CJK
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2001
- Messages
- 7,595
As it turned out, today was our marathon day! This trip was only 5 days long, but we were determined to see as much as possible! After a brief "discussion" (grin) last night as to what time to set the alarm, I'm pleased to report that we made it to Animal Kingdom for early entry! Yeah! We followed the herd to the Safari ride and literally walked right on. I love this ride early in the morning. The driver's are fresh and the animals were really close. For the first time ever, we saw both the female and male lions walking around. Of course, we forgot our camera! 
Next stop was It's Tough to be a Bug. Cute little show, but our favourite part is listening to the crowd react. What a hoot.
Incidentally, it was cool today, but not as cold as last night. I think I took my jacket off for a while today. Next stop was Primevil Whirl. Right when we got in line, a CM gave me a little white card with a string on it to give to the CM right before we board the ride. I didn't know what this was about but I obliged. It turned out that when the CM received the card, he scanned it and that's how they determine how long the standby line is! Very interesting! We got a fastpass for Dinosaur and went across the park to the Lion King show. You may be noticing that we're a little crazy when it comes to our park touring. We prefer to walk more and use fastpass rather than waiting in long lines! The Lion King Show was as fantastic as always. It always brings me to tears. What a talented bunch.
By now the park had opened to the general public so it was really filling up. We went to Dinosaur to use our fastpasses and tried to make it to Tarzan right after, but the show was sold out. We didn't want to stay in the Animal Kingdom anymore so we left and went to see the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The main lobby is stunning. We found ourselves wishing we could go back at night. Later that week we found that the hotels were even more stunning at night!
We took the bus from AKL to Epcot. I really like the new Imagination ride in Epcot and had read on the DIS that it was closing for refurbishment on Dec. 1st. I just had to go on it on this trip. We walked right onto the ride. The surprise ending always makes me think of the original Figment and Dreamfinder ride! "Imagination, Imagination......a dream, can be, a dream come true!!!" But, I digress......
We went to admire the Epcot Christmas tree and archway when the characters all showed up on their bus! We stood for a while watching the smiling children and then we went to the American Pavillion. American Vybe was performing. We saw them on our last trip and weren't overly impressed. We liked them much better on this trip. We really love the Singers of Liberty (we're both musicians) but to our dismay, they cancelled their first show that day! Drat! We decided to watch the American Adventure and try to watch the Liberty Singers after the show. We just love the music in the American Adventure. The song called, "two brothers" really touches me. I can hear it now! After the show, the Liberty singers were there! They changed their costumes to more of a Christmas-y look and they sang many Christmas carols. Absolutely fantastic!
After the show, we quickly went to the UK to watch British Invasion. Apparently they sing different Beatles songs for each show. We had never seen this group before - they're terrific! It was about 3:00pm by now and we still hadn't had lunch so we decided to go to Beaches & Cream at the Yacht Club. We wanted to see all the boardwalk hotels decorated for Christmas. Oh how I love the freedom of annual passes!
Before hitting the yaht club, we went to the Beach Club to look around. Little did we know, the decorations weren't even up completely. Later in the week, there were more decorations such as gingerbread carousels! More on that later. We shared a burger at Beaches & Cream and had a sundae each for dessert. I ask you........is there anything better than sitting in Disneyworld on a beautiful sunny day eating a hot fudge sundae?????? 
After lunch, we continued our walk around the boardwalk. Of the hotels there, I think the Boardwalk hotel was our favourite for decorations. The lobby is stunning. We knew we had to somehow plan to go back to these resorts at night.
After checking out the Dolphin hotel and it's enormous tree and train in the lobby, we decided to take the boat to MGM. Like I said, this was a marathon day for us! We wanted to be there for the turning on of the Osborne lights. We didn't know if there was a big ceremony or not. There was a brief announcement about the Osborne family and how the lights came to be. What we enjoyed was how they turned the lights on progressionally - a few at a time. Be sure to get the glasses to see the angel effect of the lights. We walked around for a while (finding things that we had missed the day before) and decided to leave and take the bus to Downtown Disney.
