Quick Family Christmas Trip 12/20/16 - 12/24/16

[avincent]

We decided to do a smaller trip this year closer to Christmas than we had ever done before. We have been 12-15 -12-20 usually around Christmas time and last year a Spring Break Trip mid March and one year a Halloween week trip. I can say that the parks were a lot busier than we have seen in the past, on those dates but not unbearable. We stayed at the All Star Sports Resort and it was me, hubby and our 3 boys 13, 9, 7. While the parks were busier I found the resort to be significantly quieter! It was so nice and calm maybe because we had always been there when it seemed to have big groups before and it was mostly families this time not sure but very nice and honestly GREAT bus service. Never waited for a bus longer than a few minutes even at MK late night and Disney Springs.

Day One
We arrived 12/20 in afternoon and did diner at Chef Mickeys due to my 7 year olds begging! Lol I wish I loved this restaurant more but the food is just eh IMO and the wait is always longer than anywhere else but honestly the characters were GREAT! A lot of personality and some funny moments to start the trip off. Since we did not have park tickets we went to watch Wishes off the 4th floor observation deck at the Contemporary and it was very nice. Personally I think nothing beats watching Wishes from right in front of the castle on Main Street but this year we did different things and we were able to experience different perspectives and all were nice. They pipe in the music on the deck and you have the added bonus of the monorail adding to the atmosphere it was magical in it own way, it was different,and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an alternative to viewing without park tickets. We hopped on the monorail and went to check out the Christmas decorations at the Grand Floridian which is beautiful at Christmas. We thought we would let the crowds for the busses die down and we hit the MK bus stops at around 11:00 to a big line and waited about 10 minutes for 2 buses to come and for us to get a seat! Always a bonus!! Lol Turns out this was the longest wait for a bus our whole trip. Be back with day 2

 

[avincent]

Day 2
We only had 2 day park hopper tickets in this trip so the plan was to "cram cram cram" as much fun as we could in 2 days. The week before we left I saw on the DIS boards that they had a new Express Transportation you could buy for your park hopping. I went the night before to the desk at the Contemporary to add this and they said they would be happy to add this but since I only wanted it for 1 day (we had a dinner reservation for Ohana on Friday and I did not think it would be worth it on that day.. Boy was I wrong but atlas another days memos!!) that it would have to be added the day of because it expired! So day 2 we are in the lobby at 8:20 to start the day at AK with hopes of making it to HS and MK that day when I remembered I needed to add that to our tickets for the day. After waiting in line for the concierge for 40 minutes I was told by her" I have no idea what you are talking about! Never heard of it" needless to say I was not happy but I can honestly say Disney has never let me down without making up for it. After going back to the office and talking to the supervisor and coming out 10 minutes later to tell me I had to get them to add that at the parks but that she would make up for with fast passes to all 3 parks I was on my way to AK where I walked straight up to guest services with no line and she added the express transportation with no problems! (Why did I not think to go there first? Why could they add the service at the Contemporary but not the All Stars? These are questions I will never know the answer to but the fast passes were blessings)

We walked into the AK around 940 and boy was it busy..people everywhere and the weather was wet and cold. We headed off to it tough to be a bug which we had no wait for and then off to Dinosaur. Normally we do Dinosaur first with no fast passes and maybe wait 5 to 10 minutes, it was a 50 minute wait but we used one of our fast passes. We would have not had fast passes for AK if I had not had to wait at our resort because our 3 fast passes were for HS. This is when I first noticed the extra fast passes were going to bless our day. we were able to hit all the hi lights of AK including riding EE twice, eat lunch, and watch the Lion King show and catch the Express Transportation bus located at the Safari entrance all by 2:30. I LOVED the Express Transportation. It makes park hopping bearable to me and th best spent money of the trip.

Next up HS