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Day 1 – Arrival & Disney Springs (Wed, Dec. 26)
We made it to our hotel (Wyndham in Disney Springs) right around 3pm, and got checked into our room. We changed our hotel plans for the first part of the trip several times, but finally settled on this because I had enough Wyndham points to get all 4 nights free. Can’t beat that! And it was an easy walk to Disney Disney Springs.
Brian, Owen and I went to the pool almost immediately. It was rather cool, and very windy, so we spent most of our time in the hot tub, though Owen swam in the pool quite a bit too. It was nice to have the chance to relax after several tedious hours in the car.
Our plans for the night involved dinner in Disney Springs. Brian and I were having a “date night” while they kids were going to explore on their own.
We split off from the kids once we were in Disney Springs, and were still a little early for our dinner reservation at Terralina Italian Kitchen, so we wandered around, stopping occasionally to watch some of the groups performing in various areas. We also saw one of the amphicars take off. Brian was a little amazed at the atmosphere here – he hasn’t spent much time at Disney Springs, and probably never at night. I think he thought it was just a place to shop, and was very impressed that that it felt more like a big party.
We checked in at the restaurant, but had a to wait a bit for our table. Once seated, it went well though. Our server was friendly and the food good. At first, they said that my eggplant parmesan had been burned and it was going to take 20 minutes to make another, but less than a minute later it showed up, not burned at all!
We walked around some more after dinner, and stopped for another round of drinks at the Paradiso bar. Brian danced a little at one of the dance parties going on near the entrance, and we walked through the Christmas Tree trail. Oh, and we watched the volcano at Rainforest Cafe erupt. We were so close I could feel the heat from the flames!
I had been checking the map, and it looked like the kids were back at the room already, so we headed back as well. They had fared okay – Owen bought a keychain and I think Lily got some makeup from Sephora. And they had pretzels for dinner – lovely, lol! Oh, and Owen lost a tooth while they were out! I didn’t even know that he had a loose one. I had to warn him that the tooth fairy might need a little extra time, being that we were so far from home and it happened so late in the day, ha! But we were all in bed at a mostly reasonable hour, ready for our first park day in the morning.
I have to tell the funny story that happened right before bed – Owen was asking about what we were doing tomorrow, and I just mentioned that we were going to Animal Kingdom. To my great horror, he replied, “What’s Animal Kingdom?” ?!?!?!?!?!? How could he not know what Animal Kingdom is??? We are a “Disney Family”. We go to Disney World “all the time”, according to my parents, and pretty much anyone who knows us, lol! Weren’t we just there a couple of years ago? Well… actually…..no. We didn’t do AK last time. In fact, I realized that we hadn’t been there since 2014, 4 years ago. No, closer to 5 years ago, since it was in March. So he was only 3. No wonder her doesn’t remember. And then… Oh YES. I remember that trip. It was the one where he threw a 2 hour screaming fit about leaving the Boneyard and almost ruined our whole day. That felt like so long ago. He’s always so “chill” now, it’s hard to imagine him ever being capable of such a thing. But I felt like we had failed him a little, since he acted now like he had never even heard of it. Oh well, “first times” are always fun, and apparently this might as well be his!
Day 2 – Animal Kingdom (Thur, Dec 27)
We had decided that we were not going to do any early mornings on this trip, so we didn’t start getting ready until well after 8am. The timing worked out well though, because Earl of Sandwich, just across the street in Disney Springs, opened at 9am, and we were there shortly after that. It’s one of my favorite places to eat breakfast- I had gotten spoiled last year at Disneyland having one right next to our hotel. So it was a quick and uneventful meal, and we made it back in time to catch the 10:00 bus from the hotel. (They only run on the half-hour).
Last time we were at AK, our magic bands hadn’t worked, and we wasted over 30 minutes in guest services trying to resolve it. We never really did, but they had worked for the rest of the trip. So I was nervous that it was just something about their scanners that didn’t like us. Sure enough, my new Figment MB that I had specifically ordered for the trip, turned the Mickey head blue (instead of green) and the CM said there was nothing linked to it. (Same result we got last time). But, everyone else’s MB worked, so I tried my other MB (which fortunately I brought with me) and it worked fine. Well, I was bummed my special band didn’t work, but at least we were in with no other hiccups this time. Except that, Owen’s admission hadn’t been taken from the ticket I was hoping for, so that was something we would have to sort out later in the trip. Not a problem for now, though.
We had some time before our Everest Fastpass, so we took our time, wandering through some of the animals near the front. We went through Dinoland and rode Primeval Whirl – one of the few rides in all of Disney that I had never done. The wait was posted at 50 minutes, but it was less than 30.
