Skipping Christmas- WDW Style! December 24-28!

[Soarin08]

Ok, well, I've been promising some of my friends on the boards that I'd get this up and running.... so yeah, guys, I know it's late, but blame Photobucket-they've been being a total pain in the picture upload department (I'm SORRY I have so many!!)!

Background story- we went to WDW in June for my high school graduation gift (that was before I joined the DIS). We had a great time (duh- a solid week at WDW= good time), and when we got home.... well, a strong case of post-WDW trip depression gripped me and my DisBro8 strongly. I was missing Soarin' and he was missing BTMR so much we were about to go crazy!!

Anyways, my mom and I got to talking one day about WDW at Christmas.... I told her that if we could go sometime at Christmas, I wouldn't ask for any gifts or anything. She said that would definitely be something to think about and that she and my dad would discuss it.

Fast forward that conversation to July 1st of this year. I woke up that morning to find my mom on the phone with my dad. "We're booking a WDW Christmas trip for this year," she told me. "We decided to skip Christmas and go back. Your brother and sister agreed they'd rather not get gifts and would prefer WDW instead. The tickets will cost about as much as we usually spend on gifts anyways."

So my dad calls several more times throughout the day.... first to tell us he could not get the FW cabins again like we had in June.... ok. Then he says no family suites at ASMu available, and no rooms at CSR either. The third call he makes, he tells us he's booked POR for the 24th through the 28th- a resort I'd never given much thought to be honest. He then books a Candlelight Processional dinner package for the 25th at the Garden Grill- we're is excited about CP because an actor my whole family greatly admires, Edward James Olmos (a favorite film of mine is Selena and my dad is a Miami Vice fanatic), is doing the reading that night.

So I began marking the days off on my calendar..... days passed very slowly till college began, then wow, the first semester was over and the WDW trip had arrived!!!!! Amazing how quickly five months passes.....

And so, without further adieu, I give you my trip report!

P.S.- The title of my TR is taken from John Grisham's "Skipping Christmas," in which the two main characters completely skip Christmas in favor of a Caribbean cruise (the basis for the film Christmas With the Kranks).

 

[wonderlanne]

need more please!!!

 

[loco4dis]

Great intro! I love the "back story." Keep it comin'. (So your little DB and DS gave up their Christmas presents for Disney?! I mean, I LOVE the World, but when I was 8 I really loved those presents, too! ).

 

[Soarin08]

need more please!!!

I know! I had to go make some hot chocolate.

Great intro! I love the "back story." Keep it comin'. (So your little DB and DS gave up their Christmas presents for Disney?! I mean, I LOVE the World, but when I was 8 I really loved those presents, too! ).

So they did. Though..... well, I'm not going to spoil it for you guys. You'll see what happens...

Next post= another piece to the story! So bear with me....

 

[mfd25wife]

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

Nice back story. I'm subscribing.

 

[Soarin08]

December 23, 2008- Departure Day​

Ok, so we weren't at WDW this day.... but hey, it's the day we left, and I'm not leaving that out!

I woke up that morning at 8:30am with an electrical feeling coursing through my veins. In 8 hours, we were leaving for WDW!! I immediately jumped out of bed (usually I hit snooze for two hours after me alarm goes off on days when I don't work ), a huge amount of energy filling me. One phrase kept running through my head- "We're leaving for WDW tonight!"

Turns out my mom has already been up for a looong time packing. I walked into the kitchen and couldn't even see the countertops!! Every free surface was covered in either clothes or some form of food! We had Chex mix, we had chips, crackers, muffins, cookies, sandwich fixings, about six different kinds of soda and juice..... you name it, it was sitting on that counter (save for perishables- already safely stowed in the cooler). My mom was ironing all of my dad's shirts (are you ladies surprised? ) and my brother was of course bothering everything she had laid out to pack. I decided to quickly retreat to my room to pack.

My suitcase was so full I could barely close it!! We were only going to be gone Christmas Eve through the 28th, but I never pack lightly. I had seven pairs of jeans, eight long-sleeved shirts, about ten t-shirts, and every bit of underwear I own crammed in that suitcase!! I'm the kind who religiously follows "I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it." I was fully packed by 10am and ready to hit the road!! But alas, my dad would not be home from work till 3:30pm....

Around 2:30, my mom and I decided to start moving our luggage out to the front porch. We piled suitcases, duffel bags, pillows, coats, and blankets as high as they would go, fighting to keep our rambunctious golden retriever out of the luggage the whole time (what a chore that was till my mom put the dog in the garage ). My dad finally got home at his scheduled time and we proceeded to pack our 1999 celery green Oldsmobile Silhouette (which proudly bears a WDW 2008 bumper sticker) full!!!

