OMG Lives4disney,
Where have you been?!
I am looking forward to hearing of your trip. These boards are boring without your input!
Thanks! Are you being sarcastic??
Just kidding.
I need DH's help!!
I am so clueless about the picture posting thing. One time I need to PAY ATTENTION to how he does it instead of sitting back and having him do it.
Hopefully later today I will get him to help me. He is outside trying to replant a TREE that fell down.
He may not be in the mood for the DIS after.
Hmmm....I have been trying to think of more stuff to write about our trip, though.....We had some magical moments and some pretty cruddy ones, too. I will start with the magical. During lunch in Germany, they have that cute entertainment (the girls and I love this place, but my DH HATES the food, so DH and DS went to Japan for lunch) Anyway, DDs went down to do their Christmas tree celebration. DD10 was chosen to light the tree. My pics are very dark of this, though. The kids were all given large gold chocolate coins after they did the little song/dance thing. Cute.
On Xmas Eve, Santa and Mickey and Minnie were scheduled to be in the GF lobby. The girls and I were all dressed up for dinner at Citricos and went down to chitchat with the concierge CMs. Well, who strolls by all dolled up for Xmas but Minnie Mouse. Vonnie asked her if she would take pics with the girls before she went down. That was neat for us - especially considering later when we went down to the lobby the line was literally across the whole carpet to visit with Mickey or Minnie. Then, after Citricos we stopped to tell Vonnie & Joe "Thanks" for arranging a nice bday celebration for Jojo and Mickey gets off the elevator. Of course he took pics with the girls, too. Christmas Eve dinner at Citricos was nice, MUCH louder and busier than on our July trip, though. We had a circle table for 6 and couldn't really talk because I had no voice due to my cold (had no voice during the whole trip
) and to be heard you had to shout. The food was OK, not as wonderful as July, either. Not sure why.
Christmas Day we slept in, opened gifts, made phone calls, and ate at Gaspies. Nobody made it up early for the Krispie Kreme run. We made due with cinnamon rolls and bananas at about noon. I had 1900 PF booked for a late bfast, but after the fiasco we had there on 12/20 none of us were in a hurry to return there. On 12/20 we had dinner booked and I ordered a CHOCOLATE Minnie Mouse cake for miss picky eater DD6. I was going to surprise her with it, but I couldn't wait so I told her I ordered her the cake and that we planned on celebrating her bday there.....On our July trip 1900 PF made such a fuss and treat out of celebrating my bday there I wanted a repeat for my little DD that loves all things Disney, princess etc. and she is such fun for me at Disney. I don't want to make a long story even longer, but we have had nothing but nice 1900 PF experiences before - this time was a total bust. Bad service, wrong cake, awful cake - it wasn't chocolate, but a weird watered down German chocolate with a strange filling, and more bad service. I am not picky - I LOVE cake, but this was really bad. I have pics of the cake after they turned Mickey into Minnie and it is very cute and really wowed my DD when she saw it, but I left the whole cake minus the little piece we ate at 1900 PF because all of us thought there was something wrong with it AND the waitress could not seem to get it together to bring us a box. Turned out OK w/out one because we didn't want it anyway. It was not a good time at all (we had to pretty much beg for a Happy Birthday crown for DD and the placemat etc that came so graciously to us in July) and the dinner took so long (almost 3 hrs) that this ruined our night. DD6 was lying across the chairs as we WAITED and WAITED for our bill. Took 25 min from the time she took my payment til she brought it back. Before that it took 30 min to get drinks, 20 to even see her to bring out that darn awful cake....we then WAITED for plates/knife etc she said she was brining out. Finally cleaned off our bread plates and used my DH's butter knife to cut it. She turned up a bit later empty handed and said "Oh, you worked it out."
My DD6 was really disappointed with the whole thing. It was pathetic and really turned me off to 1900 PF.
Our first night, I got stuck in that side elevator with my girls. My card lost it's power, lol. I was told not to keep it by my cell. I guess it was my bad and I didn't know this, so I am just passing it on. My DH was like "Dah". We were panicky, though!! Then we went to Chef Mickeys for dinner. Now this used to (for the past many years) be a favorite due to the atmosphere and characters. WEll, the atmosphere was gross and dirty this time. I am not kidding - there was a corn bread muffin under DD10's seat when we sat down and it stayed there the whole time. Even in like Denny's folks come around with sweepers and clean up. Not at Chef Mickey's. I felt dirty when I left. We all thought to give this place another try because Nov 05 it wasn't up to par either. Not again. Ick.
We did Ohanas for Xmas dinner and we always love that place. I just always try to save room for that fabulous dessert and can't do it! It must be the yummy pina colada I drank, but something always has me too full. Our service there started out pretty bad, too, with a 1/2 hr wait for drinks. My DH talked to somebody and a manager came over and apologized and offered to buy our dinner. We said that was not necessary at all, we just wanted drinks!! He was very nice and after that service was great. Don't know why the bad start. Our bill came and he had taken off all the drinks which was very nice esp since we all ordered expensive drinks!
