Trip Report **COMPLETED** A Grand Christmas Trip (in November!)

Hey all! We have been back for about a week now so I will slowly work on my Trip Report :) Not sure if anyone even knew I went on this trip aside from people who follow me on IG and snapchat :joyfull:

Who?
Who else...my Mom (Mary) and I (Megan)
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When?
November 16-19

Where?
The Grand Floridian :) First time stay for us....and won't be the last! We fell in love! :inlove:
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Why?
We wanted to see the Christmas decorations...and well, why not?

T-1 Day November 15, 2017
We had a very early morning flight so instead of making my Dad get up early to drive us we planned on staying at a hotel across the street from the airport the night before. For some reason this plan continued to morph and we decided we should eat at the Cracker Barrel before going to the hotel. I have no idea why but it felt like a thing people do before Disney trips and we had never been before so why not?
So, after a busy day at work I headed to my parents house and we packed up the car and drove off to dinner.
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My Mom and I both got the Southern Chicken biscuits
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We both got Mac and Cheese and she got fries while I got hashbrown casserole (which had a bit too much onion for my taste).
My Dad got the chicken fried chicken (with mashed potatoes and hashbrown casserole) just because it seemed like a thing people eat in the South/at Cracker Barrel. I don't know...we are very Northern :)
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Yum!!! I have no idea why it took us so long to eat at Cracker Barrel but we really enjoyed it! It was way too much food though, my Mom and I should have shared. My Dad ate the rest of it over 2 meals the next day :joyfull:
Is it a visit to Cracker Barrel without a rocking chair picture?
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Anyway, after dinner my Dad drove us to the hotel and dropped us off. The worker was like "where are you visiting from?!" and we sheepishly said we were from here and just staying over for an early flight :p
We dropped our stuff off in our room and headed to the bar for a drink but it was full of business men who were sitting every other seat and we didn't feel like asking someone to move over or having to make awkward/polite small talk so we went back to the room. :p I talk to people all day long...sometimes I just don't want to talk anymore!
This is the only picture I have of the room because I thought it was funny that the phone was extra old :)
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We watched some TV then went off to bed early.....only we didn't. We were on the first floor and could hear everything outside including cars parking, backing up beeping, etc etc. :banghead:

Day 1 November 16, 2017
After a very eventful night of minimal sleep we both got up around 3:30 to get ready. We have an early flight coming up in a few months and we, after some discussion, decided it was not worth staying at the hotel the night before again. Too hard to sleep. If I am going to have to get up early I would rather it be from my own bed (because yes I still have a bed at my parents house...because I'm the baby child aka the most important :joyfull:) :hilarious:
I know you guys think these pictures are weird but its our tradition!
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Next up: flight time
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Too funny lol....while this isn't the best or most recent pic...it's all I could find of what I needed to point out. See that little T shaped thing? When the CM's ask us to wiggle our lap bars we just always yank on those. Well a yr or two ago my husband's ripped off...and he got all nervous lol...the rest of us had a good laugh tho lol
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bahahha I usually yank on that part too

I couldn't tell when I was there - my head was jostling around too much! LOL

Lol thats the truth for sure...a lot of jostling
 

12in12

Well-Known Member
I will be there! I leave Jan 18 for a very short trip
There are quite a few of us Magic Members there that week. I might be the weirdo that starts talking to your mom about cupcakes if I see her.:joyfull:
I was actually thinking about treating myself to a little Mickey dome cake but than I remembered that in one of your previous trip reports you said they weren't very good.
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
My wife has the same piece of luggage its awesome

We love it! We always get so many compliments too when people see it :)

There are quite a few of us Magic Members there that week. I might be the weirdo that starts talking to your mom about cupcakes if I see her.:joyfull:
I was actually thinking about treating myself to a little Mickey dome cake but than I remembered that in one of your previous trip reports you said they weren't very good.

