The Disney Grump & Family Take on the World-Our '09 Christmas w/ the Mouse, COMPLETE

[KathyRN137]

Looks as if you planned the perfect way to spend Christmas Day at WDW... the least crowded park... getting out of the park to do a little mini-golfing... a fun holiday sleighride... and a visit to the gorgeous Wilderness Lodge for dinner! Ahhhh.

Still chuckling over the boys being boys on the dock!


Kathy

 

[BippityBoo]

What a WONDERFUL Christmas day The carriage ride looked so magical. I am so glad that you posted the pics of the WL all dressed up for Christmas!! The decorations were taken down when we were there...they look amazing!!

I loved the Whispering Canyon dinner We did not have any room for dessert that night, but I fully plan on getting some when we go back now that you say it is so good.

Can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip!

 

[JenAusty]

I love that country-looking Christmas tree in the shop you were in. CUTE!
And I saw a show on the travel channel once that showed the campground at Christmas time! I love camping.. and camping here would be amazing because its at Disney and all the Christmas decorations are great!

What a relaxing ride on the boat at night! I would love that.

 

[brookelizabeth]

I love all the Ft. Wilderness pictures! I had thought about doing the sleigh ride through FW to see the decorations, but just never worked it in, it sounds like a great time-and what amazing set-ups! That one with Santa is incredible. And the dinner at WCC sounds very yummy, what a perfect way to spend Christmas Day.

Great family pic in front of the tree too!

 

[SoonerGirl]

What a fantasic evening! the sleigh ride looks like fun and the pictures of your family at WL are great! I gave up WCC on this trip to do Artist Point but someday I WILL get there!

I was nervous about WCC, but we really enjoyed it! Of course, it wasn't their normal menu that day, but I would think if they could prepare that well, then they could prepare other meals well too. I'd like to try Artist Point someday, so I'll look forward to your review!

Oh cute! The sleigh ride is something that most people probably don't know about.

Haha, as bad as it is that your son were doing the spit thing, I was curious too to know whether or not it was a one time thing! It's just different when it's your own kids doing it!

I found out about the sleigh ride while I was doing my endless December research here on the DIS. You're right, I bet there are a lot of people who don't even know you can do that.

Boys are so gross, you just get used to it after awhile. I was just mortified because we weren't the only ones in line waiting for the boat!

Yeay for a neat sleigh ride! I am so impressed by all the decorations the RVers put out! They are super creative!

I was glad when I read that the boat came, too. Working with middle schoolers, I can understand how riveting the boys' "game" must have been to them.

Dinner at the Whispering Canyon sounds quite yummy -- especially the yule log cake! Sounds like you escaped being heckled by the waitstaff. Whew!

The sleigh ride was fun! It was crazy the amount of space that some of those people had to have available to them to bring so much stuff along!

I knew there would be a mom out there that would understand my pain with the boys and their little game! I really need a girl around here to help balance out all the testosterone!

WCC was really good, and aside from having a few napkins and straws thrown at us, we did escape being heckled! Luckily there was nothing on our serving platter that Jared felt he needed ketchup for!

Next year we are heading out to Fort Wilderness for sure! That looks like so much fun! Also the Christmas menu sounds really tasty at Whispering Canyon! If I'm not mistaken Raphael goes by another name as well, I'll have to ask MeMom about that...
That Christmas tree is gorgeous and your photo pass pics are awesome!

Yes, put the sleigh ride on your list! You'll love it!

I could be wrong on Raphael's 'other' name - I didn't write it down and I've slept just a few times since we ate there......

I love the sleigh ride through Ft. Wilderness! And your pics of the resorts at night are gorgoeous.

Kristen

The sleigh ride was fun, something a little different!

The Wilderness Lodge is so pretty, especially at Christmas, it's hard to take a bad picture in there.

Great update! Looks like a fun day!

It certainly was another fun day!

