Sooooooooo I hinted at it here and there but didn’t out right tell anybody I was going to Disney World the week before Christmas. Part of it was because it was kind of a sudden decision, and part of it was because I wanted to keep it Ash’s trip! Last week was Ash’s birthday and we celebrated it in the best way possible… by putting ourselves thru the grueling marathon of trying to do everything in 3.5 days at Disney. LOL Our last day, we were sitting in the hotel lobby waiting on the DME to pick us up, and the kid behind us groaned, “I’m in beautiful pain.” Us too, kid.
So this is going to be a part one, because I don’t have the photopass pics from Ash just yet. This is all just stuff from my phone! I’ll dump the photopass pics in part 2. Or maybe I’ll just come back and edit this post. We’ll see.
Wednesday morning, Ash picked up me up at 4:30AM. YIKES! Our flight was at 6:20. We got to the airport, checked our baggage and got in the longest security line I’ve EVER seen at our airport. Thankfully it moved steadily and by the time we got to our gate, they’d just started boarding.
Here’s my Padme magic band! I got the decal made at magicyourband.com. I was really happy with it – it stood the test of crazy weather and still looks great. (Although in this photo it looks like there’s a fold or wrinkle at the top of her head but there really wasn’t)
Our flight wasn’t full!
We were in the back of the plane and had an empty seat next to us. Though halfway thru the flight one of the kids in a sports group that was on our plane for some reason got in that seat (I thought maybe he wanted to sit closer to a friend to talk but I think he slept. No clue. Weird.)
So this was my first time doing the DME and it was pretty great!
It was really nice not having to worry with our luggage. And we were able to just walk right into a bus! YAY!
(That being said, I HATE flying, besides the anxiety it often gives me a migraine. But if I have to fly into Orlando this was pretty nifty. And thankfully this flight was pretty painless.)
Best pic I could get of the sign from our seat.
We stayed at All Star Movies, which was my first time at an All Stars! And we got the new, refurbed Toy Story rooms — but our room wasn’t ready yet (because it was only 10AM!) so I’ll get to that later. We checked our backpacks and jumped a bus to Magic Kingdom!
HOME!
Quick lunch at Casey’s and then we had a bit of time to kill before our first fastpass. We spotted a photopass photographer in one of the little garden areas in front of the castle. She was already taking pics of a couple doing a gender reveal with balloons, so we waited and watched that and then… he proposed! It was so cute! Once they got done, I pulled out my phone and showed the photographer a pic Ash and I took together last time we were there back in 2001 (it was taken over by Sleepy Hollow). I told her I knew it wasn’t the same angle but we wanted to try to recreate the poses. She said if we didn’t mind waiting til she got the couple of folks behind us, she’d go over there with us! We waited and she walked us over, got people to move out of the way, got us posed and took the pics for us. What a great start to our trip!!
Oh by the way? I slept in curlers and even used setting lotion to try to keep my curls in place. You see any curl in that photo above? WTF. I was pissed. I had to buy a brush just to clean up the mess that was left by the time we got to Magic Kingdom.
We headed into west since our first fastpass was Big Thunder. And we ran into a Country Bear! (I think this is Shaker?)
So we went to Country Bear Jamboree and then around to Big Thunder. Then small world…
After that we were GOING To line up to watch Festival of Fantasy but an hour before the parade and people were already 5 deep holding spots. So we said forget it (since Ash has seen it – on her short trip a couple of years ago) and went and did our Haunted Mansion fastpass. When we went and met Gaston and then back around for our Pirates fastpass… and when we came out, Jack Sparrow was there!
Ya’ll don’t even KNOW how long I’ve been trying to mark Jack Sparrow off my character meet list. So this was exciting.
After that we FINALLY got around to Tomorrowland and met Stitch in his new spot (defunct Stitch’s Great Escape).
