A passport TODAY, a down day you say, and lots of photos Eh!!! - A New Year's TR!!

[Cruisinskier]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!



This Happened.......



And that wasn't even New Year's Eve!

We will get to that with an excessive number of photos but first......


HI....AND THANKS!!!!​

Hi all. First off I want to thank each of you all for your guidance, your answers to my questions, your great photos, your ideas and the info you provided without even knowing it as I hovered and lingered on these boards, searching endlessly for numerous hours!!! So THANK YOU ALL!!!!

While I have done reviews on many others sites, I am relatively new to the Disboards and this will be my first Disney review here. They say a picture is equal to a thousand words....well then there will be millions of words here (not really....I will try to let the photos do most of the talking).

I am Jerry and I will be your host through the ramblings that is my trip report. I am a Disney Dad to 2 grown kids and am married to a great woman (even though she is not a Disney person.....not really sure how someone cannot be a Disney person????).

Here I am on my 50th B-day at Raglan a few years back when I dragged my wife and kids (ok the kids were more than willing to go, even as young adults) to Disney for my B-day....Cheers!!!!



We (I) spent most of the past year planning this trip, our first time going during the Christmas / New Year holiday season. There were 6 of us along on this trip and we will get to introductions shortly. The dates moved a few times and ended up being finalized as Dec 28 - Jan 2, which were among the busiest days of the years at the Parks which made our pre-planning essential. And I think it worked out fairly well overall!

OK, time to start this review.......

 

[Cruisinskier]

So whose going, eh?​

As I mentioned there were 6 of us along on this trip. I am Jerry, the planner, and the main Disney promoter in the family. My wife P is not a Disney person. As she says she tolerates Disney. I continue to believe that secretly she is a Disney fanatic.....and given this is our 5th Disney trip, she seems to tolerate it ok . However it make take grandkids coming into the picture to get her back next time.....and I do also want to do a Disney Cruise (we have been lucky enough to do 13 cruises but none with Disney....yet!).

Both of our kids (26 & 23) joined us on this trip and for the first time, each of their significant others also traveled with us. It was nice to get to know each of them better.

So here are the 6 of us:



I am the guy in the middle with my wife P on the left. My daughter E is to her left and her boyfriend D is beside her. On the other end is our son C and his girlfriend A. The initials have not been changed to protect the innocent....

For D, it was his first trip anywhere outside of Canada.....and it almost didn't happen. He had just finished University before Christmas (we actually had 3 recent grads on this trip!!). He was packing up to come home and was balancing the weight in his bags, leaving a few things behind to get later this spring when he goes back for his graduation. On Christmas Day he realized one of the things juggled into the suitcase he left behind was his.....PASSPORT!!

Due to holidays, the passport office was closed Dec 25, 26 & 27. We were leaving the evening of Dec 28. D called the passport office to see how quickly an emergency passport can be produced. He was in line at 7:00 am Dec 28, they opened at 8:00, and he was told to return at 3:00 pm that afternoon.

My daughter's boyfriend came that close to missing the start of this trip. He was slightly relieved to get this about 5 hours prior to our flight departure.....



To be fair, he did have his Nexus (Canadian version of Global Entry / TSA Pre-check) which may have worked for the Florida part of our trip but we had some post Disney plans that it definitely would not work for....

 

[Cruisinskier]

CHAPTERS
​

Pre-planning

Dec 28 - Arrival at Art of Animation

Dec 29 - Animal Kingdom & Tusker House
Dec 29 - Safari
Dec 29 - More AK
Dec 29 - Dinner at Boardwalk​

 

[Cruisinskier]

Pre-planning
​

Over the past year, I spent more time planning than I wish to know. We knew we would be spending most of our time in the parks during our short visit. My wife wanted a down day, which of course I agreed to..... Our original plan was:

• arrive the night of Dec 28
• Dec 29 at Animal Kingdom
• Dec 30 - my wife's down day (ha ha)
• Dec 31 - New Years Eve at Epcot
• Jan 1 - New Years Day at Magic Kingdom
• Jan 2 - drive south to the other part of our vacation which we will get to much later

First decision was where to stay. Given there were 6 of us we had a few options. I decided I wanted a room for just P and I. And the 4 "kids" could share a room (after all I was paying so they weren't getting their own rooms). Given the limited amount of time we would spend in our rooms, it did not make sense to stay at a higher end property. We had heard good things about AoA. We (I) decided we were staying here so one main decision was made:

​

 

[Cruisinskier]

More Pre-planning
​

After many months of a set agenda, Disney decided to have a sale offering 25% off on Disney tickets for Canadians. So being the practical and frugal guy that I am, I did the only possible thing.....I figured out that 4 days in the parks with the new prices would be cheaper than the original 3 days planned. I did also advise that this would give us 3 additional Fast Passes during a very busy time. And I did say we would only spend the morning (ish) in the park so my wife P could have her down day (kinda).

