Parks and Pop Century *And* A Park and Pop Century Christmas! *Plus* Downtown Disney

[Lady Lallie]

Awesome. I'll likely start getting some photos from our Christmas 1998 trip sometime after Thanksgiving. Until then, there's some old photos in my original Pre-Trip, but I'll try to get some "new" old photos posted here in the next week or so.

I just finished reading your PTR and your Pirate & Princess Party TR. Both were very good! I can't believe your P&PP TR, you had such great luck with rides and characters that night!

 

[meeko_33785]

Another trip!
Actually, I'm just incredibly jealous you're getting to go again so soon
Can't wait to hear all about it!
Di x

Glad you're looking forward to it.

I just finished reading your PTR and your Pirate & Princess Party TR. Both were very good! I can't believe your P&PP TR, you had such great luck with rides and characters that night!

Thanks. That P&PP trip has to be one of my favorites I've ever taken. The amount of characters and entertainment alone was phenominal and the rides were a fantastic bonus. Buzz and I were just reminising about the trip and were amazed at how many attractions we were able to do in such a short amount of time (Buzz more than I did, but I met a lot more characters than he did).


New update about next month's trip coming soon!

 

[meeko_33785]

Well, the four of us have all been together for Thanksgiving, so it’s been a good time to start planning for the trip (it’s so much easier than trying to plan long-distance). We’ve defiantly decided that Magic Kingdom will be our park for this “Park and Pop Century Christmas” since none of us have seen the Castle Dreamlights yet and all would like to. This will also give us a chance to be able to do some of the attractions that we missed over the summer.


Also in the plans is a mid-day break to check out the Christmas decorations at the Grand Floridian and have some lunch at the Grand Floridian Café. We’ve never eaten at that particular restaurant before so it should be interesting. We were looking at menus for a few restaurants along the monorail line and we picked this one because we were most interested in the Christmas decorations at Grand Floridian as opposed to the Contemporary and Polynesian. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve gone resort-hopping to check out decorations, so this should be fun. As far as dinner, we’ll most likely pick up something quick somewhere- most likely the food court at Pop.


We’re still deciding what attractions to make priorities to do this trip. Buzz and I defiantly want to try to do Big Thunder since we just never got a chance to ride it in August and Tom Sawyer’s Island since we haven’t visited it in at least 15 years. Buzz Lightyear is pretty much always a must-ride (especially with Buzz) so we’ll likely do it, and I’ll probably see if we can fit in a ride on Peter Pan since it’s my favorite in the park. We haven’t really figured out a plan of attack and this is all subject to change, so we’ll see if the day actually ends up looking anything like this.


More updates will be coming as the planning progresses. I’ll be scanning some photos from 1998 to post pretty soon in a Flashback mini trip report, so that should be starting in the next couple of days.

 

[meeko_33785]

When I was writing the pre-trip for the summer portion of this report, I included a mini-trip report of our family’s trip from 10 years ago. I figured I’d do the same for the Christmas portion of this report as well. Enjoy this brief look at our December 1998 trip.


Day One

Just as we did in the summer, we spent our Christmas trip staying at the still-new Coronado Springs resort. We arrived in the afternoon and after checking in and dropping off our bags in the hotel room, we head off to Downtown Disney West Side. When Buzz, Dad and I had all been to DisneyQuest in the summer, the ticketing was set up differently than it is now. Originally, each guest had a card with a certain number of points and you would swipe the card at each game or attraction you experience. At the end of our previous visit we had unused points left, so we figured we could spend some time at DisneyQuest and use the points we had left. To our surprise, it turns out that the ticketing had changed in the last few months to a one-price ticketing system. To our surprise, the CMs at DisneyQuest exchanged our remaining points for a full one-day admission. While Mom and Dad spent some time looking around the shops of West Side, Buzz and I tried a few favorites from the summer including Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride and some new experiences that we hadn’t gotten the chance to do over the summer including the Virtual Jungle Cruise and Animation Academy, where we drew Goofy:

Keep in mind that this drawing is 10-years old. Just to show that I have improved somewhat over the years, here’s the Pluto I drew last year at the Animation building at the Studios:

Not perfect, but at least it's better than Goofy.