And soooo, off we go at 4:30pm, right on schedule (unusual for us- we're more often than not running wayyyy behind schedule)!! We pulled out onto MS Highway 45 and proceeded to leave Meridian, MS, and all it's mediocrity behind for a few days.

My dad drove till we reached Mobile, AL, when he and my mother swapped and he went to sleep in the back seat. I sat up front and kept my mother company and read from my new book (Glenn Beck's The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland- a quick stop at Books-A-Million and I got a book light to aid in the nighttime reading process).

I stayed up till we crossed into Eastern Standard Time (I was too keyed up to sleep) and finally drifted off to sleep around 2am. As I was floating away into dreamland, however, I began to feel a nagging pain in my throat. I brushed it off as a hint of dryness, perhaps from breathing through my mouth, and finally fell asleep.

I woke up at 4am and faintly heard my parents talking- my father had apparently taken a wrong turn and had to double back- he ended up having to pay all the tolls twice!! My brother and sister had been sleeping soundly for most of the trip, and I drifted back off as well.

5am, Christmas Eve....I woke up when I felt the car stop moving. We had arrived at POR two hours ahead of schedule!! Naturally our room wasn't ready and no parks were open, so we slept in the car for a couple more hours.

But oh no!!! When I woke up again at 7am, I discovered..... my throat was horribly sore!! I could barely talk!!! Was I going to be sick the whole trip???

....Find out in the next post.

P.S. No pics yet- I'll get those up next post.

 

[loco4dis]

Clever! You've got a plot pivot going. What's next? What's next?

 

[Decorated_Dust]

Uh oh, the plot thinkens. By the way, that "electric feeling" is something I get, too. I've been to Disney multiple times, and I still get it. hehe. Anyway, keep it coming, Soarin'!!

 

[Soarin08]

December 24, 2008- Day One​

Morning at Animal Kingdom​

We had already planned prior that we would spend the morning of the 24th at AK- mainly because that's our least favorite park and we only had a few select attractions we wanted to visit. We all woke up, went inside the POR lobby to hunt down a bathroom and freshen up, then got back in the car to head to AK.

~ADD Moment: We decided we would not use WDW transportation to the parks on this trip. We actually found it to be much faster to drive from park to resort and back again- we made it to all the parks on this trip from POR driving ourselves in under 10 minutes.

And back to our regularly scheduled TR....

.....we got to AK right after it opened (lucky us!!) and immediately sent my father over to Expedition Everest to acquire Fastpasses. My mom, sis, bro, and I of the massively sore throat proceeded to Africa to get a spot in line for Kilimanjaro Safaris, following the exact same routine we did on the summer trip. My dad caught up with us and told us the FPs were for 9:30am- plenty of time to ride the safari before EE.

We got on the safari and I must say, we enjoyed it a whole lot more than we did in June. More animals were out and it was pleasantly cool- plus the CM who drove the vehicle, David, was quite attractive in my eyes and I was extremely sad when the ride ended because obviously I couldn't keep staring at him. I didn't take any pics on the safari because I was squished in between my mom and sister and I could barely move!

Oh yes.... 9:30 arrived and FINALLY it was time to ride EE!!!! My dad got 5 FPs but my sis declined riding- she isn't one for roller coasters. My mom, who usually sits out rides that move faster than It's a Small World, actually decided to try EE. We were lucky enough to get seats close to the front of the train so our ride wasn't extremely bumpy.... but my mom didn't think it was all that pleasant!! She came off EE dizzy and lightheaded and nauseated- DB8, however..... he wanted to ride again!! Not that we could because the SB line was already pushing 60 minutes and we only had one extra FP. I felt bad that my DM felt sick after EE, but I TOLD her if she didn't want to ride, feel free to sit it out.

Next my DD, DB8, and I rode Dinosaur (DS16 and DM sat it out). I absolutely love that ride, mainly because Wallace Langham plays the part of Dr. Seeker. Plus the SB line wait isn't usually very long so we never need FPs for it. Meanwhile, my poor throat was getting more and more sore by the minute and I also began to feel sinus pressure building up in my forehead.

~ADD Moment: Sorry I have no pics yet- at this point in the story, I haven't had time to take any. But they're coming, I can assure you.

.....Anyways......

My DM was finally recovering from the ill effects of EE so we decided to hit It's Tough to Be a Bug! before leaving AK (yes, those attractions are the extent of our typical foray into the AK world). DS16 was terrified of ITTBAB when she was 5 so we love teasing her about the time my parents took her, screaming and sobbing, out of the theater and the CMs kept bugging us to give the 3D glasses back. Now we all love the show, particularly the part in the end in which wayward bugs scramble across the seats and make us jump in surprise.

