Our Christmas EXTRAVAGANZA! From Snow to Sun! *Updated 7/3

[WildernessExplorer04]

MORE DISNEY TIME

The title of this update is in all caps. Caps Lock means excitement. Why is there excitement in the air?

Because we have INCREASED THE TIME WE WILL BE SPENDING IN DISNEY! YAYYYYY!

Originally, we had planned to fly down December 26th and stay through January 4th. But a few days ago, Disney announced free dining for Disney Visa card holders. We're Disney Visa card holders so we were all like WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
But then we realized it ended on December 23rd and we were all like, "This is NOT okay."
And THEN we learned that if you start your vacation on a day that includes the free dining, you get free dining throughout your whole vacation even if the rest of the trip isn't during the free dining period.

Can y'all see where this is going?

I bet you can.

Because my mom is fabulous and wonderful and Disney-obsessed, she EXTENDED OUR VACATION!

Now, we are leaving December 22nd and staying until January 3rd. That is 12 WHOLE NIGHTS AND 13 WHOLE DAYS IN DISNEY WORLD. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. SO THIS IS CRAZY EXCITING. SO MUCH DISNEY.

Instead of getting a lovely ten days in Disney, we now have 13 days! A WHOLE THREE MORE DAYS TO FEEL THAT MAGIC.

Because our trip starts during the free dining period, we will have access to free dining throughout the whole trip with the Disney Dining Plan. I'M SO EXCITED TO EAT. Because that's basically what the majority of my life consists of. Oops.

That's all the exciting Disney news I have for you now, hopefully there will be more soon! We still have a while to go before we can start making dining reservations and an even longer time until we can make our FP+ reservations, so thank you to anyone who has been reading this and hanging in there even when there's not much to update on. I appreciate you so much!

231 days left!​

 

[khertz]

More disney time is always ALWAYS a good thing!! How exciting!

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Ahhhh yay!!! I'm so excited! Christmas in Disney!!!!

 

[MarbleBob]

13 whole days in Disney with one of them being Christmas? That sounds awesome!!! I wonder if Santa brings special gifts to people staying at WDW?

 

[WildernessExplorer04]

More disney time is always ALWAYS a good thing!! How exciting!

Yes it is! I can't wait! Too bad it's not for another seven months, though.

Ahhhh yay!!! I'm so excited! Christmas in Disney!!!!

I know! AHHHHHHHH! It's so hard to contain my excitement!

13 whole days in Disney with one of them being Christmas? That sounds awesome!!! I wonder if Santa brings special gifts to people staying at WDW?

It does sound awesome! I'm super excited to see what that's like! I'm predicting uncontrollable crowds, but I'm sure we'll be fine. My mom has been looking up tips on how to navigate through the parks during Christmas week, so hopefully we'll be pros on how to handle the plethora of people by the time we're there!

Hmmm...I'm not sure. It'd be something special if he did!

 

[Villainess]

Hi! Joining in!

for free dining for your entire stay AND adding another 3 days to the trip to boot!

I've been there for Xmas week 3 times; go early and hit and the headlines, utlizing FP+ to help with that as well. It is crowded, but it is an extra magical time to be at Disney!

Can't wait to read more!

 

[WildernessExplorer04]

Hi! Joining in!

for free dining for your entire stay AND adding another 3 days to the trip to boot!

I've been there for Xmas week 3 times; go early and hit and the headlines, utlizing FP+ to help with that as well. It is crowded, but it is an extra magical time to be at Disney!

Can't wait to read more!

Welcome!

It's pretty awesome, I'm so excited!

Three times, oh my goodness! We do plan on being early risers this trip! We also have some non-park days built in to give us time to rest up from everything that we'll be doing. And my mom is in full planning mode and trying to figure out what combinations of attractions are best with the FP+ system, haha. I'm really excited to be there during Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year! If you have any more tips, please feel free to let me know! Thank you so much!

 

[WildernessExplorer04]

We can fly, we can fly, we can fly!

Yes. We can fly. As in, we can officially fly to Disney because my mother just recently booked our flight! WOOHOO! Even though we still have over 200 days until our trip, this is still so exciting! We're flying Southwest at...