 

[SoonerGirl]

YAY!!! This is the update I've been waiting for!! The sleigh ride looks like so much fun! I'll definitely put that on our list for Dec.! What time would you suggest doing the sleigh ride? And the WL pics are just gorgeous!!! You really got some great family pics as well. I'm glad you enjoyed WC--I'm excited about eating there in Dec!!!

I figured this update would interest you! The sleigh ride was fun, I think your girls would love looking at all there is to see. I really think it would be better to do it after dark though. Ours was for 5:30, and it was just starting to get dark when we finished, so I would think 6:30 would be a good time.

I'm really envious that you are staying at the WL for your December trip, I think it's the perfect holiday resort!

I was interested in seeing the camp grounds all done up for Christmas... I have heard that people go all out in their decor! Wow... that is a lot of stuff! I'm thinking that this is the one place you can go crazy and it is loved by everyone.
Your family photos in the WL are so nice! It is beautiful resort, especially during the holidays!
Hummmm....spitting boys at the dock.... I read that part to my 13 year old and he just said "cool". Guess you need to be a boy to appreciate the spit and the fish!

Boy, some people really do go all out - I was amazed! And I agree, if there is anyplace that you can go crazy with your decorations, it's at Disney.

WL was so pretty, if we ever go back during the holidays that is where I want to stay.

What is it about boys and spitting - ick!

I really want to do that! I saw a special a few years ago on the travel channel about the campground and the Christmas decorations. It looked awesome!

It was neat, something special and different for the holidays!

I'll take that anyday over the nitpicking that my girls get caught up in...

Oh, don't for one minute think that my boys don't pick at each other because they certainly do! I think that's a sibling thing unfortunately .

You have such a beautiful family and the pictures turned out great!

Thank you!

What an awesome update!!! That sleigh ride looked so...Christmas-y! I can imagine, though, that it would have been even more fun at night. Your dinner at WCC sounds sooooo yummy!

Yep, after doing it, I wish we would have gone just a bit later, 30 minutes to an hour would have been perfect!

We've been very fortunate with the narrators we've had........We saw Gary Sinise twice (Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump ) and Steven Curtis Chapman once (He gave a very moving performance!!!).........I would agree that narrators would be the key to how much someone would enjoy the performance.........

Your AK Day seemed pretty incredible!!! Even though it was raining, you guys seemed to make the best of it AND it was empty! I think I could handle "walk-on" rides too! The sleigh ride looked cool.........WOW, some of the campgrounds were really decked out!!!

Ooooo, I love Lt. Dan!! I would really like to see him sometime.

AK was so empty - it was great!

A lot of those campgrounds were just over the top, but it was fun!

Great update---there are so many things I want to comment on, I don't know if I can remember them all!

Sounds like you had fun playing mini-golf....My DH tried to teach me how to play golf when we were newly married, too. Like you....that didn't go so well!

Hey, we tried right?!

Isn't the WL beautiful? I love that resort, and it is just perfect for Christmas! Once when we were there, a friend got the giant glass of coke with a straw that must have been 18 inches long. After he drank it all, our waitress brought him a fastpass for the restroom! It was so funny!

Oh my gosh! You were with someone that was actually able to finish that coke?! Yeah, I think a restroom fastpass was definitely in order!

Is that a new sig I see? Looks like you've added pics from this trip. Looks great!

Yep, I figured since I had hit all those points in my report I could go ahead and put them in my siggy. I'm pretty happy with it

 

[SoonerGirl]

Looks as if you planned the perfect way to spend Christmas Day at WDW... the least crowded park... getting out of the park to do a little mini-golfing... a fun holiday sleighride... and a visit to the gorgeous Wilderness Lodge for dinner! Ahhhh.

Still chuckling over the boys being boys on the dock!


Kathy

The whole day just fell into place, even better than I had hoped for! It was quite a nice Christmas.

The boys at the dock were just gross!

What a WONDERFUL Christmas day The carriage ride looked so magical. I am so glad that you posted the pics of the WL all dressed up for Christmas!! The decorations were taken down when we were there...they look amazing!!

