Christmas in November!
Early Mornings and Short Commutes
On day 5, I pulled myself, begrudgingly, out of bed. I rolled into the shower and quickly got ready to take early morning pictures of Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. I have to say, this may be my favorite resort to practice my early morning routine.
It was amazing walking out the front door of our building and seeing Cinderella Castle illuminated on the horizon. Seven Seas Lagoon was incredibly serene as I clicked the shutter over and over and over. The white and red of the buildings really popped against a blue pre-sunrise sky. I could have wandered the grounds forever, but I figured that Sarah would want to eat breakfast and get to Magic Kingdom.
Sarah grabbed the bags and met me at Gasparilla Island Grill. I was really uninspired by the breakfast here. Unlike other breakfast options, the plates were already prepared and sitting under a warming light. This meant that my breakfast sandwich was really poor. The croissant was soggy and unappetizing. The Mickey Waffles were fine, but the rest of the meal was mediocre.
After we finished, we dropped our bags off at the Bell Services station and we boarded the monorail. We took the incredibly short ride to the Magic Kingdom and walked down the ramp to the entry gates. While we were walking, we realized another major benefit of staying somewhere on the monorail loop (Contemporary, Polynesian, or Grand Floridian). We realized that you can go through security at your resort, rather than the front gates. Being that these lines can be insanely long, this is another amazing perk for paying a small fortune to stay at one of these resorts.
Can It Really Be This Empty?
We made it to the Cinderella’s Castle roughly 5 minutes before Let the Magic Begin. I took a picture, Sarah saved our spot at the front of the rope drop wait. After we watched the short entertainment, we were guided by Cast Members to the very back of the park and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We were the second group to ride the train!
After we got off Big Thunder, we were joined by one of Sarah’s oldest friends, Anna. This is crazy, but Sarah used to babysit Anna roughly 15 years ago. They hadn’t seen each other since Sarah moved from St. Louis to California. Anna happens to be in the Disney College Program and works at The Crystal Palace. Anna saw that we were at Walt Disney World and reached out over Facebook. We met up with her the night before and she joined us for our MK day before she had to go to work. Go social media!
The three of us walked to Pirates of the Caribbean and we walked right on. The theme of this day was that it was incredibly empty. We did not wait for almost anything. Sarah and I have not experienced many of these days since our days at
Disneyland. We used to love “cold” Southern California days where we would have the parks virtually to ourselves. It seems like those days are long gone at Disney parks. Depressing thoughts done!
We visited Haunted Mansion and Pooh Bear before I decided I wanted a snack. I had seen the Cheshire Cat Tail from Cheshire Cafe and I decided I needed to try one. I ordered it and it was just as decadent as I imagined it would be. Sarah and Anna did not approve because it was too over-the-top, but it suited me just fine. For some reason, they decided to punish me by making me spin round and round on Mad Tea Party with a belly full of sugary pastry treat. I survived, but only barely.
After we had regained our balance, we walked to Tomorrowland and blasted Zurg endlessly. I actually wanted to do an experiment: I wanted to see if I would score points by just firing aimlessly. I just pulled the trigger endlessly in no particular direction. Amazingly, I scored a decent amount of points!
We exited the attraction and jumped on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover. We lazily went around the track and I took pictures of the MK landmarks from a different vantage point. Oh, and Sarah and Anna.
Lunch and Nap Time
After we were done with our tour of Tomorrowland, we decided it was time for lunch. Sarah and Anna demanded Pinocchio Village Haus. As you can read in my review, I am not a huge fan of this quick service restaurant. Sarah, on the other hand, loves it. Because Sarah wins most of the times during these trips, we walked to New Fantasyland and ate pasta and sandwiches. While we were ordering, we struck up a conversation with the CM at the register. He and Anna talked about working at WDW. Amazingly, he gave us free dessert! Love that free food!
We sat and Anna gave us the inside scoop on life as a CM. As we walked to Space Mountain, she explained that the two sides of Space Mountain are actually different, but I was highly skeptical. I decided to Google it and I found out that they are the exact same. I win!
Basking in the glow of my own rightness, we wandered slowly back to New Fantasyland. We arrived at Peter Pan’s Flight exactly 8 minutes before our Fastpass+ time. Unfortunately, we were turned away. We simply walked to the back of the queue and started over again. By the time we were at the front, it was time. We flew our pirate ship through London and Neverland and landed back just in time to see Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire with a holiday twist. Essentially, they just changed the costumes.
Anna is very much so in love with Flynn Rider. Not only does she have a Flynn Rider phone case, but she also has made sure to visit the Bon Voyage Breakfast at Trattoria al Forno to see her main man. I made sure to snap a picture of Flynn as she and Sarah quoted the entire show behind me.
