How the Other Half Lives ~ Updated 10/22: I Forgot Something!

[jc040404]

Super full day!

This is the one we were at EPCOT at the same time, I think! It's still nuts that we never passed, but you guys did a lot of stuff that we skipped over. We never saw that candy lady at all. How neat! I love the lady in the background of your pics!

All of the candy and treats look so good. I have a feeling I'd enjoy Holiday Wishes a little more from that view, too. So jealous! Love the private LWTL cruise, too.

You had such a packed day! I can see why you were beat at the end of it, but it sounds like so much fun. So excited for another trailer!!

 

[Dug]

Oops! Posted in the wrong thread!

 

[Dugette]

There are so many things to comment on that I can't remember any of them!! Wow!! What a busy and full day! You guys did SO much!

Love that you spend a whole morning listening to the storytellers. I would love to do that some day. It'll probably be a while before that happens though. We're going down in Jan (too late for Storytellers) and then after that there will be a baby/toddler/little kid with us for the next several years! goodvibes) I doubt a toddler is gonna let me listen to a whole morning's worth of storytellers. Ah well! One day!

Hey, you never know. They do a pretty good job of catering to little ones. Maybe not a whole morning of it, though!

You guys do such a good job of really taking advantage of the club level lounge offerings! It seems like you managed to eat most of your meals there this day!

I'm sure that there were more things I thought of while reading about your day but I don't remember them anymore! But it was a fun update to read!

Thanks! Yeah, I didn't even realize until you mentioned it, but it looks like we did have all of our meals in the lounge, just supplemented with some Captain Cook's and Goofy's Candy stuff!

Super full day!

This is the one we were at EPCOT at the same time, I think! It's still nuts that we never passed, but you guys did a lot of stuff that we skipped over. We never saw that candy lady at all. How neat! I love the lady in the background of your pics!

All of the candy and treats look so good. I have a feeling I'd enjoy Holiday Wishes a little more from that view, too. So jealous! Love the private LWTL cruise, too.

You had such a packed day! I can see why you were beat at the end of it, but it sounds like so much fun. So excited for another trailer!!

I thought this was the day we were both there, but I couldn't remember for sure anymore! I can't believe we never passed, but I guess we just ended up doing different storytellers.

That lady in the background just loved the candy lady!

I could watch Wishes from the Poly Club Lounge every night! So nice. We got very spoiled. Although, you'll see the next night doesn't turn out as well...

Oops! Posted in the wrong thread!

Oopsie! Dug meant to post in the PTR!

 

[Dugette]

Here's you go:

 

[Dugette]

We started off our morning in the Club Lounge again:

Kind-of a dreary morning. Looks like we also grabbed a few snacks from the lounge before heading out the door:

This morning, we were getting a later start, since we were going to start the day by mini-golfing (which opens at 10am, I believe). We hopped on a bus to Blizzard Beach/Winter Summerland. I think we were the only people on it. Too cold for a waterpark this morning! (The high for the day was 66 and the low 48, with a bit of precipitation.) We passed our would-have-been-home:

We’d still like to try Coronado Springs someday! Soon, we arrived:

Wow, look at that crowded parking lot:

There were a few (literally, a few) people going into the waterpark. I suppose it was nice for them to have it all to themselves!

This was our destination:

We thought this would be an appropriate place to go on a December/Holiday trip, due to the Santa theming. Some fun pics on the way in:

We chose to start on the Summerland Course, I think because there was nobody on it. And they were leaf-blowing the other one or something. It was nice to have the relaxed pace where we could take a ton of pictures and video and there was nobody waiting behind us to care. So, therefore, we have a lot of pictures! The theming is really whimsical and fun, so hopefully this gives you some sense of it:

This bridge sprays water at you as you cross:

Continued in next post…

 

[Dugette]

I got a hole in one on this hole:

Yes, that's my umbrella hanging off of me...it looked gloomy out:

This had a crazy "elevator" in it. The ball goes up the striped thing, then gets spit out at the top:

Both courses end with hitting the ball up into the computer, then Santa comes on-screen and gives you some sort of silly message:

I love the “mouse”:

I actually won, which is a pretty rare. 44 to 51!

