Jasten
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2017
Some context. We were supposed to go in September but Irma blew our trip into December instead. Our goal was to get DD2 (almost 3) in before she turned three (in just a few weeks). Our whole point of this trip was for her so we did not even bother to try and do any adult rides. I had really high expectations and I knew the crowds would be bad so I kinda suspected I was doomed.
12/14 – Travel Day
Was worried about how DD would do on the plane and very nervous for figuring out how to get boarded and fuss with the CARES harness we bought her. It was super easy to use and much nicer than carrying a car seat, I highly recommend it. DD was only a tad fussy waiting for plane and in flight but overall was well behaved.
We arrived at MCO around 5pm and headed straight to the Magical Express. Passing by the security line at MCO reminded us about how much returning home was going to suck. The line for Magical Express also gave me a sinking feeling that we were about to hit some seriously crowded parks. It took a good 45 minutes for our bus to come and take us to the Wilderness Lodge.
Let me just say, WOW, the lodge is absolutely stunning at Christmastime. The lobby gave us those warm and fuzzy feelings. It felt like we were home.
Fortunately I had already received a text that our room was ready. I also had setup grocery delivery through Amazon Now that had arrived. Once we got off the Magical Express we went right to Bell services and had them bring our groceries to our room with us. We were staying in a copper creek studio villa. The room was great and we really enjoyed the décor and setup for our family.
After unpacking, we headed over to the Roaring Forks for a quite bite to eat. I had the pilgrim sandwich and my wife had the pulled pork. My daughter had the nuggets. Everything was delicious for the price and a very good quick service option.
Tired from travel and knowing we had an early day ahead of us, we hit the sack.
12/15 – Day 1 Epcot
We woke up, got ready, and headed to the bus station around 7:30am. We didn’t wait too long for a bus to Epcot and arrived before 8 am. We got through security and into the line for pre park opening reservations. It was pretty long, another sign of how crowded things were going to be.
Fortunately it didn’t take long to get in and we headed straight to Akershush in the world showcase. There was a small line outside of Akershush. We arrived around 8 am and had an 8:15 reservation. We pretty much got called right away and went in.
Inside we were greeted by Belle for pictures. Oh boy, this was it, it was time to see how DD was going to do with characters. She was pretty shy, but Belle did a nice job and getting her to warm up a bit and we got a few good pictures.
We were seated towards the back of the restaurant inside the castle turret and the waitress explained how things worked with the buffet. I immediately asked for the check early as I knew there was a chance we could get out before the park opened and I wanted that possibility. The check didn’t end up coming until later anyways but I will get into that in a moment.
During our breakfast, our first princess visited, Aurora. DD must have gotten the fear out during Belle cause she immediately gave her a big hug. Incredible picture. We then got to meet Cinderella and Ariel with similar responses and fantastic pictures.
By the time the bill came it was 8:45 and I felt we probably missed our window for getting out early as I still needed to pay and DD needed to use the restroom before continuing on. By the time we exited the restaurant, it was 8:59am. Surely the window was gone but our plan all along was to go right to meeting Anna and Elsa as we had a FP for frozen later in the day and these were the two must dos of the day. However, as we left I looked over at the Frozen ride and made a split second decision that we should go for it. DW agreed and off we went. We walked through the queue and to our surprise right onto the ride. DD LOVED it.
Once done with Frozen we see the mass of people rushing the queue and we realize how well that worked out. We head straight to Anna and Elsa and pretty wait in a 5 minute line and get right in to see them. DD loved seeing them and we got some great pictures. I think her mind was already blown and it was only the first few hours of our trip!
After Anna and Elsa we whisk our way over to Spaceship Earth and use a FP+ to walk on. It was fun, we especially liked the ending sequence on the ride screen.
Next we headed towards Nemo but saw a short line for Joy and Sadness, score! DD loved that movie so we grabbed some great pics and met them.
FP+ #2 was nemo (I know I know, kind of a lame use but hey, the trip was for DD not us). It was fun, DD liked it and when we got off she said she wanted to do the meet Crush. Unfortunately a show had just started so we went and checked out the aquarium. When we checked back, it was down. Bummer.
FP+ #3 was for frozen at noon. We headed towards it and saw a tiny line for meeting Pluto. Score! We got some great pics of DD and Pluto. DD had been sticking her tongue out whenever we told her to smile which we found kind of funny and fitting for her. It really worked for the Pluto pics! She would continue this theme for every picture and the characters all thought it was hilarious. It led to some funny interactions.
