***Official December 2017 thread!

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

I am officially 1 year away today!! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

So let's take a survey! Today's Question of the Day is:

Which park is your favorite and why?

Mine is Epcot, because I love the World Showcase! I could and usually do close out every evening of my vacation there!!!

 

[hurt817]

Can you add me to the ROLL CALL? December 9-13th @ BLT w/DH & DS16 DS12 Christmas @ The World is my FAV!

 

[Grandma4ever]

December Trip List
ROLL CALL (Notify me of errors or changes Please)

WithASmile&ASong - 11/28 to 12/9 - DH, DS9,DS8,DD3
Sarahcgfr - 12/1 to 12/5 - Wilderness Lodge - DBF
FinleyD - 12/3 - 12/9 - Polynesian - DD, DGS 4 - Celebrating DGS FIRST TRIP!
DisneyMommyMichelle-12/5-12/15(DCL Dream 12/15-12/18)12/18-12/20 -Contemporary Atrium Level-DH, DD12, DS11, DS10
Hurt817 - 12/9-12/13th @ BLT w/DH & DS16 DS12 Christmas @ The World is my FAV!
Grandma4ever - 12/9 to 12/18 - ASM - DW,DS,DN,DNBFF *30 years together celebration*
Twix516 - 12/10 - 12/16 - Contemporary - DH, Twin 3 year olds
CrystalDawn - 12/11 - 12/17 AKV/SSR - DD 13, DD 8, DS 6 - Birthday Celebration!
Hodad - 12/16 - 12/22 -CBR
DisCookieMonsta - 12/16 - 12/28 - DH, DD 13, DD 10, DS (twins) 1
Mbvisitor - 12/26 to 1/2 - CBR - DH, DS, DD
TeresaWen - 12/28 to 1/3 - Dolphin - DH *Over NYE @ EPCOT*
updated 12-11-2016

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

We are seeing our first snowfall of the year this weekend and all I can think about is that we will be in WDW at this time next year!!! LOL!!

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

Is anyone else booking this while at the WORLD in December? It's the Highway in the Sky Dine Around and we've already emailed the concierge to get us on this. It is sold out through it's dates available thru March right now, so we don't want to miss it since it's only on certain nights AND we are doing MVMCP too, so those are 2 events that are only on certain nights and we only have 10 days to fit them in! LOL!! It would be great to 'get to know' people here before hand if anyone else is doing it!!!

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!! Most of us are now less than a year away! How fun is it to think that way LOL!!! How many people have Disney gifts under the tree??? We made big use of the Parks shopping app and the Disney Store online! LOL!!!

 

[Grandma4ever]

We are under one year. Still seems like it is so far away. My stress level has been over the moon. I really could use some time away.

Well it is late for me and I should try to get some sleep. Tomorrow is a new day and one day closer to my much needed vacation.

 

[mbvisitor]

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!! Most of us are now less than a year away! How fun is it to think that way LOL!!! How many people have Disney gifts under the tree??? We made big use of the Parks shopping app and the Disney Store online! LOL!!!
View attachment 210923

I have the large Pua, the 1 peice Stitch PJs, Stitch slippers and Stitch socks for my daughter. Did I mention she loves Stitch???!!

 

[Grandma4ever]

I have the large Pua, the 1 peice Stitch PJs, Stitch slippers and Stitch socks for my daughter. Did I mention she loves Stitch???!!

Would love to see a picture! Sounds really cute.

 

[karalecia26]

Hello everyone! We are going to be crossing two months when we come next year! Right now our plan is November 25- December 2. It will be me , DH, DD 12, DS 10, DD7 and my parents. My DS and I just got back from a December birthday trip a week ago and had an amazing time! I even upgraded my pass to an AP since we had this trip in the plans. Not sure at the moment where we are doing to stay. At the moment we are thinking one of the All Stars but may change if we can get a good enough discount somewhere else. This will be a first trip for my parents so we are excited to show them our Happy Place!

 

[vrajewski10513]

Hey everyone! We are tentatively working on getting down to the world 12/4-12/9! We are still undecided on which resort we're staying at, but I think we're going to try to rent points for AKV. If that doesn't work out we will probably just stay at Pop again.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

Welcome everyone and yay we enter 2017 soooo very soon and we can then say WE ARE GOING TO WDW THIS YEAR!!!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!

I have the large Pua, the 1 peice Stitch PJs, Stitch slippers and Stitch socks for my daughter. Did I mention she loves Stitch???!!

