A TR Restart to a Holiday 21st B-Day Trip during COVID

[mnmrmustard]

CLICK HERE FOR CHAPTER LINKS

MAJOR EDIT! I started this TR upon my family's return from Orlando in December of 2020 to celebrate our son's 21st Birthday. Unfortunately, the server I was hosting all of the trip pictures crashed, killing all of the links to all of the PTRs and TRs I had posted here. And for those old timers who are still around from when I was really active, you'll know that meant a LOT of pictures!!!

Thankfully I was able to recover the pictures themselves and eventually got them uploaded to my own cloud-based server and leveraged that to create a permanent archive of my family's TRs that any of us could go to whenever we wanted to. Life had continued to be busy, but in the background, I still remembered this half-finished TR from way back when.

Well, I finally had the time and committed to going back thru each post and updating those links and finishing this story. So, if you are looking at the upcoming spring and realize you didn't get enough of a fix of holiday goodness, and more specifically the holidays in the midst of the pandemic, then I have the TR for you!

Now on with the show! -

Greetings and Salutations to one and all. Strike up the band and sound the Main Street USA Christmas Loop! Do you need a Disney Holiday infusion? Do you want some Universal Orlando Christmas magic? Join our family as we slather on the hand sanitizer, mask up and do the social distancing dance, and find as much joy and goodness as we celebrate our son's 21st in this very challenging year.

We are not dabblers when it comes to such adventures, we are park open-to-closers. We are thrill seekers and tasty treat eaters. We are picture-taking impresarios. And we are making up for lost time as we last made the Orlando trek in 2012. At that point there was no Seven Dwarves Mine Train, no Pandora, no Galaxy's Edge, no Toy Story Land, and no Frozen. At Universal there was no Diagon Alley, no Transformers, no *cough* Fast *ugh* and *bleah* Furious, no full Springfield make-over, no Fallon, no Bourne Stunt show, no Kong, no Hagrid's Motorcycle Adventure, and no Hogwart's Express. Sooo we will have a LOT to check out on our adventure!

Before moving on we will first doff our hats to the loss of The Backlot Tour, Lights, Motor, Action, the Osbourne Lights, Snow White's Scary Adventures, the Great Movie Ride, Maelstrom, and Primeval Whirl. Along with the former Dueling Dragons/Twin Dragons/Dragon Challenge, Twister, the Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue and JAWS at Universal. We have good memories of all of them and were glad to have been able to ride them/see them back in 2012.

So join in with us and first find out why this is a Part Deux. Then buckle up for 10 days of the Holidays, the goodies, the thrills and the chills. Sprinkle in some happy accidents, unexpected line waits, last minute park changes, dining decisions, a chance meeting with one of my favorite YouTube VLoggers. And an extra Magical treat to bring the feels of the Osbourne lights while helping a favorite charity. And throw in an ending to the adventure that was just a bit scary that we're still bouncing back from.

Intrigued? Fascinated? Mildly Curious? Nothing better to do? Then come along!!!

 

[mnmrmustard]

CHAPTER LINKS

Pictures not displaying? I have found that Chrome is having an issue with all of my linked pics on DisBoards specifically. They show up fine on all other browsers



DAY 1 - TRAVEL DAY

Chapter 1 - Intros, Long Hauls, and a Grand Destination

Chapter 2 - A Tour of the Room and a Retro Night Out

Chapter 3 - Checking out The Edison and a bit of Disney Springs


DAY 2 - MAGIC KINGDOM DAY

Chapter 4 – You Have to Start with the Magic

Chapter 5 – Fantasyland Fun!

Chapter 6 – Danger Lurks Around Every Corner

Chapter 7 – Pirates and an Adventurous Meal

Chapter 8 - Jingle Cruise All the Way

Chapter 9 – From Frontierland to the Land of Tomorrow

Chapter 10 - Castle and Main Street Magic

Chapter 11 – Good Times at The Wave


DAY 3 - DISNEY HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS DAY

Chapter 12 – Boarding Group What?

Chapter 13 – First Time on Smuggler’s Run

Chapter 14 - Smugglers Disembark, Dark Side Abounds, and Drinks All Around!

Chapter 15 - Oga’s Delivers and We Discover More of Batuu

Chapter 16 – Time to Rise!

Chapter 17 – On with the Mission!

Chapter 18 – You Got the Wrong Guy!

