Tell me i'm being stupid - trip report !
Jan 2, 2024 6:33:18 GMT -5
Capt Kia, bakerworld, and 1 more like this
Post by rescueranger on Jan 2, 2024 6:33:18 GMT -5
Here a very quick summary of our last minute 9 night Christmas trip to WDW. We booked everything including international flights within 5 weeks and under budget ! I do apologise if this is a bit disjointed and for the poor grammar!
Resorts:
All start sports
Pre DVC stay, now completed all 3 of the all stars (always use pre DVC) and sports is our new favourite. felt a lot smaller than the others and only compared the a bus lines at parks must have been empty, As always the value resort CM’s are super friendly and helpful. The bread sticks in the quick serve for $4 is still the best Disney dinning deal !
Riviera
We got a last minute confirmed reservation for a Tower Studio a room we had actually visited in the summer on a DVC tour and liked the quirkiness of it. Yes for some the size would be too small but for 2 of us for 5 nights we had no issues with size. The bathroom is huge and the tower location is perfect for getting about the resort.
Our room was on the 5th floor and had great views of spaceship earth and could watch Epcot and MK fireworks from the balcony.
The actual resort is stunning and being on the Skyliner is a nice perk to the location. Not as good as walking to Epcot. But after a long day at the parks nice to fly home.
Primo piatto as always was great food and both the chicken and spicy meat sandwich tasted yummy.
Only issue we had resort wise on the whole trip was our toilet tissue wasn’t replenished yet the cleaner took the old one from the roll. The cleaning manger/hotel manger tried to make some excuse about DVC and mouse keeping. But for such a minor issue isn’t worth worrying about.
Parks:
Busy!
Rope drop still works wonders for busy park days. We managed to ride everything we wanted too and more in the first few hours of the parks being open. Before the crowds of people arrived around 11ish. We used this to are advantage and left the parks to return at night to see them all lite up.
Rope dropped worked for us at all the parks. We tend not to use it at Epcot due to deluxe hours.
At MK we double topped dropped twice with no issues and everything was a walk on.
Christmas decorations at all the parks, resorts and springs where better then I could have ever imagined. The overlays on Jingle cruise and Living with the land are a nice festive touch. Plus the snoap, Hearing the magic is calling and seeing snoap at springs was a high light.
On the 23rd we watched all the exclusives from the Christmas parties. We watched the first Christmas parade in the day time under the Christmas tree in MK and was magical and watched the Christmas fireworks and Mickey's Most Merriest Celebration what was a lot of fun
We knew Christmas Day might be wet so wanted to watch theses as early as possible in to our trip.
Journey of water is a nice little addition to Epcot. It's great for photos. But I'm not sure it will be much fun on a hot summers day when everyone is trying to use it to cool down. It's so much smaller than it looks and even when half empty on a cold December night still have to wait to interact.
Brag: We have now ridden GOTG 8 times and it only took 7 times to get every song. 1 away from a perfect streak. But we finally got September this trip to complete the set!
Water park:
As blizzard beach is always closed in the summer. Despite the cold we braved the park. We arrived at around 10am was pretty chilly and managed to do the whole park within two hours. As the morning went on it did warm up. But there is a quite a lot of shade in the park what did make a bit nippy was around 70 degrees!
The park had been closed the two days prior due to cold weather !
After Blizzard beach we walked over to winterland mini golf for a quick round as included in our tickets.
Christmas Day:
We roped dropped so we could ride space mountain with the Christmas overlay. Managed to be on and off the ride within about 10 minutes. Jumped on to the people mover as Tomorrowland had started to get busy, Was still resort guests early entry. Walked over to Adventureland bridge for second rope drop and rode Jingle cruise on the second boat had an amazing skipper who really made the ride special. The walked sight on to Pirates. Then was our time for Tron.
