The Last of the OCD Type A Planners To Get Her Dec 2011 TR started...

[annmarieda]

Love the updates! The pictures are all so good!

I was frustrated by the change in park hours since it affected our CP ADR too. We made it... and I will leave the details till I get to it on my TR...but I was really worried.

 

[shocky5]

So as I said earlier, we left MK after just a few hours and rode the ferry back to the Polynesian, grabbed a quick lunch at Captain Cook's and went back to our room. We put in the POTC DVD we bought and took a rest. About 3:00 that afternoon, we decided to make our way back to MK... better attitudes and looking forward to Mickey's Very Magic Christmas Party.

I tried to take some more holiday pictures as we made our way back down Main Street towards The Plaza where would be having dinner.

We made our way to the Plaza where we had one of our most favorite meals. I had read reviews of the Plaza in Kathy's (KatMark) TR's and the food was wonderful and it wasn't too heavy. After all, we'd had CP for breakfast, lunch at Captain Cooks, so this was great for us! Originally, we were going to go to 1900 Park Fare and I'm glad I switched this ADR.

I have no food porn! Sorry! But Nate had the kids PB&J, Erin had the club, and Nolan and I had the grilled chicken sandwiches and they were really good!

After we ate, we made our way to Stitch's Great Escape fastpass machines... not because we wanted to ride the ride but because this is where we traded in our tickets for our wristbands for the party! The line was long but the lady assured us the one out front would be considerably worse and surprisingly enough, we had our wristbands in under 30 minutes. Since we were in Tomorrowland, we decided to go ahead and use our FP from earlier in the day for Space Mountain. Just as we get to the loading area of Space Mountain, I look at my beloved youngest son who is now so obviously doing what we call in Oklahoma "the pee pee dance." There was no way I was putting the kid on SM, in that condition, so the lady at the loading area was nice enough to let Erin and Nolan ride and gave us a FP ticket for the four of us to come back later and ride again.

We then made our way to the PeopleMover... my kids loved this ride in 2007... it was under refurb in 2009 and they threw the biggest fit that I was 'making' them ride it... but as we all know "Momma knows best" and they loved it!

After this, it was time to go to the hub and catch Cinderella's Wish and the castle lighting. This was a beautiful production....

Mickey and friends talking about dreams and wishes

Cinderella wishing for her castle to be lit up like ice

The Fairy Godmother appears

And POOF - Cinderella's wish comes true... it was STUNNING

We then headed over to Adventureland, rode POTC again, made our way to Frontierland and used our FP for BTMRR which, by the way, we love this ride at night!!! While over there and on a restroom break, we saw these guys...

We were having a good time! We failed to stop and get any cookies or hot cocoa that the party offered... my kids were on 'let's ride' mode.

SO what do we do next....

 

[newtexan]

 

[momabaarjo]

The pee pee dance...yep, don't you just love when this dance always seems to happen! I can't wait to share with you our thoughts on your changed ADR at 1900 Park and the peoplemover!

 

[shocky5]

We decided to go catch "Celebrate the Season" at Cinderella's Castle. We thoroughly enjoyed this show!

A few pics:

After this show, we opted to go use the complimentary fastpass we got from earlier when Nate's bladder went into overdrive. On our way over, we happened upon the Tomorrowland Christmas show which we opted to watch before riding SM. It was also a wonderful show. Very cute. And even had it's own version of 'snow.'

We rode SM and then also had time to go to Monster's Inc Laugh Floor... we even had a small amount of screen time but thankfully were'nt "that guy."

It was time to head back to the Castle to see The Memories, The Magic and You, as well as Wishes and the 2nd Christmas Parade...

Here are a few pics of The Memories, The Magic and You:

Now, while we were watching this show, the dear sweet woman behind us somehow stepped off of the curb (it's very dark during this show) and she faceplanted into the ground. She was very seriously injured. Sitting up, to some extent, but the blood was overwhelming. We weren't bothered by it but the staff on the scene was having difficulty keeping people from walking through that area. We eventually made up the frontline barrier, and these two sweet women, unrelated to the injured took the sides. It was amazing to me how many people were unaware and after they had gotten her removed from the area, they still had to partition off that area until the blood could be cleaned up.

