The Most Magical Time of Year! December 2018 TR Completed 5/8 New TR link!

[LaurieLiz]

Joining in! I've just gone through all of your trip reports over the last week and I'm glad I'm here to follow from the beginning.

I agree with the sentiment about the Osborne lights. They were absolutely magical!

Can't wait for some more Christmasy updates!

 

[NJlauren]

Joining in! Just caught up on some
Of your other reports and looking forward to hearing about this trip!

 

[Cloe Colton]

Jumping in. I hope to make it to Disney at Christmas time at least once in my lifetime. The closest we've come is the first week of November and we got to see the fall decor change over to the Christmas decor, but it sure wasn't the same as being there at Christmas time.

Thanks for jumping in!

I don't know that I could ever be there on Christmas but the times I've been in December have definitely been close enough to Christmas to have that wonderful Christmas feel! Bucketlist for me is staying at the Polynesian for a few days after Christmas and being there for NYE! Someday!!

Joining in. I enjoy reading your trip reports.

Thanks for joining in!!!

Following along. I've binged all your TR over the last two weeks and I look forward to this one. Looking to go this December, so if you could squeeze in some info on the weather and crowds I'd appreciate it

Amazing!! Thanks for taking the time to read them all! Hopefully you enjoyed them!!

And you got it! The cliff notes version though - the weather was like 60s-70s and perfect for Christmas-y sweaters! We were only chilly the night of the Christmas party but we had packed layers and just didn't remember to bring them with us to the party whoops! haha but we survived! (it definitely wasn't as cold as I have experienced though!) And crowds wise it really wasn't bad - Columbus day weekend was worse for me! The only real crowds we had was during the time we were trying to get to MVMCP, but I will get to that!!

DH and I are heading back the same weekend this year! Its such an amazing time of year to go!!

I am here!!!! Can't wait to read all about the Christmas trip! I will be taking notes.

I love his sweater, perfect for you guys and your pup!

Yay!! Thanks for joining in!!

Haha right?? I convinced him to buy it last Christmas and then basically told him he NEEDED to bring it with us to Disney! He got more compliments on his sweaters than I did!! hahaha

Yay I'm excited to relive all of your Christmas magic!

Thanks for joining in!!

Following along! Can't wait to read all about your magical Christmas adventure!

Thanks for following along!!

I’m in! Love all your pics and fabulous clothes!

Thank you!! I appreciate that haha I plan my trips but also my outfits!!

Joining in! I would love to get to Disney at Christmas one year so am looking forward to hearing all about it.

Hopefully you can make it there someday! It truly is so magical! Honestly one of my favorite trips EVER was the spontaneous, last minute trip in 2015 when we went to see the Osborne lights! It was a super quick trip but I feel like when you are really just going for the Christmas magic a quick trip is all you really need!

Joining. Can't wait to hear more. I too miss the Osborne lights!!! They were really something special.

Thanks for joining in! they seriously were so amazing! I regret not just spending the whole night over there when we went!!

I loved the Osborne lights!!!! I was devastated when they left. I'm always hoping they're going to pop up again someday!

Love your Disney Christmas sweaters Excited to hear about this trip! Christmas is our favorite time to visit, too!

I'm always secretly hoping they'll do SOMETHING to bring them back in some way!

Thanks!! Its just the best!!

I found this one before it was 10 pages in . Following along. Looking forward to reading more

well thank you for joining!!

Joining in - agree with DLo!

to the both of you!!

 

[Cloe Colton]

Joining in! I've just gone through all of your trip reports over the last week and I'm glad I'm here to follow from the beginning.

I agree with the sentiment about the Osborne lights. They were absolutely magical!

Can't wait for some more Christmasy updates!

Thanks for reading them!! I hope you enjoyed!!

They certainly were!!

Joining in! Just caught up on some
Of your other reports and looking forward to hearing about this trip!

Thanks for reading!! I hope you enjoyed them as well!!

 

[frostymojo]

Following along

 

[debjk4]

Following along! We are going in July and staying at POFQ. Can't wait to see your pics!

 

[ariane37]

Here! And ready for our 3 night stay at POFQ starting tomorrow

I too miss the Osborne Lights. I was lucky enough to see them a few times including their final year and I think it's a real shame they got rid of them

 

[SweetSerenity]

Bring on the holiday festivities

 

[VAtink]

Yay, a new TR!!! It's awesome to finish reading one just to hop over to the next one!

 

[Lesley Wake]

A little late, but following along for this one!