Chapter 19 – The Resistance Brings us Home

Chapter 20 – Who Wants a Droid?

Chapter 21 – ToT and Photo Traditions

Chapter 22 – 50s Prime Time and Rockin’ Around

Chapter 23 – A Gondola Ride to an Animated Destination


DAY 4 - UNIVERSAL (BOTH PARKS) DAY

Chapter 24 - Making A Beeline for Gringotts

Chapter 25 - Diagon Wanderings

Chapter 26 – All the HP-Themed Merch You Can Handle!

Chapter 27 – Embracing Our Slytherin in Knockturn Alley

Chapter 28 – Exiting Diagon, Night Bus Fun, and on to Kings Cross

Chapter 29 – From the Muggle World to Nine and Three-Quarters!

Chapter 30 – A Ride to Hogsmeade and Thru it to Points Beyond

Chapter 31 - Jurassic Grub, A Kong Encounter, and we Enter the Splash Zone

Chapter 32 – A Good Soaking, Evening Comes and on to Classic Thrills

Chapter 33 – A Christmasey Seussical End to our Day


DAY 5 - EPCOT DAY

Chapter 34 – The Dapper Birthday EPCOT Walkabout Begins!

Chapter 35 – Bruce, Canucks, and Holiday Festival Goodness

 

[suse66]

Happily joining in for all the fun!

 

[princessbelle2015]

Joining in. I read your pre trip report and look forward to your trip report.

 

[mnmrmustard]

Happily joining in for all the fun!

Thank you for joining in!

Joining in. I read your pre trip report and look forward to your trip report.

Well I hope to make it worth your time!

I'm finishing up gathering the last of the pictures from 4 phones plus Memory Maker and the Universal Photo package. Plus the notes/lists I kept for rides and such. It should be a very colorful TR for sure!

 

[alohamom]

Just read your PTR and subscribing. I hope it was as awesome as you had planned for!

 

[mnmrmustard]

Just read your PTR and subscribing. I hope it was as awesome as you had planned for!

Thank you for joining in - it was full of Awesome moments for sure! And Chapter 1 is coming in for a landing now!

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 1 – Intros, Long Hauls, and a Grand Destination

Howdy all, let’s dive into this epic adventure of ours. And to kick it off here’s a little bit about us if you didn’t read it in ye ole PTR!

Mike AKA MnMrMustard

I am an IT Director for a Southern Oregon Community College and have been working there for 28 years. I am the Captain of the Oregon Chapter of an international beard club called the Bearded Villains, whose focus is on Family, Charity, Honor, and Loyalty. I am a Cold War Army Veteran (13M MLRS) and am celebrating my 10th year as a Make-A-Wish Volunteer Wish Granter. As you can see from the hat, I’m a big Raiders fan. And I am the official Disney addict in the family …and Star Wars fan (Dark Side Rules!). And no, I had not been to Batuu/Galaxy’s Edge yet!

Roxy

My wonderful wife is an Office Manager for a precision CAD/CAM shop. She is amazingly supportive woman who assists me in my charity and club endeavors. She enjoys sewing and doing puzzles and is a recovered LuLaRoe addict with the Disney leggings to show for it. She is the dynamo that keeps our family moving forward and I wouldn’t be the person I am without her. She is the Harry Potter addict of the family – the goosebumps I get from walking onto Main Street USA she gets from walking into Hogsmeade Village. Kings Cross/Diagon Alley was still under construction during our last trip, so I’m really looking forward to seeing her reactions walking around there!

PumpkinGirl

Our DD works for Stone Coat Countertops (check them out on YouTube – very cool DiY countertops, flooring, and shower stuff). She handles international shipping and quality control among other things. She is 24 and loves Anime and Cosplay and is a talented ceramic artist. She has a really cool fashion sense and gets compliments wherever she goes.

Last but certainly not least Jinx (the birthday boy!)

If you read older TRs (except for the 2017 trip) you will see him referenced as "Bean”, our DD2. He came out as transgender at age 15 and now goes by Jinx. He is very into cosplay, LARP, and theater and has been in several community theater productions. I was proudly on stage with him last Christmas for a retelling of It’s a Wonderful Life (I played Mr. Martini and he played Ernie). He moved up north to Portland this past year and is working for a private security company and turned 21 a few months ago.