When we got to Frozen it was down. This was my biggest fear as it was our must do. But, since we did it earlier, the pressure was off! Our FP+ was converted into an all day pass for anything at Epcot (This would not be the first time). Suddenly I had a thought, I wonder if…..Sure enough I pulled out my app and the converted FP+ did not count towards our total. I was able to immediately book our 4th FP+, which I did for Figment later in the day.
From here we wandered down the showcase for a bit and to our delight we found Santa and Mrs. Claus in a beautiful setting for pictures with zero line. Score! DD was very shy but Mrs. Claus knew just how to get her to perk up for that perfect shot. We also found Donald in an alley with no one in line, so we jumped on that interaction and picture as well.
By this time it was around 1pm and we headed back to our resort for nap time. DD went right to sleep, this was awesome as we had been worried about how she would do with napping.
After nap we got back to Epcot around 5pm. We rode Figment with FP+, got a 5th FP+ for crush and did that, then took a break and let DD get a Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich.
I grabbed a 6th FP+ for living with the land and we tackled that before heading over to Frozen to use our anytime FP+ to ride it again. It was a short wait and I felt somewhat bad as we passed the people who were waiting for over two hours in line. After our 10-15min queue we were placed in the front row for the second time of the day, major score!
From here we fought through the crowds getting ready for processional and walked the showcase grabbing a few bites to eat before we headed back to the resort feeling like we had won the lottery all day. We rode every ride DD was able to and got to meet a ton of characters. We also got a lot of nice pictures along the way from the Disney photographers.
Surely day 2 was going to be much harder.
12/16 – Day 2 Magic Kingdom
Since it was a Saturday, MK was opening at 8am. This totally screwed my reservation for PPO be our guest a month or so back but I was able to hunt and change it to lunch instead, so we knew we had the 8am opening to utilize. Knowing this, we woke up early and took the boat to MK.
We arrived just around 8am and made our way through security pretty quickly and into the park right behind the rope droppers. We raced towards fantasy land, stopping at each photographer on the way.
We knew everyone was going to Mine Train, but since we couldn’t ride that, we knew this was our window to pack in some rides. We rode Winnie the Pooh, Under the Sea, Dumbo, and Met Ariel before heading towards our first FP+ (Peter pan). On our way we saw that Tiana and Rapunzel had a 5 minute wait, score!
After the most adorable pics of DD and Rapunzel, we realized we still had time to take advantage of low lines before using the FP+. So we rode Small World first then used 1st FP+ for Peter Pan.
When we got off, we checked app and saw that Haunted Mansion had a 30 min wait. This is where we made our first blunder. We got in line since it was nearby (I had a fp for this for later in our trip but I thought if we knocked it out we could change that and do more). Sure enough the queue for standby said 30 mins so we hopped in line. About ten minutes in, a massive amount of people entered the FP+ line and the wait suddenly shot up to 90 minutes. It took us about an hour to get through it and ride it. DD seemed pretty tired, but at least she wasn’t scared. I couldn’t tell if she liked it or not but I would find out later when she started asking to ride it again (that a girl).
Unfortunately our next FP+ window was half way through for Enchanted Tales with Belle but we had a reservation for Be our Guest lunch. I asked the attendant at Enchanted Tales and she told us not to miss our food reservation but to come back and explain the situation and we may be ok.
We had already preordered our food so we just went in to Be our Guest early and got seated immediately. We really only wanted to see the inside of the castle so we just got some soup, a French dip, and the grey stuff cupcake. It was all yummy and we rushed to finish it before our FP+ window for Enchanted Tales ended.
We just made it for our 2nd FP+. Like a typical toddler, DD had to go potty as soon as it was almost time to enter. Luckily it wasn’t long at all after she got back before we got in. It was fun and we got some great pics with Belle (2nd time).
It was getting late but we had a 3rd FP+ for Ranger spin, and having felt like we just beat Fantasy Land like pros, we headed to TomorrowLand.
We rode Ranger Spin and then Laugh Factory and then made a b line for a parade spot at 1pm. We snagged a spot near the circle on main street and parked. I went and grabbed some ice cream for my girls and everyone was happy to just chill until parade time.
We had a phenomenal view of the festival of fantasy parade and loved it.
After the parade we decided to head back and nap. Our morning went long and we felt so accomplished that we decided to not go back. What a wonderful day! Outside of Haunted Mansion, everything was a short wait or walk on. When we left the park the times were looking bad and the crowds were getting pretty insane.