I loved the Whispering Canyon dinner We did not have any room for dessert that night, but I fully plan on getting some when we go back now that you say it is so good.

Can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip!

The WL was so pretty all dressed up for Christmas. Are you staying there again when you go in December? If not, make sure you head over there one night to see all the decorations

I don't know if that dessert at WCC is on the normal menu or not. They had a totally different menu for Christmas day and I think that dessert may have been part of the special menu. I bet they have something else just as good though!

I've been working on an update today, just need to get my pictures uploaded and resized - hopefully I'll have it posted tomorrow.

I love that country-looking Christmas tree in the shop you were in. CUTE!
And I saw a show on the travel channel once that showed the campground at Christmas time! I love camping.. and camping here would be amazing because its at Disney and all the Christmas decorations are great!

What a relaxing ride on the boat at night! I would love that.

I thought that little country tree was cute too! I tend to love the more rustic things, which is probably why I was so taken with the WL.

If it had been just a little bit warmer that boat ride would have been perfect. It felt fine out just walking around, but it was a bit chilly on the water.

I love all the Ft. Wilderness pictures! I had thought about doing the sleigh ride through FW to see the decorations, but just never worked it in, it sounds like a great time-and what amazing set-ups! That one with Santa is incredible. And the dinner at WCC sounds very yummy, what a perfect way to spend Christmas Day.

Great family pic in front of the tree too!

I tried to cram all of our must do's in the parks into the beginning of our trip so that towards the end we could step away and do some different things away from the parks. I had a few more days than you did to get everything in too. You guys can always go back and try it some other time, I think Henry would get a kick out of all the decorations!

 

[SoonerGirl]

Saturday, December 26th

Our final full day at WDW started with an early wake up call. If we had learned one thing throughout our week, it was that early arrival at the parks was key to having a good day!

We decided to eat breakfast in the food court that morning. Not a wise idea......

I had a croissant with bacon, egg & cheese. It was really greasy, I don't think I even ate half of it. Justin got a ham & cheese omelet with potatoes. He said the omelet was edible, but the potatoes were nasty. After looking at the options, Don opted out of breakfast. The only bright spot was Jared's cinnamon roll - I think he gobbled it up without even taking a breath!

Below average breakfast behind us, we made our way to Epcot. We arrived at about 8:30, and true to what we had previously learned, arriving early was the way to go!

We stopped briefly for a photopass picture and to take a couple pics of the topiaries

then the boys were dragging us towards their favorite Epcot attraction - Soarin'. As we passed by the Character Connection, I noticed that there was NO line, seriously, Mickey was standing at the doorway waving to people! I mentioned to the boys that it would only take a few minutes to see all the characters with no one waiting, but they were not to be deterred from their mission! So, on to The Land we went

Soarin' was a walk on - woo hoo! We have never, ever walked on to Soarin', we were pumped! After our glide over California, we stopped to grab some FPs for later. Then we went across the park to

it was also a walk on. See, I told you getting there at opening was a good strategy!

Ride photo from TT - we like to pose

Justin found the car he wants when he turns 16 - yeah, right!

Mission: Space was next on the agenda, I don't ride it so the boys headed off without me. But, just as they were about to enter the queue Jared decided to hang with me instead. I was shocked because he loves this ride, but I guess he just wasn't in the mood today, or maybe he just wanted to be with his mom. I talked him into posing for a picture for me

Then we went into the shop to look around and wait for Don & Justin. We took a couple of pictures while we waited.

After their Mission to Mars was complete we decided to ride Spaceship Earth. But, we also noticed that our FP window for Soarin' was already open, so we stopped to grab another set for TT.

Spaceship Earth was less than a 5 minute wait. Jared rode with me and I let him determine our future.

This was a bad idea because I ended up with a broken arm!

