Trip Report The Cold Never Bothered Us Anyway - December 2024

Happy New Year, WDW Magic Friends!

We have been back from our latest WDW for nearly a month, so it's high time I get started on our trip report, before I forget everything that happened.

The cast of characters:

Me, Katie - thirty-something mom, wife, and Disney trip planner extraordinaire

Jason - My husband of 11 years, fellow Disney adult, happy to be along for the ride

Lincoln - Our precocious three-year-old son, Jason's twin, lover of characters and roller coasters

Sunday, December 1st - Travel Day

I was up and at 'em shortly after 4:00 am, after a fitful nights' sleep. Between the excitement (we're going to Disney!) and the anxiety (what if all of our reservations randomly get canceled?), I can never sleep the night before a trip. I got J up around 4:30, and he and I quickly got ourselves ready to go and packed up last-minute items in our "go bag." We always get Lincoln out of bed last, hoping that he'll stay asleep while we transfer him to the car seat, but it never works out that way. The three of us were wide awake and pulling out of the driveway just after 5:00 am.

We made our first stop of the trip at Buc-ee's, where we all had a potty break and grabbed some breakfast.

I sat in the back with Lincoln for the next leg of the trip to try to keep the breakfast mess under control, and get him set up with a movie on his tablet.

Don't mind my disgusting car window - Lincoln has these little suction cup car toys that constantly fall off and get re-attached, thus the million little circle marks on the window.

We stopped again for gas and another potty break shortly after crossing over into Florida. And once we hit Gainesville, this was our view for the next hour and a half.

This was the second trip in a row that we ended up stuck in traffic for over an hour on the way down, and both times the traffic was not in Atlanta! This time around, I had considered booking a hotel room in Lake City for the night before our check-in day, so that we could drive most of the way down the night before and be on property before Noon. Plus, that would keep us from having to wake up so early to drive down. For our next trip, I'm definitely booking that hotel room for the night before.

Thankfully, Lincoln was a good sport, and kept himself entertained.

Finally, shortly after 1:30 pm, we passed through the magical gates, and all of our troubles disappeared.

Up next: Disney Springs

 

[Back!Elbow!Shoulders!]

 

[TheMouseFan]

Yay! Can't wait to read all about your trip!

 

[Tuvalu]

 

[Wicked Sisters]

So looking forward to this report.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Looking forward to seeing more of your trip!

 

[mpaulam]

Yay! So happy to see you started. Looking forward to more

 

[Swissmiss]

Yay!

 

[Katiekitten]

Following along, I can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[k8einwdw]

Yay! Can't wait to read all about your trip!

So looking forward to this report.

Looking forward to seeing more of your trip!

Yay! So happy to see you started. Looking forward to more

View attachment 834373

Yay!

Following along, I can't wait to hear all about it!

"To all who come to this happy place - welcome."

Thank you all for being here!

 

[k8einwdw]

Sunday, December 1st - Arrival Day - Continued

Our room was not ready upon our arrival, so we decided to head straight to Disney Springs for lunch. The Lime parking garage was full (never a good sign), so we parked in the Orange garage. It's always a little awkward going through security for the first time in a year (What do we take out of the stroller? Does Lincoln have to walk through the metal detectors? I don't know what to do with my hands!) but we made it through, and decided to head to Cooke's of Dublin, an old favorite, for lunch. Cooke's has very limited seating, so after you order your food, you may find yourself walking around the restaurant, awkwardly waiting for a party to vacate their table - this was the case for us. Finally, a high-top table came available - Lincoln thought he was big stuff sitting in the tall chair.

Since it was past 2:00 pm at this point, and we had a 5:50 pm dinner reservation, we decided to split two entrees amongst the three of us. Jason ordered the fish and chips, and I ordered the chicken fingers and chips, and Lincoln ate off of both of our plates.

However, Lincoln did not eat as much as we would have liked - I think he was a little peeved that he didn't have his own meal - so we decided to get him some popcorn to munch on. We opted to get one of the refillable popcorn buckets, which ended up being well worth the $14 for our family - we refilled it at least once every park day.

We let Lincoln hang out, eat popcorn, and watch the Characters in Flight balloon for a bit. We also decided to cruise by Gideon's to see how the line was, because J and I were both craving their peanut butter cold brew coffee. The line was crazy long, so we decided to try again another day.

Lincoln was dying to get to the hotel room - he kept asking me if Disney had texted me yet. Around 3:00, we figured surely our room will be ready soon, so we left Disney Springs. Before going to Pop, we headed over to the Flamingo Crossings Target to pick up a drive-up order I had placed on the way down for protein shakes, breakfasts for Lincoln, bottled waters, etc. for us to have in the hotel room. Finally around 4:00 pm, just after parking in the check-in lot at Pop, we got the room-ready text.

Now, I had done online check-in months before the trip. I always, always request a ground-floor room. Since we had booked a Preferred room, I also requested the 60s section. And I always request check-in prior to 3:00 pm. So I was just a little peeved that our fourth floor, 50s section room was not ready until 4:00 pm. I fully understand that the room requests are just that - requests - but the fact that zero of the three requests were granted was frustrating. Disney had to have either outsourced or significantly reduced their Mousekeeping staff post-Covid, because we never had to wait past 3:00 pm for a room to be ready pre-Covid, but that seems to be the norm now. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I feel like the verbiage used to be "check in is at 3:00 pm," but now they say "check in starts at 3:00 pm," which I feel like is a total cop-out.

Anyway, we decided to just make the most of it, and grabbed a luggage cart from Bell Services before heading up to our room.

You've all seen the Pop rooms, but here's a picture to refresh your memory.

We quickly unloaded the luggage cart and unpacked/got settled in as much as we could before we had to head out for our dinner reservation.

