MontyMon’s delayed December Trip Report

No, December wasn’t delayed, the TR was! :lol:


So, despite all my best intentions of not taking Morgan out of school any more now that he’s in High School, I had a chat with his Vice Principal who told me the school wouldn’t object to a week off until next year when he’s in Grade 11 [a Junior for my American friends]. So… I booked a trip for WDWCelebrations’ “Holiday Hoopla” event.


30 November

We left Ottawa bright and early, flying by way of Dulles to arrive at MCO at 2:30PM. It was a wonderful 85F as we got off the aircraft. We were off the plane and to DME in no time and checked in at Wilderness Lodge by 4. I’d booked a bunk bed room, only to find that Morgan has grown more than I thought and doesn’t really fit in their bunk beds. He complained briefly, but when I offered to see if they had a different room available he said he’d be OK. We were a bit weary from our travels, so rather than head to the parks for a brief visit before dinner, we just lazed around the room and watched all the Disney Resort channel loops until our luggage was delivered. We then unpacked and toured the resort a bit. We had 7PM reservations at Artist Point, so we headed there. We both ordered the Mushroom Soup Appetizer and the Beef Tenderloin steak… Best steak we’ve ever eaten on property bar none! :slurp: After dinner we decided to crash for the night and have a fresh start in the morning.


Some Pics of our room:


Our washing area:

Morgan’s too-short Bunk beds:

My bigger bed [complete with Mickey]:

 

[Monty]

1 December

Today we started with Breakfast at Whispering Canyon. Neither of us bothered with the Skillet, it’s just too much food for us, so we ordered a la carte. I had pancakes and sausage and Morgan had a Western Omelette. After breakfast we were off to AK for the day. It was a touch chilly as we waited for the bus in our shorts and short-sleeves, but those folks all bundled up looked crazy!



Our first stop at AK was for Safari FPs, the FP machine was acting up and eating tickets, but we got some help and then headed into stand-by. We had a great safari, then rode again with the FPs and it was just as good. We noticed the construction of what will be the lookout/ dining spot for the new Safari trek. We may have to try that when it’s available. From Safari, we headed to Expedition Everest, got FPs and then rode three times with minimal waits [well, except that our first ride we waited almost ten minutes to launch, then paused for a while on the big lift hill and again at the projection, I was praying for an evac, but we did continue each time]. Then we used our FPs for a 4th ride before lunch.


We asked at Tusker House, but the wait was 25-35 minutes without an ADR, so we went overto Flame Tree and we both had the pork sandwich with beans. From Flame Tree we headed to Dinosaur and rode twice with virtually no wait. Finding Nemo was letting in as we went by so we decided to see it [it’s OK, but not worth waiting in line for]. From there we rode EE on FPs and then 4 more times stand-by before the park closed, then we rode three more times during EMH. The last time, the sun was down and it was a little too chilly for outdoor rollercoasters. We did Dinosaur one more time, then It’s Tough to be a Bug on our way out. We had a wonderful dinner at Boma [our server remembered us from previous trips] and called it a night. Getting back to WL was complicated and quite chilly… We ended up taking a bus to DTD and switching there. There was quite a wait for the next WL bus and we were ready for warm by the time it arrived.

 

[Monty]

2 December

We started with Kona Café but instead of our usually Tonga Toast, we decided on their Holiday special: Pumpkin Pancakes! They were good, but we would have preferred out TT!


Then we were off to MK to start the Holiday Hoopla event! We met up in front of Space Mountain, it was great to see a few old friends and meet some new ones. Then we did a group ride on Space Mountain followed by Snow White’s Scary Adventure and It’s a Small World [it’s so rare I can get Morgan to ride IASW, but when it’s a group ride he merrily follows along]. From there we headed to Columbia Harbour House for lunch. We had an area segregated for us upstairs and the Towne Cryer made a point of picking on our birthday boy in the group [a nice gentleman from Newfoundland there with his wife]. A Manager spent a good deal of time chatting with various tables and making sure we were well taken care of.
WDWCelebrations distributed their Scavenger Hunt materials about a half hour early and we headed out to give it a go. It’s a good thing we started early! Unexpectedly, they were doing extra filming for the Christmas Day Prade on Main Street USA and around Town Square, which greatly hampered access to the various scavenger hunt locations. Morgan and I had a lot of fun trying, but we’re clearly not terribly good at hunting… We didn’t win anything :shrug. Those that were going to MVMCP that evening got our wristbands. After that we had dinner plans at the Plaza with a small group of WDWMagicers who were participating. By the time we were seated for our 5:20 reservation, they were closing in 5 minutes [they closed at 6], we had some selections that were limited because they were running out, then we were kinda rushed into ordering desserts because the kitchen staff wanted to go home. They sort of made it feel like it was our fault they’d taken 35 minutes to seat us! But we were in the company of great friends, so we had a wonderful time despite them.


