Tut, Tut, It Looks Like Rain, A Very Merry Thanksgiving TR Updated 4/28!!

[PrncessA]

As this is dragging out way too long and if I don’t finish soon I will have went on two more trips since this one! I don’t think I am going to get a trip report written for my adults only “honeymoon” last July, but I do hope to write one for my upcoming solo trip... but we shall see. Writing is a part of my daily life now between the Dis, school, writing on my own blog and being a staff writer for Magical Distractions. If you guys haven’t checked out the Magical Distactions website you should! So I am going to try my best to get this wrapped up ASAP. I have everything written, it is just adding the pictures to it and posting!!!

Just a bit of a side note. Even though this day at Disney wasn’t full of rides, it is full of smiles. Nearly every single one of the photos I took of my kids on this day they are smiling. This is why I love Disney, this is why we make sacrifices to go, this is why return so often. It is a magical place!

It is so sad when you know you only have a couple more sleeps at Disney! We woke up early on 9th day, and Erik and I had breakfast in the room. The kids were not ready to eat so we brought cereal with us. We were at the bus stop by 7:45am, and Lorelai was making good use of her new gloves.

And as you can see in the background, Ethan was tempting the yellow line gods….

And before we knew it, we were making this walk at 8:11am. Not bad at all!

But we were not the only ones with Epcot on the brain!

The Thanksgiving crowds were really gaining on us… I was so glad that this day’s focus was NOT on rides, because I am sure the wait times were awful.

They started letting people in around 8:30 and we followed the crowd toward Test Track, where we were stopped outside MouseGears…and we were in the sun, and it was CROWDED! Not my favorite way to start a day in the parks, that is for sure. Our goal was to ride TT straight away and head over to Mission Space.

Well we finally made it to TT, but after about 10 minutes of waiting in an unmoving line Lorelai and I had enough. We care nothing about designing the cars, so I ask her if she wanted to do the single rider line, then we could head over and do Mission Space before the boys. The boys wanted nothing to do with not making cars, so they let us go.


A few minutes later this was Lorelai and I:

We were the first set of single riders that didn’t get placed in the empty car…. A tip for others who want to ride together, but not design a car. Just go through the single rider line! It takes a few minutes for the people who are designing cars to catch up to you! Lorelai didn’t care, because now we were headed for Mission Space.

We decided to….

Go Orange!!! (BTW, we were here before Erik and Ethan ever made it on TT!)

She started regretting it while we were listening to the safety spiel, but I talked her into relaxing. The family that was next to us was riding for the second time that morning, the mom had decided that one ride was enough for her so we had two of the kids in our capsule.

The verdict? Not much different than Green, for me, but Erik and Ethan would not enjoy it.

Finally the boys rode TT, although Erik held up his hand and blocked them. LOL

We met back up with the boys inside TT and let the kids play for a while, since the line for MS was already too long for another ride.

Then we headed toward Club Cool and Starbucks, because it was morning and we needed coffee!We sat outside the back of Club Cool and enjoyed our drinks…

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not the ones Ethan kept bringing us, those were awful. We headed over toward the Imagination Pavilion, but Figment had an enourmous wait, so we bypassed it and when into the Pixar show instead.

What can I say we are goofy…

 

[PrncessA]

The movies were cute, the effects were okay, and we enjoyed it much more than Michael Jackson.

The rest of our morning and early afternoon was spent in our favorite place, World Showcase, where I will let the photos tell you the story.

Canada

We stopped for some sustenance in the UK.

And relaxed while Lorelai colored and Ethan played the Agent P game.

Which apparently included finding and turning in a ping pong ball. He REALLY wanted to keep it, but you had to turn it in to get the next clue I believe.

We said hello to France!

And we were on a mission in Japan!

After our trip in July, I now have enough pearls for a necklace and earings if I could find out how to set them.

We really took our time…

Got some drinks…

Met some new friends…

Colored…

Played…

Ate…

 

[PrncessA]

Took lots of Photopass pictures, in no particular order. (and one thrown in from another day even! LOL)

Got rained on, and stuck in Morocco…

Ethan tried, but no Genie appeared…

When the rain slowed down, we made a run for it to the boat.