Instead, we let DD hit the pool and although it was cold, she loved the water slides in the kids area.
Surely the pixie dust would wear off soon and we would be doomed by the December crowds….
12/17 – Day 3 Animal Kingdom/MK
We got to AK just before 9am rope drop. This was by far the most disorganized entrance and the crowds were out of control. There were no properly formed lines and it was slow to get in. Once we did get in, we went to our 1st FP+, the Safari. I heard the animals are more active in the morning so we hoped a 9:30 ride would deliver. Boy did it ever. We saw literally every animal. We even saw a cheetah and a perched lion on the same ride, which is super rare. At one point we had to stop and let Rhinos cross the road, pretty neat.
Our next FP+ was for the Lion King show. It was fun but DD was fussy due to all the waiting. We also didn’t do a good job at prepping her for Lion King as she does not have much of a connection to the movie yet.
Our 3rd FP+ was for the Pandora Navi River. As I checked on it, it was down and our FP was converted to an all day FP. This was quite annoying as we didn’t want to spend much time in AK. Fortunately, we walked over to Pandora to check it out and it was actually not down at all, so we walked onto it. DD loved it!
Pandora was gorgeous! However, the crowds and disorganization of the park was not, so we ducked out early having felt that we pretty much did what we wanted and we had a long second half to our day planned.
After a nice long nap, we lined up on the docks for the boat to MK. While waiting, I refreshed fp+ until I saw Meet Mickey appear! I snagged it up and we planned to hit it on our way to dinner. Unfortunately our boat took awhile to come and by the time we got into the park, it was another situation of risking missing our dining window. We checked in with the cast member at Mickey and he said to just come back after dinner and try to use it.
So we headed to Crystal Palace for dinner. This was absolutely fantastic. The food, the characters, the pictures, we loved it. DD hugged Piglet for what seemed like an hour. We took our time and met all the characters and then headed back to Mickey with our FP that was long overdue. They let us through anyways and we ended up walking in to meet Mickey! Score!
After this, it was pretty much MVMCP time. This was our first party and we did not know what to expect. We knew we wanted to see the Elsa castle show and the parade, so we figured we wouldn’t risk it and just camped out a nice spot right away. It took an hour of camping out but we had great spots for the shows and I was able to run off and get us some free cookies while we waited.
The parade. Oh man the parade. It was sincerely life changing. It was and will be the best parade I will ever see in my lifetime. The ticket price is worth it just for the parade in my opinion.
After the parade and shows, we headed to some cookie stations and then back to fantasy land to take advantage of low ride times. We had no desire to spend our time in lines for characters so we just hit up a ton of rides with little to no wait including, Dumbo, Winnie the pooh, Small World, and Under the Sea.
We were amazed at how well DD was doing staying up late and before we knew it, it was 11pm. We wandered over and enjoyed a bit of the Buzz and Mike Wazowski dance show before finally deciding to head out for the night, but not before buying some party merchandise and picking up our collector cards from the fire station.
What a phenomenal night!
12/18 – Disney Springs/Pool
We met up with my mother who lives in FL and spent the day at Disney Springs shopping and enjoying the pools at our resort. DD rode the kids waterslide about 600 times.
On our way back to our room we spotted Christmas Mickey and Minnie in our lobby and waited in a quick line to meet them. Score!
We ordered a Pizza for the night and turned in early.
12/19 – Hollywood Studios
We got to the park early (or tried to) for extra magic hours. By the time we got in it was 8:40 am. We headed straight to meet Olaf. Sadly he doesn’t come out until 9 am (lame) but it allowed us to be first in line and get it out of the way.
From here we used our first FP+ for Toy Story Mania. This was a blast!
Next we used 2nd FP+ for Frozen Sing a Long. I thought this was going to be more on stage and less video clips. However, DD loved it. The ending was very special and made it well worth it.
Our 3rd FP+ was going to be Disney Jr but we didn’t think that we had time before lunch and that DD could handle another show. So instead we converted it to Muppets (yeah I know but why not) and walked into that instead. DW loves Muppets so this was a must do. I have to admit, its great and doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
Our next stop was Hollywood and Vine for lunch where we met Santa Goofy, Minnie, Mickey, Donald, and Daisy all dressed in their Christmas best. Great pictures and a nice break from the heat outside. The food was ok, nothing special but we knew that going in.