Owen had never ridden Everest before, and he’s a total adrenaline junkie, so he was bouncing with excitement all the way there. The FP line was so long that it was spilling out into the walkway, and they had CMs managing it with ropes and signs. It moved quickly though, the total wait couldn’t have been more than maybe 10 minutes. Owen loved it of course, and was really wishing we could go again. But the standby wait was nearly 2 hours- not gonna happen!
We spent some time exploring the Pangani trails- saw lots of cool monkeys, bats, birds, and even got a good look at the tiger.
We had all been excited to see Pandora for the first time. We even rewatched the movie recently so we could truly appreciate it. And of course it did not disappoint! Definitely one of the best themed areas I’ve seen in a park.
We slowly made our way around, stopping for lots of pictures and general exclamations of “Oh wow, look at THAT!” But we were also hungry, and finally found Satu’li Canteen. We had tried to put in a mobile order earlier, but couldn’t get the app to work. Luckily, and somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t busy, so it ended up not mattering. We haven’t typically eaten a lot of counter service, but all enjoyed this one.
By the time we were done, it was time for our Flight of Passage FP! The standby wait was 240 minutes. As cool as it is, I just can’t imagine anything being worth that. That’s 4 hours!!! We we’re on in about 15 minutes, though. And it’s definitely a really cool ride. Maybe not quite my very favorite ride anywhere, but in the top 5 for sure.
We wandered around Pandora for a little longer after the ride, and agreed that we needed to come back to see it after dark.
Almost everything in the park had 1-2 hour waits by now, so we killed some time by watching It’s Tough to be a Bug, and the Up show. They were both entertaining, but still mostly just a time-filler.
Finally, it was time for our Dinosaur FP. This is one of Brian’s favorites, and another first for Owen. Of course he loved it, and he picked out a large rubber Stegosaurus in the shop at the end. He named him Steggyplater, and despite his size, he remained in Owen’s arms for the rest of the night (and much of the rest of the trip, lol!)
The night took a frustrating turn next, when we headed toward the theater for Rivers of Light. We were actually very close to the entrance when we came off of Dinosaur, but there were no signs indicating that, and the map made it look like the entrance was on the other side of the lake. We ended up making more than a full circle around it before finally finding our way in! At least there were still spots, but it was filling fast, with still an hour before showtime.
Overall, I thought it was a neat thing to see once, but wasn’t impressed enough to feel the need to see it again. We all thought it really needs some real actors/singers instead of being purely animatronic.
We still had a little time before dinner, so headed back into Dinoland for a ride on Triceratops Spin. Afterwards, coming over the bridge, Lily spotted something really cool. In the dark trees along the river, we could just barely make out lots of glowing white balls. Closer inspection revealed them to be birds, nesting for the night! (Not a bird person myself, so I couldn’t tell you what kind, but they were big.) We admired them for a while and tried to get some pictures.
As we came by the Tree of Life, it was lit up in all colors, making for another fun photo stop. We were all enjoying trying out the night-mode on our phone cameras.
We sadly hadn’t been able to do the Safari ride, but Brian wanted to at least show Owen the Africa area, so we walked around a bit, but most of it was too dark to see much. It will have to be a priority for next time.
We were still a little early for our Yak&Yeti reservation, but checked in anyway, and were seated within just a few minutes. The Lo Mein here is one of my favorite dishes anywhere, though I realized it was very similar to what I had for lunch in Pandora. It would become a running joke throughout the week that I ended up eating Asian noodles for dinner every night. Somehow I didn’t realize that was going to happen when I planned our ADRs! Oh well, life of a vegetarian at WDW, I guess!
After dinner, the park was still open for almost another hour, so we went back to Pandora. We had been impressed earlier, but were completely mesmerized by everything lit up in the dark! It was absolutely beautiful. Na’vi River Journey was showing a 70 minute wait, but being within the last hour before close, I suspected that time was inflated at least a little, so we decided to go for it. It only ended up being about 40, and while not as thrilling as FoP, was still neat to see. Brian actually said he liked it better, but he’s not a fan of the screen-based rides.
So it was a good way to end the night. Getting the bus back to the hotel would end up being tedious and frustrating, and that trend unfortunately continued throughout the week. But, overall we had a great first day with no major issues, and had done at least as much as we were hoping for.
Day 3 – Hollywood Studios (Fri, Dec 28)
Today we were headed to Hollywood Studios! We were a little later getting going, having not gotten back to the room until after 11pm last night. We had breakfast at the hotel buffet, and I think we ended up being on the 10:30am bus. We stopped by a couple more hotels, then by Epcot, so it was well after 11am before we arrived at the park. (The bus was definitely not my favorite thing about it our hotel.)
