Am I Gonna EAT? Or Am I Gonna STAAAARRRRRVE To Death? Eastern Fantasy UPDATED 06/12/15

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Hi Everyone! Thanks for joining me for a trip report on our first ever Disney cruise! It was AMAZING! We have already rebooked and we are HOOKED! We were a group of 12 and we hit WDW before and after the cruise - SO much fun!

First, let me explain the title. If you've ever seen National Lampoon's Vacation movie, Aunt Edna asks Clark if she's gonna eat, or if she's gonna staaaaarrrrrve to death during a picnic scene. Apparently my DH Andy is a huge fan, as he began saying this on the trip and soon, everyone was saying it. A lot.

****huge spoiler alert*****

Absolutely no one starved to death on the cruise! PHEW! Close call!

Let's start off with some introductions!

My DS Zach and DGF Mariah:

Next up is my DS Chase and his DGF Laine:

Our friends Mr.T, Mrs.D, Minnie, my DH Andy and Me - Kristen:

Last up is the 4 girls! Miss M, my DD Zoe, Miss A, and our DD Piper:

We started off at WDW as we wanted to take in a MVMCP and the Osbourne Lights before boarding the Very MerryTime Cruise. Hope you can tag along for the ride!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

We had a direct morning flight to Orlando from NY. The girls all humored me with a picture of them at the airport with their Christmas Ears on. Do you see the dreary, freezing cold, snowy tundra through the windows? That folks is why we go to Florida. A LOT.

This is where I have to put in a disclaimer. Once we got to WDW I realized I forgot my camera BATTERY. I had my shiny Nikon packed with a huge memory card in anticipation of the thousands of photos I would come back with as usual. Especially with this being our first cruise! Normally I probably would've cried but I decided this vacation I was going to go with the flow. So I did the only thing I could and stole my DH's phone. It takes better pics than mine so naturally I decided it was the only reasonable solution lol

Once we landed, we headed to pick up our luggage and then Magical Express. We decided to grab our bags just to be safe with the cruise coming up we didn't want to risk any issues.

We had no issues and were quickly onboard the Magical Express to Saratoga Springs. See that little face the 2 youngest are making? I've been advised that means to stay fierce. So, stay fierce my friends, stay fierce!

We quickly checked into Saratoga Springs. The lobby had some cute decorations:

Once we dropped everything off at the hotel, we headed straight for Magic Kingdom with the 4 youngest. The older kids wanted to hang at the resort for a bit then met us at the park. We have annual passes and we wanted to hit the park before our dinner reservations.

The Christmas decorations looked great outside the park - I always get excited when I first walk up to the MK. I always force everyone to stop for a pic before we go in - they love it It was interesting taking in the new decorations on Main Street USA now that the buntings are gone.

I love that feeling I get just as soon as we are on Main Street USA

The horse and trolley were out:

I'm a sucker for a Disney topiary - add Christmas accessories and the cuteness is just about overwhelming!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

I had set up Fast Passes for Space Mt, Splash Mt, and 7 Dwarfs mine train for the evening. The park was open late and we had a late dinner reservation at Ohana's. So we squeezed in Space Mt and a few other rides before dinner. Having annual passes and going on the rides so many times, we all know the spots where the ride photos are snapped. So be warned, THIS is what happens when my family is presented with a photo op:

Sorry random guy - I hope you didn't plan on buying this photo!

Monkey on board? Or is that Andy's version of staying fierce?

No words for what I am doing here - feel free to erase this photo from your memory! This was Mariah's first visit to WDW and THIS is how we introduce her. First ride - Space Mt. Front seat. I love this expression on her face!

The fierce twins and an invisible man in the middle seat:

It was also Laine's first trip to WDW. She was not sure about going on Space Mt so we met up with her and Chase over at Buzz Lightyear. Let it be told for the record that I won. By a landslide. When we go on any ride with a score like this or Toy Story Mania you can bet that it is ON. The competition is heated lol. I mean, we get bragging rights for like a whole 2 minutes!

My memory maker dollars at work here folks!

Serious business!

Know these guys? Me either but they were on our photopass They are adorable so hi there whoever you are lol

Soon it was time to head to Ohana's for dinner. The 4 youngest girls were off to 1900PF with Mr. T and Mrs. D. Andy and I headed to Ohana's with the older kids. YUM YUM! Even though they no longer have the chicken skewers, i will forgive them as long as they keep the banana's foster bread pudding. Seriously, I could drink the sauce. Soooo good.

