Christmas Vacation with Mickey Mouse :)

[allie_to_you]

Hey everyone! I'm back again! Previously I did a trip report on my honeymoon at Disneyworld. Now I am writing one about our 1 year anniversary that we spent close to Christmastime. We had an amazing trip and I can't wait to tell you all about it!

Me -- I LOOOOOOOOOVE Disney World. I have been a lot of times with my grandparents as a child and a couple times with my band & choir in high school. My first trip to Disney without my parents was with my husband on our honeymoon and since then I have a great appreciate for all that goes into planning for a super Disney trip.

DH -- He loves Disney as much as me, first trip to Disney was honeymoon and he loves helping me plan our vacations. He loves anything to do with Disney imagineering.

Here we are:

So anyway, our vacation began on Sunday, December 11th. We woke up early and headed to the airport (thankfully just a few minutes drive from our house). We picked up our rental car and came back home to load up all our mountain of junk. I had been saving up stuff that we needed for the trip for months before we left.

We finally got everything loaded up, asked God for safety on our trip and headed out around 9:30 a.m.

(Our rental car -- 2006 Ford Taurus)

We knew we didn't want to drive the entire 8 hours in one day (yeah, yeah, okay, we're lazy...sue us ). SO, we stopped off in Talahassee for the evening. We stayed in the Quality Inn and had a fairly decent room. We had to get a wheelchair accessible room since my DH is in a wheelchair (he was born with Spina Bifida and has been in a wheelchair most of his life. He doesn't walk but still works, drives, pretty much anything you or I do).

Anyway, back to the trip...when we got to Tallahasee and got checked into our hotel, we headed to the mall to walk around and stretch our legs. That night was the Survivor finale (yes, we are reality TV junkies) and we didn't want to miss it, so we headed back to the hotel and ordered a pizza.

Neither one of us slept that night because we were too excited about getting to Disney. So about 4:30 in the morning, we got up and packed up the few things we had unloaded from the car, got some breakfast at the hotel and got away about 6:30 a.m. This is the view of the gorgeous sunrise as we were driving toward Disney...

Next up...we finally make it to Disney World!

 

[robertcclark]

Hey everybody this was a great vacation for us. Mostly because I was with the love of my life.

 

[wendy darling]

Hey Guys,

I am enjoying reading your trip report so far, can't wait to read more

You take beautiful pictures!!

 

[allie_to_you]

Thanks Wendy, I'll be posting more about our trip later today! I'm glad your enjoying the TR.

 

[KathyRN137]

Oh, goody! You're doing a His 'N Hers report!

I really enjoyed reading about your Disneymoon, and am looking forward to this next report!

Kathy

 

[allie_to_you]

Okay, where were we...oh yeah, finally getting to Disney World.

We arrived mid-day and got to our resort, Port Orleans, Riverside.

Since on our honeymoon we'd tried French Quarter we decided we'd give Riverside a shot. We didn't care if we stayed in Alligator Bayou or the Mansions as long as we had wheelchair accessible room, so when we got there several hours before check-in and they had a mansion room ready in the Parterre section, we were glad to get it. We also stopped by lobby concierge and had them print out a copy of all our dining reservations for the week.

We headed to our room, lugged our ton of junk (yeah, we way over-packed as usual) and got settled in.

Then we decided to look around and check out our resort.

We headed to our hotels gift shop and we bought Mickey Santa hats to wear for the week. We liked them a lot, but they did get hot after a while.

This resort is sooooo pretty, but big. One thing I like about French Quarter better is that there really isn't a long walk from anywhere whereas where we were at now, we had a fairly long walk to the main building. However, the scenery was great.

One thing I forgot to mention was when we were checking in, we got a Magical Moments certificate for our one year anniversary, so that was a nice bit of magic.

Okay, enough of our resort. Since we had never seen any of the resorts besides this one and the one on our honeymoon, we decided to spend the afternoon resort hopping. Our first stop was the Grand Floridian. All I can say is WOW!

This resort is sooooo gorgeous and it was neat getting to see the large gingerbread house. We got our pictures taken in front of it and then checked out where we'd be having breakfast on Wednesday.