...wait for it...


6:45 AM

(image from http://www.fastcompany.com/)

So that means we'll need to be at the airport no later than 5:30 to make sure we can get through security, get our luggage checked, and find our terminal on time. Which means we'll have to leave our house around 4:30. And that means I will probably need to wake up no later than 3:00. That part is NOT exciting. I mean, I'm on board for the fact that we'll be getting to Disney pretty early (around 10:30 because of the time zone change), which means we'll have more time to spend there (YAY!), but the fact that I need to get up that early is very daunting. Fact about me: I'm not very good at waking up early. I usually have to have two alarms set and when that doesn't work, my parents have to get my unwilling person out of bed. It's a team effort.

SO.

I'm planning on sleeping all through the majority of the day before we leave. The Saturday before we head down to the Happiest Place on Earth, we're probably having a pre-Christmas get together with my extended family, seeing as we won't be anywhere near town for actual Christmas. Then on Sunday (the Day of Sleep), I'll wake up in the morning, get all my stuff together and pack, eat lunch, and go to sleep around 4:00 or 5:00 pm. Then 3:00 am on Monday will come and I will be all rested and ready to go! YAY DISNEY! I'll finish any last-minute packing preparations and make myself presentable while the rest of my family does the same, and then we'll drive to the airport, board that plane, and we will officially be DISNEYBOUND!

But what will we do once we do get to Disney World? Good thing I have the answer to that question! My mom and I have been planning and we came up with a pretty solid plan for our first few days. December and especially January hours have not been officially released, but my mom found a travel website that states tentative hours for December. We finally had something to work with, and with less than 40 days before we're able to make our ADRs, we decided to start planning something.

As of now, here is our plan for our first day there:

• Arrive around 10:30 am, take the Magical Express to Coronado Springs, check in.

• Eat lunch at Pepper Market.

• Freshen up and head to one of the Magic Kingdom resorts to explore.

• Look at all of the Magic Kingdom area resorts, ending with the Grand Floridian.

• Have dinner at 1900 Park Fare.

• Explore the rest of the Grand and head back to Coronado whenever we feel like it.

This is definitely subject to change, but dinner at 1900 Park Fare is absolutely going to happen, we've decided. Since we have to wake up so early for our flight, we made our first day a relaxing, non-park day in order to be ready for the crazy Christmas crowds throughout the week.

As for our second day (December 23rd), here are our current plans:

MAGIC KINGDOM

• FP+ for

• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

• Splash Mountain

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

We'll get counter service for lunch (probably at Pinocchios) and try to get a Be Our Guest ADR for dinner!


Our third day plans (December 24th):

EPCOT

• FP+ for

• Test Track

• Mission: Space

• Spaceship Earth

Okay, let me just say now that I REALLY despise the whole FP+ system. I hate the fact that you can only start out with three FP (I know that they've revised it so that you can get more FP once you use the first three up, but you have to stand in the kiosk line for those, and I'm thinking that will take up valuable park time).

I digress.

Anyway, we'll get there a bit before park opening and participate in the mad dash to Soarin' so we can ride that first thing without a FP. Then we'll probably have breakfast in the Land Pavilion and ride Living with the Land and all that good stuff.

ALSO. This might be the day that we're going to take the Behind the Seeds tour. We've never done a tour before EVER so any information or advice at all from you guys would be more than great!

Then we'll explore more of Future World and head into World Showcase after that, probably starting with Mexico. We'll have counter service lunch somewhere along the way and then have dinner at Les Chefs de France! This restaurant was specifically requested by my father. We've eaten there once before, three years ago, and we all LOVED it. So he decided we should go back!

Hopefully we'll finish our dinner before IllumiNations starts and we can FINALLY watch it from the bridge between France and the UK. I really wanted to do that last year, but our Le Cellier dinner ended literally five minutes before IllumiNations started, so we just watched from Canada. Unfortunately, there was a large rock obscuring our view, like this:

But the show was still spectacular, as per usual, so we dealt.

This next time, however, I am determined to watch it from that famous bridge because I've read more than one trip report where people claim it's the best viewing spot.

