Wednesday, December 8
It was off to the Studios to hit Tower of Terror, Rockin' Rollercoaster, and all of the fun stuff there.

Andy served us Lunch at Sci-Fi Dine-In, and even stuck a "Just Married" sign on the back our car. He was great.

Later, we went to Epcot for dinner at Akershus, as served to us by Anita. Akershus is one of my favorite restaurants, and I used to love having lunch there. Due to the popularity of Princess meals, we couldn't have lunch there, but dinner was still open to regular dining. I was disappointed that the hot food had been moved backstage, but we were happy to get a huge cake to ourselves after we had already stuffed ourselves silly.

Thursday, December 9
We went to Animal Kingdom in the morning. So far, Animal Kingdom has been a park that can be done in a single morning. Maybe not having kids in the party has something to do with that, maybe not caring all that much about live shows has something to do with that. Maybe the park just needs more time to grow.

Speaking of Animal Kingdom growing, it was nice to be able to stroll by the construction site of Expedition: Everest. Looks nice. I remember when Disneyland Park used to get big new original attractions.

It was off to Downtown Disney for some shopping and browsing. At the World of Disney, we picked up the brand-spanking-new first edition (2005) of Birnbaum's Disney Cruise Line - The Official Guide, figuring it would be helpful for the second part of our honeymoon. We also slipped across the way to check out Company D. We never did have lunch, but we filled up on dinner at Boma, at the Animal Kingdom Resort. Yum! After we stuffed ourselves again, we were given an insane desert tray with "Congratulations" written on it. It was one of the rare times in my life I had to push food away. While we had been waiting for dinner, we checked out the area of the resort where we could look out over the animals.

Friday, December 10
This was the day that we simply drove around the corner to go to Discovery Cove. We could have signed up for a dolphin encounter on the cruise, but this was a more controlled environment, and this left us more time to do other things on the cruise.

It was also the only day we were there that there was measurable rainfall. Since we were already wet, what did that matter?

Kori was happy to be in with the dolphins, but while I grew up in the water, she's not big on swimming. The birds in the aviary sure took to her, though. I had done the dolphin bit before, so I stayed out and tried to take pictures as best I could while Kori had a great time. It's hard to get decent pictures from where I was allowed to go.

Ah, but not to worry. Those Busch folks have taken care of that. Videographers/photographers are on hand to document the fun time with the dolphins. After you're done with your close up, the hard sell begins. Yup… you get sat down in a hut and shown some images and offered varying video and picture packages through which you can remember your time with the dolphin. If you thought snacks at Disney theme parks were expensive… whew!

There's my bride kissing La Toya. La Toya gave birth to a male named Oscar. Oscar de La Toya. Get it? Anyway…

Having surveyed the park and with the weather being spotty, we kept the day short.

One of the cool things we were able to do was a special Cast Member Sale behind the Magic Kingdom. Yes, that's where they sell Cast Members…uh…sell them a lot of Disney merchandise at low, low prices. We found out about it by talking candidly with some WDW cast members, who told us how to get to where the sale was going on. Great bargains! Christmas shopping! Weeee!

We went back to Epcot so that we could see The American Adventure again and "IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth" or whatever they're calling it now. I was impressed that we could actually see some of the Magic Kingdom fireworks show from World Showcase at Epcot.

We hit Steak & Shake for a later dinner again. I was well on my way to gaining that "newlywed weight".