After that the pretty weather turned into a steady drizzle, so I bought an umbrella – since neither of us had brought our ponchos to the park that day, thinking we wouldnt need them til the next. We rode the peoplemover, carousel of progress, and then back over to fantasyland for little mermaid.
We got stuck 3 times on Little Mermaid. First time right at the grotto “Part of Your World” scene and got to see the entire animation sequence 3 times in a row. Second time was quick, third time was right by Ursula and watched her full sequence almost twice I think?
I don’t mind getting stuck for a bit. Gives you time to take everything in.
After that we went and staked out a spot for the fireworks. I hadn’t seen the new show, Happily Ever After. We got a really good spot and had to hang onto it for an hour in the drizzle, which was a pain, but it was worth it because the new show was AMAZING.
Then we went and met Rapunzel and Tiana and BOTH of them talked to us about food, not knowing that we were STARVING because our dinner reservations weren’t til 11. LOL. After that, thankfully, it was time to go check in for dinner.
I had managed to snag a Cinderella’s Royal Table dinner for 11 that night so that was mine and Chase’s bday and Christmas present for Ash. It was fun eating in the castle again, we got a nice view of Fantasyland from our seats! Food was good. Princesses were nice although we were right at the beginning of their rotation so just as we got our entrees the princesses starting come by to interrupt LOL. (And when did they go from 4 to 3 princesses? Snow was missing.)
Dessert!
By the time we were done, the restaurant was half empty and the lobby downstairs was totally empty, which was neat.
It was EMH that night til 1AM, so we still had time to go run get in line for Mine Train, which Ash had never done and really wanted to. It was about a 40 minute wait – I’d never done the stand-by queue so that was neat. And by the time we were done it was after 1 and we slowly made our way out of the park. Got to see the kiss goodnight!
Then we had to get a bus back to the hotel, so by the time we got to the hotel it was nearly 2 – which meant we’d almost been up for 24 hours. GEEZ
Our room was in the Toy Story section like I said before.
Woody was a creep looking right in our room.
We were in the newly refurbed rooms with the fold out bed. It was honestly the nicest value room I’ve ever stayed in!
Loved the fold out bed that turned into a table. Not that we used the table but it was neat. I slept in the fold out bed and it wasn’t any different than the normal bed! The bathroom was really nice and bright, one thing I’ve never liked about the value/mod bathrooms is that they seem like a dark little hole, whereas the bathroom in this refurbed room was really nice and pleasant.
Next morning was our Animal Kingdom rope drop day, so we were up at 7AM. We got dressed, got our ponchos ready because we knew it was going to rain all day. I was GOING to disneybound Bespin Leia that day for Hollywood Studios in the afternoon, but with the rain I decided to leave the braid extensions off and just do a bun. It would’ve been a mess with the rain, the poncho, the wind and everything.
We grabbed a quick breakfast in the food court (chocolate croissant!). Looking at the bus times, the next bus for Animal Kingdom wasn’t going to come for another 20 minutes, so we got a lyft over and it was much faster. Got there, nobody at bag check, got through it fast… and then nobody lined up to get in? They were already letting people in with 20 minutes before park open! I guess because most people were heading to pandora for Flights of Passage, easier to let people go on in and get in line without a mass crush. We headed on back and got in line, and thankfully it was only about a 40 minutes wait – and most of that was just walking through the queue.
Ok so confession I really, really, really don’t like Avatar. Everybody told me how great the new rides are and how beautiful Pandora is. I agree it’s beautiful. Flights of Passage was a lot of fun. I even really really liked the River Journey (which we walked right onto after FOP). I still can’t stand Avatar and still don’t understand why it’s in the park. I decided to lowkey pretend it was an Area X/Annihilation-themed land instead. That was fun.
This AA figure was nuts.
While we were in like, the ready room for FOP, everybody’s phones went off with a tornado warning. And then again in line for River Journey. It was so rainy and windy we decided to leave AK – we’d wanted to ride Everest but it was down anyway – and hopped a bus to the Grand Flo to see it decorated for Christmas.
