So this trips concludes our #MouseEarsforaYear… our last trip as Annual Passholders (for now — maybe again in a few years??). It’s been really great but honestly I’m so exhausted after this trip (and having 2 so close together) that I’m ready for a few months off LOL
CAUTION… there’s some puke in this post so if you don’t like reading about that, beware! LMAO
We left Tuesday night after work and I felt AWFUL. Had a really bad migraine I couldn’t get under control and Chase let me sleep for a while. I took over driving after Birmingham and luckily by then my medicine finally kicked in, and we made it to Columbus, GA around midnight and crashed.
The next morning we were up at 6 and heading out — we like staying at Hyatt Place so we can grab free food out of their kitchen area. Usually they have fruit so I get a banana, but this time no fruit… so I grabbed a sausage link. And it was DARN GOOD, so I grabbed a few more an walked out of there with a plate of sausage links LMAO
As a Christmas present for Kevin, we bought a ton of PSP games on ebay for him to play in the car. I wrapped them all up (2 per package), along with the Buddy the Elf shirt I got him, and he got to open them up a few at a time throughout the trip. It was fun.
Kevin was SUPER tired of being in the car by the time we got to Orlando.
We headed straight to Pop since our room was ready — turned out to be a nice corner room in the 50s building with a view across the lake, and right around the corner from the room we first stayed at at Pop! So that was neat. We got changed and went and had lunch in the food court which was surprisingly good. Kevin had a GIGANTIC piece of pizza, I had roast beef and mashed potatoes – I really liked it! I don’t remember what Chase had…
Then we headed off to Magic Kingdom.
It was SO COOL to finally see it all decorated for Christmas!! Although… the dissonance of weather that feels like it’s about 90 degrees out with Christmas carols and Christmas trees was very strange.
We went and picked a new phone case out for me, rode the Peoplemover, and did Monsters Inc Laugh Floor. Then picked up my new phone case:
After that we headed to the castle to camp out a spot for the castle lighting. We ended up right in front of the stage to the right with a good view, about a row back. (Although, a lot of people sat down waiting on the show, and then stood up when it started… resulting in a few people getting upset and chanting “SIT DOWN, SIT DOWN!” over somewhere near the middle. That was weird. It would’ve been nice to stay sitting but that’s not how it works…
We ended up being right underneath the snow machines at the end so that was really cool! I got a little teary eyed, I’ve seen so many photos of the castle lit up for Christmas over the years but to finally see it in person was really something.
Then we made a quick exit to head over to Disney Springs… and it was PACKED! We had to do surface parking over by La Nouba but it wasn’t too bad – we’d just never been there with it that crowded, but hey, it was a big holiday shopping weekend so there’s that.
We had dinner at Frontera Cocina! It wasn’t my favourite, but I liked it, especially the plantains and the desserts. Service was great, too.
Chase and I both had the Carne Asada, and we got a side of the white cheese mashed potatoes too. Yum!
Kevin had some kind of chicken that we were constantly having to help him pull apart LOL — lesson learned!
I won’t post everybody’s dessert photos but we all got something different and shared. I had the warm plantains with ice cream!
We were going to try to see some of the Christmas stuff after that, but we were so tired we decided to head back to the hotel. We did see some living statues on the way out, though:
Thanksgiving day we prepared ourselves mentally for the crowd and headed off to Magic Kingdom around 10. We sprang for preferred parking so we could at least cut the tram time out of our transit. We got to the TTC and decided to bus off which was infinitely faster than the monorail (considering the already huge line) and ferry.
We headed straight for our Big Thunder Mountain fastpass – that was fun, then went and had lunch at Columbia Harbor House. I had the chicken pot pie which was a pretty good little pot pie.
I finally managed to get Kevin in line to meet Peter Pan! Been trying to do that the last few times we took him, and as we were leaving lunch, looked up his meet times since we were right around the corner – and we were about 15 minutes out from it starting, so we popped over to the line and were 3rd to meet him. He taught Kevin to swashbuckle:
Then we did Enchanted Tales with Belle, since Kevin had never seen it… I wanted him to get chosen as a knight but he didn’t, boo! Then we went and got dole whips, met up with Jess, Bill and friends, yay! Then I dragged Kevin over to meet Elena of Avalor and Cinderella. Nobody in our group has seen the Elena show but I just wanted my pic with a new princess for my collection š
Kevin liked her because she gave him multiple hugs. He said, “She’s so friendly!”
Cinderella asked if he had a date for the ball yet, I said no and she suggested he take one of her stepsisters, to which Kevin agreed.