After Lunch, we whizzed on over to see what the lines were like to meet the Disney Jr characters.
The lines didn’t seem great so we jumped into a store to just chill out for a minute. We bought DD a baby Sven and she was thrilled. After leaving the store we saw Doc McStuffins line was short so we jumped in it. I knew it was going to be special that DD had a new toy to show the Doc and sure enough, it led to a fantastic interaction and some great pictures. Score!
After this, we did some shopping, grabbed some photopass shots and headed back to the resort.
12/20 – Magic Kingdom
There is no better way to end the trip than MK and since we did so much in fantasy land, we had planned for this to be Adventureland day.
We got to the park around 9am opening and hoped to jump in line to meet Tink. As we got in, the wait was already 50 minutes. We started to walk away when a cast member tapped us on the shoulder and handed us a FP+ to meet Tink. Pixie Dust!
We walked right up and met Tink. DD stuck her tongue out for the pics and Tink played right along and we got some pretty special pictures of Tink making funny faces with DD.
Next we headed over towards our 1st FP+ Jingle Cruise. DW loves this ride. She is super into corny jokes. Before we got on though we noticed there was no wait for Aladin Carpets for we did that. DD frekin loved this. For some reason even more so than Dumbo. We laughed when DW got spit on by the camel at the end.
Next was Jingle Cruise. Classic, and who doesn’t love corny jokes?
Our 2nd FP+ was for Pirates but it was down (converted to all day FP+) so we did Tiki room instead and then I grabbed a 2nd FP+ for Carpets again.
I then jumped on the app and worked some magic to get our 3rd FP+ to be Pirates that had just came back up and was able to get it for immediate ride. This is also my favorite ride. Score! Especially since we now had banked the all day FP+.
Next we did the Swiss Family Tree house before leaving for nap time early as we had a late lunch reservation.
After a short 1 hour nap we took the boat back to the park and headed to Cinderella’s castle for a late lunch. Here we got to meet Cinderella and then waited for our name to be called to be seated. They must have screwed up because the room cleared out with our name having never have been called. However, this led to Cinderella pretty much playing with DD while we waited. She was very gracious and it was nice having all sorts of extra interaction with her.
After being seated, we were delighted to see that we would be meeting Auroa, Ariel, Snow White, and Jasmine. We were especially excited about Snow White and Jasmine as that pretty much completed the classic princesses set for us.
The food and atmosphere was fantastic and although DD was young enough to not be charged, she still got to have a sword and a wand and some food and drink at no cost. Disney really does treat their future patrons well and its nice to see that a company gets that if they can get them as excited as we have been about these parks it will keep the revenue churning.
After lunch we kinda went ride crazy. Having felt that we were pretty much done with the rides at the park we decided to just go crazy and exploit FP+ to see how much we could ride without ever waiting in line.
We ended up doing Barnstormer twice, Dumbo, Teacups, Winnie the Pooh, Small World, TomorrowLand and Speedway all using FP+ without any waits. I might add that the park was insanely crowded. I couldn’t believe what was popping up on FP+. If DD was older we could have done Space Mountain, Splash, Big Thunder, and many more. If you are persistent enough they all appear.
It was at this point that we forced ourselves to stop, although the park was open to 1am we needed to get back for our flight the next day. It would have been a blast to have kept going and seeing how many FP+ we could use in one day though…
In Summary:
This trip blew my already high expectations out of the water. Even with the insane crowds we did so much and outside of our one blunder with Haunted Mansion, almost never waited more than 5-10 mins to ride something or meet someone. I would like to thank all of the people on these boards for helping to inform me of how to plan. This was a trip of a lifetime.
I will add more reviews of hotel and such in future!
Characters Met
-Aurora (x2)
-Cinderella(x2)
-Belle (x2)
-Ariel(x3)
-Snow White
-Jasmine
-Anna
-Elsa
-Olaf
-Tinker Bell
-Rapunzel
-Tiana
-Mickey (x3)
-Pluto
-Goofy
-Donald (x2)
-Daisy
-Minnie(x2)
-Joy
-Sadness
-Tiger
-Winnie the Pooh
-Piglet
-Eeyore
-Santa and Mrs Claus
Magic Kingdom
-Winnie the Pooh (x3)
-Dumbo (x3)
-Barnstormer (x2)
-Small World (x3)
-Peter Pan
-Ranger Spin
-Laugh Factory
-Tea Cups
-Enchanted Tales
-Speedway
-Haunted Mansion
-Pirates
-Jungle Cruise
-Tiki Room
-Aladin Carpets (x2)
-Under the Sea (x2)
12/14 – Travel Day
Was worried about how DD would do on the plane and very nervous for figuring out how to get boarded and fuss with the CARES harness we bought her. It was super easy to use and much nicer than carrying a car seat, I highly recommend it. DD was only a tad fussy waiting for plane and in flight but overall was well behaved.
