There's a Giraffe in my Stocking! A Mom/Daughter Christmas trip!

[jenseib]

Thanks

 

[mousetravel]

So for our very first time, ever, we came across......

Devine!!!!!!!

I thought it was so neat.


Before the parade was supposed to start, we wanted to find out the wait time for EE to see if we could get in line & ride before the parade, so we head over there, but had to get a quick pic first;

I can't remember the exact wait times, but I do remember that we actually rode it twice within 55 minutes!!!!!

DD raising her hands as usual, and me holding on for dear life....as usual!

Up next: Mickey's Jingle Jungle Parade!

 

[Pinkocto]

How cool that the "firsts" theme is continuing! We saw her for the first time also and thought she was amazing!

2 EE rides in less than an hour is really good!

I'm with you on AK, I just love it.

 

[mousetravel]

How cool that the "firsts" theme is continuing! We saw her for the first time also and thought she was amazing!

2 EE rides in less than an hour is really good!

I'm with you on AK, I just love it.

There's a lot of "firsts" in this trip!

 

[mousetravel]

Before we left AK, we wanted to see the parade.

I thought the back of Mickey's float was really cute, with the Happy New Year decor!

As we got ready to leave the park, we peeked over the bridge and noticed the water was GREEN!
And we were trying to figure out what happened, because if you walked to the other side of the bridge, it was not green!!! (weird)

So we got a few more pics on our way out

We left AK, and went back to our hotel to grab a bite to eat and change clothes. We headed to the food court and got this:

We made our way to MK for the MVMCP, hoping to get there early. After we ate, changed clothes, etc., we ended up only getting there about an hour early.


Coming up next:



MVMCP:

The Good , the Bad , and the Ugly !!!!!!!

 

[KatGarcia]

returning the sub!

you and your daughter are just adorable! its a great trip so far.

The EE pic is great, you are too funny but the kid in the front row cracked me up!!! Classic!

I also wanna say that you rock...I have a new respect for single mom's, it's HARD work!

 

[jennyf2]

Just found your TR ... GREAT so far Can't wait to read more!

 

[fflmaster]

Very nice report.

 

[mousetravel]

returning the sub!

you and your daughter are just adorable! its a great trip so far.

The EE pic is great, you are too funny but the kid in the front row cracked me up!!! Classic!

I also wanna say that you rock...I have a new respect for single mom's, it's HARD work!

Thank you!! I noticed the kid in the front row. Cracks me up, too!

It's tough being a single parent, and I wish I would have been able to take her to Disney when she was younger, but it never worked out. So now, we enjoy our trips together so much, we rarely even think of going with others, (to Disney anyway. Everyone thinks we're crazy for wanting to go all the time, so I finally stopped trying to convince anyone else to go!!)

We have such a good time, just us. After the tough times, and hard work, I find that just knowing how much she loves doing things together, makes it all worth it!! (Especially when many teenagers are rebelling against their moms at this age, I know I did!)

Just found your TR ... GREAT so far Can't wait to read more!

Thanks for joining my TR!

Very nice report.

Thanks!!

 

[mousetravel]

I won't be posting any pics in this post, because I wanted to explain the "bad" and the "ugly" portion of our day at MVMCP, so I can then move on to the FUN stuff. (So I'll be skipping around a little bit to explain.)





So for the "ugly" part:

First off, this part had nothing to do with Disney, but it was definately the worst! As we entered MVMCP, I took tons of pics, as usual, of all the gorgeous Christmas decor. We got pics with Mickey & Minnie in their holiday outfits. (Because of the crowds, this is the ONLY characters we got pics with during the MVMCP!) As I took pics, I really didn't pay much attention to my camera, until we got our spot to wait for the parade. As we were waiting, I decided to look through my pics. Well, I about had a fit when I noticed ALL the previous pics that I took there were GONE!!!! (All except 2 pictures when we first arrived). Trying not to panic, I tried everything, turned the camera off then on, changed batteries, and changed camera cards. (Thank goodness I always pack a little bag with all the "extras"!)

After I did all of that, the pics I took there after were fine!
BUT I had lost all of the pics I took up to that point. I was so upset, especially because of the Mickey & Minnie pics!! Luckily, though I am getting our photopass pics on CD, so at least I'll have those anyway.

Still don't know what happened on all of those pictures, but when I tried to view them, there was an error message on my camera that said "unidentifiable image" on all those pics!
(And all of our previous pics were fine that we took up to this point! It just started doing that as we went to the MVMCP.)

The next day, before we headed to HS, I took the camera card to Walgreens to ask them about it and the lady said it probably was a corrupt SD card and I could try taking it to Best Buy when I got home and see if they could figure it out. So when I got home, I did take it to Best Buy and the guy said they couldn't fix it. So, at least I'll be able to get our Mickey& Minnie pics anyway from photopass, but still, thats' a lot of pics to lose (about 60 of them!)

For the next few days, I had to keep myself from crying over those pics!

But come to find out, we'd get even better pics with Mickey & Minnie later that week!!! (Hint: It wouldn't be at a park, and it's the first pic on this TR!!)