We dried out a bit – both of us were soaking wet from the knees down – and got some gingerbread and shopped a bit. Then we got on the monorail….
SOMEHOW THIS WAS ASH’S FIRST MONORAIL RIDE?!
I don’t even know. But she was excited LOL
We rode around to the Poly and looked around there before decided to steel ourselves and head back into the typhoon and go to Hollywood Studios. It took about 20 minutes to get a bus, but apparently in that time frame the monorails went down, because when the bus we were on got to the Grand Flo to pick up, it was a madhouse (there’d been maybe 7-8 other people waiting on buses at the Poly). Thank goodness we rode it when we did!
So at DHS we went straight to our Star Tours fastpass, then decided to dip into Mickey and Minnie’s character greet. While we were in line for that, we spied through the fence that Santa Goofy and Chip and Dale were meeting in Olaf’s line on the other side. So as soon as we were done with that we ran around the corner to meet them. They were really fun and saw that my sweater was Star Wars and made a big fuss over it.
Then to Toy Story Land! We did mobile ordering and got lunch at Woody’s lunchbox. Thankfully the rain had slackened a bit by then so we were able to sit on our ponchos and put my umbrella up on the table to block droplets and the wind, since there was nowhere covered to sit (wtf Disney). I’d heard how good Woody’s Lunchbox was and I was excited to try it… but was then kinda disappointed in it. Everything I got was meh.
But! Slinky Dog Dash was only about a 40 minute wait at that point so we went and got in line. The queue was really cute, and…
STAR WARS LAND IN THE DISTANCE
I REALLY loved Slinky Dog!! Way more than I thought I would! It was a super fun little coaster. It’s actually probably my fav coaster on property at this point… (I don’t like going upside down since I started getting migraines but I love speed and dips. And Slinky Dog has speed and dips like crazy without going upside down! While still being a very smooth ride!)
Then we went and did our Tower of Terror fastpass (ash’s necklace flew up and into her mouth LOL), met Santa Claus, and then went back around to meet CHewie. Chewie was supposed to be a 20 minute wait but it was way more than that.
He was offended Ash had no Chewbacca pins on her bag, only Stitch!
Ash SUPER confused some folks at a popcorn stand when she bought the alien popcorn bucket and requested NO popcorn inside. LOL.
Then we went and did our Toy Story midway mania fastpass (which wasn’t much of a fastpass, we still had a weirdly long wait), and then it was time to leave and head back to the hotel and change for dinner.
It was SOOOOOOO amazing to take our wet shoes and socks off after being in them all day. I generally don’t mind a rainy day at disney because usually it’s warm out and I can wear flip flops and shorts and drying off is just a matter of a few paper towels in the bathroom, or waiting a few minutes. With it being chilly AND rainy, we were in full jeans and shoes and long sleeves AND ponchos and my umbrella, so once we got wet we stayed wet and it was pretty miserable. But I don’t think we’d have had such short wait times on everything if it hadn’t been for the rain. So, c’est la vie.
I decided to just go ahead and wear flip flops, because I could not put my wet boots back on and I didn’t want to run the risk of it raining heavily again and getting my backup shoes soaked again! If my feet got cold, oh well. We headed off to Epcot and went directly on around to Tutto Italia for dinner!
Been looking forward to this for a while. Our reservations were at 9:15, but we’ve eaten at Tutto Italia enough that I cruised on in at 8:45 and asked if we could be seated, and as usual they got us on in right away. We had our entrees by 9. LOL. Once of the reasons I love Tutto is that it’s fast and consistent, and the servers are always a character. After dinner they let us sit and didn’t rush us out, the restaurant was mostly empty by then. Ash got dessert and I got a drink, and then we finally headed on out a bit after 10 – the park was closed so we leisurely made our way out. We had to stand on the bus on the way back which sucked but at least we didn’t wait on a bus long!