We had been talking on the way there about our plans, and had decided to go to the Star Wars Launch Bay first. But there was a Star Wars stage show starting as we came in that Brian wanted to watch, so he stayed behind while the kids and I went on to Launch Bay. I hadn’t been to the one here, but in DisneyLand, it’s like a whole Star Wars museum. Apparently this one is mostly just the character m&gs and a short movie. So, I talked the kids into meeting BB-8 since we were there anyway. And we saw several storm troopers patrolling, which Owen enjoyed. He’s always too shy to interact with any of the characters, though.
The outdoor show that Brian was watching was just finishing when we came back out to meet him, and we got to see Darth Vader and more storm troopers march by us to leave the stage. Now that we were all in a Star Wars mood, it was time for our Star Tours FP! This is always one of my favorites, and it’s fun to see which scenes we will get. Today it was the Wookie planet (which I seem to get at least half the time, but really like) and Coruscant, which I don’t think I have seen before. And we got the front row! Strangely enough, a couple tried to tell us as we were getting off that the front row was terrible, that you needed to be in the second or third. Maybe true… Unless you end up with a large head in front of you! I’ll take the front whenever I can get it – short person problems, lol!
Brian really wanted to see the Voyage of the Little Mermaid (I always give him a hard time about liking that one so much, lol) and after a 40 minute wait, we just barely made it into a show. Not the greatest seats, way on the far edge, but at least we didn’t have to wait another 20 minutes for the next one.
We still had some time to kill before our next FPs, so we walked over to see the new Toy Story land. As expected, it was mass chaos! The traffic control just getting people in and out of there was a major undertaking (I counted at least 20 CMs on the pathways just directing traffic), and the line for Slinky Dog was snaked all the around the entire land, with a posted wait of 180 minutes. The swirling saucers were, by comparison, much more reasonable at a 90 minute wait, but obviously we weren’t going to do either. It was fun to see, but overall I wasn’t nearly as impressed with the theming here as I had been in Pandora.
Finally, it was time for our Tower of Terror FP! This is the only ride that still had Owen a little nervous. He had absolutely loved the remade Guardians of the Galaxy version at DL, but the creepy-factor in the theming here gave him pause. Again, the FP line was longer than I’ve ever seen it, so out of control that they moved us into switchbacks in a backstage area behind the ride. But also again, it moved very quickly and our wait wasn’t long at all. I guess when the FP line gets long, it’s only the standby waiters that suffer, because they must stop letting them go at all for a while.
I have to mention the family I saw in the line near us. They were with a VIP tour guide, and the mom and 2 kids were wearing personalized “Best Day Ever” shirts. The dad’s shirt, at first glance looked similar, but actually said “Most Expensive Day Ever”. I got a good chuckle out of that. I’ve seen what they charge for those guides, his shirt was almost certainly right, lol! I actually saw far more matching/personalized shirts on this trip than ever before, that must really be becoming a thing. Pretty sure my family would revolt if I tried to insist on that!
So, you can probably guess that Owen ended up loving the ride. In fact, in the middle of the very first drop, he started screaming about how much he loved it, and didn’t stop until it was done. And was sad we couldn’t go again. I guess there really is nothing that can scare him now. It IS a really fun ride, so I can’t blame him.
The next Beauty and the Beast show already had a line forming, an hour before showtime, so we jumped in it. Yes, another of Brian’s must-dos. He has to see his princesses! We brought some snacks in with us, and the wait passed easily enough. The show was good, as always, but Owen was ready to ride something!
Luckily for him, it was time for our Rockin’ Roller Coaster FP! Another 3 hour standby wait, but our FP got us right in. I knew he would love this one and was not wrong. He was bouncing up and down afterwards from the adrenaline rush. It’s a fun coaster, but a little rougher on my head than I would like.
We had just enough time afterwards to see Muppetvision! I love the Muppets, and I don’t know if it’s just been too long since I’ve seen the show, or if they’ve changed it, but I didn’t remember seeing most of it before.
We had dinner reservations at Brown Derby. We checked in quite early and were told that we would be seated closer to our reservation time, but were called just a couple minutes later. That must be a form response they give when you check in early, because it happened this way at almost every meal.
The meal was fine- BD is Brian’s favorite so we have to eat here every time, but it’s just okay to me. Owen was so tired during dinner, I wondered if we would be able to stay for fireworks after all. But he livened up quite a bit after getting some food.
After dinner, we went back to the Launch Bay to watch the movie (mostly promotional stuff about Star Wars land), and talked the kids into meeting Chewbacca and Kylo Ren with us. Owen thoroughly identifies as Dark Side, but was still rather intimidated by Kylo Ren, especially since he was personally directing each of us to stand in a very specific formation – he must be a bit of a perfectionist! I was even a little scared when he forcefully pointed at me and indicated that he was not happy at my ability to follow directions, lol! it was funny to watch. Oh, and we passed time in line taking silly pictures and selfies. The boys especially liked seeing how goofy a face they could make.
