Eviejim
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2021
Dec 23- Dec 31 2022
12/23: We live in VA but enjoy driving to FL so our check in day was on 12/24 but we left around noon on the 23rd. We let our kids (ages 12, twin 11 yr olds, 8) open their Christmas presents before loading up to leave for Disney. They also get gift bags in the van that are from
that includes snacks, drinks and a few surprises in them for the trip. We left around noon and take our time. It's about a 12 hour drive straight through but we stop every couple of hours for bathroom.
12/24: We also decided to stop to sleep for a few hours once we got into Florida. We got back on the road about 5 am and decided to stop at a Waffle House which is meh but one of the few things open at 6 am. We got to SSR a little before 9 am and I was shocked when we got our text for our room number at 9:05. We got settled into our room and hubbs took a nap since he does all the driving due to motion sickness. We planned to eat a lot of our meals in the villa and I brought our Insta-Pot from home so that I could easily throw dinner in it before leaving for the day and come back to a delicious dinner. We had to do grocery shopping and hit up the closest Walmart and it was insane. Tons of people doing last minute Christmas shopping. We had a dinner reservation at Sanaa and it was our first time eating there. I was excited but our experience wasn't the best. They were backed up and even though we had a 5:45 reservation it was another 25 minute wait. We are pretty patient people and we get these things happen. It then took awhile to be able to place our order too and the whole dining experience took about 2.5 hours which was kinda crazy. It will be awhile before I will want to go there again but the food was delicious and our kids really enjoyed it as well. We did the bread service and each of the Potjie's to try a little of everything. We planned on rope dropping Epcot for tomorrow.
12/25: It was chilly and windy! We ate Jimmy Dean breakfast croissants for a quick breakfast before taking advantage of the early entry hours. We were able to get Remy's knocked out and was able to get in the virtual queue for Cosmic and got that done too by 10:00. That was the 2 big rides on our list for that day. We tried out Connections for lunch, no complaints there. We had dinner reservations at Via Napoli, our first time dining there and got 2 of the Metro pizzas and had 1/2 of each pizza made different to try out all the combos there. My favorite was the Carciofi but it was ALL so good! Joe from West VA was our server and amazing so I made sure to give a cast compliment via MDE app. We had a great day and really enjoyed it. The crowds were very good being that it was Christmas Day. A few years ago we did Christmas at Magic Kingdom and that was insane so decided to try a different park this time. We were able to hit all the attractions except for Frozen and we really enjoyed Harmonious. I've heard a lot of mixed reviews on it but we thought it was great and definitely worth watching.
12/26: Resort day- We got up whenever and everyone grabbed what they wanted to eat for breakfast out of the fridge. We had advance reservations for Splitsville Bowling at Disney Springs at 1:00. Such a blast and we got several appetizers to share while bowling. After our bowling time we then hit up Everglaze for the first time. Wowzers!! Soooo good. We just piddled around looking in shops. I love Disney Springs and that's the main reason why we chose SSR as our home resort. We stayed in The Paddock and I definitely didn't mind the walk from our building to the Springs. I had already threw dinner in the Insta-pot that morning so we came back to the resort when we started to get hungry and I cooked up some spaghetti noodles and then threw the Tuscan chicken from the Insta-Pot on top and had dinner ready in 15 minutes. We are new DVC members so I had two separate reservations booked due to the borrowing restrictions and then as soon as they lifted those I added a NEW reservation instead of modifying. I asked them if they could merge our reservations so we didn't have to check out and move rooms but because they were two different room types (dedicated 2BRV and a lock-off 2BRV) they were unable to merge them. Ugh! No problem, that was just a learning curve on my part. Bell Services were wonderful to work with and we scheduled a time for them to pick up our luggage and groceries.
12/27: Hollywood Studios- A tad bit warmer today. We grabbed a quick breakfast out of the fridge and headed to early entry. We got in line for Rise and were through it pretty quickly. The kids wanted to do Slinky Dog and it had a 2 hour wait- Yikes! We got in line anyways and it ended up taking 2.5 hours to get through it. We all agreed we would never do that again. We mobile ordered lunch at Docking Bay and I really enjoyed it. I wasn't eager to get in another ride line because I was still recovering from Slinky. We just sat down and enjoyed people watching and ordered a few desserts we wanted to try from Backlot- the 50th blondie is absolutely drool worthy! We hit up a few more rides and then mobile ordered from ABC & PizzeRizo for dinner. We were so excited to watch Fatasmic but it was still chilly and with temps dropping, my husband chose to sit up front, the VERY front row. We quickly found out that in chilly and windy weather that's not a great viewing area. I was shivering and couldn't hardly see the show from all the mist being blown into my face and having to wipe my eyes every minute or so. We did move a section back but that didn't really help. I was just ready for the show to be over and get back to my warm villa and get in dry PJ's.
