Wednesday 13th December;
We go up early today as I had booked me, Gary and my parents on the Yuletide fantasy tour as an early Christmas present! We needed to meet in Epcot at the Guest Services at 9:15am so we headed off early to have a nice breakfast over at the Yacht Club. We got to Epcot and found the guide, there were quite a lot of people on this tour most of them were VERY festive Americans who were already singing Christmas carols!
Anyway we set off walking towards our coach, we disappeared through a backstage area behind Spaceship earth where our coach was. I found it so surprising that the living seas was so close to spaceship earth backstage because it seems such a distance when your walking around the park! We got on the coach and drove off around the world showcase we got out of the coach in a few locations Germany, Morocco and Italy and the guides told us a bit how Christmas was celebrated in each of those countries. They explained about all the Christmas decorations and what they meant she explained that there were a few countries that didnt have decorations and the reasons why I think Morocco was one of them. We saw the Segway tour wizzing past us when we were in Italy. After we had been through all of these we headed back to the coach and it was off to MGM. As we went through the Backstage entrance we had to have someone come on and search our bags atleast they were substantially more cheerful that the people at the airport!! And she gave us all a Candy Cane as she did it! When we were driving through backstage MGM we went past a building site it was somewhere around where the tram goes on the backlot tour. She said they were building a big new attraction but wouldnt give any details on what it was. We headed over to the Osborne Lights and she explained what parts of the display mean they certainly dont look like much in the daylight! After that we headed back to the coach where we were off to the Grand Floridian next.
On the way there they were explaining that the Grand Floridian have different Christmas tree lights as Victorian England used candles in their trees and they were trying to recreate that soft glow by using dim led lights. The best part of the visit to the Grand Floridian was that we were given a load of free Gingerbread! We headed back to the coach and it had just started raining. Our next stop was the huge warehouse where they keep all the Christmas decorations! As we drove in we went past a bunch of other backstage buildings you dont normally get to see the recycling plant the monorail maintenance area and the train station.
We all had to wear safety goggles in certain parts of the Warehouse so these were given to us as we walked in. The warehouse was HUGE! It was pretty empty now obviously as all the decorations were already up but there were just rows and rows of trees all in there separate bits. They had rows of tinsel strung up, then they had boxes and boxes of the baubles and ornaments. They had huge sections for each park, resort and cruise ship! All themed accordingly. She explained that the warehouse is staffed all year round and at the moment they were working on designs for next years Christmas! We went through into the workshop area next, she showed us that each tree goes out to the resort mostly assembled including the lights, tinsel and ornaments and then when they get to the resort they just have to put the tree parts together. She said that they all get a timetable of what resort/park/cruise ship is going to be done on what day and they load everything up into huge vans and they head to the relevant location if its a hotel they wait until 1am before putting all the decorations up in 1 night. She said they get people who somehow find out the decorations are going up that night and they sit there with their video cameras LOL!
We headed back towards the coach for our final stop on the tour The Magic Kingdom. We drove through another backstage area and she showed us the place where they build the tree before putting it on to main street. She told us about the decorations around main street before we headed back to the coach to go back to Epcot. It was quite a good tour but I certainly wouldnt do it again! I found it a bit boring in places to be honest! All I really wanted to see was the big warehouse.
Anyway we got our nice pins and headed off to get some lunch in the land. We headed back to the hotel as I wanted to do a bit of packing we were only taking 1 suitcase with us on the cruise and I wanted to leave the other one with my parents who were staying in Disney. We decided to spend a few hours around the pool relaxing. We had lovely weather throughout all of the holiday and I was really pleased as last time we came in December it was pretty chilly.
That evening my grandparents were taking me, gary and my parents for a meal in Epcot San Angel Inn in Mexico. We were given a lovely table right near the water! The food was excellent, and the atmosphere in the restaurant was great. I really enjoyed that meal. We headed back out to the world showcase to do a bit of shopping in Mousegear before Illuminations started. We headed over to Italy to watch the fireworks as its one of the best views ive found so far (except that wonderful place I had my dessert party lol) I knew someone else (from the dis weddings board) that was getting married today and having a dessert party there so I knew I wouldnt be able to sneak down. After Illuminations ended we strolled back to our hotels, I needed to finish packing before the cruise tomorrow and my grandparents were leaving for home tomorrow to so we all said goodbye and headed off to finish packing!