Trip Report One lump or two? A last minute Holiday trip.

Hello All - I haven’t attempted a trip report since probably February of 2022. Before that it was probably a 2016 trip.

But I have a last minute trip coming up and I’ve been practicing my trip reporting skills on holiday get away to NYC this weekend - so going to attempt to document our Disney trip between Christmas and New Year’s. (Yes, that right. We are crazy enough to attempt it). We have been before, so we know what to expect and have mentally readied ourselves for the crowds.

The attendees:
From my immediate family, it will just be my daughter and myself. Photo from a past trip:

I have loved this bow headband since it first hit the shelves many years ago. But it’s the bane of my family’s existence and they wish I would get rid of it. I now only wear it to MK. But….Hard to miss me/ easy to find me in MK!

My sister in law and my nieces will join us as well, but I’ll probably keep them out of the photos.

This trip came about last week. After Christmas, We are headed down to visit my father in law in Florida near-ish Orlando. My husband and son decided to add on a day to go fishing with my brother in law. So my sister in law and I decided to head to the parks!

We are staying offsite - Doubletree Disney Springs area. Never stayed here before and it’s been years since we stayed offsite - so we will see how this goes!

There was some miscommunication with the number of park days - my sister in law purchased one day tickets, while I purchased two day tickets. . So that’s the trip title. ML (my daughter) and I may make it into the parks two days or it might be just the one day. We have reservations for Epcot the first day and MK the second. We shall see how many times we make it through the turnstiles!

 

[Tuvalu]

 

[Wicked Sisters]

Excited for this report. Love seeing what its like in the park’s different times of the year.

 

[Zipadeelady]

That bow headband is obnoxious and the absolute best. I would wear it all the time, especially if it bothered my kids.

 

[fractal]

I'm in!

 

[Tiki Traveler]

What a great way to extend holiday fun! Have a terrific time!

 

[erstwo]

Here’s hoping!

Excited for this report. Love seeing what it’s like in the park’s different times of the year.

Me too! It’s been too long since I’ve seen the Christmas decor.

That bow headband is obnoxious and the absolute best. I would wear it all the time, especially if it bothered my kids.

Haha - YES. I love it so. It’s hard for me to give it up! Even though I have to carry a full size backpack just to store it when I’m on the faster rides.

I'm in!

Glad to have you!

What a great way to extend holiday fun! Have a terrific time!

Yes. - we are pretty excited! Didn’t have any idea when we’d make it back to WDW so this is even more special.

 

[erstwo]

Some things I’m looking forward to….

Tron - never ridden it. Last time I was in MK, it looked like this

So they couldn’t let me ride.
I’m a little concerned that it wont be as great as I once anticipated. Someone let me go to Universal this past fall break and I’m not sure anything can surpass Haggrids. But I’m trying to stay neutral until I ride it!

Next - the train - missed it.

Riding Guardians again - my favorite ride ever. (Until I rode Haggids!) But Guardians is still a close second. Here’s hoping we can get a group and make it to Epcot!

New Epcot fireworks - can’t remember their name?

And just fun times and memories with family.

 

[littleroo]

Following!!! Looking forward to your TR! Happy Holidays!!

 

[cgersic]

I'm in too!! I was just there and the Epcot show Luminous is amazing and I really really like Tron! I hope you have a fabulous time!

 

[Bullseye1967]

Following along!

 

[MinnieM123]

Waving hi! Looking forward to your TR.

 

[erstwo]

Following!!! Looking forward to your TR! Happy Holidays!!

Thank you! Happy Holidays to you as well!

I'm in too!! I was just there and the Epcot show Luminous is amazing and I really really like Tron! I hope you have a fabulous time!

Yay! So glad to hear about Luminous and Tron - Looking forward to both. Hope you had a great trip!

Following along!

Glad to have you!

Waving hi! Looking forward to your TR.

waving back! Thank you!

 

[mpaulam]

Have a great time!

 

[erstwo]

Back home - trip was great. It was us and 12000 of our nearest and dearest. Hoping to get this trip report started tonight

Merry merry and happy happy to everyone following along!

 

[erstwo]

Day 1 (?) As mentioned previously, the point of our trip to Florida was to see family. So although we landed in Orlando -it wasn’t our final destination on our first night. Or even our second night. I’ll call 12/26 Day 1 but we won’t arrive at WDW until 12/28.