12/28: Resort day- No plans today except to watch Avatar 2 at AMC in the Springs. I pre-booked this as well. It was great and we walked around and tried a few eats. We got our new room number still at the Paddock so we headed back to meet Bell Services and got settled into our new room. Tonight we ate Italian Beef hoagies that came out of the Insta-Pot and tater tots. We planned to do Smores at the fire pit tonight and I discovered that we were missing our box of Graham crackers and bottle of Olive oil. I called Bell Services but they were not able to find our missing bag. That was a bummer because those 2 items were well over $10- and yes, they were bagged in the same bag- don't judge me, I'm not a grocer
Soooo I placed an insta cart order online and got a replacement. We made it to the firepit for the last 30 minutes of Smore time and then watched the Movie under the Stars at the pool deck. I learned another lesson: make a list of groceries that we have, count the bags we give to Bell's services (which they do and give you a receipt) and once they deliver them check to make sure we have everything before sending them on their way.
12/29- 12/31: Resort Days- We went back to the Springs every day because I just love it there. I knocked off a few things on my must do list like Gideon's (it was my first time and well worth the wait!) This was the best Disney vacation we have had so far and so relaxing. I'm extremely happy with our Home resort choice and already started planning for our next trip. My hubbs and kids wanted to eat at T-Rex on our last night but we didn't have revs. We do have a Landry's Card and so we decided to try it and we walked right in and flashed that card and they seated us immediately. I really enjoyed the food and drinks there. We have eaten there a few times in the past and also enjoy it. We left about 10 am on 12/31 and headed home but of course we had to stop at Jab's for fireworks on the way. We got home about 10 minutes til the New Year and ran out into the middle of our private road to set off fireworks in time for the New Year.
12/23: We live in VA but enjoy driving to FL so our check in day was on 12/24 but we left around noon on the 23rd. We let our kids (ages 12, twin 11 yr olds, 8) open their Christmas presents before loading up to leave for Disney. They also get gift bags in the van that are from
that includes snacks, drinks and a few surprises in them for the trip. We left around noon and take our time. It's about a 12 hour drive straight through but we stop every couple of hours for bathroom.12/24: We also decided to stop to sleep for a few hours once we got into Florida. We got back on the road about 5 am and decided to stop at a Waffle House which is meh but one of the few things open at 6 am. We got to SSR a little before 9 am and I was shocked when we got our text for our room number at 9:05. We got settled into our room and hubbs took a nap since he does all the driving due to motion sickness. We planned to eat a lot of our meals in the villa and I brought our Insta-Pot from home so that I could easily throw dinner in it before leaving for the day and come back to a delicious dinner. We had to do grocery shopping and hit up the closest Walmart and it was insane. Tons of people doing last minute Christmas shopping. We had a dinner reservation at Sanaa and it was our first time eating there. I was excited but our experience wasn't the best. They were backed up and even though we had a 5:45 reservation it was another 25 minute wait. We are pretty patient people and we get these things happen. It then took awhile to be able to place our order too and the whole dining experience took about 2.5 hours which was kinda crazy. It will be awhile before I will want to go there again but the food was delicious and our kids really enjoyed it as well. We did the bread service and each of the Potjie's to try a little of everything. We planned on rope dropping Epcot for tomorrow.
12/25: It was chilly and windy! We ate Jimmy Dean breakfast croissants for a quick breakfast before taking advantage of the early entry hours. We were able to get Remy's knocked out and was able to get in the virtual queue for Cosmic and got that done too by 10:00. That was the 2 big rides on our list for that day. We tried out Connections for lunch, no complaints there. We had dinner reservations at Via Napoli, our first time dining there and got 2 of the Metro pizzas and had 1/2 of each pizza made different to try out all the combos there. My favorite was the Carciofi but it was ALL so good! Joe from West VA was our server and amazing so I made sure to give a cast compliment via MDE app. We had a great day and really enjoyed it. The crowds were very good being that it was Christmas Day. A few years ago we did Christmas at Magic Kingdom and that was insane so decided to try a different park this time. We were able to hit all the attractions except for Frozen and we really enjoyed Harmonious. I've heard a lot of mixed reviews on it but we thought it was great and definitely worth watching.