We were feeling a little tired by now, and decided to go ahead and camp out in a spot for Jingle Bell Jingle BAM. Oh, I think there may have been some ice cream involved on the way over, but I have no photographic evidence of such 
🙂 Still over an hour until the show, but the good spots were going fast anyway. There was still room just in front of a designated walkway, and we had plenty of space to stretch out. I actually laid down for a while and almost fell asleep, using my backpack as a pillow. The CMs were in full crowd control mode, and had someone stationed every few yards. Ours was a really funny guy that entertained us with jokes and trivia.
The show finally started and I was glad we stayed- it was really neat and we had a pretty decent view. Lots of lasers and projections on the theater of clips from almost every movie I can think of (including about a 2-second blip of Dr. Strange, my favorite! They never have anything about him in the parks.) And the fireworks were amazing, as always.
As always, getting back to the hotel was not fun. I don’t think we’ll stay at Disney Springs again without a car, but I guess you do usually get what you pay for, and we hadn’t paid anything for the room, so…
But another good day! So far we were managing the crowds, not getting to “do” as much as we are used to from previous trips, but not letting it get us down either. Oh, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but the weather was almost perfect. If anything, a little warmer than I would have liked (low/mid 80s most days) but not nearly as hot as when we’ve come in the summer. And we never saw a drop of rain. I think the week before was cold and rainy every day, so we got lucky.
Day 4 – Epcot (Sat, Dec 29)
Today is Epcot, my favorite! We just grabbed a quick breakfast of cereal and fruit in the hotel lobby, knowing we would want to snack heavily in the World Showcase later. We had somehow gotten going early today, and even after breakfast made the 9:30am bus. Of course, my always-do-rope-drop persona that had dominated our previous trips would have cringed at this, but the night-owl strategy was working well for us this time.
We went to Figment first, as we didn’t have a FP for it, and it was only showing a 25 minute wait. Could that be a sign that Epcot wasn’t going to be as crowded as the other parks had been?? It was definitely the first time in this trip that I saw a standby wait that low.
We went back to Spaceship Earth for our FP, and maybe all the crowds were there, because the standby line was wrapped all around the outside of the building, in multiple switchbacks. There is so much nostalgia for me on this ride. It’s one of the few things at Disney that hasn’t changed at all since I was a kid, and I hope it never does.
After a quick stop for a pretzel snack, we were headed to our next fastpass at Test Track. This has been Owen’s favorite for a long time. The boys, of course, designed a high-performance sports car, while I let Lily take charge of ours, and she made a cute pink car with flowers on it, lol! The boys’ fast car won first place for speed and ours was second in efficiency. Not too bad. Afterwards, we explored some of the games and activities and did the photo-booth.
I had managed to stack our fastpasses pretty well this morning, and it was already time for our Mission Space FP! Last time we only let Owen do the tamer “green” version, but he was convinced now that he was ready for the more intense “orange” training. I’ve done that one a couple of times, and it always makes me feel like I can’t breathe.
Unfortunately, once we were all strapped into our pod, we got delayed because of a medical issue that had happened nearby. The CM came by after a few minutes and let us out of our harnesses at least, and we hung out in our pod for another 15 minutes. At least we were sitting down for the delay, and Owen had fun playing with all the buttons on the dashboard. It was also during this time that I managed to score a Soarin’ FP for later, after refreshing the screen about 50 times! I had heard that strategy worked, and I had pretty good luck with it both here and at MK. We finally got the all clear to launch, and it probably goes without saying by now, that Owen loved it. And I didn’t pass out, at least. On the way out, we passed the paramedics all hovering over someone on a stretcher – still don’t know what happened but that was obviously the source of our delay.
We were hungry by now, so headed towards the World Showcase, stopping first in Canada. I tried some Icewine, but wasn’t terribly fond of it – too sweet and syrupy. The boys had some type of salmon snack. It was quite warm out by now, one of the few times during the trip when it really felt uncomfortable. And I remembered, at least, why I’ve sworn to never come in the summer again!
In France, we braved the line for the bakery, feeling like we needed something more substantial than was offered in the carts outside. It was chaos, and required patience, but we finally emerged with some drinks and snacks, and found a standing table to eat at. We passed through Morocco and Japan (I think Brian may have gotten a drink from one of them).
While waiting in the lobby for the American Adventure show, we got to hear the Voices of Liberty singing, and Lily was totally awed. Owen however, thought that was the “show’ we were waiting for, and was quite disappointed that he still had to sit through another one, lol! I thought it was really cool though that they had added some new scenes at the end of the video montage since I last saw it.
