WDW Christmas Trip

During the week of Thanksgiving, we received an email about a seat sale on Frontier Airlines.  We decided to look at what flights were on sale just for the heck of it, and wouldn't you know, Orlando was listed.  We thought for sure the flights wouldn't work out in our favor, but decided to look at our calendars just in case, and lo and behold, we found a few days that would work perfectly.  Finally, we called Disney Reservations fully prepared to hear that there was no availability at Pop Century, but again, things fell into place.  So on a whim, we decided to book a trip for three days to WDW.

I've made my feelings about Tangled very clear, so it should come as no surprise that these were our Magic Bands:

Eugene and Rapunzel

We flew down late Sunday afternoon and arrived around 7 pm.  We rented a car, drove to Pop Century, checked in, took our stuff to our room, and hopped in a cab to get over to Beach Club for a 9:10 dinner reservation at Beaches and Cream.  From there, we walked over to Boardwalk, admired the beautiful holiday décor in the lobby, and went to Jellyrolls for the remainder of the evening.  The show was as awesome as always, and we were able to chat with my very favorite pianist – but that particular story will be shared in a future post.

Christmas Tree at Pop Century

No Way Jose at Beaches and Cream

Christmas Display at Boardwalk

Christmas Tree at Boardwalk

We tend to be creatures of habit and when we find something we like, we stick with it, but we had decided that we would try a few new restaurants during this trip.  The first was on Monday morning over at Fort Wilderness for the breakfast buffet at Trail's End.  Our server was great and the food was delicious.  We learned that he juice they serve is referred to as "pog" in Hawaii, because it is comprised of papaya, orange, and guava juices, but in keeping with the western/cowboy theme, they refer to the juice as "moonshine," which I found both ridiculous and hilarious.

After breakfast, we headed over to Epcot.  As part of our vow renewal package, we received two annual passes.  We actually got them back in January, but held on to them all year so we could activate them this month.  Since this was a last-minute trip, we figured we'd activate them a few weeks earlier than planned.  Instead of just getting regular annual passes, we paid the difference to upgrade them to the Premier Passports because we plan on going to California next year.  This is the third time we have had these particular passes and they are amazing.  We also decided to buy the Tables in Wonderland card, which offers a discount on dining at many of the restaurants at WDW.  We are sure that we will make good use of that discount over the course of the year.

It rained all day on Monday, but that did not deter us!  We spent the morning and early afternoon at Epcot – we didn't go on any attractions, but we wandered through the World Showcase, enjoying holiday treats and taking in the holiday presentations at the pavilions.  We walked over to Beach Club because the holiday display in the lobby is always one of our favorites each year.

Dutch Chocolate Grasshopper

Peppermint Sundae

Croissant Doughnut

Hot Applejack Cider

Buche de Noel

From there, we took a boat over to DHS.  Some of you may know that there is a huge Sorcerer Mickey Hat that has served as the park's icon for the past many years, and there have been rumors that it is going to be removed and that the Earful Tower will return as the park icon (it was the original park icon).  I did notice that on the new 2015 merchandise, the Sorcerer Hat is not featured.  I don't care that some people hate the hat – I LOVE it!  If it is removed, I am going to be really sad to see it go.

Our next new restaurant was Monday evening – we went to the Hollywood Brown Derby for dinner.  It was a great experience!  The décor had a 1930's feel to it and the food was awesome.

Noodle Bowl with Coconut Tofu

Dessert Trio - Warm Blueberry Cobbler, Mini Grapefruit Cake, & Banana Toffee Cake

After dinner, we went on Star Tours and Muppet Vision 3-D, got the infamous carrot cake cookies to eat later when we were back at the hotel, and explored a new area in the park – Wandering Oaken's Trading Post.  It was so cute!  There was an area filled with snow that kids could run and play on, and large snowflakes projected everywhere…it really feels like you've stepped into Elsa and Anna's world (as you can see, I was already wearing my red & green Converse).

Enjoying the snow!

We ended the night by spending a couple of hours admiring the Osborne Family Lights.  I could spend the entire night in this section of the park!  The music, the lights, the general atmosphere…I'm always sad when it’s time for the park to close!