So there’s your cast of characters, now It is time to begin our epic journey. But alas this journey cannot begin without some last minute hoops. It is Monday the 30th and we’ve spent the weekend going over our lists and packing. Unfortunately DW had payroll to process along with getting ready. She started it on Sunday and went in to finish it and other work up Monday morning. PumpkinGirl also had work until noon so I did the suitcase stacking in the car.

Soon enough everyone was home and the last of the packing was complete. Do we drive to the airport? A quick jaunt down the road and then wing our way east? NOPE! We load up and settle in for a 4hr drive north to Portland to meet up with Jinx and fly out from PDX. The drive itself went pretty quick all things considered and we even got some rainbow action!

And one bonus is that we always drive up into Portland while everyone else is trying to leave the city so we thankfully don’t get hit too bad by rush hour. We had reservations at the airport La Quinta, which has a shuttle that can have us at the airport in 5 minutes.

Jinx also had to work his security job and wasn’t getting off until 10pm. The rest of us ordered in Shari’s, which we really enjoy in our hometown. But unfortunately the order via DoorDash didn’t go well. Specifically we found out the hard way that you don’t get any utensils unless you specifically ask for them! I ended up having to drive down after the fact and get some since the dining area at the La Quinta is all locked down due to COVID. Live and learn aye?

We all tried to get to bed at a decent hour since we had a 5:30am wake-up to get to the airport for an 7:20am flight. Jinx showed up sometime around 10:30pm (we had told the font desk so they had a key card waiting for him. We said our hellos to him as we hadn’t seen him in a couple of months, then tried to get as much sleep as we could.

The morning was the standard early morning shuffle of tag-teaming the bathroom and getting ourselves together and out the door. The hotel handed us a brown bag breakfast and we loaded up into the shuttle van. Thankfully we had it to ourselves. We of course had lots of masks for the trip, but Roxy had saved out a stack of proper N95s for the travel day. The airport went okay with bag drop off – we had of course carefully weighed each of the checked bags, which were all jut under that magic 50lb limit.

TSA went pretty fast, so fast that we ended up dumping most of that La Quinta brown bag and instead foraged in the airport, finding a place that had a decent selection for us to grab both breakfast and lunch for the flight. The flight was a straight shot from PDX to MCO, but again due to COVID would not be providing any food service. The good thing is that we had a good tail wind and instead of a 5 1/2hr flight, we would be landing in Orlando in less than 5hrs!

Boarding went fine and we had a row for ourselves – kudos to Alaska Airlines for taking COVID seriously and staggering seating for good social distancing.

Due to our angle we couldn’t quite see the sunrise clearly, but we did have that warm dawn glow over the clouds

Roxy caught this amazing shot somewhere over the Rockies

The flight was uneventful other than Jinx and I accidentally eating Roxy’s spicy pickles – oops! We disembarked and made out way to everyone’s second-favorite monorail

Then our first glimpse of Orlando Christmas magic!

We had a bit of a snafu in not listening to which baggage claim to go to and went the wrong way initially. After some extra walking we got things figured out and I received a call from our driver. As I talked about in the PTR, PumpkinGirl’s 21st B-day trip to Disneyland included private car service from LAX to DLR thanks to some credit card points. So for this trip we reserved MCO Luxury Transport including in airport greeting. Our driver met us at baggage claim and assisted with our bags.

Our ride was an Escalade, which just fit us and all of our bags – the fam was happy to be on our way to our resort

Our destination was Cypress Pointe resort, a stones-throw from the entrance to Disney Springs. It has an amazing pool, which we unfortunately never had time to experience

They had some wonderful Christmas decorations in the lobby including this beautiful tree

Check-in was pretty painless other than the obligatory interaction with the timeshare representative trying to get us to sign up to hear one of their presentations. We were staying here as guests of Roxy’s boss, who gifted us the points to stay here. And as a family that usually stays on property, we were interested in the differences we would see staying here. We would of course lose the convenience of Disney transportation and would instead be using Lyft to take us to WDW and UO. But in return we would have SPACE!!!

Next Up – A tour of the Room and a Retro Night Out

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 2 – A Tour of the Room and a Retro Night Out


To be clear we LOVE staying on property and more times than not have stayed in the 50s area of POP Century. But 4 people sharing a single bathroom can get pretty tricky and the lack of privacy is not much fun. And if one person snores you’re all in a bit of a pickle!

