bobcat
<font color=magenta>I had a horrible case two year
- Joined
- Aug 19, 1999
- Messages
- 4,158
A better late then never trip report!
Thanksgiving Break 2000
Cast: Mom (me), DD Katie 8, and DS Brice 5
I love the Christmas holidays at WDW but this year the only time we could get away was during Thanksgiving break. That meant not spending the holidays with family, i.e. not hearing my sister and Mom fight all day long. I think we can live with the trade off!
Wanting to get the most out of our short four days in the world I decided that we should take the earliest flight available. This was 6am on Thanksgiving Day. We live an hour from the airport so we needed to leave home at 4am. I am not a morning person, but I will make the sacrifice because I will soon be in WDW. It took us longer to drive to the airport and park than expected so we were already running a little late, but soon we would be running for real. We had e tickets and only had carryon luggage so we bypassed the counter and headed straight for the gate. This would save us time. WRONG! Little did I know the Delta express gates were in their own little wing and not with the rest of the Deltas gates. Remember I am not a morning person so my brain is not quite working yet. I soon found out after we reached the end of the terminal and had to run (picture single mom, no morning coffee, two kids, stroller, carryons racing towards the right gate before 6am) DS dropped his stuffed Duck, cant live without him, and our first good thing happened, someone saw it and came rushing after us to return it. Now this duck has been through it all in the last few years, including a few losses in the store and a tussle with the dog that required Dr. Mom to perform surgery. This had to be the luckiest duck on the planet and thankfully he made his second trip to WDW. We finally made it on the plane and in a couple of hours were in Orlando.
Tiffany met us at baggage claim and it was a real treat to be driven to our resort. Arriving at Coronado Springs we had our first real look at the resort. I loved the bright colors and the fountain in the foyer. When I arrived at the front desk I must have looked a little worse for wear and the wonderful CM was able to find a room that was ready. I rolled all of our luggage to the entrance and in a short time we were whisked off on the luggage golf cart to our building. Nice touch since this is such a large resort and the walk could be long. We were in Casitas room 4323 overlooking the quiet pool. The room was larger than ASMo, where we stayed last year, and the decor was cheerful. I especially liked the metal lamps. We rested a little while and were ready to tackle MGM!
It was now around 11 am and we had PS at Prime Time Cafe for 1pm. The bus stop was located right behind our building and we never waited more than 15 minutes for a bus. It was also nice that when we arrived at MGM the bus stop was close to the entrance. That really helps at the end of the day. When I saw the poinsettias at the entrance and heard the Christmas music I felt the Disney joy spread.
This was Thanksgiving Day and while it was more crowded than our last trip I was prepared for larger crowds. I really think this helped throughout our whole trip. We planned for really large crowds and were pleasantly surprised when they werent that bad. The crowds slowly disappeared so by 5:30 it felt like the parks were empty. Before our PS we were able to see Bear in the Big Blue house and enjoyed it as much as last year. We also walked down New York Street and met many characters. We arrived at Prime Time early hoping to be seated early but it was incredibly busy. They of course were turning walk ins away but we waited over 30 min. for our PS. We sat right buy the aluminum tree and the kids loved the way it threw shiny light all over the room. We were seated and had a great Mom who introduced us to all our out of town cousins. We passed on the Thanksgiving meal and instead I had a chicken pot pie, very good, DD had mac and cheese even though I reminded her she didnt like it last trip, and DS had chicken fingers. DD still didnt like the mac and cheese and when Mom noticed her sharing her brothers chicken she took back the meal and replaced it with the chicken fingers. Happy kids all around. We were too full to try the samores so they will have to wait for next trip.
After lunch I felt rushed to try and make all the shows. They are the one reason we love MGM so much. The one that I couldnt miss was Hunchback. Will we make it? I am still not sure how but we were able to see all of the shows, made all of their last performances. Had to rush from Hunchback, back of the park, to Beauty and the Beast, front of the park. I am getting really tired of running! But we made them all. Now we could leisurely see Muppets, twice, and ride the great movie ride, while the first Fantasmic was going on. Showed up at the last Fantasmic 15 min. before show time and had a dinner of hot pretzels and soda. What a day! I remembered the stroller wars after the show last year so we parked outside the theater by the Beauty show this year. As we left CMs offered abandoned strollers free of charge. We picked ours up and it was great not to have to hunt for it.
We were tired so we slowly made our way out of the park, skipping Osborn lights this year. Short wait for the bus and soon we were back at the hotel and tucked in for the night.
