allie5
<font color=blue>WARNING! DHL men should be cautio
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2002
- Messages
- 1,572
Part 24 Going Home & Final Thoughts
Main Players
Allie
Neil
Jessamy (4)
Daniel Noah (2)
Nanny Sylvie
Thursday December 30th 2004
I made no notes of the journey home, so this has been done entirely from memory, and, as I am sure you will be most happy to hear, will therefore be a mercilessly short report!
As with all final days, it is a sad time as we say goodbye to all the things we have come to love over the last 3 weeks. Rain, wind, crowds, diet cherry coke and Ranch flavour Pringles (Nanny Sylvie wants me to add Ty from Extreme Makeovers!) to name but a few!
As most of the packing was done yesterday, we are just getting together the hand luggage this morning. Jessie is sent on an expedition under all the beds to make sure nothing has been left. She returns with a grey sock, a Busch Gardens ticket and a Hershey Bar, none of which were ours!
We leave the TV on as we finalise our packing and are not impressed at all that the Weather Channel are now predicting it will be Scorchio everywhere for the foreseeable future. Typical.
My final job is to put some cards in the mail box . TIP: If you are staying in a villa, then you never need to find a mail box simply put all the things you want posted in your villas box and lift the flag. A nice American postie, dressed smartly in Bermuda shorts will then collect it shortly thereafter!. I think this is something we should pioneer in the UK (well, minus the shorts!).
On opening our box, I actually find a load of Christmas cards for us from family back home, but the postie had forgot to put the flag up! Ah, well, better late than never!
Finally, the Jeep is packed and we say our last goodbye to our home of the last 3 weeks. We really do love this place, and although it will at least 2 years before we are here again, Im sure we WILL return.
We have to drop the keys off at the Management Agency at Polo Park, which is done without a hitch. By 10am we are en route to Downtown Disney to check in.
We have not had much success with this in the past, as twice we have attempted it, and both times the computers had been down, so had to join a 600 strong line at MCO. Also, the last time we did it, check in was done by a little hut in the car park. This has obviously changed, as there is not a soul here!
I find a little Latino man wandering about in a security outfit, so call out Where is the Virgin desk please? Im not sure what he though I asked but seemed quite keen to point out that There are no Virgins here!.
Ah well, lets drive around for another 30 minutes then! Finally find it over by Cirque and I jump out and join the line (about 8 families long) and Neil then brings over each case. Its absolutely BOILING and Im dressed in my going home gear of a tracksuit and long sleeved top!
Do wonder if Virgin will question our rather impressive pile of luggage, but its too late to worry about that!
This seems to take an age (in reality about ½ an hour), but finally we make it to the desk. Again, we get a nice check in lady, who isnt interested in our cases she just asks how many we have, and prints off some labels. Once the labels are on, a big beefy man loads them onto either the Manchester Truck or the Gatwick Truck. Neil does not take his eyes off any of our cases until he sees them safely aboard the right one! I do notice the poor man wince as he picks up our big case, laden with wooden railway stuff, but none of the cases are weighed at all! This is pretty cool as we dont see our cases again till we arrive at Gatwick the following morning.
I ask the check in lady about our seats and she tells me we have the two bulkheads as before, so that is great. She will ring ahead to make sure the seat insert will be there for us as well. Great service!
As we need to check the car seats in at the airport later, we get detailed instructions on where to go for this, and advises us NOT to get in line, just show our boarding cards to the girl checking the passports and she will fastrack us. Excellent!
Thats it, job done! We are free for the next 5 hours to do as we please!
I know a lot of folks like to spend their final day at a park, but Im always far to highly strung to do that! If I had my choice I would go to the airport NOW! If I could find an airline that would fly me home at Noon, then I would use them!
I must admit, I have forgotten what we did next, but its probably a very safe bet to assume it involved shopping, and I do know we ended up at TGI Fridays at the Crossroads for our last American lunch!
I also remember having at least 3 cocktails (all purely medicinal to aid my flying nerves I might add!) and that the meal was very nice indeed!
After that, time was getting on, so we decided to go to the airport as there were some shops there that we (well, me!) wanted to check out. Our flight is at 18.05 and its now around 2.30pm, so Im getting twitchy!
Make it safely to the airport and hand over our trusty steed of the last 3 weeks, our Jeep (not so) Grand Cherokee. This is the very first time where our car at home is actually better than our rental one, so we dont shed too many tears this time when we give it back! We kindly leave a half hundredweight of coupon books, real estate brochures and leaflets ready for the next family
.