Hahaha, I have one of those too! My youngest loves stitch and we came home with a lifesize plush Stitch from World of Disney last month! LOL!!! It was a good thing we drove and didn't fly, but he had a lap buddy the 20 hour ride home! HAHAHAH!!

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

ALL ABOARD!!!

December Trip LIST ROLL CALL (Notify me of errors or changes Please)

​

Karalecia26 - 11/25 - 12/2 - All Stars - DH, DD 12, DS 10, DD7 & parents
WithASmile&ASong - 11/28 to 12/9 - DH, DS9,DS8,DD3
Sarahcgfr - 12/1 to 12/5 - Wilderness Lodge - DBF
FinleyD - 12/3 - 12/9 - Polynesian - DD, DGS 4 - Celebrating DGS FIRST TRIP!
Vrajewski10513 - 12/4 - 12/9 - POP?
DisneyMommyMichelle-12/5-12/15(DCL Dream 12/15-12/18)12/18-12/20 -Contemporary Atrium Level-DH, DD12, DS11, DS10
Hurt817 - 12/9-12/13th @ BLT w/DH & DS16 DS12 Christmas@The World is my FAV!
Grandma4ever - 12/9-12/18 - ASM - DW,DS,DN,DNBFF*30 years together celebration*
Twix516 - 12/10 - 12/16 - Contemporary - DH, Twin 3 year olds
CrystalDawn - 12/11 - 12/17 AKV/SSR - DD 13, DD 8, DS 6 - Birthday Celebration!
Hodad - 12/16 - 12/22 -CBR
DisCookieMonsta - 12/16 - 12/28 - DH, DD 13, DD 10, DS (twins) 1
Mbvisitor - 12/26 to 1/2 - CBR - DH, DS, DD
TeresaWen - 12/28 to 1/3 - Dolphin - DH *Over NYE @ EPCOT*
updated 12-30-2016

 

[mbvisitor]

Hahaha, I have one of those too! My youngest loves stitch and we came home with a lifesize plush Stitch from World of Disney last month! LOL!!! It was a good thing we drove and didn't fly, but he had a lap buddy the 20 hour ride home! HAHAHAH!!

Whoa! Lifesize! We've never seen that one...and we have to fly, so we'll have to keep it that way!

 

[Disneymom20]

Happy New Year! We are heading back to Disney next December from the 18-27th at Fort Wilderness! Starting to make my list for dining today!

 

[itsjustryan]

Well it is officially 2017 so i can now start planning our trip for this December!!! There well be seven of us at trip time; me, my wife, four DS 8,6,4,2 and a 9 month old that we are 2 months away from meeting.

And I've extended the invitation to my parents, my wife's parents, and all of our siblings. Not sure how many there will be at this point but it should be fun.

As for now we are thinking December 9th through the 16th at Pop Century.

Happy New Year and Happy Planning!!!!

 

[WithASmile&ASong]

I'm so thrilled to be doing a split stay at Boardwalk Villas (11/28-12/4) and Wilderness Lodge Villas (12/4-12/8)!

GENESIS OF OUR 1st DVC STAY​

Initially I was planning on staying at CBR and trying for Free Dining. I picked our dates for the following reasons:

• Included in 2016 Free Dining
• Resort Decorations would be up
• MVMCP
• Candlelight Processional
• Later Dates don't work w/ our commitments.

I was so excited for our 1st Christmas trip, I started stalking the Disney site waiting for the booking window to open. (I wasn't going to book b/c I think the more rooms booked = less chance of free dining, but as a new Disney addict, I just wanted to see my dates there). Lo and behold two dates in the middle of my stay were unavailable for standard and water views. Thinking it was an obvious glitch, I kept trying at various times over the next several weeks. Not only did the dates not show up, but more dates were becoming unavailable. I cleared cookies, switched computers and finally called, sure that there must be a glitch. I mean it's well over a year away and CBR is huge. The CM said that she was seeing the same thing and that they must be booked. Well no matter what the reason, I felt the chances of FD were slipping away.

Well now I had a serious decision to make (oh the trials, ). Try for free Dining another week or the complete Christmas experience. Christmas won out. Now where to stay. POR was the obvious choice (5 of us - doesn't typically offer FD in Dec.). AoA suites was a bit higher than I wanted to pay. But a scene played in my mind. When last at Disney, we were taking the boat from HS to Epcot, when my Ds7 saw Boardwalk and said "Wow.....". I told him to forget about it we were never going to be able to stay there. With this scene playing in my mind, I decide to check out renting points.

