Trip Report Completed It took 10 years, but we finally had our Disney Christmas!!! ☀️☃☀️

mishel635 · Dec 18, 2015

We had a 6:00 am flight out of Buffalo. I thought it might be hard getting the kids moving at 4:00 am but they were so excited they hopped out of bed to get ready!

Here's how the adults got prepared for our day...

After a fairly smooth, uneventful flight, we had left the cold of Western New York behind for sunny Orlando!!!!

They were ready to go!!!

We took the tram and headed down to the Magical Express check in. Only had to wait a few minutes and we were boarding our bus!

And only a few minutes later, I saw this-

Resting up for our day at Epcot- dinner at Garden Grill and the Candlelight Processional!

We got to the Beach Club around 10:45. As soon as we walked into the lobby, I could feel the stress of our morning of travel just wash away! I don't know what they pipe into that lobby, but I'm pretty sure it's what heaven smells like...

mishel635 · Dec 18, 2015

Walking into the lobby, I couldn't get over how it's even more beautiful decorated for the holidays! The tree, the garlands, the wreaths, and that amazing carousel!!!

My kids were mesmerized and couldn't believe that it worked even though it was made out of cookies and candy! So beautiful....

Our rooms weren't yet ready, which we had planned on with our early arrival, so we gave our carry-ons to Bell Services, grabbed our rented strollers, lost the pants and sweatshirts, and headed off to Epcot for lunch!

We had the deluxe dining plan, since we were stretching a six night plan over seven days and had planned a lot of character meals and a two credit candlelight processional package.

We had planned a QS lunch and had a taste for burgers so we headed to the Liberty Inn in America since none of us had ever eaten there before. I thought I had read that they had a burger with a crab cake, but sadly that was not the case. However, the All American burger I had was delicious and the kids loved their cheeseburgers and Mac n cheese.

And what it is about the fries at Disney World??? Soooo good!!!! And the Rocky Road brownie and peach cobbler desserts were delicious as well!

We started walking towards Future World by way of Italy and stopped for a quick Photopass-

One of my favorite pictures of our entire trip!

*Just a quick note- For some reason I am only able to upload 2 to 3 pictures for each post. Not sure what the problem is, but that's the reason for these short posts. I will try to figure it out!

mishel635 · Dec 18, 2015

All the kids!!!!

We walked through the World Showcase just taking in the sights and sounds... I love Epcot, and it was so great seeing all the countries decorated for Christmas, but we were planning to spend Sunday checking out the Holidays around the World and getting the kids' passports stamped, and I had a FastPass that I had to get to.... Riding Soarin' for the first time!!!!!

Our last trip in February 2014, my husband and son had gone on Soarin but my daughter had been just a little short. This time we were both ready!!!!!!

We took a minute to check out the gorgeous tree-

And then we stopped to listen to some Christmas carols for a bit....

And then we were ready for Soarin!!!!!! My daughter and I both loved it!!!! The smell of the forest was amazing! I'm so glad we got to experience it before the upcoming closure and updates!

The wait was only 20 minutes for Test Track so we rode that as well. It was the first time that my kids and I had gone on Test Track, and even my five-year-old loved it! Such a fun ride, and they loved designing their cars. I wish I would have taken a pic of their cars because they were pretty unique!

We also had a FastPass for Nemo, but I had realized fairly quickly after getting to Epcot that the tires on our double jogger had gone completely FLAT!!!!!! The kids had barely even sat down in it. I couldn't believe it!

So my kids went with my best friend and her family to Nemo while I headed off to the stroller rental at the main entrance to fill the tires. They quickly went flat again, so I called the stroller rental company and they said they would send a new stroller to the Beach Club within an hour. Great customer service despite the initial issue.

Luckily I was done in time for our FastPass to Spaceship Earth as it's my favorite ride at Epcot! My kids loved it last time as well and were excited to check it out again.

I was glad to see my favorite lady was still there and wearing her awesome outfit...

After getting off SSE, we realized we had about an hour and a half until our ADR at Garden Grill. We had also just gotten the text that our adjoining rooms were ready, so we decided to head back to the Beach Club to freshen up and check out our rooms before dinner.

We were on the 4th floor with a view of the parking lot, but our request to have adjoining rooms was granted, so we were happy! We loved the extra "couch-bed".

