but I just kept reading glowing reviews and couldn't resist the temptation

I think howl o scream starts this weekend, so hopefully we'll be able to find out a bit before we go.

Originally Posted by Goldia

Hurrah I'm glad to see lots of lounges on your must do list! It looks like you're going to have a fab trip and I can't wait to read all about your adventures.

See more...

Your trip report was definitely one of those that has encouraged us to want to visit these, so thanks again

[orlandoamber]

Really looking forward to this! I think we must have similar taste as we loved Sapphire Falls in April (similarly didn't make it to Strongwater!) and we have plans to buy DVC at SSR in the near future.

[C4rla]

So a quick one from pre-pre-travel day as DH has had a few extra days off work so went into town to pick up a few last minute holiday bits and ate at Slamwich, so why not include a photo.

Probably one of the better restaurants in Stoke, all home made and good quality. He was slightly disappointed as the sandwich was named Spice Up Your Life, but was lacking in the spice department, but otherwise lovely.

Now onto actual pre-travel day which started with me running 16 miles before doing a morning at work then getting to the hairdressers for 12:30. I'm not going to say it was my most productive morning of work.

I went dark with my nails, I didn't want to try anything specifically Disney/Universal and have enjoyed halloween nails in the past, but this time was nice and simple.

I also no longer have grey roots and my blue tips are nicely topped up, so all good to go.

Quick Starbucks for the journey, using the two free drinks I've saved up over the year. I had a PSL (as I can't have them in the US as over there the syrup contains dairy), DH had a Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai which a nice to try but won't be had again. We also snuck some crisps out of the M&S haul for later as we were very hungry on the drive over.

Parked at Jetparks 3, lovely bus driver there who spotted us at the car and said he'd be the last bus for a bit so did a lap around to look for other people while we got ready. We made it to the hotel about 7:30 and I checked in and we were told we'd been given an upgrade with lounge access, which was so lovely. I tend to book a runway view room in the Raddison Blu as sitting at the window with my FlightRadar app telling DH where all the planes are going to/coming from is almost peak happiness.

But it got even better when we got to the room.

Wow this is amazing.

I'm pretty sure the bathroom is bigger than some hotel rooms I've stayed in previously.

So we went to the lounge for an hour or so and sat watching planes.

Gin bottle was almost empty, so I had a tonic with a hint of gin. But I had a prosecco afterwards so don't feel to sorry for me! More crisps, then DH had a banoffee tart which he enjoyed.

Then back to the room to eat our M&S haul and watch planes.

We had overbought as we were not expecting the lounge, so some bits are coming along with us. My salad was very disappointing and bland - sad as I'd been looking forward to it. But my margarita was lovely so can't complain.

Now we've had a very leisurely start to travel day, which I will update as we go along.

[Sparksy72]

Your nails look lovely and what a treat to receive an upgrade! A shame your salad wasn’t up to much but a win with your Margarita! I hope you have a nice smooth travel day!