Report from the UK on our Christmas trip to Orlando

[Kampta80]

I used this forum MANY MANY times leading up to our December 2013 trip and various members gave me advice, so I thought it only fair to report back on our experience.

We also did things quite differently to many people who write reports on here, so this gives an alternative perspective I suppose.

We are from the UK and stayed in the Lake Buena Vista area (off-site) in a wonderful hotel/apartment from 7th -26th December. 2 adults and DD (4) and DD (5).

We had an absolutely fabulous trip and experienced extremely short queues on most occasions in the parks. We only used a couple of Fast Passes (obviously not Fastpass+ as staying off site, but this was not a problem at all).

We are also not rope drop people, so made mostly late starts which worked perfectly for us as we couldn't expect our children to last till the late shows, etc if we had got there at the crack of dawn.

So a bit more detail (I'll try to keep this short!)...

Saturday 7th December - Sunday 8th December
Complete nightmare journey from the UK to Orlando due to an issue with air traffic control in the UK. After an epic 41 hour journey (which should have taken about 11 hours) we arrived in MCO (airport) via Washington DC Dulles Airport and Chicago Airport (don't ask why or how - it was a complete nightmare especially with 2 children plus we had no luggage from the time we left the UK until we eventually arrived in Orlando).

Anyway, we were relieved and happy to have finally got there. It set our detailed and tight schedule back a bit and caused 4 very sleep deprived people, but we were determined to not let it spoil our trip and we did our best to get over it as quick as we could and back on schedule!

Monday 9th December
Bit of clothes shopping and then Universal Islands of Adventure followed by our ADR in Pastamore in Universal Citywalk.

Enjoyed the park and it was great that our youngest had Just reached the 40" mark, so could enjoy many more rides than last time we were there in 2011. The funniest part of the trip was when the children got their faces painted and we realised that while DD (4) was getting hers done, she fell fast asleep and was snoring while the lady continued painting!!

Did Spiderman with DD (5), Bilge Rat Barges, Pteranodon Flyers, Flight of the Hippogriff, etc.

Tuesday 10th December
Went swimming at our hotel and then made our way to the Magic Kingdom for MVMCP.

Wonderful short queues. The kids loved the dance party with Woody and Jessie. Loved the Christmas parade (which we sat down for in Liberty Square just 20 mins before the start and still got front row) - especially liked the toy soldiers. Then walked down Main Street to the Christmas Tree to watch Holiday Wishes which was also great - but the kids were VERY tired by this point so we were well placed for a quick exit out of the park at the end of the show.

Wednesday 11th December
Rest day/shopping

Thursday 12th December
Went to Epcot. Did Future World but not the World Showcase as we knew we were going back there again later in the trip.

Did Test Track, Sourin', Nemo, Journey into Imagination, etc. We got a Fastpass for Sourin', but didn't use it in the end as the standby queue was only 60 mins and we knew that was relatively short for that ride and we were in no rush, so just queued for it. Enjoyed Test Track, but not the new lead up to it where you design your own car. Preferred the old version of that one.

Friday 13th December
2nd visit to the Magic Kingdom for this trip.

Had lunch at BOG. Very short queue to get in for lunch and we enjoyed the food and the surroundings. Ate in the main ballroom but had a quick look around the other rooms too.

As it was a MVMCP night, the crowds were low all day, so we took advantage of the VERY short queues and did as many rides as we could such as It's a Small World and Jungle Cruise, etc.

Really lucky with the Celebrate a Dream Come True parade as we literally arrived in the right spot at the right time just as it was passing and we again got front row

Saturday 14th December
Rest day/shopping

Sunday 15th December
LEGOLAND - Really quiet in the park as there had been rain that morning, but the glorious sun came out for us, so we had a quiet and sunny day

Drove to LEGOLAND and had a great day there. Really good for the younger kids and some good rides for the grownups too (like Project X)! Kids enjoyed the Driving School and was nice to look around the 'mini village'.

Drive from LEGOLAND to a hotel in Tampa, ready for our day in.......

Monday 16th December
Busch Gardens

Did the water flume and couple of other rides. Looked at the animals. Did the cable car, etc etc.

Then drove back to Orlando...

Tuesday 17th December
Rest day/shopping

Wednesday 18th December
Had to reschedule today as our DD (4) became unwell and had severe earache (plus we'd been up with her all night the night before) so we all had to have a chilled day at the hotel.