About the time that Holiday Wishes was starting... the kids and I got the bright idea to gradually make our way back up into Main Street because we planned on leaving after the Christmas Parade. This was our coldest night of the entire vacation and it was indeed chilly. We wanted to beat the crowds back to catch transportation back, and before I knew it, we'd walked to the entrance of the park. We ended up sitting on a park bench to finish watching Wishes and then we caught the monorail back to the Polynesian. We were tired, had a great time, but definitely can cross the Christmas Party off of our "to do" bucket list. It was fun, but honestly, nothing we couldn't do on a normal MK day at Christmas time once the MVMCP's cease. As you'll read in the rest of my TR, we 're-did' all we'd done at the party on our second MK day. Minus cookies and cocoa, which we missed out on anyway. The party is great and definitely wonderful for character greetings!

We got back to our room and in bed by 11:00 or so. Grabbed a snack in the concierge lounge and off to bed. We were going to try to do RD at Hollywood Studios in the morning... but in a last minute decision, I shut the alarm off and decided we'd sleep in, instead.

 

[shocky5]

Looks like you are planning a Christmas trip! We loved it!

The pee pee dance...yep, don't you just love when this dance always seems to happen! I can't wait to share with you our thoughts on your changed ADR at 1900 Park and the peoplemover!

I can't wait to hear/read them!!!

 

[mommytominnie]

I am so in!! We were there from Dec. 15 - 22. I am so sorry your surprise did not go as planned but I am glad to see your kids were surprised nonetheless! It would have killed me if my Hubby was not with us even for a few days. On one hand I can appreciate the time alone with the children but on the other hand I can totally relate to you saying something was missing. Can''t wait to read more!!

 

[shocky5]

The day after our MK day, which ended on a good note, but just wasn't what I had built it up to be, we headed to Hollywood Studios.

I let the kids sleep in and let myself wake up on my own... which ended up being about 7:30a. Hollywood Studios didn't open until 9a so I got myself ready and gradually the kids began to wake up, too. We grabbed breakfast from the concierge lounge and quickly boarded the first bus that came to our bus stop. We arrived to the Studios about 10am. We decided to go get FP's for Toy Story Mania first and imagine our surprise when there was a long line just to get FP's for this ride... which ran OUT of FP's for the entire day when we were about 10 people away from the machines. We love this ride but it's not do or die for us... so we weren't horribly disappointed but throughout the day I checked the wait time for this ride on my phone app and it was never less than 65-70 minutes long.

So we went to get FP's for Rock N Roller Coaster and were able to ride The Great Movie Ride before meeting up to watch Beauty and the Beast with some friends of ours from home. They were also in DisneyWorld and while we didn't plan the trips together, it was fun to meet up with them periodically throughout the trip.

Hollywood Studios Christmas Tree

Waiting for the show to start... Nate & Nolan were just oozing excitement over this show....

I really liked this show - it had a lot of color and the singing performances were very good!

It's a condensed version of the story, 30 minutes long, but very well done. I say see it at least once if you get the opportunity.

After this show, we decided to hit Tower of Terror. There was about a 30 minute way but as the day was moving forward, this definitely was our most crowded park day of our entire trip. At the time we didn't know that and I was somewhat discouraged that it would just get worse as the week wore on, but truly, this was our worst day. The remaining days were wonderful.

Here we are waiting in line for Tower of Terror

The only two not in this picture were me and my friend's DH. He'd run to go get FP's for Star Tours. He was going to try to get RNR but something was messed up with the FP machines so.... back to the picture... by the time we were ready to load Tower of Terror, only 5 people were still willing to ride. The others headed towards what they dubbed the "I'm too cool for this ride exit." This name would stick with us for the remainder of our trip... and was almost the title of this report...

The riders? Nolan and myself, My friend, Her DH and their little 5 year old girl. The teenagers, the 9 year old and the 3 year old opted out.

After Tower of Terror, we decided to get some lunch. We went to Pizza Planet over by Muppets 3-D and really liked what we had. Again, fell down on taking pictures... sorry about that!

After lunch, we headed to the Backlot Tour. We've done this everytime and still enjoy it.

We then headed over to Star Tours to use our FP's.

I have to tell you - this ride started out great but thank GOD it ended when it did... I was not feeling well from the simulated ride, had a bead of sweat on my lip and my hairline and certainly did not want to puke on the people in front of me... I normally do not have problems with rides but this one I did... I don't know why... Erin said it made her sick, too.

After Star Tours, we headed over to Animation and enlisted ourselves in a Buzz Lightyear lesson. It was fun. The kids enjoyed it and I'm going to try to frame their pictures... each definitely has their own style but we enjoyed doing this. While waiting for our turn to go in the drawing room, a family asked me if we'd like their FP's to Tower of Terror. Nolan was all over that... so guess what we would be riding again?