And that is where my photos end for a time. I am almost certain that I had to stick my camera in my purse for some charging for our night adventures. But I do know from the boat we headed out of Epcot and to MK via Monorail and as evidence some cell phone pics:

 

[PrncessA]

As usual our first stop in MK was at the Fire Station for more SotMK cards.

And since we had time… and all the ride times were LONG, we spent the next hour playing our games.

I have a dozen more photos of them playing, but they are all basically the same. The kids holding cards up to windows. LOL

Around 5pm we headed over to our one ADR of the day, our first dinner at BOG. The CM who checked us in was rude to be honest, but my guess is they had already had enough of Thanksgiving crowds. Let me just give you a spoiler, our experience didn’t get better. We checked in at 5:00 and waited on the bridge….

And waited….

And waited….

And waited…

And waited….

Finally at 5:38pm we were seated in the main dining room. We were hungry and grumpy! And Ethan I suppose was a little silly…

Do you see all the empty tables in the background? Yeah, it was not busy, and yet we waited 38 minutes to be seated.

I would like to say that our grumpiness was the reason for our bad meal, but it wasn’t, it was our waiter. I know I still have the receipt so I could find his name, but he isn’t worth it. He was awful. Very rude. And basically made us feel uncomfortable the entire meal.

When he finally arrived at our table, I explained that we were on the dining plan but we would be paying for Ethan’s meal out of pocket, a kids meal. Now I expected that they would charge us an upcharge for a child, and that was fine. Here is where our problem occurred and could have easily been avoided by our server, had he cared at all. We ordered our drinks and Ethan went with his standard, chocolate milk.

Our waiter brought out our drinks and Ethan’s was in an adult size glass. We didn’t think much of it since that happens a lot at home, since it reduces the amount of refills a waitress has to make. We had waited a long time, and we were thirsty, so I wasn’t surprised that Ethan drank his milk pretty quickly. When our server returned we ask for a refill, and that is when we learned that Ethan didn’t get one. Because “adults” don’t get refills on milk. Ethan was very upset, not that he didn’t get a refill, but that the server had not explained that to him. Had he known that there would be no refills he would have either 1. Drank his milk slowly and ask for a water too or 2. Ordered a Sprite. We were really irritated at this point and a simple apology would have helped but the server was actually condescending when he told Ethan, so we were getting really upset.

Finally our food came. I am not sure what Lorelai and I ordered, but I know it was lackluster. Ethan and Erik both ordered steak, and both were way overcooked and tough. So much so that we stopped the waiter and ask for another steak knife for Ethan, who was not given one, to which the waiter said “Children do not get knives.” We were done at this point and Erik pointedly told me that as he himself had recently informed us, Ethan was an adult. The waiter brought him a knife pretty quickly…

The rest of the meal was lackluster due to the service. I don’t think we will return for breakfast or dinner at BOG again, maybe lunch.

The highlight of the meal was when the older couple who were sitting next to us leaned over and told us that our kids were adorable and so well behaved. J Proud mom moment!

At least we ended our meal on a good note!

After BOG, we still had time before our FP, so we ducked into Mickey’s Philharmagic. It was so crowded that we ended up sitting toward the very back and right in front of two people in the scooter area who had obviously saw the show a hundred times and talked through the entire thing… loudly.

Our night was not going well… I have not photographic proof we used our fast pass for BTMRR, but I am sure we did. But our next FP was for Wishes, and some downtime which we needed. We decided to pick this beauty up on our way there:

We scanned our MagicBands an hour early, went into the FP area and got a really good seat along the front, meaning no one could sit in front, or stand in front of us. Yay!

We struck up a conversation with the family next to us and the kids ran around together and played. Very enjoyable wait!

Wishes was wonderful of course!

Ethan wanted to take some pictures of Erik and I.

Not bad pictures either!

We decided to let the crowds leave and head back to our last FastPass of the night, 7DMT.

Surprisingly, we didn’t head out after our ride, instead we headed to Adventureland via Small World

With POTC as our goal, but it was down when we got there, so we headed into the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room. Did you sing it?

Then did a quick turn on Aladdin’s carpets.

With Cinderella apparently. The woman’s costume was very elaborate, I was kind of surprised she was allowed in with it. Her mother and her daughter who were with her were not dressed up at all.

AS you can see Lorelai was done for the night, as were we all. After our flight around the camel we jumped on the train to get back to the front of the park. Not sure why, since we weren’t in Frontierland, but I have photos, so it happened.