Thursday 19th December
Hollywood Studios (back to schedule!)

Wonderful day. Did Toy Story Midway Mania (queued for an hour, but was fun as we were chatting to some people), went to Mama Melrose for lunch as part of the Fantasmic! package and at the end some people gave us some Fastpasses they were not going to make use of for Toy Story Mania, so were able to do that one again (and we all beat our last score)!! Great fun.

Bought some souvenirs for the kids in the Streets of America.

Watched Fantasmic! We were picked as the family to stand at the front and answer Disney questions as part of the pre-show warm up. Embarrassing, but hilarious! Loved Fantasmic! First time we saw it, but we should have realised not to sit so near to the front. We did get wet. Not splashed as such, but a wet mist.

Then straight to the Osborne family Christmas Lights. Wow wow wow is all I can say!! Really is amazing and you have to see it to believe it. No photos/you tube videos can do it justice.

Friday 20th December
3rd and final trip to the Magic Kingdom.

Great start. The street party (not sure what they call it) started soon after we arrived in the park and this was possibly as good as watching a parade as all the characters were out of their floats and interacting/dancing with the crowds. Really fund and we all had a good boogie!

Caught a show in front of the castle (not sure what they are called) which was lovely.

Watched the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor show which was fun. Few more rides and then off to Downtown Disney. Had a look around and looked inside the Rainforest Café and T-Rex restaurants. Looks great and the theming amazing.

Saturday 21st December
Animal Kingdom

Have never been to this park before and really enjoyed it and found it a very different experience to the other Disney parks.

They were doing a trial for Fastpass for everyone so we went straight to a special booth when we entered where there were CMs with ipads who advised us on the best 3 fastpasses to book for that day.

We did (with Fastpasses) Festival of the Lion King, Kilimanjaro Safaris and Expedition Everest.

Festival of the Lion King - We really enjoyed this and our DD (5) was picked to participate at the end of the show which she and we loved Great show.

Kilimanjaro Safaris was really good and I thought it was quite realistic (in a Disney way). Great view of the animals and interesting.

Expedition Everest - wow!! I am not really a roller coaster lover and I took some persuading to go on, but it really was great!! My DD (5) loved it too.

Did some other bits and pieces and looked around.

Sunday 22nd December
SeaWorld

Watched the Shamu Show - got soaked!! Touched the Ray Fish. Wanted to go on the new Antartica ride, but queue too long (was getting a bit close to Christmas now). Saw the Dolphin Show. Looked around, etc.

Crowds busy but not too bad for a Sunday just before Christmas.

Monday 23rd December
Universal Studios

Did the Simpsons ride and saw the Macy's parade and Woody Woodpecker's coaster.

Tuesday 24th December (Christmas Eve)
Epcot

Had a good look around the World Showcase in more details than we have done before and really enjoyed it. Watched the Canada show and met the French father Christmas and Princess Aurora.

Went to the Biergarten Restaurant for lunch in 'Germany' as part of the Candlelight Processional. Lunch was really good and loved the love band and chatting to people on our shared table. Food was much better than what I had expected. The kids had a dance and we stayed for a couple of hours.

Carried on looking around the countries and then went to the Candlelight Processional. I loved it. DD (5) found it ok but a bit boring and DD (4) fell asleep in my arms. My DH hated it!! I'd do it again definitely - I thought it was great.

Wednesday 25th December (Christmas Day)
Spend the day at the Gaylord Palms hotel/convention centre. Had lunch in Villa de Flora which was expensive but VERY good and varied and good quality. Gaylord Palms is a wonderful vast place to look around.

Then did the ICE exhibition at the Gaylord Palms (that felt more like home)!! The displays were good and it was fun to look around. I expected to to be really busy but it wasn't and we were able to take our time and take loads of pictures. The slides were fun but not slippery so everyone had to sort of edge themselves down it.

Overall a lovely way to spend Christmas Day and the last day of our trip.

Thursday 26th December
Finished packing and headed for the airport to come back to the UK (the homeward journey was much less eventful thank goodness)!

Conclusion of our Christmas trip:-
Perfect weather (we had warm blue skys the whole time and only a morning of showers in the whole 3 weeks).

Short queues in the parks (if you plan well).

Still don't think it is worth paying to stay on site and still don't think it necessary to arrive at rope drop.