 

[Cloe Colton]

Following along

Following along! We are going in July and staying at POFQ. Can't wait to see your pics!

you will love it!! At least, we did!

Here! And ready for our 3 night stay at POFQ starting tomorrow

I too miss the Osborne Lights. I was lucky enough to see them a few times including their final year and I think it's a real shame they got rid of them

I hope you have a great time! I really love POFQ!

It is so sad!!

Bring on the holiday festivities

Yay, a new TR!!! It's awesome to finish reading one just to hop over to the next one!

I hope I can keep that going forever and ever!!

A little late, but following along for this one!

Not late at all! Welcome!! Hope you had a great trip!!

 

[Cloe Colton]

Day 1 Part 1 Friday December 14th

Let’s get this Disney Christmas trip started!!

Different from my previous trips in 2018, I actually took a half day at work the day we were leaving. I normally work a full day before heading to the airport but I had a half day of comp time I wanted to use and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to use it! (It would have expired at the end of the year so I definitely wanted to use it!) We were leaving on the last flight out of Buffalo at 4:25PM so this really gave us a lot of time to get to the airport once I was done working for the day! (Also, this flight would have been impossible to make without my half day so I was very thankful for it!) Dan had taken the whole day off so he chose to pack the day of and drive me crazy while working from home Thankfully I had purchased a couple of sweaters/shirts for him for the trip so he just needed to figure out a couple of things to wear! Or rather I needed to figure out what he was going to wear

I completely forgot to mention in the introductions a very important member of our family, our puppy dog, Joy! She is the sweetest pug and we love her so much. You'll see her a couple of times throughout the report!



Since we were all packed and pretty much ready to go by 1 we decided to head to Panera Bread to get lunch. I was officially on vacation and a Panera lunch seemed like the perfect way to kick it off! DH disagreed about already being on vacation since we were still in cold Niagara Falls but there was no telling me we weren’t! I was officially done with work and therefore, vacation time!!



When we got home from Panera Bread we made sure Joy was all set for Grandma (my Mom haha) to pick her up once she was out of work at 3. Which basically meant gathering her favorite toy Moosey, her bed and my blanket together and putting her into her harness so my Mom could just attach her leash and safely get her out of the house without her escaping. (She's a bit of a Houdini at times!)



At 2 it was finally time to head to the airport!



I bought this apple watch cover on Amazon for like $8! And I loved it so much! I did buy a red watch band to match my red magic band but the double red looked a bit weird so I just ended up using the Mickey ear cover!

Even though it was time to go I had just enough time to get one more picture with our sweet girl, Joy!


Mom enough pictures - don't leave me!

And we were off! Joy was not happy about us leaving and kept trying to run out the door with us. So we were pretty sad to start off our drive to the airport but we did our best to not worry about her because she always has fun at my parents!

We made it to the airport in pretty great time and were so happy to be heading to Disney!




Even the airport was in a festive mood!



We quickly self-tagged our luggage and made our way over to security. For Buffalo, security was pretty backed up.



But we made it through security in about 20 minutes which was not bad at all! I did realize while in line though that I was wearing a slightly sparkly tank top that had set off the machines on my October trip. Thankfully, right before our turn the TSA agent had a few of us use the old fashion metal detectors that you just walk through so I didn’t have to get a full pat down in front of everyone lol

We had about forty minutes until our flight would be boarding so we decided to keep up our airport tradition we started in July and stop at the Anchor Bar for some drinks and a snack!




We definitely needed something to eat since our dinner wouldn’t be until 10:30 that night. So Dan got a beer and I just went for my favorite, a diet coke. To eat we split the quesadillas. Everything was so good and hit the spot!




I did start to panic towards the end of our meal that we would miss the boarding for our flight because at like 3:40 the Southwest app pushed out an alert that they were beginning to board and we weren’t supposed to until 3:55. We were flying Southwest so I did not want to lose out on our prime A boarding position! We didn’t pay for early bird (because its $25 a person now each way – crazy!). I actually had Dan and me both trying to check in for our flight the day before because I got stuck in a meeting in a room with terrible service during the time I needed to check in. Thankfully, whichever of us got through managed to score A58 and A59 so we were super happy but definitely didn't want to lose out on that position! Anyway, Dan calmed me down and he finished his beer, we paid and we still made it to the gate before they began boarding. (Why they felt the need to send out that alert WAY before they were beginning boarding is beyond me!!)



We actually didn’t board until 4 so I really had no reason to worry!