Proceed en masse to the Virgin desks to check in the car seats. As promised, we are dealt with by a meandering Virgin lady who brings us a clear bag and a roll of tape to wrap the seats in. To be honest, we could have checked in more bags here if we wanted (if we had bought a ton more stuff at the mall for example so if anyone ever wants to sneak a bit more on board no one ever asked how much we had already checked in ).
Hand luggage is not checked or weighed, but the helpful Virgin lady comes and put Checked Cabin Baggage stickers on all our stuff.
Well, this was painless and in less than 10 minutes we are all set.
Discover that the incoming Virgin aircraft are all running a bit late and havent even landed yet, so the chances of taking off on time tonight seem slim.
Never mind, there are plenty of shops just asking for all our remaining dollars to be spent in them! Buy Jessie a big Disney sticker book for the flight and Daniel chooses a Mickey plush.
Kids LOVE the Space Center shop, and we come away laden with Space shuttles, moon buggies and rockets! Must take them to the Space Center next time!
Eventually we discover that the VS028 had been called to a distant gate, so we proceed to tackle the enormous security line. This takes an age, but we get through in the end. I even managed to keep my shoes on .though they asked me to take Daniels off dont know how much dynamite they thought a pair of baby Nikes to could take!
When we FINALLY arrive at the gate I groan in horror! There are the two Virgin LGW flights, the Manchester flight PLUS a late take off BA flight all boarding from the same area! Its CHAOS!
We try to keep Daniel as happy as possible, but it isnt long before he flips he hates all the crowds and noise, and there is nowhere to go.
I go over to the boarding desk and they are really good. They tell me to bring him over and as soon as the Upper Class passengers are on, they will let us board.
Daniel calms down as soon as we are in the boarding tunnel and we are the first ones to board in Economy. This is nice, as I can settle Daniel before real boarding begins. One of the cabin crew fixes his insert in place and this time he doesnt make so much fuss about being strapped in it.
A very nice lady is sitting next to us, and I warn her that Daniel kicked out rather violently on take off at Gatwick. She is really nice and says this wont bother her at all. Phew!
We take off fairly quickly after boarding finishes and I manage to keep Daniel fairly calm with a packet of BBQ snack a jacks and a squeezy bottle of water. He still has a little fight with his harness, but is better than before. The seat belt sign clicks off very fast, so we are able to free him and I sigh with relief!
Silly me, I thought we were over the worst but no. After falling asleep quite rapidly, he woke up just as the rest of the cabin was starting to doze off. He then proceeded to scream for most of the journey home NIGHTMARE.
Nothing would calm him down and I kick myself for not packing the Medised (cold medicine with a mild sedative harmless, but effective
). Apologise to those around us, but he is inconsolable. I think he finally gave up as we flew over Cornwall. The only saving grace was that this was a very, very short flight. I think we did it in less than 7 hours.
Jessie was as good as gold, sleeping for most of the flight. I feel totally shattered and just want to get home now.
We land without incident and are soon on our way to collect our bags. This is done pretty quickly and we are soon calling Grandad Mick to bring the car round (he was camped out in the Gatwick Macdonalds!).
There is a worrying few minutes when it looked like one of us was coming home on the train (due to our rather large luggage stash!), but luckily, clever old Grandad had put his roof box on and we all squeeze in at last!
Home at 10am exhausted!
Thats it, its finally over!
Final Thoughts.
Although we enjoyed our Christmas trip, it is not a time of year we would choose again, if circumstances allowed. We are definitely glad we have done it, but are in no hurry whatsoever to do it again.
Its true the decorations are very pretty, the parades very festive and it is nice, but the parks were far too busy to be REALLY enjoyable. Even as fairly seasoned Disney visitors, we found no way to beat the crowds at this time of year. Early starts were helpful, but unlike the summer months, where you had a good 3 hours to play before you would see queues of anything over an hour, at Christmas time, it was mobbed within an hour of opening.
The weather was another factor that put a downer on the whole thing. We have been in December before, and I think, were lulled into a false sense of well being, as we had temps in the 80s the whole time. I wasnt expecting that, but we all thought that it would be warmer and drier than it actually was!
Also, it was by far the most expensive trip we have ever done. Considering the dollar was very weak against the pound this year, this surprised us. I dread to think how much the whole thing cost (flights, accommodation, car, insurance, food, tickets, spending money and sundries) Im too scared to add it all up! This has made us rethink future trips carefully. For our trip in October we will be saving money with our Annual Passes (already bought) and intend to use the DDE card as well.