We also this time pre-purchased the Photopass disc/download. We had 128 photos taken most of which are great and I think it was WELL WELL worth doing this rather than agonising over the pictures at the end of the holiday and trying to decide which few to print (as they are so expensive singularly).

Fabulous, wonderful, amazing holiday with so many happy and great memories (and 1000+ photos for me to sort through)!!!!....

 

[janeyb]

Great trip report, looks like you had a great time.

We too arrived home yesterday after arriving on December 10th. We also had lunch at Gaylord palms, so probably passed one another at the buffet! Before heading to ICE at 4pm!

I'm sorry to hear about your nightmare journey. Unless you have experienced this with young children the. You have no idea how hard and stressful this is. We had the same when we returned in June. We arrived at Tampa, having done online check-in just a few hours before, to be handed a letter to say our

 

[Kampta80]

Great trip report, looks like you had a great time.

We too arrived home yesterday after arriving on December 10th. We also had lunch at Gaylord palms, so probably passed one another at the buffet! Before heading to ICE at 4pm!

I'm sorry to hear about your nightmare journey. Unless you have experienced this with young children the. You have no idea how hard and stressful this is. We had the same when we returned in June. We arrived at Tampa, having done online check-in just a few hours before, to be handed a letter to say our

Looks like your message got cut off before you had finished writing it.

How funny - what a coincidence!! We had lunch at 2:30pm and then ICE at 5pm. We definitely must have walked passed each other. I definitely heard a lot of English accents!

Sounds like you had a real nightmare too previously. What I wrote was only the half of it. We got put on standby for about 5 flights and kept being turned away. Anyway - all forgotten now (well almost)!! The Disney magic did help to erase it.

Would love to hear more about your trip...

 

[janeyb]

Sorry that's stead a little prematurely!

....to be handed a letter to say our flight was cancelled. No apology, just handed the letter. It wouldn't have been 'as' bad if my DD2 didn't have a birthday, along with party booked for the following day, or our DD3 (age 7 months) having special dietary needs and prescription formula which we had taken from the UKa nod only enough left for next 24 hours. We had allowed for more, however she needed way more than we had thought she would drink, due to heat, during the 17 nights we had planned to be there.

We were told they would 'try' and get us home (via 2 other states), over the next 2/3 days and given a one way cab fare to the nearest hospital, after my husband demanded it, and nearly got thrown out of the airport in the meantime, after the check in guy physically threw our passports in his face after he raised his voice slightly at him. We had, had no apology whatsoever, terrible attitude from him and he had not a care in the world that our baby NEEDED to get home or to a hospital in order to survive! Her body couldn't tolerate normal milk or formula and we could hardly feed her Mac and cheese!

My other daughter was so upset that she would miss her birthday, have no presents (they were all wrapped, waiting at home for her), and her party would have to be cancelled. I then had to spend hours sat emailing and cancelling a pre-booked party. We had to hire a car at our own expense to get back to Orlando to get connecting flights etc etc... In the end, after they tried to fob us off with Avios points we sent the Martin Lewis letter (those in the UK will know who he is), about the European law regarding delayed and cxd flights and got a full refund from BA for the cost of our flights. It took 3 months in total. I would definitely send a letter off, if I were you.

I can't believe you did so much, you must have been shattered after your journey out there. It was worth it though wasn't it? I had THE best christmas ever and would do it again in a heartbeat.

My favourite day was on Dec 23rd at Seaworld. We stayed until almost midnight and were almost the last to leave. The park was amazing at night wasn't it? Truly beautiful with all the millions of lights, lighting the trees and every walkway. The Christmas shows were the best part of our christmas trip. Oh Wonderous night made me cry and the ice skating show was outstanding with all the lights/trees dancing in the background.

One of my fondest memories was at 11pm watching my 2 older daughters playing and dancing with the Elves and then when dancing around in the 'snow' at the end of the night, they came running up, calling their name to do the dance routine with them all over again again that they had just made up, telling them they were their new BEFF (Best Elf friends forever). They really believed they were real elves!

Did you make it to Celebration? That was another of my favourite things. The girls played and danced around singing with the snow falling around them, before ice skating (on plastic rink). The music was playing, children ice skating, snow falling, horse and carriages and train tootling along. We sat down a cafe and just took it all in.

If you ever go again, or anyone else reading your post, another great thing to do was the sleigh ride at Fort Wilderness. We pre-booked this for $45 ($65 if booked on the night). The horse drawn carriage was done out like a sleigh and we were taken around the campground to see all the amazing decorations that the campers put up. Even the golf buggies they zoom around on were lit up, as well as the spokes on bike wheels as the children raced around. We luckily were behind and open horse drawn cart full of carollers so that really added to the atmosphere.

