Trip Report The cold never bothered me anyway!!!

DISNEYWORLD FIRST TRIP OF 2026!
TRAVEL DAY

Hello all!
It's time to start a TR on the first trip of 2026 (hopefully not the last) that occured in the very brisk month of January.

But,I lie, it was really chilly! Though a cold day at Disney is better than... fill in the blank.

The particulars-
Who-Seth and me.
When-January 13-17th.
Where-Bay Lake. As a DVC member I had originally booked Saratoga as that was all that was available but then wait listed Bay Lake and it came through! It was funny because I got an email from Disney but ignored it as it was right before Christmas and when I logged on to the site for something at the beginning of Jan. it said welcome to Bay Lake, that was a very fun surprise!

Let's get started. I have been avoiding Southwest for a variety of reasons but found they started a direct flight from Sacramento to Orlando once a day, so that was a no brainer. 5-ish hours vs 8 or 9.

Aleisha told me she would take me to the airport, and anyone that read my report from last years March trip and the crazy that occured the morning of that flight, would know I didn't hold out much hope. With that in mind I told her I needed to be picked up earlier than I really needed and jokes on me, she was early and I ended up at the airport with way more time than necessary.

I checked my bag at the curb and breezed through TSA. I went to a restaurant and had a nice breakfast/early lunch as I figured the bag of 6 pretzels we were going to get on board weren't going to tide me over with a 5 hour flight.
I bought a mini package of cheese/pepperoni snacks before boarding and ended up eating that about halfway across the US.

I left Sacramento at 11:50am pacific time and landed in Orlando 7:50pm east coast time after an uneventful flight.
My Uber (Seth) picked me up at the airport and we stopped at a Publix for a few groceries for the room.
Then we were travelling under this wonderful sign, my time stamp says 9:30.

We were pulling into Bay Lake shortly after.
This photo is from a different day, but this the entrance.

My only request for rooms was a high floor and it was so nice we did get that. We were on the 7th floor and interestingly we think it was the same room (but a slightly lower floor) than the one that we stayed in for Gary and my 30th anniversary.

This was the view from this years room and the following photo was from our stay in 2013.

I really like the rooms on this side. You get to watch the marina, and the comings and goings at the Contemporary.
That bridge connects Bay Lake to the Contemporary and is a very nice feature. It ends up on the main floor at the Contemporary where the stores, Contempo Cafe and Chef Mickey's are.

Daytime view.

And a fan favorite, the nightly Electrical Water Pageant!

We have a family joke about this parade that began back in 2013 when every single night, like it or not, the parade hits this part of the lake pretty late, maybe around 10 pm and doors don't matter, you can hear it inside!
Aleisha had headed back to her home a day or two before Seth, Gary and I that trip and we made a short recording of it and sent it to her and her response was from the Jim Carrey Grinch movie, "suffering snorkelblatz, they're relentless!"

So everytime we have an opportunity to send her a clip of the parade, that is her response and tonight was no different!

On the next post I will show some room photos as the resort has been renovated and it is quite nice.

 

[Ellen Ripley]

Enjoying your trip report!

 

[MickeyCB]

Enjoying your trip report!

Thanks for tagging along!

 

[MickeyCB]

MK DAY CONTINUES

After Tiana's we headed over to Haunted Mansion.
Always a favorite.
I make a yearly printed calendar via shutterfly and these HM photos are always the month of October photos.

I liked this one as I caught it devoid of people on our way out.

Next posed photo.
Seth's idea and I thought it was cute.
I can never remember which painting takes the photo, Seth said, just keep smiling. I said wrong ride dude, but it worked!

After that we made our way to Never Land and then got to stare down a tipsy looking hippopotamus!

After that my favorite ride evvverrrr!

 

[Minnie1986]

Either the third or last HM photos would make a phenomenal calendar pic!

 

[MinnieM123]

Either the third or last HM photos would make a phenomenal calendar pic!

Nice choices. My fav (although not so much for a calendar pic, per se), is #5. Great angle photo!!

 

[MickeyCB]

Either the third or last HM photos would make a phenomenal calendar pic!