We parted ways after Animation so our friends could to go Fantasmic. As luck would have it, Hollywood Studios extended their park hours that day because of the crowds. The kids and I had originally thought we'd walk through the Osborne Lights after our dinner ADR at Sci Fi but with the extended hour and our newly acquired FP's to Tower of Terror, we opted to not rush in using our FP's for RNR before dinner but would use them after dinner. SO we headed to TOT, Nolan and I rode again while Nate and Erin used the too cool for this ride exit, and then headed to the bathroom and to Sci Fi for dinner. We were hungry at this point.

While we waited, I got some 'true color' personality pics of the boys...

A very 'not such a great pic' of the check-in stand at Sci Fi

And finally we are seated....

Again - fell short on the pictures but the food was great! Erin and I both had the strip steaks, Nolan had a huge cheeseburger and Nate had pizza "I think." I know Nate ate off of Nolan's burger and my steak... so maybe he wasn't as impressed with his food.

After dinner, we did not go see the Osborne lights but I made my kids promise we would not miss them when Eddie arrived, that we would go see them and no one was to try to talk me out of it.

We made our way back to RNRcoaster and we actually had 4 FP's in case Erin and Nate changed their mind about riding. They again went through the entire queue area, got to the loading area and RAN for the "I'm too cool for this ride" exit. Nolan and I were lucky enough to get the front seat of the ride and if you've not been in the front seat before... DO IT! We loved it!

I don't have the ride picture of us on this... I'm cheap sometimes and am one of those people that will shoot a picture of the ride picture with my own camera and the people who shared the picture frame with us wouldn't move as they laughed at their pic and it was gone before I could get it... but rest assured... I got one the next time we rode.

We called it a night after that ride. Here is a final shot of the Hollywood Studios tree at night as we left.

We made our way to the bus stop, it was about 9p and we were tired. Thankfully we didn't have to wait too long for a bus.

When we got back to our room, we were greeted by this cute little guy...

It was off to bed! We were so excited for our next day... we would be headed to Animal Kingdom, Downtown Disney, and then back to the Polynesian to wait for the arrival of..... EDDIE!!

 

[shocky5]

I am so in!! We were there from Dec. 15 - 22. I am so sorry your surprise did not go as planned but I am glad to see your kids were surprised nonetheless! It would have killed me if my Hubby was not with us even for a few days. On one hand I can appreciate the time alone with the children but on the other hand I can totally relate to you saying something was missing. Can''t wait to read more!!

After the fact, it's become part of the journey that the kids found out and we can laugh about it now. But one of these days... I'm going to surprise them even if no one knows but me.

It was difficult without Eddie for so many different reasons - mainly just missing him and his calm demeanor when mine is on the verge of 'freak out' mode... It was good mom/kids time and I will cherish that but it was still different to experience those 'parenting' moments and he not be there next to me to turn to and smile with.

Glad you are here! It's fun meeting people on here pre-trip and post-trip who can share in the experience!

 

[momabaarjo]

How fun to have some friends along for part of the trip. I love the pictures of the boys being themselves...hmmm, now where have I seen all those faces (oh yeah, in all my pictures). The too cool for this ride exit... wait til you read what I did to Boo!

Yay, Eddie is coming!

 

[KatMark]

Amy, two great updates for the price of one.

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy that you loved the Plaza. It is simple food and good on top of it (love their french fries). I'm glad you were happy with your choice.

Your pictures of the Christmas decorations and characters are wonderful. Although I can read between the words that you are definitely missing Eddie not being there with you.

What a fun day at the Studios! And you received pixie dust of extra fast passes too! I can't believe that two of your kids didn't do RnR or Tower of Terror. So glad you enjoyed Sci Fi...we really like it there too. In fact, with the exception of Olivia's for breakfast at OKW on our departure day, the only place that Mary, the girls and I have ADR's at are Plaza and Sci Fi.

 

[newtexan]

Great pictures!

 

[veggiemama]

Great photos! The blue sky looks fabulous in the back ground

 

[shocky5]

How fun to have some friends along for part of the trip. I love the pictures of the boys being themselves...hmmm, now where have I seen all those faces (oh yeah, in all my pictures). The too cool for this ride exit... wait til you read what I did to Boo!

Yay, Eddie is coming!

We did have fun meeting up with our friends. As you will read, we meet up with them a couple of more times on our trip. We had more fun with their new nickname for what I call "the chicken exit!"