I didn't take any pics at Ohana's other than this one of Zach and Mariah as we left which did not turn out very good in the lighting but dinner was awesome!

We headed back to the Magic Kingdom to catch the castle show and wishes before our 9:50-10:50pm Fp+ for 7DMT.

Mine Train is fun but sooooo quick! The ride photos are NOT the best but they do also add a short ride video to the memory maker as well

There was an 11pm Main Street Electrical parade I wanted to catch so we hit that up next:

We decided to end the night roaming thru the confectionary to look at all the treats.

Could the Christmas cookies BE any cuter?

It had been a long day and we had a full day planned for the next day with Animal Kingdom in the morning and MVMCP at night so we decided to call it a day.

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Day 2:

We were up bright and early to head out to Animal Kingdom. I snapped a pic of the fountain at the bus stop, it was a beautiful morning.

It took FOREVER for the bus to come. Quite a few people were complaining but no worries. We are in Disney so we don't sweat the small stuff. Soon we arrived at Animal Kingdom:

The littlest agreed to a photo op by the Christmas tree. I LOVE this tree. If you really stop and look at all the decorations on it they are gorgeous! I had packed Piper and Zoe's animal print Mickey Ears - we have about 100 pairs of ears at home so I've finally smartened up and brought them with us each trip - they really don't take up much room in our suitcases.

We had fp+ for the Lion King show - we really like this show and hadn't seen it in the new theater yet. So we headed for that and on the way stopped for a minute to take in the music & dancing:

Then the show:

Then a quick stop in Pizzafari for some food to share. I love the decorations in there:

Our Safari fp+ were up next so we headed straight over. I love how this ride is never the same!

I love the addition of the zebras

After safari we walked the trails to see the gorillas then went to use our fp+ for Expedition Everest. Looooooooove that ride! It is so.much.fun.

We usually wait for front row

And you have to check out your ride photo when you get off:

We headed to Dinosaur next:

Since we had a Crystal Palace reservation at 4:40 for dinner then MVMCP we decided to head to the Magic Kingdom. On the way out we ran into Tarzan. The "littles" decided to jump in for a photo. Camera shy for pretty much the whole day was anyone over the age of 14

Who doesn't love a hidden mickey?

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Soon we were back at the Magic Kingdom for MVMCP.

The resort boat was pulling up as we walked by:

The entrance looked super festive:

On the way in Andy decided he wanted a pic with a CM with their Christmas party uniform. Luckily he found one who was a good sport right away:

Tonight's MVMCP was a sold out event. There were signs around letting everyone know this:

As we were walking in the parade was going by so we caught it from the train station stairs:

I don't know what it is about Disney popcorn, but it is the BEST popcorn in the world. We didn't even make it past the cart right at the entrance lol

The littles took a pic right by the meeting area for Santa. I REALLLLY wanted to get a pic of everyone with Santa at the party. guess what i forgot to do? oops

We headed over to the fire station to pick up our Elsa's Icy Shield sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom cards:

We walked along Main Street making our way to Crystal Palace. I snapped some pics of the windows and decorations as we went:

The Dapper Dans were out so we stopped for a few minutes:

Then finally, Crystal Palace.

We had to wait for a bit for our table. That left plenty of time for photo ops with various faces. I have warned my kids that they will have only pics with weird faces to look back on, but 21+ years later they are still going strong

While we were waiting we popped around for a pic by the Christmas decorations

Finally it was time for dinner!

We saw all the usuals - Pooh, Tigger, etc.

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

I had a mission at this party. Getting a pic with Sandy Claus. Andy took off to go get in line about 6pm for the 7pm MVMCP. The line was HUGE. We knew it would be so we wanted to try to get him right at the start of the party. He came out early and we were through the line about 7:13pm. Not bad!

Mission accomplished!

We watched the Christmas parade, wishes, and rode a lot of rides.

Kristoff is in the parade now of course for the addition of Frozen:

We took some pics with the toy soldiers. i love this view with the castle in the background:

But wait....let me take a selfie:

or 2...

or 3:

The girls were having a ton of fun hanging out with each other at the party

It had been a super long day so we sat for a bit on the curb of main street usa. to be honest I could sit here forever!

We watched the stage show - it was cute:

I love the way the castle looks all lit up with the icicles

More rides....

Are you sensing a trend here?

