Our Walt Disney World traditions

There's still a little while to go until our holiday to Walt Disney World in September, and it's sadly been exactly a year since our 2018 trip.

I like to keep the magic alive between trips so I thought I'd blog about our Walt Disney World traditions. I tried to include lots of traditions that aren't centered around food to provide some variety, but it was obviously impossible to compile a whole list without some edible essentials sneaking in.



Staying in a Disney resort

We've been to Walt Disney World six times and we've always stayed in a Disney resort. So far I've stayed in Coronado Springs, Old Key West, Port Orleans French Quarter and Saratoga Springs (three times). I'm super excited that we're adding the Yacht Club Resort to this list in September!

Going to Disney Springs on our first evening

As soon as we've arrived at our resort and freshened up, we always head to Disney Springs for a wander around the shops, dinner at Earl of Sandwich and a cocktail at Dockside Margaritas. Park tickets are valid for 14 days from first use which means we need to choose whether we want to use them on our first evening or on our last morning before leaving for the airport. We prefer to use them on our last morning, so Disney Springs is the perfect relaxing alternative for our first evening.

Making use of our refillable mugs

We've had a free refillable mug on our last few trips to Walt Disney World as we've been on the Disney Dining Plan, but we still buy them when we're not on the plan. They're really good value for money as you can top them up with soft drinks or hot drinks at your resort as many times as you want. And, as an added bonus, they're beautifully designed like everything else in the Disney bubble.

Mickey waffles for my first (and last) breakfast

We always have a sit-down breakfast in the resort's food court on our first and last morning, and I absolutely have to order the Mickey waffles. Once I've got my three Mickey waffles in front of me, I feel as if my Disney holiday has truly begun!

Space Mountain is always our first ride of the holiday 

We always head to Magic Kingdom on our first day and, without fail, Space Mountain is the first ride we queue for. There are lots of rides I love at the Magic Kingdom, but Space Mountain is my absolute favourite because it's in the dark and IT'S SO MUCH FUN.

Lunch in the Magic Kingdom on our first day

We always book a table service lunch at the Magic Kingdom on our first full day, and we usually choose the Plaza. We did go to Tony's Town Square Restaurant instead a few years ago which was pretty good, but I think the Plaza will always be my favourite restaurant in the Magic Kingdom.

Ice cream at Beaches & Cream, Plaza Ice Cream Parlor and Ghirardelli 

You can buy ice cream in about a hundred different places in Walt Disney World. However, we always gravitate towards three places when we need an ice cream fix - Beaches & Cream at the Beach Club Resort, Plaza Ice Cream Parlor at the Magic Kingdom, and Ghirardelli in Disney Springs.

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Meeting Pluto

Character meets aren't a huge priority for me when we go to Walt Disney World, but I always make sure I meet Pluto. We usually meet him on our second full day when we're in Epcot, and I love seeing his happy little face.

Fitting in as many boat rides as we can 

We always make sure we have a few boat rides during our trip. We try to get the boat from the Magic Kingdom to the Grand Floridian a few times, and we also catch the Friendship boat to Hollywood Studios from Epcot (and/or the other way around). They help us to rest our feet, they provide nicer views than the buses, and they obviously get us to where we want to go.

Beauty and the Beast and Festival of the Lion King shows

As you'd imagine, there are lots of different shows to see when you go to Walt Disney World. We tend to alternate between most of them on our different trips, but I absolutely have to see the Beauty and the Beast show in Hollywood Studios and the Festival of the Lion King show in Animal Kingdom every time we go.

What are your Walt Disney World traditions?

What I wore in Venice

I've blogged about what I ate in Venice and posted a photographic summary of our trip, so now it's time to blog about what I wore in Venice. I really love the steady stream of content that presents itself after I've been on holiday.

I checked the weather forecast religiously for about 6 weeks before we went away to make sure I packed appropriately. As the weather was set to be a few degrees warmer than back home, I took a couple of denim jackets to wear over my day dresses rather than taking any big coats. I also packed some nice dresses for the evenings along with my new favourite baby pink jacket. I took a raincoat just in case, but we didn't see a drop of rain for the whole holiday so it stayed safely inside my suitcase.

Once I'd made a final decision on all the clothes I was taking, I decided which bags and shoes to pack. Are you starting to realise why it takes me so long to pack for a holiday? I took far too many pairs of shoes considering we only went for 5 days, but I did wear them all at least once so I don't feel too silly.

I've linked to the items photographed below wherever possible, but most of them are either years old or out of stock by now. During the writing of this post, I realised that only one of the items below was bought at full price which made my thrifty heart very happy.

Day outfits 

Every item that made up this outfit was massively discounted... 

the dress and boots cost £15 in total! 

Denim jacket, dress and boots from New Look, and bag from Kate Spade New York. 

Denim jacket and ankle boots from New Look, 

dress from ASOS, and bag from Kate Spade New York. 

Denim jacket, ankle boots and dress from New Look, 

and bag from Kate Spade New York (bought with my Ebay profits!).
I used this bag as my hand luggage bag to save space in my case. 

Denim jacket, dress and boots from New Look, bag from Kate Spade New York. 