Tuesday morning, we had breakfast at Whispering Canyon Café, which is at Wilderness Lodge.  We love this restaurant!  It is loud and chaotic, but so fun!  The holiday decorations at Wilderness Lodge are fabulous, but the lobby is great even without the decorations!

I failed to mention that I had purchased a new hat when we were at Epcot.  I'd already been wearing my green and red Christmas Mickey ears around, but when I spotted this hat, I had to have it.  As you can see from the photo, it's purple, with orange wings, it has "Figment" written in orange letters on the front, and inside, there it is rainbow.  I am not sure there exists a more perfect hat.  I can't even begin to count the numbers of comments I got from cast members about my hat while I was wearing it – I think it must be a fairly new item, since many of them had not seen it before.  It was nice to know that cast members love Figment as much as I do.  So you know I wore that hat almost non-stop when I didn't have Christmas-related ears on.

After breakfast, we headed over to Franck's to sign some final paperwork for our vow renewal ceremony in a few weeks.  I can't wait for the end of the month!

We decided to make a quick visit to Animal Kingdom Lodge, because it typically has a gorgeous Christmas tree and lovely decorations.  As you can see, we were not disappointed!

We stopped at Art of Animation for a late lunch.  This is absolutely our favorite food court in all of WDW.  The theming is awesome and it is so spacious that we can typically find a quiet spot – not something that can be said of other food courts!

After lunch, we headed over to Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.  This was our fifth time attending this event and we always have a great time.  Naturally we wore our Mickey and Minnie Santa hats and I had my red and green Converse on again.  We ate some great snacks, got on all of the attractions we wanted with little to no wait (exception to that was the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, where we waited about 15 minutes), heard both the Dapper Dans and Rusty Cutlass perform, and enjoyed Mickey's Once Upon a Christmastime Parade, Holiday Wishes fireworks, and the Celebrate the Magic castle show.  One thing that was new this year was the Frozen Holiday Wish, where Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and Olaf do a show on the castle stage and Elsa uses her power to cover the castle in icicle lights.  In the past, it's been Cinderella's Fairy Godmother who would "bibbidi-bobbidi-boo" to achieve the same effect, which I always loved, but I admit that I enjoyed the twist with the characters from Frozen.  The highlight of the night was standing on Main Street, USA, with its amazing holiday decorations and watching it snow.  I don't care how many times I see this, I will never tire of it!

Peppermint Sundae

Holiday Ice Cream Sandwich

Nutella Waffle Sandwich

Christmas Tree at the Contemporary

On Wednesday, it was unfortunately time to pack up and check out.  We have become very light travelers, so packing takes us no time at all, because we each only carry one backpack.  We had breakfast at our third new restaurant of the trip – Tusker House in Animal Kingdom – and it was a character breakfast, so Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Mickey came around to the tables and interacted with the guests.  Such fun!  The characters' handlers were also chatty, and one told us a pretty entertaining joke:  "Why did Captain Hook cross the road?  To get to the second-hand store!"  I must have been pretty tired from the late night at the Christmas party, because at the time, I thought it was the most hysterical joke ever.  And that same "moonshine" from Trail's End?  It's called "jungle juice" here!  After breakfast, we saw the Festival of the Lion King show and rode Expedition Everest before leaving Animal Kingdom and heading to the Transportation and Ticket Center to hop on the monorail to Grand Floridian.  We listened to the band play Christmas songs for the guests in the lobby and admired the decorations before taking the monorail over to Magic Kingdom for a quick stop at the Emporium.  From there, we walked to the Contemporary to see the Frozen-themed gingerbread display and then took the monorail back to the TTC.  Our last stop, as is our tradition, was to go to Port Orleans French Quarter for beignets before heading to the airport.

We parked in "Unicorn 27."  UNICORN 27!  Perfection!

Christmas Tree at Animal Kingdom

Tree of Life

Christmas Tree at Grand Floridian

two monorails passing overhead simultaneously

Of course we were sad to leave, but knowing we'd be back in seventeen days made it a little easier than it usually is for us.  We packed a lot in to our 72 hours and loved every minute of it and we owe our Fairy Dogmother a huge thank you for agreeing to watch the girls on such short notice!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Tails to you!