Staying off property in Orlando is something we haven’t tackled since 2008 when my parents were able to share a very similar timeshare on Lake Bryan. In that case my parents stayed in the “lockout suite”, PumpkinGirl shared a room with her Nana that had two twin beds in it, and Roxy and I stayed in the master suite with Jinx literally sleeping in the tub as he didn’t want to be alone:

This time the layout was similar minus the two twin beds being replaced by a queen. This layout worked out perfectly for all of us.

Coming in the front door you have the lockout immediately on the right - this space would be Jinx’s as part of his birthday present and includes a king bed and a big spa tub.

On the left is PumpkinGirl’s room with a queen bed

She had the smallest space, but it was all hers and she had her own bathroom

And adjacent to that was our washer/dryer

Past their rooms the space opens up with the kitchen on the left

…and the dining room/living room on the right

Last but not least was the master bedroom that Roxy and I stayed in.

It has its own little patio that we didn’t use, but was nice to know it was there. There was also a main patio and a separate small one for the lockout. Our room also had a good-sized bathroom with a spa tub

We did some minor unpacking and waited for our Walmart order to come in. Unfortunately, the delivery guy wasn’t organized and had actually picked up two orders at once and made no effort to keep them separated. This lead us to have to check every bag and have Roxy standing there cross-referencing items from the online cart. He also smushed half a loaf of bread by allowing things to roll around in his trunk. But in the end, we had all of our snacks and breakfast items along with some other items we would need throughout the trip.

In the meantime, the kiddos were getting showers and changing for dinner reservations we had set for 7:30pm in Disney Springs. We followed suit and got cleaned up and dressed for our night out. We didn’t care that we had been up and on the go for nearly 12hrs – after all on PumpkinGirl’s trip we had started early, made it into DLR by 1pm, and stayed there until the park closed at midnight!

We took a quick Lyft over to Disney Springs and were greeted by some Disney Holiday Friends.

Getting to our destination was a bit confusing as Disney Springs had changed quite a bit in 8 years! But we made it in time for our reservations. And for this trip we had decided that we were going to start out with a dapper retro feel at The Edison!

I got us checked in and we took in the vibe of the place while we waited for our table

We were seated around the left side of the main staircase, which initially bummed me out a little bit due to the lack of view from our seats. But I soon recognized that it was a good spot in relation to service and was much quieter than the main floor area. We ordered a round of drinks and some appetizers, all of which really hit the spot

Jinx and the rest of us especially enjoyed the BACON!

Next Up – Checking out The Edison and a bit of Disney Springs

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 3 – Checking out The Edison and a bit of Disney Springs


The kiddos were having a good time munching on the appetizers and trying out a couple of the Edison’s drinks. I didn’t keep track of what drinks were ordered, but as you can see they were in good spirits!

Roxy ordered their awesome grilled cheese, which I ended up eating half of

After a second round of drinks, I offered to take some pictures of Jinx and PumpkinGirl.

We had been hearing a table of happy patrons who also happened to be the only others there who had dressed up. We found out that this was because they also had a lady celebrating a birthday too! She insisted on a picture with Jinx

Then we were back to getting some choice pics of Jinx and PumpkinGirl

We came back to the table, and I got Roxy to take a pic of me with the epic bar in the background

Then the photographer for The Edison came around and asked if we would like a pic of the family in our dapper attire - we couldn't resist!

We finished our drinks and decided to wrap up our time in there. But there is always time for some happy family shots

We went back upstairs and had to get some shots in front of the big industrial fan with some amazing lighting

And on our way out PumpkinGirl had to have a shot in front of the gears

We headed out and down past the Boathouse

We checked out the hat shop and I was tempted by a couple of the styles of top hats, but thankfully they didn’t have the design I liked in my size. It would have been a pain to get home. PumpkinGirl and I stopped at one of the “instagram” walls for a quick shot

We checked out a couple of more stalls and shops and took some pictures down by another one of the Christmas trees. This was the only one that really turned out

It was coming up on 10pm so we doubled back and started making our way towards the exit for Lyft pick-ups. I got a decent shot of the lagoon and then we took the bridge past Rainforest Café.

We did one more stop to check out some sweets

After making some purchases we headed out and I requested our Lyft. From this trip back we confirmed that when your driver follows the GPS Cypress Pointe, more times than not it will try to take him/her to a side entrance which unfortunately is closed at night. After looping around the property, we learned our lesson and would start telling our drivers to turn at the main entrance and guide them to our place.