We arrived at MCO around 5pm and headed straight to the Magical Express. Passing by the security line at MCO reminded us about how much returning home was going to suck. The line for Magical Express also gave me a sinking feeling that we were about to hit some seriously crowded parks. It took a good 45 minutes for our bus to come and take us to the Wilderness Lodge.
Let me just say, WOW, the lodge is absolutely stunning at Christmastime. The lobby gave us those warm and fuzzy feelings. It felt like we were home.
Fortunately I had already received a text that our room was ready. I also had setup grocery delivery through Amazon Now that had arrived. Once we got off the Magical Express we went right to Bell services and had them bring our groceries to our room with us. We were staying in a copper creek studio villa. The room was great and we really enjoyed the décor and setup for our family.
After unpacking, we headed over to the Roaring Forks for a quite bite to eat. I had the pilgrim sandwich and my wife had the pulled pork. My daughter had the nuggets. Everything was delicious for the price and a very good quick service option.
Tired from travel and knowing we had an early day ahead of us, we hit the sack.
12/15 – Day 1 Epcot
We woke up, got ready, and headed to the bus station around 7:30am. We didn’t wait too long for a bus to Epcot and arrived before 8 am. We got through security and into the line for pre park opening reservations. It was pretty long, another sign of how crowded things were going to be.
Fortunately it didn’t take long to get in and we headed straight to Akershush in the world showcase. There was a small line outside of Akershush. We arrived around 8 am and had an 8:15 reservation. We pretty much got called right away and went in.
Inside we were greeted by Belle for pictures. Oh boy, this was it, it was time to see how DD was going to do with characters. She was pretty shy, but Belle did a nice job and getting her to warm up a bit and we got a few good pictures.
We were seated towards the back of the restaurant inside the castle turret and the waitress explained how things worked with the buffet. I immediately asked for the check early as I knew there was a chance we could get out before the park opened and I wanted that possibility. The check didn’t end up coming until later anyways but I will get into that in a moment.
During our breakfast, our first princess visited, Aurora. DD must have gotten the fear out during Belle cause she immediately gave her a big hug. Incredible picture. We then got to meet Cinderella and Ariel with similar responses and fantastic pictures.
By the time the bill came it was 8:45 and I felt we probably missed our window for getting out early as I still needed to pay and DD needed to use the restroom before continuing on. By the time we exited the restaurant, it was 8:59am. Surely the window was gone but our plan all along was to go right to meeting Anna and Elsa as we had a FP for frozen later in the day and these were the two must dos of the day. However, as we left I looked over at the Frozen ride and made a split second decision that we should go for it. DW agreed and off we went. We walked through the queue and to our surprise right onto the ride. DD LOVED it.
Once done with Frozen we see the mass of people rushing the queue and we realize how well that worked out. We head straight to Anna and Elsa and pretty wait in a 5 minute line and get right in to see them. DD loved seeing them and we got some great pictures. I think her mind was already blown and it was only the first few hours of our trip!
After Anna and Elsa we whisk our way over to Spaceship Earth and use a FP+ to walk on. It was fun, we especially liked the ending sequence on the ride screen.
Next we headed towards Nemo but saw a short line for Joy and Sadness, score! DD loved that movie so we grabbed some great pics and met them.
FP+ #2 was nemo (I know I know, kind of a lame use but hey, the trip was for DD not us). It was fun, DD liked it and when we got off she said she wanted to do the meet Crush. Unfortunately a show had just started so we went and checked out the aquarium. When we checked back, it was down. Bummer.
FP+ #3 was for frozen at noon. We headed towards it and saw a tiny line for meeting Pluto. Score! We got some great pics of DD and Pluto. DD had been sticking her tongue out whenever we told her to smile which we found kind of funny and fitting for her. It really worked for the Pluto pics! She would continue this theme for every picture and the characters all thought it was hilarious. It led to some funny interactions.
