Wonderful Thanksgiving Trip!

[december]

I'm not posting a step by step report, since I relied heavily on TGM and I'd give away too much information. I did want to post a summary for all those people who want to do a Thanksgiving trip but are scared of the crowds. We had a wonderful time, and loved all the Christmas cheer!

Cast: me (34 yr old wife, mother and high school math teacher), ds10, dd8 *******dh hates vacations and Disney and refuses to go. I took the kids on our first WDW trip in July 2006 and took my mil along. This time it was just the 3 of us


We arrived at WDW on Friday 11/16 and left on Thu 11/22. We did MVMCP on our first night, then had 5 park days (2 at Epcot, 1 everywhere else).

Summary:

We stayed in Sports but toured Grand Floridian (our favorite), Polynesian, Contemporary, Animal Kingdom Lodge, and Ft. Wilderness.

We ate at 1900 dinner(awesome meal and character interaction-best of the week!), 'Ohana breakfast (enjoyed), Coral Reef dinner (beautiful but didn't enjoy the food), SciFi lunch (great), Chef Mickey's dinner (enjoyed), and 'Ohana dinner (ok).

We made it to rope drop and saw the opening at every park.

We saw (and had a front row seat at the rope) Spectro and the Christmas parades in MK (MVMCP), AK, and MGM.

We saw regular Wishes, Christmas Wishes, Osbourne Lights and Fantasmic.

We saw the Lion King (still our favorite), Flights of Wonder, Philharmagic, Mickey's Twas the Night Before Christmas, Tiki Room, Turtle Talk, Circle of Life, Monstor's Inc, HSM2, Indiana Jones, LMA, the Magic of Disney Animation, and the Jedi Training Academy.

We rode:
MK: Splash Mtn (2), BTMRR (2), Aladdin, Pirates, Buzz (2), Astro Orbiter, MK train, TTA, Indy Cars (3), Jungle Cruise (2), Snow White, Pooh (2), Carousel, Teacups (2), Peter Pan, IASW, Haunted Mansion, Dumbo, Barnstormer.

Epcot: Test Track (3), Mission Space Green (4), Soarin' (2), Nemo (2), Living with the Land, Figment, Maelstrom, Gran Fiesta.

MGM: Star Tours (3), Great Movie Ride.

Animal Kingdom: Everest, Safari (2), train to Rafiki, Kali (2).

We toured the Treehouse, Tom Sawyer's Island, Pangani, Maharajah, Oasis, Innoventions, and World Showcase.

We met Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Stitch, Lilo, Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine, Anastasia, Drizella, Jasmine, Aladdin, Hook, Smee, Snow White, Dopey and Chip.

We went to the campfire, sing-along, and movie at Ft. Wilderness.

I took 175 pictures, and my photopass cd will contain around 150.

The kids swam one night and we spent one night at DTD.

Not too bad for one of the busiest weeks of the year.

Thank you Tour Guide Mike!

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

Wonderful report . (you don't do Shakespeare in 2 minutes as well do you? )

 

[OhMari]

I used TGM for Easter. I would say he was right 95% of the time. We ran into a complete chaos on our first day at Epcot. It was suppose to be a Green Day with EMH for the evening, but it was jammed packed at 9:00 a.m. After that he was pretty much right on.

 

[Fishin' Mike]

Great Recap.

I will have to say that I may have to look into Tour Guide Mike's services if we ever go back during a busy time, which seems to be all the time now, lol.

We too arrived on the 16th and left the 24th and I have to say that is the busiest I have ever seen in 13 trips in the last 5 years. We have been in the parks for Thanksgiving the last 3 years and it has never been this bad with the crowds and just plain rude people.

I am glad you had a great trip, it was great weather for the MVMCP and all week as well.

 

[december]

It was crowded, but we got alot done early! We also went exactly by his best days chart. The more crowded the parks got, the ruder some of the guests got for sure! Nothing like seeing your 8 yr old plowed down by a wheelchair and getting a dirty look from the driver After some tears and a rest, she was more upset that no one said they were sorry than she was over the bruise.

Later in the day there was alot of pushing and line cutting, and we saw one daddy have major breakdown in line for Astro Orbiter (I'm still worried about his kids).

But it was still wonderful, and we didn't let a few nasty visitors ruin our Christmas moods!