Then we headed to join the Hoopla gang for the Castle Lighting, followed by the Celebrate the Season stage show, followed by Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade, followed by the Holiday Wishes –Celebrate the Spirit of the Season Fireworks Spectacular… All viewed from a nice spot in the Castle forecourt. Having stood for all of that, my knees decided it was enough… I left Morgan to his own devices in MK and headed back to WL. He came in shortly after I did, having gone on Space Mountain a couple of times and deciding he was tired too.

 

[Monty]

3 December

Today we had breakfast at Roaring Fork, it was OK, but rather uninspired. Then we headed to DHS for day two of Hoopla! The plan was to ride RnRC first, but it was down. So we headed to Great Movie Ride and would have been walk-on, but we requested the Cowboy scene, so we were asked to wait a bit while they set up. It was definitely worth the wait, Morgan and I had never seen the cowboy in all our trips! We then returned to schedule and did Tower of Terror. We had a group lunch at Backlot Express, we got there at 11 but they didn’t open until 11:30, so we waited. While we were waiting, I shifted my weight in my seat and suddenly found myself slowly sliding backward to the floor! The welds on my chair decided to fail and it slowly folded down until my back was on the floor! No harm done [well except for the chair] and I quietly grabbed a new chair and checked its solidity… After lunch we did a walkthrough of One Man’s Dream and then saw Muppets 3D. Then we headed back to try RnRC and it was running so we rode! From there we watched the Block Party Bash [I managed to get a nerf ball – since I can’t catch, my only hope is if one rolls to my feet]. [some of the above may be out of order, my memory isn’t what it used to be]

Again we had a mini-WDWMagic meet for dinner, this time at Hollywood & Vine. The group met up again for the lighting of the Osborne Spectacle of Dancing Lights [which were absolutely amazing], Morgan and I wandered around with Dave [ClemsonTigger] to few the various streets while the lights danced. By this time, we were exhausted and decided to forego the final group ride of the evening on Toy Story Midway Mania. So we headed back to the resort.

 

[Monty]

4 December

Today we returned to Kona Café for Tonga Toast. No ADR, but we had to! There was no problem getting a table anyway [but I’m obsessive, so not having a reservation was worrisome]. After breakfast we walked to the EPCOT Monorail. First up was a group ride of Test Track, but we were running late due to breakfast and Monorail delays, apparently a trainee driver was on the EPCOT loop running at reduced speeds. So we waited for the group to finish and we went to do Storm Struck [with the intention of voting “wrong” on every option], but our group was too big for one session, so we skipped it. Morgan did a ride on Sum of All Thrills [I decided to skip it]. After that we wandered over to Liberty Inn for an early lunch, but we had to wit at the International Gateway for WS rope-drop. Once the group was assembled we got a surprise treat! The EPCOT Chef responsible for the Gingerbread House in Liberty Inn gave us a talk about the building of the house and then had a Q&A session.

After that we had some lunch. The rest of the group went off to see Captain EO, but we’d arranged to meet with Reva [Disneybird] and Rachel [Popsicletrees] and a whole gaggle of WDWMagicers at Germany. We had a wonderful meet and chatted for over an hour and a half before heading our separate ways.

Morgan and I had ADRs at Le Cellier, so we didn’t end up joining the Hoopla folks again today. We had a great meal at Le Cellier, striking up a lovely conversation with a couple at the next table [people complain about how tightly packed Le Cellier is, I see it as a positive, we often meet great people]. So instead of heading to MK to join the group, we stayed at EPCOT and watched IllumiNations with the Holiday tag, it was spectacular!

 

[Monty]

5 December

Last day of Hoopla! And our last full day a WDW.

We started with breakfast at Whispering Canyon again. Then headed to the Contemporary for our tour of Resort Decorations and “History Walk”. We were treated to the history of each of the Monorail Resorts and Wilderness Lodge as well as having the opportunity to see the beautiful decorations. Morgan and I bought some chocolates from the GF Gingerbread House [that I just found again this morning… Oops] and we all got Celebrate! Buttons – most put that they were celebrating Walt’s 109th Birthday, I just but “Being here!”. After the tours, we had a group lunch at Whispering Canyon. One of the waitresses took a shine to Morgan and tried to set him up with a girlfriend. She found a lovely young girl from New York and made sure Morgan gave her his email address and phone number [sadly, she hasn’t contacted him yet]. While waiting for lunch I tried to check in on-line for our flights, but for some reason it said the service was not available for our flights… More on this later.