I looked up sites about renting points and found out that the week I wanted was the least amount of points for the year and that Boardwalk studio standard views are the least points of any resort. We could definitely do this. So I started researching more on how to do this and found out that b/c of the above, it is also an incredibly hard reservation to get. I would need to find an owner and have them book it exactly 11 months out from my date.

I also found out owners at 11 months can only book 7 nights at a time (they can then extend). I wanted 10 nights but that's OK b/c now I was starting to dream about Christmas at Wilderness Lodge and it's proximity to 3 of the special late evenings I was planning: MVMCP, Pirates & Pals, & HDDR. So a split stay was born.

So now I started stalking the DVC board here, finally I got up the gumption to to request points about 1 month prior to the reservation being able to be booked. Both owners agreed to hold their points to the booking window. The WLV owner voluntarily "walked" the reservation for me to get my dates. I was staring to get worried about getting into BWV standard, pool/garden view was an option but I new due to the increase in points we'd have to cut 2 nights from our stay. I was reading BWV standard studios were being booked all up 1 minute into the booking window! A Diser replied in one post that the best way to get a Christmas reservation was to "walk" a reservation from the Saturday (or Sunday) after Thanksgiving. Well that booking window opened on Christmas Day...can't ask that. But I very nicely asked my BWV owner if he would walk the reservation from the 26th. He said he would try, then he emailed me on Christmas Day saying he got it booked that morning thinking it would be the best time to try. Such wonderful owners.

If you've read all the way through that post, Thanks! I've been a stalker for the last two years, but haven't really posted. Just wanted to share that research on these boards helped secure two dreams I didn't think I'd get to do: Christmas at Disney and staying at a deluxe.

 

[dnllmz]

Hi everybody! I'm excited to be joining you. My family had our first onsite visit to the World last month (December 10th-18th 2016). We stayed at POP which we enjoyed. We didn't spend much time at the resort because we were so busy running around in the parks. I think we really lucked out because now that I look at the updated crowd calendars it seemed to be a busy week but we were able to do everything we wanted to do and the lines weren't bad at all. We had so much fun that we decided to go back this year. I was a little surprised that my dh wanted to do WDW again because he was talking about trying to do a Disney Cruise but he is now dead set on WDW instead. Which is fine by me because I am hesitant to try a cruise. One of the main reasons we are going back is because my dd4 had so much fun and it was so awesome to see her come out of her shell. We live in Jersey and frequent the amusement rides there. She usually won't go on anything and has even cried on the carousel. But at Disney she wanted to go on everything. Even wanted to ride 7dwmt a 2nd time after getting off the first time. She's also very shy and quiet. Much to my surprise she was picked to play the Beast in Enchanted Tales with Belle and did awesome. She also did Jedi Training and had a great time. My ds6 was also on the trip and he's usually outgoing. He ended up being the one afraid of going on rides and was shy. Go figure! Part of the problem was that we did a lot of princess stuff like 2 meals and a lot of meet and greets. I honestly didn't expect my dd to go on many rides so I thought the meet and greets would be the one thing she's enjoy.

This time we're going Nov 25th - Dec 3rd and hoping to stay at the Poly. We did MVMCP on our last trip but it was the only bad experience we had so we are going to skip it. We decided to try to do some other extras instead like maybe a dessert party or the pirates and pals fireworks voyage. We've also talked about possibly sending the kids to Lilo's playhouse but I need to research that more.

 

[dnllmz]

When we came back from Disney we immediately started to talk about ADRs. And at the time I had a firm list which I'm already starting to 2nd guess. lol

Here's our list of possibilities so far
- Be Our Guest (pre park breakfast this worked really well on our trip but I know that they changed the Welcome Show so it might not work out the same)
- O'Hana - We did breakfast last time and really enjoyed it. I'd like to do dinner but not sure if my kids will like it.
- 1900 - leaning towards breakfast because of the characters
- Garden Grill breakfast
- Crystal Palace breakfast
- Yak & Yeti this is contingent on what is happening with Rivers of Lights or Pandora. If there's a dining package for ROL then I'd try to book something for that. Also Pandora might have some cool offerings.
- San Angel Inn
- Whispering Canyon dinner
- Via Napoli this is my dh's must-do. He's pizza obsessed.

Not sure about Hollywood Studios. We did Sci-Fi last time which was one of our favorite meals because of the ambiance and the kids ate so nicely there but we are trying not to do too many of the same ADRs. I also canceled Beaches and Cream last time because it just didn't fit in to our plans and I'd like to include it this time if we can.