Our plans were amended to add another day in Magic Kingdom on Dec 30, you know, the down day.... And this is the "Let's add a Day" part of the title, but we will revisit this when the time comes. Somehow I doubt it was the "down day" P envisioned

When the time came, I arranged all of our ADR's (8 in total). I was quite happy to get all the restaurants we (I) had wanted. These included:

1. Tusker House (AK)
2. Trattoria al Forno (Boardwalk)
3. Kona Cafe (Poly)
4. The Boathouse (Disney Springs)
5. Via Napoli (Epcot)
6. Biergarten (Epcot)
7. Cinderella's Royal Table (MK)
8. Be Our Guest (MK)

I also booked our Fast Passes, which I was afraid would be a challenge given the large holiday crowds expected, but in the end we were able to get mostly what we wanted

​

 

[Cruisinskier]

DAY 1 (Dec 28) - Flight and Arrival!!​

Finally it was time for us to head to Disney. The vacation started at the airport (this is the difference when you travel with big kids!!):




We had an uneventful evening flight from Toronto (I felt it was better than arriving early the next morning) landing in Orlando around 11:00 pm. We grabbed our luggage (too late for it to just magically arrive) and headed for the bus, stopping for a few photos at the large Christmas tree in the Orlando airport.

 

[Cruisinskier]

By the time we arrived at AoA, it was around 12:45 am. There were not many folks around.....







An empty AoA lobby!

 

[Cruisinskier]

We picked up our Magic Bands and started our walk to our room....it was about an 8 minute walk from the front desk to our rooms. After a long travel day, it seemed much longer. But not too late for some photos along the way....















Finally we arrived at the rooms.....and were tired so not many photos were taken.





And we headed straight to bed as one of us had booked an early breakfast the next morning....so ends our first day at Disney (although technically we were already into our second day.....)

 

[Cruisinskier]

Well that's all for tonight folks, we are off to a good start. More review to follw in the coming days, weeks, months......I know these things take forever but half the fun is re-living the trip. The other half is the opportunity to pay it forward.....
Good night all!
Jerry

 

[Cruisinskier]

DAY 2 - Dec 29, 2016​

We were up early and did the walk back to catch a bus......seeing our resort in daylight for the first time.

 

[Cruisinskier]

We had great luck with buses for the most part except for one night which more than made up for all the great experiences, but I am getting ahead of myself. Soon we had arrived here!!!

 

[Cruisinskier]

As I had mentioned, Disney had a promotion for Canadians with 25% off our park tickets (which helps offset some of the exchange rate!). We had bought these as part of a resort package and had picked up our bands the night before. However when we got to the turnstiles, none of our bands worked. Turns out we had to go to Customer Service to activate them. Within 5 minutes they had sorted it out, we provided proof we were Canadian and we were set to go!!! So off we went for our first ADR.....





This shows the 8:20 am crowds in AK during the Christmas week......last time we did this in the summer a few years ago there was no one but us!



In case you thought I was exaggerating, this was from our trip in July 2013



Now back to reality......

 

[Cruisinskier]

We soon arrived at our destination and were about 5 minutes early for our 8:30 ADR. They took us right in!!!

 

[Cruisinskier]

OK, so I have basically changed the entire name of this review. For those who had not previously looked at this review, disregard this post. For those who had previously looked (and there are a couple of you apparently), it is now new and improved!! I kinda like the new one better.....

 

[Cruisinskier]

Back to our review.....soon the characters started to drop by

 

[Cruisinskier]

This was our second time having breakfast at Tusker House. We enjoyed it both times and feel it is the best way to start a day at Animal Kingdom. A couple more shots before we move on.....

 

[Minniemoo15]

Following along. Great report! We are Canadian also and were excited when the new ticket deal came out for our March trip.

 

[hswillia07]

Another Canadian following along

 

[Cruisinskier]

After breakfast, it was still too early for our first Fast Pass so we decided to wander back towards the Tree of Life....



To go here!!!



As you wander in you see the base of the Tree of Life with these.....

 

[Cruisinskier]

Following along. Great report! We are Canadian also and were excited when the new ticket deal came out for our March trip.

Hi Minniemoo15, thanks for following along! I am sure you are looking forward to that March trip and escaping our Canadian winter! More to follow soon!
Jerry