After a while, we all met back up together for dinner at House of Blues, followed by checking out some of the shops at West Side and the Marketplace to finish out the evening.


Day Two

Our theme park day. For this trip, we had planned a first for us- park hopping between three theme parks in one day. The long say got an early start with an EMH morning at Magic Kingdom. When we got to the park, I noticed Scrooge McDuck doing meet-and-greets doing meet-and-greets near City Hall for the Holidays. This was the first trip in my “I’m-too-old-for-the-characters” phase so I passed on meeting him. Years later when I started meeting characters and getting photos and autographs I use to kick myself for not meeting him then since he’s so unusual to see in the parks. Thankfully, I finally got another chance a few years ago and did get to meet him and may get the chance to meet him again this next trip (I hear he’s been out again at MK lately).

First stop- Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. The attraction was brand new- open for only a few months at this point - and the word wasn’t out about it yet. There was no line whatsoever! We loved the ride so much that right after we got off, we went back and walked right back through the still-empty queue and rode it again. I can't remember ever seeing that short of a line for that ride since. The next ride of the morning was another first for us- Dumbo. Yes, even though we had been going to Magic Kingdom as a family for over a decade at this point, we had never rode those flying elephants! We were on our way across Fantasyland when we noticed a short line at Dumbo and decided to give it a try. I’ve got to admit, it is a fun little ride.

Continuing the flying theme, we headed to Peter Pan’s Flight before exploring Fantasyland for a bit before the rest of the park opened at 9am.

This was our first our first time finding Cinderella’s Wishing Well. I still remember being excited about making the discovery.


Once the park was open, we continued on to Liberty Square to do ride that Buzz and I had never ridden before- the Haunted Mansion. When we were kids we use to be too scared to even go near the Mansion and as we got older, we just never got around to doing it. By now, we decided to finally give it a try. I was so glad that we finally went on it. Afterwards, we headed over to the Frontierland to see the Country Bear Christmas Special. I’m still a little disappointed that this show isn’t still going on. I thought it was even better than the normal show.



Next chapter: Thee remainder of the trip one with visits to EPCOT and Disney-MGM Studios.

 

[Dr_Finkelstein]

Hi there,
Enjoying the updates and hearing about your old trip. I can't believe Buzz had no queue - you'd never see that now!
And I just realised - we still never saw Cinderella's wishing well!
Your plans so far sound good for Christmas, they had just started putting up the decorations - lovely!
Di x

 

[meeko_33785]

Hi there,
Enjoying the updates and hearing about your old trip. I can't believe Buzz had no queue - you'd never see that now!
And I just realised - we still never saw Cinderella's wishing well!
Your plans so far sound good for Christmas, they had just started putting up the decorations - lovely!
Di x

Hi! Yes, it's so hard to even imagine Buzz Lightyear without a line now, but it's true. Imagine our surprise the next trip we were there and the ride was anything but a walk-on!

Thanks for the imput about the plans. Looking forward to seeing the decorations again. I've seen a few pics here and there of this year's displays and they really do look lovely.

 

[meeko_33785]

Day Two (Continued)

After a couple of monorail rides we make it to the second park of the day- EPCOT.

I believe this was the last trip we took before the work started getting the wand and Leave A Legacy sculptures up around Spaceship Earth. Note the glass fountain near the center of the photo with the old EPCOT Center logo. Before heading to World Showcase we stopped and watched a group called Cast In Bronze performing some Christmas songs. It was basically a rock band with a carillon. For those of you who were like me ten years ago and have no idea what a carillon is, it’s basically a giant piano but instead of making music by striking strings it uses giant bronze bells. They were a cool group and Dad even ended up getting their Christmas album. They ended up appearing at EPCOT for a few years and were always fun to see during the Christmas season.

