Downtown Disney with Jackie!

This past Monday, Jackie and I spent the day together at Downtown Disney where she works! We had been planning to do this for a while but never found time to do it until just recently and it was SO fun!! Jackie had facebook messaged me last week and told me she had planned out the day and I originally thought we'd just meet and walk around and go to lunch or dinner, but she had it all planned out...what was I thinking? She works at Disney so of course she had more of a plan than I was thinking of! She knew the best places to go! We had a great time! I got there at 11:15 that morning and didn't leave 'til 10:45 that night!

Jackie greeted me at the main entrance of Downtown Disney with one of Disney's celebration pins. It doesn't look exactly like the one below, but you'll be able to see it a little bit in some of the pictures.

Jackie got one for both of us and wrote "BT Reunion" on it. BT stands for "Bopsie Twins" because Father Gerry, the pastor of the church we both went to growing up used to call us the Bopsie Twins because we sang together, were good friends, and had been in choir together for 10 years. So, since then it has stuck and we've just shortened it to an acronym like everything else in the world these days. Ha!

Our first plan was to go eat lunch at the Grand Floridian Cafe. I had a cheeseburger and Jackie tried something much more adventurous than I did, go figure. Ha! Here we are after lunch.

Some lady stopped us after lunch and asked us all about what our pins said and meant and she thought it was so cute! Haha. Then afterward we were talking to the hostess of the restuarant and she was telling us the average stay of people at the Grand Floridian Hotel at Disney is 3 weeks, and the rooms start at $800 a night. Are you serious?! An average stay of 3 weeks when the rooms are that expensive? She went on to tell us that people rent out the restuarant to celebrate their divorces! I didn't know a divorce could be so celebratory, but I guess in some cases it must be! She told us too that Oprah visits there quite frequently and that there is high security!

After we ate lunch, we got changed into our swimsuits and headed for the Grand Floridian pool! We laid out for a while and just talked. We actually didn't stop talking the whole day! :)


It became overcast so we put our cover-ups back on and walked to find the Disney Wedding Chapel just to see it. They were busy renovating it but the construction workers were real nice and let us inside to have a peek. It was really pretty inside! The guys told us there is a $300,000 wedding happening there this week. I love weddings, but hmmm, $300,000?! That's something! Jackie and I ventured around the chapel outside and had fun taking pictures where most brides take pictures, we just were much more dressed down than I'm sure they are. :) Especially brides who have $300,000 weddings, right?




A perfect view of the castle, perfectly centered in this archway!




Trying to show you how small the castle looks from this view!

Here are some pictures of us exploring more of the Grand Floridian...





We hopped back on the Disney bus and took it back to Downtown Disney and I went to get changed out of my swimsuit. I actually changed in my car, is that bad?! My windows are dark tinted and Jackie stood outside to guard it. I think I was safe. We headed back to Downtown Disney and Jackie showed me the place she works in Guest Relations and got to meet some of her employees. One of them is on an internship from Wales and I loved her accent! We went into this really nice soap store (I forgot the name of it) and Jackie had me try this exfoliating scrub that she said was amazing...and she was right!




It felt SO good and leaves your hands feeling so soft! I ended up splurging and bought some at the end of the night before I left and Jackie's discount helped a little bit! :) The scent is almond and it smells so nice. I have since used it on my feet and had many other people try it and they know why I spent the money on it. Plus, it'll last a long time, too!

Jackie had planned for us to go a place called Saratoga (I think that's the name?) for dinner and we had to go there by boat which was fun!

We talked for a long time at dinner and then made sure we left in time to get back to see Epcot's fireworks display from Disney's boardwalk. The fireworks were GREAT! Disney definitely doesn't do anything halfway, that's for sure!




Jackie drove us back to Downtown Disney for ice cream at Ghirardeli! Jackie was sweet to treat me! It was SO good. The place was SO busy and Jackie said it always is! Can't imagine why! :)


And that was our "BT Reunion" day at Downtown Disney! Jackie and I figured out that we've been friends for 15 years and that made us both feel so old but it's funny because neither one of us look 23. I'm so thankful we've kept in touch even though we went to different colleges and live in different towns now. It was such a fun day and like I said, we talked non-stop the whole day...not shocking for us, though. We always got the death stare if we were talking during choir practice. Haha. :)

Thanks, Jack, for such a fun-filled Disney day! We'll have to do it again sometime!