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Photo Journal: A Disney Christmas
- Dec 4, 2008 at 1:26 AM
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- Comments (7) Total Views (154) Everyone can see this journal post.
Yeah, I know - I'm spoiled for being a passholder and living close enough to visit Walt Disney World like every other month. This trip, though, counted as our annual Christmas time getaway, so we hooked up the camper and headed to Fort Wilderness.
Sunday: A Rather Wet Spectacle
We arrived Sunday afternoon, and set up at our camp site in Fort Wilderness. It was a pretty good site, located close to the marina, where the ferry to Magic Kingdom departs. Anyway, it rained most of the trip to Disney, then sporadically throughout the night. Sigh!
Extra Magic Hours were from 8-11pm at Hollywood Studios, so we decided to take in the millions of Osborne lights. (Passholders got special 3D prism glasses.) Alyssa really enjoyed the lights, and the music. She especially loved the music, and when "Feliz Navidad" played, she danced with a cast member in the middle of the street. It was so cute!
We also took a couple of spins on Toy Story: Mania, my favorite ride at Hollywood Studios. This time, we let Alyssa have her OWN cannon, and she actually managed to score 5000 points on the 3-D "midway" games. What a sharpshooter!
When the rain came down again, we took cover in The Voyage of the Little Mermaid show, which Alyssa had never seen before. I was a little worried about whether Ursala would scare her, or if she would sit still long enough to enjoy the show, but she sat entranced through the whole thing! When Ursala showed up, she pointed and said "octopus!" LOL!
Since we had success with the Little Mermaid show, we took Alyssa over to Muppet Vision 3-D. She really got into it, reaching for the 3-D items, and trying to pop the 3-D bubbles with her finger. At the end, she asked for more in her cute little voice: "mo' muppets?"
After we closed down the park, we drove back to our camp site for our first night in our new camper. I thought Alyssa would sleep in her own "room" if I let her pick out the sheets for her bottom bunk (Tinkerbell of course!) , plugged in a nightlight, and gave her her cat, blankies, and Elmo book. Nuh-uh! After a little fussing, she quieted down and I dozed off. I was awakened to the sound of little feet padding across the camper, followed by "Mama?" When I opened, my eyes, Alyssa was at the foot of OUR bed, trying to climb up. Oh well! At least this camper has a queen sized bed, and we didn't have to cram the three of us in a full sized bed, like in our other camper.
Monday: Magic Kingdom And The Crazy Lady
It's been a while since we visited the Magic Kingdom during the day, so I thought Monday would be a nice chance for Alyssa to see some of the attractions that she hadn't done before. We started out with some Swiss Robinson Family Treehouse, grabbed a FastPass for the Jungle Cruise, then headed over to Tom Sawyer Island. Along the way, Alyssa stopped to make friends with the stuffed monkeys in the shops.
Alyssa liked running around Tom Sawyer Island and crossing the barrel and suspension bridges. She also had to try out every rifle in the fort on the island:
I was disappointed that Aunt Polly's was closed, so we went back to the mainland for a "little" snack and to stake out a nice bench for the parade:
Yes, that WAS a giant turkey leg! OK, Alyssa had a lot of help from Mom and Dad demolishing that caveman-type treat.
Anyway, after the parade, we went to the Jungle Cruise, where we encountered the most ridiculously rude woman of our entire trip! There were two entrances onto the boat - one at the front, and one at the back, and you have to take two steps down into the boat when you board. So I, Alex, and Alyssa, in that order, boarded the boat at the front. We WERE the last in line to board at the front of the boat.
Anyway, for a 2-year-old, the two steps into the boat requires a few more seconds to climb than the average adult, but Alyssa did a great job climbing in with little help from her daddy. Well, this ugly woman, whose family boarded at the BACK of the boat, decided to run over to the line to board the front of the boat, since that line was moving a little faster.
Oh, how frustrated she was to discover that she was the very LAST person to come aboard because she had to (gasp!) WAIT a whole 20 extra seconds for Alyssa to get down the steps! When Ugly finally came on board, she looked at Alex and said "You should have picked your child up!" then climbed OVER the three of us, and sat down next to me.
"What?" I asked her, not sure I heard right.
"You should have picked your child up," she repeated.
Giving her the benefit of the doubt, thinking that she really couldn't be THAT stupid, and maybe she was more concerned for Alyssa's safety than her own selfish lard@$$, I smiled politely and said "Well, she wanted to be a big girl."
"Yeah, but everyone got backed up," Ugly said.
I rolled my eyes, gave her the you-must-be-the-dumbest-person-on-the-planet look, and said "What does it matter? We're all on the boat now."
Alex, already ruffled from her rudeness, said "Is she trying to tell me what to do?"
"No," I told him loudly, as I laughed, "She's whining because she waited 20 minutes in line for the ride, then had to wait an extra 20 seconds for Alyssa to come on board!"
Ugly never said a word, nor looked at me after that. But I wasn't through yet. At the end of the ride, when we were waiting for the boat in front of us to unload so we could get to the dock, I shouted "Hey, Alex! We're backed up! Do you think we should pick this boat up?"