Off to World Showcase! The Lights of Winter aren’t as impressive when they’re not lit, but here they are anyway. After a quick friendship boat ride, we started out journey around World Showcase to Germany where I did a little souvenir shopping. There’s a shop there called Der Teddybar that sells mostly dolls and Steiff bears now, but back in the day they use to have a fantastic selection of Disney plastic figurines that were made in Germany. Over the years I must have collected at least half a dozen different figurines that they sold there. The best thing about this figures was that not only did they have all the ordinary characters, but that had a ton of characters that were more obscure and just couldn’t find anywhere else. On this particular trip, I got this guy:

Elliot from Pete’s Dragon. Sadly, the store hasn’t carried these figurines in years.


Continuing our trip around World Showcase, we stopped and checked out the decorations in all the countrie, listened to some of the Holiday storytellers like La Befana in Italy and the Canadian Santa Claus, and had got some lunch in the Yakatori House in Japan.

For some reason I didn’t get a whole lot of photos at World Showcase on this trip, but I found two that I had taken in the United Kingdom. Go figure.

The construction wall behind Mary Poppins and the penguins was set up due to the construction of Millennium Village (now World Showplace).


We continued around World Showcase seeing all the countries (and returning to Italy to get some dessert) before taking another Friendship boat ride out of World Showcase to head back to our next park of the day.


I don’t really remember if we walked to Disney-MGM Studios or if we took the bus, but I do remember that we were tired by the time we got there. (Sorry about the lack of any pics from the Studios; the camera I had at this time didn't take good pictures after the sun went down). This was our first trip since Fantasmic premiered at the park and when we heard that the amphitheater was already seating guests we headed straight there and got seats. We ended up, I believe in the center Mickey section near the top of the amphitheater. We rested our feet and waited for the show to start which, of course, was fantastic. We’d all seem footage of the Disneyland version on different Disney TV specials for years and it was so exciting to finally see it live.


After the show, we headed to the New York Street to see the Osborne Lights. Back then, it was still on the Residential Street on all the houses and as cool as it was there, it was defiantly a tighter fit to get a huge crowd through that little street causing a long slow line through the display that thankfully doesn’t exist at the Light’s current location. After a brief walk through the street where Mama Melrose and Pizza Planet are (which use to have a lot more Christmas décor all year round) we headed back to Coronado Springs to get some dinner at the Pepper Market.



Day Three

The last day of the trip was defiantly a lot more chill than the three-parks-in-one-day marathon of the day before. We got some breakfast (I think the Pepper Market but we may have just gotten something quick from the bakery), taking one more look around the gift shop and walked around the resort getting some pictures. I got one semi-good one out of the day (ah the joys of not having learned a lot of photography skills yet). By the time check-out, we were ready to head home.


Hope you’ve enjoyed this mini trip report. It was fun looking back at it. I really think this is one of my favorite holiday trips we’ve taken. Just wish I had taken more pictures. Hopefully this won’t be the case on our next trip. More than that trip to come.

 

[Laneychris]

Great report and pics!

 

[Dr_Finkelstein]

Enjoying the updates! CSR looks nice - next time we go we're thinking of trying another one of the moderates - have you stayed at CBR or POR, if so do you have any suggestions?

Di x

 

[Lady Lallie]

I love your Past Trip Report. It's so much fun to see some pictures of the parks from 10 years ago.

 

[meeko_33785]

Great report and pics!

Thanks. Glad you're enjoying them.

Enjoying the updates! CSR looks nice - next time we go we're thinking of trying another one of the moderates - have you stayed at CBR or POR, if so do you have any suggestions?

Di x

I've stayed at all three of those resorts and enjoyed them all. Out of the three, I'd say that overall I liked POR the best. Overall, everything was nice there. The only major downside that I find there is that it shares a bus with POFQ and they usually tend to fill up before getting to all of the stops at POR. CBR is a more sprawling resort which is nice but does mean more walking from some of the "villages" to the the main restaurants/ shopping/ pool/ etc. The upside is that I think the rooms are larger at CBR than the other moderates. Coronado is good. I'm not a big fan of the restaurants there, but everything else is great. I don't think you could go wrong with any of them though.