Lots of hidden Mickeys were found as well!

Shower curtain hidden Mickey-

Carpet outside our room hidden Mickey-

We found a few on the carousel in the lobby too!

Coming up- dinner at Garden Grill and the Candlelight Processional!

mishel635 · Dec 19, 2015

Took a few more pictures in the beautiful lobby before we headed out for our ADR at Garden Grill...

We headed out, and got stuck in a torrential downpour!!!!!! Grabbed out a poncho, made the kids get in the stroller and covered them with the rain cover, and soldiered on! We weren't letting a monsoon stop us from having dinner with the Big Cheese himself!!!!! Lol.
Seriously though, it only rained for about three minutes and it was just warm enough that it actually felt good!

My kids and I had eaten at Garden Grill before, but Amy and her family hadn't and I was excited to introduce her to one of my favorite meals. The selection is great, the food tastes very fresh and is delicious! Plus we get to see some of our favorites- Mickey, Chip and Dale!

So excited to see Mickey!

Signing ornaments for our Christmas tree. So glad we did this! We brought about ten ornaments each and black and silver Sharpies. They look so cute on my tree and the kids love checking them out. The characters didn't seem to mind signing them and most of the cast members said what a great idea it was.

Signing Leionna's cast... We had more than one cast member say it was the first time they've ever seen this done.

mishel635 · Dec 19, 2015

I really love the Garden Grill. The food was great- especially the salad, the beef and the stuffing. My kids loved the Mac n cheese and the pork and they even brought us out some plain beef for my nephew who doesn't like sauces or gravy. Amy and I shared a carafe of the Sangria which is pretty good and the dessert was amazing!
All in all, a great meal that I would definitely go back for again.

Hugs from Dale!

Dale after signing Leionna's cast and telling her that her feet were smelly. He was hysterical!!!

Pluto!!!!!

A little help from Calvin...

We finished up with dinner and headed out to enjoy some Christmas decorations on our way over to the Candlelight Processional since the rain has stopped for the night. We saw a Photopass photographer and took advantage of the beautiful night!

As you can see, the kids had already started spending their hard earned savings on some adorable plush characters! They had saved money in our Disney fund bank and had received some early Christmas gift cards and they were pretty excited to do some shopping! (I have no idea where they get that from...

)

Here's our Disney fund bank that Amy made for us. I LOVE it!!!!

Already filling it up for our next adventure!!!!

I couldn't get over how gorgeous Epcot was at night. I wish I would've taken more pictures, but we were in a hurry to get in the line for the candlelight processional with Neil Patrick Harris! I was so excited for this for several reasons- as I said before, I am a huge lover of all things Christmas and I was really excited for the orchestra and chorus and the storytelling. Also I have been a fan of Neil Patrick Harris since his days on Doogie Howser MD, and my husband and I have seen every episode of How I Met Your Mother so I was basically almost in fan girl scream mode when he finally came onstage.

Also my kids love him from the Smurfs movie fame, so all in all we were pretty excited!

Coming up- a ridiculous amount of Candlelight Processional pictures and some video as well!

SeanWM48 · Dec 19, 2015

looking forward to reading about the candlelight event. something i'd love to see one day. been to epcot around the holidays but only in November pre-thanksgiving, so too early for that

Zipadeelady · Dec 19, 2015

Loving your report already. I also love your ornament idea please post pics!! One more thing I love

the pic of your kids walking through the airport! So cute!!

mishel635 · Dec 20, 2015

We made it to the American Adventure pavilion and saw a line that was so long, I thought "There is no way we are getting a seat in there". But we had booked a CP dining package which states you have a guaranteed seat, so we made our way to the end of it around 7:30 for the 8:15 show.
We made our way in and sure enough, we had pretty good seats! Maybe 15 rows back and in the middle of the amphitheater.
It started with instrumentals and soloists -

Then the chorus began to file into the amphitheater. Each person was holding a single candle- it was gorgeous and kind of ethereal and I was so glad that we waited until after dark.

Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures- I only had my iPhone with me and it was pretty dark in the beginning.

Once everyone was in place, it was just beautiful.

Neil Patrick Harris! He was witty, and funny and talked about how he and his family had been enjoying Disney World all week. He was a wonderful storyteller!

The background kept changing to different patterns and scenery with each song.