"I don't know," Alex replied, "Why don't you ask that rude woman? She seems to be good at telling people what to do!"
And we both looked over at Ugly and laughed. Alyssa, seeing us laugh, joined in. Next to me, Ugly pretended not to hear or see us.
Monday was evening Extra Magic Hours, so after letting Alyssa nap, and grabbing a bite outside of the park, we returned to see the castle lit up in beautiful white lights:
Alyssa wanted to ride the carousel, and picked out Cinderella's own special horse. When I placed her on the horse, I told her that she must be a real princess to be able to pick out Cinderella's horse. Alex asked how I knew it was Cinderella's, and I pointed to the red roses on the front, and the yellow roses on the back. Then, pointing to the horse next to it that Alex was on, I showed him how he was riding the Prince's armored horse.
Nearby, Alyssa discovered Pooh's playful spot, where we hung out for a while before heading over to the teacups and the Tomorrowland attractions:
Alex needed a little help getting out of the slide:
Tuesday: Stork Ambush!
After a late night in Magic Kingdom, we slept in Tuesday morning, had breakfast leisurely in our camper, then headed over to Animal Kingdom for a look at the new Nemo show. It was pretty good, by the way, and reminded me of the Lion King broadway show. I was concerned about Alyssa getting restless since we had to be there 45 minutes before the show started, but I brought my bag of tricks, and Alex whipped out his phone, which had a bubbles game:
We did a few more rides, watched the Jingle Jungle parade, then headed out of the park so that we could make our way to Epcot.
We took the tram to our car, loaded everyone up, and Alex was just starting the car, when I noticed these 2 HUMONGOUS birds right in front of us in the Animal Kingdom parking lot!
I think they were storks. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, you should understand that birds really don't like me, so I get a bit freaked out by them sometimes. In the last 10 years, I have been attacked by a duck, charged by a chicken, and lost a battle with a seagull over a breakfast burrito (another Disney episode, by the way). So when these fellows started approaching the car, I was a little nervous.
I did NOT zoom in on these pictures! These guys came so close to me, I think they could have opened up my car door if they had opposable thumbs! Thinking quickly, I grabbed Alyssa's bag of snacks and threw some crackers out the window, as far from me as I could. I then pleaded with Alex to drive away before they came for ME!
Compared to the gianormous storks, our character dinner at the Garden Grill in Epcot seemed pretty tame:
Wednesday: All Good Things
Well, we've come to the last day of our adventure...our departure day. While Alex hooked up the trailer and got everything ready for the road, I took Alyssa to some of the other camp sites to see the massive Christmas decorations. Boy, these people really know how to decorate! You would have thought these camp sites belonged to cast members or something!
To soften the blow, I always try to book us a character breakfast the morning of our departure. This time, we went to Chef Mickey's inside the Contemporary hotel, where the monorail zooms by overhead.
Since the monorail was RIGHT there, we decided to visit our brick at the TTC and get Alyssa's photo with it. This brick is just outside one of the ticket booths, and was a birthday gift from my hubby back in 1999. Alyssa was a sport to sit and lie on the ground while I snapped pictures:
And of course, you know how it goes...we're already at the TTC, it would be a SHAME not to hop over to the Magic Kingdom one last time and see Santa Claus:
(Santa was a really good one and very kind, by the way!)
And since the shops were RIGHT THERE, we decided we might as well take a look to see if they had any cool Christmas items. While in one shop on Main Street, Alyssa was selected to be a "Fairy Godmother In Training" and she got to help Cinderella get dressed for the ball! I was so proud of her, and glad that I had prepared her from the beginning of the trip, when I told her that she had to say the magic words, "Bibbidi, Bobbidi, Boo" to make the (motion sensor) sink faucets come on. LOL!
Here is Alyssa with her final magical creation, and the cast member, Brenda, who helped her and gave her a special treat and certificate:
Tags: castle, christmas, disney, family, fun, group, magic, theme parks, vacation
Comments:
Looks like you guys had a lot of fun! I would go every chance I got if I was that close! The castle is beautiful!!!! I saw pictures of it on TV and was like, WOW that is so cool! I want to go!
I always enjoy hearing about your trips to DW. Next year though we will be going to DW for Christmas. We're also going to try and get passports since Chad will be on Shore duty here and not having to worry about leaving again.
o that looks like you guys had a great time we leave in 5 days :) im excited
I can't wait for next year!!!!!
sounds like a wonderful trip, but for the ugly woman you encountered and the big birds! Alyssa is so precious! I love the look on her face with Pluto. When is the next trip planned? I want to make sure I get in on the fun of your report without missing it! My Boo Boo is fascinated by the bad girls in the disney movies now, sits and watches and will tell them, "No, No be nice!" and "Stop that! Be nice!" Its hilarious!
Sounds like you had a wonderful time. We were there at the same time so it was fun reading what you and your family did and compare it to what we were doing. We did a lot of the same things but at different times. I love your pictures!
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YAY! I am so glad you guys had a great time! It's wonderful to hear about all of your stories! I can't wait to be able to take Daliana to Disney once she can appreciate it. I am very excited for that day!
Great pictures and story of your trip! I love reading about your Disney Adventures!