Up next: Back to Disney Springs

 

[Tiki Traveler]

Happy to be following along!

 

[MinnieM123]

I like Lincoln's Mickey suitcase -- look at him, pulling it along -- like he's such a seasoned traveler, at only 3!

 

[Tuvalu]

Totally get your late room text/ignored requests frustration!!

As many rooms as Pop has, to not receive a single one of your requests is mind-boggling. I’ve learned over the years that it does not matter how early you do online check-in, as room assignments don’t begin until 3-5 days out and requests aren’t “seen” until then. I do hope that your 50s location was close to the main building/buses since you paid extra for preferred!

I remember my children being anxious like Lincoln to get into the room. If our room wasn’t ready when we stopped at the Front Desk, I had to find a house phone (either at the resort or in the parks), punch in a four digit number, wait for the call to be answered, and ask about our room status. I often had to do this multiple times as we were waiting (as I said anxious kids - and mama!).

 

[Seagull59]

Excited to follow along on your trip!!

 

[k8einwdw]

Happy to be following along!

Thank you for being here!

I like Lincoln's Mickey suitcase -- look at him, pulling it along -- like he's such a seasoned traveler, at only 3!

He is Mr. Independent- no way was he letting his dad put his suitcase on the luggage cart. Sadly, we’re probably going to have to get him a new suitcase in the near future - this one is an 18” carry-on, so it doesn’t hold much!

Totally get your late room text/ignored requests frustration!!

As many rooms as Pop has, to not receive a single one of your requests is mind-boggling. I’ve learned over the years that it does not matter how early you do online check-in, as room assignments don’t begin until 3-5 days out and requests aren’t “seen” until then. I do hope that your 50s location was close to the main building/buses since you paid extra for preferred!

I remember my children being anxious like Lincoln to get into the room. If our room wasn’t ready when we stopped at the Front Desk, I had to find a house phone (either at the resort or in the parks), punch in a four digit number, wait for the call to be answered, and ask about our room status. I often had to do this multiple times as we were waiting (as I said anxious kids - and mama!).

We were Building 1, very close to Lady. Not a terrible walk to the main building, thankfully. I can’t imagine having to do it the old way with the house phone - I feel like we would have sat by a phone until our room was ready.

Excited to follow along on your trip!!

Excited to have you following along!

 

[k8einwdw]

Sunday, December 1st - Arrival Day - Continued

Around 5:15, we headed back to Disney Springs for our 5:50 dinner reservation at Homecomin'. We checked in right at 5:50, and were seated at an outdoor table less than 5 minutes later.

J and I both got one of the moonshines on tap to drink - Sweet Tea Shine for J, and Strawberry Lemonade Shine for me. We also got the Bunch of Puppies appetizer - hush puppies served with a side of pepper jelly and pimento cheese. We had hoped Lincoln would enjoy the appetizer, since he normally loves hushpuppies, but he said that these were too spicy.

For our meals, L got the kid's cheeseburger with mac and cheese and peas and carrots, J got the Fried Chicken Sandwich, and I got the Harvest Salad with fried chicken.

We all really enjoyed our meals, and I managed to get Lincoln to eat two whole bites of veggies on a Disney vacation, so I'd say it was a success. We were on the dining plan this trip, which meant we all get dessert. We were all stuffed, so we ordered our dessert to go - L got the kids' donuts (glazed donuts from Everglazed), J got the Shine Cake, and I got the Hummingbird Cake. Lincoln ate one of his donuts when we got back to the room - I tried a bite, it was a basic glazed donut. I had a few bites of my hummingbird cake that night after L went to bed - it was very good, but veeeerrryyy sweet. I could not have finished it.

After dinner, we decided to walk through World of Disney...

I think this particular day was the most crowded we had ever seen Disney Springs - it was absolute wall-to-wall people, everywhere you looked. World of Disney is already the busiest store in Disney Springs, and can be overstimulating on a normal day, but on a day this crowded, it can be downright unpleasant. We decided to stick with and and push (not literally) through the crowds to look around.

On this trip, Lincoln deployed a new tactic for getting us to buy him something - he would point something out and say "I don't have one of those!"

He managed to talk us into a Grogu Cuddleez plush and a Mickey baseball cap that came with sunglasses, that he has not worn one single time since then. I also snagged a t-shirt that I had been wanting for over a year. Since the checkout lines were crazy, we opted to use the Mobile Checkout feature on the MDE app, which was a huge timesaver throughout the trip. It was getting close to bedtime when we left World of Disney, so we decided we'd come back to DS another day, and headed back to Pop.

When we got back to Pop, we cruised by the main building to get our refillable mugs, and I grabbed some pics of the Christmas tree in the lobby.

If you read our trip report from 2023, you may remember that I had bought an inflatable toddler bed and a blackout sleep tent for Lincoln to sleep in, since he had outgrown the pack-n-play, and was not used to sleeping in a full-size bed. It was a disaster in 2023, but we let Lincoln sleep with the blackout tent over his bed at home a few times over the course of the year, hoping that we would have better luck with this setup in 2024. We brought this sleep setup with us again on this trip, and set it up before heading out to dinner - L was very excited to sleep in his tent. A few hours later, now that it was bedtime, he was not having it. He said that the inflatable bed was not comfortable and it "hurt his butt."

Finally, well past 9pm, I gave up the fight and pulled down the Murphy bed for Lincoln to sleep on. I didn't want to have to wait up for someone from the front desk to bring up bedrails, so we stacked some pillows on the edges of the bed and prayed that L wouldn't roll off (he didn't, thankfully, but I was so anxious about it that I barely slept that night). Around 10:00 pm, L finally drifted off to sleep, and J and I were asleep not long after that.

Up next: Animal Kingdom Day