When we got back to the resort the kids’ stuffed animals were arranged all cute! But within minutes they were replaced by the kids! They were tired!

The kids were already becoming upset with the level of crowds at the MK and they were not alone. Out of all the parks, MK was by far the most crowded at the end of our week.

 

[MissMaryQC]

What a super Epcot day!! It's gotta be nice that your kids are old enough to be interested in the parts of Disney World that aren't characters and rides.

Sorry to hear that the crowds got so big, that's always a drag. Especially when it effects the level of service, as it clearly did at BoG. It bums me out your server was so terrible. I hope you wrote in. We had such a lovely dinner at BoG.

Wishes! Always such a super way to end a day at WDW!

 

[PrncessA]

What a super Epcot day!! It's gotta be nice that your kids are old enough to be interested in the parts of Disney World that aren't characters and rides.

Sorry to hear that the crowds got so big, that's always a drag. Especially when it effects the level of service, as it clearly did at BoG. It bums me out your server was so terrible. I hope you wrote in. We had such a lovely dinner at BoG.

Wishes! Always such a super way to end a day at WDW!

I love that the kids enjoy their non-ride times at Walt Disney World now. It makes planning so much easier. Funny thing is that when Erik and I took our adults only trip, I focused the planning on taking our time and not too many rides. Erik wanted to run from ride to ride. LOL

We knew going in that Thanksgiving was going to be busy. I am not sure which I would rather have to deal with, big crowds or heat.

I don't like to complain. Thinking back I probably should have, but I gave him a pass. It was Thanksgiving.

I can't believe that I have saw Wishes for the last time!!! I am excited to see the new show, but I Wishes makes me cry every time!

 

[PrncessA]

Since I don't have my laptop at work today (which as all of my pictures on it). I thought I would do a quick update with how my planning for my solo trip is coming, since I don't do PTR's well. I am thinking that this trip will be heavy on the dining, so I might do a dining report instead of a trip report for this trip.

My plans so far:

I will be flying out super early on May 31 (5:30am) and coming back very late on June 4th, so this gives me basically 5 full days of touring. This was uncertain for a while since I was playing tag with airline fares. I really wanted to fly Southwest since they offer earlier and later flight options, but the cost was crazy high! American was loads cheaper, but the times weren't as good. Finally last Thursday Southwest randomly dropped the flight prices for the times I wanted (one of them by $88) and I pounced.

I will be staying at:

For the first time! I am a little nervous, but I couldn't see paying for anything more when it is just me and I will barely be in the room. I have friends staying there as well, so that helps!

I am excited that the 20th Anniversary of the Dis is happening while I am there, it gives me so much more opportunity to meet other Dis'ers. I have made some good friends through the Dis (and indirectly through Disney events like the Indy Dis Meet), so it will be nice to have some alone time and mix in some time with friends.

I only bought the 4-Park Magic ticket, for two reasons, 1. I am only there for 5 days and I do want to visit each park. and 2. I really want to get down to Disney Springs and really explore and this gives me that opportunity.

So far here is how my days are shaping up. I am so excited to make my ADR's on Saturday!

Day 1

Arrive at 8:45am and head to POP on the Magical Express

Head over to DHS for the rest of the day! I am thinking about reserving the Dessert Party when it becomes available, but I am on the fence about doing it alone. No ADR's so far. I really like the Backlot Express, so it will probably be quick service this day. Not quite sure yet though, I am thinking of heading over to the Boardwalk at some point to pick up my Dis Credentials, so I might eat over there...

I plan on making Fast Passes for TSMM, Star Tours, and Tower of Terror. I will probably try RRC in the single riders line. And of course I want to watch the Star Wars fireworks again.


Day 2

My off day! I have a few things to do this day, but mostly I am resting up for the party that night at Epcot.

I have a 9:05am breakfast ADR at Trattoria al Forno for the new character breakfast although now that I am having lunch in Disney Springs, I might change this if possible to the last day of my trip.

I plan on heading down to DS to meet up with some Dis friends for lunch at Homecomin'. Then we have plans to head to Geyser Point and Trader Sam's before heading to the Dis 20th Anniversary Party at Epcot! Unlimited rides on Soarin', TT, Figment, and Nemo, food and Illuminations... I am there!