I love your Past Trip Report. It's so much fun to see some pictures of the parks from 10 years ago.

Thanks. It's fun looking back, isn't it? It's amazing how much can change there in just 10 years and how some things thankfully stay the same.

 

[meeko_33785]

The planning continues! As if you couldn’t tell by now, meeting the characters is defiantly one of my favorite parts of WDW. Usually before a trip, I like to find out what characters have been in the parks lately and get some idea if there any characters that I haven’t met and gotten pictures of appearing where we’ll be going. Unfortunately, it seems like the majority of the characters that have been appearing on a regular or even occasional basis are all characters I’ve already met and gotten autographs from. The only exceptions I can see are Tinker Bell and her fairy friends at Toontown. As cool as it would be to finally meet Tinker Bell since she's never done meet-and-greets before, I can’t see myself waiting 1-3 hours to see her and a couple of her friends whom I don't know since I have no experience with the "Disney Faries" line. Plus, since we’ll only be in the park for one day and 1-3 hours is a substantial chunk of the trip. Fortunatly, I've never been a real Tinker Bell fan so skipping her won't be really disapponting.


Since it doesn't seem likely that I'm going to run into any new characters to met this trip (although it's not unheard of; I've been surprised before), I thought that I'd focus on meeting characters that I haven’t met in a while instead, especially those who the last picture I have of them is about 5+ years ago. After a little research ron the DIS and some other sites, it looks like these are the characters I’ll likely be on the look-out for.

Pinocchio. I haven’t met Pinocchio since December 2003 and for some reason I always skip meeting him in the parks even though he always seems to be out. He has been appearing pretty regularly in Town Square lately.

Geppetto. This is pretty much the same story as Pinocchio. I haven’t met him since December 2003 and always seem to skip him. I don’t know if he is always out, but I know he’s been in Town Square with Pinocchio sometimes. Maybe I’ll luck out and be able to get a father-and-son portrait of them.

Daisy Duck. I haven’t met Daisy since December 2002 and actually keep meaning to get a new picture of her but just haven’t. For this trip, I think I’ll make Daisy a top priority to find. She’s supposedly in Town Square too which looks like it could be a busy spot for character meeting this trip.



I’m a little bummed that it doesn’t look like I’m going to find any new characters since that’s always fun, but I’m sure that I'll still come back with some fun character pics for all of you anyway. Hopefully it will be at least these three and then perhaps whoever else has the shortest lines.

 

[Lady Lallie]

I think it's amazing how many characters you have met on your trips. I really want to focus on the characters on our next trip and meet as many as possible. I really want to meet Mary Poppins in her nanny outfit instead of her Jolly Holiday outfit but I think I will have to wait until our December 2009 trip for any hope of that.

 

[meeko_33785]

I think it's amazing how many characters you have met on your trips. I really want to focus on the characters on our next trip and meet as many as possible. I really want to meet Mary Poppins in her nanny outfit instead of her Jolly Holiday outfit but I think I will have to wait until our December 2009 trip for any hope of that.

Thanks. Hope you have fantastic luck with characters on your next trip.

 

[meeko_33785]

Over the weekend, Buzz and I visited Busch Gardens in Tampa. For the last few years, we always try to get there around Christmastime to ride a few rides but mostly to see the Holiday decorations and entertainment. I know this doesn’t particularly have anything to do with our upcoming Disney trip, but I figured that people might enjoy a brief look at Busch Gardens at Christmas. If you really need an excuse, we can call it an “Off-Disney-property park day” for the trip.

When we arrive at the park, we’re greeted by a pair of Christmas elves. Yes, even at parks that aren’t Disney, I still get character pictures. I’d never seen these characters out before, so I figure they’re new for this Holiday season. A little strange, but I give them points for creativity.

The main Busch Gardens Christmas tree, located right outside the main entrance.

A closer look at some of its ornaments.

The first ride of the day is one of my favorites in the park- Montu. There’s defiantly nothing quite like this at Disney.

Another Holiday decoration- a zebra all decked out for Christmas.