Was pretty wet by this point and felt sorry for all the people waiting to see the parade knowing it would be a rain one. The rainy day Christmas parade consisted of a car with Mickey, Minnie and Santa. Another with Chip and dale, One with Daisy and Donald and a Bus of princesses. Was some very disappointed faces around.
We headed back to the resort after this to dry off and head to springs for Lunch. Springs was busy than the parks ! We ate at Homecomin at the bar. As we normally do with no wait. Highly recommend this if you cant get a reservation and are a small party.
Headed over Epcot to check out the new fireworks and Deluxe magic hour. New fire works are so much better than Epcot forever but felt like a lot of wasted time and not overly emotional.
Deluxe Horus walked straight on to Frozen, and Remy’s then headed off home on the Skyliner.
A long day but very enjoyable.
Resort hopping:
As part of our days we visited most resorts. Gingerbread house or not. We love to resort hop as it is but with the all unique decorations. Would highly recommend this over Christmas. Also a great way to use a resort mug and get its full worth !
Food:
The majority of the food we had was pretty good. We share a lot of meals so get to taste a lot of things.
Highs:
Homecomin - as always great good and great service from the team.
Food at Three Bridges Bar & Grill
Primo piatto - sandwiches
Gasparilla Island Grill - sandwiches
All stars bread sticks! Trust me
Lows:
Service at Three Bridges Bar & Grill so slow and disjointed.
Sebastian's not as good as the summer. Food still tastes good but a lot less steak and food needs to be hotter and service again a bit disjointed.
The biggest issue we had was at geyser point via mobile order. We ordered a turkey sandwich and not only did it take ages to come. It had mould on the outside of the turkey. Was quite obvious due to the blue colour. To be fair we got refunded and they replaced the meal with a Bison burger. But should never have been served it.
Summery:
Over all having dreamed of a Disney Christmas for years and the opportunity arising late for us. We had the most wonderful trip and made lots of memories. Yes the parks and springs at times were carnage. But we excepted that. We made the most of being onsite guests and I don't think we dint do anything due to the busyness. We rode all the rides we wanted to with minimal waits.
Saw lots and lots of Christmas decorations and had a very festive time.
Would I goto Disney at Christmas again ? Without a doubt yes !
Am I sick of Christmas songs. YES !
Resorts:
All start sports
Pre DVC stay, now completed all 3 of the all stars (always use pre DVC) and sports is our new favourite. felt a lot smaller than the others and only compared the a bus lines at parks must have been empty, As always the value resort CM’s are super friendly and helpful. The bread sticks in the quick serve for $4 is still the best Disney dinning deal !
Riviera
We got a last minute confirmed reservation for a Tower Studio a room we had actually visited in the summer on a DVC tour and liked the quirkiness of it. Yes for some the size would be too small but for 2 of us for 5 nights we had no issues with size. The bathroom is huge and the tower location is perfect for getting about the resort.
Our room was on the 5th floor and had great views of spaceship earth and could watch Epcot and MK fireworks from the balcony.
The actual resort is stunning and being on the Skyliner is a nice perk to the location. Not as good as walking to Epcot. But after a long day at the parks nice to fly home.
Primo piatto as always was great food and both the chicken and spicy meat sandwich tasted yummy.
Only issue we had resort wise on the whole trip was our toilet tissue wasn’t replenished yet the cleaner took the old one from the roll. The cleaning manger/hotel manger tried to make some excuse about DVC and mouse keeping. But for such a minor issue isn’t worth worrying about.
Parks:
Busy!
Rope drop still works wonders for busy park days. We managed to ride everything we wanted too and more in the first few hours of the parks being open. Before the crowds of people arrived around 11ish. We used this to are advantage and left the parks to return at night to see them all lite up.
Rope dropped worked for us at all the parks. We tend not to use it at Epcot due to deluxe hours.
At MK we double topped dropped twice with no issues and everything was a walk on.