We carefully took out our dapper outfits as we would be wearing them for our EPCOT day. Then cleaned up, got coffee set, and headed off to bed. Tomorrow would bring us to our first park day. Where would we go? What would we do? How would the parks be in relation to COVID precautions? Check in next time to see!

Next Up – Our First Park Day Begins!

 

[sheri18]

Joining in..looks like a good start..happy birthday Jinx. Dressing up. How fun..great pics

 

[mnmrmustard]

Joining in..looks like a good start..happy birthday Jinx. Dressing up. How fun..great pics

Thanks for joining in and thank you for the compliments and birthday wishes! The first park day will be posted today

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 4 – You Have to Start with the Magic


One thing we found as we approached out trip was that park hours were extending, so our wake-ups in most cases were a bit earlier than initially planned. So after a long travel day and a late night at Disney Springs there was a couple of groans and sighs, but once we were dressed and fed (or at least had coffee on board) we were feeling a bit more motivated. I set up our Lyft pick-up and we were soon on the road.

And as far as ye ole cliffhanger from the last chapter there was really only once choice to start our adventure, the Magic Kingdom of course! I had the Lyft driver drop us off outside the lobby of the Contemporary.

As you can see from my beard there was a bit of a brisk morning breeze

We were planning on just taking the walking path over to the MK Entrance and my flannel soon found its way to PumpkinGirl to cut down on the wind.

Taking this path made security a non-issue and with MK officially opening at 9am we were passing thru the gates at 8:30am

We stopped for the obligatory shots in front of the Mickey-head topiary and train station

Onward thru the arches

I always stop and take a moment to re-read and embrace this message from Walt

I am a big train buff and more specifically a Disney train buff so I was pretty let down that the TRON construction still had the railroad shut down for our trip. But you can’t have everything, right?

The square looked beautiful and full of Christmas cheer – and look at that sky!

I took a moment to say good morning to Roy and Minnie

We went into the Emporium to pick up Jinx’s Birthday button and looked at some of the holiday offerings the shops had before heading to the hub where Roxy took a shot of the kiddos and I, then grabbed a selfie, then took a shot of me with the Partners and the castle

We decided to hit Fantasyland first and start out with a flight to Neverland which only had a 20-minute wait

We headed towards the carousel and found our first PhotoPass photographer set up at Cinderella’s carriage

Our next stop had been planned to be the Mine Train, but it was having technical difficulties and was down for the moment. So where to next?

Next Up – More Fantasyland Fun!

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 5 – Fantasyland Fun!


For those of you who know the lay of the land, Winnie the Pooh was close at hand. Hey, I made a rhyme! The wait time was posted at 10 minutes but turned out to only take about 5 to make it on the ride

Coming out the other side the Dwarves were still on a coffee break so we ambled onto Gaston’s Tavern so I had to strike a pose. It hadn’t been built our last time there so I had been looking forward to seeing it.

And I had to get a pic of some antlers and was a bit let down that you couldn’t get anything but sweets in there.

Ariel was walk-on so it was an easy choice for our next stop

Onward from there past a sleeping Casey Jr.

…and on to Goofy’s Barnstormer

While walking thru the queue I took a quick snap of the TRON construction

We had never road the Barnstormer before, it was a fun little coaster. We skipped Dumbo, it has never been a family favorite. And we could see empty mine carts running and a line quickly forming so we jumped in.

Bummer that the interactive stuff has to be turned off but it’s a small price to pay, aye?

PumpkinGirl got a good before and after shot of our inaugural ride on the mine train

And our first ride photos of the day!

And as a bonus the wait time sign had said 45 minutes but we were thru the ride within 25! And here’s a vid that MemoryMaker made for us from our ride:
Seven Dwarves Mine Train Video

The sunrise was starting to get a bit warmer as it came over the castle

For our next bit of entertainment we decided to enjoy a performance of Mickey’s PhilharMagic

You can’t tell, but there are some wonderful smiles under those masks

Next Up – Danger Lurks Around Every Corner

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 6 – Danger Lurks Around Every Corner


We were done in Fantasyland and needed a pit stop, so we headed towards the Tangled restroom, which were also under construction our last time around. And the lurking danger was of course these incorrigible miscreants

Love those lanterns and the view of Rapunzel’s tower – such great theming

More danger lurked down the path with a drop-off into mysteriously missing waters

We were relieved that Zero showed up to protect us

But then we were back in the danger zone with a certain ghostly manor looming behind us

We steeled ourselves and got in the queue

I think I heard the horse neigh

We survived the ordeal with a couple of hitchhikers and a hatbox ghost attempting to come along

We stopped in to Memento Mori and found a couple of cool items. I was more interested in the apothecary.