Disappointments.
Mickeys Very Merry Christmas Party. This event would be fine if you are visiting well before the ACTUAL Christmas period. If your stay includes Xmas / New Year, then my advice would be to give it a miss. All the parades and shows are repeated after the last party date in a general Magic Kingdom admission. The only two exceptions would be the free (but disgusting!!) cocoa and cookies and the family photo (again, though, you would be better off getting a quality one from the proper WDW photographers, as the freebie one is poor).
Service Because everywhere was SO busy, we felt this impacted on the service we received at many parks and restaurants. Our usual favourite meals, were spoilt by poor service and lacklustre character meets. It was a very much pile em in, pile em out philosophy this time, which we didnt like.
Driving. The roads were appalling. We witnessed so many accidents this year. Neil is very glad that we are staying onsite in October and can keep the driving to a minimum. We both usually love driving in the States, but it was a real trial this year another casualty of being here over the busy Christmas period I guess.
High Points.
Virgin Atlantic. Ive never been a big fan of Virgin, having had many troubled flights with them in the past. This year though, they were faultless. Friendly staff, spotless new aircraft, painless check ins both ends and smooth flights. We were all very impressed and glad we are using them again in October. A special mention for Lynn at Virgins Special Assistance Department, who arranged for Daniels car seat insert and bulkhead seat. I dont think I could have coped without those on the flight.
Villa. We really enjoyed the freedom and space of the villa. As we have used this one before, we knew what to expect and it didnt disappoint again. With 4 bedrooms, there was plenty of space to spread out (we even used one room as the luggage / shopping room, where we dumped all our bags!). With small children, it was also great to be able to cook a simple, healthy meal for them as an alternative to the endless meals of chicken strips and fries at the parks.
Highlands Reserve is a fantastic complex, not too far from WDW and with the Publix right next door for more convenience. If anyone is interested in renting the villa we used, then Im going to do a shameless plug! Here is the website www.villadreams.co.uk it is English owned and Mrs Hobden will only be too glad to answer any questions you might have about it.. I would recommend it for a family with small kids, as there are no stairs and its very open plan.
Although we are staying onsite at Disney this year, we intend to be back at the villa in 2006, as we simply love all that space to relax in!
Candlelight Processional Dinner Package. We really enjoyed this evening, and it was definitely one of the best nights out we did. It was great value and would recommend anyone to do this who is going to be at EPCOT over the holidays. Out of all the parks, we found Epcot to be the most festive and enjoyable at this time of year.
Our meal at Le Cellier was also the best we had and another high point.
Meeting With Other Disney Fans!. Every trip for the last few years I have been lucky enough to arrange some meets with some lovely people from various different Disney Fan Boards. This year was no exception and I would like to thank all those we met for a great time. Special mention to Karen, Jon, Amber and Erin. Karen and I spent nearly all of 2004 planning and plotting together and when we met it was like meeting an old friend!
Other mentions should go to Twilight Check in at Gatwick. A very good Virgin perk and well worth using if you can. We also found Le Meridien an ideal place to stay overnight, being less than 5 minutes from the Virgin Desks via the small train.
US Car Hire. Cheapest quote we had by far and great service. Voucher was emailed to me as soon as the final payment was made (8 weeks before departure). Dollar made no attempt at a hard sell upgrade either, like they usually do!
Summary.. Well, this was our first Christmas in Florida, and overall we enjoyed ourselves, but we all felt that it lacked something maybe it was the weather or the crowds that made it feel less magical than we were hoping, but we all agreed we prefer to come in the more stable warmer months of May / June or October.
On our return, we still didnt feel as if we had had our proper Christmas if that makes sense. Even with the huge displays of Christmas Trees, lights, parades etc we still missed our small family Christmas rituals at home, and in the future would prefer to either visit WDW in November or early December. That way we get to see the lovely decorations, but avoid the masses AND still get our Christmas at home.
I hope you enjoyed the reports. They have gone on far longer than I imagined! I only make a brief note of what we did each day, but when I write them up, I tend to get carried away, remembering all the little bits of useless info along the way! Sorry for all the waffle!
Well, thats it! No more reports till I return from Animal Kingdom Lodge and the Polynesian in November! I think the next one needs to be a little more concise, as I do believe you have all got a bit sick of me by now! Thanks for wading through my pages and pages of mindless drivel, half of which Im certain has been of no interest whatsoever! if you made it to the end, I salute you!