Overall, it was just an amazing experience and it really put us in the Christmas spirit. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

SeanWM48 · Dec 20, 2015

very impressive. definitely something i'd love to do someday and seems to be worth the extra $$ for the experience

mishel635 · Dec 21, 2015

I forgot to mention that earlier in the day after lunch we had stopped in Germany and grabbed some drinks at Proust- Amy and I each got a hard cider - one white and one red and they were both delicious. Tony grabbed an Oktoberfest beer. I had really wanted to try the hot salted caramel but since it was 80 degrees, I couldn't bring myself to order one!

We left the Candlelight Processional and decided to grab a snack in France. My nieces each tried a crepe, and my kids wanted ice cream. Gotta use up those snack credits!

Even though, it was only soft serve, it was delicious!!!!! Very creamy with a great flavor.
The crepes were good but very sweet. We took our snacks and slowly made our way through the International Gateway entrance back to the Beach Club. I absolutely love this walk at night. Epcot at night is so beautiful!

Got back to our room to find one of the first "extra special magical Disney Christmas touches" that we decided to do for this trip.

I've been wanting this bag, so I called Disney Floral and Gifts and made a custom gift- some snacks, light up lanyards, a Christmas balloon and reindeer noses.
Obviously, the kids loved this! It's not something I will do every trip, but Amy and I decided to go all out for our Christmas trip.

We all fell asleep pretty quickly that night since we had started our day at 3:30 AM!

Surprisingly though, (at least to my kids), our room was transformed and decorated for Christmas overnight. Amy and I had decided to continue a tradition that I had done two years ago. Every night after the kids went to sleep, I would put out a little note from different characters and Tink would bring a small surprise to the room.
I won't lie, this is a bit of extra work and not for everyone, but the look on my kids faces every morning was priceless! As a pediatric palliative and hospice nurse, I am a big believer in enjoying every day to the fullest and doing little things like this makes me happy. :happy:

Also, I know that the window of my kids believing in magic and being able to do things like this is small and I'm going to get every ounce of happiness I can out of it!

Our room-

Their first note from the night before -

And the note and gift that was out in the morning -

Because this was the first day, this was a bigger gift than the rest of the week. It was a very exciting morning in our room, but we had a big day to get ready for! We were having breakfast at the Captains Grill in the Yacht Club. I had never eaten there, and was excited to try it out. Then we were heading over to the boardwalk for a photography session for Lilly's senior pictures and some family pictures as well. We then had a late lunch ADR at Whispering Canyon Café and after that...... Drumroll please.... MICKEY'S VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS PARTY!!!!!!!!! ( I was a little bit excited. Maybe..... Just a little.

) So as you can see a pretty exciting and busy day!

First stop- Yacht Club!

The train set was unbelievable!!!! So many little details and I'm kicking myself for not taking more pictures!

Unfortunately, this was our only bad experience with an ADR during our trip. My kids and I got there a little bit earlier then Amy's family, so I had them seat us at a table for eight and a few minutes later Amy, Tony and the kids joined us. We then waited for about 10 minutes and no one came to get a drink order or to see if we wanted anything made to order. The kids were starving, so we let them go to the buffet which was great by the way! However, I mentioned to a waitress that we hadn't been waited on and she said she would take care of it. It was not busy at all. A few minutes later, no one had come, and when Amy was on her way back from the buffet with the kids she overheard another waiter say "they must've just sat themselves" in a rude tone. Amy was not going to stand for that, and said "actually someone sat us over 15 minutes ago, gave us menus, kids menus and crayons and never came back". We are very tolerant people, but neither of us does well with rudeness.

After that someone came and brought us drinks but by then we didn't even want to order anything made to order and just ate off the buffet. Everything was very good, although we never did get cream for our coffee after asking twice, and we ended up using two of the kids' chocolate milk for creamer. Hey when you need to, you improvise! We didn't let it ruin our breakfast, and everything tasted very good, but I doubt we will be going back.

Our photo session went well, although I don't have any pictures from that as it takes 4 to 6 weeks for the photographer to edit them. We enjoyed the scenery at the boardwalk, but then went back to our rooms to hang out for a few minutes, change and head down to grab a cab to go to Whispering Canyon Café. Whenever I go to Disney World, I budget to take a cab whenever we go from resort to resort. They rarely cost more than $20 with a tip, and are worth every penny to me!