After we left there, we went over to the Polynesian. We thought this resort was really pretty too.

From there, we went over to the Beach Club/Boardwalk. The gingerbread carousel was cool. We walked around inside for a bit and checked out the gift shop. We love visiting gift shops and never fail to come out with something. I can totally relate to ZZUB's post when he said that as you enter Disney property, they should just empty your bank account and leave you be. It'd be so much simpler.

We then decided to walk around the Boardwalk to see the sites. We saw a bridal party having pictures taken and a few people heading to Epcot, but otherwise, it was pretty slow and not much happening. We did get some nice pictures while we were there.

We also visited the Wilderness Lodge

Then we drove around the Coronado Springs, but by that time, we were both tired and ready to relax and get something to eat, so we headed back to our room to get ready for dinner.

Tonight, we were eating at Fort Wilderness's Trails End Buffet. We drove over to Fort Wilderness and since we had never been there before and didn't know about how the busses worked, we had no idea what we were supposed to do. We finally found someone to ask and they directed us to the busses. We got on a took a great ride through the campsite. It is amazing how many of the campsites are decorated during Christmas, some very elaborately.

We finally arrived at Trails End and had a great meal. I love the relaxed atmosphere in this restaurant and the food was pretty good too. I don't remember what we ate since it was a buffet, but I do remember both of us enjoying it.

This is my DH sitting at our table.

Next up...our first day in the parks...Animal Kingdom!

 

[sunlver]

I am enjoying your trip report so far Looking forward to reading more.

 

[robertcclark]

Hey guys,

The POR was very beautiful. We were on the 3rd floor and the view very pretty with all of the flowers and foliage.

The other resorts were great too. I love the way the resorts are themed with amazing detail. Everything is so clean and manicured too.

I loved the Trail's End too. I remember I had the chili. I don't eat pork so I asked the server if the meat was beef or pork. She was eager to check.

 

[allie_to_you]

Okay, today we headed off for the Animal Kingdom. But first, we stopped at the Grand Floridian for breakfast. We had reservations at 9:30 a.m. for 1900 Park Fare. We checked in at the check-in podium and were given our beepy-flashy thing. In the mean time, we wandered around the lobby/gift shop area. I had forgotten my camera so I bought a disposable one in the gift shop. HOLY COW! That thing was soooooo expensive. THey really get you period when it comes to prices, but for disposable cameras, you might as well kiss you money goodbye.

While I was in the gift shop I also purchased a cute pin of Mickey & Minnie in wedding attire (since we were using this trip to celebrate our 1 year anniversary).

Finally after about 30 minutes, our beeper went off and we went inside the restaurant. This place is crowded. The tables are way to close together and the buffet area just seems to small. The food was good though and we had a great waitress. Everyone raves over the strawberry soup, but I only found it so-so.

After breakfast, we went outside for pictures with Mary Poppins. We wouldnt have bothered but there wasn't much of a line.

Finally, we got over to the Animal Kingdom.

It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of ground to cover. First off, we went to see the Tarzan Rocks concert. Shortly after the concert started, I dropped my camera and it broke. I was so upset! I looooove taking pictures and I figured I wasn't going to get any now. My DH kept trying to help me calm down and he promised me we'd get another one but I didn't enjoy much of the concert after that we even left early. We headed to a gift shop so I could buy another disposable camera to use for the day. Later that night, we went to Wal-mart and bought another nice 35 mm camera to use.


After we left Tarzan rocks, we headed to save Red on the Kilamanjaro Safari ride. We waited what felt like forever for this ride, and then even longer after that since we had to wait for a wheelchair accessible truck. I won't post pictures of this ride since I can't find any, but also because if you've ridden on this ride before, you know what you see. It was a lot of fun and we saved the day as usual.

Next, it was off to Rafiki's Planet Watch. We didn't do this attraction on our honeymoon so we decided to check it out. It was pretty neat. The worst thing was waiting in line for the train having tired feet. But, we got over there and we checked out the petting zoo. That was fun. The animals were very friendly and one of the goats kept trying to eat our backpack. Before we went in, they made us put away any kind of papers or hanging objects so that the animals wouldn't eat them. It's a good thing too. Here are some pictures from our time at Rafiki's...