Jackie [brkgnews] doing the Contemporary History walk:

Contemporary Gingerbread House:

Jason doing the Polynesian History walk:

The Wilderness Lodge Tree:

After lunch, we returned to the room to start the sad task of packing for the morning. We had a short nap too. Then we headed to AK to meet the group. We were a bit late for Mickey’s Jingle-Jungle Parade, so we met them at Primeval Whirl. Then we rode Dinosaur as a group [I think more than once…]. From there, Morgan and I rode Everest a few times before heading to Sanaa for another WDWMagicers’ dinner. What a fantastic restaurant! I can’t speak highly enough of the service, the food and the atmosphere! Wonderful! I had Mustard Seed-crusted Scallops and African Spiced Chicken Breast - with Turnips and Cherries, Morgan had the scallops as well, but chose the Slow Cooked in Gravy, Simple and Well Seasoned entrée with Beef Short Ribs and Shrimp. Morgan had Chocolate Cake and I had Orange-Sesame Cake - with Passion Fruit Kulfi for dessert. It was all absolutely perfect!

My Sanaa Chicken:

We were late re-joining the group, so we went straight to the roped-off private viewing area between the to stores at the entrance to World Showcase. We watched IllumiNations with the Holiday tag again with the whole group this time. It was a wonderful cap to a great event.

 

[Monty]

6 December

One last breakfast at Whispering Canyon, then we were off to MCO using DME. On check-in at United, we were seated in seats in the same row, but middle seats across from each other! They offered to seat us further back in seats together, but they were emergency exit seats that I’m not allowed to sit in because of my disabilities. Needless to say, I was not impressed! This is the second time I’ve had United seat us apart from each other. The first time I reorganised the entire plane to get seats together [Morgan was 8 years old, I didn’t think it appropriate for him to be on his own half a plane away], I suspect if I tried that again they’d have me arrested! Morgan was OK with it, so I acquiesced. The flight home was through Dulles again. I stopped at Duty Free and bought a bottle of Louis XII Cognac – a mistake once I found out Ontario charges ridiculous surcharges on liquor coming into the province! The extra taxes were a couple of hundred, the extra Duty was $3.05 – the surcharge was $911!!!! Ultimately meaning my duty free liquor cost me about $400 more than if I’d bought it here! Stoopid Government!

It still tastes great…

Summary

I just want to recommend the WDWCelebrations.com events to anyone who can make it! They charge a nominal [minimal?] fee to cover their costs for materials and a small charitable donation and put on a fantastic event for Disney Geeks! Basically, they’re all volunteers doing it for fun. A very enjoyable event! The pace is a lot slower as a group than Morgan and I would do on our own, but that’s a nice change for us, especially with the great extras that go with their events, the history walks, special viewing area for fireworks, the wonderful talk by the EPCOT Chef, all added to the experience.

 

[Laura]

We started with Kona Café but instead of our usually Tonga Toast, we decided on their Holiday special: Pumpkin Pancakes!

 

[Monty]

I know, eh? Blasphemy! :lol:

 

[wm49rs]

Love the photos, Sir. Great trip report!

 

[erstwo]

4 December

Okay, now I KNOW I totally saw you - in China - on this day. :xmas: I mentioned it in my (long, rambling) trip report, but I'm sure you were still on vacation when I wrote it.

Sorry I didn't say hello. I wasn't sure it was you and everyone in my group had hit a Disney "wall" at that point. We had 4 misbehaving children and even more misbehaving adults. Didn't want to run after you two, screaming like a crazy woman, only to have you see us at our worst. Next time though! :wave:

 

[Nemo14]

It was great fun meeting you & Morgan and all the others that day Monty. Thanks for meeting up with us!

 

[Monty]

It was great fun meeting you & Morgan and all the others that day Monty. Thanks for meeting up with us!

It was a great little meet [an hour and a half of chatting with fellow Disney geeks is always fun!], I don't suppose yours were one of the plethora of cameras that took group photos was it? I was depending on stealing, er... 'borrowing' other folks pics, so didn't take any of my own!