Then we left to head to Epcot for Thanksgiving dinner!
Again so cool to see everything decorated for Christmas.
Stopped to watch this guy draw Mickey:
Then we slowly made our way down to France and then back to the UK for our dinner reservations.
We had made Thanksgiving dinner specific reservations at Rose and Crown. Why Rose and Crown? Well because we love Rose and Crown, one of our fav places… and we didn’t want to go somewhere “new” for Thanksgiving just to order something not usually on their menu. So we figured we’d spend the holiday with an old fav.
I had the WORST time finding info on what to expect at thanksgiving meals at WDW, which I found weird, so I made sure to take pics of everything we got to share, for anyone else looking for the info.
Their menu that night had all of the regular stuff on it but had the “Thanksgiving Feast” added:
Turkey, gravy, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry relish and pumpkin pie cheesecake!
We were sitting in a weird little alcove of the patio that didn’t have much light, so my photos are a little dark, but here’s the Thanksgiving feast:
To be honest, it was only ok. It wasn’t terrible – the turkey was really good and well cooked and not dry at all. The portions of everything else were very small – that scoop of sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes were smaller than an ice cream scoop. I didn’t care for the mashed potatoes (sad because I love mashed potatoes!) or the green beans (but that’s a personal preference — I like the way my grandma makes green beans and the grandma way ONLY). While it was nice to do something different for Thanksgiving — I was definitely missing the usual Thanksgiving food we have at home!
The star of the meal was DEFINITELY the dessert:
This pumpkin pie cheesecake was AMAZING. Seriously I was so stuffed after I finished it but if they’d brought another, I’d have eaten and another one, too. YUM!! Honestly without the dessert, we would have left the table a little disappointed and even a little hungry still, but the pumpkin pie cheesecake certainly saved the day.
If you’re on the dining plan, the dessert is built into this and it counts as 1 table service credit. If you were paying out of pocket — I really don’t think it would be worth it for $35 for an adult, personally.
While waiting on Chase Kev and I hung out over in the store and I took photos of some of the art hanging on the walls:
Then we headed out since Friday was going to be a loooong day.
Friday we got up bright and early, got dressed and headed to Hollywood Studios to meet Santa. We got in line about 15 minutes before his meet began, and were about 10th or so in line. I got Kevin a special shirt just for meeting Santa:
He wore it all day and got so many comments on it! LOL. I didn’t take any photos of Santa — but I have our photopass photos I’ll add when I get them downloaded.
After that we left and headed to Epcot for the rest of the day. We went to Sunshine Seasons and had breakfast, then used our Soarin’ fastpass before wandering into World Showcase. We saw Father Christmas in France:
And ended up walking right into Jasmine’s meet and greet at the right time – she’d just started and we only had 3 people in front of us.
Kevin did his Jafar face for her and she was impressed! The photopass photographer caught it, so I’ll add that one in the next post!
We went and did pick-a-pearl in Japan of course — this time I got 3 so I ended up with 9 pearls for the year. They ended up ALL being 7s!
Kevin asks important life questions:
Will you be a dog? or Will you be a cat?
We shopped around a bit, checked out the new expansion in Mitsukoshi, I almost bought some Luna (Sailor Moon) tights but decided I didn’t want to spend $25 on them.
I really wasn’t feeling great (still getting over my cold plus an impending migraine I think), so we sat around and people watched throughout the morning and rested as much as possible. We decided to see if we could get into our late lunch reservation a little early – we had the Candlelight dining package at Tutto Italia with lunch at 2. We checked in at 1:30 and they seated us right away… YAY!
We love Tutto but LORD the Candelight dining package was TOO MUCH FOOD. We EACH had a appetizer, but thankfully the calamari counted as 2… so we had calamari and arancini, plus the bread and olives they always bring to the table. We tried pace ourselves, and our waiter delayed our entrees a little bit to give us more time to digest LOL
But it really didn’t help much. Kevin couldn’t finish his spaghetti. KEVIN couldn’t finish his SPAGHETTI. That never happens.
I did a decent job on my lasagna (man, it was good). Chase has the tortiglioni. Then we each had dessert of course. Kevin had the cannoli, Chase had his usual tira misu, and I had some sort of chocolate cake. I barely touched mine!
Then we went and got in line for the Candlelight Processional. I booked this months ago, the day they announced it, because Chase loves Steven Curtis Chapman, who was the narrator that weekend. We were able to get seats in the front row, which maybe wasn’t the BEST seats — a few rows back would have probably been beter, since the front row was a little low and the orchestra blocked the choir a bit — but we could see faces clearly and it really felt like we were right in there with them. It was really great!