But we also have an alternative plan for this day.

If we can get a reservation, we will be viewing the Candlelight Processional this night. I am beyond excited for this. It will be the first time I've ever seen this in my life and from the pictures I've seen, it. is. gorgeous. So yeah, that could happen. And it's even better, because IT WILL BE CHRISTMAS EVE. But we figured that also means it will be crazy crowded, so we'll just see what happens.

OKAY. Onto our fourth day plans. Our Christmas Day plans!

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS (I know, a weird Christmas Day Park, but we figured most people will be at MK, so the crowds will be slightly lighter here and HELLO OSBOURNE FAMILY SPECTACLE OF LIGHTS.)

• FP+ for

• Toy Story Mania

• Tower of Terror

• Star Tours

We'll arrive before park opening (hopefully we won't be too tired) and my mother and I will RUN NOT WALK to Rock 'n' Roller Coaster so we can ride it without a FP (since this and TSM are both in the tier one category, grrr). We will frolic with Aerosmith and it will be glorious, while my father and brother go do their own thang because they're wimps and don't want to ride this.

Then we'll meet up and become a family of four once again and have beautiful cupcakes for breakfast at Starring Rolls because when you are at Hollywood Studios there is no other acceptable form of breakfast. Or maybe that's just me.

Then we'll ride things and use our FPs and have a counter service lunch somewhere.

This night, Fantasmic is showing at 6:30 and 8:00, so we can either watch the 6:30 show and then have dinner at Yachtsman Steakhouse afterwards, or first eat dinner and then come back to see the 8:00 showing. Or we can just watch the 8:00 show and then go have dinner, but then dinner will last 'til like 11:00 and we're not sure if we're up for that. So we have a few different options, we're just not sure which one we're going to do, so if y'all have any input, I'd be more than glad to hear it!

But really, I just can't get over the fact that we'll be eating our Christmas dinner at FREAKING YACHTSMAN STEAKHOUSE. It will be grand. Oh so grand. This is a major Christmas win.

We don't have anything very specific set for the following days yet, but we're thinking we'll do Animal Kingdom the next day with dinner at Hoop Dee Doo Revue (which is the restaurant I'm most excited about!)

So after about a month without any updates, here's a ginormous one for y'all. If you have any input at all on our plans for these days, please don't be afraid to share it, because we are Disney-during-Christmas newbies and need all the help we can get!

Also, happy Memorial Day to everyone! I hope you're all having a wonderful time on this special day.

210 days to go! (a.k.a. 30 days until we can make our ADRs!)​

​

 

[IheartDDuck]

Okay, so I follow you on Instagram and I had no idea you were on the DISboards! So I'm here now.

We're going to be there from December 31 until January 4th. Not as long as you, but I'll take it!

Can't wait to hear more about your plans.

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Yayyy!!! Can't wait for more updates!! I'm like, super excited for your trip to happen and love your updates!

 

[Villainess]

WOW! What an update! Isn't it great to start planning your days out?

I'm not sure what I think of the FP+ system to be honest. I just made our FP ressies last night, well at midnight this morning and I felt like I was just aimlessly picking on some days - with AP's we usually go to one park in the morning and another - where our dinner ADR is at night. So how do I know where we will be in the morning when we do QS? Sometimes we play the "get on the first bus that comes game" Hopefully, they will improve a few things about it and maybe once there and see it in action, will become a convert!

Oh HDDR - love that show! It is so much fun!!! I've never had the opportunity to eat at Yachtsman Steakhouse and on Christmas Day too - lucky girl!

Probably a smart decision to go to DHS on Christmas. We would stay away from MK on New Year's Eve too. The fireworks on 12/30 was the same show as NYE so we would go to MK then to see it. On NYE we would arrive early at Epcot and then leave around 2:30 or so, and go to DHS for the NYE celebration.

 

[WildernessExplorer04]

Okay, so I follow you on Instagram and I had no idea you were on the DISboards! So I'm here now.

We're going to be there from December 31 until January 4th. Not as long as you, but I'll take it!

Can't wait to hear more about your plans.