Continued in next post…

 

[Dugette]

On to Winterland!

Dug got a hole in one on this one:

I got a hole in one on this one:

I think it was on this hole that we saw a lady up ahead of us slip and fall, hitting her head, on the white non-playing-surface part of the course (so, don’t walk over that stuff!) She was okay, but it looked pretty painful and she did sit out the rest of the game, while her family played.

Continued in next post…

 

[Dugette]

I also got a hole in one here:

I also won this round! 44 to 47. They gave us souvenir golf balls and candy canes:

We really had a good time on these courses and would definitely recommend them! They are especially fun this time of year, as there is holiday music playing and all. Very fun!

Up next: Yacht Club decorations and Beaches & Cream!

 

[Dugette]

After we finished our round of golf, we hopped on a bus to the Yacht Club. It was time to check out some of these awesome holiday displays that we had heard about. We entered and saw the tree:

The big feature in the Yacht Club is their railroad display, which was pretty impressive and fun to check out detail on:

Some more Yacht Club décor:

It was time for lunch now, so we made our way over to Beaches ‘N’ Cream, in the neighboring Beach Club. We were seated and each ordered a cheeseburger, but one with fries and one with onion rings, to share:

Dug thought it was cool that they brought out a bowl of condiments:

The burgers were tasty. And, for dessert, we had to rectify an old problem. On our January 2010 trip here, we had gotten one of the famous No Way Jose sundaes (chocolate and peanut butter), but due to Dug’s infectious ailment, they’d had to serve it in a special bowl and we had to split it carefully. This time, we got the real thing and shared it out of the bowl, as it was meant to be enjoyed:

So, yummy! In case you’re wondering, one of the CMs told us that they just microwave Jif peanut butter to make the peanut butter topping for this. Delish!

Up next: Beach Club Holiday display!

 

[Dugette]

The Beach Club’s holiday centerpiece is this carousel made of chocolate:

Pretty cool! There were other things surrounding it too:

I believe they sold gingerbread and treats here (love the lady in the pic! ):

A chocolate horsie:

There was even a Beaches ‘N’ Cream themed horse with a Kitchen Sink riding on it!

The carousel/horses also contained small hidden Mickeys, so that was fun to spot them.

Up next: Swalphing!

 

[Dugette]

We made our way past the Boardwalk:

We were headed to the Swan and Dolphin. Or Swalphin. Dug said this meant we were “Swalphing.” We approached:

I don’t remember which displays were in which hotel, but I’ll show you what we saw. These models were neat:

A very large Christmas tree:

With railroad:

Really cool indoor “sky”:

A holiday display:

This entire display was made out of various types of chocolate :

I’m gonna say this was in the Swan :

Up next: Boardwalk!

 

[Dugette]

Our last stop of the holiday decoration tour was Disney’s Boardwalk Inn. I think this tree was probably there (or else at the Swalphin, not sure):

Here’s what they had on display at the Boardwalk:

It was pretty crowded most of the time we were there and hard to get a shot.

By this time, it was nearing dinnertime at the lounge, so we made our way back to the Poly.

Up next: Yumminess and some Poly holiday décor.

 

[TheThomsLuvDisney]

I finally got caught up! Love the mini-golf pics! That's one more thing we will have to do on a future trip.

Are you ready for your trip?

 

[newtexan]

Just jumping in to say hi.
Started reading tr to get ideas for our trip next summer (hope, hope) but now I really want to go at Christmas. Love all your photos and can't wait to see more.

 

[matkensgirl2000]

Thank you so much for the mini golf pics. I had never really considered doing the putt-putts at Disney but those pics have inspired me. That theming looks so fun!