By the way, you left at the right time, the weather was much, much cooler the last few days we were there.

I hope you have recovered from the jet lag. My baby as been sleeping all over the place today! She just drops to the floor and falls asleep!

Thanks for a great report, I'm sure it will help others with their planning. I'd go next year like a shot but I think it will be more like every other year as we usually do Christmas for the entire family and the children really missed everyone. Every other year sounds perfect to me!

 

[dmoore718]

Sounds like it was a great trip!!!!!! I'm so sorry to hear the flight out was so dramatic!! Glad you enjoyed yourselves!!

 

[Kampta80]

Sorry that's stead a little prematurely!

....to be handed a letter to say our flight was cancelled. No apology, just handed the letter. It wouldn't have been 'as' bad if my DD2 didn't have a birthday, along with party booked for the following day, or our DD3 (age 7 months) having special dietary needs and prescription formula which we had taken from the UKa nod only enough left for next 24 hours. We had allowed for more, however she needed way more than we had thought she would drink, due to heat, during the 17 nights we had planned to be there.

We were told they would 'try' and get us home (via 2 other states), over the next 2/3 days and given a one way cab fare to the nearest hospital, after my husband demanded it, and nearly got thrown out of the airport in the meantime, after the check in guy physically threw our passports in his face after he raised his voice slightly at him. We had, had no apology whatsoever, terrible attitude from him and he had not a care in the world that our baby NEEDED to get home or to a hospital in order to survive! Her body couldn't tolerate normal milk or formula and we could hardly feed her Mac and cheese!

My other daughter was so upset that she would miss her birthday, have no presents (they were all wrapped, waiting at home for her), and her party would have to be cancelled. I then had to spend hours sat emailing and cancelling a pre-booked party. We had to hire a car at our own expense to get back to Orlando to get connecting flights etc etc... In the end, after they tried to fob us off with Avios points we sent the Martin Lewis letter (those in the UK will know who he is), about the European law regarding delayed and cxd flights and got a full refund from BA for the cost of our flights. It took 3 months in total. I would definitely send a letter off, if I were you.

I can't believe you did so much, you must have been shattered after your journey out there. It was worth it though wasn't it? I had THE best christmas ever and would do it again in a heartbeat.

My favourite day was on Dec 23rd at Seaworld. We stayed until almost midnight and were almost the last to leave. The park was amazing at night wasn't it? Truly beautiful with all the millions of lights, lighting the trees and every walkway. The Christmas shows were the best part of our christmas trip. Oh Wonderous night made me cry and the ice skating show was outstanding with all the lights/trees dancing in the background.

One of my fondest memories was at 11pm watching my 2 older daughters playing and dancing with the Elves and then when dancing around in the 'snow' at the end of the night, they came running up, calling their name to do the dance routine with them all over again again that they had just made up, telling them they were their new BEFF (Best Elf friends forever). They really believed they were real elves!

Did you make it to Celebration? That was another of my favourite things. The girls played and danced around singing with the snow falling around them, before ice skating (on plastic rink). The music was playing, children ice skating, snow falling, horse and carriages and train tootling along. We sat down a cafe and just took it all in.

If you ever go again, or anyone else reading your post, another great thing to do was the sleigh ride at Fort Wilderness. We pre-booked this for $45 ($65 if booked on the night). The horse drawn carriage was done out like a sleigh and we were taken around the campground to see all the amazing decorations that the campers put up. Even the golf buggies they zoom around on were lit up, as well as the spokes on bike wheels as the children raced around. We luckily were behind and open horse drawn cart full of carollers so that really added to the atmosphere.

By the way, you left at the right time, the weather was much, much cooler the last few days we were there.

I hope you have recovered from the jet lag. My baby as been sleeping all over the place today! She just drops to the floor and falls asleep!

Thanks for a great report, I'm sure it will help others with their planning. I'd go next year like a shot but I think it will be more like every other year as we usually do Christmas for the entire family and the children really missed everyone. Every other year sounds perfect to me!

Yes we did Celebration. Was lovely and we had a great meal there too.

Will have to add Fort Wilderness to my list for any future trip.

I agree - every other year sounds about right!! ;-) A lot of saving up to do...