This would be the only night we had to see Downtown Disney at night so we decided to go for it. Our bus driver was fantastic giving little Disney not-so-well-known facts. He was joking about the old saying, "keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times". The saying becomes ingrained in your mind while in WDW! Downtown Disney was beautiful. There were different children choirs singing Christmas carols as well as wandering carollers. We were thrilled to see some of the carollers were in fact from the Liberty Singers in Epcot. We got some chocolate and just enjoyed the ambiance. Ahhh, Disney! We were meeting friends at the MK later that night so we had to leave. We took the bus to the Contemporary and from there, the monorail to the MK.
We hadn't been to the MK yet this trip and boy, were we thrilled when we walked onto mainstreet. The decorations are stunning - especially at night! That tree is phenomenal and oh, you just know you're REALLY in Disney when you see that castle in the horizon. The crowds were VERY heavy, but we weren't there for rides. We wanted to see the decorations. We met up with our friends and went BEHIND the castle for the fireworks. What a great tip! We usually fought the crowd and found a spot in front of the castle. It's true that you don't get to see the fireworks and castle at the same time from this view, but we had lots of room and were even able to sit down to watch. We'll have to keep this tip in mind on future trips.
After the fireworks, we went to Tomorrowland to watch the "Twas the Night Before Christmas" show. Very well done. Cute little show to get you into the Christmas spirit. Goofy is my favourite character so it's fun seeing him as Santa! We just had enough time to get over to watch Spectromagic. We had seen it before so we opted to see it differently on this trip. We stood on the bridge just in front of the Crystal Palace. We had a terrific view from a distance. We had always seen this parade up close so it was fun to see it from a different perspective. The bridge we were standing on was over water so we got the added benefit of seeing the reflection of the lights of the parade on the water. Beautiful!
I should add that as the night progressed, it was getting cold!! I had to wear gloves, hat, coat, etc....and I was STILL cold. I understand that it was uncharacteristically cold for this time of year. It's usually 10 degrees warmer. After the parade, we went to the Haunted Mansion. There was absolutely no line since most people left after the parade. There's something extra special about doing the haunted mansion at night! We quickly went to the Pirates of the Caribbean where we got our own boat. We have a list of hidden mickey's for this ride so we had fun trying to find them. We found a couple I think. The park was closed now so we sauntered down mainstreet and got a monorail very quickly since most people left earlier. Boy, were we tired! Thankfully tomorrow's plan was a little slower. All four parks in one day plus resort hopping is no small feat! We got back to the hotel, hit the pillow and were out cold. Visions of Goofy Santa in my head.....
Next stop was It's Tough to be a Bug. Cute little show, but our favourite part is listening to the crowd react. What a hoot. Incidentally, it was cool today, but not as cold as last night. I think I took my jacket off for a while today. Next stop was Primevil Whirl. Right when we got in line, a CM gave me a little white card with a string on it to give to the CM right before we board the ride. I didn't know what this was about but I obliged. It turned out that when the CM received the card, he scanned it and that's how they determine how long the standby line is! Very interesting! We got a fastpass for Dinosaur and went across the park to the Lion King show. You may be noticing that we're a little crazy when it comes to our park touring. We prefer to walk more and use fastpass rather than waiting in long lines! The Lion King Show was as fantastic as always. It always brings me to tears. What a talented bunch.
By now the park had opened to the general public so it was really filling up. We went to Dinosaur to use our fastpasses and tried to make it to Tarzan right after, but the show was sold out. We didn't want to stay in the Animal Kingdom anymore so we left and went to see the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The main lobby is stunning. We found ourselves wishing we could go back at night. Later that week we found that the hotels were even more stunning at night!
We took the bus from AKL to Epcot. I really like the new Imagination ride in Epcot and had read on the DIS that it was closing for refurbishment on Dec. 1st. I just had to go on it on this trip. We walked right onto the ride. The surprise ending always makes me think of the original Figment and Dreamfinder ride! "Imagination, Imagination......a dream, can be, a dream come true!!!" But, I digress......
We went to admire the Epcot Christmas tree and archway when the characters all showed up on their bus! We stood for a while watching the smiling children and then we went to the American Pavillion. American Vybe was performing. We saw them on our last trip and weren't overly impressed. We liked them much better on this trip. We really love the Singers of Liberty (we're both musicians) but to our dismay, they cancelled their first show that day! Drat! We decided to watch the American Adventure and try to watch the Liberty Singers after the show. We just love the music in the American Adventure. The song called, "two brothers" really touches me. I can hear it now! After the show, the Liberty singers were there! They changed their costumes to more of a Christmas-y look and they sang many Christmas carols. Absolutely fantastic!