Here's a few more pics of Christmas decorations at the Beach Club-

Coming up - lunch at Whispering Canyon Café, and MVMCP!!!!!!

acrab3t · Dec 21, 2015

I love how Tink came every night with gifts for the kids. You are so right about the magic window for kids. My son is now 15 and time has flown! I miss my baby boy. For his first trip to DW he was 6 for Thanksgiving. We went with my bestie and her family. Every evening when we came back to the room "The Grinch" had delivered a card and gifts for each of us. The Grinch was my bestie' father. All of the gifts were Christmas themed and I put them out every Christmas in honor of him (he passed a few years ago). My son still treasures those memories.

Ariel4711 · Dec 21, 2015

Love your trip report so far! Especially all the little touches you added to make it extra magical for the kids.

We just got back from spending last week in WDW and unfortunately we did not get to go to the Candlelight Processional, but it looks beautiful!! Hopefully we will get to check it out during a future trip

Thanks for posting!

mishel635 · Dec 21, 2015

Zipitidoda said:
Loving your report already. I also love your ornament idea please post pics!! One more thing I love the pic of your kids walking through the airport! So cute!!

Thanks so much! I will definitely post pics of the ornaments. SO glad we did it!

SeanWM48 said:
very impressive. definitely something i'd love to do someday and seems to be worth the extra $$ for the experience

It's definitely worth it! I would even do it without the dining package and just watch from farther back. You might have to get in the standby line early for a spot, but it would be worth it. When we were planning this trip, it was for a " once in a lifetime Disney Christmas trip" because we didn't think we would be going back at this time of year again. But the Candlelight Processional is one of the many reasons I have a feeling we will be going back again at Christmas time.

acrab3t said:
I love how Tink came every night with gifts for the kids. You are so right about the magic window for kids. My son is now 15 and time has flown! I miss my baby boy. For his first trip to DW he was 6 for Thanksgiving. We went with my bestie and her family. Every evening when we came back to the room "The Grinch" had delivered a card and gifts for each of us. The Grinch was my bestie' father. All of the gifts were Christmas themed and I put them out every Christmas in honor of him (he passed a few years ago). My son still treasures those memories.

What a great idea! And I'm so glad to hear that it was worth it. I'm hoping we'll look back on these days fondly someday as well. Thanks for reading along!

Ariel4711 said:
Love your trip report so far! Especially all the little touches you added to make it extra magical for the kids.

We just got back from spending last week in WDW and unfortunately we did not get to go to the Candlelight Processional, but it looks beautiful!! Hopefully we will get to check it out during a future trip

Thanks for posting!

Thanks!! I hope you had a great week!

mishel635 · Dec 22, 2015

Took a quick cab ride over to the Wilderness Lodge. It was my first time visiting this resort, and I'm so bummed that we didn't have more time there. The lobby is absolutely gorgeous!!!!! When I walked in, it looked and smelled just like the woods. I can't wait to stay here someday!!!

And that tree!!!! I'm so bummed I didn't get a good picture of it. I had thought that more of the actual tree would be in our Photopass pictures, so I didn't try to get a good picture. Oh well. Just another reason why we will need to visit at Christmastime again!

We took advantage of the Photopass photographer-

I loved that they even had Photopass photographers at some of the resorts.

We were seated quickly for our ADR at Whispering Canyon Cafe. I was excited to eat here because I had heard it could be a lot of fun, and I definitely heard right!

Our waiter was just the right amount of rude (if that makes sense? :happy:

) and napkins were flying everywhere when he set our table. Our kids loved it! Amy and I had the all you care to eat skillet, which was great, Calvin had the kids chicken breast and Claire had a cheeseburger and they both devoured their meals. Everyone else either had a burger or the pulled pork sandwich and everything was good. The only thing that wasn't that great was the pulled pork spring rolls- they were overcooked and just didn't taste right. We also got the Gold Rush western chips which were good.

Claire enjoyed a pony race-

We asked for ketchup and another table brought us about five bottles (which we later had to deliver as well!

)

And then, another waitress came over to our table and asked us to play along with something. We of course blindly agreed without even asking what she had planned. You've got to have fun in life right???

