We had a Disney December, Bahamian Xmas, NYC NYE and then some!! COMPLETED!

[lffam]

I thought it was a good spot. We were to the left as you look down Main St so we we saw the "floats" as they came out and around the round about and also when they where starting to enter Main St proper.

We saw the advantage of not having to stake out a spot well in advance, though don't expect to be able to turn up just before the parade and go into the FP area and get a decent spot. There was no opportunity cost for us to use a FP+ for this and Wishes as weren't going to the park during the day and we got a FP for Seven Dwarfs so it worked out well, only upside for us.

I'm sure there are other spots you can find without using a FP and certainly if you are willing to get in spot hours in advance, but that is was not something we wanted to do.

Hope that helps.

 

[Travel Mum]

Thanks for your help again

 

[lffam]

Do you think the viewing spot for the EP was worth the use of a Fastpass+ ?

Here is the video of if to you can get a really good idea of the perspective from that spot

Thanks for your help again

Glad to help!

 

[lffam]

Wishes

As I alluded to earlier, we also had a FP+ for Wishes. The spot for FP was to the right (facing the castle) of the castle. Below is a map , the Red star is the FP+ area we were in.

Now the time we got there which was about 40 mins before the pre-show, it was already quite crowded. Most people were sitting down, and with the people still streaming in, the newcomers were standing in any space they could find, which in a lot of cases was in front of people sitting down. I just assumed everyone would stand up when the show started, but it seems some people were not going to do that and want to sit, so everyone was in a catch 22. If you were sitting down and people came and stood in front then you were losing your view of the castle and some of the fireworks. Then those sitting stood and there was a domino effect. It got quite unsavory at one stage with a guy actually making a bit of a scene because he said his family had been there for a while in their spot and didn’t want anyone standing around them. Then he took it further and started to move in front of the people who came and stood next to him. In the end he and his family left, which was unfortunate but he was starting to get really agro. Anyway my advice if you go into this area, would be to try and sit as close to the front as you can which may help eliminate this. Anyway here are the photos I took from the spot we had, some sitting, most standing.

 

[lffam]

Here is a video of Wishes taken by DS.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Looks like a good spot for close ups with the parade. Some lovely firework pics - I do love fireworks!

 

[lffam]

Looks like a good spot for close ups with the parade. Some lovely firework pics - I do love fireworks!

Yes I agree Aussie Wendy it was a great spot. Glad you like the fireworks photos. I know a lot more about my camera now so my next attempt at fireworks I think will improve. I'd like to set up a tripod to take some fireworks photos next time.

 

[lffam]

Day 16 Epcot, World Showcase France

We started the day with a sleep in, one we all needed. We didn’t have FP+ till early evening over at HS. We decided to go over to World Showcase and headed for the France Pavilion for a French brunch. We thought we might go to Les Chefs de France, but we ended up just going to the patisserie which was divine.

Here is a short video of us entering through the World Showcase entrance. The talk about a Portuguese map was a joke as we had picked up Portuguese language map by mistake earlier.

close up of the patisserie cabinet!

The brunch was great, so good we came back to this patisserie for some sweets a few times!

We saw Saint Nicholas telling a Christmas tale, he was really charming to listen to. I snapped of a few pictures, I wish we had taken a video of him though.

Playing with Photoshop

DS mentioned “Agent P’s World showcase Adventure” this is like a scavenger hunt type gam for the kids. You register and they give you a Smartphone which has videos that you listen to and clues on where to go and what to do. DS likes it, there are several different “hunts” they can do at the different countries. Definitely worth doing at least one for the kids I think.

Walking back to the BWV, showing the Beach & Yacht club.

 

[lffam]

Disney Haircuts & The Hall of Presidents

DS & I had always planned to get a haircut at Disneyland. Why? Well why not?! We had thought there was a barber shop at Disneyland, but within a few days of the start of our trip we had realised I was mistaken and it was at WDW, so the haircuts had to wait till WDW when they were both well overdue.

The barber shop is at the top of Main street to the left when looking down to the castle. We had tried to go the day before but they were all booked up. We made an appointment the previous day for today. Nothing too different from most barber haircuts, but just another WDW experience we can put on our list of things we have done.

Both trimmed and ready for the Hall of Presidents

The Hall of Presidents was actually something we hadn’t seen before on our prior Disney trips. I really don’t know why, given I am quite a US presidential and Presidential history fan. Nonetheless, we finally did take the time to see it and it I was well worth it. I’ve included some pictures as well as a video from the theatre.

George “Dubbya’s” Inauguration boots

After that we headed back to BWV. I took a few more shots of the lobby so thought I’d include them here also.