It's hard to capture with a cell phone but they were blowing snow onto main street - this is the only snow I will ever love

All in all, another great day at WDW. One more day at Hollywood Studios then off on our first ever cruise!!!

 

[PhiSigKris]

Can't wait to read more!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Can't wait to read more!

Thanks for reading! I will be updating ASAP! The cruise was amazing!

 

[PhiSigKris]

Thanks for reading! I will be updating ASAP! The cruise was amazing!

I bet!!! I have a dream of doing a Christmas Party & cruise combo.

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

It was our last day at the parks before our cruise and we headed to Hollywood Studios.

A cool looking Marvel bus was at the bus stop heading to Magic Kingdom.

We had great fp+ for the day lined up:

They had a huge Christmas tree outside the entrance to the park. As usual, everyone was thrilled to stop and get a photo taken

WE headed in for a day of fun - the hat was still in place:

We grabbed some breakfast pastries and walked through the villains shop. I love the Disney babies and this one was too cute

Then it was off to Toy Story Mania to use our fp+

The girls were excited to find their favorite character - Jake the over near the animation building

they got his autograph for their books:

and we also found Sophia, she's adorable:

Next we headed over to ride Tower of Terror (my absolute favorite Disney ride) and Rock n Roller Coaster. We stopped for the photopass photographer along the way:

RnR - Christmas Minnie Andy & Mr. T were sure to stay fierce!

I'm pretty sure Mariah is scarred for life after this ride:

So is every one of our kids in this car:

Do you think Laine wanted to ride Tower of Terror?

spoiler - she did NOT ride TOT despite being carried there

Tower of Terror:

We rode them both again later in the day. Interestingly enough there was a headless man in the back row, I wonder who that could be

The headless man appeared to be following us:

We also had a mission. A Big Hero 6 mission. We were dying to get a photo with Baymax & Hiro. We "collect" character photos and autographs and we jump at any chance we get to add a new one to our collection. The line was HUGE. And it moves really slooooooowwww because Baymax has to recharge his batteries every 15 minutes. So I jumped in the line and it was about a 90 minute wait until it was our turn. It was sooo worth it. They were awesome! They even posed by themselves for a photo for me:

Baymax is just too cute! There were fist bumps for everyone

We took in the Indiana Jones show as we hadn't watched that in the last few trips and the girls really wanted to go:

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

The littles really wanted to see Muppets 3D. We stopped at the fountain with the statue of Miss Piggy for a photo before we went in and got our 3D glasses. There was no one in there at all and the girls enjoyed the show.

Soon it was time for the most anticipated evening at the parks as it had been years since we had been to Disney during the right time to see the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights at Hollywood Studios.

They are every bit as amazing as I remembered them to be.
It was PACKED. And I mean PACKED. You could barely move. But it was still wonderful.

Its so hard to take it all in - it's constantly changing and you don't want to miss anything it's so pretty.

The girls were having a great time hanging with their BFF's - they were soooo excited about these shirts - they glowed in the dark and they couldn't wait to wear them to the park

It wasn't easy but Miss A and Piper finally were able to get a photopass photographer to snap a few pics of them. The photographer had to whisk them away onto a spot on the sidewalk as people kept jumping in front of them for a pic.

They turned out cute

I love this one

Selfie time!

I took a ton of pictures while we were there:

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

I also managed to have the big kids jump in for a few photopass pics as well. Chase and Laine had gone to Sci Fi for dinner and then after their dinner we ran into each other a few times in this area.

Zach and Mariah:

I do feel that I have failed the disboard community as I did not snap ANY pics of the adult beverages they were selling during the lights. For 3 cocktails it was about $40 with the tip for the bartender. Now normally I've never met a cocktail I didn't like, but this one was not my favorite. I wish I had taken a pic of the menu as well as the drink. It took quite a bit to get one (the line was pretty long and slow moving) but I'm glad Mariah, Zach and I tried one. The biggest thing I remember is that it had a taste of black licorice which I don't care for. But don't worry, we made up for the lack of cocktails on the cruise

It was so fun with the music, falling snow, and lights that we didn't want to leave!

We decided to head over and catch Fantasmic after the lights.

On the way to Fantasmic we noticed there was no wait time so we decided to jump on Tower of Terror one more time before we headed into the show. We would never want to miss out on a photo op such as this lil beauty: Never a dull moment with this crowd folks!

My favorite part of the show is when the boat goes by with all of the Disney characters. It would be a dream to be on the boat with all of them!