I took a pic of the Tree of Life before leaving, among a few others-

On the way out, I stopped to admire the huge Christmas tree outside the entrance-

This last one turned out much better-

.....My throat was still hurting like crazy!!!!! I could barely talk, and swallowing was a chore! We ate lunch at McDonald's and I could barely eat the chicken nuggets I got- and our ADRs for GG were the next night! If my throat was still sore then, how would I enjoy our GG Christmas meal??

And that concludes our morning at AK. Tune in next time for our afternoon at the Grand Floridian.

 

[wonderlanne]

uhuh, uhuh....

 

[studentmom]

Enjoying your trip report. Keep it comin'.

 

[Soarin08]

December 24, 2008​

Afternoon at the Grand Floridian​

My dad called POR over our McD's chicken nugget smorgasbord and they informed him that our room still was not ready. It was now a little past noon and we still figured it'd be couple hours before we could check in at POR. We decided then to drive over to DTD and check out T-Rex, since we planned on dining there Saturday night-

The exterior certainly floored us- DB8 loved climbing all over the foot bones of the giant dino skeleton as seen in the pic. We couldn't even get in the gift shop to browse around- wayyyy too many people in there!!

~ADD Moment: One store we always drop in at DTD is the Ghirardelli shop over by Basin. We have discovered that we can pop in multiple times and get multiple free samples (the peanut butter chocolate bars we sampled in June were ). This time around, the chocolate of choice was milk chocolate peppermint.

......Returning to the TR-

We then decided to head over to the GF. Of course, we had to do so by bus. The bus ride over was pleasant, as we had the whole bus to ourselves save for an older couple sitting in the front near the driver.

GF was..... I can't even describe how it made me feel. Let's put it this way- I'm getting married there, so yeah.... I wasn't able to get any good exterior shots but got a lot of interior ones.

First, we have DB8-

Me, DB8, and DS16 (you can see me on the left in the maroon hoodie)-

Love the garland strung up outside the entrance- that's DS16 with the red shirt and orange purse-

Us all on the bench near the entrance-

Now for some interior shots.

This is the rug- random, but I love it-

And on to some gingerbread house shots. The CM said there were 20 Hidden Mickeys on the house, but alas, I could only find 7-

The tree in the lobby. It's a tiny bit blurred, do forgive me-

Staircase with garland. Again.... ugh, a little blurred-

Us at the top of the staircase-

Love the ceiling-

Tapestry in the lobby-

The chandelier and tree-

I love this window display. Can't remember which GF shop it was in though-

After we finished our 3-hour tour (not literally) at the GF, we took the bus back to DTD. My stupid DB8 kept rubbing his hands all over the bus then LICKING them, much to our dismay. Who knows who last puked in that bus?? Boys will be boys, I guess....

Here's my DB8 back at DTD-

Our room at POR was finally ready so we headed back there. Next stop?? MK for the evening!!

But that's another post.....

 

[debbieandroo]

subbing! [Glenn would be proud]

 

[Soarin08]

subbing! [Glenn would be proud]

Duh! Anything for Glenn!!

That's it for the night, my friends.... I will get some more up in the morning. I'm too tired to think of witty things to say and how to fit them into the TR.

 

[MEK]

Love your trip report. What nice pictures you have. The GF looks so beautiful. I really wished I had stopped there during my December trip! Oh well - just another reason to go back!

 

[Grog]

Gotta go to work, but subscribing so I can read it later

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

We "skipped" Christmas too this year by celebrating at Disney. We also had the CP on 12/25 with EJO, but did Rose & Crown. Our show was 8pm. Wasn't that the BEST weather? Hope you had as fabulous a trip as we did. I can't wait to hear about your vacation.

 

[wardfamily1]

Well it's about time you got this trip report rolling! (tapping foot with arms crossed)
Subbing!



Oh, it's funny that you mention getting married at the GF. When we toured there a couple of weeks ago there was a bride and her brides maids in the lobby for a photo shoot.

 

[IWantMickey]

I woke up that morning at 8:30am with an electrical feeling coursing through my veins.

As long as you didn't get that "tingling feeling" up your leg like Chris Matthews, then it's OK!

Around 2:30, my mom and I decided to start moving our luggage out to the front porch. We piled suitcases, duffel bags, pillows, coats, and blankets as high as they would go, fighting to keep our rambunctious golden retriever out of the luggage the whole time (what a chore that was till my mom put the dog in the garage ).

But your puppie just wanted to go with you to see the Mouse! Poor puppy!

But oh no!!! When I woke up again at 7am, I discovered..... my throat was horribly sore!! I could barely talk!!! Was I going to be sick the whole trip???

What is it about WDW this year and getting sick?

Great trip report Soarin'!!! I can't open the pictures here at work so I can't wait to see them later.