Amy, two great updates for the price of one.

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy that you loved the Plaza. It is simple food and good on top of it (love their french fries). I'm glad you were happy with your choice.

Your pictures of the Christmas decorations and characters are wonderful. Although I can read between the words that you are definitely missing Eddie not being there with you.

What a fun day at the Studios! And you received pixie dust of extra fast passes too! I can't believe that two of your kids didn't do RnR or Tower of Terror. So glad you enjoyed Sci Fi...we really like it there too. In fact, with the exception of Olivia's for breakfast at OKW on our departure day, the only place that Mary, the girls and I have ADR's at are Plaza and Sci Fi.

I don't know why Erin and Nate boycotted ToT and RnR. They have rode much more intense rides at Six Flags in Arlington... I think it's the dark... I really_really do. That fear of the unknown. But I'm not giving up on 'em yet!

Great pictures!

Thank you! This is our third trip but the first time I've really felt like I took the time to take pictures of The World and not just my three kids, posed, doing the same thing.

Great photos! The blue sky looks fabulous in the back ground

Thank you! We really only had one overcast day and it was our arrival day! You can see in those pics by the pool that it's cloudy. After that, it was blue skys and only one chilly day (which I've already reported on in this report). Could not have asked for better weather!

 

[Disneyland_Mama]

Enjoying your trip report! We were there 12/15-12/26. Wasn't the weather amazing?

I had debated doing MVMCP, after reading your installment, kinda glad we didn't.

 

[shocky5]

Enjoying your trip report! We were there 12/15-12/26. Wasn't the weather amazing?

I had debated doing MVMCP, after reading your installment, kinda glad we didn't.

Thank you! Yes, the weather was amazing! I was so thankful for that as I had a really hard time packing for this trip!

I don't regret doing the party but had I known then what I know now, I would have based our decision off of one thing - go to the party to catch those rare character moments or just chance it and see who we see on our park days... and I am pretty sure we would have chose the latter.

We love the characters but my kids had no interest in standing in any lines to meet any.

 

[swwake]

Wow - two quick updates!

I had forgotten how chilly it was that night of MVMCP. I don't know why, but they wouldn't let us use our fastpasses from earlier in the day on Space Mountain.

That is too bad about that lady falling and all the blood. I hope she was eventually ok.

Agree with you about the Christmas Party. Now we've done it In fact, I think I feel that way about the whole WDW at Christmas thing. I'll talk more about that at the end of my TR.

Your DHS day sounds very productive! I'm jealous that you got to do Beauty and the Beast and Animation academy - two things I really wanted to do but missed

Every time you mention what time it was when you were at the Poly, I'm trying to remember whether we saw each other that time. I know we talked at least 2, maybe 3 times there, and I know I saw you 3 times (once rushing into the building as we were headed out). But since the time has gotten away from me now, my memory is foggy. I have an idea. I think I'm just going to insert you and your family in my TR at random times and pretend that was when we saw each other! ha!

 

[shocky5]

Wow - two quick updates!

I had forgotten how chilly it was that night of MVMCP. I don't know why, but they wouldn't let us use our fastpasses from earlier in the day on Space Mountain.

That is too bad about that lady falling and all the blood. I hope she was eventually ok.

Agree with you about the Christmas Party. Now we've done it In fact, I think I feel that way about the whole WDW at Christmas thing. I'll talk more about that at the end of my TR.

Your DHS day sounds very productive! I'm jealous that you got to do Beauty and the Beast and Animation academy - two things I really wanted to do but missed

Every time you mention what time it was when you were at the Poly, I'm trying to remember whether we saw each other that time. I know we talked at least 2, maybe 3 times there, and I know I saw you 3 times (once rushing into the building as we were headed out). But since the time has gotten away from me now, my memory is foggy. I have an idea. I think I'm just going to insert you and your family in my TR at random times and pretend that was when we saw each other! ha!

That sounds like a good plan! The more I think about it - I know I was fb'ing you by the pool the first night you passed us and as cold as it was on party night, I'm sure that must have been the night of the 17th after we wore ourselves out in Epcot. I know the kids and I didn't go near the pool on the 18th because it was so chilly.

And then we talked about possibly running into each other at the party. And then it was either DHS morning or our AK morning (which is where I think I'm going to insert you... ha!) that we got to visit in the lounge.

Beauty and the Beast and the Art of Animation were two things we'd not done yet either. There were still a couple of things we didn't fit in either that I'm sad about but still a reason to go back....