Once we finished there, we used our Soarin' FPs, then went over to use the FPs for TT. This is where our ride luck ended for the morning. First we were in line FOREVER, we were in queue #3, and for some reason our door just didn't open and didn't open and didn't open! Rooms 1 & 2 went through several times before we were finally let into our briefing room. It took about 40 minutes for us to get onto the ride with a FP. But it gets worse, just as you are about to turn the corner for the crash test, the ride stopped. We waited and waited and waited - it was the TTA all over again! I was starting to get worried that we were going to miss our lunch ADR, the ADR that I had been waiting for all week! At this point you have no idea how tempted I was to unbuckle and just get out of that freakin' car! But, I obeyed the rules and waited it out, we finally got started again and were able to finish the ride. After it was all said and done it had taken over an hour to use those FPs. We could still smile though

We stopped for a couple more photopass pics on our way to WS

This one would have turned out so cute if Don hadn't been strangling Jared!

Now it was time to get over to Canada to enjoy lunch at my favorite WDW restaurant - Le Cellier!

Continued in the next post:

 

[SoonerGirl]

We started with a couple of bowls of cheddar cheese soup to share. And when our waiter brought our bread, I immediately asked him to bring more of the pretzel bread - yum! I had been craving that soup and that bread since the last time I had eaten it over a year earlier! Justin & I both had the mushroom filet with mashed potatoes instead of risotto, Don got the same except he had the risotto. Jared got the kids pasta. We all practically licked our plates - I don't think there was a drop of food remaining! For dessert I had the crème brulee, I love crème brulee and if it's on the menu, I'm probably ordering it! Justin got the chocolate mousse and Jared had the s'mores. Don skipped dessert........again. We finished our dessert and rolled out of the restaurant. What we needed now was a good long walk to burn off some that lunch! We decided first to head across the bridge

to see the one Storyteller we had left on our list, Pere Noel.

We made a pit stop in Morocco to use the facilities

Then made our way over to Italy. Don has a love of Italian things, his dream vacation would be about a 3 week trip to Italy. We had yet to really explore this pavilion, so it was high on his list of things to do. He walked into the wine shop and I knew he was going to be awhile. I busied myself taking pictures while he perused the menu and decided what wine he wanted to try first.

Then we headed out to walk around the pavilion some. I took some more photos

and tried to wander through the store. It was much too crowded in there, you could barely move, let alone shop, so I came out to find Don & the boys. Don had finished his glass of wine and was off to get another. He really wanted to buy a bottle of the first wine he had, but it was $85 and he didn't want to spend that much. I told him that was silly and that he should get it, after all, I had spent a little more than that on my D&B purse....... He wouldn't spend the money though, so I'm thinking that will be the perfect gift for me to bring home for him when I go with Mom in May! Now if only I can remember the name of it.......

The park was pretty crowded at this point, and we had really done all that we wanted to do, so we started towards the exits. We had to stop at the African Outpost so that the boys could bang on the drums for minute

Then, just as we were reaching the fountain we saw that a concert was about to start.

This is Divine Voices, a local gospel group that put on several shows a few days a week during the holiday season.

We decided to listen for awhile and I was so glad that we stopped - they were AMAZING! We got to listen to about 4 songs before the boys pleas to leave finally became too much and we gave in.

Continued in the next post:

 

[SoonerGirl]

I told the boys before we went back to the hotel that I wanted to go over to the Grand Floridian and see the tree and gingerbread house there. So we took the monorail over to the GF. This is what we were greeted with when we entered the hotel

It's just breathtakingly gorgeous in there! After staring at the surroundings for a few minutes, we made our way down to see the gingerbread house.

Don bought a shingle - it was so good!

Then we took a few more pictures and made our way back up to the monorail platform.

Close up of the tree decorations

We took the monorail to the MK, then grabbed a bus back to the resort. When we got back I began the unenviable task of packing for our trip home the next day. Don helped by taking down the Christmas decorations. He packed everything into the box, plus he was able to get a lot of our souvenirs in there as well. Then he took the box to the concierge to be shipped home.