We trekked all the way back to Future World for our Soarin’ FP. This is one of my very favorite rides, and I hadn’t expected to get to do it today. We saw the new version, Soarin’ Around the World in California last year, but I didn’t know that the Florida version has a different ending – over Disney World (Epcot) for the fireworks instead of Disneyland! I thought that was really neat. I guess it wouldn’t have made sense to do that in the old show, since it was called Soarin’ Over California.
I had already managed to get another FP for Living with the Land, so we went straight to that next. And then got another FP for Seas with Nemo! I was definitely having more luck with fastpasses here than at AK or DHS. On the way to the Seas, we stopped to take some pictures of Spaceship Earth, as it was very pretty now, illuminated against the dark sky. I was also surprised here by how dark they let some of the walkways get. People were using their cell phone flashlights to be able to navigate without stumbling into something!
We explored the tanks a little after riding Nemo, Owen especially liking the manta ray and sea turtle. Headed back towards World Showcase, we happened to catch the Future World fountains doing their choreographed show to music, which Brian always enjoys.
We stopped in Mexico for the 3 Caballeros ride, and Owen was mesmerized by the inside of the Mexico building. Lily always liked this one too when she was younger. In Germany, Lily bought a tiara, that she ended up wearing for the rest of the trip. We made our way around to Japan for our dinner ADR at Tokyo Dining. It was good, of course, and more Asian noodles for me!
When we came out of dinner, around 9:30, I noticed that the park had really started to clear out. We could actually walk without constantly bumping into people! We found a good spot along the lagoon to watch Illuminations, which wasn’t until 10:30 tonight. Luckily, a Denver Nuggets game had just started, and we all sat on the ground huddled around my phone, watching it while we waited. (I doubt anyone else cares, but we won – still 1st in the West!!)
It was probably the best view of Illuminations we’ve ever had, and there were only a few people nearby, so we had plenty of room to move around. With it ending next year, I knew this would be our last chance to see it. I’m sad to see it go, but excited to see what they come up with next.
The bus situation going back was as awful as ever, I was just glad this was the last time we would have to deal with it! Tomorrow, we move to the Contemporary! It did feel like Epcot wasn’t as crowded as the other parks had been. I checked afterwards, and it did end up being a “10” level crowd day, as predicted, but it honestly didn’t feel that bad. Maybe because of its size, Epcot just swallows the crowds better.
Day 5 – Resort Day (Sun, Dec 30)
Today was moving day! We hadn’t gotten back to the room until after midnight, so we just barely got packed and ready to go ahead of the 11am checkout time. I got an alert through the MDE app right as we were leaving that our room at the Contemporary was ready – I had requested an early check-in, but wasn’t expecting it- so this was a nice bonus!
We grabbed an Uber over to the Contemporary, and surprisingly didn’t run into any traffic. We tried to get Bell Services to help with our luggage, but they said they could only store it for now, and deliver it after 3pm. Not wanting to be without it, since we had a room already, we lugged it up there ourselves.
We had been wanting to stay here for many years, and even had a trip planned several times, but it always ended up not working out for one reason or another. So we were all a little giddy to finally be here now. Our room was on the 5th floor, right above the shops below and close to the big windows on the end near MK. I joked that we didn’t even need to go down to the store to pick anything out, we could see everything from right outside our room. We did pick out a few things before our lunch reservation – I was desperately needing a new shirt. Most people come back from vacation realizing that they packed way too many clothes. We had the opposite problem, lol! We must not have done the math, because we were in very low supply by now, despite having done laundry at my parents house right before we left Naples. So I got a new 2019 shirt – technically we were planning to be in the park for the first hour of 2019, so it’s not a lie!
We had lunch at Chef Mickey’s. I hesitated to book this, because no one else really likes character meals besides me. But it almost seemed like sacrilege to stay right there and NOT go. Lily grudgingly agreed to be in the picture with Minnie Mouse, then said no more. But Pluto wasn’t having it, and practically dragged her out of her seat for a hug. And I ended up snapping a really cute picture of them – thanks Pluto! The food was actually good – better than I remembered it being. The only unfortunate thing was that we were seated in one of the few tables that was in the sun (coming in from the large windows on the end of the building) and it was HOT! I was glad at least that we weren’t using this as a mid-day break from the park to get out of the heat – that would not have been effective.
After lunch, the boys were ready to swim, so I went down to the pool with them. We swam, did the waterslide, sat in the hot tub, got drinks, and generally relaxed for a few hours. And the boys played some beach volleyball. Owen made a friend at some point – a girl a few years older than him, and they had fun together doing some of the pool games that were going on all afternoon.
