Oh No Christmas Crowds and 13.1 miles!

[chocted]

Here goes my Trip Report of our 2nd Visit to WDW For our first trip in February 2011 I did write a Trip Report but elsewhere ;-) but this is a part of what I wrote towards the end of it

“We finally got home at around 4pm after a couple of stops.
We were really tired and the children went to bed early and DH and I sat on the sofa reliving the great time we had had. But would we ever be able to afford to go back?
We turned on the laptop and went onto the Virgin holidays website and by 9pm we had priced up a return trip for feb 2012 but it was a bit too soon, no point going back and struggling with money, so unfortunately agreed it would have to be probably 2014!!!”

So how come less than a year later I am starting a Trip Report about our 2nd WDW visit??

Well after returning we set a return date of Feb 2014 it worked out to be about 1020 days till our return to Disney – talk about depressing!!

Anyway we decided to save like mad and by a stroke of luck I got a job in March, I just happened to see it advertised, applied along with 30 others, 6 of us got interviews, and yippee I got it. It was only for one day a week but I haven’t had a paid job since summer 2005 so we would save it all, within two weeks of being there someone went on sick leave for 3 months – I was asked would I like to do 3 days a week for that time – Of course I would, more pennies for the Disney Fund. Well eventually I was offered 2 days permanently and because of the way DH’s holidays worked out and the fact I got between Christmas and New Year off, it began to look interesting. We had been looking at what trips would cost at Christmas time for future reference and were surprised they weren’t as expensive as we thought. We began to think this may be a possibility, looking ahead to 2014 it was looking less likely that it would be possible due to the oldest’s exams etc and with saving all my wages we could possibly….dare I hope? I asked friends on facebook what they thought?

“I need your help. We may have the opportunity to return to WDW sooner than feb 2014. Yippee but decisions decisions the two options are 25th dec 2011 - 10th Jan 2012 (16 days) or 1st Feb to 15th Feb (14 days) Believe it or not the dec one is cheaper!! and longer as well but I am a bit worried - would love to go over christmas with all the lights etc but how busy is it ?- get in early leave at lunch and go back in eve?? The feb one means it is similar to when we went this year - before Presidents week - quiet no waits - would this be a better option?
Cold won't bother us also the temptation of running in the half marathon or 5km if training doesn't go to plan!! is a bit of a pull. Daughters would miss 6 days school with either option but christmas dates give us two days longer to do everything - we are hoping to spend 2 days in each of IOA and Universal Orlando so more time at disney. Can those of you that have been at Christmas time or know a bit about it help at all. I can't believe we could be thinking about ADR's before too long. If we miss this opportunity because of exams etc it will be 2015 before we could get back :-(( ”

Well you can’t believe the joy as I posted this on facebook on June 15th.

“IT'S OFFICIAL MY COUNTDOWN HAS CHANGED OVERNIGHT FROM 964 TO 196. YIPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEE - Not that i'm excited or anything but in case you're interested we are going back to Disney 26th Dec to 10th Jan :-) Hubby couldn't get February off so the decision was made for us. Had to play with the dates as original quote went up £500 overnight so we had to knock 1 day off but still got 15 days :-))))) Staying in Windsor Palms Resort But panic ADR's open in 16 days and no idea where we are going when. Has anyone see the candlenight processional - Is it worth booking a TS that gives us priority seating for it and then Illuminations. I can't believe it, still in shock at the thought of our return. I see Thadine is going to be there at the same time, will have to look at for other names I recognise.”


So Disney at Christmas – this was going to take some planning our last trip was during the quietest time of the year and all of a sudden we were heading into the busiest time of year territory.

I will give you a brief run down of our family (for those that don’t know me).

Me Tracy(41), DH Joe(45), DD Charlotte(13), DD Hannah(10), DS Andrew(6)
Dates 26th Dec 2011 to 10th Jan 2012 15 days
Staying Off site at Windsor Palms
Aiming for recommended days!!!!

Well the next two weeks were so busy as I tried to sort out an itinerary so we could make some ADR’s – these would be essential at Christmas time. Eventually after re-arranging it numerous times we came up with the following itinerary.

26th Dec – Arrive MCO at 4pm Pick up Hire Car head to Walmart before arriving at Villa
27th AK RD ¾ day
28th MK RD Break Return for Castle Lighting
29th HS RD Break Return for Osbourne Lights
30th EP RD Break Return for Storytellers
31st Break Day
1st MK RD ¾ day ADR at Crystal Palace
2nd IOA
3rd Universal
4th MK RD Break Return for MSEP and Wishes
5th EP Late start ADR Biergarten 11am maybe stay for Illuminations
6th Break Day maybe Blizzard Beach
7th EP RD ¾ day
8th HS RD ¾ day
9th IOA RD ¾ day
10th Universal Leave 4pm for MCO Fly home

The only thing that worried me was the first few days of RD’s which were 8am ones and the fact we were returning in the evening – we wanted to see each park in the dark with all the Christmas things going on. We didn’t intend to stay late, probably 8pm and if the children were tired at least they might sleep during our afternoon break.

Over the summer the idea of the ½ marathon became more than a temptation and after a good race in August I had a time that would put me in a good corral for the start of the race. The running club I belong to helped me get together a training plan and despite a few hiccups in my training in the October I registered for the Donald Duck ½ marathon. Training here wasn’t too bad but how would I get on running in the Florida heat, although the peeps down in the running forum said I couldn’t count on it being hot as it was freezing in 2010. Anything would be warmer than the weather here.

So as well as sorting out touring plans I now had a training plan to fit in I had never run further than 6.3 miles(10K) in my life I only had to run twice that distance ….!!!!!!!......unfortunately the race in August caused very sore shins and was advised not to run for two weeks – great start to my training. After resting I slowly started back and everything was fine… for a while…

Anyway how would our itinerary work with the ½ marathon scheduled for the 7th January? It starts in Epcot and since we had Epcot down for that day I didn’t see the need to change it. But how would I fit in a few training runs once I was out there? Not easy but I would need to acclimatise. At least my longest run of 12 miles was scheduled for 18th December so it would only be runs of 3-6 miles max.

So down to the nitty gritty of touring plans, After all the help I received last time from Christine – she really knows what she is talking about when it comes to touring plans I felt confident that we could put something together to keep ahead of the crowds. I lost track how many times those plans were tweaked but at last we had the Disney ones finished except AK – as we were only doing one day there we wanted to see Lion King, Nemo and Flights of Wonder!!
But the times kept changing and the show times wouldn’t come out till early Sunday morning our time on the 25th Dec – the day we drove down to the airport!! I wasn’t laminating it until I knew the times as it was suspected that as it was an 8am opening this might mean shows started later than normal- couldn’t figure that one out!!
Then came the Universal and IOA touring plans – these were more difficult but I discovered a great resource in Orlando Informer. We intended to drive up to IOA/Universal from the villa and not buy the equivalent of Disney Fastpasses (most rides have a separate line for those that have Front of Line Passes- you get these if you stay onsite) But the more I looked into it the more it worried me. If you stay onsite you get an extra hour in Wizarding World of Harry Potter from 8-9am So by the time we get there at 9am it would be busy although the crowd calendars put 2/3 Jan at Moderate as opposed to Very Busy or Busy. It was quite expensive to buy the passes about $35 each for 1 park Ouch and they only allowed one use at each ride and Forbidden Journey doesn’t have a FOTL pass line. Out of curiosity I looked at the Universal website and priced up a room at the Royal Pacific Resort, with our AAA discount it was reasonable so I rang them and booked one night(2nd Jan) which gave us 2 days of unlimited FOTL passes. We decided when we went back on 9/10th we wouldn’t buy the passes but realised it might mean queuing a bit more than we were used to. These days were going to be Slow on the crowd calendar so we weren’t too worried.

We decided we would check in early and head to Universal on the 2nd stay overnight and use early entry to IOA on the 3rd. So with Dan’s help we had a touring plan for each of our first two days, but the best piece of info he gave us was that most of IOA’s attractions are outside and Universal’s inside. We didn’t realise how important that piece of info would be.

[jillyb]

I'm in!

[kbmoore]

Me too!

[jilly7896]

Looking forward to hearing more...

[evansmom]

Yah for trip reports!!!!!

[Ferg]

Ready for the rest!

[chocted]

Typical thought I'd spend yesterady and today really getting trip report done and I have the youngest off school ill, so nothing done or likely to

Yippee a couple of hours and voila next instalment below

[chocted]

I’d forgot to say that last time although we booked over a year in advance the children didn’t find out until 40 days out on Christmas Day 2010 so they had no input into the touring plans. This time we decided to tell them a lot earlier in the process so we could ask them what Universal and IOA rides they would go on, I thought there is no point doing a touring plan for them to say ‘We don’t want to go on that!’

But how to tell them! Luckily Thadine organised within the December Vacation Club I joined on another site something called Pixie Pals. My children were allocated a child each to send a present to in September, October and November and they also had someone sending them a present each month. This turned out to be the perfect way for them to find out about they return trip. So on Monday September 5th Andrew received his first Pixie Pal present a lovely Toystory balloon with a note attached informing him of his return to Disney (He still has it in his bedroom). Because it was close to his birthday the girls just thought it was an early birthday present and watched him open it, but because he is still learning to read he struggled so Charlotte took it and read it out loud. The look of disbelief when she read that we were going back to Disney it was great, the pictures are a bit blurry because Andrew just wouldn’t stand still for any length of time but you can see the obvious delight in their faces, they loved receiving and sending the gifts each month.










They enjoyed helping with the touring plans but we never told them that we had booked into a Universal Hotel for the night, we saved that surprise for the actual day we checked into RPR. Sneaky is my middle name!!

So the time started to fly past, and my training was going reasonable well, although I doubted my abilities to run long distances.

Then disaster struck.

On Tuesday 8th November (that date is etched on my brain) 8 ½ weeks before I was due to run the Donald ½ marathon I badly twisted my ankle on a manhole cover that was set lower in the pavement. 4 hours in A&E (ER) in severe pain confirmed my worse fears, although not broken (thank goodness as that would have meant no trip to Florida at all) it was damaged enough to put the whole run in doubt. I was told to rest and not run for two weeks, and that it would take 3-4 weeks to heal. But I didn’t have 4 weeks!
Luckily I have a brilliant sports therapist who had helped me and I know I would not have continued running after the summer shin episode if it wasn’t for her.
So after sitting around with my ankle raised the swelling started to go down after a week, and two weeks to the day since I took a tumble I gingerly put on my running shoes and ran 1.6 miles. Ankle was stiff next day but I survived Trouble was I felt so unfit and didn’t trust my ankle.

My revised 6 week training plan had me increasing my long runs at the weekend by 2 miles a week instead on the usual 1 mile meaning what should have been my final long run on 18th December of 12 miles turned out to be a 10 mile local race in the cold and snow with another longer run planned for the 23rd December. I really wondered whether my ankle and every other part of my body would survive 10 miles than another long run 5 days later.
Well I survived and actually did 13 miles on the 23rd and actually believed I could do it. I felt great a bit stiff but I was grinning from ear to ear when I finished.

Christmas was a bit strange and because we were heading to the airport Christmas Day and the race scheduled for the 18th we decided to have the inlaws round for ‘Christmas lunch’ two weeks before Christmas.

So with everything finally looking up we packed everything from swimming costumes to thermals, making sure I had my running gear in the hand luggage (I was not having them going astray in my checked in luggage). We went round my sisters for Christmas lunch and left straight afterwards to head to the airport. Note to self, driving down to the airport Christmas Day is brilliant – no traffic – in fact we only ever saw 10 cars at anyone time and that was looking at both sides of the road!!
I mean what idiots would be out driving 150 miles on Christmas Day?

So we made it down to Gatwick Airport in record time and checked in our luggage in the nearly deserted airport before going to a nearby hotel for the night.

Monday December 26th – Departure Day
We had breakfast in the hotel and dropped the car off at the longstay carpark, catching the bus to the terminal – easy and not stressful, the airport was quite busy but we only had to go through security so were at the departure gate very quickly.

Within minutes the plane started loading and before we knew it we were sitting on the plane. After a short delay of 5 minutes we left a cold cloudy England for sunny Florida.

We were travelling on one of Virgin’s new airbuses – very nice but because of the jet stream instead of the usual 9½ hour flight we ended up flying for 10½ hours. I managed to watch Harry Potter and 2 other films. Turbulence was quite bad at one point they suspended serving lunch and even had the crew strapped in (luckily we got our lunch before)
We arrived at MCO finally at 4pm local time, we sailed through immigration quickly, we had reserved seats as far forward as we could on the plane so we were off the plane quickly, such a satisfaction to look back at the immigration queue with over 300 people in it and only 10 immigration points open.

We had our luggage and hire car and hit the road at 5pm. Not bad going, we stopped off at Walmart to do a big shop, picked up our villa keys and headed for Windsor Palms. Unpacked and all in bed by 9pm (which was 2am English time so we had nearly been up 24 hours) Would the jet lag work in our favour to get to AK the next morning for RD?

[Ferg]

I want to hear! Did you make it to AK for RD?!?!?

[chocted]

Tuesday December 27th Animal Kingdom RD ¾ day

Well we didn’t wake up as early as I expected due to the jetlag but still in plenty of time to make RD at 8am. We took the Sherbeth Road shortcut and arrived at the carpark within minutes. We had to exchange our vouchers for tickets at the ticket booth but it was 7.45 so hoped we would get that done to get to the turnstiles in time.

The CM was so sweet Hannah mentioned she hoped she would get a Pluto on her park ticket and I said she couldn’t choose and she would get what she was given but the CM smiled and said ‘I can’t see why not’ Hannah was delighted and said I ought to get Donald since I was running the Donald ½ marathon, the rest of the family proceeded to say what they think they should have and I just laughed. Well we signed the back of the tickets and I handed them out to everyone who looked at the front of them not only had Hannah got Pluto everyone had the character they had mentioned. I love CM’s who quietly sow pixie dust.

At this point it was 7.55 a few minutes to RD so we quickly headed over to the turnstiles to find they were already open, this seemed to be a trend that would continue all week!

Once through the turnstiles Joe gathered up the tickets as he was to be the FPV for K. Safari, whilst I took the children to Expedition Everest. On the walk over to EE I noticed they were distributing F/P’s for Lion King and Nemo so decided to pop back later on once I had the tickets back from Joe. EE was a walk on and we got to ride it twice, I felt fine on it this time as I knew what to expect.

Joe was waiting for us as we exited the 2nd time and we headed over to Dinoland. The girls were already looking for CM’s with pins they were hunting for the silhouette ones they were missing from their collection. A hunt that would continue till the very last moment of our holiday. Whilst Joe, Hannah and Andrew rode Tricerotops Spin I headed over to get a set of F/P’s for Lion King 10.30 show, they were being distributed at the entrance to ITTBAB and were not linked – good job when I enquired it was just for the first show only so didn’t get Nemo ones. I headed back to Dinoland to meet the others.

No one wanted to ride Primevil Whirl so we walked over to Dinosaur and Charlotte promised to keep her eyes open this trip.
This ride too was a walk on.
We exited the ride and headed back to EE to get a set of F/P’s at this point it was 9am Not a bad start to the morning.

Joe, Andrew and Charlotte headed for Kali River Rapids(a walk on) with Ponchos on. Hannah and I decided not to, I hate getting cold and wet and although it didn’t seem cold I just didn’t fancy it. Good job we didn’t ride it as if we had of done we would have missed Gayl. We were walking towards the ride exit to meet the others and all of a sudden someone says ‘Tracy’ The first thought that came into my mind was ‘How does she know my name?’ Then I realised I recognised her from the photos online. If Gayle hadn’t of said hello I would have walked straight past her and her family, I am not very good at noticing people!! It was great to actually meet someone who I had been talking to online about our holiday plans. They had just done Kali 3 times in a row! We headed off after our brief encounter to meet the others who decided to go round for a second go so Hannah and I waited on the bridge to soak them as they came back round, wicked aren’t I
Well if you are on a water ride you expect to get wet!
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Charlotte was a bit wet!

I convinced Hannah to come into ITTBAB – she doesn’t like the spiders, I love that show we arrived just before they opened the doors so great timing.

Afterwards we headed over to Camp Mickey, it was now 9.55 and we had F/P’s for the 10.30 show. It was quite busy down there and the queues for the characters were too long to fit in, the children said they weren’t bothered as they had seen them all in February anyway so we took some photos near the Christmas trees.
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The F/P queue for Lion King was growing so we decided to join it and within a few minutes we were let in. We were in the elephant section, a quick snack whilst we were waiting for the show to start recharged our batteries. After the show we decided not to join any Character queues but headed back over to Flights of Wonder for the 11.30 show, we didn’t see this show last time and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The crowds along the paths were quite thick but didn’t worry us, we found this day quite relaxing probably because we spent most of it sat down in shows!
After FOW we made our way back to EE to use our F/P’s. The standby queue was 50 mins but with the F/P it was almost a walk on.
It was now about 12.20 so we walked over to line up for the 1pm Nemo, eating in the queue. We got a brilliant seat just where the actors run in front of you during the show, and enjoyed the rest.

As we exited the show it was starting to spit with rain not a lot but as we headed over to the Safari it was definitely getting heavier, luckily we made it to the queuing area as the heavens opened and it poured the whole time we queued, this was the longest ride queue we had had all day, although we were pleased to be in the dry. By the time we got off the Safari truck at 2.15 it was only spitting again and stopped not long after. Good timing on our part. The girls spent the next hour pin hunting, and Andrew who had a lanyard with trading pins for the first time was enjoying looking for pins as well. We found by 3.15 we were near Island Mercantile so decided to stand there to watch the Parade, we got a brilliant spot by the rope and the girls joined us just before it started.
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[chocted]

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The sun had come out again by now and it was quite warm, we headed out of the park after the parade and got some photos in front of the Christmas tree before heading off for dinner.


So our first and last day at AK was a great success, let’s hope the rest of the holiday lives up to this and we cope with the Christmas crowds.

[chocted]

Whoops didn't mean to attach that last photo and now can't get rid of it It should have been these ones in front of the tree

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[evansmom]

love the pictures! Have never been during Christmas...love to see what it looks like!

[jennstew]

I am enjoying your trip report and pictures. We are heading to WDW Dec 23 to Jan 2 this year so I am looking forward to reading about what worked for you and what didn't.

Jenn

[featherface]

I'm usually more of a stalker than a poster, but we've never been at Christmas time and I've always wanted too, so I just wanted to say "I'm really enjoying your report"

[chocted]

Thanks for reading and your comments this is the main reason I am writing this trip report - to help others who are going at that time of year or thinking about it, we were really worried about it being busy as the last time we went was February and almost every ride was a walk on. Even though we didn't always go to Josh's most recommended park each day because it didn't quite fit in with the overall holiday, we never went to a park that he expressly said 'don't go to' - well maybe just once ..... you'll have to wait and see how we got on Hope to get next instalment done tomorrow.

[chocted]

We got back to the condo after dinner and we reviewed the day – not bad considering – we had managed to fit in all 3 shows that we had wanted to see, I had printed off the show times just before heading to my sisters so I put together the touring plan on the airplane! and it had worked Phew. I put on my running shoes and headed out for a 3 mile run. The humidity and heat even at 8.30 at night was awful I returned to the condo dripping with sweat and I wasn’t even pushing my pace – how on earth would I manage to do 13.1 miles.

An early night was in order as we were heading to MK tomorrow and wanted to make sure we were there early – RD was 8am

Wednesday December 28th Magic Kingdom RD Break Return in evening

We were up and out early and saw a beautiful sunrise on our quick drive up World Drive, we found we were parking at the TTC at 7.15 am. Boy it was busy already, then we discovered why – they were actually holding everyone who wasn’t entitled to do the EMH at the TTC. We joined a rather long queue and waited for them to allow us to head for the monorails.

Not sure what time they released us to go towards the monorail but the queue quickly filled the ramp and snaked round the rope overflow queuing system, the girls moaned ‘It will take us forever to get on the monorail’ I smiled and said ‘Follow me’ cutting across the huge queues, ‘Mum were are you going?’ as we headed towards the Ferry which also had a long queue. I turned to them and said ‘This way’ and pointed to the resort monorail which had no queue whatsoever, they looked at me and I said ‘The resort monorail’s 2nd stop is MK come on we will beat all of them there’ A passing CM smiled and said ‘Good Call!’

We headed on the resort monorail and arrived before the ferry so the crowds weren’t too bad. We got through bag check and it was now just before 8am. No opening show we were just able to go straight through the turnstiles and into MK. It was a lovely morning blue sky and warming up nicely.
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We took some photos on Main Street on the way in and then as FPV I headed off to Space Mountain the queue to go in Space quickly grew but the F/P queue was very short and I soon met the others outside Buzz. We knew today we would have to stay ahead of the crowds and maximise our F/P opportunities.
We rode Buzz twice as a walk on, we could probably have done it a third time but wanted to move on, Andrew wanted to do Indy Speedway but the queue there was already too long for our liking (15 mins) and only 1 lane open – we promised him we would do it another day. We headed into Fantasyland and rode Pooh which had less than a 10 min wait then bypassed Snow White whose queue had grown too long.
It’s a small world had a 15 min queue wait time but we found that it wasn’t that long.

[chocted]

Heading over to Frontierland at 9am
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we picked up F/P’s for Splash(for us girls) and BTMRR (for the boys) then rode BTMRR just the once as a walk on. Normally we manage to do it twice but the queue grew too quickly It was definitely busier than February!
On finding Pirates was down due to Technical problems! We decided to visit the Tiki Room having not done it last time we were in Disney, a very short wait and the children enjoyed it and kept singing the annoying song for the rest of the day. Pirates was still down so whilst I took the children up the Swiss family treehouse Joe went over to Space to pick up another set of F/P’s for later. He couldn’t believe the queue for the F/P’s was 20 mins long!!!!
Buzz at 11.30am had a standby queue of 90 mins. We decided since we were going to see the parade at 12.30 we would fill the time till then by going on the Carousel of Progress (my children absolutely love this- another annoying song though!) Guess what it broke down and we had to listen to the first proper set twice, the children loved it.

We headed back to Main Street and at midday found a kerb space just outside Main Street Bakery and waited for the Christmas Parade. It was brilliant and the pictures don’t do it justice.SAM2587.jpgSAM2590.jpgSAM2591.jpg

[chocted]

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We left immediately afterwards and stopped for lunch on the way back to the condo.

Looking at the parade photos you can see Main street was packed but we didn’t actually feel the crowds impacted our touring, yes it was busy but with our touring plan we coped and apart from Pirates did everything we had wanted to do and more and we later found out that when we left the park at 1pm all parks except Epcot had been closed due to the crowds!!

After a welcomed break in which everyone had a nap we returned to MK for 5.30pm and a beautiful sunset.
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[chocted]

We had photo’s taken in front of the castle and watched the castle lighting show – magical I love Main street when it is all lit up and this was even better with all the Christmas decorations up.
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After the show we went over to Space Mountain to use our F/P’s. The standby queue was 160 mins but with the F/P’s we rode it twice in an hour. As we entered with our first set of F/P’s the CM looked twice at our F/P time and commented ‘wow you’ve been here a long time’ The time on it was 8.50am.

As we were in Tomorrowland we watched the 7.30 Tomorrowland Show, Andrew loved it. We originally had decided to leave around this time and watch MSEP and Wishes another night, but everyone really wanted to see the Holiday Wishes so we came to an agreement we would watch Holiday Wishes from the TTC – hopefully meaning we would get home earlier than if we watched it in the park. So we watched MSEP opposite Casey’s corner. It wasn’t the best place but as we wanted to leave immediately after it we decided not to go all the way over to Frontierland. The view was ok but as we had seen it before and we had scheduled it on another night that was ok. To exit the park they were allowing us to exit behind Main Street on the tomorrowland side – nice to see behind the scene and quieter than trying to negotiate Main Street.

We got on the Ferry and got back to the TTC a few minutes before Holiday Wishes started. We watched it from alongside the water and didn’t realise the music is piped through so you can hear it. Magical just doesn’t describe it, the fireworks looked so big compared to the castle and I am glad we saw it here, no crowds and a perfect view. A perfect ending to the perfect day.

Unfortunately the drive home was not so perfect, despite thinking we would beat the crowds out of MK it took 50 mins from TTC to condo. It was slow getting off World Drive and onto the 192, the children fell asleep in the back, we finally got home at about 11.30pm Ouch we were due to do a 8am RD at Hollywood Studios and Charlotte was looking forward to seeing her Pixie Pal McKenzie.

As I typed up this report I realised we didn’t use the BTMRR/Splash F/P’s I think we probably decided we didn’t want to get wet and probably gave them all away

So did we even get up before 8am ?????

[roball]

I am enjoying your report. Great call on the resort monorail.

[evansmom]

okay...so did you make it????

and defintely will remember the resort monorail idea!!!! It's something I KNOW but not sure it would register ya know?

[RebeccaMcK]

I just read over on the home page's comments that you'd started a trip report and I thought, hey I remember chocted from TGM so here I am....I'm in for the rest of the report! I haven't been reading any reports other than my own (October trip, finished - link is in my signature, can't remember if you were one of my readers there or not. Not going back until 2014). I'll tell Amanda and Michaela (two more Brits from TGM and now here) that you have a report going so they can come read it, too. You are my age (I turned 41 in November) and my daughter is your son's age...she'll be 7 in late May. Looks like you had a great trip so far....hope the half marathon worked out okay with your bad ankle and all. Looking forward to more.

[chocted]

Hi Rebecca, don't think I have seen your trip report as I remember you saying in my Feb 2011 trip report that you weren't going back to WDW till fantasyland was done, we had the same idea!! didn't work out that way though which I am glad about, I see amanda is heading back in the summer. When I have 5 mins I will read it. I am still over 'there' but only for the 'running thread' in the forums I am totally converted to Josh, and trust his recommended days and I even found myself taking photos of the queue lines - It became a standing joke with the family, will insert them as I go on with the trip report, off work ill at the moment so haven't got the energy to write, hopefully next week.

[RebeccaMcK]

Hi again,
My report is over here, it's the link in my signature that says "Trip Report Complete" - I'm not at TGM at all now, not since deactivating my account and coming here instead. This site is kept much more up to date and the people are nicer. Amanda has a trip report over on The Dibb site (so does Michala, but hers seems to have stalled and she was at WDW in October at the same time as me). It's true I wasn't going to go back to WDW until all the F-land stuff was done (and that's what I say NOW too, but we'll see), but then my daughter's school starting doing fall breaks in October last year (two days off for parent/teacher conferences and then a full week off) so we did an early teacher conference/meeting and then went and had my mom go meet us there (her first time and my hubby's first time). My report also includes a few days at Disneyland in CA....two days in July about three days apart, and then a day in December (all crowded but manageable times). For the next fall break, as long as we still get one, we'll hopefully head to Disneyland because the Cars Land area in California Adventure park across the way will be done.

Hope you are feeling better soon. I look forward to reading more.