After we were done, it was nap time. We were moving on to Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort so we had a very short commute. Anna needed to go back to the Transportation and Ticket Center so we decided to ride the monorail together. We went up the ramp, jumped on the monorail, and exited at the first stop. We entered our room and immediately sprinted to the balcony to soak in the glorious view.
After we managed to peel ourselves away from the balcony, we decided it was time to take a nap. We both slept and prepared for late night at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. When we woke up, we decided to walk down to the lobby of the Contemporary and walk around. We soaked up more Christmas cheer from the gingerbread castle on our way to MK.
Christmas!!!!!
By the time we were arriving at MK, most of the normal crowd were leaving. We walked down the Christmas party entry corridor and grabbed our first cookies of the evening! These Santa cookies were not incredible, but we did not need to directly pay for them. “Free” cookies?! Yes please! We then moved on to more cookies at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe. These cookies were better, but the most important item was the hot chocolate. We love hot chocolate! We guzzled down three cups each and moved on to our next stop.
The next stop was by far the best option. The cookies were peppermint and there was Nestle chocolate milk. We could have camped in this spot all night. Unfortunately, we needed to save our stomach space for Cinderella’s Royal Table. We tried our best to compress our cookies and chocolate milk as we walked towards Cinderella’s Castle.
Once we arrived, we walked directly in and took an incredibly awkward picture with Cinderella. We sat down in the lobby and waited for our names to be called. Our hearts jumped as they called out Lord and Lady Coleman and we climbed the spiral staircase towards the dining area.
This is Sarah’s favorite restaurant, by a fairly large distance. This is not because the food is remarkable, but because it is inside the castle and features Sarah’s favorite humans, the princesses.
We sat and were greatly entertained by the entire process. Our server was incredible, the princesses were great, and the food was above average. If you are looking for a luxury meal for a large price, go to Victoria and Albert’s in GF. If you are looking for a good meal in an amazing location and with princesses, it is impossible to beat CRT. Even though it is 2
Disney Dining Plan credits, I would say that it is worth it.
After we were done, we decided to wait for Mickey’s Most Merriest Celebration for its first showing. We arrived 15 minutes early and got a good spot. We watched the show and were very entertained. I would say it is a fun show, but has one weird song. Disney decided to go desperately socially relevant with one of the songs and it was a bit 21st Century cliche. I enjoyed snapping pictures and Sarah liked most of the music.
After that show was done, we decided to wait for A Frozen Holiday Wish. This show was short and unmemorable. It seemed a bit like Disney attempting to give us one more chance to get “Let It Go” stuck in our heads. The only things I can truly remember were that Olaf was on one of the balconies and that the castle lighting up was a nice touch.
After the unmemorable show, we had to decide between watching the Once Upon a Christmastime Parade twice or experiencing a couple of attractions with shorter wait times. We decided to do the latter. We walked back to Under the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid and then went over to Dumbo The Flying Elephant. By the time we were done with these two, we walked back and started to camp out for Holiday Wishes.
When we got back, I situated myself in front of the Partners and prepared for an ultra-long exposure fireworks session. I attached my Hoya 77mm ND400x Filter (my neutral density filter) and set up my tripod. We got into a great conversation with a couple from Philadelphia in front of us about Disney Vacation Club.
They talked about all the perks and basically sold Sarah on the spot. Before the show started, I decided to start my first shot. I wanted to get the Partners illuminated in the foreground so I started roughly 2 minutes before the show. In all, I took 3 pictures of the show. I really like these shots. I think the level of busyness makes for a fun shot. Here is my favorite of the 3!
After the show was done, we headed back to the end of Main Street, USA to take pictures of the parade. I set up next to a really cool guy who was also shooting Nikon. We talked about how he was determined to buy the Nikon D850 (haven’t we all thought about how we need it?!) and what lenses we use. He showed me some of his work and it was fantastic. He said that he has been working recently on perfecting firework shows. We nerded out until the parade began.
The only problem with the Christmas parade was the fake snow. I think this was because the wind was determined to blow every bubbly flake directly into my eyes. I wiped my camera lens and tried to take as many pictures as I could. There were several good ones, but I was disappointed by most of them. Other than the snow, the parade was excellent. We both really enjoyed it!
After the parade was finished, we walked up to the Main Street, USA train station and took pictures of Sarah and I. This is one of our favorite spots to set up our tripod and take pictures of the two of us. Amazingly, it was completely empty when we arrived. We snapped several pictures and Sarah even liked some of them!
Sarah and I walked sleepily back to BLT and I took a picture of Space Mountain from our balcony.
We needed to squeeze every last penny out of that amazing, but expensive view!