Day 3

Magic Kingdom!

I am really excited to spend the day at Magic Kingdom alone. There is soo much I want to do. I have a lunch ADR at BOG, but I am not sure if I am going to keep it or maybe I will keep it just to get a Master's Cupcake, because I have yet to try Columbia Harbour House and I really want to. I am also thinking of making a Skipper Canteen ADR for dinner to try some of the appetizers.

For Fast Passes I am hoping for Jungle Cruise, 7DMT, and I am stuck between Peter Pan and Splash Mountain.

Then of course I will end the day by seeing the new fireworks show "Happily Ever After". I hope I like it, it will probably never replace Wishes in my heart, but I do hope for the best.

Day 4

Animal Kingdom, and to be honest I am a bit shocked that I am more than a little excited for this day! Probably has a lot to do with RoL and Pandora.

AK has both early morning EMH and late this day, so I plan to be there EARLY in order to try and beat the crowd for a chance to ride both rides in Pandora. Then I have a ROL breakfast at Tusker House with Dis friends who I met at the Indy Dis Meet years ago and we have gotten together a few times since then, including on our adults only trip last year. Disney friends really are the best.

I might head out of AK for the afternoon/evening and head over to AKL. I would love to try the bread service at Sanaa. Then back to AK for RoL and EMH in Pandora.

Day 5

Epcot and Departure Day

I am trying to move my Trattoria al Forno breakfast to this day, but so far I haven't been able to. If I can't I will probably keep the other one. I also don't have any other ADR's scheduled for this day yet, as I will probably just eat my way around the World Showcase, or if I want to sit down to a meal I will see what is available right then.

For my fast passes, I am hoping for Frozen, Spaceship Earth and maybe the character spot. I will probably spend most of my day in World Showcase. My plane doesn't leave until 10:55pm, so I have basically an entire day at the park!

So that is my plan, tentatively, as you know I love to change things up!

 

[Chicago Mo]

Where did my reply go??? WHERE!!!
I am so angry it's gone. just know i am following and reading and posting by clearly the Dis didn't like all my replies and quoting.
grrrrrrrr
I do love all your new plans and i do hope you do try the new character meal!!

 

[MissMaryQC]

Plans look great! I hope you'll share some pics of all the new stuff you're getting to do; ROL, Pandora, Happily Ever After.

Funny that you might give up BOG and do skipper's; we couldn't get a BIG dinner so we're doing Skipper's instead! You're gonna be able to eat and drink so much wonderful WDW stuff!! Yum!!

It's so cool that you've been able to do DiS meets in Indy! I've never had a dismeet, well, an accidental one with a CM, but that doesn't count! Psyched for this trip for you; it's gonna be a blast!

 

[Jerzetta]

So enjoyed this report. Picked up some dining locations I didn't consider until after reading yours.

 

[PrncessA]

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We woke up early, like always, but today was going to be a busy day at the parks so we decided to really take it easy, and get there when we got there.

Lorelai and I walked to El Centro to pick up our HDDR tickets for that night, and overnight Christmas had come to Coronado!

Then we picked up some breakfast and sat outside together and ate it.

We brought some back to the boys as well.

We took our time getting ready and at 9:36am we were on the bus to what I hoped would be the least crowded park of the day, DHS.

We were apparently looking for a hat. Although I have no recollection of this at all, and it does seem odd for us as the kids hate hats. Maybe we stopped for Erik to look….

And stopped for pics of course.

I laughed so hard when I saw that I had accidentally put the "We're Engaged" border on this photo.

We made a stop to visit The Little Mermaid with our FP, yeah I know. I hate tiers!

Then headed over to the Great Movie Ride, where we became gangsters.

It was time to get competitive!

We were shocked at how empty the queue was, but the wait outside was long. The CM said it was correct, they had just made more room in the queue by removing Mr. Potato Head. Even so, I think the wait was inflated.

After or spin around TSMM, where I crushed Lorelai, we headed down to a ride Lorelai had already chickened out of once. But we couldn’t pass up more photos!

Again with no FP, what was I thinking? But when we arrived the wait time wasn’t bad.

We picked up some cold refreshments on our way and waited….

and heard them make an announcement that the wait would be longer than expected. But we held out… wrong choice. 2 Hours we waited!!! I have no idea why and it was brutal, never will we do it again. BUT, had we gotten out of line we would not have gotten this photo.

