Awww, sounds like the trip we just got back from. We were there the 17th - 26th and I miss it already!!! PM me if you have any questions while it is still fresh for me, we had a blast!!
We also planned a no park day for Christmas day and booked 1900 Park Fare for our christmas day brunch (11:00), and Whispering Canyon Cafe for dinner (7:00).
We were awed by PArk Fare. The food was amazing!! I've never eaten there before, so not sure if it was special for christmas or not, but there was LOADS of food. What I can remember - scrambled eggs, cheesy scrambled eggs (yum) omlet station, eggs benedict with lobster (allergic, but DH liked!), bacon, sausage, mickey waffles, pancakes, two kinds of syrup (yum to the bananna foster syrup!!), hash brown potatoes, loads of fruit, strawberry soup (yum yum yum), bagels and lox, 3 kinds of cream cheese, muffins, danishs, cinnamon rolls etc. The characters were charming, the mad hatter had fun with Alice 'stealing' my DD's Perry stuffie and hiding it on his hat - the kids thought it was a riot! and the setting is LOVELY - gingerbread house, fun boat ride over, it was just a really nice morning.
Our Christmas dinner was just ok. To be honest, we were absolutely stuffed after 9 days of disney dining, and we were still getting over brunch even at 7:00! The meat is all smoked, which the kids didn't really care for, but it was ok for me. It was a special holiday menu, with smoked beef, pork and turkey, potatoes and gravy, stuffing and cranberries all served family style. It came with a regular green salad and bread as appetizer, and black forest style yule log for desert (pretty good). Unfortunately, I think our opinion was coloured by the fact that we were just plain full. The Wilderness lodge was really really beautiful, and again we enjoyed the boat ride over, we just didn't leave raving about the food.
Despite our plans not to go into the park, DD was campaining heavily to see the parade on Christmas day (even though we had seen it 2x before already) so we relented, and ducked in at exactly noon. We had no trouble getting in, but even though we were expecting the crowds, we were a bit shocked by how packed it really was (especially since everyone was crowding to get a seat for the parade). We decided to skip the competition for the parade seats and just ride the TTA for fun before leaving again. It was no wait to do that, and kind of fun to be above all the crowds. On the way out we ended up being able to find a spot to watch the parade (not the best view, but at least it was a spot!) and then we headed out as fast as we could!! We ended up being the only ones on the bus back to our resort! We stopped in again after our WC dinner to do a few more rides and watch the fireworks, and it wasn't nearly as crowded. We did the flying carpet ride x2 waiting less than 10 minutes, POTC and the jungle cruise with zero wait for either of them - great way to end our trip. We stood outside the park to watch the fireworks over the Main street station (which we had already seen as well), and then rode an empty bus back to our resort again!! It was definately better than I expected, and a really fun day.