When we got to Frozen it was down. This was my biggest fear as it was our must do. But, since we did it earlier, the pressure was off! Our FP+ was converted into an all day pass for anything at Epcot (This would not be the first time). Suddenly I had a thought, I wonder if…..Sure enough I pulled out my app and the converted FP+ did not count towards our total. I was able to immediately book our 4th FP+, which I did for Figment later in the day.
From here we wandered down the showcase for a bit and to our delight we found Santa and Mrs. Claus in a beautiful setting for pictures with zero line. Score! DD was very shy but Mrs. Claus knew just how to get her to perk up for that perfect shot. We also found Donald in an alley with no one in line, so we jumped on that interaction and picture as well.
By this time it was around 1pm and we headed back to our resort for nap time. DD went right to sleep, this was awesome as we had been worried about how she would do with napping.
After nap we got back to Epcot around 5pm. We rode Figment with FP+, got a 5th FP+ for crush and did that, then took a break and let DD get a Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich.
I grabbed a 6th FP+ for living with the land and we tackled that before heading over to Frozen to use our anytime FP+ to ride it again. It was a short wait and I felt somewhat bad as we passed the people who were waiting for over two hours in line. After our 10-15min queue we were placed in the front row for the second time of the day, major score!
From here we fought through the crowds getting ready for processional and walked the showcase grabbing a few bites to eat before we headed back to the resort feeling like we had won the lottery all day. We rode every ride DD was able to and got to meet a ton of characters. We also got a lot of nice pictures along the way from the Disney photographers.
Surely day 2 was going to be much harder.
12/16 – Day 2 Magic Kingdom
Since it was a Saturday, MK was opening at 8am. This totally screwed my reservation for PPO be our guest a month or so back but I was able to hunt and change it to lunch instead, so we knew we had the 8am opening to utilize. Knowing this, we woke up early and took the boat to MK.
We arrived just around 8am and made our way through security pretty quickly and into the park right behind the rope droppers. We raced towards fantasy land, stopping at each photographer on the way.
We knew everyone was going to Mine Train, but since we couldn’t ride that, we knew this was our window to pack in some rides. We rode Winnie the Pooh, Under the Sea, Dumbo, and Met Ariel before heading towards our first FP+ (Peter pan). On our way we saw that Tiana and Rapunzel had a 5 minute wait, score!
After the most adorable pics of DD and Rapunzel, we realized we still had time to take advantage of low lines before using the FP+. So we rode Small World first then used 1st FP+ for Peter Pan.
When we got off, we checked app and saw that Haunted Mansion had a 30 min wait. This is where we made our first blunder. We got in line since it was nearby (I had a fp for this for later in our trip but I thought if we knocked it out we could change that and do more). Sure enough the queue for standby said 30 mins so we hopped in line. About ten minutes in, a massive amount of people entered the FP+ line and the wait suddenly shot up to 90 minutes. It took us about an hour to get through it and ride it. DD seemed pretty tired, but at least she wasn’t scared. I couldn’t tell if she liked it or not but I would find out later when she started asking to ride it again (that a girl).
Unfortunately our next FP+ window was half way through for Enchanted Tales with Belle but we had a reservation for Be our Guest lunch. I asked the attendant at Enchanted Tales and she told us not to miss our food reservation but to come back and explain the situation and we may be ok.
We had already preordered our food so we just went in to Be our Guest early and got seated immediately. We really only wanted to see the inside of the castle so we just got some soup, a French dip, and the grey stuff cupcake. It was all yummy and we rushed to finish it before our FP+ window for Enchanted Tales ended.
We just made it for our 2nd FP+. Like a typical toddler, DD had to go potty as soon as it was almost time to enter. Luckily it wasn’t long at all after she got back before we got in. It was fun and we got some great pics with Belle (2nd time).
It was getting late but we had a 3rd FP+ for Ranger spin, and having felt like we just beat Fantasy Land like pros, we headed to TomorrowLand.
We rode Ranger Spin and then Laugh Factory and then made a b line for a parade spot at 1pm. We snagged a spot near the circle on main street and parked. I went and grabbed some ice cream for my girls and everyone was happy to just chill until parade time.
We had a phenomenal view of the festival of fantasy parade and loved it.
After the parade we decided to head back and nap. Our morning went long and we felt so accomplished that we decided to not go back. What a wonderful day! Outside of Haunted Mansion, everything was a short wait or walk on. When we left the park the times were looking bad and the crowds were getting pretty insane.
Instead, we let DD hit the pool and although it was cold, she loved the water slides in the kids area.