Allie
June 1st 2005.
Main Players
Allie
Neil
Jessamy (4)
Daniel Noah (2)
Nanny Sylvie
Thursday December 30th 2004
I made no notes of the journey home, so this has been done entirely from memory, and, as I am sure you will be most happy to hear, will therefore be a mercilessly short report!
As with all final days, it is a sad time as we say goodbye to all the things we have come to love over the last 3 weeks. Rain, wind, crowds, diet cherry coke and Ranch flavour Pringles (Nanny Sylvie wants me to add Ty from Extreme Makeovers!) to name but a few!
As most of the packing was done yesterday, we are just getting together the hand luggage this morning. Jessie is sent on an expedition under all the beds to make sure nothing has been left. She returns with a grey sock, a Busch Gardens ticket and a Hershey Bar, none of which were ours!
We leave the TV on as we finalise our packing and are not impressed at all that the Weather Channel are now predicting it will be Scorchio everywhere for the foreseeable future. Typical.
My final job is to put some cards in the mail box . TIP: If you are staying in a villa, then you never need to find a mail box simply put all the things you want posted in your villas box and lift the flag. A nice American postie, dressed smartly in Bermuda shorts will then collect it shortly thereafter!. I think this is something we should pioneer in the UK (well, minus the shorts!).
On opening our box, I actually find a load of Christmas cards for us from family back home, but the postie had forgot to put the flag up! Ah, well, better late than never!
Finally, the Jeep is packed and we say our last goodbye to our home of the last 3 weeks. We really do love this place, and although it will at least 2 years before we are here again, Im sure we WILL return.
We have to drop the keys off at the Management Agency at Polo Park, which is done without a hitch. By 10am we are en route to Downtown Disney to check in.
We have not had much success with this in the past, as twice we have attempted it, and both times the computers had been down, so had to join a 600 strong line at MCO. Also, the last time we did it, check in was done by a little hut in the car park. This has obviously changed, as there is not a soul here!
I find a little Latino man wandering about in a security outfit, so call out Where is the Virgin desk please? Im not sure what he though I asked but seemed quite keen to point out that There are no Virgins here!.
Ah well, lets drive around for another 30 minutes then! Finally find it over by Cirque and I jump out and join the line (about 8 families long) and Neil then brings over each case. Its absolutely BOILING and Im dressed in my going home gear of a tracksuit and long sleeved top!
Do wonder if Virgin will question our rather impressive pile of luggage, but its too late to worry about that!
This seems to take an age (in reality about ½ an hour), but finally we make it to the desk. Again, we get a nice check in lady, who isnt interested in our cases she just asks how many we have, and prints off some labels. Once the labels are on, a big beefy man loads them onto either the Manchester Truck or the Gatwick Truck. Neil does not take his eyes off any of our cases until he sees them safely aboard the right one! I do notice the poor man wince as he picks up our big case, laden with wooden railway stuff, but none of the cases are weighed at all! This is pretty cool as we dont see our cases again till we arrive at Gatwick the following morning.
I ask the check in lady about our seats and she tells me we have the two bulkheads as before, so that is great. She will ring ahead to make sure the seat insert will be there for us as well. Great service!
As we need to check the car seats in at the airport later, we get detailed instructions on where to go for this, and advises us NOT to get in line, just show our boarding cards to the girl checking the passports and she will fastrack us. Excellent!
Thats it, job done! We are free for the next 5 hours to do as we please!
I know a lot of folks like to spend their final day at a park, but Im always far to highly strung to do that! If I had my choice I would go to the airport NOW! If I could find an airline that would fly me home at Noon, then I would use them!
I must admit, I have forgotten what we did next, but its probably a very safe bet to assume it involved shopping, and I do know we ended up at TGI Fridays at the Crossroads for our last American lunch!
I also remember having at least 3 cocktails (all purely medicinal to aid my flying nerves I might add!) and that the meal was very nice indeed!
After that, time was getting on, so we decided to go to the airport as there were some shops there that we (well, me!) wanted to check out. Our flight is at 18.05 and its now around 2.30pm, so Im getting twitchy!