On to my new favorite area of the park- Jungala. They just opened the new tiger habitat this year and it’s really fantastic. It’s not quite as elaborate looking as Maharajah over at Animal Kingdom, but I think it has more windows and areas to watch the tigers. It’s defiantly my favorite animal exhibit in the park, if not my absolute favorite thing in the whole park.

Jungala also seems to be a great place to find characters in the park too. Here’s Hilda the hippo and TJ the tiger all decked out in their Christmas finery.

Next stop- Christmas On Ice. I believe that this is the second year that Busch Gardens has put on this show and I think it was even better this year than last year. This year’s lineup included some gold medalists who were absolutely fantastic. They pulled off some amazing stunts.

Penguin characters and skating elves.

Excuse the green glow in this picture. It’s the theater’s lighting.

The next major attraction of the day was another of my favorite attractions- the Gwazi wooden roller coaster. I never can seem to decide if I like Gwazi or Montu better. Both are fantastic rides.

Yet another holiday decoration.


Next, we hit a few of the animal exhibits in the park. First was Myombe Reserve, home to the chimpanzees and gorillas. The gorillas weren’t out and some keepers were putting food and such around their habitat, but we did watch the chimps for a little while.

Edge of Africa was the next stop. Plenty of animals here- lemurs, hippos, lions, etc. The highlight for this visit was, I think, the meerkats. There were just a ton of them! Usually, there’s just one or two keeping watch, but today they were just all out together.

Jambo Junction is another animal attraction in the park. It’s pretty much Busch Gardens’ answer to Rafiki’s Planet Watch, but has more animals to see and less interactive activities which is fine by me. The flamingos are one of my favorites here. I always get a kick out of seeing the real flamingos in this pond next to the plastic lawn flamingos.


By this time we were ready to end our day at the park and headed back towards the park entrance.

One last shot of the tree- probably my favorite photo of the day.


More on our Disney trip soon.

 

[Lady Lallie]

Great photos! I didn't realize Busch Gardens went all out for the Holidays too.

 

[meeko_33785]

Great photos! I didn't realize Busch Gardens went all out for the Holidays too.

Thanks. Yes, Busch really does go all out for the Holidays. Pretty much every park in Central Florida does, but for some reason they don't promote their Christmas events and decorations as much as Disney, Universal and Sea World does.

 

[meeko_33785]

The trip is getting closer and closer. We’re in single digits now! We’ve got a pretty loose itinerary by now, so I thought I’d share a few of the attractions we wanted to make a priority to do.

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad- since we missed it last time
• Pirates of the Caribbean- since Mom, Dad and I have only done it once since they added Jack Sparrow
• Tom Sawyer’s Island- since we haven’t been there in years
• Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin- since we pretty much always have to do it
• Country Bear Jamboree- I’m not sure why; Buzz just suggested he wanted to do it
• Peter Pan’s Flight- as long as we can Fastpass it or get a short line
• Cinderella’s Holiday Wish Show/ Castle Lighting- Haven’t been to MK since they added this and we defiantly want to see it.

Hopefully we’ll be able to do more than this, but these are the ones we want to make sure we don’t miss.

 

[meeko_33785]

As we’re getting closer, here are a few photos from past Decembers of two of the places we’ll be visiting- Magic Kingdom and the Grand Floridian. I have a few pics of Pop Century's Christmas decorations too, but I won't post theme here since I posted them in the pre-trip before the Augist trip. You can take a look at them here if you like though.

The tree in Town Square just after being lit.

Toy Soldiers under the tree.

The dancers and the trolley from the Trolley Parade are all dressed up for the season.

Have I mentioned yet how much I miss the Country Bear Christmas Special? I think I have.

Uncle Scrooge! I may try to get another picture of him this trip if I can manage it.

The tree at Grand Floridian- possibly the most elegant looking one on property.

The giant gingerbread house.

 

[Dr_Finkelstein]

Hi Meeko,

Enjoying all the updates! I love all the decorations Disney do, they're all spectacular!
Busch Gardens looks really good, we've never been before. I liked the look of the ice show.

Di x