She did open her eyes and she did enjoy the ride. Erik, not so much. LOL

After waiting 2 hours we were late for our next FP, but after explaining the situation, they let us in for our last ride of Star Tours of the trip, no photos though.

Then we stopped at Backlot Express and got what now I know are my last buffalo nuggets, as I found out they no longer have them on my last trip. I was so upset! At this point I had to pay up on a bribe that I had promised Lorelai for going on Rockin’ Rollercoaster. We were going to get our faces painted!

The boys headed back to the resort and Lorelai and I headed over to Pixar Place. Now look at the line for TSMM!!!! CRAZY!!!

Lorelai knew exactly what she wanted and they had to find it in their book, since it isn’t common for DHS, maybe at AK.

Happy Zebra!

Me I went with something a bit more glittery.

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[PrncessA]

We took some photopass pics then headed out back to the resort around 3:20pm.

We relaxed in the room for a couple hours, well the rest of the family relaxed, I started the dreaded packing. And we headed back out at 6:30pm. We took the bus to MK, then the boat from MK to Fort Wilderness. And boy was I glad we were not headed into MK, because….. wow.

Before we knew it we were at Fort Wilderness, way before we needed to be. What to do? Get a drink!

Erik had a Stella and I picked up Moonshine cocktails and relaxed while the kids played on the playground. A CM insisted on taking our picture in front of the Christmas Tree, but the flash was on so you don’t actually see the tree. LOL

The kids had a great time playing on the playground and we had a great time relaxing with our drinks, we may or may not have gotten a second one… before we headed here:

By the time it was check-in time for HDDR, we were all ready to book a stay at Fort Wilderness, until I reminded everyone that it was either a cabin or a tent… We like hotels, really like them.

We got our obligatory photo taken and headed inside to be seated.

I had booked our HDDR ADR early, right at 180 days, 6am, 2nd ADR booked. So I figured we would have pretty good seats. I had no idea we would practically be on stage. We were seated in the middle, right up against the stage. Next time I might book a couple days after 180 days to be back a bit. This was VERY close.

Regardless of how close our seats were, this was a fantastic time as usual! This is a show I could see a million times and never grow tired of it. Plus it comes with some amazing food and unlimited sangria! I am sold!

The food was spot on, and this time Ethan finally ate it. In fact we ask for more chicken since he ate so much of it!

We ask for something different for Lorelai and she got an Uncrustable and Chips. She really liked the chips.

We were really close…

The show was fantastic and we were picked during the “State Song” although I can’t remember what rhymed with Illinois to save my life. Ethan really liked that we were picked.

Before we knew it, we were headed back out to the boat. Then back up to the building, because Lorelai (who swore she didn’t need to go) had to REALLY go to the restroom. We had left the rest of the evening up to the kids. If they wanted to go back to the room, we would head back, or we could spend some time at the MK since it was open until 2 or 3am. They chose going back to the room…

 

[PrncessA]

Just kidding, they wanted some empty MK time! As I had figured, most people would be Thanksgivinged out by this time and the MK was very empty.

We started out by taking a spin on Buzz.

I am REALLY bad at that game, but not bad enough apparently, because I beat Lorelai and she was NOT happy. Hence the reason she is not in this photo:

So we rode again so that Erik could help Lorelai.

Then we took a ride on the People Mover. I don’t know why it looks like Lorelai is sleeping, trust me, she wasn’t. Maybe she was still mad at me for being a better Spaceranger than her.

http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/2014disneyphotos/library/Disney World 2015/Day 10 part 2?sort=3&page=1

Then we headed back to get a few rides in on the Barnstormer as Storybrook Circus was EMPTY. The kids disappeared and we assume they were riding over and over. I have no idea how many times they rode in a row as we were sitting and relaxing outside the ride.

That’s when I saw a familiar couple walking into the queue for the Barnstormer… so I called out and sure enough it was Brenda (emmysmommy) from here on the Dis and her husband. It was great getting to meet another Dis’er. We talked for a while before the kiddos finally had their fill of Goofy.

After Storybrook Circus, we headed to visit our favorite mermaid.

Where Ariel determined that Lorelai must be a type of “Zebra Fish”.

