Trip Report Grandma Joins The Resistance ... Dec 9-12, 2019

This trip report will cover our brief visit to Walt Disney World for the Christmas Festivities. For background .. my husband, Lou, and I are DVC members and previously made several trips a year to WDW. But we hadn’t enjoyed a good visit for a few years - both of us had health issues which affected our mobility, and we relocated our full time residence from Florida to Maine - which meant travel to WDW takes more planning!. We are both retired.

While still not 100% on the fitness scale, we wanted to get back into the Disney Bubble, and Christmas time is the perfect time. I planned this trip as a gentle re-introduction for us; just a few days, a few nice dinner ADRs, and the Candlelight Processional. This would be a ride-free trip - or would it? I was nervous about the trip, but started reading trip reports here in the forum, and that helped get me excited about our upcoming adventure.

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We arrived at about 3:30 pm on Monday, December 9th. We spent the previous night at the Embassy Suites in Portland, ME, and caught a 7:30 am flight. Our flights were good, and transportation from the airport was with Quicksilver Transportation. Our room was ready when we arrived and I was happy - my only request was a room close to the elevator. We scored 3009! Perfect ... oops, the Boardwalk numbers rooms from the END of the corridor. So we were the fourth room from the end of a very long corridor on the third floor. After a helpful discussion at the front desk, I learned that almost all of the one bedroom units are at the end of the building. How did I forget that? Oh well, we made the trek, had a lovely room, and it worked out fine.

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I forgot to take photos of the room, but we had a nice view of the Beach Club and the Yacht Club. Fair warning here ... one of the things I like to do at Disney is take photos, so this will be a photo heavy report.

Our first ADR was at Yachtsman’s Steakhouse, so we soon headed over to the Yacht Club. The silver lining for our room location - we were an Easy walk from the Swan and Dolphin, and Yacht Club if we skipped the elevator and just popped down the stairs to the outside walkway. We saw the start of a nice sunset when we stepped outside:

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We stopped to enjoy the views, and I have to say, we were enjoying the beautiful Florida weather.

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... continued in the next post
 

SharonD

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We were soon at the Yacht Club and it was as beautiful as always - this is our favorite resort, but we don’t get to stay here since we joined DVC.

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We made sure to arrive in time to enjoy a drink in the Crew’s Cup Lounge, a relaxing way to start our vacation.

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It was soon time for dinner, and we had to stop and look at the selection of fresh cut meat and watch the butcher doing his magic. Apologies to the vegetarians in the group!

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We enjoyed a good dinner ... both of us chose the filet, and Lou added the stone crab claws (one thing he did like about living in Florida 😉). Carrie was our server, and she was excellent.

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We skipped dessert. We walked to the boat dock, and grabbed a seat outside on the first boat that showed up - we took a leisurely cruise back to the Boardwalk via Hollywood Studios. It was a great night for a boat ride. I had scheduled dinner early enough to allow a trip to Epcot to watch the new Epcot Forever show. Not surprisingly, I decided to save that for another night. We could see the higher fireworks from our balcony, so that was a nice way to end the evening.
 

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SharonD

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Stunning photographs!! I especially like #2 in your first post of two Friendship boats passing each other on Crescent Lake. Can’t wait to see more!

(Love your title too! :happy: )

Thank You! Your reports helped get me in the mood for this trip.

Great photos. We love being around crescent lake, especially in the evening. Looking forward to more!

Thanks. Yes, Crescent Lake is one of the prettiest areas.

On board and enjoying the report and awesome photos!

Thank you! I have been a long time admirer of your Disney photos.

Welcome to the "Trip Report Family". We tend to be very welcoming and friendly in these parts. Your pictures are gorgeous!

Thanks! Long time lurker here, so decided to finally do a TR ;). I enjoy reading all of the TRs and the banter that takes place.
 

SharonD

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
More photos coming up. I promise this won’t just be a photo album, but one of the things I enjoy is early morning (and late night) photography at Disney. Not only is it scenic, it is also a place where I feel safe going out alone. I was up and outside by 6am. I didn’t go far, just hung out on the Boardwalk.

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I grabbed a shot of the Creepy Clown as I walked back to our room to wake up my traveling partner to get ready for breakfast.

It wasn’t a perfect morning for a photo shoot - clouds were non-existent, so there were no dramatic skies. BUT, it was perfect for me - I was in Walt Disney World, I had the Boardwalk mostly to myself, and I had a chance to work on my rusty camera skills.
 

SharonD

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I don’t want to rush through my report, but we haven’t even eaten breakfast yet! To clarify, we are now on Tuesday, Dec 10th. This is our first full day in WDW.

I returned to our room to find Lou enjoying a cup of coffee. We ambled over to the Yacht Club for breakfast. I originally booked breakfast at the Ale & Compass for the next day, as part of our Candlelight Processional Package. But the forecast kept upping the chance of rain for Wednesday, so I managed to switch our CPP to Tuesday (today). In order to get the 8:15pm showing, I booked Rose & Crown for lunch. The upshot of this story is, we never do a breakfast and a lunch ADR, but today was an exception. In retrospect, I don’t remember why I thought I needed to book breakfast for this day (Foreshadowing ...)

Breakfast was good, and the restaurant follows what seems to be a common practice - a buffet and also a hot entree you pick from the menu. This worked fine for us. I am not a breakfast eater, but it is one thing Lou really enjoys on vacation. We both ordered the American Breakfast - eggs, potatoes, sausage, and giant sourdough toast!

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After breakfast, we took some time to enjoy the Christmas decorations in the lobby. Lou is a total train geek / model railroad nerd. He was having a fit because the train kept stopping and he made me take several photos of problems with the track!

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That gap in the track really bothered him - lower left corner, and he spotted a few other problem areas. Fortunately, the train started running again before he put on his engineer’s cap and started offering advice.


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While Engineer Lou worried about the train, I took some photos of the tree.


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Now it was time to cruise over to Epcot. We needed to activate our annual passes. I had also decided to pick up a Tables in Wonderland card.

First, we had a close up view of this gull:

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And then ... our first ever view of the Epcot Skyliner Station:

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There was no line at the Guest Relations counters, so we easily took care of the admin details. There was essentially no line at the turnstiles, so we popped in to Epcot for a little shopping at the Gateway Store. And we also wanted to check Lou’s Magic Band, because if anyone is going to have a problem - it will be him! All good, so we agreed to go back to the room for a much needed rest (we had been out and about for more than two whole hours!).

Another friend awaited us when we arrived at the Boardwalk Dock.

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Thanks for following along. We will be back later for lunch and dinner ... did we do anything other than eat on this trip???
 
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