WDW: Osborne Lights

When we learned a few months ago that this year would be the final season for the Osborne Lights at Disney's Hollywood Studios, we immediately booked a trip to see them one last time.  I'm really hoping they reappear somewhere else in the future, but we weren't taking any chances!

For our Magic Bands for this trip, we chose Duchess and Thomas O'Malley from The Aristocats:

We checked in at Port Orleans Riverside on Saturday morning and our room was once again one of the Royal Guest Rooms, which we've been fortunate to stay in twice before (click on that link for additional photos of the room).  They are beautiful rooms!  One common complaint that I despise reading online is that Mousekeeping doesn't leave towel animals in the hotel rooms.  It is such a dumb thing to complain about.  When it happens, it's a nice little surprise, but people who expect it are extremely annoying when they share their ridiculous outrage and disappointment.  We never expect anything beyond a clean room, so any additional surprises are fun to discover when we return to the resort.  This time, we were gifted with an adorable little towel creature.  Seriously, SO cute!

We went to MK for a lunch reservation at Be Our Guest, which is always an amazing experience.  Unfortunately, the park was crazy busy, so we did a few things and then left – we saw Mickey's Philharmagic, rode the Peoplemover, and admired the Christmas decorations.  To be honest, we did not mind returning to our resort for a few hours; we took a nap because we knew we were going to have a late night.  After that, we had dinner over at Art of Animation and then got beignets and a hand-scooped ice cream sandwich at Port Orleans French Quarter.

We met a friend and his sweet girlfriend for drinks – you might remember that Dean was the photographer at our vow renewal last year, but we are actually friends now, so from here on out, I am just going to refer to him as Dean, rather than "our photographer, Dean" because that now sounds silly to me.  The four of us met at Crew's Cup Lounge at Yacht Club, and I really can't believe in 20+ years of visiting this resort we have never been in there!  Its entire theme is crew – and because of my brother, we are a huge crew family!  They have a rowing shell suspended from the ceiling, oars hung around the bar, and crew silhouettes along the walls.  We loved it in there and will definitely be going back.  Plus, seeing Dean is always awesome and I wish we lived closer so we could hang out more often.

After parting ways, we went to Jellyrolls because my beloved Scotty was performing.  As always, the music was fantastic, and for it being a Saturday night, it was fairly quiet crowd, which I will never complain about!  It was so great to catch up with Scotty and I enjoyed his banter with Ray about me when I requested Taylor Swift (memorable line of the night:  "Yes, Ray – women can be doctors now!") Even though we were tired, we stayed until closing and Scotty played me his jazzy rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star" at the end of the night.  He is the absolute best.

On Sunday, we slept in until 2 pm.  It was glorious.  I can't remember the last time we slept in that late!  If I had my way, I would sleep from 4 am – 2 pm every day of the week because I think best at night and I don't function particularly well in the morning.  We again went over to Art of Animation for lunch (it is my favorite food court at WDW) and then to Animal Kingdom Lodge to check out the Christmas decorations over there before going to DHS.  We had tickets to the Merry and Bright Dessert Party, and it was awesome!  The dessert choices were delicious and we had a great view of the Osborne Lights; the music, the lights, the snow…everything made for a perfect evening.  After the dessert party, we spent several additional hours wandering around admiring the lights and I really, really, really do hope Disney will find a new home for them in the future.

On Monday, we spent part of the morning at Animal Kingdom before our lunch reservation at Yak & Yeti.  Soooooo yum.  After lunch, we went back over to MK, and the crowds were even more insane than they'd been on Saturday, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.  The weather was gorgeous and the Christmas decorations add such ambiance to an already magical place!

Later in the evening, we had the opportunity to check something off our WDW bucket list!  One of my best friends had just arrived the day before for a week-long family trip and they were staying in a grand villa at Bay Lake Tower.  Just visiting the resort and seeing their room would have been exciting enough, but we also got to watches Wishes from Top of the World Lounge.  Absolutely amazing.  Her family was so warm and welcoming and we had a fabulous time hanging out with them; the lounge was gorgeous and the view of Wishes cannot be beat.  Afterwards, we went back to MK and stayed until the park closed, by which time the park had cleared out.  Such a memorable night!

On Tuesday, we checked out of our hotel and went over to Epcot for the morning before spending the afternoon visiting different resorts to admire the Christmas decorations.  We had an evening flight and were so glad to see our little gals when we got home!

Our annual passes will expire in early December, so it will be a few months before we go back and renew them – especially now that I am back teaching because my vacation time is rather limited!

However, I counted up all of the nights I spent at a WDW hotel over the course of this year's annual passes (December 2014 through this trip), and my total was 45 NIGHTS!!!  FORTY-FIVE!!!  My highest total ever!  And if I include the three nights at Disneyland Hotel in October, my total is 48 nights at a Disney hotel.  Two things are abundantly clear: it was a very good year and I am incredibly lucky.

Happy Tails to you!