Our view before people got onstage
And during!
I took a couple of videos but didn’t want to spend the whole time with the phone in front of my face, so that’s pretty much it.
Would love to do it again sometime!
Neat Hatbox Ghost art in Art of Disney:
Then we headed out to the Grand Floridian for dinner!
We built in some extra time to be able to explore the hotel while it was all decorated. When we walked in they had carolers singing:
We checked out the stores, then just chilled a while in the lobby, people watching and enjoying the music.
Kevin had too many drinks and passed out:
(LOL not really, we found them on a table and made use of the photo-op).
Kevin and I both ended up falling asleep on the couches, and finally when it was about 30 minutes before our reservation time (1900 Park Fare), headed to see if we could check in. They DID let us check in, but said they were running behind. Our reservation wasn’t until 8:50, and we weren’t all that hungry yet, so it wasn’t a big deal. We took our pager back out into the lobby and sat for a while longer. When it hadn’t gone off by 9:15, we headed back over and sat in the waiting area of the restaurant. By that time it had cleared out significantly, and we were 1 of only 3-4 families still waiting to get seated. I think we were finally seated a little before 9:30. The characters were already making their way around the room, so I ran over and got Kevin just a plate of food – a little bit of everything – and brought it back, and I’d missed Prince Charming! But Chase said he said he’d be back since we were missing someone.
Then I ran and got myself some soup, and when I came back Cinderella was there. She was SO sweet to Kevin! It was really adorable.
Then I ran to get myself an actual plate of food, and when I came back Lady Tremaine was attempting to hypnotize Kevin into coming and working as her slave.
Chase went to get himself a plate, and then… it happened. Kevin starting being a little dramatic while eating – letting out big sighs and little grunts and holding his head. I asked what was wrong, he said he was a little woozy. And maybe a little nauseated. I told him to take a break from eating for a minute. He did, and then started gagging while trying to eat the polenta I’d put on his plate. We took the plate away, had him sit with his head down for a minute to see if it would pass. When he sat up he said he felt better, and wanted to try to eat again – put his plate in front of him and he said “I won’t eat anymore of THAT” – pointing at the polenta. I said he didn’t have to eat anything on here he didn’t like.
He was still huffing and puffing so finally I asked the big question — “Are you going to throw up?”
His face turned green and his cheeks puffed out, and Chase was out of the booth like a shot dragging him to the bathroom. Thankfully there was no protein spill in the restaurant, and he made it to the bathroom just in time.
So while my poor little cousin was puking his guts out, I took selfies with the stepsisters LMAO
Anastasia taught me how to give a judgmental side-eye, and then saw Luna on my lock screen and said Luna and Lucifer needed to have a play date!
Kevin and Chase came back, but unfortunately by that time the characters were done and on their way out. Kev at least got to meet the Prince (tho no pics, since he didn’t come back by), Cinderella and Lady Tremaine… I was disappointed he missed the stepsisters tho!! All 3 of us hardly ate anything, so the meal was itself was a bit disastrous LOL Kevin obviously didn’t eat anything else after that, I picked at the few things I had, and then Chase and I shared a dessert plate of a few little things and each only took a few bites.
So then we headed back to the hotel, Kevin said he felt fine after getting it out of his system but just in case I gave him some Pepto before he went to bed. We are pretty sure it was just a combo of being tired and not liking that polenta (he has certain things that trigger his gag reflex – mac and cheese, milk… I guess we can add polenta to the list), because he was fine after that and fine the next day.
Oh here’s the view from our room!
Mousekeeping set up my Lady pillow pet and Kevin’s Zelda pillow all cute:
Saturday we got up and headed to Magic Kingdom for a little Christmas shopping – and couldn’t find half of what we were looking for. We did get Kevin’s Hatbox Ghost shirt he had wanted. Kevin and I had Mickey ice cream bars for breakfast, and Chase had a turkey leg:
We rode it’s a small world, since it had a short wait, and bought some tree ornaments we’d been wanting.
Also had to do our TRIP NUMBER 6 photo!
Then we ran back by the hotel to pick up our packages from the day before, did some shopping there, and headed back to Hollywood Studios!
We had lunch at Fairfax Fare – Chase and I had empanadas and Kevin had a giant hot dog:
Then we ran and got in line to meet Moana! We only had about a 15 minute wait.