On top of the Gingerbread house

 

[Travel Mum]

Oh my gosh, DL12 and I just watched your Hall of Presidents video and realise that, when we go, there will be a new president in it (or it might be closed while they update it). So it will be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump doing the talking at then end!

 

[lffam]

Oh my gosh, DL12 and I just watched your Hall of Presidents video and realise that, when we go, there will be a new president in it (or it might be closed while they update it). So it will be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump doing the talking at then end!

They certainly will have a new President Elect, but I don't think they actually become the President until inauguration which is January 20th. Not sure how long or when they actually update this attraction.

 

[Travel Mum]

Oh yes I'd forgotten about the inauguration in late January. I'd presume the Hall of Presidents will probably be closed when we are then while they get the new president ready for it. Gosh we will be in Universal on Jan 20th so I wonder if lots of Americans will stay home to watch the inauguration on TV.

 

[lffam]

Osborne Family Lights

This evening we were heading over to Hollywood Studios. We had another FP+ for Toy Story Mania. Can never too much of that ride, it’s so much fun. After this we went over to look at the Osborne Dancing Lights Spectacle. This was the last year this display was going to be here. We then had diner at 50's Prime Time diner.

The foreground was set up for a dinning/dessert experience

For the Once Upon a Time fans

 

[lffam]

50's Prime Time Diner & Osborne Family Lights Encore

We then went and had a dinner at 50’s Prime Time Diner. This was certainly very well themed. The food was plentiful, in fact as usual very large serves. There is some diner participation, so be aware of that!

Then the park had closed, but the light stayed on so we went back to look some more seeing it was our last time we could ever see them here again.

Osborne Family Lights Videos
Walking out - wow! (31 secs)

(1.13 sec : Lights Dancing to "What's This" - Danny Elfman)

Now this one DS and I were both video each other at the same time at the beginning, so I thought it would be cool to edit is with a picture in picture for something different. Excuse my singing!
(2:25 sec : Lights Dancing to Feliz Navidad - Jose Feliciano)

This is the final sequence and really worth watching. (3:12 secs :Lights Dancing to Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12-24) Trans-Siberian Orchestra )

For those really keen , here is my playlist of all our Osborne Family Lights Videos

 

[lffam]

Photography Aspirations

I would love to be able to say I took these next few photos, but alas, they are Disney Stock photos that came when we got our Memory Maker Photos. They were so nice I thought I would post them here.

Something for me to aspire to with my photography and post processing...

 

[lffam]

Disney Springs, Illuminations & Late Night Magic Kingdom

The next day we went to Down Town Disney, or Disney Springs as it had recently been renamed. There was still a lot of construction going on with new parts being developed. We did one this in particular that DS wanted to do which was go to Once Upon a Toy and build a light saber. Every time we went to the shop outside of Star Tours, Tatooine Traders, to do this it was always really busy. At Disney Springs, it was not busy at all. He had the whole area to himself with Cast Member to help him, though apparently she gave the wrong advice about putting one part of it together, but in the end he was able to construct one, which, most importantly, was also able to be deconstructed for transport. DS was very proud of it so much so he made a video of it while we were still at WDW and posted it on his gaming you tube channel and he wanted me to post a link here for any of your kids (or big kids) who might like to see it.

How to build a lightsaber

I didn’t take too many photos at Disney Springs, but I did take one of this car …

… or is it a boat….

I’m sure most South Queenslanders will be familiar with The Big Pineapple , well this seems to be its smaller cousin though not sure what’s going on with the colour.

After Disney Springs we went over into Epcot for our Soarin' FP+ and some time over at Epcot. After that we went back to the Villas for a while for some chill time. We had dinner at Trattoria again, which is well worth checking out for a Table Service restaurant. I did another wine tasting like I did the first time we dined here and highly recommend this also. I think this time around we had pizzas.

After dinner we went back over to Epcot to see Illuminations. When planning the ADR’s We had considered getting a dining ADR for this, but in the end we skipped that and thought we would just chance our luck. We got a pretty good spot around the lake. Just before the French Pavilion. For those that don't know. Illuminations isn't just a fireworks show , there are light up floats that move along the lake and there is a light and laser show also on the lake and of course fireworks!

Magic Kingdom was open to 2am tonight, so after Epcot we went back to MK and did a few of the smaller rides, Carousel, Tea cups and alike. We were able to ride Peter Pan with a 10min wait, and IASW was walk on with no wait and were we allowed to stay on the boat and go again as there was no one waiting!


We also did Tomorrow land racers which DS loves. He rode it quite a few times that night.

Now I didn't have this recollection at the time, but I was reading @PrincessInOz HKDL trip report the other day (yes we are thinking of going there now!) and your comment about your Son and driving the Autopia Cars there, made me think. DS is now 3 years away from his Learners Permit. I saw him driving playing Need for Speed yesterday, he has to improve a lot between then and now !