Down the road a couple of the Country Bears were out saying hi to everyone

It was 11:30am and we were starting to get hungry. We weighed our options based on online ordering thru the Disney World app. We had planned on something quick service but after some debate decided to try and get on the walk-up list for the Skipper Canteen.

Roxy focused on that while our meandering walk back into Adventureland brought us to Pirates! It was showing a 45-minute wait, which we hoped would coincide with an opening at the canteen.

The queue is so different from the one at DLR – I like them both but I gotta say I like Disneyland’s better

Next up – Pirates and an Adventurous Meal

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 7 – Pirates and an Adventurous Meal

PumpkinGirl took a pic of me with the rum

And another on the boat as we headed out – actual wait time around 30 minutes

As we all know it is hard to capture anything on the ride – I didn’t even bother but PumpkinGirl managed one

Cool to have a ride photo for this one though as overall it is still my favorite ride in the Disney parks

After our epic adventure we made out way to the Canteen entrance and took a rest at the benches near there.

Within 30 minutes we were walking thru the main dining or “Mess Hall” area

…and past the “secret” bookcase entrance to the Sea Room and were seated before 1pm

The seating was great with a good view of the room – and it was great to be able to take off our masks for a bit

I didn’t keep track of what we ordered, but we took pics and it was all really good!

Once my belly was full I put my mask back on and took a few pics in the Sea Room

And a quick look into the Jungle Room

We packed up and headed out – guess where to?

This was to be our longest ride wait of the day – but it hadn’t been getting shorter all day – everyone wants that Jingle Cruise fun!

Some random cannon theming near the Swiss Family Treehouse entrance

And the obligatory shot of the Treehouse itself. With all the walking we were doing we decided not to tour it this time around.

Next up –Jingle Cruise All the Way

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 8 - Jingle Cruise All the Way


Yes indeed, a long wait for this one. Posted at 60 minutes and social distancing had the line zigzagging from in front of the Canteen, past the treehouse, and back and forth in front of the entrance. The sky was still looking pretty cool as we waited

Thar she blows!

Cute Christmas tree in the queue

After a lot of meandering, we made it to the river!

Cute little critter

45 minutes from start of queue to launching on our intrepid journey – still better than the posted 60 minutes

Our skipper was a good one – nice dry humor and a couple of jokes we hadn’t heard before

I’ll leave the rest of the journey to your imagination as I roll thru the hitlist of pictures

Since we were right there, we headed straight for the queue for the Enchanted Tiki Room – only a 20-minute wait for that one

Next up – From Frontierland to the Land of Tomorrow

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 9 – From Frontierland to the Land of Tomorrow


We had been monitoring the wait for Splash and Big Thunder all afternoon, but both were staying around an hour. Still, we meandered back over to Frontierland and checked out shops and such along with lamenting that the shooting gallery was closed. The Country Bears were back out and were doing some great interactions

Zeke complimented me on my beard - lol

We kept talking about Big Thunder and I took a quick shot at the “OG” Splash façade

We looked at the queue for Big Thunder and decided that we would just start in Frontierland on our last park day, which was also planned as an MK day. So, we doubled back with Tomorrowland as our destination. On the way I took shots of this side of the Rivers of America refurb work

We made it to the Liberty Tree Tavern, a past family favorite that we had decided to forego this trip in favor of Be Our Guest and the Plaza on that last MK day. We decided to stop as we could hear the sounds of a cavalcade approaching. And it turned out to be Santa and his reindeer and elves!

We followed in the wake of the cavalcade and as the hub was pretty packed, just strolled back thru Fantasyland past Pooh and onto Cosmic Rays for a late afternoon snack. Specially I wanted to try the Cheshire Cat Tail, which was very good. After we all had some snacks we decided to split up. Jinx and PumpkinGirl wanted to ride Space Mountain and Roxy and I wanted to relax a bit, so we were heading to the Carousel of Progress.