Make it safely to the airport and hand over our trusty steed of the last 3 weeks, our Jeep (not so) Grand Cherokee. This is the very first time where our car at home is actually better than our rental one, so we dont shed too many tears this time when we give it back! We kindly leave a half hundredweight of coupon books, real estate brochures and leaflets ready for the next family
.Proceed en masse to the Virgin desks to check in the car seats. As promised, we are dealt with by a meandering Virgin lady who brings us a clear bag and a roll of tape to wrap the seats in. To be honest, we could have checked in more bags here if we wanted (if we had bought a ton more stuff at the mall for example so if anyone ever wants to sneak a bit more on board no one ever asked how much we had already checked in
).Hand luggage is not checked or weighed, but the helpful Virgin lady comes and put Checked Cabin Baggage stickers on all our stuff.
Well, this was painless and in less than 10 minutes we are all set.
Discover that the incoming Virgin aircraft are all running a bit late and havent even landed yet, so the chances of taking off on time tonight seem slim.
Never mind, there are plenty of shops just asking for all our remaining dollars to be spent in them! Buy Jessie a big Disney sticker book for the flight and Daniel chooses a Mickey plush.
Kids LOVE the Space Center shop, and we come away laden with Space shuttles, moon buggies and rockets! Must take them to the Space Center next time!
Eventually we discover that the VS028 had been called to a distant gate, so we proceed to tackle the enormous security line. This takes an age, but we get through in the end. I even managed to keep my shoes on .though they asked me to take Daniels off dont know how much dynamite they thought a pair of baby Nikes to could take!
When we FINALLY arrive at the gate I groan in horror! There are the two Virgin LGW flights, the Manchester flight PLUS a late take off BA flight all boarding from the same area! Its CHAOS!
We try to keep Daniel as happy as possible, but it isnt long before he flips he hates all the crowds and noise, and there is nowhere to go.
I go over to the boarding desk and they are really good. They tell me to bring him over and as soon as the Upper Class passengers are on, they will let us board.
Daniel calms down as soon as we are in the boarding tunnel and we are the first ones to board in Economy. This is nice, as I can settle Daniel before real boarding begins. One of the cabin crew fixes his insert in place and this time he doesnt make so much fuss about being strapped in it.
A very nice lady is sitting next to us, and I warn her that Daniel kicked out rather violently on take off at Gatwick. She is really nice and says this wont bother her at all. Phew!
We take off fairly quickly after boarding finishes and I manage to keep Daniel fairly calm with a packet of BBQ snack a jacks and a squeezy bottle of water. He still has a little fight with his harness, but is better than before. The seat belt sign clicks off very fast, so we are able to free him and I sigh with relief!
Silly me, I thought we were over the worst but no. After falling asleep quite rapidly, he woke up just as the rest of the cabin was starting to doze off. He then proceeded to scream for most of the journey home NIGHTMARE.
Nothing would calm him down and I kick myself for not packing the Medised (cold medicine with a mild sedative harmless, but effective
). Apologise to those around us, but he is inconsolable. I think he finally gave up as we flew over Cornwall. The only saving grace was that this was a very, very short flight. I think we did it in less than 7 hours. Jessie was as good as gold, sleeping for most of the flight. I feel totally shattered and just want to get home now.
We land without incident and are soon on our way to collect our bags. This is done pretty quickly and we are soon calling Grandad Mick to bring the car round (he was camped out in the Gatwick Macdonalds!).
There is a worrying few minutes when it looked like one of us was coming home on the train (due to our rather large luggage stash!), but luckily, clever old Grandad had put his roof box on and we all squeeze in at last!
Home at 10am exhausted!
Thats it, its finally over!
Final Thoughts.
Although we enjoyed our Christmas trip, it is not a time of year we would choose again, if circumstances allowed. We are definitely glad we have done it, but are in no hurry whatsoever to do it again.
Its true the decorations are very pretty, the parades very festive and it is nice, but the parks were far too busy to be REALLY enjoyable. Even as fairly seasoned Disney visitors, we found no way to beat the crowds at this time of year. Early starts were helpful, but unlike the summer months, where you had a good 3 hours to play before you would see queues of anything over an hour, at Christmas time, it was mobbed within an hour of opening.
The weather was another factor that put a downer on the whole thing. We have been in December before, and I think, were lulled into a false sense of well being, as we had temps in the 80s the whole time. I wasnt expecting that, but we all thought that it would be warmer and drier than it actually was!
Also, it was by far the most expensive trip we have ever done. Considering the dollar was very weak against the pound this year, this surprised us. I dread to think how much the whole thing cost (flights, accommodation, car, insurance, food, tickets, spending money and sundries) Im too scared to add it all up! This has made us rethink future trips carefully. For our trip in October we will be saving money with our Annual Passes (already bought) and intend to use the DDE card as well.