The wreath decorating contest at our hotel was cute, this infinity stone wreath was my fav:
Friday was Epcot day! Thankfully the rain had subsided but it left it a little chilly. I wore a thermal shirt under a sweatshirt all day, but in the sun in the morning, it warmed up decently where it was comfortable. We had a Test Track FP first thing in the morning.
Then we went and rode Living with the Land until it was time for our Spaceship Earth fastpass.
Then we started making our way into the World Showcase.
Ash had a bird herd at our first snack stop.
In France we shared a cake at the holiday booth and then decided to wait to see Pierre Noel. I saw a flash of red velvet and gold around the corner and flew up out of my seat – Christmas Belle was meeting!
Dude I got Christmas Belle and Jack Sparrow in one trip, that’s two big white whales marked off my greet list.
Pierre Noel
We stopped and got a potato knish and watched the Hanukkah story teller.
In Morocco we walked into some of the shops… turned around and it was drizzling out. The sun was still out, so it was just a little sun shower. We waited a couple of more minutes and it passed. We walked back outside and BOOM. Temp had dropped like 10 degrees in that short amount of time. SUCK. We shivered the rest of the day.
I almost got these for kevin:
Ash did Pick a Pearl in Japan:
She got a big chonker of a pearl!
We went and saw the Voices of Liberty and watched the American Adventure (or, Ash did. I napped in the American Adventure. LOL)
DOUBLE RAINBOW!
We split a troll horn and school bread in Norway and then went and rode the Gran Fiesta Tour and then met Donald. Then it was time to head back up front for our Soarin fastpass – we stopped in a few stores to warm up, and I bought the monorail set to go underneath our future christmas tree. Had it shipped back home since it was so big!
After Soarin we just crashed at a table in the land. I started getting a migraine, took my meds but it didn’t really help. After sitting for a bit we decided to go ride Journey into Imagination since Ash had never ridden it. We got over there only to find it closed already. So we went in Future World and crashed for nearly an hour waiting on our dinner reservation. We headed on over to Canada a little early, and thankfully they were able to get us in and seated a few minutes before our reservation.
I gulped down my cheese soup but I didn’t have much of an appetite to start with (thanks migraine). I should have just skipped an entree but I had SO been looking forward to a steak. So I went ahead and got a steak I could only eat a quarter of.
I cry
Felt better after eating though, but we were both just wrecked. All in all I think we walked something like 32 miles over those 3.5 days? We were sore, tired, cold and ready to get back to the hotel. So Ash got dessert to go and we split it for breakfast Saturday morning!
Bus back to the hotel was again full and we had to stand. And I swear the driver was like, brake checking us because we kept being thrown around. LOL.
Saturday morning we packed, got checked out of the room, checked our baggage and headed over to Disney Springs. We had to sit and wait about 20 minutes for the Void to open, but we hadn’t wanted to be late! I had reserved our time for the Star Wars game and thankfully we got to play on our own, we didn’t have any strangers added into our group. It was just as fun the second time for me and Ash really liked it, too.
We stopped in a few stores on the way out, I nearly got this dress.
It’s a Disney dog print!!
And we had lunch at the polite pig which was really good. Then we waited for forever for a bus back to the hotel. We had time to kill before the DME picked us up, so we sat in the lobby for a while. Bus picked us up around 2, and somehow check in at the Orlando airport was way easier and quicker than Memphis? Security line was nothing! We stopped at Lush before going thru security and I got a bath bomb and Ash got a ton of stuff LOL. We got some fries after security and had about an hour wait before our flight.
We got back to Memphis in one piece…. very sore and very happy. LOL. I used that bath bomb that night and it was marvelous!
So now… I’m ready for our April trip. Where we will be there for a full week and won’t have to rush LOL. But it was so fun to get to go with Ash, FINALLY. We’ve been talking ab out it for ages.