 

[wild.zinnia]

I love the Christmas decoration pics. Especially Stitch.

 

[Dugette]

I finally got caught up! Love the mini-golf pics! That's one more thing we will have to do on a future trip.

Are you ready for your trip?

Yes, I definitely recommend the Winterland/Summerland courses. We did Fantasia Gardens this time and, although it was fun, W/S was much more interesting to look at, theming-wise.

You're back now too, right? How was Disneyland? Hope you had a great time!

Just jumping in to say hi.
Started reading tr to get ideas for our trip next summer (hope, hope) but now I really want to go at Christmas. Love all your photos and can't wait to see more.

Thanks for saying hi! Christmas is a very magical time to go, but I'm sure you'll have a great time on a summer trip too!

Thank you so much for the mini golf pics. I had never really considered doing the putt-putts at Disney but those pics have inspired me. That theming looks so fun!

It really was fun. So much to look at and enjoyable to play. I don't think I had considered them either, until I saw pics in someone else's TR!

I love the Christmas decoration pics. Especially Stitch.

That Stitch one is pretty cute! Glad you enjoyed the pics!

 

[Dugette]

Once we made it back to the Poly, we hit the Hawaii lounge for dinner. Cute decoration on the buffet:

And the food:

Dug decided to try a Longboard and enjoyed it:

We saw the Electrical Water Pageant go by (sorry for the blurry pic):

We planned to watch Wishes (regular Wishes) from the lounge, like we had done with Holiday Wishes the previous night. However, it was extremely foggy. We waited and watched. Couldn’t see anything. I pressed my face up to the window, trying to see, but no luck. We stayed during the whole show, but the most I saw was one high firework that made it over the layer of fog. Bummer! Dug had really been looking forward to seeing Wishes one more time!

I think we may have taken a nap break back at our room after that.

When we made our way back out, we went through the Great Ceremonial House and saw some cool gingerbread/candy creations on display:

Impressive! I could never do something like that!

Up next: One last late night at the Magic Kingdom!

 

[Dugette]

We took the monorail over to the MK, since it was open late that night (until 1am, I think). We arrived:

Looks like we went on Buzz:

According to my video, I got 104k and Dug got 442k. Not our most successful outing.

We did the Carousel of Progress:

Next, we hopped on the TTA. Love the Peoplemover at night!

After that, we saw some “sidewalk janitor art”: Mike Wazowski, something I can’t identify, Chip & Dale, and Mickey.

I think we might have done some other attractions too, though I couldn’t tell you exactly what, since it’s been so long. And we have no notes for this day. We may have hit some things in Fantasyland, though, as it is always nice on the late nights, as there are not usually lines for most things.

I see on my video that we did Big Thunder Mountain Railroad also. For our last attraction of the night, we headed for Splash Mountain. We got poncho-ed up and walked on:

It was great and we really didn’t need the ponchos. When we got off the ride, we decided to trash one of our ponchos that had gotten severely ripped up during the Year of Disney. It would be awhile before we needed a poncho again, we thought. Strangely enough, I have video that shows the drop on Splash Mountain without any water on it. I know we rode it that night, though, so maybe they shut it down quickly afterwards? Odd.

Anyway, we took a lot of pictures as we made our way out of the MK:

We also stopped for a couple more Photopass shots. This one was with our camera:

Here’s the ones from the Photopass CD:

There were also some bonus character photos on our CD:

Very cute!

We made our way out of the park, taking in all the holiday beauty one last time. As we were near the exit, in town square, we heard the music signaling the “Kiss Goodnight.” We stopped to enjoy the twinkling castle and Disney’s farewell wishes (and Mickey said he’d “see us real soon”). Very appropriate on our last night of the Year of Disney!

Then we got back to the Poly for our last night in Hawaii, room 3533.

Up next: The last day of the Year of Disney!