The tree looked amazing on the way out. I couldn't capture it with a cell phone so luckily Chase and Laine were willing to jump into the photopass pics:

And so comes an end to another perfect day in WDW

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Then it was the day we had all been waiting for - our cruise!

We waited near the lobby at Saratoga Springs for our driver to pick us up to take us to the port

I snapped a pic of Piper and Miss A while we were waiting

Before long we were getting close and we could finally see this Fantasy in the distance!

We quickly made our way through security

Now this is where everything turns to a blur. Getting 12 people checked in for the cruise lugging along all of our stuff was crazy. I had visions of taking tons of photos in the lobby with characters, etc. None of that happened. lol Everyone was so excited to get on the ship that we were through the check in process and hearing them call out to announce our family - "The Griswolds" before we knew what was happening.

They clapped for us - they reminded me of "where's waldo" -

I managed to talk everyone into a group photo as we entered - don't ask me how but i was happy they all agreed!

I took a pic of our boarding card - our stateroom was 10546

Everything was gorgeous!

They had an adorable gingerbread house set up

But we all had one thing in mind. Before we could explore the ship fully we really wanted to grab some lunch - the big kids were starving

So we found our way to Cabana's - this was my plate

Along with some shrimp

We checked out the view from the outside seating

Then we decided to make our way to the port adventures desk to secure tickets for the Anna & Elsa and Princess Meet & Greets

Looking over the railing

Seating near port adventures

Us getting our tickets:

Near the desk:

Then back downstairs

The Royal Court area

I loved the doors - so pretty

And then our rooms were ready!

We went to check them out

looking out

And then it was time to explore the ship!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

We went into BBB - our girls are too big for the dresses, etc. now but we popped in anyways. They all used to love going to BBB at WDW. So many fun memories of the girls wearing their dresses long after the trips were over. Piper would wear them everywhere!

It was so pretty in here and totally empty for now

Ready to sprinkle some pixie dust

They even had Christmas dresses

When we left BBB we found one of the cute interactive games

By now it had been like a whole 2-3 hours on the ship with no alcohol so imagine our shock when we found our husbands here :

You know how the saying goes - if you can't beat em, join em

I don't remember what this was called but it was delicious. Good enough for a few rounds!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

I wanted to keep exploring the ship so i checked out Royal Court further - the menu posted outside

The beautiful entrance

Another door pic

The walls were gorgeous! Loved the scene from Beauty and the Beast:

Sleeping Beauty:

It was so gorgeous in here - empty just waiting for the cruise to begin

A close up of Sleeping Beauty

I must've snapped a pic of Animator's menu on the way by

We made our way to the lounges. First up was Skyline. It is by far my favorite. The atmosphere is awesome and it was also the location of our Mixology class which was fabulous! More on that later!

The scenes are so cool and they change - amazing!

And even though the pics are super dark there is a very cozy fireplace seating area

The bar

 

[DnA2010]

Wow what an amazing start! Some seriously fantastic WDWdays, live the girls matching outfits, and the O lights- so great! Great start to the cruise, can't wait for more!!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Wow what an amazing start! Some seriously fantastic WDWdays, live the girls matching outfits, and the O lights- so great! Great start to the cruise, can't wait for more!!

Thanks so much for reading along and for the compliments on the girls matching outfits. They love "twinning" as much as possible! The lights were amazing - we had a blast and my daughter Piper loved looking for hidden Mickey's in the lights.

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Next we came to Ooh La La as well as Zoe and Miss M

Zoe and M had a great time checking out the different chairs

and of course making different faces

The girls loved these pink ruffle chairs - and Andy's photobomb attempt

Tons of comfy seating

More to come

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

More ruffle chairs

Counter and stools area

The bathroom

On our way to the next club

Next we found The Tube - it's meant to resemble London's train stations

This club is really cool

They have the red phone booths and a lot of cool seating

And that's it for clubs!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

By now I should mention that I was beginning to notice being on a cruise ship - I was definitely feeling "off". But it was time to hang out on the deck and get ready to "sail away"

It was windy up on deck but we were so excited for all the fun to come

Many people were already enjoying the pools, etc. Such a great atmosphere. The girls were all smiles and happy!

We checked out the adults only area - one thing I should mention about the middle circle pool is that it is much deeper than I expected. I couldn't touch LOL! it caught me off guard I don't know what I was expecting. Not that its a bad thing, but just an observation

There was a little bar you could sit at

The loungers were really comfy

Currents bar

beer selection