We most likely rode the ride as well, but I don’t have photographs to prove it. Although the kids did meet King Triton.

We headed toward Peter Pan because I was hoping the wait would be short and we could actually go through the queue. It was!! In fact it was so short that we actually let people go ahead of us so we could enjoy the queue. I love the new queue! It is so much fun!

Poor Nana!

After Peter Pan we decided to take one more ride on 7DMT and enjoy that queue again.

For some reason we only have proof that Lorelai and were on the ride.

Finally it was time to call it a night at 1:30am, as it was no longer technically Thanksgiving!

We headed back to the buses and back to our room for the last time. Everyone else of course fell into bed, but I finished up packing for our departure the next day. So SAD!!

 

[PrncessA]

We were up pretty early since we had a lot to do before we could head out to the park. We finished packing up, called Bell Services, checked in for our flight and finally got on the bus to head out to our last ADR.

We passed by a busy MK entrance and hopped on the monorail over to the Poly.

We checked in to O’hana around 9:15 and waited less than 5 mintues to be seated!

Does this look like a kid who has spent 11 days at Disney World? I think so!

Just so happens this is what we had to look at….

Tiki butt!

Ethan spent his breakfast sorting his SotMK cards.

The meal was okay. Our server was eh, not bad, not great. The food was standard. Lorelai was GRMPY.

But we really came for the characters!

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]

Stitch was fascinated with E’s cards.

After breakfast we said

To the Poly and hopped on the Monorail for the last time and headed over to the MK, along with everyone else in WDW it felt like!

We made our obligatory stop at the Firestation for more cards…

Watched the Trolley Show. Who else LOVES their Christmas costumes?

And fought a thousand people down Main Street.

We stopped at our first FP+, our only ride on 7DMT in the daylight the entire trip, and our last ride on it this trip. There was a party goin’ on in there!

Last ride blues:

 

[PrncessA]

Even though we had JUST finished breakfast, grumpy Lorelai hadn’t ate that much. So we stopped in Gaston’s Tavern for the famous cinnamon roll and that perked her right up!

After eating we found out the Gaston would be out soon, so we jumped in line. Lorelai was so nervous that she barely even looked at him! She was beet red by the end of the interaction.

The crowds were awful and Ethan wanted to finish his SotMK game in Liberty Square/Frontierland. Erik and Lorelai grabbed a seat and I followed Ethan around.

The line to the bathrooms…

Just kidding I believe this was the line to Jungle Cruise or the Treehouse.

We picked up some cold treats of course, because we had a thousand credits left on the DDP. We will probably never do the dining plan again, it just doesn’t work for us anymore.

Then made our way to a favorite that had a standby wait of 85 minutes! It was a mass of people at MK this day!

Thank goodness for FP! This is one of my favorite ride pictures of all time! I don’t know if the family behind us heard us talking about our ride pose or did it randomly, but it is classic!

Then it was time to use our final Fast Pass and take a final ride on BTMRR….

We picked up some snacks in the form of a wonderful Dole Whip, because you can NEVER have too many Dole Whips.

And popcorn.

We did a bit of shopping in the Emporium before deciding to get seats to finally see the parade. We headed up to the top of the train station. While Erik held our seats I ran down to Starbucks to get some drinks, then to the candy shop to use some of our remaining snack credits to take home. I picked up some bags of trail mix that was a great “magical” snack at work.

Finally it was time for the parade and it was soo good!

I really loved the look of the parade. Do I love it more than Paint the Night? Not really. Paint the Night has this wonderful soundtrack that is current and fun, but I think that the floats for both are beyond amazing.

After the parade we headed straight out of the MK and back to the resort, and my photos are scarce. I know we had our last lunch at the Pepper Market, but I have no idea what we ate. Before we knew it, it was 5:30pm and we were here, waiting on the dreaded Un-magical Express.

Adios Coronado Springs!

Lorelai was asleep before we left the resort I am sure. She was running on empty for the last day and she was not happy to be going home. Also somehow I had packed her hoodie, so she was wearing mine. LOL

The last photo I have for the trip is in the Fake-O-Rail.

