Trip Report * Completed* An Anniversary/Birthday Trip to Remember, December 2024

We're back!! And there were many memorable things about our trip, some fantastic and some not so great things, but overall a wonderful trip!

Quick overview:
Who: me (Amy) and my husband, Brian
Why: we were celebrating our 25th anniversary and 50th birthdays, just 1 year late!
Where: Caribbean Beach Resort, Jamaica building 42
When: December 6-11, 2024

We had a later flight out of Columbus, so left our house about 3pm and made it in plenty of time for Brian to nap before we had to board!

We were scheduled to depart at 5:45, so got to see the sunset from the ground and the air.

I was unlucky enough to have a young child behind me that kicked my chair the entire 2 hour flight until about 10 minutes before we started our descent. We asked nicely and the flight attendant asked nicely and the mom continued to sleep with her earbuds in, so in addition to the kicking, we got to constantly hear "mom, mom"! Longest two hour flight ever!

I was worried about having to check a bag, but it made it MCO with us and in good condition, so that was a relief! Our driver met us and we were soon on our way and seeing these:

We got our room ready text while on the way. We were booked into a water/pool view 5th sleeper since that was all that available using the Bounceback offer for our dates. I had requested Jamaica and that our water view be of Barefoot Bay and not a pool. I also requested to be near the Skyliner. Yay, all of my requests were granted!!

 

[Go.Nijntje]

The pin boards look super sweet. Well done!

 

[TheMouseFan]

The pin boards look super sweet. Well done!

Thanks!

 

[TheMouseFan]

Once we were let in, we quickly picked our seats. We chose not to sit right in the front even though we could have. Tituss Burgess was our narrator. Let me start by saying that we are not "religious" people. We were both raised in the Methodist church, but no longer attend. Brian went into this "knowing" he was going to hate it and never would have chosen to attend something like this on his own, but he knew how much I wanted to see it, so agreed to it. He left saying how much he enjoyed listening to Tituss. I knew immediately that there were going to be some conservative Christians in the audience having a conniption fit because of the light hearted tone Tituss took in telling the Christmas Story. I didn't feel like it took anything away from the story and made it very enjoyable, but I was right and lots of comments in some Facebook groups of how disrespectful he was and the story isn't a joke, etc. To each their own I guess!

The singing was phenomenal! If only the seating was a little more comfortable!!

After, we fought our way out and back toward the front of the park to enjoy the lights on SSE.

 

[TheMouseFan]

I know some of these are out of order as I was switching back and forth between my camera and my phone.

 

[TheMouseFan]

Then we made our way to The Land!

I am sooo glad I decided to purchase LLMP in order to do this at night because the standby wait time was close to an hour and there was no way I would have been able to stand in it!

 

[TheMouseFan]

 

[TheMouseFan]

I loved it and am so glad we were able to go on at night, but I was done after this and had to go back to the room without waiting to see Luminous. The monorail was going by as we were leaving, so I had to get a few pics with the red and green lights.

And one last pic as we approached the Skyliner station.

I was so disappointed in this day! I definitely need a do over for the Festival of the Holidays since I didn't get to try any of the cookies or other treats and we didn't see many of the Storytellers in World Showcase. But first up on my bucket list is the Flower and Garden Festival at some point.

 

[Tuvalu]

I’m impressed you did as well as you did at Epcot considering how poorly you felt. I hope you get a do-over Festival of the Holidays day.

Flower and Garden is my favorite festival and you will wish you’d done it sooner.

 

[TheMouseFan]

I’m impressed you did as well as you did at Epcot considering how poorly you felt. I hope you get a do-over Festival of the Holidays day.

Flower and Garden is my favorite festival and you will wish you’d done it sooner.

I'm sure we'll return at some point for our anniversary and will get another shot at Festival of the Holidays. I'll have to wait until Owen is away at college for the Flower and Garden because spring soccer takes all our time, but I will get there one day!

 

[TheMouseFan]

Wednesday, December 11, 2024 - departure day

We weren't up super early today, but we did have to finish packing and make a breakfast ADR, so we couldn't sleep in too much. I had a great night of sleep since I was so exhausted from the lack of sleep the previous night and our full day at Epcot. We had to drop our luggage off at bell services before making our way to breakfast. It was a beautiful day temperature wise, but rain was expected later. We were hoping it would hold off until we left, but we were doubtful that would happen.

The walk of shame happening:

 

[TheMouseFan]

We dropped the luggage off after weighing the checked bag and finding out we were a few pounds over and would have to rearrange before leaving. We then headed over to the Riviera.

 

[TheMouseFan]

We checked out the Christmas decorations while we waited for Brian's cousin and her family who we were meeting for breakfast.

 

[TheMouseFan]

 

[TheMouseFan]

We met up with Brian's extended family (his cousin's daughter and her family) and headed up to Topolino's for breakfast. We started with the shared pastry buckets.

Some character visits before we got our meals.

I had the Sour Cream Waffle

It was good, but too sweet for me on this particular morning. In hind sight, I should have just ordered the eggs and bacon, but I really wanted to try the waffle.

Brian ordered the steak and eggs and really enjoyed them.

He also had some sort of guava juice that was really good.

Our waiter, Aziz, offered to take our picture for us.

He was so good with the kids! We really enjoyed our time at Topolino's.

More character pics

 

[TheMouseFan]

When we were done, we headed out to the terrace to check out the view. And what a view it was!

 

[TheMouseFan]

 

[TheMouseFan]

After saying our goodbyes, Brian and I headed down to see the mosaics before leaving the Riviera.

 

[TheMouseFan]

If you haven't figured it out yet, we would always prefer to walk if it is possible, so we decided to skip the Skyliner at Riviera and walk to the CBR station.

 

[TheMouseFan]

We debated what to do with our remaining time. I didn't really want to take a bus somewhere since they are so unpredictable at times, but I definitely didn't want to sit in the CBR lobby for the next 2 hours either. We decided to take the Skyliner to Pop Century and AoA to check out their Christmas decorations. We were watching the sky pretty closely though because I was worried about the incoming rain/storm and the Skyliner shutting down and stranding us. For this reason, we didn't check out all of the sections of the resorts as we normally would have done and instead just headed for the lobbies to look at the trees and decorations.

We started at AoA

 

[TheMouseFan]