Mousefan1972's Christmas in Disney 2008

My family and I celebrated our second Christmas in WDW last week. We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge and were there from Dec. 17 until Dec. 26. It may take me some time to complete this TR so please bear with me. :lol: I will try to keep it heavy on the pics and light on the narration. :animwink:

So... Off we go! We left snowy/rainy Boston on Wednesday morning, Dec. 17. We took the ME shuttle to WL and arrived there around 1:30 p.m. At check in, I asked if there were any openings for us to be the flag family and was told yes! (more on that later) Our room was ready, so we went to room 5053 and checked it out. We had a courtyard view with bunk beds. We were on the inner courtyard, near the springs. Very pretty view. After dumping our carryons we had lunch at Roaring Fork, then jumped on the boat to MK. Crowds were light and we did many of our favorite rides: PotC, HM, BTMRR, Cinderella's Carousel, and IASW.

Two major milestones were reached on this trip: DS (age 3) reached 40 inches in height for the first time! :sohappy: No more baby swap for Test Track, BTMRR, Splash Mountain, Soarin' or ToT! And DD (age 5) reached 44 inches in height for the first time. (DH is 6'5"; the kids definitely inherited his height, not mine) :lookaroun

We had plans to meet up with Dot (Uponastar) and Vince (Merhearted) and after a few cell phone calls, found them in front of the castle. We watched Cinderella's Holiday Wish, then found a spot in Frontierland to watch Spectromagic! It was so great to meet Dot and her husband George, and to see Vince again. After the parade, we were beat from being up since 5 a.m., so we said our goodbyes and headed back to WL.

From left to right: Dot, myself, and Vince. My kiddos in the front.


Tomorrow: MK in the morning, the Epcot for the afternoon/evening.

 

[mousefan1972]

Thursday Dec. 18, our first full day, was morning EMH at MK. Our kids are up early all the time, so we arrived at MK a few minutes after 8 and rode pretty much everything in Fantasyland before the park opened for non-resort guests at 9. We rode DS's favorite, the Tomorrowland Speedway, then as we were heading to HM, we ran into Uncle Scrooge.

It was a recurring them throughout the trip that my 3 year old had his hands on or near his face/mouth for every picture. :brick:

The decorations at MK are just beautiful.

Around late morning, we got on the monorail to Epcot, where we spent the afternoon/evening.

 

[DAKOTADISNEY]

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[mousefan1972]

Once at Epcot, we wandered around Future World and got fastpasses for Soarin' and Test Track. We rode Nemo, saw Turtle Talk with Crush, SSE, and Journey into Imagination. The kids like the Gran Fiesta Tour, so we headed over to Mexico. They had some fun with the Mexican sombreros...:lol:

We had a great dinner at Coral Reef, then went to Test Track to ride with DS for the first time. He loved it! :sohappy: Here is a pic of the decorations right behind Epcot's tree.

After doing some shopping in MouseGears, we headed back to WL. We found that we enjoyed the decorations in the lobby there so much, that we liked to end our evenings sitting by the fire with some hot chocolate.
Tomorrow: Hollywood Studios and the Osbourne Lights! :sohappy:

 

[mousefan1972]

We were at the Studios on Friday, Dec. 19 well before park opening at 9 a.m.

The tree outside Studio's gate:

After the opening show, we rode TSMM, then got fastpasses to ride again later. DH rode ToT (both kids chickened out, and I was only going to ride if they did) :lol: We decided to skip RnRC, which we both love, because we didn't want to make the kids wait for us since neither one is tall enough to ride. We had a snack, then pondered what to do next. Some pics of the decorations:

DS said he wanted to meet Bolt, so we went to check out the meet n' greet. The line was long, and knowing our kids, we had a feeling they would be afraid of the characters once we reached the front of the line. They swore they wouldn't be afraid, and.... they were. :lol: Hence us holding them for the pic.

 

[mousefan1972]

After meeting Bolt, we went over to the Backlot Tour where DH was recruited for the Harbor Attack show. He really didn't want to do it, but the CM was begging any/all passersby to be in the show, so the kids and I egged him on until he agreed to do it. We have seen that show dozens of times, but it was definitely more fun with him in it. He is the one with the sunglasses on his head.

After having a late luch at the Backlot Express, we got seats for Block Party Bash, which we had never seen. It was very cute and definitely high-energy.

We had an early dinner at Mama Melrose as part of the Fantasmic! dinner package. I must say, it was the only poor meal of our trip. We had never eaten there before, and even though it got mixed reviews, we wanted to try for ourselves. We won't be back. We then went to the 6:30 (only) showing of Fantasmic! that night, and we all loved it. Following the show, it was off to the Streets of America for the Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. One word: breathtaking!