When we finally got away from Rafiki's, we walked through several of the nature trails and really enjoyed the gorilla's and monkeys.

When lunch time came around, it was also about time for the jingle jungle parade. Normally we aren't parade people cause we can't stand wasting valuable ride/attraction time waiting for parades, but since our feet were tired and we were hungry, we decided to stake out a place in front of Pizzafarri. I went in and got us a pizza and dessert to share and came back out to eat. Shortly after that the parade started. We had a really good spot but of course, adults with children who had waited until the last minute to get a spot started crowding in on us and annoying us. We gladly let a few of the kids come and stand with us so they could see, but we weren't moving to let the adults in. We'd waited to get the spot!

Overall, we were impressed with the parade. It was really cute and we got some great shots.

After the parade, we had just enough time to get over to Festival of the Lion King. This in my opinion is the best live show that Disney has. Its so much much and the music is great.

Animal Kingdom was closing when we got done with FOTLK so we took off to our room to change. We headed for Downtown Disney for some shopping, then went to Wal-mart to get a few other things we needed.

Tomorrow...Magic Kingdom!

 

[Tinkmom]

I really like the formatting of your trip report, with the scanned docs, pics and handwritten comments!

Looking forward to more, soon.

Oh, yeah, I really enjoy Trails End and we have eaten there often. What I wanted to mention was that if there is "mystery meat" it may not be beef or pork, but sometimes they have "exotic" meats like venison and buffalo (eek!)

 

[robertcclark]

Hey guys,

1900 Park Fare was great. I like the atmosphere, very classy. The Mad Hatter came by our table. He was the first character that I had seen in Disney that talked. It added to the character.

Festival of the Lion King was sooooooo awesome. I love it because the seating is all down on the level with the performers. It makes you feel like you're in the show.

The petting zoo was cool. Except when I was attacked by a goat.
We were petting and looking at the animals then all of a sudden pow I felt a bang on my chair when I look around this atomic goat was headbutting my wheelchair.

This day was awesome.

 

[allie_to_you]

Today was our Magic Kingdom Day. We finally managed to drag ourselves out of bed and we drove over to the TTC.

We got some nice pics on our ride over the the MK on the monorail.

When we got to the MK and made it through bag check, we stopped to get several pics in front of the castle for our photopass card.

We headed down Main Street and went toward Future World. Our first stop of the day was Stitch's Great Escape. Now, I know that some people absolutely hate this attraction and while I think it's kinda cheesy, I like it enough to go at least once per trip.

After Stitch, we went over to ride Buzz Lightyear. This is such a fun ride. I love that they have a wheelchair car my husband can role his wheelchair right onto.

After Buzz, we decided to switch sides of the park, so we went over to the jungle cruise.

Such a corny ride, but also such fun!

We also took a spin on the Aladdin carpets and got spit on by a camel

, we took in the Tiki Birds & wandered through the gift shops. I ended up buying a short sleeve t-shirt since the long-sleeved one I had on was too hot!

About this time, we were getting hungry and our ADR for Crystal Palace was almost here, so we checked in and waited with the rest of the crowd for our table. When we finally got in, we had a great meal, but this place is another restaurant that is waaaay too crowded.

After lunch, we decided to head back over to Fantasy Land & Future World. We took a ride on IASW. Near the end of our ride, a nice couple in front of us saw us together and asked us if we'd like a picture of the two of us, so I handed over our camera and they got a great shot of us both.

They were in the boat ahead of us, so they waited for us to get out, then gave us back our camera and we parted ways. We spent a few more hours in the park and ended our wonderful day with Wishes and the Spectromagic Parade. Both were great!

Tomorrow...MGM Studios!

 

[KathyRN137]

It's so refreshing to see people taking it nice and easy at WDW; not rushing around like crazy! I noticed the table glitter arranged in the shape of a heart on your table in the Crystal Palace....what a romantic touch!

Looking forward to more....

Kathy

 

[robertcclark]

Hey guys,

Magic Kingdom is wonderful to me. I'm 35 but I feel like a kid when I'm in MK. More than the other parks.

