The Good, The Bad & The Ugly - VWL & SSR Dec 19 - 29, no wait make that the 30th

[loribell]

Okay I am going to make an attempt at a trip report. I hope I don't bore you all to tears we our wild adventures.

This trip had been in the plans for years. DD's birthday is Dec 23rd and she had been waiting for her birthday trip. I had been prepping the extended family since Christmas of 04 and reminded them Christmas of 05 that we would not be home for this Christmas. Everyone was told they were more than welcome to come along but we definetly would not be home. I also made many addtional reminders throughout the year that this Christmas would be Ally's birthday trip to her favorite place.

Now I love to plan our trips. Dh even says that I enjoy it more than the trip itself. I don't think so, but I do really enjoy it. I made our day by day reservations in January, made the dining reservations at the 180 day mark. We were all set.

The kids loved SSR when we visited the pool in the summer of 05 so they wanted to at least spend a few days there. I on the other hand insisted on being at my beloved VWL for the actual holiday. DH said we didn't need a big room for the whole time so I booked a lock-off studio for the 19th - 23rd and a 2 bed lock-off for the Christmas Eve & Christmas Night, then added on a studio at SSR for the 26th - 29th. We were also booked for the 16th - 19th at the Royal Pacific resort so we could enjoy a few days at the Universal parks as well.

Then low & behold, I had a conference come up in Orlando in September. There was no way I was going without the kids. I booked rooms at SSR, airfare & took the kids out of school for 3 days. We had a fabulous time and now the kids had there SSR fix but there was no switching the rest of the reservation to VWL, it was too late. And wow, the parks in September were absolutely empty, except for those lovebugs!

November comes around & I still have no airfare. I could never find anything decent for our time frame. All of a sudden it was Thanksgiving & we had decided we were driving, then I checked one more time. Not only decent fares, but great ones (only $178 each) but they wre out of Dallas. Okay, we will drive to Dallas for our non-stop flight to Orlando. We were all set.

Also in November DS 21 breaks things off with his fiance. Now he is going to be home without us or her for Christmas. He wanted to come but was only going to have the 25th off & didn't want to fly down for just 2 days. 10 days before time to leave and he finds out he is going to be off on the 26th too. Now he wants to come. Last minute flights are very expensive, but what is a mother to do? Oh yeah, and all those ADR's are for 4. Nope none of them can be changed, we'll have to take our chances. One other thing he's flying in late on the 22nd and we are in a studio. I'm sure I will make a few people mad, but I couldn't do anything else. He squeezed in until we moved to the 2 bed. If it makes anyone feel better we only had 5 people in the 2 bed so it all evened out in the end!

Thats probably enough for this post. I will continue on in a bit and get down to the trip itself!

Lori

 

[dianeschlicht]

I like your report, but be careful what you admit to on these boards, because some may flame you. I would likely have done the same thing in the same circumstances though. Hope you give us "the rest of the story" soon!

 

[loribell]

Oh, I figured it would upset some, but there was no room @ the inn, anywhere. I will put on the flame proof suit though!

 

[dumbo71]

Oh, I figured it would upset some, but there was no room @ the inn, anywhere. I will put on the flame proof suit though!

No flame suit required at this point. At least you are upfront with it and sounds like circumstances you couldn't control not blatant abuse of DVC policy.

Looking forward to the report.

 

[loribell]

Alright, now we will get to the meat of the trip!

Dec 18 – We get home from work, eat some pizza, load the van and head out for Dallas at about 6:00 pm. After a great, uneventful drive we arrive at our Park & Fly hotel, check in and head to bed. We had an early morning ahead of us, needed to be downstairs to take the shuttle at 4:30.

Dec 19 – Up and at ‘em early. We were downstairs before we needed to be. We waited for about 15 minutes for the shuttle, loaded up and headed for the airport. Tried curbside check in to make it easier. Something wouldn’t work, don’t know what it was but they also had trouble checking us all in in September. DH & I had both flown since with no problem so it must be something with one of the kids. Oh well, we had plenty of time and check in inside was simple, no problems at all there. We’re now through security and find something to eat. We are on our way.

After an uneventful flight we are on the ground in Orlando at 10:00 am. DH & The kids go to get the bags & I go to take care of the rental car. I have the car rented through the 26th, adding on the 27th & 28th wouldn’t have been much more but adding the 29th was doubling the price. I had to take DS back to the airport on the 26th so I just figured it would be easiest to turn it in then. We meet up at the Alamo *********** location and grab our Impala to head out to WDW. Amazing as it was, they only had one lane open to get out of the garage and we were backed up 10 cars deep.

Now we are finally out of the garage and on our way to VWL. We arrive at about 11:30 and our room is ready. I had only requested non-smoking and a lock-off so hopefully we would not have to move out to change to our 2 bed. Well we got non-smoking, on the third floor, at the end of the super long Shining hallway, but not a lock off. We were going to have to move! Oh well, no biggie! We were home!!!!

After lots of time spent convincing DD that it would not be a good idea to go to AK she finally agreed. We went to Roaring Forks, for the first time ever, and had a great mini lunch. Then it was to the room for a quick nap. We had reservations @ the CP for dinner at 4:50 and tickets to MVMCP!

Well there wasn’t much napping done, I think she finally got quiet at about 3:00 so we may have had about an hours nap. That was good enough for us though, we were up and raring to go! We cleaned up and headed for the boat launch, walked up just as it was pulling in. Yippee, we are on our way to see Mickey, no wait, it was Pooh!

What a beautiful boast ride to the MK it was. The tree outside of the CR was absolutely gorgeous! Then there it was, my beloved MK in all of it’s Christmas glory! Up the boat ramp and into the parks to the beautifully decorated park. It was amazing. We grab yet another autograph book for DD and head to the CP to check in. We waited for about 10 minutes & it was dinner time. After some great food & great character interaction we are headed out in to the park.