 

[mousefan1972]

On Saturday, Dec. 20 we spent the morning at MK, took a break to go back to WL so the kids could swim, then went to the Contemporary for dinner at Chef Mickey's. On the way back to WL for our swim, we detoured through the GF to see the Gingerbread House. DH wanted to buy one to take home, until he found out they were $65 plus tax. :lol: After dinner it was back to MK, and it was packed. :dazzle: We found it more crowded that night than on Christmas Eve. We tried to leave right before Wishes, and got stuck in a mass of humanity on Main Street. Not fun. Some random pics:

Opening show:

Meeting Mad Hatter and Alice:

We got to meet Rabbit!! :sohappy:

 

[Uponastar]

Yay!
Lovin' it Kristin!
Woot for Lou getting picked for the Backlot show.
George will be so jealous!

 

[Disnut]

Love it Kristin.

 

[mousefan1972]

On Sunday, Dec. 21 we went to Epcot in the morning. Rode all of the favorites in FW again, then checked out about 1/2 of WS. We were saving hearing the storytellers for Christmas Day, so we did some meet n' greets and looked at the trains in Germany and the US.

Some Epcot pics:





Ready to go Soarin'!

We left Epcot and took the monorail to the Polynesian for our dinner ressie at 'Ohana. It was very good! We hung out for a bit in the lobby after dinner, then chunked our plans to go to MK again, opting to go back to WL and listen to the choir in the lobby. Such a lovely thing to hear. Plus, we were planning to be up early Monday morning to hit up MK EMH at 8 a.m., then we had booked the Family Magic Tour for 10 a.m.

To be continued...

 

[Pluto Princess]

very good so far! Cant wait to hear more!

 

[DormaNesbit]

Great Trip Report! You are so lucky to have met with friends from this site while you were there!:sohappy:

 

[PotteryGal]

Wonderful report so far, Kristin! Can't wait to hear more! :sohappy:

 

[Yanks07]

Nice trip report so far Kristin! I know it's a lot of work to do these!

 

[krankenstein]

Lovin' it so far! Keep it coming! :wave:

 

[George]

Great report so far Kristin. My kids love the ride in Mexico too and on our last trip my DS rode TT for the first time and loved it.

 

[mousefan1972]

Ok, now we are up to Monday, Dec. 22. This was the only chilly day we experienced over our 10 days at WDW. "Chilly" is relative, of course. :lol: To us New Englanders, it wasn't bad (highs in the upper 50's during the day, lows in the 40's at night) but the locals were bundled in their fleece, parkas, mittens, hats, and scarves. The kids wore jeans and sweatshirts, I wore capris and a sweatshirt, and DH wore shorts rolleyes and a long sleeved tee and we were fine. Tuesday was an in between day (60's during the day) and by Wednesday, Christmas Eve, temps were back around 80. So on Monday, we were at MK just after opening for resort guests (8 a.m.) to ride our favorites again. I had booked the Family Magic Tour for 10 a.m., and we were looking forward to it.

Love this one:

We met our guide, Leigh, near City Hall. It was us and one other family. (There initially was a 3rd family, but they left after the first 10 minutes because "the kids weren't into it"). If you have never done this before, it is very cute. Leigh told the kids that we were going to help clean up the Magic Kingdom for the day. She said we would have brooms, mops, etc and would walk around cleaning up after other guests. The kids seemed to buy it. She left to get the brooms, and when she came back, had a new story. She said Mickey had texted her, saying that MK was in peril because Peter Pan had stolen Capt. Hook's hook, and if he did not return it, Capt. Hook would kick everyone out of MK by lunchtime. So we had to go on a scavenger hunt to find the hook Peter had stolen. It was really cute. The kids had a blast.

DS and Leigh:

Peter making his appearance at the end:

 

[Nicole220]

.

Aww.

You have such a cute family, Kristin.

More, please!

 

[mousefan1972]

DD finding the hook and ratting out Peter Pan:

Us with Peter:

After the tour we went to have lunch at Peco's Bills. The early showing of Mickey's Once Upon a Christmastime Parade was starting in Frontierland then, so we booked it to PotC and then skipped out to Tomorrowland to ride the TTA and see Monster's Inc. Then it was time to stake out spots for the later parade.

 

[mousefan1972]

I love, love, love the Christmas parade. We saw it this day and also on Christmas Eve. I'll let the pics speak for themselves. (Will have more from Christmas Eve)