Ready for takeoff!


DH face in this pic cracks me up! haha



I was pretty excited when I heard them say that they had closed the door to the plane and that there would be no further boarding and I realized that Dan and I had lucked out with an empty aisle seat. Which I of course immediately pointed out to him and he told me I had jinxed it. I mean how can that be a jinx if everyone was already on the plane? Well, it was a random woman basically fell out of the sky and stumbled to the seat after aggressively throwing her carry on into the overhead bin and arguing with the flight attendant. She was drunk. So I really jinxed us lolol thankfully she kept mostly to herself the rest of the flight!

This was my first time flying Southwest since they rolled out their free wifi messaging and movie service. Since I have an iphone I was still able to text my Mom and get pictures of Joy acclimating through imessage (if you don’t have an iphone or need to text someone who doesn’t have an iphone, whatsapp would work too!) and watch Elf on the flight!


Joy with her best buddies! Honestly, getting to stay there is like a vacation for her, too!



It was so awesome!

We did end up landing a little later than expected, I think due to a bit of a delayed takeoff and a turbulent flight but only about ten minutes later than expected so it was not bad at all! DH and I stopped for a Starbucks after landing because we were both feeling pretty tired already and still had a whole night ahead of us!

I had to get my favorite - Venti Very Berry Hibiscus!



Time for a quick ride on the fake monorail!



The signs for all things Disney and Christmas were getting me super excited!



We grabbed our bags and made our way to the rental car counter. I once again booked EZ Car because even though I’ve had bad experiences they are still the cheapest! We had a much shorter wait this time compared to October but of course there was still an issue! So to start, a couple of guys were having a problem with their reservation (I think they were overcharged by $25) so they kept going back up to get it fixed but also didn’t really speak English so it occupied a lot of the workers’ time. I quietly commented to DH that I would pay them $25 if it could just get the line moving! Lol He responded that if I were in their shoes I would be doing the same thing and I could not argue with that! In case you haven’t picked up from my previous trips but I am not one to just accept something if it is wrong (ie Southwest delaying our flight 3 hours or there being no water in our hotel upon arrival). So we eventually get our turn and everything seems to be going well until I go to pay and realize the agent picked up an old reservation I had booked (and thought I had canceled) for $175 which was $100 more than the reservation I had most recently booked! So we ended up having to start the process over to get the correct reservation pulled up. Dan just looked at me and said “see”. Can’t argue with that!

Just a sidenote – we actually considered not renting a car this trip because when I first looked the rental cars were pretty expensive for such a short trip. We figured even with paying for ubers we would still come in under the rental car price plus resort parking (if we were charged). Then the rental prices started dropping like crazy and it just made more sense for us to have the rental car when we don’t really love Disney transportation options (and I’m clearly just too impatient for them!) so we were definitely glad we paid the correct price for the rental car!

Some of the issues we had with this rental car company in the past could have been avoided if I had just taken some pictures of gas tanks, contracts and toll receipts so we made sure to do that on our trip this time! (I'm happy to report we had no issues with the rental this time!)

We made it to POFQ pretty quickly but upon arrival still had not received our room ready text even though I had checked in online. I have never had an issue before using this so I assumed this was Disney’s way of forcing people to have to go to the front desk upon arrival and then they would catch you with having a rental car. (I realized after the fact that I never received it because I had signed up for the Magical Express and the system was waiting for me to scan in there - whoops!)

When we made it to the security booth the woman asked a couple of questions about the car and I just assumed the jig was up, we were definitely going to get charged for parking. The one question I found weird was that she asked if it was a rental or our car so I’m not even sure what the point of the questions were!

I pulled up to check in and just ran in to talk to someone about our room. I was sure it was ready. I mean if it wasn’t ready at 9PM at night we were going to have a problem because we definitely wanted to freshen up before heading to Disney Springs! Of course it was and I was sent on my way. I was never asked if I had a car or anything at the front desk but I assumed the security at the gate must have been responsible for that. Well, spoiler alert, we never got charged for parking! I’m not sure what happened and why we weren’t charged but I was definitely happy we didn’t! (This reservation was booked in July so it was definitely after the cut off date in March!)

Being at a resort that I haven’t stayed at in a while and arriving in the dark made it a bit difficult to find our room at first. We knew the general area of where our room was but we weren’t really sure where the elevators were so we may have circled a whole building before finding our way haha But we eventually found the elevator and made it to our room! We had also dressed for colder weather and it was definitely not cold this night so we were ready to get out of our winter clothes!