We headed straight for Splash Mountain, then BTMRR and Pirates. After that it was a trip on Buzz to get just in time for Mickey’s Twas the Night Before Christmas, perfect timing! Next was Space Mountain, a trip on the TTA, way to much spinning on the tea cups, (don’t ever ride with my middle DS), some cookies & cocoa and then a spot for the fireworks, just under the rope Tink flies on. The kids said they were the best they had ever seen, even DD liked them and she never likes fireworks. After that everyone agreed we had done most of what we wanted to do so we headed for a spot on Main Street for the parade. We found a perfect one and sat right in front of the MK Christmas tree to wait for the parade. Dh & the kids went off to look around in the shops for a bit while I held our spots. After a spectacular parade we headed out of the park and hoped on the waiting boat for VWL. That tree at the CR was even more beautiful in the dark!

What a great way to end a great day!

Sorry this is so long. I guess I can be a bit wordy!
Lori

 

[Granny]

Lori...don't worry about being too wordy, I'm enjoying your report! I forgot about the tree in front of CR...it was a big one, wasn't it? Almost as big as the one in MK.

Rest your fingers, and come one back! You still have 10 days to go!

 

[Boston5602]

I'm enjoying it too . Seems like things are working out so far.

 

[loribell]

Okay everyone, here is the next installment:

Dec 20 – Now I knew I was going to have a problem with DD when I made our plans. AK is her favorite park and we were not going there until the 23rd. She wasn’t happy with that and today we were scheduled to be at Epcot which is not one of her favorites, so we decided she & I would go to AK today, DH & DS would sleep in then meet us there a little later and we would head to EPCOT in the afternoon. It never even dawned on me to check to see which park had EMH’s , and you guessed it, AK’s evening EMH was today! You see, we slept in a little too, and the park was getting busier by the minute. We went straight to EE, thought we were in the FP line, but we were in the Standby line which was 50 minutes long! We did wind right around the FP machines and no one was using the closest one to the line so we grabbed some FP’s while we were standing there. I called DH and told him not to bother coming, it was way to busy. We had our ride then headed over to grab some lunch and went back to use our FP.

Tonight was our CP dinner package so we met DH & DS @ EPCOT. We drove over to EPCOT and met them outside of Le Cellier. Wow is all I can say. What a fabulous meal it was. Standby times for everything were incredibly long so we just worked our way around WS, stopping at Moroco and got to see Genie & Aladin. They were having a great time cutting up. From there we went ahead and got in line to wait for the seating to open up for the CP. Neal Patrick Harris was our narrator and he did a great job. DD fell asleep before the chorus had even came in and somehow slept through the whole thing! The rest of us loved it and would love to see it again sometime. DD faked still being asleep and let her daddy carry her almost all of the way out of the park before I realized she was really awake, the little stinker!

Although we moved away from our original plans & didn’t get a lot accomplished it was still a great day. DD got to see her beloved AK and ride her now favorite ride, we had a great meal for the first time ever at Le Cellier, and saw an amazing telling of the story of that wonderful baby! What could be better!

Lori

 

[tkd lisa]

Sounds like a fun time so far! We were at AK that day too, and it was really crowded!

 

[craps7or11]

Sounds like you were having a wonderful time.

 

[DisDaydreamer]

Keep it coming...

 

[jakenjess]

Great report! I'm looking forward to reading more!

 

[BlakeNJ]

Great TR Lori. Can't wait to hear more. Looking forward to you getting to SSR since we just joined DVC and bought our points there.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Okay, so it doesn't look to me like we have heard about the bad and th ugly yet... I'm waiting on the edge of my seat!

 

[kimberh]

I love seeing Disney through others eyes. Keep it coming!!!

 

[mello]

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[loribell]

Thanks for the replies & encouragement everyone. And Diane it really does get a little bad & ugly! You will just have to wait!

Lori

 

[loribell]

Dec 21 – Today is our day for MGM. This is DD’s least favorite park, or at least it was, she just never felt like there was much for her to do here. We have visited so many times she doesn’t really care to see any of the shows anymore and the rides she was willing to do just weren’t her favorites. So we get around early and get to the park almost for opening; I just don’t know how to get them out of bed anymore!

I don’t know why or how but DD decides she is going to ride RNRC!!!! She kinda waffled a little while in line but with some assurance from us she stuck it out. Yep, she loved it! We even did it twice & got FP’s for a ride latter on. She still wants nothing to do with TOT so DS & I ride it alone.

It is already time for lunch so we head back to the restaurant by Star Tours, can’t remember the name now for some reason! After a decent meal, DS & I go to Muppet Vision, she won’t do it either so DD & DH go to the playground, after that we head back to the Stunt Show, which we all, especially DD, loved. Now there is another thing she really likes to do in the park. I must say however that it is really long walk back into that theater!

After the show we head up to find a seat to watch the parade. Yet another great parade viewing spot and a great CM playing with the kids to keep them entertained, he had a net & one of those flying monkey’s and they were taking turns playing catch the monkey.

After the parade we head out, DD wants to get in some swimming & we have dinner @ WCC tonight. Lazy Suzan was our server and she did a fabulous job, my only complaint here is that it takes them so long to bring back extra food for the skillet that by the time it gets there we seldom want it any longer. I guess that is a good thing though, it gives us time to actually realize that we are full after all; we just need to stop ordering a refill for the skillet.

Well, another day down, more to come later!
Lori

 

[DisneyMomOK]

Thanks for the trip report. I love hearing about all the wonderful Christmas celebrations!

Sharon (also from Oklahoma)

 

[loribell]

Hi Sharon. It's great to see another Oklahoman on here!

Lori