Evening outfits 

 

Jacket and dress from New Look, bag from Ted Baker
(one of last year's Christmas sale bargains).

Dress and shoes from New Look. 

The dress was a massive bargain a couple of months ago at £10.  

Dress and shoes from ASOS, bag from Kate Spade New York. 

I've got the same dress in white because I like it so much!  

Dress from New Look. You can't see it clearly in the picture, 

but it's delicately glittery and I love it.  

I think I've finally run out of holiday content, so there might be something completely different on the blog next week... 

What I ate in Venice

It already feels as if our trip to Venice was about two years ago after a crazy busy couple of weeks. One way of keeping the memories alive is to blog about them, so here's another holiday blog post!

I posted a photographic summary last week, so this week I've decided to focus on what we ate (and drank) during our time in Venice.

We ate breakfast at the hotel every morning as this was included in the price of our room. I've loved the breakfasts we've experienced at every Italian hotel we've ever stayed in, and Hotel Savoia & Jolanda is no exception. They offer a huge buffet breakfast with loads of choice, and you can be as light and healthy or as deliciously indulgent as you like. I had a hot chocolate every morning along with various combinations of fresh bread rolls, meats, cheeses, pastries, yoghurt, granola, and lots of other sugary beauties. Don't be fooled by the photo below... this isn't an accurate representation of the size of my breakfast!

Breakfast kept us going until late morning which conveniently meant we were hungry again just in time for lunch. We usually had something quick from a little side street, such as a pizza slice or a filled wrap, which we took away to eat as we walked. These lunches were really cheap but so fresh and tasty.

We decided to have a sit-down lunch one afternoon at Hotel Londra Palace's Bistrot 4172 which was spectacular. We sat outside in the sunshine with a glass of Prosecco and a Mojito, and we were given a massive bread basket to start. I ordered the Ravioli dell'alto Veneto and I could honestly have eaten it three times over because it was so perfect.

As if that wasn't enough food to be getting on with, we also went out for a nice dinner every evening while we were in Venice. Due to the great location of our hotel, we didn't have to stray very far to find amazing and varied restaurants. On two evenings, we simply walked downstairs to eat in our hotel's Ristorante Principessa. The other restaurants we tried (Conca d'Oro and Trovatore) were only a short walk away.

Do you know what I really love about Italian restaurants? It's perfectly acceptable to order pasta for your first course and steak for your main, and you can still order a starter and/or dessert if you fancy it. SO MUCH FOOD.

You might think we had more than enough food between our breakfast, lunch and dinner, but you'd be wrong. We also needed to make sure we kept ourselves going with little (and large) snacks throughout the day. We had a scoop or two of gelato most days, and we also had a lovely pastry and hot chocolate in a little cafe one afternoon. I also treated myself to a rum hot chocolate from Venchi which I had to eat with a spoon because it was so thick. Yes, really.

As you can see, we ate rather a lot of food during our holiday. We also made sure we sampled several cocktails along the way, and we had some lovely Prosecco and wine with our dinners.

We stopped off at the hotel bar for a happy hour cocktail nearly every afternoon, and we had some amazing after-dinner cocktails at the LondraBar. 'Amazing' doesn't actually feel like a powerful enough superlative to describe them... they were definitely up there with the best cocktails I've ever had. Cocktails in Italy tend to be served with a selection of snacks, so our constant stream of eating was never interrupted.

I think this blog post proves that our food and drink escapades in Venice get an eleven out of ten (at least). 

Have you visited any of these restaurants, or have I convinced you to try them on your next trip to Venice? 

Venice in 15 photos

We spent an amazing 5 days in Venice at the beginning of March.

As this was our second visit to Venice, we took things at a more relaxed pace and didn't worry too much about blitzing all the big landmarks as we'd already done them first time around. Our first visit to Venice was the last leg of our Italian honeymoon four and a half years ago, so we thought it was about time we returned to this beautiful and unique city.

I always find it difficult to blog about holidays in their entirety because there's so much to cover and I end up running out of superlatives, so my first post-holiday blog post is usually a photographic summary. Looking back over my recent holiday blog posts, I seem to favour sharing 15 photos so that's what I've done here. As always, the most difficult part was narrowing it down to 15 from over 400 photos.

As I did with my 'New York in 15 photos' post, I've tried to summarise all the main things we saw and did with a photo and a title to give you some context. There are some beautiful buildings missing from this list and I could comfortably have featured double the amount of photos, but I wanted to make sure I kept it to 15. Some might say I'm a little obsessed with following a specific formula.

So, moving swiftly on from words to photographs, here's our trip to Venice in 15 photos!

Piazza San Marco

Palazzo Ducale

Basilica di San Marco

Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs) 

View of the Venetian lagoon from our hotel

Rooftop terrace at T Fondaco dei Tedeschi

Ponte di Rialto

View from Ponte dell'Accademia

Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute

Burano

Campanile di San Giorgio dei Greci (one of Venice's three leaning towers)

San Giorgio Maggiore

Scuola Grande di San Marco (this is a hospital, believe it or not)

Grand Canal

View from a random bridge, just because...

Look out for more blog posts about Venice over the next few weeks!