 

[Dugette]

Trailer for Day 9 (click to watch):



Due to the late night, our love of the Poly, and a noon-ish Magical Express, we decided to forego a park this morning and sleep in. When Dug got up, he was out and about at the Great Ceremonial House. Looks like he picked up something for me here:

Not sure what this is , but I’m assuming I had it for breakfast:

Dug went to Captain Cook’s for some Tonga Toast:

We hung out in the room and took a bunch of pictures of the room and lounge that I already posted, back when we arrived. Although, there is one picture that I forgot to tell the story about:

You may remember me mentioning earlier in this report that WDW was making some system changes that affected their Keys to the World. And, due to that, we ended up having to get new room keys issued repeatedly throughout our trip, as we’d get locked out of our building, locked out of our room (can’t remember if I told that story either, but one night, we arrived back late and could not get into our room …had to wait in the hall for a long while until someone came with a master key to get us in!), locked out of charging privileges, etc. Well, the way you lock and unlock these room safes is…with your KTTW. And, since ours had to be reissued since we’d locked the safe, we couldn’t get into that either! Crazy! They must have somehow got it open for us, but I don’t remember details anymore. So, as a warning, if you use your KTTW to lock your safe, don’t let them re-issue it until you’ve unlocked your safe! I am happy to report, though, on the trip we just returned from (October 2011), we had absolutely no problems at all with our KTTW cards and had the same ones the whole time! So, I guess the system upgrade worked out!

Anyway, before leaving, we said our goodbyes to our room and the lounge:

The high for the day was only 59 and the low 44, but no precipitation and it was beautifully sunny out.

We had one last holiday resort decoration thing to see: the Contemporary’s gingerbread Christmas tree. We didn’t have much time and I think the monorail was delayed. But, we got on anyway and made our way over to the Contemporary, seeing a parasailer on the way. We didn’t have much time at all and were very worried about being late for our Magical Express, so we ran in, took pictures, and ran back up to the monorail platform:

I’ve gotta say, after the effort we went through to see them and compared to the other resort décor, the Contemporary’s decorations were disappointing. That gingerbread tree was nothing compared to the gingerbread house at the Grand Floridian, for instance. But, at least we saw it.

Then, we had to impatiently wait for a monorail to take us back. Luckily, we did make it back in time to jump onto our Magical Express bus, just barely. And we were on our journey of sadness…who wants to leave WDW, let alone the Poly?!?

We did a pick-up at the Grand Floridian on the way to MCO. We were in the front seat and the driver had his radio up really loud, so it was strange to hear all the bus dispatch stuff going on. I think we finished up some leftover caramel corn from Karamell Kuche while we rode (not as good as when it was fresh). We took in all the Disney sights for the last time: Tower of Terror in the distance, the entrance to Epcot, Spaceship Earth, the purple signs, the back of the WDW entrance sign, etc. We watched the video and took in all the info on places Disney wanted us to go next (cruises, etc.)

At some point that morning, we got one last update on Bailey’s time at “camp”:

Greetings from Minnesota.

Sunrise and 2 degrees.

Bailey is fine. She sleeps through the night and even slept in this morning after I got up.

She continues to protect us from all manner of critters (or else she just likes to watch things run or fly away).

Hope you are well.

We had an uneventful flight and Dug’s sister picked us up from the airport. She took us back to her driveway and Dug’s car. Remember, the weather in MN had changed dramatically in the 9 days we were gone; it went from Fall to Winter instantly:

Awesome, huh? They had done a nice job shoveling around his car, though, so we were able to get out fairly easily. We thanked Dug’s sister and were on our way. We were hungry, so we swung through the nearby Culver’s drive-through for a snack of Cheese Curds:

Yummy! And, did you notice, there’s a Hidden Mickey cheese curd in there? Here it is:

We drove to my dad and step-mom’s and picked up a very happy Bailey. Kitty was happy to see us home too. And that was it. The Year of Disney was all over!

Up next: I actually attempt a Final Thoughts post for the first time ever!