Nice choices. My fav (although not so much for a calendar pic, per se), is #5. Great angle photo!!

Thanks, I use a mix of trip photos from years prior and the most recent year. At first I was a purist where each calendar was only the year before, now I mix it up some.

 

[MickeyCB]

MK DAY CONTINUES

Next up was a ride I just love.

Love this side of the cottage.

And I've never seen this before but the ride was decorated for Christmas too. It was so cool, it had super large jewels as ornaments.
And what is really funny was my bling loving daughter is getting a bunch of similar ones for her birthday that I found half off at Walmart after Christmas. They are 6-8 inches!

After that we went over and rode the hunny pots then headed for under the sea.

But, first we stopped in the (I just recently looked up the name for this store), Bonjour! Village Gifts, it's the one that I mentioned earlier that the guest didn't purchase the teapot.
I was going to get a Belle doll there for my granddaughter but Seth said he was certain we could find her something in the Emporium on our way out. He was correct and it kept us from carrying it around.

Another core memory from a past trip.
We had been coming to Disney somewhat regularly but didn't know all of the in's and out's. (I just looked it up, I think it was 2012.) It was our last day of that vacation and we were walking past what is now the corridor headed into Fantasy land and there was a CM there blocking things off with a rope. We asked what was going on and he explained that it was an AP preview day (we didn't even know what an annual pass was) for the area and Under the Sea. Mine Train wasn't even open yet.
I said oh can we see, and he hemmed and hawed and said maybe next time, and I said oh we won't be able to, we are flying out today, and Seth who pin traded saw his pins and started to ask if he could trade, but I saw in the CM's eyes that he was about to make our day, and I told Seth just wait.
And then the CM said, oh go ahead!! He moved the rope and let us in! You would have thought we had just won the lottery!
We got to ride the ride and go into the store. Gary bought me the cutest set of dessert plates with Belle and the Beast printed in gold, I still have them.

Back to the present! On the way to Under the Sea there was a photopass photographer and she grabbed this magic shot.
It was a snidge annoying.
She was standing by herself so I headed over to ask if she could take my photo in front of the castle and just as I got there a large group of CM's stopped to talk to her. Which was fine, but when it became slightly protracted I said excuse me (as if she hadn't seen me waiting there) and she finally asked if she could help me.
Anyway my, not really, patience was rewarded with this magic shot.

We headed to visit Ariel next

The queue is so beautiful.

We got stuck in the line right at load for probably 15 minutes as the ride went down. We were almost going to bail and it restarted.

After that I couln't talk Seth into Goofy's coaster, which I like, so we headed on over to Tron.

 

[cgersic]

I've never noticed the Mine Train tree and ornaments either - your daughter will be thrilled!

 

[MickeyCB]

I've never noticed the Mine Train tree and ornaments either - your daughter will be thrilled!

Yeah, I was shopping the day after and saw those but because they were so big I didn't want to get them if she wasn't going to like them. I had put 3 of each (three colors) in my cart and took a picture and she responded with, are there any more?!
So, I wiped them out and as it turns out I didn't see them at any other stores so I was glad I picked them up for her.

 

[MickeyCB]

MK DAY CONTINUES

We headed for Tron next.
I love this ride. I talked Seth into waiting for the first car as it wasn't super busy. At first he fussed but then after we rode agreed it was quite fun being in the first car.

After that we got in line for the People Mover but it broke down right as we were going to head up to the ramp. Bummer, it's always a nice sit down and look at the sights attraction.

Oh well, we started to make our way back to the other side of the park for our dinner reservation but had some time to kill. We tried to get into the new DVC lounge, McKim's Mile House, but there was a waitlist. We decided to put our name on the list, he told us to come back around 4:30 which was a little over a half hour.

As we started to walk away we saw that the bears were about to perform in 5 minutes or so. I have not seen the new show and was looking forward to it.
So we went in and sat in the waiting area for probably no more than 5 minutes.
We had great seats. At my height I almost never get to see an unobstructed view of any stage.

Seth has seen the show before and said he liked it. I have to agree, I enjoyed it too.