Awesome, thanks for joining in!

How exciting! Any amount of time spent in Disney is sure to be fabulous. Maybe we'll run into each other!

Yayyy!!! Can't wait for more updates!! I'm like, super excited for your trip to happen and love your updates!

Thank you so much! Hopefully Disney will post their park hours soon so we can plan some more and then I'll have more updates for you guys! Plus, we only have 27 days until our 180 day mark for ADRs, so we still need to figure out where we're eating and we can't do that without the hours because we don't know which park we'll be at! AHHHH! It's a bit stressful.

WOW! What an update! Isn't it great to start planning your days out?

I'm not sure what I think of the FP+ system to be honest. I just made our FP ressies last night, well at midnight this morning and I felt like I was just aimlessly picking on some days - with AP's we usually go to one park in the morning and another - where our dinner ADR is at night. So how do I know where we will be in the morning when we do QS? Sometimes we play the "get on the first bus that comes game" Hopefully, they will improve a few things about it and maybe once there and see it in action, will become a convert!

Oh HDDR - love that show! It is so much fun!!! I've never had the opportunity to eat at Yachtsman Steakhouse and on Christmas Day too - lucky girl!

Probably a smart decision to go to DHS on Christmas. We would stay away from MK on New Year's Eve too. The fireworks on 12/30 was the same show as NYE so we would go to MK then to see it. On NYE we would arrive early at Epcot and then leave around 2:30 or so, and go to DHS for the NYE celebration.

Yes, I totally understand your FP+ dilemma. Especially with park hoppers, you can just go anywhere at any time and aren't restricted to one park, so you don't know where you'll be. I do hope they improve it, or at least make it possible to get additional FPs from a smartphone so we don't have to wait in the kiosk line.

I love your "get on the first bus that comes game" idea! I might have to try that out, it sounds like it would be so fun because of the unpredictability!

Yeah, we're planning on seeing MK's New Years fireworks on the 30th and then we'll probably see EPCOT's fireworks on the 31st, even it will probably be pretty crowded. My parents say that their willing to deal with it though! What do they have at DHS for New Years Eve?

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Joining in. Enjoying reading about your plans.

 

[WildernessExplorer04]

Joining in. Enjoying reading about your plans.

So glad to have you here! Thank you!

 

[khertz]

Your plans are looking great so far! I hope you are able to get all the ADRs and FP+ reservations you want. I sincerely hope that by the time you go, they have made it possible to book your additional FP+ on the app instead of having to stand in line at a kiosk. It was ridiculous enough in May, I can only imagine how crazy those lines will be Christmas week. Totally absurd that people are expected to wait in long lines at a kiosk to avoid a long line at an attraction!

 

[WildernessExplorer04]

Your plans are looking great so far! I hope you are able to get all the ADRs and FP+ reservations you want. I sincerely hope that by the time you go, they have made it possible to book your additional FP+ on the app instead of having to stand in line at a kiosk. It was ridiculous enough in May, I can only imagine how crazy those lines will be Christmas week. Totally absurd that people are expected to wait in long lines at a kiosk to avoid a long line at an attraction!

Thank you! We were actually able to get all of our ADRs booked 8 days ago at our 180 day mark so hooray for that! I'll have an update coming soon with every ADR we made.

Thank you so much, I really hope we'll be able to book additional FPs through our phones instead of standing in that awful line. Ahhh, I don't even want to think about how long the line will be!

It is totally crazy! I think I'd rather just wait for the attraction, at least the queue is themed and gives you something to look at.

 

[WildernessExplorer04]

"If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff."

These wise words come from Ratatouille's own Chef Remy and couldn't be more accurate for this update, because we're talkin' ADRs!

I already talked about our plans, including ADRs, for our first few days, but we did end up switching a few things around and now I can tell y'all EVERYWHERE we'll be eating at because 8 days ago on our 180-day mark, we made our ADRs! Woohoo! My mother and I got up incredibly early in order to make our reservations right away at 5:00 am and we were able to get EVERYTHING that we wanted! So, without further ado, here are the places we picked! (Most pictures are not mine, and where they come from is stated).