We made it to our gate and our flight was for the most part uneventful. The family who was behind us on the plane, who was traveling with multiple sets of parents and children was EXTREMELY loud and seemed like they had been drinking a bit too much. The toddler was screaming her head off but none of the adults seemed to notice or care. Luckily my kids still slept the entire flight home. I tried, but I was too wound up, and it was way too loud. Before we knew it we were home and boy was our doggie happy to see us!

 

[PrncessA]

So ends our epic Thanksgiving Disney Trip. I hate ending it, as it makes me sad just to write about the end of a trip. If only life could be one big Walt Disney World trip that never ended!

As with every trip we learned a lot on this one as well.

Dining: We will probably never used the Dining Plan again. Since my kids are more snackers than big meal eaters, buffets are just not worth the cost any longer. That really is the only benefit that makes the DDP cost effective to us. Plus they are both now “adults”. We will probably continue buying the mugs as we definitely get the use out of them.

That being said, we had a lot of great food on this trip. Trattoria al Forno is now one of our go-to restaurants and we really enjoyed our meal there last July as well. As this will probably be our last trip with multiple character meals, I loved looking back on all the photos. I don’t think we will ever get tired of Tusker House though! The kids actually enjoyed having food in the room for snacks and breakfast, vs. eating it out, so Garden Grocer was a great choice and we will certainly order from them in the future.

Resort: We really enjoyed Coronado Springs resort and we would stay there again in a heartbeat. The Dig Site pool was a definite favorite of the kids’, probably over Stormalong Bay. It is a big resort and requires a lot of walking to get to the pool and/or the main building, so that is something to consider. The best part is the savings over the deluxe hotels, we were able to stay for 11 days over a holiday by staying at a moderate. I am interested to check out POP on my trip next month. That could save us even more!

Crowds: The crowds grew the closer we got to Thanksgiving and were just awful for the last few days of the trip. We would travel during this time again for three reasons. 1) We didn’t have to pull the kids out of school for as long; 2) We didn’t have to take as many vacation days since we already get some from the holiday; and 3) The cooler weather was FANTASTIC!!!!

Overall: This was a magical trip! It was great seeing the resorts and the parks all decked out for Christmas. We probably won’t do the Christmas party again, but we would love to try the Halloween party! The kids are now super comfortable in the parks and could probably lead a tour group if needed. They also know our touring style now so the whole vacation feels very relaxing, which was NOT the case at Disneyland. They both know how incredibly blessed they are to have been able to visit Disney so many times, which makes the sting of me going solo easier to handle for them I think. They actually haven’t given me ANY grief over my upcoming solo trip!

So that wraps up our 2015 Thanksgiving Trip… just in time for my next trip, with another one already under our belts. I hope that I have time to write at least a Dining Report for my solo report, but I have been doing so much writing lately that I feel like it is all I do. In addition to my own blog that I would like to start writing more on (I am also transferring all of my Trip Reports there), and writing for Magical Distractions, I also recently got a position at TheMouseForLess as a blogger for them! Thank you to everyone who stuck with me on a trip report that took FOREVER!

 

[MissMaryQC]

Wow! What A great trip! It sounds like you guys had so much fun. I love that you're able to do so much as a family, but still so much solo stuff. Like it's got to be great to be able to have a few drinks while the kids play on the playground.

Would you link your blog please? I'd love to read along!

Hope you'll have some time to do a dining report for your solo trip. This was a great read and I'm glad you guys had so much fun! Here's to many more fun trips to Walt Disney World.

 

[Chicago Mo]

first. Can i have your autograph? Your like a Disney rock star!

I love your trip. and so sad it's over. as always the kids are perfect and i adore all the pictures!

I know it took me forever to catch up here.. But i haven't been on in forever!

 

[PrncessA]

Wow! What A great trip! It sounds like you guys had so much fun. I love that you're able to do so much as a family, but still so much solo stuff. Like it's got to be great to be able to have a few drinks while the kids play on the playground.

Would you link your blog please? I'd love to read along!

Hope you'll have some time to do a dining report for your solo trip. This was a great read and I'm glad you guys had so much fun! Here's to many more fun trips to Walt Disney World.

first. Can i have your autograph? Your like a Disney rock star!

I love your trip. and so sad it's over. as always the kids are perfect and i adore all the pictures!

I know it took me forever to catch up here.. But i haven't been on in forever!

Hey everyone just wanted to share that I began my new trip report:

Party of 1, plus 1,000! My solo DIS adventure!