After that we hustled back over to the entrance of the DVC lounge and we told the different CM at the door that we were told to come back then.
He sort of hesitated, went inside, and then came back out and said we could come in.
I felt bad for the group behind us, apparently they were in the same exact position as us, went to see the bears etc., but then I heard the CM tell them it would be another 30 minutes for them. I don't know if it was because they were a larger party than us.

Here are some photos of the inside.
I didn't get a picture of it but they have a drink machine with soda and snacks, chips etc. There isn't a time limit as far as I know. Members can come in, sit down and chill (or warm up as was the case for us that day!)

This was neat, it is a digital screen.

There was an inaccessible (as far as I could see) balcony around the room.
This blanket was hanging on the railing.
I took a picture and sent it to my stepdad.

He is the nicest most helpful guy and asks for nothing. One day he randomly said how he had always wanted a Hudson's Bay blanket. I had to look up what they were and after looking for a long time, I found him a vintage one and he was so delighted with it. (Not too much excites him!)
He called me during this past cold spell and told me he loves crawling in bed with it, that it's super warm and of a good weight.

When he got the Disney photo (he still uses a flip phone), he said, somebody at Disney has good taste in blankets!

We only stayed a few minutes in the lounge and then headed over to Skipper Canteen for our dinner reservation.

 

[MickeyCB]

I'm interrupting this trip report to say that I may or may not have a Mickey problem.

When I sold my house in Pittsburgh I sold roughly 50, yes 50, bins of Mickey stuff.
I currently have (I think) 9 cabinets in various rooms with Mickey stuff.

And the reason for this TR interruption is I finally got started unpacking the last 30! boxes of, yes, Mickey stuff. I put together 3 cabinets for the girls playroom/my Mickey room and worked on it a good while the last 3 days.
They are inexpensive smallish cabinets (because girls room!)

The plan was to sort out the remaining items into various piles, a keep pile, items for the girls to play with and a sale pile. The problem became when I had unpacked quite a few boxes and had only this to show for my efforts for the sale box!
I sent this pic to my sister and she said, uh no, you'll have to do better than that!
And the only reason that was in there was it wasn't a Mickey item!

In my defense though, my neighborhood here is having a community yard sale in a few months and I am reallllly trying to part with some things. I'm up to about 3 1/2 boxes for the sale. Go me!

On a serious note though, I heard a great line regarding getting rid of stuff.
This person said, if you didn't own it already would you buy it again?
Not really helping my little hoarder self, but it is a good way to think about it!

 

[MickeyCB]

MK DAY CONTINUES

And back to our regularly scheduled TR'ing.
After we left the DVC lounge we headed over to Skipper Canteen. I checked us in and we had only sat probably a minute before they called us back.

Interestingly the gal that seated us had on her name tag that she was a graduate of the same school Seth went to, SCAD.
She had a different major and they chatted for a few minutes.

When we were seated and given menus I couldn't remember the name of the wonderful steak I had there the year prior and sent out an SOS to my help person @Tuvalu to see if she could remember. I sent her a photo of the current menu and she said it wasnt the same as we both had in the past but it looked good to her so I ordered it (and it did not disappoint!)

But, before our steak we got the "secret" appetizer, the cheese bread with chimichirri sauce and a poblano based sauce. And it was delicious as usual.
If you are interested in this ask your wait staff as it doesn't appear on the menu.

Our main items arrived and the above mentioned Dr Falls grilled steak was really good.

Seth had his usual, I think it's the vegetable crew stew. If I find out that isn't what this was I will update.

We were too full for dessert so headed out to the Pirate store to pick up the swords and a t shirt for the girls.

After that we worked our way out of the park via the Emporium.
We found this for Ariel/Aurora instead of a doll as her sister has the Elsa version of this.

We decided to take the monorail to the Contemporary instead of walking, blurry photo from inside the car.

On the way back to Bay Lake I grabbed this photo from the bridge.

And just a little thing, but it's these little touches that continue to make WDW so special.
I wonder what person said we need to zhuzh up these grates?!

We headed up to our room even though it was early and thought we were in for the night.
But were we really....?