Ok, back to good things.....the Xmas parade was wonderful. We skipped the Xmas party due to crowds, but Lucy and I saw it on Dec 24 (I think - maybe 23)
The offerings at RPC lounge were the same as always. I do wish they would have more variety. It is funny but we started staying there two years ago and have done about 8 stays and it is always the SAME food. The CMs in the lounge are so sweet. I like a banana and peanut butter for bfast and they remembered from our last stay and brought me the uncrustables to use for pbutter. I felt bad for them - they seemed very overworked with the crowd level at the hotel. This trip (I may have mentioned it previously) the guests really surprised me by being super messy, sloppy, and leaving their messes. Almost NOBODY brought their plates/etc over to the tray table for the CMs. It just made more work for them and less places to find a spot to sit.
I thought, for the overworked CMs in the lounge and concierge they did a great job. I never felt like due to the crowds we were getting bad service or slacking service at all. Our housekeeper was super. She always left us 8 or more towels. We tipped lots extra on Xmas eve & Day and she left us tons of everything - including handfuls of chocolates at turndown. The first day she left two towel animals - a christmas present and person and also a toothbrush holder thing. I know there has been debate before (ugly debate, lol) about what to do with these towel animals when you leave, but I was told by concierge CMs to take them home....you are SUPPOSED to take them home. They are yours to keep.
My tree was beautiful. We didn't have WDW Florist ship it home as the note said it could take 4 to 6 weeks!!! I took the tree apart a bit, packed some, and had concierge ship the rest 2 day UPS. It arrived Saturday Dec 30 and we have it reset up here. My DH thought it must have cost all of $100
.....Then he guess more accurately and was OK with it because it was so pretty and nice to have in our room.
The Osbourn Lights at MGM are spectacular. Honestly, before this year I thought they were pretty but didn't get the big fuss. Just a bunch of lights slapped up on the buildings and we are more creative with ours at home, lol. Anyway, they were great the way they danced to the music now. It was a nice finale to our trip seeing them 12/26. They were cancelled a few nights earlier because of rain. That same rain really helped us on Christmas Day. We left Gaspies and got on a AK bus. As soon as we got off the bus it started to pour. We put on our ponchos and took off. It was lots of fun, but we were soaked to the skin. Everything, including Everest was a walk on. They let us stay on Kali Water Rapids 4 times in a row. Safari walked on. Saw Lilo & Stich in Pizzafari. That was cool. The only bad thing about characters is I walked away so many times feeling invisible. People just do not have manners when it comes to taking turns!! There was a lot of pushy, greedy type people there. We were waiting (standing) at the rope in Frontierland for Spectro - everybody was standing so we did too - anyway, this nonenglish speaking older lady comes over and literally hipbumps my DD10 out of her way so she could cut in front. I mean body slams her. My DH and I were behind the girls and every chance I got I pushed them back toward that crazy lady to try and edge her out. She also kept turning around, kind of sideways, to call to her family to come up by her - that gave me the opportunity to squeeze her out. I just thought how rude pushing a kid back so you (an OLD lady) can get a front row!!
The crowds were awful - just as everybody warned. I don't know that we will do Disney during a holiday again. It was a weird trip. Good, but weird. We spent a LOT of time at GF and just kind of hanging around. I didn't even ride the Great Movie Ride or Spaceship Earth, didn't get to rent a pontoon boat, and I missed a lot of other things, too. We swam one day for just about an hour. Had to keep that dinner ADR or we wouldhave been SOL. The sleigh ride I booked at WL was almost a bust. We arrived and weren't on his schedule. He phoned over to FW and we were on THAT schedule. IPO booked it for me and there must have been confusion about what I wanted....I bet it was my mistake because I booked the carriage ride at Wilderness Lodge, but it is called a "Sleigh Ride". They do "Carriage" ridesa at FW.
The driver took us, though, just as we turned to go away he called us back. I don't know how he squeezed us in, but he did and it was nice. WDW overall was just too busy and I am not into that. I didn't even get a souvenier because the shops were so sosososo crowded we could barely move, nevermind try and look at items. We did monorail shop, though at the Poly and CR. Girls bought some stuff, but nothing thrilled me. It was too hot for a sweatshirt and I couldn't find a tee I liked, either.
We did love that Basin store at the GF. I was told it would close in January and reopen for spring breakers with a new, larger store. This one at Xmas was a quickie filler store, but still had yummy smelling items and we bought a bunch to take home.
I didn't make it to Lush at MCO because our flight was late, limo driver phoned my cell as he waited at luggage claim, so we hurried to meet him.
Hmmm....I have been coming back to this between helping DH redo that tree. Sorry it's long and maybe disjointed.
If you have questions, ask away! I will try my best to post pics later tonight.
Lives4Disney aka Channing
or bananas!
(p.s. if it does sound that way, it must be my Philly backround!) I truly do miss your posting. 