Now for the "bad"

MVMCP was just too crowded!! We didn't have time to do much of anything that was offered only at the party. We did get to see the parade (seen the 2nd parade after we missed the first one because we waited in a spot for an hour, before being told we could not wait there. So it had gotten too crowded to even see the parade by the time we had to move.)


I was looking forward to shopping for MVMCP merchandise, only to find out that they were only offereing T shirts and pins; no mugs, magnets, etc...

It was so crowded that the only character pics we had time for was with Mickey & Minnie, none of the other rare character appearances.

Most of our time was used fighting through the crowds. We finally decided to just catch a few rides. We rode a few rides with no wait, including HM.

If we went to Disney at Christmas time, I probably would not go to the MVMCP again. I'm sure a lot of people find different ways to navigate through this, but I just wouldn't want to spend that much money for it!

Sorry to put a damper on things, but if you have read any of my previous reports, I always let my Dis friends know the bad that sometimes comes along with the good. (And sometimes even the crazy!)


So since that's out of the way, I can only report GOOD things from that point in our trip!!!!!!!

 

[mousetravel]

Here's the first 2 pictures I took as we arrive at MVMCP, before my camera card went crazy!

After I switched camera cards, I was ready to get some pics of the parade!!!!

And finally, SANTA!!!! (Santa, please bring me a new camera card for Christmas! )

Coming up: Finishing our night at MVMCP!!!

 

[sl_underwood]

Im subbing... we will be in WDW next December so any tips/tricks you want to share, I am listening!

 

[DisneyTravelers2008]

What a wonderful mother - daughter trip!!! Awesome pictures! Cant wait to see more...

 

[disney<333]

Loving your TR! I was at Disney Christmas week and I too have a 16 yr old DD! Is yours a sophomore?

 

[mousetravel]

Im subbing... we will be in WDW next December so any tips/tricks you want to share, I am listening!

Thanks for joining in on my TR!! My #1 tip would be to not spend $$ on the MVMCP! We enjoyed it more on our regular MK than on our MVMCP day! I'll have more coming up!

What a wonderful mother - daughter trip!!! Awesome pictures! Cant wait to see more...

Thank you!!

Loving your TR! I was at Disney Christmas week and I too have a 16 yr old DD! Is yours a sophomore?

My DD is a junior. I'm going to check out you TR!

 

[jenseib]

UGH!! How awful. I lost an SD from our trip on the cruise, but luckily most of my pictures were on my other 2 cameras, but I did lose somme valuable ones.
I also had a card go bad this fall. I took pictures and loaded them on the computer and then went to delete them and I got that same message. I took a few more random ones around the house and they wouldn't show up, so I tried formatting the card and it told me it couldn't be done. I just threw the card away then. I gues they can go bad after awhile and it was my oldest card, but I am glad it wasn't anything major on it. And I have since bought 2 new cards as well.
I love your parade pictures. I am thinking of extending our cruise next fall a few days at WDW and going to the party. I know it wil lbe insanley buys, as it wil lmost likely be one of the 1st parties, but I just want to try it out. I think we'll only do that and then a day at HS to see the Osborn lights and take the other day and half as resort days.
I'm loving your updates though.

 

[Pinkocto]

UGH! What a bummer about the SD card. I'm glad you noticed it mid party and not after leaving and didn't loose all your pictures.

The parade looks great, and the castle is so beautiful all lit up!

 

[mousetravel]

After the parade, we headed to the castle to catch the Christmas themed show. I didn't get very many good pictures though, but here's a few:

We got a few more pics on our way out.

Loved all the store front decorations:

They had this cute little section called the Candy Cane Garden. It's a little walk through area with decor. Didn't see any characters back there. We just looked through there, didn't walk through.

(My camera doesn't take very good night time pics, sorry those are a little blurry. I have much better pics from our full day at MK, coming up later.)

Finishing up with our MVMCP day, I thought I would share what we did enjoy that night.

1. The parade was fantastic, and even though you can see the same parade during the day after the last MVMCP, there was just something magical about it being at night, with the "snow" falling, and the castle lit up as a backdrop!!

2. They had a "Totally Tomorrowland Christmas" show with Stitch, Buzz Lightyear, and a few other characters. I was hesitant about trying to see it and didn't think it would be all that great. But it turned out to be a great show!! I didn't get any pics of it, though. It was really cute!

3. FREE hot chocolate and cookies!!! They were very yummy!

4. We loved the Christmas show at the castle, and I'm not sure if they showed it after the last MVMCP.

5. We did get to ride a couple of rides with no wait. (HM & TTA) I think that's the only rides we got to do.




Coming up next: Hollywood Studios!!!!!

 

[disney<333]

Glad you guys had a great time despite the crowds! I wanted to see the castle show so badly, but it took 40 minutes to order at Casey's and I missed it! Can't wait to hear about Hollywood Studios!!

 

[KatGarcia]

Well at least things turned out ok in the end! Sorry about the pics, its happened to me so i can relate!