12/26: Resort day- We got up whenever and everyone grabbed what they wanted to eat for breakfast out of the fridge. We had advance reservations for Splitsville Bowling at Disney Springs at 1:00. Such a blast and we got several appetizers to share while bowling. After our bowling time we then hit up Everglaze for the first time. Wowzers!! Soooo good. We just piddled around looking in shops. I love Disney Springs and that's the main reason why we chose SSR as our home resort. We stayed in The Paddock and I definitely didn't mind the walk from our building to the Springs. I had already threw dinner in the Insta-pot that morning so we came back to the resort when we started to get hungry and I cooked up some spaghetti noodles and then threw the Tuscan chicken from the Insta-Pot on top and had dinner ready in 15 minutes. We are new DVC members so I had two separate reservations booked due to the borrowing restrictions and then as soon as they lifted those I added a NEW reservation instead of modifying. I asked them if they could merge our reservations so we didn't have to check out and move rooms but because they were two different room types (dedicated 2BRV and a lock-off 2BRV) they were unable to merge them. Ugh! No problem, that was just a learning curve on my part. Bell Services were wonderful to work with and we scheduled a time for them to pick up our luggage and groceries.
12/27: Hollywood Studios- A tad bit warmer today. We grabbed a quick breakfast out of the fridge and headed to early entry. We got in line for Rise and were through it pretty quickly. The kids wanted to do Slinky Dog and it had a 2 hour wait- Yikes! We got in line anyways and it ended up taking 2.5 hours to get through it. We all agreed we would never do that again. We mobile ordered lunch at Docking Bay and I really enjoyed it. I wasn't eager to get in another ride line because I was still recovering from Slinky. We just sat down and enjoyed people watching and ordered a few desserts we wanted to try from Backlot- the 50th blondie is absolutely drool worthy! We hit up a few more rides and then mobile ordered from ABC & PizzeRizo for dinner. We were so excited to watch Fatasmic but it was still chilly and with temps dropping, my husband chose to sit up front, the VERY front row. We quickly found out that in chilly and windy weather that's not a great viewing area. I was shivering and couldn't hardly see the show from all the mist being blown into my face and having to wipe my eyes every minute or so. We did move a section back but that didn't really help. I was just ready for the show to be over and get back to my warm villa and get in dry PJ's.
12/28: Resort day- No plans today except to watch Avatar 2 at AMC in the Springs. I pre-booked this as well. It was great and we walked around and tried a few eats. We got our new room number still at the Paddock so we headed back to meet Bell Services and got settled into our new room. Tonight we ate Italian Beef hoagies that came out of the Insta-Pot and tater tots. We planned to do Smores at the fire pit tonight and I discovered that we were missing our box of Graham crackers and bottle of Olive oil. I called Bell Services but they were not able to find our missing bag. That was a bummer because those 2 items were well over $10- and yes, they were bagged in the same bag- don't judge me, I'm not a grocer
Soooo I placed an insta cart order online and got a replacement. We made it to the firepit for the last 30 minutes of Smore time and then watched the Movie under the Stars at the pool deck. I learned another lesson: make a list of groceries that we have, count the bags we give to Bell's services (which they do and give you a receipt) and once they deliver them check to make sure we have everything before sending them on their way.12/29- 12/31: Resort Days- We went back to the Springs every day because I just love it there. I knocked off a few things on my must do list like Gideon's (it was my first time and well worth the wait!) This was the best Disney vacation we have had so far and so relaxing. I'm extremely happy with our Home resort choice and already started planning for our next trip. My hubbs and kids wanted to eat at T-Rex on our last night but we didn't have revs. We do have a Landry's Card and so we decided to try it and we walked right in and flashed that card and they seated us immediately. I really enjoyed the food and drinks there. We have eaten there a few times in the past and also enjoy it. We left about 10 am on 12/31 and headed home but of course we had to stop at Jab's for fireworks on the way. We got home about 10 minutes til the New Year and ran out into the middle of our private road to set off fireworks in time for the New Year.
