Friday December 7th, DCA opened at 7 with EE... my original plan was not to get up quite so early and do DL instead. But DH and DD wanted to ride RSR, and therefore our best bet was early entry.
Alarm went off at 5:45 am, showered, dressed, and waited on room service. They begin serving room service at 6 am, and I had written "as early as possible" on the room service request thing. At 6:15 they finally arrived, and my protein hounds DH and DD got their breakfast and we were out the door at 6:30. Got in line at DCA, probably 10th family back, walked with a purpose once inside, and got within a couple families on the front right. They lead you slowly all the way in and thru the queue. I'd say that by 7:20 we were near the front of the queue and almost on the ride. RSR was great!! We lost, but oh well... DH and DD went and did tires and Mater, and I went to the FP line.
Standing about 100 people back in the FP line, I was hearing people talk about how your whole group has to be there. So I texted DH that he needed to meet me in line with DD before 8... they got there at 7:50, the regular opening people were led in and lined up behind the EE line, and by 8:10 we had RSR FPs for 1 pm.
Then we headed straight for Toy Story, and rode 2x in quick succession with very little wait. DD then wanted to ride Goofy's Sky School again, so we walked over there and got to go around twice without getting off. At this point it was still early (9:10 am!) and we figured we'd cross over to DL and see what was up with Indy. When we walked up, they had just let the 1st group go on for the soft opening and there was a break down. So the CMs told us we had to disperse and come back later. Well, I sat down and waited while DD & DH did Tarzan, and when they came back we did Pirates together... by the time that was done Indy was open again. It was about a 30 minute wait, but we got on!! We ended up riding it 3 times on our trip, and 2 of the 3 the ball was working, so they are still figuring things out.
By now it was 11:30 and we needed to get to our lunch ressie... so we took the train to the monorail, and the monorail into DTD to go eat at Rainforest Cafe. This is DDs favorite place to eat, and we don't have one by us, so it is a must on every trip. After lunch it was nap time zzzzzzzzzzzzz
We woke up from nap around 3:30 and walked into DCA and rode RSR with our FPs, probably a 20 minute wait (lost again!) Then we went and parked it in front of Carthay Circle, DH got Starbucks for us, and we waited for the tree lighting. Unfortunately our angle was bad. The "performance" was on the main street facing FF&P, and we were across the cross street. But we saw them light the tree and heard everything, and then just a few minutes later the Pixar Parade started, which is probably my favorite parade.
They have had to make a few adjustments because of the trolley cables, so while our spot is good, further down the parade route would be better for some of the performers to fully do their tricks.
After the parade we crossed to DL--which was an absolute madhouse, CP was going on (beautiful!! saw 3 minutes of it!) and we were directed to walk through the shops to get down main street, had a wonderful dinner at Big Thunder Ranch and then checked in for F! dessert seating.
I was trying not to stress about being early for check-in. Dinner was at 6:30 and I probably got in the check-in line at 7:45... Had a great talk with a cm from Aulani while I waited and DD & DH went and got HM FPs. By the time I got to the ressie table, there were no seats in the 1st two rows... we settled for 3rd row, off-center. When we came back at 9 (after riding BTMRR) to sit down it became apparent that DD and I wouldn't be able to see. We ate our snacks and set them down, and just as the show was starting moved over to the left and stood against a rope and watched from there. DH joined us eventually, and the view was really good and we enjoyed the show. The kicker was the fireworks... boy!! Our view was soooo much better from F! seating than from the Hub... go figure. And the snow, when it started was right above our heads. We got pummelled with snow!
After the show we got on HM, and then worked our way back to the hotel exhausted!!
Here is the Carthay tree lit up:
We'll be checking into the PPH on the 9th.....maybe we'll pass in the elevators!!
Any disney email or real mail is exciting!!! 
