Christmas in November (11/25 - 11/28) ~ Completed

[wdwrule]

First off, I love everything Christmas ! It’s my favorite holiday and, in fact, I’m going through withdrawal right now that Christmas has ended but all is good. Of course I also love anything Universal! So this was a great combo right after Thanksgiving.

We even hopped over to the Christmas party in Magic Kingdom during this trip for an evening so I got my Disney fix as well!! This time around it was the whole family (hubby was there for just a day) plus my son’s girlfriend. Oh my we had a blast!

I’ll get into more detail later but I would say the highlights were: decorations and overall holiday feel in the parks, Tribute Store, Green & Red Coconut Club, rides galore and Disney’s Christmas party. We stayed at Aventura again in the big deluxe queen room which we love.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Looking forward to the rest of the report!

 

[wdwrule]

Looking forward to the rest of the report!

Thank you so much! It was so much fun and so festive.

 

[wdwrule]

We arrived later in the evening so we checked in at Aventura in a deluxe 2 queen room (which I love so much) which is very reasonable with an AP rate and has lots of space. Here is my other trip report with more detail about the room if I copied it correctly:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/adventurous-week-in-aventura-june-6-10-2022-completed.3889408/

We always request a high floor for lovely views (not always guaranteed though).

Because it was late at night, a burger from Jake’s was in order. Jake’s is a restaurant at RPR. They have my favorite burger on property. The kids started with an order of pretzel sticks.


These were yummy. While eating, my son realized he had forgotten to pack his contact lens case. We chatted with our server about where to go about buying a case. Lo and behold, she said as a mom she carries a lot and brought one to us that she said has never been used. Sweet! We tipped her extra well.

Here are some Christmas tree pics from RPR and SF (we walked through SF to get to RPR).



Then off to bed for a full fun day. Dreams of Velocicoaster danced in our heads.

 

[wdwrule]

The next morning we woke up and headed right to Studios. I love this park, especially first thing in the morning because it’s so calm and very low-crowd.

We headed to the Leaky Cauldron to get some breakfast. No reservations or vouchers needed… just walked right in and ordered. We all ordered kids meals, which for us, is plenty. Bonus… the meals come with Butterbeer or other drinks. The drinks are a tad smaller except the hot butterbeer (which I love ). This beverage is served regular sized.

After riding Gringott’s with no wait (SR line), we headed over to visit the Tribute Store. Love, love this place! So creative!

















I never get bored when visiting the Tribute Store multiple times.

 

[wdwrule]

We then hit up some rides: MiB, ET, Transformers and Mummy which was posted 45 min but only took 17 minutes.

Then off to Confisco’s lunch which never disappoints. I forget what everyone else got, but DD and I split the pumpkin hummus and chicken quesadillas.






Everything was delish! We were up in the Navigator’s Club (AP) so once we ate, we took some pics of the great views out on the deck.

Saw this from up there… ahhh Grinchmas

Then we headed over to ride Forbidden Journey and felt so immersed in the Harry Potter era and environment.

Then polished that feeling off with a Deathly Hallows beer aka The Triple. We got this at Hogsmeade pub. The bartending wizards are always so friendly there!

We rode more rides, perused shops and just had a marvelous time. I just adore this time of year at the parks! Christmas trees, decorations and holiday music

We then grabbed a gingerbread whoopie pie and watched the holiday parade from afar.







Then later in the evening we visited the Green and Red Coconut Club which was one of the many highlights of the trip. Everything was festive galore and upstairs was Earl’s attic!












This place had such a fun vibe! I was here when it was themed to Halloween during HHN too and I really hope they keep utilizing this space. It would be awesome if they could keep re-theming this place as they do with the Tribute Store (although the Tribute Store will be relocated in the Hollywood area of Studios). Some kind of Mardi Gras Coconut Club?? Please, please?!

Anyways, we had a blast here. Sean was an incredible bar tender and made us some fun festive drinks… even drinks not on the menu that he made festive. I had an amazing sparkling gin with cranberries and rosemary in it. Mmmm smelled faintly of Christmas tree with every sip… ok gulp.

We had a great view outside on their second level patio as well. Then we headed for bed for some much needed sleep.

 

[wdwrule]

I just realized I never posted a pic of my luscious festive gin drink.



Loved falling asleep each night to this view:

We were so excited the next morning because we knew we were going to visit the Magic Kingdom. I love getting my Disney fix too! My son’s GF has never been to WDW so I was anxious to catch her reactions of seeing it for the first time.

But first, it was off to Studios for a nice calm morning. Love this little waterfall along the walk to the park (in Aventura/SF parking lot area):

We rode Mummy twice within half an hour… (once with SR line). Love this ride even though it has several abrupt stops/transitions. I think I finally have down pat when to brace myself so I don’t slam my head on the back of the seat.