I headed back to the room a little after 4pm and Lily and I did some more shopping and wandering around the resort. I also stopped by the concierge desk to get Owen’s ticket situation arranged, as we only had one more park day to make it work. At first they tried to put me off and told me to deal with it at the gate in the morning, but I know how rushed the CMs there always are, and wasn’t willing to chance that. They ended up being able to handle it pretty easily here, so I don’t know why they were resistant at first.
After the boys came back and we all got ready to head to dinner (at the Poly), we stepped out of our door just as MK fireworks were going off, and we had a great view through the end of the building. A monorail passed by as well during this time, and it reminded me of something you would see in a Disney World commercial. Brian was so excited about it that he posted his first picture of the trip on Facebook 🙂
When we went through security at the Contemporary to get on the monorail, the CM checking our bags asked why we were inside and not out watching the fireworks. I told that we saw a little through the windows, but were seeing them for real tomorrow night. He said we were crazy to join in the madness that would be tomorrow night, and he’s probably right. But we were going to attempt it anyway, lol!
We had planned to get to the Poly early so that we could explore a little. I wanted to find the longhouse we had stayed in on our 2008 trip, and with only a little wandering, we did! It definitely brought back a lot of memories to be here – nothing will ever quite compare to that trip.
Again we checked in early for dinner at Kona, and were told we wouldn’t be seated until our ADR time, but literally as we were walking away from the podium I got the text that our table was ready. Owen had brought with him tonight the blank comic sketchbook he got for Christmas, and spent most of dinner creating new comics – one of his favorite hobbies. I, of course, had Asian stir-fry noodles, yet again!
This whole trip was planned around the idea that we wanted to spend New Years Eve at Magic Kingdom, and it had felt like the whole week was leading up to tomorrow. So far things had been going well, hopefully our good luck would last! Magic Kingdom actually does the New Years fireworks for two nights, and sure enough – just before midnight, I woke up to the loudest and most continuous booming I have ever heard! I literally thought the building was going to shake itself right apart. We must really be in for a show tomorrow night!
Day 6 – Magic Kingdom (Mon, Dec 31)
We were headed out the door a little after 9am, with breakfast reservations in the park at 10:00. I would later hear that by this time, the traffic was backed up trying to get into Magic Kingdom so far that people were stuck on busses for over 2 hours. However, we enjoyed a quiet and mostly empty walk to the entrance along the path from the Contemporary. They have security and bag check set up along the path, and we had the whole thing to ourselves! The lines for security for people coming off the busses when we arrived were at least 40-50 people deep, so this was a real advantage.
And I was glad to see after we scanned in, that Owen’s new ticket had indeed been used this time, so we should be in good shape to upgrade him to an “adult” next trip, on both tickets. Brian and I had now completely used up our first 10-day ticket (that we started in 2014), and will start on the new one next time. For some reason, Lily’s ticket has been a day off from ours for a couple of years – I guess it missed getting scanned one time?? But apparently she has a bonus day.
We joined the masses heading down Main Street, and after several unsuccessful attempts, we managed to get a decent family selfie in front of the castle. There was definitely a different atmosphere in the park today than I had ever noticed before. Of course it was more crowded than I had ever seen it, but there also seemed to be a buzz of excitement in the air – we all knew what we were here for today! There were a lot of large family groups (10-15 people), in fact that seemed to be the norm. And everyone was stopping for selfies along Main Street.
We eventually made our way back to Be Our Guest. Still a little early, but they let us right in, and since we had done the mobile order ahead of time, we skipped most of the line. I had actually wanted a lunch here, and managed to get an ADR a few weeks ago, but it conflicted with our Space Mountain FP, and even as late as the night before I hadn’t had any luck moving it, so we ended up having to stick with breakfast afterall.
The family indulged me afterwards with a ride on Winnie the Pooh, since they know it’s my favorite. And, maybe because it had the shortest wait in Fantasyland – only 70 minutes, lol! Winnie the Pooh and Tigger both walked right by us while we were waiting in the outside part of the line. Owen had brought his comic notebook again, and spend much of the time in line writing. Overall, the wait passed more easily than I thought it would, and it was fun to watch the hordes of people go by outside. Until this trip I had never understood the appeal of “people watching”, but found it rather amusing this time. Maybe just because there were so many more people, there was bound to always be something interesting going on. As we neared the front of the line, I got an alert on the MDE app that MK was “not accepting new guests”. So we had hit capacity already.
We did the Mad Tea Party next, then stopped for a frozen treat from Cheshire Cafe, complete with a candy coated straw. Now it was time for that completely unmovable Space Mountain fastpass. I was glad we had it though, standby wait was 220 minutes. Not only was the line extending outside of the building, but they had run out of ropes for it, and had instead started taping lines and switchbacks on the ground. I was amazed at how well people seem to be following the makeshift barriers – I would have expected an angry mob at this point, but they all seemed to be calmly resigned to their fate, and were staying neatly within the tape.