 

[lffam]

Travel times

Before I get to our final day at WDW, I thought I would post something about travel times. One of the biggest unknowns for us when we went to WDW the first time in 2013 was getting around. We were only used to Disneyland and had just walked from hotel to park etc. We had heard about buses and boats trips, taking 20mins to get from hotel to park, long waits for buses to arrive, while we are much wiser about it now, it was really hard for us to fathom back then prior to experiencing it. When we stayed at Wilderness Lodge for the first time we quickly started to see the size of it even right from the first entry into the WDW area.I had kept a log of travel times to and from the Wilderness Lodge that trip which I posted here.

I tried to the same for this trip. I wasn’t always as diligent as I could have been when it came to recording the times, but here is what I did record and I’ll post it in the hope that it helps some others.

I didn't record every trip nor did I always note down the time we arrived at the stop as you can see from the table. Apart from the first day, we always walked to Hollywood Studios and Epcot.

 

[lffamDSon]

DS is now 3 years away from his Learners Permit. I saw him driving playing Need for Speed yesterday, he has to improve a lot between then and now !

In my defense, I was playing as a cop and I was pursuing a bad guy on the wrong side of the rode, SIRENS BLARING, and some random AI drivers don't even attempt to move!! What are these people doing?? Even I know that you need to move if there is an emergency vehicle coming through!!! Okay, rant over.

 

[lffam]

Sleigh Ride, Trail End Dinner and WDW to an end..

We really didn’t have too much planned for our last day, we wanted to just go to whatever it was that we either hadn’t seen or wanted to see again. We did have a Sleigh Ride booked for late afternoon and then Dinner at Trails End. These were two things we have not experienced before so it was a nice way to end our trip.

Our day we spent around the Villas in the morning. DS wanted to go to the Community Centre while DW did some of the laundry & started packing, to prepare for the next part of our trip (we still weren’t half way through the trip yet!) This is definitely one of the bonuses of staying in the 1 bed Villas. The extra space for us was great but having a washer and dryer in the room was great. We made sure we did all our washing so we were all freshly packed for the cruise and beyond. The next time we would have an easily accessible laundry would be New York which wasn’t until after Christmas.

DS and I went to the Community Centre, we played some table tennis, some air hockey, he played some video games while I watched part of a movie. It was some down time that was nice.

Playing Minecraft I think. Check out the Star Wars “Jingle Bell” version on the wall.

I’ve asked DS & DW and no one can recall doing too much today. We might have gone to Epcot for some last French Patisserie goodies and a look around World showcase again. We then headed Magic Kingdom for one last look around and to soak up the experience from the park one last time.

After that we caught a boat over to Fort Wilderness for the Sleigh ride and dinner at Trails End. The sleigh ride was a new experience and something different, it takes you through the cap grounds where lots of people have decorated their camp sites for Christmas. It goes for about 20mins.

Here is a video of the Sleigh ride for anyone who wants to see it. Hint: it goes for 20 mins but if you want to go a bit quicker, click the “cog” icon (settings) to the bottom right when the video starts and the choose speed and select x2 and it will be done in half the time!

We had dinner at Trails End, a buffet which was really plentiful. It wasn't a very busy night. We caught up for the last time with @ColinA and his lovely wife who were also having dinner here and in fact took a couple of the photos of us in the carriage I posted above.

After dinner we went to the Wilderness Lodge because we had wanted to get a caricature of DS. There were some artists on the Boardwalk but they were always quite busy. We knew we would have time after dinner so had planned to go back here to see the resort again and get the caricature from the same place we got it done in 2013.

End result (excuse the smudge at the top, I’ve just obscured his name)

And from 2013

 

[lffam]

WDW It's a Wrap...

Well that rounded off the WDW part of our trip. That was day 18 of the trip (December 17) and we were not even half way through the trip yet, which now thinking about it like that really shows we had a LONG holiday! We had a week at WDW this time and I was always mindful that it would not be enough. When we were leaving we were disappointed, but given we were heading on a Disney cruise in a day or so, I think this help sooth any WDW departure sorrows. Now that we have had 2 WDW experiences, over a relatively short (2 years) period, I can say we have a good idea of the attractions, dining, shows etc that we like and those that we might now skip the next time a trip comes along. While far from many here whose WDW experiences are much more plentiful, for us our next trip here would likely be once the new worlds/attractions open, though our plans could always change of course if someone (mainly me) gets an overwhelming Disney itch again sooner.

I’ll leave WDW with some final photos from Memory Maker and some more Disney Stock images….

And…..goodnight….