On the way I had to snap a pic of the re-themed ship from Flight of the Navigator

We didn’t have a long wait and were soon on the platform outside the loading doors listening to Walt and the Sherman Brothers talk about the theme song

Here come the doors

We got seats right up front – I took one pic at the start and then we sat back and enjoyed the show. It was good to see all of the animatronics working properly.

Meanwhile the kiddos were on their way to their space adventure!

We then met back up in the queue for Buzz Blasters. While waiting I caught a good shot of the Orbiter

Then on to Buzz!

The ride broke down at the photo spot, which lead to PumpkinGirl and I getting our PhotoPass pic and Roxy and Jinx not

…but Jinx was in a spot that allowed him to get this score!

Next up – Castle and Main Street Magic

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 10 - Castle and Main Street Magic


When we had been in the Buzz Blasters queue the sky had been drifting into sunset – when we came out of the ride it was just after 6pm and it was full dark and the hub and castle had come alive!

We queued up for some PhotoPass pics

We then went in search for a Mickey pretzel. We found a stand to the left of the hub and I was able to catch a bit of the fireworks transition on the castle.

While over there I ran into a Bearded Villain Brother named James from the Louisiana Chapter – cool dude for sure

Love those wreaths

It was coming up on 7pm and we decided we were pretty much done in the park. We had dinner reservations coming up at the Contemporary so we started moving away from the hub and towards Main Street

We stopped off at the restrooms to the left of the Plaza and when I came out I managed to catch the fireworks one more time
https://mnmrmustard.com/wp-content/uploads/ORL2020/Castle-Fireworks.MP4
Then down Main Street for the obligatory balloon and tree shot

We worked our way down to the majestic tree

Things were pretty quiet at this end but very pretty

Next up – Good Times at The Wave

 

[mnmrmustard]

Chapter 11 – Good Times at The Wave


We were going to get in line for the PhotoPass at the tree when characters came out at the railway station

Roxy stayed in line for PhotoPass while we said hi and soon it was our turn at the tree

By now it was 10 till 8pm, which was the end of the park day at MK. We headed out and towards the monorail station. On the way we saw something in the sky

After a zoom in it looked to be a floating Mickey head!

We weren’t following the crowds to the TTC monorail, we were heading to the resort loop monorail. And by 8:05pm we were disembarking at the Contemporary

We had 8:50pm reservations at The Wave so we had some time to kill and checked out the gift shops. This turned out to be a good thing in that I had been looking for some of the Wishes Come True gear, specifically the large masks to wear to Night of a Million Wishes at Give Kids the world. And we found them!

After we finished shopping we headed down the escalator to our destination

We checked in and after a few were lead back – Jinx and I took a quick moment to get a shot of him in one of the cool alcoves

Cool wave theming in the dining area itself

Smile!

Our server was amazing, very upbeat and interactive. I asked him if the chef could make their signature Reuben even though we were there at the end of dinner service and it was a lunch item. He made it happen!

It was great and the rest of the food was just amazing, as were the drinks and dessert

It was a wonderful end to our evening – we left full and happy and tipped our server extra generously. We headed back to the lobby and I requested our Lyft. While we waited I took a couple of snaps of the Christmas decorations

And at the last minute I decided to jog down and get a shot of the big tree outside the Contemporary

We were back at Cypress Pointe by 10:40pm. No “which park” cliffhanger this time, we were hitting DHS in the morning. We had alarms set for 6:45am to try for a boarding group and then some more sleep. But the plan was to get picked up at 9:25am for a drop-off at 9:40am to get us in the park and headed towards Galaxy’s Edge at a good timeframe.

But with all that planning done we noticed something not quite right with the heat in our rooms, specifically in Jinx’s lockout suite. Up until that point it has been on the warm side in Orlando. But as you saw from the beginning of the day, it had turned windy and colder. And the evening was certainly brisk. We attempted to crank up the heat and it actually went down into the mid 50s! The main suite was in the high 60s after running the stove burners for a bit and letting the heat waft into the main area.

Maintenance was unavailable that late at night, so the front desk sent extra blankets to us and scheduled them to come at 8am. Jinx got almost all of them and slept in a blanket igloo in his room after finding the couch in the living room to not be very comfortable.

So, I guess we still have some cliffhangers. Would we get heat back? Would we get a boarding group? Would my plans for early morning Batuu work out? What special things would happen? I guarantee some happy surprises and lots of cool pics!

Next up – Boarding Group What? (click to go to post)