Surely the pixie dust would wear off soon and we would be doomed by the December crowds….
12/17 – Day 3 Animal Kingdom/MK
We got to AK just before 9am rope drop. This was by far the most disorganized entrance and the crowds were out of control. There were no properly formed lines and it was slow to get in. Once we did get in, we went to our 1st FP+, the Safari. I heard the animals are more active in the morning so we hoped a 9:30 ride would deliver. Boy did it ever. We saw literally every animal. We even saw a cheetah and a perched lion on the same ride, which is super rare. At one point we had to stop and let Rhinos cross the road, pretty neat.
Our next FP+ was for the Lion King show. It was fun but DD was fussy due to all the waiting. We also didn’t do a good job at prepping her for Lion King as she does not have much of a connection to the movie yet.
Our 3rd FP+ was for the Pandora Navi River. As I checked on it, it was down and our FP was converted to an all day FP. This was quite annoying as we didn’t want to spend much time in AK. Fortunately, we walked over to Pandora to check it out and it was actually not down at all, so we walked onto it. DD loved it!
Pandora was gorgeous! However, the crowds and disorganization of the park was not, so we ducked out early having felt that we pretty much did what we wanted and we had a long second half to our day planned.
After a nice long nap, we lined up on the docks for the boat to MK. While waiting, I refreshed fp+ until I saw Meet Mickey appear! I snagged it up and we planned to hit it on our way to dinner. Unfortunately our boat took awhile to come and by the time we got into the park, it was another situation of risking missing our dining window. We checked in with the cast member at Mickey and he said to just come back after dinner and try to use it.
So we headed to Crystal Palace for dinner. This was absolutely fantastic. The food, the characters, the pictures, we loved it. DD hugged Piglet for what seemed like an hour. We took our time and met all the characters and then headed back to Mickey with our FP that was long overdue. They let us through anyways and we ended up walking in to meet Mickey! Score!
After this, it was pretty much MVMCP time. This was our first party and we did not know what to expect. We knew we wanted to see the Elsa castle show and the parade, so we figured we wouldn’t risk it and just camped out a nice spot right away. It took an hour of camping out but we had great spots for the shows and I was able to run off and get us some free cookies while we waited.
The parade. Oh man the parade. It was sincerely life changing. It was and will be the best parade I will ever see in my lifetime. The ticket price is worth it just for the parade in my opinion.
After the parade and shows, we headed to some cookie stations and then back to fantasy land to take advantage of low ride times. We had no desire to spend our time in lines for characters so we just hit up a ton of rides with little to no wait including, Dumbo, Winnie the pooh, Small World, and Under the Sea.
We were amazed at how well DD was doing staying up late and before we knew it, it was 11pm. We wandered over and enjoyed a bit of the Buzz and Mike Wazowski dance show before finally deciding to head out for the night, but not before buying some party merchandise and picking up our collector cards from the fire station.
What a phenomenal night!
12/18 – Disney Springs/Pool
We met up with my mother who lives in FL and spent the day at Disney Springs shopping and enjoying the pools at our resort. DD rode the kids waterslide about 600 times.
On our way back to our room we spotted Christmas Mickey and Minnie in our lobby and waited in a quick line to meet them. Score!
We ordered a Pizza for the night and turned in early.
12/19 – Hollywood Studios
We got to the park early (or tried to) for extra magic hours. By the time we got in it was 8:40 am. We headed straight to meet Olaf. Sadly he doesn’t come out until 9 am (lame) but it allowed us to be first in line and get it out of the way.
From here we used our first FP+ for Toy Story Mania. This was a blast!
Next we used 2nd FP+ for Frozen Sing a Long. I thought this was going to be more on stage and less video clips. However, DD loved it. The ending was very special and made it well worth it.
Our 3rd FP+ was going to be Disney Jr but we didn’t think that we had time before lunch and that DD could handle another show. So instead we converted it to Muppets (yeah I know but why not) and walked into that instead. DW loves Muppets so this was a must do. I have to admit, its great and doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
Our next stop was Hollywood and Vine for lunch where we met Santa Goofy, Minnie, Mickey, Donald, and Daisy all dressed in their Christmas best. Great pictures and a nice break from the heat outside. The food was ok, nothing special but we knew that going in.
After Lunch, we whizzed on over to see what the lines were like to meet the Disney Jr characters.