I always forget how much fun Space Mountain is! A little jerky on the head, but still worth it for the rush! Afterwards, the boys were hungry, and a CM at one of the other parks (can’t remember which one) had been telling them about Casey’s Corner, and had them convinced that they really must try a foot-long hot dog. It was a total madhouse, of course, and the whole ordeal took us at least 45 minutes. I tried one of the vegan dogs, and it was actually pretty decent. We ate as we walked, as it was time for our Seven Dwarfs Mine Train FP! The CM at the entrance was actively discouraging people from entering the standby line over the loudspeaker – stressing over and over that the line really was 4 hours long (wrapped around the outside all the way back to Mad Tea Party), and that if you left, even to go to the bathroom, you would not be let back in. But apparently enough people were still willing to wait, that it was still 4 hours long! I felt a little guilty zipping right by everyone in the FP line.
The boys wanted to go to Tom Sawyer Island next, while Lily and I wandered through Adventureland instead. I thought about trying to go to the Tiki Room, at least it would have been cool and a little less chaotic inside. But even it had a 30 minute wait. So eventually we headed back towards Frontierland and caught a little bit of the parade, from under the roof of Pecos Bill (where we ended up by accident, after getting shuffled off the main path outside.)
We wanted to go towards Liberty Square, but after 20 minutes we had only made it as far as the Riverboat because the walkway was at a near standstill from being so packed. The line for Haunted Mansion was backed up to here. All through the park they had CMs holding signs to indicate the back of the line, because it was often not anywhere near the actual ride. The boys were already on their way back from the island, so we decided to abandon our ill-fated plan and turn back. The CMs were severely controlling traffic flow, and we had a bit of a hard time even getting turned around to head the other direction. It was funny in the mob, to overhear all of the people exclaiming that they were never doing this again! It definitely would not be the day to come for your first visit.
We finally managed to meet them back at Thunder Mountain for our FP there, and then the boys stopped at the shooting arcade afterwards. Maybe the only thing in the park without a line, lol! After we had scanned in for BTMRR, I was able to grab another FP for Little Mermaid and we headed there next. After the ride, we were able to find the hidden Mickey in the rocks outside that another CM had told us about a few days earlier. I circled it in yellow in the picture – its like a side profile of Mickey, you can see his nose sticking out. Pretty cool! Apparently if you look at it from the back, you can see the rest of his body.
On our way to Little Mermaid, we started seeing lots of people with New Years party hats and horns – too many to be a coincidence, so they must be giving them out somewhere! We found them on the way to Dumbo and stocked up with a pile of each. Blowing the party horn continually became Owen’s new favorite thing. And from the sounds of honking all around us (for the rest of the night!), it must have been a lot of other people’s new favorite thing too. When I think back to that day now, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. The never-ending symphony of party horns, lol! Lily thought they sounded like geese, which she claims is her “spirit animal”, so she found the whole thing hilarious.
For the first time since the new Dumbo opened, we were actually able to take advantage of the play-while-you-wait line, since there was a 45 minute wait. In the meantime, I grabbed another FP for Small World – it would just barely work to stop by there on the way to dinner. If we didn’t get delayed anywhere! It was actually a little risky to try it, but it ended up working out okay. We even got the front row of the boat on IASW.
The first round of fireworks (same show that they do at midnight) was starting in 10 minutes when we left Small World, and Brian really didn’t want to see them at all and spoil anything. And I didn’t want to be stumbling our way to dinner while the lights were off everywhere for the show! So we booked it as fast as we could to Adventureland, cutting through the crowd like ninjas. It reminded me of all the times we had raced out of a park when Owen was little and terrified of the fireworks – thankfully this time we were (hopefully) avoiding them simply for our own amusement.
We made it to the check-in podium at Skipper Canteen less than a minute before the fireworks started (and 10 minutes before our ADR), and were safely “hidden” inside the waiting area, so no firework views spoiled. Just lots of booming.
We had never been here before – the inside is really cool! And lots of corny jokes from the servers. And, you can probably guess what I had for dinner – 5 in a row now! It was actually Pad Thai – really good but very spicy. My mouth was on fire by the end! Of course our waitress kept us supplied with plenty of “river water” to drink. And wouldn’t let us order dessert when she found out we were going to the dessert party later! (Not that we would have wanted to, but it was still funny.)
When we came out from dinner it was fully dark, and the whole atmosphere of the park had shifted. Loud, (non-Disney) party music blaring from every direction. A constant cacophony of party horns, dance parties happening everywhere you looked – things had reached a fever-pitch for sure!