After the show, we quickly went to the UK to watch British Invasion. Apparently they sing different Beatles songs for each show. We had never seen this group before - they're terrific! It was about 3:00pm by now and we still hadn't had lunch so we decided to go to Beaches & Cream at the Yacht Club. We wanted to see all the boardwalk hotels decorated for Christmas. Oh how I love the freedom of annual passes!
Before hitting the yaht club, we went to the Beach Club to look around. Little did we know, the decorations weren't even up completely. Later in the week, there were more decorations such as gingerbread carousels! More on that later. We shared a burger at Beaches & Cream and had a sundae each for dessert. I ask you........is there anything better than sitting in Disneyworld on a beautiful sunny day eating a hot fudge sundae?????? After lunch, we continued our walk around the boardwalk. Of the hotels there, I think the Boardwalk hotel was our favourite for decorations. The lobby is stunning. We knew we had to somehow plan to go back to these resorts at night.After checking out the Dolphin hotel and it's enormous tree and train in the lobby, we decided to take the boat to MGM. Like I said, this was a marathon day for us! We wanted to be there for the turning on of the Osborne lights. We didn't know if there was a big ceremony or not. There was a brief announcement about the Osborne family and how the lights came to be. What we enjoyed was how they turned the lights on progressionally - a few at a time. Be sure to get the glasses to see the angel effect of the lights. We walked around for a while (finding things that we had missed the day before) and decided to leave and take the bus to Downtown Disney.
This would be the only night we had to see Downtown Disney at night so we decided to go for it. Our bus driver was fantastic giving little Disney not-so-well-known facts. He was joking about the old saying, "keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times". The saying becomes ingrained in your mind while in WDW! Downtown Disney was beautiful. There were different children choirs singing Christmas carols as well as wandering carollers. We were thrilled to see some of the carollers were in fact from the Liberty Singers in Epcot. We got some chocolate and just enjoyed the ambiance. Ahhh, Disney! We were meeting friends at the MK later that night so we had to leave. We took the bus to the Contemporary and from there, the monorail to the MK.
We hadn't been to the MK yet this trip and boy, were we thrilled when we walked onto mainstreet. The decorations are stunning - especially at night! That tree is phenomenal and oh, you just know you're REALLY in Disney when you see that castle in the horizon. The crowds were VERY heavy, but we weren't there for rides. We wanted to see the decorations. We met up with our friends and went BEHIND the castle for the fireworks. What a great tip! We usually fought the crowd and found a spot in front of the castle. It's true that you don't get to see the fireworks and castle at the same time from this view, but we had lots of room and were even able to sit down to watch. We'll have to keep this tip in mind on future trips.
After the fireworks, we went to Tomorrowland to watch the "Twas the Night Before Christmas" show. Very well done. Cute little show to get you into the Christmas spirit. Goofy is my favourite character so it's fun seeing him as Santa! We just had enough time to get over to watch Spectromagic. We had seen it before so we opted to see it differently on this trip. We stood on the bridge just in front of the Crystal Palace. We had a terrific view from a distance. We had always seen this parade up close so it was fun to see it from a different perspective. The bridge we were standing on was over water so we got the added benefit of seeing the reflection of the lights of the parade on the water. Beautiful!
I should add that as the night progressed, it was getting cold!! I had to wear gloves, hat, coat, etc....and I was STILL cold. I understand that it was uncharacteristically cold for this time of year. It's usually 10 degrees warmer. After the parade, we went to the Haunted Mansion. There was absolutely no line since most people left after the parade. There's something extra special about doing the haunted mansion at night! We quickly went to the Pirates of the Caribbean where we got our own boat. We have a list of hidden mickey's for this ride so we had fun trying to find them. We found a couple I think. The park was closed now so we sauntered down mainstreet and got a monorail very quickly since most people left earlier. Boy, were we tired! Thankfully tomorrow's plan was a little slower. All four parks in one day plus resort hopping is no small feat! We got back to the hotel, hit the pillow and were out cold. Visions of Goofy Santa in my head.....