Awesome!
We went to see if Dr Strange was doing his little show down from Toy Story Midway Mania, but it wasn’t time.
We rode Toy Story after that, I demolished Kevin but Chase demolished both of us š
Then Kev and I went down to Tower of Terror to use our fastpass… and Kevin is now officially BANNED from riding Tower. He’s always said it’s one of his favs, and he’s normally fine, just grips the handlebars like a crazy person during the drops. This time for whatever reason, he freaked out during the drops and threw his arms over his head and was leaning WAY over, so during the drops his head was coming dangerously close to smashing into the head of the little girl sitting in front of him. Twice I had to grab him and force him to sit back in his seat and yell at him to sit up. He said he was doing it because he doesn’t like the drops. So I said no more Tower of Terror for him, and he agreed that was for the best.
I didn’t get our ride photo from it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the photo is me yelling at Kevin LMAO
While waiting on Chase, we caught Phasma and her troopers – she stared Kevin down!
At this point my migraine was killing me so I had to send Chase out to the car to get my medicine. Kevin posed with a dog while we waited on him to come back.
Then we went and used our Star Tours fastpass — I wasn’t going to since my head hurt, but I went on anyway and regretted it. Star Tours seriously does not feel good when you have a migraine, and having a little kid sitting behind you SCREAMING unnecessarily REALLY doesn’t help the issue.
After that we went to see if we could check in early for dinner, but no dice. We killed some time shopping around.
The Muppets’ prop storage looks a lot like my costume storage. Rules for storage that aren’t followed!
And I never noticed this window in that store is the Muppet Babies window!
Then it was dinner time…
Chase and I did Mama Melrose’s last year and have been wanting to come back! Kevin had spaghetti (of course), I had the steak with the AMAZING mac and cheese, and Chase had the chicken parm.
After dessert we left and headed back to Disney Springs – had a surprise for Kevin! He had no idea I’d bought tickets to see Moana at the AMC theater there. Unfortunately it was even MORE crowded Sat night than it was Wed night (I mean, duh) and we had to park across the street and hike quite a ways into Disney Springs, but thankfully we ended up right there at the theater.
I REALLY wish we had a theater like this one in Memphis. It was so nice being able to reserve seats ahead of time, so there was no queuing or muscling for line position to get decent seats. Being able to order food at our seats was nice too, since we’d just eaten we got some nachos to share, and Kevin and Chase had milkshakes.
And because of the way it was set up, you could lean your chair back or put your feet up without bothering the people around you. So nice!
Moana was great, the animation was beautiful, the songs were fun! Kevin was stunned he could keep the 3d glasses and kept questioning us thinking he was stealing them LOL
By that point it was 11:30 so we made the long hike back to the car, and then back to the hotel to pack up.
Kevin tossed and turned a lot in the night, keeping us up — to the point that at 5:30 Chase just got up and said let’s go. I felt like crap because I still had that migraine, but we got up, got showered and packed the last few things up to head out. Kevin came out of the shower and immediately said his stomach hurt and “It has never hurt this much!!” freaking out. Chase figured he had gas and took outside to walk up and down the sidewalk a bit before we left, but that didn’t help. I gave him some pepto… and finally once we had everything ready to go and starting for the car, I turned and looked at Kevin and said “Just throw up. Do it.”
So he kneeled right down there on the sidewalk and threw up in the grass. It wasn’t a lot, but he stood up and groaned and said he thought he felt a little better. So we carried everything on to the car, and when we got there and Chase started packing the trunk, Kevin was still groaning. So I said, go over to that patch of grass and throw up again. Do it now before we get in the car.
And… he did. And I kept goading him into trying to throw up some more, because I knew if he got it out of his system, he’d feel better. Chase looked up at us and burst out laughing, because he said it looked like I was coaching Kevin, standing next to him telling him to kneel down, think about puking! Really think about it! Kevin finally got the last of it, got in the car, and went to sleep. He was totally fine the way home. Thank goodness. I gave him an empty Disney bag just in case.
We got home around 9 (after dropping Kevin off). I had wanted Panera Bread for dinner and went to order it online so we could pick it up on our way, but they were OUT OF MAC AND CHEESE WHICH IS WHAT I WANTED AND I WAS SO DISAPPOINTED OMG.
So we’re having it tonight.
Anyway, that concludes our year of being Annual Passholders. We’ll be returning to Disney in April for Star Wars Celebration though! Yay!
Which ugh reminds me how much work I have to do over the next few months… time to get back to sewing.