She went over to a table across the room, and yelled at a teenage boy for everyone to hear "hey hot stuff, I found you some girls!" And then proceeded to bring him over to our table and introduce him to my nieces. She then asked them all if they were on that "book of faces" and if they were, to find each other on there. It was hilarious. But the funniest part was when we realized our families live about 30 minutes from each other. So funny.

We quickly ordered dessert (which we could barely eat!). I had the caramel cheesecake which was amazing! Amy had the campfire style gooey cake which she said was good but nothing spectacular. Lilly had a milkshake that she said was really good. Overall a delicious and fun meal that I would definitely go to again!

We made our way out back to the boat landing and waited about five minutes for the boat to the Magic Kingdom... We had a Christmas party to get to!!!!!!

Boat ride!!!

mishel635 · Dec 23, 2015

Before this trip, we had been worried about spending a lot of time in the bag check line, but we quickly made it through and were on our way!!!! I, of course, cried at that first glimpse of the Magic Kingdom all decorated for Christmas. I felt like we had been waiting so long to take this trip, and the emotions of finally doing it were overwhelming.

We made it into the Magic Kingdom just in time to catch the parade... I love the new hub area by the way!

These last two pictures I took, but we didn't even see the Photopass photographer until she asked us for one of our magic bands-

I LOVE Photopass / Memory Maker!

We had a few fast passes before the party started so we headed to our first one- Buzz Lightyear!!! We were ready to kick some Zurg butt!!!!!

Can't remember our scores, but of course we had to visit Zurg behind bars!

Since the lines was less than 15 minutes, we headed over to check out Pirates before our FastPass for the Jingle Cruise!!!!

Pirates is one of my favorite rides! I love the whole experience- sights, sounds, smell. My favorite part is the battle though, and how you feel like you're outside looking up at the night sky. So awesome! My kids love finding Captain Jack, and he definitely looks more life like since the refurb. Our front row got a bit wet, so if you don't want to get wet on this ride, ask to sit towards the back.

We then headed over to our Jingle Cruise FastPass. I was really looking forward to the holiday theming, and my kids had never been on it before so excitement was running high on our short walk over there. We also stopped to get our Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party wristbands!!! We were ready!

mishel635 · Dec 23, 2015

We quickly boarded our boat...

And we were on our way!!!

Our skipper was great- in that corny, cheesy way that makes this ride what it is!!! :happy:

I loved all the holiday touches!

We made our way towards the tunnel, and that's when things REALLY got interesting!

Our skipper said she was pretty sure the tunnel led to Santa's workshop and asked us if we wanted to check it out. We of course yelled "YES!" and into the tunnel we went.

All of a sudden she said "oh dear, it seems as if our boat's engine has died." My kids thought this was part of the ride but after about a minute, we all realized it wasn't part of the act and we were, in fact, stuck in the Jungle Cruise tunnel. We were in there for about 15 minutes before another boat came to tow us out! Crazy!!!!!

Stuck in the Jingle Cruise tunnel selfie-

Trying to hook up the boat to the boat that came to save us...

We quickly made it back to the dock and everyone cheered when we finally pulled up to it!!!!
We got one of these as compensation-

What an adventure!!!!!

Coming up- more MVMCP!!!!

mishel635 · Dec 23, 2015

We saw that there was only a 10 minute wait for It's a Small World, and it wasn't even 6pm yet, so we hopped in line. No matter how many times I've been on it, I LOVE this ride!!!

By now it was about 6pm and Amy and Lilly decided to head over to Main Street to secure us a good spot on the curb for the Once Upon a Christmastime parade! We headed over to the line to meet the Seven Dwarfs but my kids didn't really want to wait in the hour long line to meet them.

We decided to grab some popcorn and grab our MVMCP merchandise.

Pins!

A shirt for me-

And an ornament for our tree!!!

LisaBelle · Dec 27, 2015

I am enjoying your report! I would love to visit at Christmas! Love your Tinkerbell surprises. Looking forward to reading more!

myhappyplace · Dec 27, 2015

Looks like you had a wonderful trip!! Out of curiosity, what weren the dates of your trip? We are going next year from Dec 1-5.

Trip Report *Completed* It took 10 years, but we finally had our Disney Christmas!!! ☀️☃☀️

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Trip Report Completed It took 10 years, but we finally had our Disney Christmas!!! ☀️☃☀️