I'm wondering if our Disney at Christmas humble opinions will be similar at the end of our TR's...

 

[tankgirl427]

Wow! How did I end up being so late to your TR Amy? I'm loving catching up on everything you did.

 

[annmarieda]

We decided to go catch "Celebrate the Season" at Cinderella's Castle. We thoroughly enjoyed this show!

Oh, man!!! we missed those shows. I came away from MVMCP feeling like we missed so much. Looking at some of your pics, I can now see what we missed.

After this show, we opted to go use the complimentary fastpass we got from earlier when Nate's bladder went into overdrive. On our way over, we happened upon the Tomorrowland Christmas show which we opted to watch before riding SM. It was also a wonderful show. Very cute. And even had it's own version of 'snow.'

another show I missed.

Now, while we were watching this show, the dear sweet woman behind us somehow stepped off of the curb (it's very dark during this show) and she faceplanted into the ground. She was very seriously injured. Sitting up, to some extent, but the blood was overwhelming. We weren't bothered by it but the staff on the scene was having difficulty keeping people from walking through that area. We eventually made up the frontline barrier, and these two sweet women, unrelated to the injured took the sides. It was amazing to me how many people were unaware and after they had gotten her removed from the area, they still had to partition off that area until the blood could be cleaned up.

Oh no!!! That is horrible.

About the time that Holiday Wishes was starting... the kids and I got the bright idea to gradually make our way back up into Main Street because we planned on leaving after the Christmas Parade. This was our coldest night of the entire vacation and it was indeed chilly. We wanted to beat the crowds back to catch transportation back, and before I knew it, we'd walked to the entrance of the park. We ended up sitting on a park bench to finish watching Wishes and then we caught the monorail back to the Polynesian. We were tired, had a great time, but definitely can cross the Christmas Party off of our "to do" bucket list. It was fun, but honestly, nothing we couldn't do on a normal MK day at Christmas time once the MVMCP's cease. As you'll read in the rest of my TR, we 're-did' all we'd done at the party on our second MK day. Minus cookies and cocoa, which we missed out on anyway. The party is great and definitely wonderful for character greetings!

That was a cold night for sure. I keep getting confused by when you were where... we had our dates very similar. We did DHS on 12/18...had sci fi for dinner... and went to fantasmic and it was COLD!

The day after our MK day, which ended on a good note, but just wasn't what I had built it up to be, we headed to Hollywood Studios.

I let the kids sleep in and let myself wake up on my own... which ended up being about 7:30a. Hollywood Studios didn't open until 9a so I got myself ready and gradually the kids began to wake up, too. We grabbed breakfast from the concierge lounge and quickly boarded the first bus that came to our bus stop. We arrived to the Studios about 10am. We decided to go get FP's for Toy Story Mania first and imagine our surprise when there was a long line just to get FP's for this ride... which ran OUT of FP's for the entire day when we were about 10 people away from the machines. We love this ride but it's not do or die for us... so we weren't horribly disappointed but throughout the day I checked the wait time for this ride on my phone app and it was never less than 65-70 minutes long.

Isn't that crazy how fast the fast passes go for that ride?

So we went to get FP's for Rock N Roller Coaster and were able to ride The Great Movie Ride before meeting up to watch Beauty and the Beast with some friends of ours from home. They were also in DisneyWorld and while we didn't plan the trips together, it was fun to meet up with them periodically throughout the trip.

I think that is so cool! It is fun to enjoy Disney a bit with a friend. BATB is one of my favorite shows in Disney!! I have to see it each and every time!!!

I have to tell you - this ride started out great but thank GOD it ended when it did... I was not feeling well from the simulated ride, had a bead of sweat on my lip and my hairline and certainly did not want to puke on the people in front of me... I normally do not have problems with rides but this one I did... I don't know why... Erin said it made her sick, too.

Oh!! feeling sick on a ride is never a good thing. I hope it was just for that one moment.

After Star Tours, we headed over to Animation and enlisted ourselves in a Buzz Lightyear lesson. It was fun. The kids enjoyed it and I'm going to try to frame their pictures... each definitely has their own style but we enjoyed doing this. While waiting for our turn to go in the drawing room, a family asked me if we'd like their FP's to Tower of Terror. Nolan was all over that... so guess what we would be riding again?

for the entire year of planning, I wanted to do this. I know I should wait till my TR to let you know how it went... but lets just say I was very disappointed.