Trip Report Double Birthdays & A WDW First Timer!

Hi everyone! :):)

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!
I wish reading and writing trip reports could be my full time job because I am SOOOOO far behind on everything:banghead:
But while I catch up on everyone else’s reports – I wanted to start on my latest. Every trip I’ve gotten to take this year has been so different than any of the others and this was no exception. It also could have been renamed the “I’ve never laughed so hard in my life trip”

This time I went with two of my coworkers (and best friends) who share a birthday weekend. Max & Mel. Also joining us was our friend Lindsey who is a fellow Disney lover and had been begging to join on one of my trips for a while – this trip would be the perfect fit.


(Lindsey, Max, Mickey:), Mel, Me)

For a little background – Max has never been to Disney. He also had no intentions of going, but one day early in the year, Mel and I were saying we need to plan something fun since both their birthdays are on a weekend this year. Disney was a suggestion and Max was surprisingly onboard! I knew they’d especially like it after hearing me talk about Food and Wine for the last few years, and we’d catch the Christmas decorations! Max can be a bit difficult, we work together every morning and bicker like brother and sister nonstop. He also makes me laugh harder than anyone. But travelling with him can be a whole other obstacle as we’ve learned on many other trips together. Mel and I had been so excited about the trip, it was the night before when we were finishing our packing and questioning what we got ourselves into. But we would make the best of any issues that came up, and he would be outnumbered between Mel, Lindsey and I ;)

Mel grew up about an hour from Orlando so had frequently visited Disney, but usually just for the day and running around hitting the big rides, so this would be a totally different trip for her!

Lindsey was there last new years (I can’t imagine). We don’t see each other that often so it was going to be fun to spend quality time together in our favorite place!


FRIDAY – NOVEMBER 11th
I had to work in the morning, and met everyone at the airport after. We were off with no problems and soon arriving home! :D







We were staying at Pop Century, so we quickly dropped our stuff, changed and hopped on a bus to Magic Kingdom.





Festival of Fantasy was running at 5:00 this day since they had been taping for the Christmas special. I had been trying to figure out all afternoon if we’d make it in time to watch, and it lined up perfectly that the parade was starting as we arrived to the park! We grabbed a spot near the end of the route and had a blast watching. It was the PERFECT thing to start our vacation and the perfect way to welcome Max to Disney World. He was so impressed.








 

samantha788

Well-Known Member
Original Poster







After the parade, we headed down Main Street – Max with his phone up in the air the entire time haha – before posing for some pics. The sky was beautiful at this point right after the sunset. The pictures don’t do it justice, but it looked so magical.








I had made us fastpasses for Space Mountain and we were about 10 minutes from them expiring. That’s one of Mel’s favorite rides so her and Max ran off to that. Lindsey isn’t big on roller coasters and I didn’t mind skipping it. We decided we’d walk around some more, maybe meet the princesses, and then grab us a spot for the castle lighting.










Mel on Space Mountain. I don't know where Max's picture went, but they said it was hilarious. Which would have been just a taste of the hilarious Max ride photos to come:D
 

samantha788

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
It was SO crowded and the lines were crazy for everything, so we just slowly walked back to the front of the castle. We got as good as a spot as we could – the crowds were really really crazy. It was a Christmas party night so everyone was coming in for the party, plus everyone that was there for the day, it was also Veterans day and I think the Christmas special taping probably made things more difficult too.

Soon enough it was time for A Frozen Holiday Wish! I love this show so much and Max and Mel never seeing the Christmas lights before were in just as much awe as Lindsey and I.













Just the prettiest sight there is.


With the park closing for the party soon, Lindsey and I had come up with a plan to run over to do at least one ride – which ended up being Voyage of the Little Mermaid.



When we got off it was like 6:58 and we knew we wouldn’t get anywhere else so we hopped in line to meet Ariel:) This is when we learned Mel is terrified of meeting face characters hahaha

 

DimpledDevil18

Well-Known Member
Following along! I'm excited to see anther trip report from you! I had been meaning to tell you that I came pretty close to booking a "third wheel food and wine trip" with one of my best friends and her hubby, but they wound up just buying a house and she's a teacher, so she'd probably only maybe be able to go around Columbus Day. Looks like i'm back at square one and it'll be just me. I WILL make it to Food and Wine this year even if I have to all by my lonesome!
 

samantha788

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Following along! I'm excited to see anther trip report from you! I had been meaning to tell you that I came pretty close to booking a "third wheel food and wine trip" with one of my best friends and her hubby, but they wound up just buying a house and she's a teacher, so she'd probably only maybe be able to go around Columbus Day. Looks like i'm back at square one and it'll be just me. I WILL make it to Food and Wine this year even if I have to all by my lonesome!
Thank you! Buying a house over Disney?!:rolleyes: haha
I would take a solo trip over no trip any day, at least there is still plenty of time!
you'll love food & wine!!

Yay a new report! I am not jealous at all or anything :p
Thank you! I can't wait to read all of yours!


Here for the ride! :)
wooo! :)

Following along! Those photos of the castle are stunning.

I want to go back so badly!
Yay, thank you so much!
 

samantha788

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We took our time heading out of the park, with the party just starting the ambiance on Main Street was exhilarating. We were all SO happy and soaking in every moment. The music, the snow, the lights! Max loves snow – he was over the moon with the snow falling here. These moments were some of my favorite of the whole trip.