Then DD and I split a delicious turkey and cheese sandwich from San Francisco Pastry shop. We ate outside since the weather was gorgeous.

We met up with DS and his GF and headed back to Aventura to catch an Uber/Lyft to Grand Floridian.

We ate a mid-afternoon lunch at the Grand Floridian Cafe and had a delicious meal. I love their burger with lobster meat on it! We checked out their massive gingerbread house where they sold treats from.



Their tree is always so stunning! Themed to 12 days of Christmas.


After this, we hopped on the monorail and visited the other monorail resorts to check out their tree and lobby/shops. Always a fun time! Then off to the party. The party was from 7pm to midnight but tickets included park entry at 4:00 which was very nice. It was crowded between 4 and 7 but we still got so much accomplished.


Magic Kingdom doesn’t have many thrill rides. I think the closest they have in the kind-of-thrill-ride category would be Space Mountain and even that is no where as thrilling/scary as Velocicoaster. But I still love, love, love WDW rides. They are so well themed, magical feeling and full of nostalgia. I am so excited for Tron! We caught a glimpse while we rode the Peoplemover. One of the trains was running/being tested.

I believe it’s supposed to finally open sometime later this spring.

But anyways, we went on ride after ride and enjoyed the included unlimited hot cocoa and various cookies. We took a boatload of prepackaged cookies home as well to continue enjoying.

It was truly an amazing night! We all enjoyed everything about it! Everything at night looked glorious and on our way out around midnight it was snoaping.




Continued in next post…

 

[wdwrule]

After this we hopped onto whichever bus was there which happened to be for the Riviera resort and took it there to order an Uber/Lyft. This is what we did last year and it worked well since I figure the TTC is probably mobbed at closing time.

Then off to bed.

 

[wdwrule]

We slept in just a tiny bit but the adrenaline was pumping and it was our departure day… thank goodness late flight so still a full day

It was a Monday morning and we encountered a top-notch, almost nonexistent line for my fave, Velocicoaster.

Love, love, love! This ride never gets old.

Many more rides, then I wanted to be sure we had some holiday treats from UO. So off to Seussland. We had the yummy Grinch ice cream cookie sandwich and hot cocoa with cocoa bomb. We ate these inside of Circus McGircus. Lighting was way off on the ice cream sandwich… not sure why the pic came out pink because the cookie was green and the thick slab of ice cream is vanilla.


Both of these treats were hits! I had the ice cream sandwich last year and it was good then too. They switched up the ice cream (hard vs. soft serve) but it was still very good. The cocoa with bomb… oh…my!! I really loved this one but I’m a chocoholic. It was basically like drinking a melted chocolate candy bar. Thick and rich.

I forget the prices but they were each under $10. I believe around $8 maybe.

We then chatted a bit with Captain America. Shortly after was lunch at Margaritaville. Had to get the Perfect Margarita of course! My favorite on property.

We then headed to Studios for some last rounds of rides before our nighttime flight.










We then headed to Bigfire for dinner. We split some apps and some meals and had a wonderful time chatting and reminiscing about our trip.

We had a lovely table upstairs overlooking Citywalk/parks. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, fireworks started up and we had a great view!

It was the perfect closure to our trip.

Thanks for reading along. As always, hopefully some of this info helps someone.

Next trip report: my less than 24 hour birthday bash at UO!!! Lol flew down for one day! It was quite the adventure…

 

[saskdw]

How did I not know that ice cream cookie sandwich existed when we were there??

 

[Robo56]

Enjoyed reading your trip report. Pictures were great.

It was truly an amazing night! We all enjoyed everything about it! Everything at night looked glorious and on our way out around midnight it was snoaping.

Never heard the word “snoaping”…..thats exactly what it is….LOL

Both of these treats were hits! I had the ice cream sandwich last year and it was good then too. They switched up the ice cream (hard vs. soft serve) but it was still very good. The cocoa with bomb… oh…my!! I really loved this one but I’m a chocoholic. It was basically like drinking a melted chocolate candy bar. Thick and rich.

WOW….those desserts are awesome looking. The heart chocolate bomb is very Suess.

I love the hummus at Confisco’s Grille.


Thank you for sharing your trip Report.

 

[wdwrule]

How did I not know that ice cream cookie sandwich existed when we were there??

I’m hoping they’ll continue it next year as well. It’s soooo good!

 

[wdwrule]

Enjoyed reading your trip report. Pictures were great.


Never heard the word “snoaping”…..thats exactly what it is….LOL



WOW….those desserts are awesome looking. The heart chocolate bomb is very Suess.

I love the hummus at Confisco’s Grille.


Thank you for sharing your trip Report.

Thank you!!

Haha yes I forget where I heard the term snoaping from but it sums it up well.

That hot chocolate was divine! Confisco’s has been consistently great on all of our experiences with them… and we have frequent Confisco’s experiences.