Christmas decorations at all the parks, resorts and springs where better then I could have ever imagined. The overlays on Jingle cruise and Living with the land are a nice festive touch. Plus the snoap, Hearing the magic is calling and seeing snoap at springs was a high light.
On the 23rd we watched all the exclusives from the Christmas parties. We watched the first Christmas parade in the day time under the Christmas tree in MK and was magical and watched the Christmas fireworks and Mickey's Most Merriest Celebration what was a lot of fun
We knew Christmas Day might be wet so wanted to watch theses as early as possible in to our trip.
Journey of water is a nice little addition to Epcot. It's great for photos. But I'm not sure it will be much fun on a hot summers day when everyone is trying to use it to cool down. It's so much smaller than it looks and even when half empty on a cold December night still have to wait to interact.
Brag: We have now ridden GOTG 8 times and it only took 7 times to get every song. 1 away from a perfect streak. But we finally got September this trip to complete the set!
Water park:
As blizzard beach is always closed in the summer. Despite the cold we braved the park. We arrived at around 10am was pretty chilly and managed to do the whole park within two hours. As the morning went on it did warm up. But there is a quite a lot of shade in the park what did make a bit nippy was around 70 degrees!
The park had been closed the two days prior due to cold weather !
After Blizzard beach we walked over to winterland mini golf for a quick round as included in our tickets.
Christmas Day:
We roped dropped so we could ride space mountain with the Christmas overlay. Managed to be on and off the ride within about 10 minutes. Jumped on to the people mover as Tomorrowland had started to get busy, Was still resort guests early entry. Walked over to Adventureland bridge for second rope drop and rode Jingle cruise on the second boat had an amazing skipper who really made the ride special. The walked sight on to Pirates. Then was our time for Tron.
Was pretty wet by this point and felt sorry for all the people waiting to see the parade knowing it would be a rain one. The rainy day Christmas parade consisted of a car with Mickey, Minnie and Santa. Another with Chip and dale, One with Daisy and Donald and a Bus of princesses. Was some very disappointed faces around.
We headed back to the resort after this to dry off and head to springs for Lunch. Springs was busy than the parks ! We ate at Homecomin at the bar. As we normally do with no wait. Highly recommend this if you cant get a reservation and are a small party.
Headed over Epcot to check out the new fireworks and Deluxe magic hour. New fire works are so much better than Epcot forever but felt like a lot of wasted time and not overly emotional.
Deluxe Horus walked straight on to Frozen, and Remy’s then headed off home on the Skyliner.
A long day but very enjoyable.
Resort hopping:
As part of our days we visited most resorts. Gingerbread house or not. We love to resort hop as it is but with the all unique decorations. Would highly recommend this over Christmas. Also a great way to use a resort mug and get its full worth !
Food:
The majority of the food we had was pretty good. We share a lot of meals so get to taste a lot of things.
Highs:
Homecomin - as always great good and great service from the team.
Food at Three Bridges Bar & Grill
Primo piatto - sandwiches
Gasparilla Island Grill - sandwiches
All stars bread sticks! Trust me
Lows:
Service at Three Bridges Bar & Grill so slow and disjointed.
Sebastian's not as good as the summer. Food still tastes good but a lot less steak and food needs to be hotter and service again a bit disjointed.
The biggest issue we had was at geyser point via mobile order. We ordered a turkey sandwich and not only did it take ages to come. It had mould on the outside of the turkey. Was quite obvious due to the blue colour. To be fair we got refunded and they replaced the meal with a Bison burger. But should never have been served it.
Summery:
Over all having dreamed of a Disney Christmas for years and the opportunity arising late for us. We had the most wonderful trip and made lots of memories. Yes the parks and springs at times were carnage. But we excepted that. We made the most of being onsite guests and I don't think we dint do anything due to the busyness. We rode all the rides we wanted to with minimal waits.
Saw lots and lots of Christmas decorations and had a very festive time.
Would I goto Disney at Christmas again ? Without a doubt yes !
Am I sick of Christmas songs. YES !