Day 1, December 22nd:

Dinner reservations at 1900 Park Fare.

Photo from http://blog.touringplans.com

Day 2, December 23rd:

We actually didn't make reservations for this day, but we're going to try for a FP at Be Our Guest for lunch.

Photo from my camera

Day 3, December 24th:

As of now, we have a dinner reservation at Rose & Crown with the Candlelight Processional package. Originally, we thought that we wouldn't even be able to book the Candlelight Processional this early, because my mom had read multiple places that this isn't available until much later, but when were booking ADRs, it came up as a choice! And we were like, WHAT. But they were only giving us one restaurant choice at a time; first it was Restaurant Marrakesh, then it was Tepan Edo, etc. What we really wanted was a Les Chefs de France reservation but that wasn't coming up, so we just decided to book Rose & Crown right then, and we're planning on changing it to Les Chefs de France later on when the Candlelight Processional package is officially available.

Day 4, December 25th:

Dinner at Yachtsman Steakhouse.

Day 5, December 26th:

Lunch at Tusker House.

Photo from http://www.tripadvisor.com

Day 6, December 27th:

Dinner at California Grill.

Photo from http://www.disneyfoodblog.com

Day 7, December 28th:

Lunch at Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano.

Photo from my camera

Day 8, December 29th:

Dinner at Hoop Dee Doo Revue.

Photo from http://www.wdwinfo.com

Day 9, December 30th:

Dinner at Be Our Guest.
We're eating early this night in order to give ourselves enough time to eat before the New Years Eve fireworks.

Photo from my camera

Day 10, December 31st:

Late breakfast/brunch at Akershus.
Early dinner at Garden Grill.
Again, we're eating early to make sure we have enough time to eat and get ourselves over to World Showcase to find a spot for the New Years Eve fireworks.

Photo from http://www.tripadvisor.com

Day 11, January 1st:

Dinner at Sanaa.

Day 12, January 2nd:

No ADRs for this day. We'll probably be doing a lot of park hopping by now, so we'll just eat wherever we end up. Or we could use our tried and true method of getting a walk-up reservation at Yak and Yeti, since that's happened on our last three trips.

Photo from my camera

Day 13, January 3rd:

Breakfast reservation at Kona before we depart from the happiest place on earth.



And that's what we've got! I'm SUPER excited for all of these, as they're either new places we're going to try or old favorites and I've looked at some of the menus and everything looks DELICIOUS. I might have to do updates where I list off the menu items and try to decide what I want to eat!

Also, I apologize once again for not updating very much. Even though school's ended, I've started a job at a local restaurant as a hostess and I'm also participating in a summer theatre project, and I have tons of dance practices and performances going on, so I hardly have any time to myself. Now that I'm accustomed to having a job, though, I can handle more and it's getting easier to manage my time so hopefully I'll be writing more! There's still not much to write about, though, aside from these ADRs we just made, but maybe I'll post once a week about my "must-dos" for this trip or something like that!

So, until then, I wish you all a very happy Fourth of July and a lovely summer!

172 days!




​

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Yay! Those all sound good! We actually just decided we may be going over New Years!!! That is, if I can manage to save enough! I'm super excited though and just changed my ticker today...its going to come up so fast!

 

[WildernessExplorer04]

Yay! Those all sound good! We actually just decided we may be going over New Years!!! That is, if I can manage to save enough! I'm super excited though and just changed my ticker today...its going to come up so fast!

Really?! That's AWESOME! It definitely is going to come up fast! Maybe we'll run into each other!

 

[IZHAYMAMA]

Hi! I came across your PTR and am so excited for you and your family! Our family of 4 will be at CSR for Christmas, too! We aren't staying as long as your family but we are just happy to get to go to our favorite place during the most wonderful time of the year. I have some of the same concerns about the FP+ strategy as you do. I'm hoping that it will be fine and that we'll get adjusted to the new "normal" quickly. I have been planning our trip for a couple of months now and cannot wait for it to get here. Made our ADR's a couple of weeks ago and now have my list of FP+ ready to book when the time comes. Looking forward to reading more of your PTR!