Our flight in was delayed by 2 hours. Not unexpected the day after Christmas. And we were notified of the delay about 8 hours before our flight - which was nice. I had extra time to wrap up things at home before we left for the airport. Flight was smooth and uneventful - soon we were walking on familiar carpet

How long do we think this carpet will last? I feel like it’s been around since at least 2009??
We rode the fonorail over to the main terminal.
We arrived around 11 pm so the airport was mostly empty.

Picked up our rental car (Budget Fastbreak for those who might want to know - no problems), stuck our SunPass on the windshield and headed even further south.

But first, a stop requested by my son:

The Wawa! Oh to be young and able to eat 5 meals a day!

 

[erstwo]

Day 2 - 12/27 was spent with family. The only excitement this day was waking up and looking outside of our hotel room to see 3 large white cranes out in the wetlands with the usual sandhill cranes and flamingoes.

They were too far away to tell for sure - but For about an hour, I was certain they were Whooping cranes. There’s only about 800 whooping cranes left in the wild, so I was geeking out. But then, my brother in law pointed out they might be a type of stork native to Florida. So maybe I saw a whooping crane or maybe just a stork.

Either way, a cell phone photo from far away that doesn’t help much.

Day 3 - 12/28

We still had some time to spend with family this day. But we had tentatively planned to leave for Epcot after lunch.
I prepped my buttons for the trip:

And my daughter and I woke up at 6:00, but set another alarm for 6:55 because this was on the horizon:

My daughter had the fast fingers this trip! I didn’t even get to select Epcot/Guarduans before she secured our boarding group.

We knew we’d want to ride again, so I started monitoring the ILL times hoping to snag one for later in the evening.

My father in law really wanted to take us to the Loggerhead Marine life center in Juno, north of West Palm. 10/10 highly recommend. Not a huge place but the work they do there is outstanding and it’s very clean - very well laid out.

They also have Marlin, Dory, and Nemo at the front door!

 

[erstwo]

Day 3 - 12/28 continued

At some point, on the drive to Loggerhead Center, I bought our ILL for Guardians with a 6:45 return time.

We had lunch with the family, and then my sister-in-law and my nieces headed back to my father-in-laws place to grab their bags, but my daughter and I were packed and ready, so we headed towards Orlando.

You might remember from the pre trip portion that my sister- in-law and nieces only had one day tickets, while my daughter and had two day tickets. So heading out before them was no issue.

My daughter cranked up the Disney tunes, and very soon we were driving under the gate

By the time we drove into Epcot parking lot, they had just started parking people on the right hand side. I feel like we were not too far behind preferred parking - we were so close we didn’t even bother with a tram. We just walked up to the gate.

I’m not sure what it is I put in my backpack that causes this, but I always get the extra security screening. I guess I’m just special??
But soon enough, we were past security, and headed into Epcot

I thought the decorations outside the gates were very pretty!
We forgot to pack a few things for this trip, one being my infamous Minnie bow headband, and the other being our magic bands - so this was my first experience using my phone as my ticket. I know everyone everyone else has probably already done this, but I thought it worked really well - with the exception of the fact that it was just another drain on my cell phone battery.

A selfie for posterity.

The front was empty. Timestamp on the selfie is 4:21 PM. Everything seemed very relaxed in what was formally known as ‘Future World’. I quick look at the wait times showed that the rest of the park was a madhouse; however.

CM blowing bubbles near SSE and a couple kids absolutely loving it:

So many walls down!
Loved the poinsettia trees

And wow -this landscaping!

Really like what they’ve done here.

Our virtual queue return time for Guardians had come and gone at around 2 PM. We decided to see if we could get on anyway. Sure enough - walk to the turnstiles and tapped in and got blue. However, the cast member waved us through and welcomed us to Guardians. Score!
Things were moving along pretty quickly for about the first 20 minutes. Then we had about about 20 minutes of delay. Finally we moved into what I called the movie rooms.
Then we moved fairly quickly through the ‘fat man’s squeeze’ hallway. (Who designed that thing??)
Only to be stopped here for the better part of an hour.

 

[Bullseye1967]

I’m not sure what it is I put in my backpack that causes this, but I always get the extra security screening. I guess I’m just special??

Glasses case or battery packs are the usual culprits.

 

[erstwo]

Glasses case or battery packs are the usual culprits.

That makes sense! I have the oldest phone in the family - I need that extra battery pack so I guess it’s extra security screening for me forever!