I had managed to get one last FP for Pirates, so we rode that before heading to Tomorrowland. As we passed through the hub in front of the Castle, CMs were lining all the paths, telling everyone that fireworks viewing on all of Main Street was already full and closed – over 4 hours before the show!
Once there, Brian wanted to join the dance party going on, and I took the kids to People Mover. A 30 minute wait, and the line wrapped multiple times around the center of Tomorrowland. But it was a lot of fun. The party horns were out in full force, all through the ride. When we would go through the enclosed areas, the echoing they made did indeed sound like a massive, angry flock of geese. We laughed so hard!
Brian joined us after we were done, and was a little sad to have missed the ride, so we went again. It was the only line we had time for by this point anyway. All through Tomorrowland, CMs were herding people in different directions, most of them leading to additional exits that had been created. A few times we almost got shuffled right out of the park by accident!
Around 9:45 we made our way to the Tomorrowland Terrace for the fireworks dessert party. Had to talk our way past a line of CMs that had closed the bridge going back towards Main Street, but they finally agreed to let us go. Check in for the dessert party was supposed to be 10:15, but the line was already back to the Plaza. And mixing in with the people camped out there for viewing spots, and within the path the CMs were attempting to use to shuffle more unsuspecting guests out an alternate exit. Mass chaos is the only way to describe it, lol! Once we were inside and taken to a table, it was like the calm in the middle of the storm. This was definitely worth doing tonight! The desserts were just okay – nothing I would have paid extra money for, but it felt a bit like a VIP treatment to not have to deal with the mob outside. And they provided everyone with more party horns, because goodness knows there weren’t enough of those in circulation already!
Having thoroughly induced a sugar coma, we received a private CM escort to the viewing area. Multiple times along the way, other CMs tried to block our way and send us back, but were all overridden by our guide, and we finally made it to the Plaza Garden. Where we actually had room to sit down and spread out, much unlike the throngs of people packed in outside the gates. And Brian had room to dance, lol! There was a live DJ up near the castle blasting dance music, strobe lights everywhere, and of course the ever present honking of geese. I mean, party horns.
The minutes ticked by slowly, but finally at 10 minutes to midnight, the fun began. The first part of the show was the normal Fantasy in the Sky fireworks, which ended about a minute before midnight. Then Mickey and Goofy counted down, and the midnight fireworks began! No wonder the booming had been so intense last night -there were fireworks coming from every direction! Words won’t even describe it, so if you didn’t catch the live stream that MK did, you can watch my video. Definitely the biggest and most impressive fireworks display I’ve ever seen.
Well, that was it. We had done it. Magic Kingdom New Year’s Eve fireworks viewing achieved, and we had accomplished it in about as successful a way as we could have hoped for.
Bucket-list item completed.
The CMs tried again to shuffle us out of the park afterwards, but we were not easily manipulated, knowing that the park was still open for another hour. We made it back to Tomorrowland and jumped in line for Astro Orbiter, which was almost deserted now.
Afterwards, Lily wanted to go back to the hotel, so she headed back towards Main Street to brave the exit crowds. I went with the boys over to the Speedway. Owen had been asking to do it all day, so this was our last chance. It was still a 30 minute wait, but he really enjoyed it.
Coming back down Main Street to leave, there was a large bottleneck at the exit, and we were at a standstill for at least 10 minutes. Then had to sneak around some barricades on the other side to work our way back to the Contemporary path, as they were trying to herd everyone to the busses. So glad we didn’t have to deal with that tonight!
Finally back in the room, just after 1am. Lily had been back for a few minutes, but didn’t beat us by too much as the crowds leaving were a lot worse for her. Oh, and Mousekeeping had made cute bows out of the kids blankets on the beds, I thought that was a nice touch.
I saw a lot of comments on news articles about the day, people wondering why anyone would want to go when it was so crowded, and saying that it wouldn’t even be enjoyable. But I have to disagree, it was actually a lot of fun! It’s not a day when you expect to get to ride a lot, or get anywhere fast. You definitely have to pack your patience. But the atmosphere is so exciting, and just being a part of it is like nothing else I’ve experienced. Not something I would want to do every year, but I’m really glad we got to do it once.
We flew home the next day – leaving 82 degrees in Orlando for 10 degrees in Colorado! I don’t generally mind the cold too much, but this would take some getting used to! We seem to have settled into a routine of Disney trips at every-other Christmas break, so I imagine we will be back in 2 years. Though I’m also hoping to slip in a quick visit before then to the NBA Experience when it opens next year in Disney Springs. And, I’ve promised the kids another trip to Disneyland before Lily goes off to college, so I only have 2.5 years to make that happen.
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