Coming up: Our disastrous dinner, and would my last and most special surprise of the trip be ruined?!

 

[MHTeacher]

Oh, wow---a walk-on to Soarin' ??? That's never happened for us, although, I'd really like for it to!

Wasn't the GF so pretty at Christmas? The gingerbread house was just amazing---it smelled so yummy in that lobby!

 

[klacey1]

Even with the TT mess, I feel like your day was well-filled! You guys got a lot done-- the GF is soooo beautiful at Christmas time!! You took beautiful pictures!

 

[DWGal210]

I'm all caught up!!

Your time looks like so much fun - how great to spend Christmas Day at WDW!! I would love to do that some year. I just have to convince my family.....

Great TR!!! I've really enjoyed it!!

 

[BippityBoo]

WOW! What a great last day in the parks!! Congrats on all the walk ons

Le Cellier sounds amazing!! Cant WAIT to try the pretzel bread! Yummy!

My DH does not care too much for dessert and loves expensive wine. Sounds like he could hang with yours

I love all of your WS pics. Thanks so much for sharing! I really want to go to the Grand Floridian during Christmas! We stayed there last October for a trip and it was so pretty...I can only imagine it during Christmas! How cool that you can buy a shingle of the ginger bread house?!

 

[Kewz1]

I love all your Photopass pics! I think you may have convinced me to get this on our next trip. Thanks!

Kristen

 

[JenAusty]

Soarin is also one of my FAV attractions. But DH doesn't care for it because he said it gave him motion sickness. Which is weird because I get motion sickness really easily.. and It didn't even phase. So now I have to beg him to ride this.

Getting stuck on a ride is never fun. But I'm glad you made it to your resse! I have yet to eat there but DH said that we have to eat there next time!

I like the picture of you guys- where he is strangling Jared- I don't think it looks like that at all. I understand why you see that but you all look very happy.

I also love wine but I hate how expensive it is!

I love the gingerbread house!! Thats cute you can buy a shingle! hehe

 

[RachelNinja]

I read your latest posts! I normally go back and skim it before I comment (since I break up the reading as I do lesson plans; it's a good reward as I finish each class!), but alas, I have a sinus infection, and my head's about to explode on top of being unable to breathe. So I'm just going to comment on the thing that I got such a kick out of it ... "Don bought a shingle - it was so good!" Haha, that's so great! I think I'd get one just so I can say that too!

 

[stace208]

I'm all caught up on your wonderful updates!

I've added several must-do's to my list after reading: mini golf and the sleigh ride. Though, add me to the list of not so good at mini golf. My DH and kids would love it however.

I'll have to check into WCC's holiday dinner. That followed by a sleigh ride seems like a perfect thing to do over the holidays.

Did you see the new D&B bags they are releasing? I saw them on the Disney parks blog-cute!

I'm nervous about your next update...after such a wonderful trip I hate to think that anything went wrong.

 

[Happydog]

Hey this was a great great post! Loved all the photos and your tales of woe on TT !!! Le Cellier, I am right there with you! BUT I am right there with your DS, the Smores is my FAVORITE dessert I get it every every time! I LOVE it! How silly I know, but I cannot lie, I love it!

Ah, Italia! Tutto Italia! Que Buono! We have spent quite a bit of time in Italy. I was definitely Italian in a past life It is amazing country... in my PTR from last summer I slipped in some pics from our last trip... the Pavillion in the WS does a pretty good job!!! I haven't spent much time there myself! Good wine is totally worth it -- that would be a wonderful gift for sure!

Great update, and I know, I hate the last day packing blues, too...

Hope the rest of your evening pans out?!!

 

[Charleston Princess]

Yep, I would have been pulling my hair out and fighting the urge to unbuckle my seatbelt if I had been you and stuck on Test Track!

Love the pictures of the Grand Floridian gingerbread house -- I can almost smell it!