You know Stitch may look cheesy on the outside but from a technical standpoint it is pretty cool.

Crystal Palace is very special to me. The staff made our honeymoon a little more special.

Wishes is amazing. I love the way the fireworks are timed and shaped. I'm a techno geek. I love this stuff.

 

[allie_to_you]

Our morning started waaaaaay too early and I practically had to drag myself out of bed. By this time in the trip, my feet and knees were killing me and it was hard to get excited about another day of walking around the parks, but I managed to get up and get ready.

We drove over to MGM Studios, made it through bag check and then headed toward my favorite rides, (TOT & RnRC). Tower of Terror was great. I could ride that over and over again. Next, we tried to do RnRC and even got in line, but shortly after we got in line, guess what it broke down, so we decided to head out and try to do it later.

So, we headed over to the other side of the park and went to the Indiana Jones stunt show. I love it no matter how many times I see it, but I do wish they'd update it some with either a ride or some new scenes.

After IJSS, I wanted to be a kid again and play, so we headed over to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground and I played for a while. Boy that playground can make you tired.

After we played a while and got a bite to eat, we decided to see the Backlot tour since we missed it on our honeymoon. It took forever it seemed to get through the line and onto the tram. I miss all the things they took out of the ride, but Catastrophe Canyon is always fun. After our ride, we got to talking about what we wanted to do for supper. We had seen the menu list for Mama Melrose's and thought it looked good, so I called Disney Dining to try and see if they might have an opening! Woo-Hoo, they did and it worked out great, because it was shortly before nightfall. We planned to see Fantasmic and also the Osbourne lights, so this was perfect.

After we finished the backlot tour, we went to catch the last Lights Motors stunt show. We both thought it was great. We had never seen it, so we thought it was really exciting and neat watching all the stunts and seeing how they did them. I think that we'll enjoy it just as much the next time we go, even though we'll know some of the secrets.

Finally, it was time for supper and we were starved so we made our way to Mama Melroses.

For an appetizer, we got the bruscetta and it was pretty good. I got the four-cheese flatbread for my entree & I think my DH got the grilled chicken flatbread. We thought both were yummy. We were a little dissapointed with the limited dessert menu, but ended up getting the tiramasu & gelato which were okay.

After dinner, we headed over to see the Osboarne lights.

These are completely amazing. I think the snow is kinda overated, but the lights are something you gotta see. It was really crowded though and we just walked through and got done. Afterwards, we headed to see Fantasmic, but didn't end up staying till the end cause we wanted to beat the crowds.

Up next, our last day and our favorite park....Epcot!

 

[robertcclark]

Hey guys,

MGM was great. I felt really for Allie_to_you since she was in so much agony. That just shows you how much she loves the World and so do I.

You know there are a lot of rides that I would love to go on if I were able like Rockin Roller coaster. But I have no desire to go on Tower of Terror. She loves it but if wanna lose my lunch I can think of cooler ways to do it.

the Osborne lights were pretty good. As my mother would say, "Id hate to pay that light bill."

But the best part of MGM for me is the Lights Motors Action stunt show. Those drivers make their cars do things some humans can't do. Simply breathtaking. MGM may not be what it once was but it's worth the price of admission to me.

 

[KathyRN137]

Rob, Dude!!

If your wife was hurtin', why didn't you let her sit in your lap??

Lost your chance for extra cuddles!

Really, men can be so dim sometimes!

(Just kidding!)

Glad you enjoyed the Studios.... what's next?

Kathy

 

[robertcclark]

Rob, Dude!!

If your wife was hurtin', why didn't you let her sit in your lap??

Lost your chance for extra cuddles!

Really, men can be so dim sometimes!

(Just kidding!)

Glad you enjoyed the Studios.... what's next?

Kathy

LOL Yeah I know.

 

[allie_to_you]

Alright...for those of you who have been reading this TR, sorry for the delay, but life gets in the way sometimes.

When I last posted we were finishing up our day at MGM Studios and I was exhausted and my feet were killin me.

Our next and final leg of our journey took us to Epcot...our favorite of the four parks.

