I'm still loving seeing all the pictures of the Christmas decorations and really enjoyed the pictures of the country's storytellers. That added dimension really peaks my interest for going during the holidays. Someday........
I will say though that as I scrolled down your pictures, I said an audible "Oh my gosh!" when I got to the crowd pic. Never have I seen AK that packed. Probably adds to the Christmas excitement though ....just like shopping on Black Friday.
Yes, you have seen it a million times on the DIS but it's so true, get to the parks before rope drop, get FP's, eat at off times, & go to a non EMH park. That's what we did & it worked well.
We will be at the Poly Easter & ready for the crowds...& the fun!
The parade is one of our favorites & even better with all the holiday decorations to the floats. So we get up (my butt was numb) & start off to look at some more animals. The park was a sea of people so we paced ourselves very slowly & just mosied around. We did make it to the Boneyard. My younger 2 were asking all day if we could go there so we did. They just wanted to dig so we went to the dig site & it was so crowded. They started playing but some of the kids were alittle too agressive so after 10 minutes or so we left. The lines were not too bad over at Camp Minnie Mickey...maybe 20 minutes for Mickey.
We used our FP's for Everest (return time was 6:30pm) & it was THE COOLEST thing to ride EE in the dark! You gotta try it! Now we had made a last minute ADR for Tusker dinner at 7pm. We were seated right away, the place was pretty empty. Food was still fresh & delicious. There was a chicken curry dish which was great, tangy without too much spice..yummy over rice. Anyway one of the CM's & I got to chatting & when I said I loved the chicken curry dish she went in the back & got me the recipe which I thought was really nice since I didn't even ask for it. The whole meal was relaxing & a nice way to end out day at AK. The park closed at 8pm & that is about when we left Tusker House. We walked out into a completely empty park..just a few CM's guiding people to the exit. We took a nice relaxing walk back to the car & headed off to the Comfort Inn. I certainly did not hear any of the noise coming from I-4 that night as we had a full day at the AK & we were all tired. We managed to ride EE 3 times, all the rides in Dinoland, see Flights of Wonder, ride the Safari, see the gang at Camp Mickey-Minnie, eat at Tusker & Y&Y, walk the Maharaja Jungle Trek & Pangali Trail & see the parade..I would call that a successful & happy day at AK!
We had such a great time enjoying all of the holiday events & decorations.
The next morning we just didn't want to leave so we squeezed some more Disney in by going to DTD for breakfast. Earl of Sandwich was serving breakfast so we headed over there. We all got egg sandwiches except my DS who had a meatball hero!
Ok now we really had to go (we had a long drive home) so what did we do? We went shopping! My 14 year old DD loved TrenD. The World of Disney had some 2009 items that were 50% off so we bought some ornaments. Ok now it's time to go! So we say goodbye to Disney as we pass out of the gates onto the I4 for the 10 hour drive home.
We enjoyed this trip so much. The holiday events added a new dimension to the trip & made it unique. Despite the crazy crowds we managed to do almost everything we wanted & also enjoyed some great meals. I would love to go back & do it again same time next year.
Staying off site was OK..The room was decent but the travel time to the parks more than made up for that. The staff at Comfort Inn LBV were very friendly. Having said that we would all much prefer to stay onsite if funds permitted.