Disappointments.
Mickeys Very Merry Christmas Party. This event would be fine if you are visiting well before the ACTUAL Christmas period. If your stay includes Xmas / New Year, then my advice would be to give it a miss. All the parades and shows are repeated after the last party date in a general Magic Kingdom admission. The only two exceptions would be the free (but disgusting!!) cocoa and cookies and the family photo (again, though, you would be better off getting a quality one from the proper WDW photographers, as the freebie one is poor).
Service Because everywhere was SO busy, we felt this impacted on the service we received at many parks and restaurants. Our usual favourite meals, were spoilt by poor service and lacklustre character meets. It was a very much pile em in, pile em out philosophy this time, which we didnt like.
Driving. The roads were appalling. We witnessed so many accidents this year. Neil is very glad that we are staying onsite in October and can keep the driving to a minimum. We both usually love driving in the States, but it was a real trial this year another casualty of being here over the busy Christmas period I guess.
High Points.
Virgin Atlantic. Ive never been a big fan of Virgin, having had many troubled flights with them in the past. This year though, they were faultless. Friendly staff, spotless new aircraft, painless check ins both ends and smooth flights. We were all very impressed and glad we are using them again in October. A special mention for Lynn at Virgins Special Assistance Department, who arranged for Daniels car seat insert and bulkhead seat. I dont think I could have coped without those on the flight.
Villa. We really enjoyed the freedom and space of the villa. As we have used this one before, we knew what to expect and it didnt disappoint again. With 4 bedrooms, there was plenty of space to spread out (we even used one room as the luggage / shopping room, where we dumped all our bags!). With small children, it was also great to be able to cook a simple, healthy meal for them as an alternative to the endless meals of chicken strips and fries at the parks.
Highlands Reserve is a fantastic complex, not too far from WDW and with the Publix right next door for more convenience. If anyone is interested in renting the villa we used, then Im going to do a shameless plug! Here is the website www.villadreams.co.uk it is English owned and Mrs Hobden will only be too glad to answer any questions you might have about it.. I would recommend it for a family with small kids, as there are no stairs and its very open plan.
Although we are staying onsite at Disney this year, we intend to be back at the villa in 2006, as we simply love all that space to relax in!
Candlelight Processional Dinner Package. We really enjoyed this evening, and it was definitely one of the best nights out we did. It was great value and would recommend anyone to do this who is going to be at EPCOT over the holidays. Out of all the parks, we found Epcot to be the most festive and enjoyable at this time of year.
Our meal at Le Cellier was also the best we had and another high point.
Meeting With Other Disney Fans!. Every trip for the last few years I have been lucky enough to arrange some meets with some lovely people from various different Disney Fan Boards. This year was no exception and I would like to thank all those we met for a great time. Special mention to Karen, Jon, Amber and Erin. Karen and I spent nearly all of 2004 planning and plotting together and when we met it was like meeting an old friend!
Other mentions should go to Twilight Check in at Gatwick. A very good Virgin perk and well worth using if you can. We also found Le Meridien an ideal place to stay overnight, being less than 5 minutes from the Virgin Desks via the small train.
US Car Hire. Cheapest quote we had by far and great service. Voucher was emailed to me as soon as the final payment was made (8 weeks before departure). Dollar made no attempt at a hard sell upgrade either, like they usually do!
Summary.. Well, this was our first Christmas in Florida, and overall we enjoyed ourselves, but we all felt that it lacked something maybe it was the weather or the crowds that made it feel less magical than we were hoping, but we all agreed we prefer to come in the more stable warmer months of May / June or October.
On our return, we still didnt feel as if we had had our proper Christmas if that makes sense. Even with the huge displays of Christmas Trees, lights, parades etc we still missed our small family Christmas rituals at home, and in the future would prefer to either visit WDW in November or early December. That way we get to see the lovely decorations, but avoid the masses AND still get our Christmas at home.
I hope you enjoyed the reports. They have gone on far longer than I imagined! I only make a brief note of what we did each day, but when I write them up, I tend to get carried away, remembering all the little bits of useless info along the way! Sorry for all the waffle!
Well, thats it! No more reports till I return from Animal Kingdom Lodge and the Polynesian in November! I think the next one needs to be a little more concise, as I do believe you have all got a bit sick of me by now! Thanks for wading through my pages and pages of mindless drivel, half of which Im certain has been of no interest whatsoever! if you made it to the end, I salute you!
Allie
June 1st 2005.
Oh and one last thing:
