Travel: Disney World, Florida (part 3 of 3)

Day 4 Friday 18th March 2016

Friday started late because someone (who shall remain nameless, but I'm sure you can guess!) ended up drinking a little too much the night before, and spent the morning with his head stuck down the toilet - while I slept in. We'd planned to return to Typhoon Lagoon, so weren't too disappointed, and instead got to Hollywood Studios in time for me to meet up with some of the rest of the group to ride the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. Siegfried's scared of heights, so didn't want to partake in this, and lovingly spent the time getting me a drink and a snack. We then headed to what I was probably most excited about: "For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-a-long"! It turns out we probably didn't even need FastPasses, as there were shows throughout the day and you just stood in a waiting area before filing into the theatre. Mostly I was just glad that we decided to see it at all, because it's probably now my favourite memory of the trip (bar Be Our Guest, of course).

It wasn't just a basic sing-a-long, but an interactive one, with two Arendelle "historians" recounting the Frozen storyline, with pauses for the songs. These two characters actually kind of stole the show - they were so funny, and had loads of jokes appropriate for all of the older viewers (i.e. mums/dads/siblings/boyfriends etc.). Siegfried got a bunch of hilarious footage; neither of us are gifted in the singing department! But it was fun to be able to sing a long without caring what you sounded like, and during the grand finale Elsa and Anna came out to many awesome effects - including fake snow!

Travel: Disney World, Florida (part 2 of 3)

Day 3 Thursday 17th March 2016

Thursday was an extremely special day, as Siegfried and I had a table booked at the Magic Kingdom's Beauty & the Beast-themed restaurant, Be Our Guest. I'd been wanting to go here since I'd heard about it from a university friend who went during our year abroad, but this desire significantly increased after Siegfried and I watched the film not long after we got together. The movie occupies a special place in our hearts; we think of it as "our" movie (like when couples have particular songs). So the first thing we'd done when we decided to go to Disney World was to ring for a reservation. Having done extensive research, I was keen to get a lunch reservation, as it reflected the best choice and value for money. But when we first rang (literally about six weeks prior to our trip!), Be Our Guest could only offer a breakfast reservation. Thankfully, after two more weeks of ringing almost daily and a tip to not try again until the week before we arrived, we managed to book an 11:30am table. 

Travel: Disney World, Florida (part 1 of 3)

Warning: this post is probably going to end up being much, much longer than intended! I knew I’d want to blog about my time at Disney World because it's such an exciting place to have been able to visit, but we packed so much stuff into just four and a half days that now I don't know where to begin! I think I'm going to split it into days, and cover a couple of days per post - that way I’ll also get in some time to gather my thoughts properly.

I haven't been to Disney World in Florida for 15 years (I felt so old when I figured that out!); I still can't believe I didn't make it there during my year studying abroad in the States. I'd definitely planned to, but life happened and I never really had the time and money to spare. When I moved back to England, it seemed even more out of reach, even though my boyfriend is (thankfully) also Disney crazy. His family actually used to have an apartment in Florida, so he's been to Disney World a lot, but financial issues meant they've since had to sell the condo.

Anyway, amazingly, his friend Katie kindly invited us to be a part of her Spring Break trip this year - her parents are part of Disney's "Vacation Club", which is kind of like a cross between getting a holiday on finance and having a timeshare. So they had "points" (how it works is very confusing; I looked it up and was still a bit baffled) to use up, and Katie booked a two-bedroom villa in Disney's "Old Key West" resort for us! It was three couples and two of her single friends - a really nice group. Even with free accommodation, my boyfriend and I were still a bit worried about cost, but we decided it was worth the splurge if it meant going to Disney World together!

Product Review: ColourPop Cosmetics Ultra Matte Lip and Lippie Pencil

I first saw ColourPop lipsticks on one of my favourite bloggers (as featured in this post), Nicole Alyse, as she’s a big fan of matte lip products. But they really appeared on my (/everyone’s) radar when Kylie Jenner’s “lipkits” were released; yes, unfortunately I fall prey to krazy Kardashian marketing sometimes (see what I did there). Consisting of a lipliner and a matte liquid lipstick in the same shade, they retail for $29/£20 plus nearly $8/£5.50 for (U.S.) shipping - if, that is, you can get hold of one (they frequently sell out in 10-15 minutes, and are restocked sporadically). So, naturally, many people - myself included - started searching for cheaper dupes. In fact, one conspiracy theory that went viral was that Jenner’s lipkits were actually ColourPop lipsticks simply repackaged. And whilst I have no idea if that’s true, a quick Google search for “Kylie lipkit dupes” throws up a ton of similair ColourPop offerings - at the incredible price of $6/£4 for an Ultra Matte Lipstick and $5/£3.50 for a Lippie Pencil (liner).

As ColourPop currently only ship to the U.S. and a select few other countries (with possible “additional duty fees”), I decided to take advantage of my American boyfriend by ordering some products to his student dorm in Washington D.C. for me to pick up when I next visited. As everything was so cheap, I ended up getting two Ultra Matte Lip colours and one Lippie Pencil; although shipping is $5/£3.50, you can get a $5 off coupon when you sign up for their newsletter, so my total was only around $17/£12! I’d heard some pretty bad things about the delivery, but mine got to my boyfriend within about a week and it was packed really well. I opened it up when I got to him a few days ago, and was really impressed with the packaging and appearance of the items.