The lines didn’t seem great so we jumped into a store to just chill out for a minute. We bought DD a baby Sven and she was thrilled. After leaving the store we saw Doc McStuffins line was short so we jumped in it. I knew it was going to be special that DD had a new toy to show the Doc and sure enough, it led to a fantastic interaction and some great pictures. Score!
After this, we did some shopping, grabbed some photopass shots and headed back to the resort.
12/20 – Magic Kingdom
There is no better way to end the trip than MK and since we did so much in fantasy land, we had planned for this to be Adventureland day.
We got to the park around 9am opening and hoped to jump in line to meet Tink. As we got in, the wait was already 50 minutes. We started to walk away when a cast member tapped us on the shoulder and handed us a FP+ to meet Tink. Pixie Dust!
We walked right up and met Tink. DD stuck her tongue out for the pics and Tink played right along and we got some pretty special pictures of Tink making funny faces with DD.
Next we headed over towards our 1st FP+ Jingle Cruise. DW loves this ride. She is super into corny jokes. Before we got on though we noticed there was no wait for Aladin Carpets for we did that. DD frekin loved this. For some reason even more so than Dumbo. We laughed when DW got spit on by the camel at the end.
Next was Jingle Cruise. Classic, and who doesn’t love corny jokes?
Our 2nd FP+ was for Pirates but it was down (converted to all day FP+) so we did Tiki room instead and then I grabbed a 2nd FP+ for Carpets again.
I then jumped on the app and worked some magic to get our 3rd FP+ to be Pirates that had just came back up and was able to get it for immediate ride. This is also my favorite ride. Score! Especially since we now had banked the all day FP+.
Next we did the Swiss Family Tree house before leaving for nap time early as we had a late lunch reservation.
After a short 1 hour nap we took the boat back to the park and headed to Cinderella’s castle for a late lunch. Here we got to meet Cinderella and then waited for our name to be called to be seated. They must have screwed up because the room cleared out with our name having never have been called. However, this led to Cinderella pretty much playing with DD while we waited. She was very gracious and it was nice having all sorts of extra interaction with her.
After being seated, we were delighted to see that we would be meeting Auroa, Ariel, Snow White, and Jasmine. We were especially excited about Snow White and Jasmine as that pretty much completed the classic princesses set for us.
The food and atmosphere was fantastic and although DD was young enough to not be charged, she still got to have a sword and a wand and some food and drink at no cost. Disney really does treat their future patrons well and its nice to see that a company gets that if they can get them as excited as we have been about these parks it will keep the revenue churning.
After lunch we kinda went ride crazy. Having felt that we were pretty much done with the rides at the park we decided to just go crazy and exploit FP+ to see how much we could ride without ever waiting in line.
We ended up doing Barnstormer twice, Dumbo, Teacups, Winnie the Pooh, Small World, TomorrowLand and Speedway all using FP+ without any waits. I might add that the park was insanely crowded. I couldn’t believe what was popping up on FP+. If DD was older we could have done Space Mountain, Splash, Big Thunder, and many more. If you are persistent enough they all appear.
It was at this point that we forced ourselves to stop, although the park was open to 1am we needed to get back for our flight the next day. It would have been a blast to have kept going and seeing how many FP+ we could use in one day though…
In Summary:
This trip blew my already high expectations out of the water. Even with the insane crowds we did so much and outside of our one blunder with Haunted Mansion, almost never waited more than 5-10 mins to ride something or meet someone. I would like to thank all of the people on these boards for helping to inform me of how to plan. This was a trip of a lifetime.
I will add more reviews of hotel and such in future!
Characters Met
-Aurora (x2)
-Cinderella(x2)
-Belle (x2)
-Ariel(x3)
-Snow White
-Jasmine
-Anna
-Elsa
-Olaf
-Tinker Bell
-Rapunzel
-Tiana
-Mickey (x3)
-Pluto
-Goofy
-Donald (x2)
-Daisy
-Minnie(x2)
-Joy
-Sadness
-Tiger
-Winnie the Pooh
-Piglet
-Eeyore
-Santa and Mrs Claus
Magic Kingdom
-Winnie the Pooh (x3)
-Dumbo (x3)
-Barnstormer (x2)
-Small World (x3)
-Peter Pan
-Ranger Spin
-Laugh Factory
-Tea Cups
-Enchanted Tales
-Speedway
-Haunted Mansion
-Pirates
-Jungle Cruise
-Tiki Room
-Aladin Carpets (x2)
-Under the Sea (x2)