Day 2 - Epcot in a day.
Thanksgiving Break 2000
Cast: Mom (me), DD Katie 8, and DS Brice 5
I love the Christmas holidays at WDW but this year the only time we could get away was during Thanksgiving break. That meant not spending the holidays with family, i.e. not hearing my sister and Mom fight all day long. I think we can live with the trade off!
Wanting to get the most out of our short four days in the world I decided that we should take the earliest flight available. This was 6am on Thanksgiving Day. We live an hour from the airport so we needed to leave home at 4am. I am not a morning person, but I will make the sacrifice because I will soon be in WDW. It took us longer to drive to the airport and park than expected so we were already running a little late, but soon we would be running for real. We had e tickets and only had carryon luggage so we bypassed the counter and headed straight for the gate. This would save us time. WRONG! Little did I know the Delta express gates were in their own little wing and not with the rest of the Deltas gates. Remember I am not a morning person so my brain is not quite working yet. I soon found out after we reached the end of the terminal and had to run (picture single mom, no morning coffee, two kids, stroller, carryons racing towards the right gate before 6am) DS dropped his stuffed Duck, cant live without him, and our first good thing happened, someone saw it and came rushing after us to return it. Now this duck has been through it all in the last few years, including a few losses in the store and a tussle with the dog that required Dr. Mom to perform surgery. This had to be the luckiest duck on the planet and thankfully he made his second trip to WDW. We finally made it on the plane and in a couple of hours were in Orlando.
Tiffany met us at baggage claim and it was a real treat to be driven to our resort. Arriving at Coronado Springs we had our first real look at the resort. I loved the bright colors and the fountain in the foyer. When I arrived at the front desk I must have looked a little worse for wear and the wonderful CM was able to find a room that was ready. I rolled all of our luggage to the entrance and in a short time we were whisked off on the luggage golf cart to our building. Nice touch since this is such a large resort and the walk could be long. We were in Casitas room 4323 overlooking the quiet pool. The room was larger than ASMo, where we stayed last year, and the decor was cheerful. I especially liked the metal lamps. We rested a little while and were ready to tackle MGM!
It was now around 11 am and we had PS at Prime Time Cafe for 1pm. The bus stop was located right behind our building and we never waited more than 15 minutes for a bus. It was also nice that when we arrived at MGM the bus stop was close to the entrance. That really helps at the end of the day. When I saw the poinsettias at the entrance and heard the Christmas music I felt the Disney joy spread.
This was Thanksgiving Day and while it was more crowded than our last trip I was prepared for larger crowds. I really think this helped throughout our whole trip. We planned for really large crowds and were pleasantly surprised when they werent that bad. The crowds slowly disappeared so by 5:30 it felt like the parks were empty. Before our PS we were able to see Bear in the Big Blue house and enjoyed it as much as last year. We also walked down New York Street and met many characters. We arrived at Prime Time early hoping to be seated early but it was incredibly busy. They of course were turning walk ins away but we waited over 30 min. for our PS. We sat right buy the aluminum tree and the kids loved the way it threw shiny light all over the room. We were seated and had a great Mom who introduced us to all our out of town cousins. We passed on the Thanksgiving meal and instead I had a chicken pot pie, very good, DD had mac and cheese even though I reminded her she didnt like it last trip, and DS had chicken fingers. DD still didnt like the mac and cheese and when Mom noticed her sharing her brothers chicken she took back the meal and replaced it with the chicken fingers. Happy kids all around. We were too full to try the samores so they will have to wait for next trip.
After lunch I felt rushed to try and make all the shows. They are the one reason we love MGM so much. The one that I couldnt miss was Hunchback. Will we make it? I am still not sure how but we were able to see all of the shows, made all of their last performances. Had to rush from Hunchback, back of the park, to Beauty and the Beast, front of the park. I am getting really tired of running! But we made them all. Now we could leisurely see Muppets, twice, and ride the great movie ride, while the first Fantasmic was going on. Showed up at the last Fantasmic 15 min. before show time and had a dinner of hot pretzels and soda. What a day! I remembered the stroller wars after the show last year so we parked outside the theater by the Beauty show this year. As we left CMs offered abandoned strollers free of charge. We picked ours up and it was great not to have to hunt for it.
We were tired so we slowly made our way out of the park, skipping Osborn lights this year. Short wait for the bus and soon we were back at the hotel and tucked in for the night.
Day 2 - Epcot in a day.
