Our Disney trip in photos....

We had such a blast last weekend in Disney! Staying in the Epcot resort area and being able to walk into the park was such a treat, I don't want to experience it any other way again. We walked in and were in England... Right up my ally :) 

Without further adieu, I give you.... The weekend in pictures -

Pulling up to the Dolphin!

The view from our room, lake view with a balcony!
That's the swan in the background - Swan Lake anyone?

Nerd Alert at the fountain in the lobby!

Dolphin!

Heading to the empty Boardwalk for dinner

Yum! Flying Fish Crab Cake!

When you don't make reservations,
you're forced to sit in front of the grill - At least we were able to give
the chef the thumbs up on our steak and scallops!

Napkin... Let the Memories Begin!

Andy on the Boardwalk...

Dolphin at night... 

Drinks at Todd English's BlueZoo

Saturday at Epcot!

Spaceship Earth anyone?

Welcome to Our Future!

Andy and I in our solar powered Jetsons mobile

Character Breakfast at the Swan...

Mmmmmmm... Mickey waffle!

Cari and Goofy... can't tell which is which ;)

Keith, Sam and Casey warming up to Goofy

Just a little chipmunk tail action...

That's a good note to end on... A little Chipmunk tail :) 

Been to Disney lately? Going soon? Do tell!

Key West... OMG

Can you believe I had to wait until Friday to feel back to normal enough to write this post?! I'm getting OLD!! I also write this post having not even seen most of the pictures from this past weekend.... Get on that Carl!

Nerd Alert!

We all had an amazing weekend in the Southern Most Tip of the US celebrating Keith's Birthday...

Southern Most Strangers

Casa Marina was more than excellent to us loud people at the pool...

Casa Marina views... Including Carl on her balcony...

We ate, we drank... We saw, we conquered... Friday night started with a trip to Sloppy Joe's....

This is the only pic I took there... Riveting...

Then to Rumor Lounge where they have a Men's and a Whoever bathroom...

Yet another riveting photo....

And then to Hog's Breath and a couple other unmentionable places... :)

Saturday consisted of pool time and Keith's Birthday dinner at Conch Republic... Yum!

Conch Republic Shenanigans

Sunday, time to go home... Breakfast with the roosters at the amazing Blue Heaven and shopping at Wanderlust across the street. I got an amazing mermaid shirt by a local Key West artist... Love! Reviews on both of these places to come!

Outside at Blue Heaven

So Monday morning rolls around.... I'm in the drive through line at Dunkin and what am I behind?

Key West Cluster...

You can check out my Yelp on Casa Marina here.... Reviews of others to come!

My only question is... When are we going back?

Mangia Monday.... Hard Rock Edition!

Yay Structure! Mangia Mondays... Where to and not to eat in South Florida!

For those who are not familiar with my lingo Italiano, Mangia is to eat!

This past weekend we celebrated my husband Andy's birthday at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, FL. A staple in the South FL night life scene, we have been coming here for a good time for years. Years I tell ya!

Happy Bday Andy - At Center Bar

Soooooo to break tradition from our usual Tatu birthday celebrations, this time we decided to try the semi-newly opened Cafe Martorano.  This is another location and more of a cafe than the original Martoranos that's in Fort Lauderdale. Can you say YUM!? Apparently this Martoranos has two separate seating areas, inside or out. While we would normally automatically opt for the under AC choice, we were greeted with the option of a 2 and a half hour wait for indoors or immediate seating outdoors. Break out the pony tail, lets sit outside!

I wish I would have taken a picture of the food, but I was too busy shoveling it all in my face. That's right... face! Thanks Louis CK! We ordered 4 menu choices which we all shared family style. We split a meatball. That's right, one meatball - 4 people. At $18 for a meatball, I think it was well worth it to feed 4. Then moved on to linguini with white clam sauce, a cheesesteak AND a pizza. At Martoranos you can also order the house Martorano wine, which is delish! A bottle of Pinot Grigio and a bottle of Chianti please! I'm so ready to go back again.... Would even wait 2 and a half hours if I had to - Delish! You can see the awesome menu for Martoranos here.

Now comes the irritating part.... Bongos. While we had all previously been huge fans of the upstairs bar (including me wanting to have my 30th birthday celebration there) that all went downhill. We wanted a bottle of champagne and a seat. They were out of champagne... Now, it's Saturday night at 8:00pm and you are out of champagne?? Isn't there Happy Pappy's across the street? Couldn't you send someone to Publix? We were so confused! SO CONFUSED!!! Now we can see why Bongo's is all over Groupon and Travelzoo. It's terrible!!! They can't give away their food and drinks! Also, I should mention that Andy said the bathrooms were worse than a NYC subway. After that lovely tidbit, we didn't even attempt to brave the women's ones.

Bongos upstairs... Super cool. If only they could get it together!

Though Bongos was terrible, I do have to thank them for being SO stupid that we ended back at our favorite hangout - Tatu! Tatu - a well prepared, delicious, gourmet Japanese fusion style restaurant, was NOT out of champagne. Smart! I knew I loved them for a reason....

Finally!

You can check out my Yelp's on Tatu, Martoranos and Bongos by clicking the links!

What's your favorite Hard Rock restaurant?

Weekend in Orlando...

This past weekend Andy and I made the trip up to Orlando for his best friend's wedding and a little side trip to Walt Disney World!

We went up on Friday morning and headed straight to the Magic Kingdom - We had a deadline and had to be back at our hotel for the rehearsal dinner so we did a crash course in MK which included all the best rides of course!

She said, "Hold him like you really love him"

The funniest thing that happened would have to be the fact that we were stuck on Splash Mountain for 45 minutes. It's never a good sign when you're in the next log to go out and a siren goes off and all of the workers run to the back.... LOL. So we sat and sat and sat and sat... A guy came out and tied a washcloth to the front of our log... Were we the guinea pigs?! We made it through alive and on the way out were handed some pretty cool fast passes good for ANY RIDE in the park... Sweet!

So we left and headed to our hotel - Bahama Bay Resort. It's located just a few miles outside of Disney and all of the wedding festivities were held there.

It was beautiful and really reminded us of the hotel that we stayed at in Grand Bahama for our wedding - Pelican Bay. The wedding went off without a hitch at the beach on the property and the ceremony was held after at the Tradewinds Restaurant and Bar. They had an awesome photo booth for us to play in too - Such a great day!

Eric & Jenny Grossman

After the wedding we were off to Epcot!

Epcot!

Champagne in fake France....

 
We decided for Day 2 that would we just do the World Showcase and take our time. A completely different experience when you try to slow yourself down and get out of "Disney mode". We kept catching ourselves... "No, slow down! We stayed until about 6:00 and went back to the hotel to hang out with everyone.

Day 3 (our final day) we spent in Epcot as well - we love us some Experimental Prototype City Of Tomorrow! It's by far our fave park. We had lunch at Teppan Edo in Japan which we came back to after our last Disney trip because it's so yummy! We also spent a tiny fortune in the Japan gift shop - they have the coolest stuff!

Cheers from England... Well, fake England

After a day filled with drinks and fun we were ready to drive back home. So that was our weekend! You can check out my Yelp's on Bahama Bay Resort & Teppan Edo by clicking the links!