Max's intention was to point to the castle:p



 

samantha788

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We eventually pulled ourselves away and joined the masses leaving the park to hop on the monorail for our dinner at Kona Café! My sister and I had lunch here a couple years ago and loved it. I had been wanting to go back for dinner. I was also planning for us to have drinks and watch holiday wishes from the Poly beach this night so it worked out perfect.




Intensely taking in the drink menu as if they were going to get anything other than a Lapu Lapu:rolleyes:


Our Lapu Lapus! Ughhhh I want one right now.




For Max, the drink in the pineapple wasn’t enough hahaha


The food was amazing – we all were so happy with our choices. The sushi…so good. And for some reason the only picture I have is of these mini crab cakes haha.


Max and Mel decided to get the crème brulee for dessert. Mel literally cried it was so good, and Lindsey and I cried from laughing:joyfull: It was so funny.


After dinner we walked outside, all dreaming of staying at the Poly one day, and stopped for a spot to watch Holiday Wishes. A great way to end our first night!





 

coachwnh

Well-Known Member
After about 3 seconds of starting your report I remembered how much I love your pictures!!! Love the parade and after dinner foreworks photos, but the snow on Main Street, USA were my favorites. Keep them coming!
 

samantha788

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After about 3 seconds of starting your report I remembered how much I love your pictures!!! Love the parade and after dinner foreworks photos, but the snow on Main Street, USA were my favorites. Keep them coming!
Thank you so much!!! The snow really made it all feel so magical
Many more to come! :)
 

samantha788

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
SATURDAY-NOVEMBER 12TH
Happy Birthday Mel!

Today was all about Mel! We had planned on starting the day at Animal Kingdom, then going to Hollywood Studios and ending with dinner at Hoop Dee Doo! One of the most exciting things was that, with Mel being from Florida, all her best friends from home still live there, so a couple of them were able to join us for some of the day!

Max is known for always running late. When we have a place to be, we tell him the time is a half hour early and he still will be late. With set plans, this on time issue would be a challenge for this trip haha. We told him a bus is coming at 9, and if he wasn’t there then we’re leaving without him- he wasn’t thrilled with the “early” wake up, but we had places to go and people to meet! So he did get up early and went to go get breakfast- which we later learned for himself he filled up a tray to feed a family of 4 with omelets, waffles, pancakes etc. Then said people were looking at him as he sat in a corner eating it all alone hahaha:D

Mel, Lindsey and I made it out to the bus early; we had just missed one but would be one of the first groups to get on the next. We waited and waited, no sign of max the entire time, and reminding him that we would leave without him…



Eventually a Animal Kingdom bus and we got on without Max, then he is texting us, saying he is on a bus all by himself. We knew this couldn’t be right since we had left a ton of people behind and our AK bus was packed. Turns out Max got on a MAGIC kingdom bus:banghead: Luckily, it didn’t leave yet and he was able to get off and of course an Animal Kingdom bus was there waiting for him and we both ended up getting to the park at the same time:rolleyes:




When we got to the park we had to wait a while for Mel’s friends to meet us, they were driving and the traffic to get into the parking lot was pretty bad. So we killed our time with pictures :)









The safari was top of our list, but we just watched the wait time go up from when we first arrived at 20 minutes to 90 minutes!! We didn’t do fastpasses here since we had stuff in Hollywood Studios we wanted to use them on, and coordinating 9 of us with all different types of tickets was turning out to be so difficult.

Instead, we went to Festival of the Lion King! This was another thing on the birthday girl's wish list :) My sister and I watched this for the first time a couple years ago, and loved yet, but hadn’t been back since. I don’t know what it was this time- but watching it made me all teary! We were all having so much fun.











 

samantha788

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Two of Mel’s friends have annual passes, so they were able to get a safari FP, while the rest of us walked around before ending up at Expedition Everest.





The posted wait here was 70 minutes, but it ended up being around 40 so really not that bad.
I don't remember the last time I did standby on this, so it was neat to look at everything.










I was the only one that had been on this before, so nobody knew it went backwards. We get to the top where the track ends and I hear Max and Mel behind me like um what is happening. Then Mel says she thinks it goes backwards, Max’s response was “WHAAAAAAT?”:D:D:D And somehow I caught that exact moment, which became our favorite photo of the trip hahaha. I was laughing SO hard from Max on the ride then when we all saw the photo after, we were dying.





On our way out, we saw Sofia Carson taping for one of the holiday specials.


Then stopped for some photopass pics of the whole gang!



Look at the baby totally playing the part in this magicshot! Hahaha:p


We said bye to Mel’s two friends and the baby, and the rest of us headed over to Hollywood Studios!
 

samantha788

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I LOVE the way Hollywood Studios was decorated. But being there during Christmas season made the absence of The Osborne Lights so painful. I would have given anything to turn down the Streets of America and be back in the most special spot during the holidays. It was very noticeable that something big was missing:cry::cry::cry:






Max the photographer:hilarious:




Our first stop was to see Olaf with no wait! He had warm hugs for everyone. And that's my happy face :rolleyes: haha





We ended up splitting up with Mel’s other two friends at this point, they were going to do some rides and got a couple of Fastpasses for different things than we had.
Mel's show!

Our show :)


 

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