She, I'm sure, would love to talk about cupcakes :joyfull:
If you like mousse then you may like the dome but it was way too mousey for me!
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 1 continued
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I don't know if anyone else remembers this but the old Disney planning tapes (before DVDs I think) always showed people in this pool. It was like a dream come true for me that we were staying at the Grand Floridian and got to swim in this pool that in my mind is pretty famous :)
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The water was a bit chilly but I still forced myself to go into the water a bit :)
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My Mom stuck her feet in too
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After our dip in the pool we sat and relaxed in the lounge chairs. There are a ton of them at this pool! It was not like trying to find one at the Poly. We considered getting a cocktail but figured we would just wait and see if the waitress would come to us. She did indeed drop off a menu and said she would come back for our orders....she even gave us drink recommendations. Well, we waited....and waited....and waited and 45 minutes later she never came back and we left the pool. She was talking to other guests, coming close to us, even looking straight at us while I had the menu in the air but never decided to come back! It was so odd. We weren't that interested in having a drink anyway (otherwise we would have just walked the 50 ft to get one) but it was just bizarre. My Mom said maybe it was because we didn't look like we belonged at the Grand Floridian :joyfull::joyfull:
Anyway, after our pool time we went back to the room and got dressed for the evening
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This Eagle is in the GF lobby and is made out of chocolate
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We wanted to check out the Contemporary Gingerbread Display so we took the monorail over there
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It was so cute! I liked it better than the Frozen one the year before. There were cute little hidden Mickeys through the whole thing.
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Next up: more randomness
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 1 continued
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They had some frozen drinks at their gingerbread stand that looked yummy but we had dinner plans and I did not want to fill up on drinks :)
Is it a trip to the Contemporary without us taking pictures with Mickey?
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Since it was very nice out (temperature wise) we decided to walk to the Magic Kingdom
We stopped to take some pictures when we first got there
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We saw a few people taking pictures up by where Santa usually is so we followed suit
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The guys in front of us kindly offered to take our picture and we payed it forward by taking the picture of the family behind us :)
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I just love these Toy Soldiers
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Next up: more pictures of us I'm sure :)
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 1 continued
Some Photopass pictures
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We had a FP for Winnie the Pooh so we headed there first. I wrote down that it was a long FP wait ...so I guess it was a long FP wait :p
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I picked up another FP for Ariel so we headed there next
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My sister Facetimed while we were on the ride so I answered so that my nephew could see the ride and he had the biggest smile on his face! I can't wait until his next trip!
Apparently we went on the teacups next...
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Finally we headed over to check into dinner at.... Be Our Guest!!!
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Why, Megan, didn't you guys say you were over Be Our Guest for awhile? Yes, yes we did. But, we remembered how lovely it is inside during Christmas time and really wanted to go there. Thank you Touring Plans because I got this reservation the Tuesday before we left :)

Next up: Be Our Guest
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 1 continued
We had a short wait after checking in so we hung out around the beautiful entryway
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Finally we were seated ... in the West Wing! A First for us
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For dinner we both ordered the French Onion Soup (duh). Do I even need to say it was amazing?
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We decided to split an entree and shared the braised beef. Last time we had the chicken and it left us feeling meh about Be Our Guest but this beef was delicious! So tender you didn't even need a knife. It renewed our love of Be Our Guest dinner :) Also, I realize now you can barely see the beef in the picture....sorry :p
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Our waiter took our picture which turned out weird but I will share anyway :joyfull:
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Yum yum yum! We were very full so declined dessert.
Considering my Mom was all about the Christmas tree when I was looking for a BOG reservation she was slightly embarrassed when I marched us through people's tables to get there :joyfull:
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My whole point of wanting dinner right around 5:30 pm was so that we would be out of the MK before the Christmas Party started. I had no idea why they were already herding us into groups when we left until I realized the next day that the park now closes at 6 pm for the party. :facepalm: I'm almost glad I didn't know because I would have been stressed out about leaving since I feel so bad when I know I shouldn't be in the park. Clearly I wasn't stressed in the least because I stopped to take pictures :joyfull:
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Next up: more pictures
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 1 continued
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We were REALLY exhausted at this point (thank you like 2 hours of sleep) but we were sent on a mission by my sister Jill so off to Disney Springs we went. The bus was really crowded but thankfully we got some seats. Most of the time I am willing to give up my seat to those who need it but I was so tired I really needed to sit. Unfortunately it meant listening to a kiddo (who was not that young) cry the entire way about not having a seat on the bus....even though the Mom told her 50 times to sit on the steps going up the the second level and she refused. :confused:
Even though we were tired we were happy that we ended up going to Disney Springs because the decorations were beautiful!
I was still experimenting with a new lens so I apologize these pictures aren't the greatest.
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My Mom loved those giant ornaments !
Anyway our goal was to go to the Cherry Tree Lane dress shop to see if they had the Christmas dress out yet because my sister was dying to have it for her Wedding Rehearsal dinner. They did not have it so we called her with other options but she was not liking the others. So, I asked the CM if she knew when they were coming and she said Black Friday. I said ok thanks I was just looking for my sister's wedding and she asked if we would still be there on Black Friday. I said no and she handed me a number/email address my sister could call/write to see if they would get her the dress...but made no promises. We thanked her and I send the picture of the card to my sister. We then did some actual shopping in the Crystal Store and the main Disney store before finally heading back to the hotel.
We stopped for a treat at Gasparilla before heading back to the room
My Mom got a cupcake (shocker)
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She said it was Ok. I got worms in dirt which was blah. I will not make you look at a picture of chocolate pudding :p
Oh, I also ordered us a Christmas stocking just to jazz up our room :)
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After this we passed out !

Next up: Day 2
 

Doc Disney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
You girls look fantastic and totally fit in at the GF.
I am glad BOG was good because I have a reservation there for my birthday dinner.
Was the Beast not there or did you just not meet him?

Aw thanks! We have eaten at BOG plenty of times and only once I did not care for it. But, I think that had a lot to do with the company we were with and less actually BOG :)
He was there we just skipped him because we wanted to get to DS and his line was really long :)
 

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