Kenversations
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Finally, there have been other things associated with being a newlywed- "thank yous" to all of the wonderful people who gave us cards and gifts; paperwork; and the extremely involved task of moving the Ken Pellman Collection & Archives into the Chateau de la Kori. There's so much involved in being Kori-nated, and I know that just about any of you who have been married have experienced similar time-consuming necessities.

I've been working on some other projects, getting my schedule cleared up, and settling in to a new routine, and spending with my bride.

There you have it. Do you accept my tardy slip and let me back in?

Good.

On with the show.

I was tasked with planning out the honeymoon. I decided that sitting around at home watching movies and ordering delivered pizza was the best way to go. However, my wife was having none of that. So, that's how I came up with Plan B: We'd spend the better part of a week visiting the Walt Disney World Resort, and then take the Disney Magic for a seven-night Eastern Caribbean Cruise from December 11 through the 18th. I picked a Category 7 Deluxe Stateroom with Navigator's Verandah.

Anyone who knows anything about Walt Disney World Resort knows that you can't do the place in just five days. Five days can be enough for someone who has been on many previous trips to the Resort, but not for someone like my bride, who had never even been in Florida before. However, five days is all we had, and I warned her that she was going to want to make a return trip.

Not only did we have just five full days, but we had reservations for Discovery Cove, the Busch park next to Sea World, on one of those days. Keep in mind that we were there on our honeymoon, so it was questionable whether or not we were even going to make it out of our room at a decent hour on any given day. (You see, kids, honeymooners... well... they do a lot of... reading.)

Speaking of our room- one of the questions you're guaranteed to be asked if people know you went to the Resort is "Where did you stay?" There are so many neat places to stay at the Resort. Did we stay at any of them?

No, we stayed off site.

Hey, I love staying on-site as much as the next Disnoid. I've stayed a Fort Wilderness numerous times - always in one of the mobile units that was like living in a home, the Contemporary Resort, Dixie Landings (that's Port Orleans Riverside, for you newcomers), and at an All-Star Resort - for the pricing and certainly not the decor.

You can't beat free, though, and ever since some family of mine bought into a timeshare deal while working for one of those companies, I've stayed off-site when I've gone. Timeshares in Florida - who would have thunk it?

This time, it was the Marriot Grande Vista, which is near to Sea World Orlando and even closer to Discovery Cove. It's also close to some non-touristy shopping and dining. The Grande Vista is set up like a sprawling hotel resort complex, complete with the Faldo Golf Institute nearby. It's a beautiful place with some nice swimming pools.

Walt Disney World Resort was just a short drive away.

We'd flown Jet Blue from Long Beach, California, switching planes at JFK in New York, and then arrived at Orlando International Airport the night of Sunday, December 5. Sure, we could have flown Southwest nonstop (or at least more directly), but then we would have dealt with LAX or gone to Burbank's Bob Hope Airport, and we wouldn't have had those lovely satellite TV screens to stare at.

Arrival time was 9 p.m., and by the time we'd secured our SUV from the rental car place, it was way too late to hit the Resort. Yeah, there's Pleasure Island, but the Mrs. doesn't drink at all, I drink wine only on rare occasions, and we'd been through a long day of traveling.

Throughout the trip, I tried not to be too much of a geek or too much of a spoiler about Walt Disney World, or spend too much time telling Kori how much I liked Horizons or anything else that had been ripped out and was no longer available.

Actually, I didn't really talk the place up all that much.

Upon unpacking, we found out that the Transportation Security Administration had gone through what was probably our most interesting piece of luggage. Ah, the things they must see.