 

[Nemo14]

It was a great little meet [an hour and a half of chatting with fellow Disney geeks is always fun!], I don't suppose yours were one of the plethora of cameras that took group photos was it? I was depending on stealing, er... 'borrowing' other folks pics, so didn't take any of my own!

 

[Monty]

Okay, now I KNOW I totally saw you - in China - on this day. :xmas: I mentioned it in my (long, rambling) trip report, but I'm sure you were still on vacation when I wrote it.

Sorry I didn't say hello. I wasn't sure it was you and everyone in my group had hit a Disney "wall" at that point. We had 4 misbehaving children and even more misbehaving adults. Didn't want to run after you two, screaming like a crazy woman, only to have you see us at our worst. Next time though! :wave:

You should have run after me screaming like a crazy woman! :lol: Morgan would have been terribly embarrassed, so of course I would have thoroughly enjoyed it! :drevil:

Morgan is resigned to the fact that every trip he's going to be 'stuck' meeting up with my imaginary internet friends [he actually enjoys it, but 15 year olds would never admit such a thing ]. And meeting me usually has the effect of almost instantly calming misbehaving kids, though misbehaving adults tend to get worse for some reason... :shrug:

We had a fairly sizable group of WDWMagicers meet that afternoon at Germany, Popsicletrees, DisneyBird, Nemo14, [EpcotNut and e4ymod briefly swept through], myself and Morgan and at least one other whose screen name currently eludes me... I think ClemsonTigger was there too, but we saw him so many times during our trip I forget exactly where he was and where he wasn't... [EDIT: Since he's in the pics, ClemsonTigger WAS there! LOL! OMG! So was Master Yoda! Sorry Richard, how could I forget you!]

So, if the fellow you saw looked like the guy with the Navy polo, beard and sunglasses and had the orange T-shirted teenager in tow, it was me you saw! :lol:

 

[harveyt0206]

Fun TR Monty. :wave: I think it's great that you got to meet up with a few WDWMagic folks. I saw Blackthidot at MK in 2009, didn't get to speak to him but recognized him and his lovely fiance' immediately. When I mentioned it to my husband he kind of thought I was crazy for a moment as I don't think he realized just how much time I spend on these boards. Now, he does and understands that I'm constantly looking for my "imaginary" friends when I'm down there. Haven't run into anyone else yet, but some day I am sure I will.

 

[Monty]

Fun TR Monty. :wave: I think it's great that you got to meet up with a few WDWMagic folks. I saw Blackthidot at MK in 2009, didn't get to speak to him but recognized him and his lovely fiance' immediately. When I mentioned it to my husband he kind of thought I was crazy for a moment as I don't think he realized just how much time I spend on these boards. Now, he does and understands that I'm constantly looking for my "imaginary" friends when I'm down there. Haven't run into anyone else yet, but some day I am sure I will.

My first meet was with Rob [MKT], we arranged it casually on the forums, exchanged phone numbers and coordinated once I was there by text message. Next I met Heidi [TwoTigersMom] in Huntsville Alabama... After that it escalated quickly to the infamous "Meet Monty Meet".

From then on, I think I've had pre-arranged meets with WDWMagicers on every trip I've done and a few casual meetings with folks who recognised me from here. Morgan has entirely given up on me! :lol:

 

[tiaragirl]

Solid TR, darling.. your updates are always so comprehensive - and frequent (um, can I live with you guys instead of in NB?). Morgan seems like such a good sport, shame on the girl from NY for not emailing him (silly Americans, what ARE we going to do with them?).

Please tell me you are watching our hockey boys put on another mediocre performance in the WJHC. I am having an aneurism.

 

[Monty]

Solid TR, darling.. your updates are always so comprehensive - and frequent (um, can I live with you guys instead of in NB?). Morgan seems like such a good sport, shame on the girl from NY for not emailing him (silly Americans, what ARE we going to do with them?).

Please tell me you are watching our hockey boys put on another mediocre performance in the WJHC. I am having an aneurism.

You're more than welcome.... But I'm probably technically too old for you [though I am a DOM] and Morgan's likely too young for you. :lookaroun

It may be mediocre, but they're winning... :shrug:

 

[TwoTigersMom]

Great trip report Monty! Looks like you guys had a great time! :sohappy:

And meeting me usually has the effect of almost instantly calming misbehaving kids, though misbehaving adults tend to get worse for some reason... :shrug:

I can vouch for this! Actually, I can vouch for all of this sentence! A bunch of us met up for dinner August 2009 and Monty started throwing stuff at a nearby table(of course they were with us too)! Then he started getting others at our table to throw things at them! :lookaroun :lol: