I Just Want to See the Dancing Lights Gleam! Nov 2015 TR *COMPLETE* 3/29

khertz

khertz

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 10, 2008
I Just Want to See the Dancing Lights Gleam! A November 2015 TR

I’ve got a dream, I’ve got a dream
I just wanna see the floating lanterns gleam
And with every passing hour, I’m so glad I left my tower!
Like all you lovely folks, I’ve got a dream
​
I usually like to start out my TRs with a quote from a Disney song, but never has it been more accurate than this one! While we didn’t leave our tower to see the floating lanterns gleam, we did take a 26 hour road trip with 2 small children to see the Osborne Lights one last time! I’m getting a little ahead of myself though. Some of you reading this may know who we are, but in case you don’t or you need a little refresher, let’s do some introductions.


I’m khertz, your TR narrator extraordinaire. My most important titles are mom of 2 and wife to my wonderful DH, followed closely by RN at a pediatric oncology infusion clinic, which funds our Disney habit. This was my 14th visit to WDW and I almost didn’t want it to happen! I was more than a little nervous about driving the 13 hours each way for only a short time to spend in the parks. Was it worth it? Well, I’m doing a TR on it, so that should tell you something! My Disney favorites include Rapunzel, Via Napoli, Splash Mountain, Mickey bars, and Rock’n’Roller Coaster.

The main mastermind behind this trip was DH. This short trip was his brainchild, and he did a lot of convincing to make it a reality! He works as an engineer in the oil field to contribute to our vacation funds, as well as being a pretty amazing husband and father to our little ones. He is responsible for most of the photography you will see and enjoy on this TR. He loves Donald Duck, Big Thunder Mountain, Dole Whips, and Haunted Mansion.


Nov 02-041 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

DS is next, and at 5 years old, he is already a seasoned Disney traveler. This marked his 6th trip to WDW and he has 2 Disneyland trips under his belt. He works hard as a Pre-K student and loves to count down to our Disney trips as much as I do. He loves all things Cars, including Lightning McQueen and Mater, It’s a Small World, Test Track, Mickey waffles, and the Speedway.


Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

Rounding out our family is DD, who at only 4 months old was making her second trip to WDW! She doesn’t have any Disney favorites just yet that I can discern, but she does love her Minnie Mouse plush ball that she got for Christmas. She’s a super happy girl who will smile at just about anyone and mostly goes with the flow.

How did this trip come to be? It started when we heard 2015 would be the last year for the Osborne Lights. We have had the opportunity to see them twice before in the past, in 2009 on our first Christmastime trip, and again in 2011 on our first trip with DS when he was a year old. We couldn’t imagine not getting one last visit to say a proper farewell to the lights, and we wanted at least DS to have a chance to experience them when he was old enough to remember.

The only catch was that because of DS being in school and having just taken him out for a week in October, we absolutely had to time our trip when he would be out of school already. Also, I really couldn’t afford to use more vacation time, so it had to be when I was off of work also. So that already forced us into a holiday week. Given the choice between Thanksgiving week and Christmas week, we chose to go with the lesser of two evils and pick Thanksgiving. Usually we fly to Disney, so we looked into that option because it would give us more time since it would be such a short trip. The flights out on Thanksgiving were not too bad but the flights home on Sunday were outrageously expensive. So that kind of forced us into having to drive, which I was not thrilled about with 2 small children. I was still flip flopping almost daily over whether we should do it or not when DH said there was an AP discount available that week and we could get a room at the Caribbean Beach for a decent price. That tipped the scales and the trip was on!

Now for the details before we get into the TR…

WHEN: November 26-29

WHERE: Caribbean Beach Resort

WHAT: 2.5 days in Disney using our Annual Passes recently purchased in October. The primary focus of the trip was to see as much of the Osborne Lights as possible before saying farewell.

So if you're ready for lots of Disney Christmas crammed into just 2 days and captured in lots of photos, let's jump right in!!
 
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Day 1: Thursday November 26th

Our adventure began on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. I had spent the day at work while DH had been home doing our last minute packing and loading the suitcases in the car. Once he had picked up both kids, he swung by to pick me up and we hit the road.

To combat the loss of an hour that we would experience the next day, we had agreed to just set our clocks forward an hour right when we left. That way we could adjust to “Disney Time” as quickly as possible! So although it was only 4:15 our time, we pushed all of our clocks forward and were on the road for 5:15 Disney Time.

The first few minutes on the road weren’t looking too promising. DD had been in the middle of taking a bottle when DH had arrived at daycare to pick her up, but when I tried to give it to her, she was looking at me horrified and screaming! I managed to get her calm within a few minutes and she fell asleep for a while. After driving for a couple of hours, we stopped for gas and dinner at Sonic so I could take her out of her car seat and nurse her in the back of the truck.

Then we got some real driving done after that. Both kids fell asleep (and so did I!) while DH drove us into Florida near the point where the time would change for us anyway. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, and arrived around 1 am. We had a king suite, so DH and I had the bed while DS had the pull out sofa. The benefit of driving was that we had brought DD’s Pack’n’Play so we didn’t have to wait on the hotel to bring us a portable crib. DS had a hard time getting back to sleep after taking that long “nap” in the truck, but eventually he settled down and slept. I was finally able to get DD to sleep and lay down myself around 2 am.

The next morning, we got up around 7 am to take some quick showers and get our stuff repacked for the rest of our drive. We had gotten a huge chunk done the night before, so we were only looking at about 4.5 hours of driving time, plus we stopped somewhere for lunch so I could also feed DD during our stop.


Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr
DS being silly with my neck pillow​


Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr
DD being a little angel!​

Finally, around 2:30 pm, we arrived at our home for the next 3 nights, Caribbean Beach Resort!


Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

We stopped at the front desk to check in and the CM said we had a second floor room in Martinique. I asked if it was possible to get a first floor room, just so that we could bring the stroller in and out as needed since there are no elevators there. It took her a bit of time on the phone, but she was not only able to get us a first floor room, but we were upgraded to a water view preferred room in Trinidad North! While DH finished up our check in from there, I went outside to bell services to pick up the stroller we had rented from Orlando Stroller Rentals.

I’m going to go off on a bit of a stroller tangent, but bear with me. This was our first time renting from Orlando Stroller Rentals, and I would absolutely recommend them to anyone looking to rent a stroller for their trip! In October, we rented from A Baby’s Best Friend because I had used their service on a past trip (for a rocking chair), and while it was perfectly adequate for a rental, it was a bit dirty and worn down. When it came time for this trip, we knew we wanted to rent again, but our dates were not available through ABBF. After looking at a few companies, we ended up with OSR because their strollers all come with a parent console, which we thought would be pretty convenient. The stroller from OSR was in nearly perfect condition! And in addition to having a parent console on the stroller, it came with a free cooler for us to keep . If you are staying at a Disney resort, ABBF cannot leave items with bell services as they are not Disney authorized, so you would have to coordinate times to pick up and drop off rentals with a representative. Since we were staying at HRH and Bonnet Creek in October when we used them, this was a non-issue for us because they picked up and dropped off there without one of us needing to be present. However, staying onsite at Disney it is much more convenient to use a Disney authorized rental company and not have to worry about that. So for our upcoming stay in February, we again went with OSR. Just a little something to consider if you are planning to rent on your trip!

We went back out to the truck to drive over to our building, and DS thought he had found the jungle in the parking lot, so he wanted to go exploring.


Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

Our room was in a fantastic location. We were on the side of the building with the beach on our left and Old Port Royale straight in front of us. And it was very close to the parking lot, so we could get back and forth to the truck quite easily. I will say upfront we didn’t ever use Disney transportation for this trip just because of it being a holiday week and we didn’t want to get stuck in long lines for buses to get back to the resort from the parks.


Nov 01-001 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
​
Where DS is standing is where we put the Pack’n’Play for DD to sleep in. It was the perfect size for the crib and didn’t impede any of the movement around the room for the rest of us.


Nov 01-002 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

DS was very excited to see Mickey on the bar of soap and insisted I take a picture!


Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

Once we had unpacked and I had fed DD, we made our way over to Old Port Royale for something to eat around 4:30 so that we could get to a park after. It was a beautiful walk over there!


Nov 01-003 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-004 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-005 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
Our building


Nov 01-006 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-007 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

We walked past all of the different little counters to see what we might want to eat. DH and DS went for the simple choice of pizza, but I decided to go with the Thanksgiving meal! There was an adult platter for something like $16 and a kids platter for $8 or $9. It seemed like a lot of food, so I went with the kids platter, which ended up being a good choice. The adult portion probably would have been way too much for me! It came with turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, stuffing, cornbread and dessert, a choice of apple pie or pumpkin pie.


Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

While it was nowhere close to what I was missing back home for Thanksgiving, it was actually really good! I’m glad I went with that choice. I ate everything except the sweet potatoes, because those are not my favorite. I could have gotten the platter without them but I thought DS might eat them.

After enjoying our first taste of Disney food, we were ready to put those APs to use and spend the evening at a park! We loaded up in the truck, and I can bet you can guess where we were headed...

UP NEXT: Closer to the Lights
 


I'm here...I'm here! Can't wait to read your TR and see your pics! We were at WDW in December to see the lights too. So sad they are gone.
 
I'm here and enjoying so far! Good for you, making such a long drive with two little ones. Glad things went well. Your Thanksgiving dinner looks tasty. And the room and resort look nice - one of the places we've never stayed. Can't wait for you to get into the park!
 


saintstickets said:
I'm here...I'm here! Can't wait to read your TR and see your pics! We were at WDW in December to see the lights too. So sad they are gone.
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Yay, so glad to have you here! I am so deeply depressed that the O Lights are gone forever. Every time we watched them on this trip, I thought to myself, "How can they possibly be getting rid of this?!"

Dugette said:
I'm here and enjoying so far! Good for you, making such a long drive with two little ones. Glad things went well. Your Thanksgiving dinner looks tasty. And the room and resort look nice - one of the places we've never stayed. Can't wait for you to get into the park!
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Yay, welcome! I was not a fan of the idea of the long drive in the slightest, but it really was not nearly as bad as I thought it would have been.

CBR isn't somewhere I had ever been interested in staying, but it was the only thing available in our price range. We ended up really enjoying it!

cindianne320 said:
Excited to hear about your trip! Glad the drive went smoothly!
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Thanks for joining in!
 
Joining in - glad you decided to go in the end and that it seems like things have worked out

We've never gone in the Holiday season so never saw the lights live, but I know how much love they get and am glad you got to say goodbye properly

Your room looks great (and big!) and I love the double slider doors on the bathroom

That looks like a ton of food for a kids portion! great value!
 
Here! Sounds this will be a short but sweet (bittersweet) TR. We last saw the lights Dec. 2014 and I'm so sad we couldn't get there this year. Your DS is looking so grown up and DD is absolutely adorable!
 
I'm here! I'm all for quick trips to see the lights - our post Thanksgiving trip was 3 park days!

Great luck with the upgrade at CBR! And your Thanksgiving dinner does sound really good!
 
I'm here!!

Glad the drive down went smooth!

Love the resort pics, so pretty.

Wow that's a lot of food! Glad you were able to have a Thanksgiving meal :)
 
khertz said:
She’s a super happy girl who will smile at just about anyone and mostly goes with the flow.
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Well, there you go! Nothing to worry about... :rolleyes1

khertz said:
I was still flip flopping almost daily over whether we should do it or not when DH said there was an AP discount available that week and we could get a room at the Caribbean Beach for a decent price. That tipped the scales and the trip was on!
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It makes sense. It is your duty as an AP holder to use those things as much as possible. And if they're even going to give you a discounted room, you can't turn that down.

khertz said:
The benefit of driving was that we had brought DD’s Pack’n’Play so we didn’t have to wait on the hotel to bring us a portable crib.
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This is why I always like to drive. It's just a lot easier to load up all the crap that the kids need and not have to worry about it when we get there.

khertz said:
The next morning, we got up around 7 am to take some quick showers and get our stuff repacked for the rest of our drive.
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Short night... :faint:

But I'm sure the call of Disney was strong enough at this point to get you all awake and ready to go!

khertz said:
We were on the side of the building with the beach on our left and Old Port Royale straight in front of us. And it was very close to the parking lot, so we could get back and forth to the truck quite easily. I will say upfront we didn’t ever use Disney transportation for this trip just because of it being a holiday week and we didn’t want to get stuck in long lines for buses to get back to the resort from the parks.
Click to expand...
It really makes more sense to just drive. Especially so that you don't have to juggle 2 kids and a stroller on the bus.

khertz said:
While it was nowhere close to what I was missing back home for Thanksgiving, it was actually really good! I’m glad I went with that choice. I ate everything except the sweet potatoes, because those are not my favorite. I could have gotten the platter without them but I thought DS might eat them.
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It doesn't look like a bad meal at all! It's nice to see that they actually do something like this at the food courts for Thanksgiving.
 
joining in! Love the idea of just driving to WDW for a few days, I am jealous you can do that ;)
Great start so far!

Emma xx
 
I'll admit, I'm pretty bad at commenting here lately, but I've been keeping up with all your reports and am joining in for this one, as well! I cannot wait to see your pictures of the lights!
 
I'm here! Excited to read about your time during Thanksgiving. With Maya's birthday right before then I can see some November trips in our future! So awesome you got to see the lights for the last time. Your CBR room looks wonderful!
 
TheMaxRebo said:
Joining in - glad you decided to go in the end and that it seems like things have worked out

We've never gone in the Holiday season so never saw the lights live, but I know how much love they get and am glad you got to say goodbye properly

Your room looks great (and big!) and I love the double slider doors on the bathroom

That looks like a ton of food for a kids portion! great value!
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Yay, so happy to have you here!! DH definitely knows what he's doing in convincing me to take these trips...for the second time (first being Disneyland Paris) I found myself looking at him and saying, "Thank you for making me do this!"

The room was great, and YES, those doors were perfect! The last time we had stayed in a mod was POFQ and there was just a curtain to separate the sleeping area from the bathroom/vanity area. Which was fine at the time because it was just the two of us but the doors are so much better when you're trying to get yourself ready for bed while the kiddos are sleeping.

It was a great choice! I was so full after, and couldn't even finish the dessert, so the adult portion probably would have been way too much!

rdkeim said:
Here! Sounds this will be a short but sweet (bittersweet) TR. We last saw the lights Dec. 2014 and I'm so sad we couldn't get there this year. Your DS is looking so grown up and DD is absolutely adorable!
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Yay, welcome back!!

Yes, it was a short & bittersweet trip, so I'm sure the TR will follow suit. So sad to say farewell to the lights!!

Thank you so much!!

hokieinpa said:
I'm here! I'm all for quick trips to see the lights - our post Thanksgiving trip was 3 park days!

Great luck with the upgrade at CBR! And your Thanksgiving dinner does sound really good!
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Welcome!!!

Too bad we couldn't meet up that Saturday, but still so great y'all were able to squeeze in a quick Christmas trip too! A few days at Disney is better than no days at Disney, am I right??

It was just the cherry on top of the AP discount getting the room upgrade. It was a perfect location!

It was a good meal, and a decent consolation for missing Thanksgiving dinner back home. lol

missangelalexis said:
I'm here!!

Glad the drive down went smooth!

Love the resort pics, so pretty.

Wow that's a lot of food! Glad you were able to have a Thanksgiving meal :)
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Yay, glad to see you!

I was so relieved that the kids did so well on the drive. I had stressed about it for so long leading up to departure day, and it really went just fine all things considered!

It was our first time at CBR, and I was impressed! Beautiful grounds.

It was definitely a lot for a kids meal! Worked out perfectly because I didn't really want to spend $15 on a plate of food at a quick service either!!!
 
afwdwfan said:
It makes sense. It is your duty as an AP holder to use those things as much as possible. And if they're even going to give you a discounted room, you can't turn that down.
Click to expand...

Exactly! I took the room discount as a push in the direction of going, and I'm so glad we did.

afwdwfan said:
This is why I always like to drive. It's just a lot easier to load up all the crap that the kids need and not have to worry about it when we get there
Click to expand...

YESSSSSSS. Didn't have to worry about how many bags, what went into each bag as a checked vs. carry on, etc. It was much less stressful to pack for a road trip compared to flying!

afwdwfan said:
Short night... :faint:

But I'm sure the call of Disney was strong enough at this point to get you all awake and ready to go!
Click to expand...

Sooooo short. We were all pretty tired but at least 3 of us could nap in the backseat. :rolleyes1

afwdwfan said:
It really makes more sense to just drive. Especially so that you don't have to juggle 2 kids and a stroller on the bus.
Click to expand...

Yeah, even this last trip at AKV not during a packed holiday week, we chose to drive almost every time. It's just easier with the stroller especially. I was just cringing at the thought of the lines for the bus at the end of the night too!!

afwdwfan said:
It doesn't look like a bad meal at all! It's nice to see that they actually do something like this at the food courts for Thanksgiving.
Click to expand...

For a food court Thanksgiving dinner, it was very good! I liked that they had that option available. It hadn't even occurred to me that they might.

disneybarbie said:
joining in! Love the idea of just driving to WDW for a few days, I am jealous you can do that ;)
Great start so far!

Emma xx
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Welcome, Emma!! Happy to see you!!

Although the drive can get long, it is definitely nice that we have that option available. You can road trip it over most of Europe, though, so I'm pretty envious of that myself!!

amazingact21 said:
I'll admit, I'm pretty bad at commenting here lately, but I've been keeping up with all your reports and am joining in for this one, as well! I cannot wait to see your pictures of the lights!
Click to expand...

I mean, you just have a new baby and a move to Germany looming, you can't possibly be too busy to keep up with the DIS! ;) No worries, of course, I've been getting woefully behind myself. Luckily, I had some time to catch up this past weekend while the boys went to New Orleans for the night to see Monster Jam at the Superdome!

Welcome aboard!

Imagineer5 said:
I'm here! Excited to read about your time during Thanksgiving. With Maya's birthday right before then I can see some November trips in our future! So awesome you got to see the lights for the last time. Your CBR room looks wonderful!
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Welcome back to the DIS!! Still so bummed we missed seeing you in WDW a couple weeks ago, but hopefully it's not the last time we overlap.

So thankful we had the opportunity to see the lights one last time! We were so sad to see them go.
 
Day 1 Continued: Thursday November 26th

After dinner, we left to go to DHS for the evening. We had no problems getting into the parking lot and were at the turnstiles at 5:45 pm. It took longer to get through bag check, of course, but not bad for Thanksgiving. We were at the side entrance where there is only one table with 2 security guards checking (usually there is only 1 in our experience during other times of the year), so that didn’t make things go any faster. But still, not bad.
​

We had FP+ set for Toy Story Mania, but we were still a few minutes early to go for that. So we headed in that direction anyway, and stopped for some truly terrible Photopass photos. They all came out really blurry, and this was the only halfway useable one.
​
I had remembered seeing on Facebook that the Sorcerer Mickey meet is kind of out of the way now, and usually doesn’t post a long wait. So that’s where we went to kill some time until we could use our FP+. We had to wait outside for less than 10 minutes, then moved inside to meet Mickey!
​

Nov 01-013 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
DD taken by surprise in line! Lol
​
Soon enough, it was our turn!
​

Nov 01-014 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

DS was just a little excited…
​

And a few Photopass versions.
​
After a great meet with Mickey, we were ready to go use our TSM FP+. While I’m not a huge fan of FP+ in general and still prefer the old system, I can’t deny that it’s nice to be able to get a FP for Toy Story without having to be there at rope drop so we could actually ride despite not getting to the park until the evening without waiting forever.
​

Nov 01-021 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-022 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-023 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-024 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
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DS was ready for some rootin’ tootin’ shootin’!
​

Nov 01-025 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-026 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
​
DD & I were ready to take on the boys!
​

Nov 01-027 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-028 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

There’s DH’s and DS’s scores. I can only assume that since there is no photographic proof of my score, I must have wiped the floor with them!

After our ride, DD was ready to eat. I found a bench over between Pixar Place and where the Backlot Tour used to be (during this trip it was a Santa Goofy meet & greet) and it was actually pretty quiet so it was a good place to nurse her. I wasn’t expecting to find any quiet areas on Thanksgiving, but both DH and I had commented to each other that the crowds were not nearly as bad as we had been expecting!

While we were doing that, DH and DS went to see Muppet Vision.
​

Nov 01-031 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
On the way there


Nov 01-032 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-033 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-034 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


Nov 01-035 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
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DD and I finished up while they were still in the show, so we walked over to the exit and met them there. Then it was time...time to see the lights!!!

UP NEXT: What a spectacle!
​
 
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