Because we were so tired, we ended up sleeping in a little. We went to breakfast at Cape May Cafe and I have to say that it was great. When I made our original ADR's I told the reservation lady that I wanted to eat at Chef Mickey's. Well, she gave me my confirmation number and that was that. I don't know if she said Cape May's and I didn't here her or if she said Chef Mickeys and put us down for Cape May or what, but when we checked in and got our dining itinerary and say Cape May, we were dissapointed because we'd never heard of Cape May and didn't know what to expect. I tried changing the reservation, but nothing was available and they said that Cape May was a nice character breakfast too, so we decided to try it. It didn't dissapoint. There was hardly anyone there, so we got a lot of character interaction and there was a ton of food choices. I may have mentioned that we looooove buffet's, especially me since I'm a pickier eater than my DH.

When we finally left Cape May, we got to Epcot around 11 a.m. Trust me, this isn't enough time to do everything there is to do in Epcot, especially since this is the last day of your trip.

We went over to World Showcase and rode the Mexico ride and then strolled around the lagoon to the American Pavillion where we got a bite to eat.

Since we knew we didn't have time to do any more of the World Showcase, we headed back to future world. We headed over to the Land pavillion. I couldn't wait to do Soarin and we were looking forward to the Living with the Land ride.

Well, we got inside and had to get a fastpass for Living with the Land. While we were waiting, my DH got a cup of brown water served hot. I sat and tried to forget about the fact that my feet were killing me.

We finally got on the boat ride and it was great as usual. While we were riding though, we heard that there was a behind the scenes tour where you could find out more information about all the stuff you saw on the ride. So, when we got off the ride, we headed over to Soarin and saw that the wait time was 2 hours, so I grabbed a fastpass and then signed us up for the Behind the Seeds Greenhouse Tour. They were going to be leaving shortly and by the time the tour was over, my fastpass time for Soarin would be ready. Sweet!

So, we all met for our tour. There was myself & DH & one other couple, plus the tour guide. We had a great tour. I would highly recommend this tour. I don't enjoy gardening that much but I really enjoyed this. It was neat getting to go back and see up close what you only get a glimpse of from the boat.

Anyway, after the tour, I went on Soarin and it was great!

Well, by the time we finally left the Land pavillion, it was almost dark. So, we headed over to Innoventions where we played around for a bit and did our favorite game "Where's the Fire" and then we headed over to Mission Space...or should I say Mission Hurl. I was so excited about this ride, but when I got in and saw that they had barf bags and an air conditioner blowing on your face, I should have known that I was gonna be in trouble. Well, I was. Shortly after we started, I started feeling so sick. I just wanted off so badly. When the ride ended, I found my husband in the lab at the end and I just sat down by him and told him I was gonna be sick and we had to go. So we got up and got out of there. I felt a little better once I got some fresh air, but not much. We decided to go on the Ellen ride since it was slow and I could relax, but that just made me even sicker, so I ended up rideing with my head down the entire time just so I wouldn't hurl.

After that, I didn't want to ride anything else cause I still had a headache and felt horrible, so we headed over to Italy for our reservation at Alfredo's. When we finally got seated and got something to eat, I started feeling a bit better. The seating in this place is horrible. It was sooooo crowded and loud, but thankfully, we were seated next to this really nice couple and we ended up talking with them on and off throughout our entire meal.

After we ate,we strolled around the WS again trying to let the food stretch out over our whole bodies since we were stuffed and we wanted to find a good spot for Illuminations. We finally saw the wheelchair seating area and figured it was a good a spot as any. It turned out to be really nice and we enjoyed our last evening at Disney, holding each other close and watching the fireworks/laser show.

All-in-all, tired feet and everything, it was a wonderful trip. When we got back and got all our pictures developed I started working on a scrapbook for our trip. It took forever to complete it, but now I have something great to look back on and remember our trip by. Here is the cover to my scrapbook/album...

Here a just some miscellaneous pics from our trip...

Thanks for all who read my TR. I hope you enjoyed it!

 

[sunlver]

Sorry about Mission space. Did you go on the spinning side? I hear there are two sides, spinning and non spinning. I was going to try the non spinning when we go in June. I definitely could not handle being able to spin.My husband and son went on the spinning side and never had one problem.