I really loved how they updated the rooms! I know some people aren’t a fan of the hardwood floors but to me they just seem cleaner and more modern and I love it!




I even loved the hidden Mickey in our room!



When I was little and we stayed here I used to love getting the beaded necklaces! Although I remember them being a bit nicer than these ones I think they also used to give out colorful coins too which I loved getting!

We took some time to freshen up and feel a little more alive before heading out for the night. While we were getting ready I called down to Bell Services to have our Amazon Prime Now Order brought up. I had placed the order the night before so I wouldn’t forget and just set the delivery time for 6-8PM. Worked out perfectly!



Time to head to Disney Springs!​

 

[dolewhipdreams]

so he chose to pack the day of and drive me crazy while working from home

Hahaha of course! It drives me bonkers when my DH saves packing until the last minute so I can't imagine having him do it while I'm right there trying to work!

Joy was not happy about us leaving and kept trying to run out the door with us

Aww that's so precious!

So I really jinxed us lolol thankfully she kept mostly to herself the rest of the flight!

This was my first time flying Southwest since they rolled out their free wifi messaging

Hold up. Their what now??

Well, spoiler alert, we never got charged for parking!

Yesss well done!

 

[missangelalexis]

Off to a great start! Woo hoo for not being charged for parking!!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Well, it was a random woman basically fell out of the sky and stumbled to the seat after aggressively throwing her carry on into the overhead bin and arguing with the flight attendant. She was drunk. So I really jinxed us lolol thankfully she kept mostly to herself the rest of the flight!

Oh My!!! I guess you can fly drunk... Oye, glad to hear she kept to herself.

This was my first time flying Southwest since they rolled out their free wifi messaging and movie service. Since I have an iphone I was still able to text my Mom and get pictures of Joy acclimating through imessage (if you don’t have an iphone or need to text someone who doesn’t have an iphone, whatsapp would work too!) and watch Elf on the flight!

OOHHH I forgot all about that? Who did you get the movies? We are flying Southwest on Friday!

So we ended up having to start the process over to get the correct reservation pulled up. Dan just looked at me and said “see”. Can’t argue with that!

Ha! Sounds like they have some serious computer issues.

(I realized after the fact that I never received it because I had signed up for the Magical Express and the system was waiting for me to scan in there - whoops!)

I don't know if that is true or not. Maybe.... I feel like the text alert have been very spotty as to who gets them and when. Strange.

The one question I found weird was that she asked if it was a rental or our car so I’m not even sure what the point of the questions were!

Really. I hope Disney somehow gets there act together on this or drops it. It seems so hard to really keep track of.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

I love POFQ. I love the size, how everything is so close, no matter where your room is and the decor. It’s soooo cute. Glad you made it safely and I can’t wsit to hear about your first evening in DS...

 

[disneyAndi14]

Joy is so cute! I’m glad she was having fun at her grandparents, haha!

I really liked the POFQ floors and the ability to put your suitcase under the bed!

Yay for no parking charge and no added charges to your rental bill!

 

[Amy11401]

When I was little and we stayed here I used to love getting the beaded necklaces! Although I remember them being a bit nicer than these ones I think they also used to give out colorful coins too which I loved getting!

We were there in October and on the last day the greeter was talking to our son who is 5. We were talking about how we were about to leave etc...he gave my son 3 colored coins as a special way to remember our trip and he invited us to come back in the future. It was a special moment.

 

[SweetSerenity]

The room looks nice. We have never been to FQ, but we always liked POR.

 

[suse66]

And we were off! Joy was not happy about us leaving and kept trying to run out the door with us. So we were pretty sad to start off our drive to the airport but we did our best to not worry about her because she always has fun at my parents!

Awww, she is so cute!

We quickly self-tagged our luggage and made our way over to security. For Buffalo, security was pretty backed up.

How is flying out of Buffalo? I am flying out of there for the first time for my March Break trip. So much cheaper than flying out of Toronto!

We definitely needed something to eat since our dinner wouldn’t be until 10:30 that night. So Dan got a beer and I just went for my favorite, a diet coke. To eat we split the quesadillas. Everything was so good and hit the spot!

That looks yummy!

I had to get my favorite - Venti Very Berry Hibiscus!

Delish!

I really loved how they updated the rooms! I know some people aren’t a fan of the hardwood floors but to me they just seem cleaner and more modern and I love it!

I love the hardwood floors too.....so much cleaner than the carpets!