We survived Christmas week, drinking around the world and holiday airline drama! A Dec. 26-30 trip report

[mcgypsy]

First things first - I'm Mary, 53, Disney enthusiast and mom of two. On this
trip it was just me and my oldest, Claire, 23, who had requested this trip
as her birthday/Christmas gift. Well, didn't have to ask me twice!!!
We left on Dec. 26th and stayed til Dec. 30th. To maximize our visit, I decided
to stay at Boardwalk Inn. We hadn't been there before so this was new for us.

​

Photo from night one after a VERY long travel day!

 

[mcgypsy]

So, day one started with a drive from our hometown of Clinton, NC to
the Charleston Airport in SC. It was a four hour drive, but saved over $800 on
airfare, sooooo.........
We arrived in Charleston at 10am for our 11:50am flight and were immediately
met with the news that we were delayed until 1:25pm. No problem, we would
eat lunch and it would be fine. Close to 1pm, the delay was updated
to 2:25pm. Within minutes, that changed to 3pm. In the meantime, I was
getting texts from my family about the Southwest meltdown and
started to panic. I was ready to get in the car and drive the next 6 hours
until my kiddo logged into flight aware and saw that our plane was
actually in route to us and we WOULD get to fly out.
We boarded at 3pm and then sat on the runway until 4 waiting to
take off. Not the day I had planned!!!

This was our plane. I was a little stressed, but my desire to
finally be on our way was far more important so off we went!
The guy in the picture loading the bags - that's the pilot!
Oh, we also had a semi-celebrity sighting - one of the
couples from Married at First Sight four years ago
was on our flight sitting right next to us!


We arrived in Orlando around 5:30 and immediately
caught a taxi to Boardwalk Inn. Not checking bags was
the best decision we made!
I had purchased LL for Guardians at EPCOT for 8:30, so
we dropped our bags, grabbed some pizza on the Boardwalk
and ate on our walk over. This day was looking up!​

Guardians was a great start to our adventure! After this, we
rode a few more small rides and called it a night. I thought we
were going to stay for extra evening hours, but the day caught
up with us and we crashed pretty early.​

 

[mcgypsy]

Day 2 started bright and early after a great night of sleep. This
was our Magic Kingdom day. We had picked up muffins from
the Boardwalk Bakery on the way in the night before so we ate
in the room while we were getting ready. I bought Genie Plus at
6:40 and prepared for the LL rush at 7am. We managed to get our paid
LL for Seven Dwarfs for 1:45 and Genie Plus for Jingle Cruise for 10:30.
We were also park hopping to Animal Kingdom today, so I bought a LL
for Avatar before we put the phone away for a bit.
We were not quite prepared
for how cold it was this morning so we layered on all of the long
sleeved things we could find and headed out. We arrived at MK at 7:50.
I thought early entry started at 8, but it was actually 8:30 so we stood in
the cold with everyone else for what seemed like forever waiting to be
let in to Tomorrowland. We headed straight to Space Mountain
along with what seemed to be 10,000 other people!
​

Once off Space, we immediately went over to Buzz Lightyear for an
intense competition to see who could save the galaxy!

​

 

[mplsmom1]

Great report so far. Also loved Guardians.

 

[SEAGULL59]

So, day one started with a drive from our hometown of Clinton, NC to
the Charleston Airport in SC. It was a four hour drive, but saved over $800 on
airfare, sooooo.........
We arrived in Charleston at 10am for our 11:50am flight and were immediately
met with the news that we were delayed until 1:25pm. No problem, we would
eat lunch and it would be fine. Close to 1pm, the delay was updated
to 2:25pm. Within minutes, that changed to 3pm. In the meantime, I was
getting texts from my family about the Southwest meltdown and
started to panic. I was ready to get in the car and drive the next 6 hours
until my kiddo logged into flight aware and saw that our plane was
actually in route to us and we WOULD get to fly out.
We boarded at 3pm and then sat on the runway until 4 waiting to
take off. Not the day I had planned!!!
View attachment 733967
This was our plane. I was a little stressed, but my desire to
finally be on our way was far more important so off we went!
The guy in the picture loading the bags - that's the pilot!
Oh, we also had a semi-celebrity sighting - one of the
couples from Married at First Sight four years ago
was on our flight sitting right next to us!


We arrived in Orlando around 5:30 and immediately
caught a taxi to Boardwalk Inn. Not checking bags was
the best decision we made!
I had purchased LL for Guardians at EPCOT for 8:30, so
we dropped our bags, grabbed some pizza on the Boardwalk
and ate on our walk over. This day was looking up!​

View attachment 733968View attachment 733969View attachment 733970

Guardians was a great start to our adventure! After this, we
rode a few more small rides and called it a night. I thought we
were going to stay for extra evening hours, but the day caught
up with us and we crashed pretty early.​

Glad you made it after your delay! It was a crazy time with all the delays.

 

[mcgypsy]

Great report so far. Also loved Guardians.

Thank you! We would end up riding it again later - my daughter loved it!

 

[mcgypsy]

Glad you made it after your delay! It was a crazy time with all the delays.

Thank you! Even with the delay, I was just grateful we got there. Watching the news gave me serious anxiety!

 

[mcgypsy]

Day 2 continued....
After Buzz (I lost by the way) we headed over to Thunder Mountain.
The posted wait was only 20 minutes and we didn't wait nearly that long.
From there, we backtracked to Haunted Mansion. The wait time said
20 minutes when we entered the line, but quickly changed to 40 while we
were standing pretty close to the line entrance. We ended up being there
about 30 minutes and were able to make our 2nd Genie+ selection while
standing in line. We chose Pirates of the Caribbean from our list of
"must dos".

Once we finished HM, we decided it was time for a snack! We purchased
a refillable popcorn bucket and some glazed almonds - two of Claire's
favorites from her childhood visits - and headed off to Jingle Cruise.
I had never done this with the Christmas theme before and thought
it was adorable! Our guide was amazing and the holiday puns were just silly enough to make it a little different​

.

We had timed things wonderfully and were able to get off JC and
straight onto Pirates. After that, it was time to find some "real food". We only made two ADRs for this trip and neither of them were here, so
we left our lunch decision up to TikTok. What could go wrong?​

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Counting Stars]

Following- what a really special Birthday/Christmas gift! Love the picture of the two of you in the first post- you have that I am at Disney smile

 

[mcgypsy]

Following- what a really special Birthday/Christmas gift! Love the picture of the two of you in the first post- you have that I am at Disney smile

Thank you! That was the look of two very weary travelers incredibly happy to be at Disney!

 

[mcgypsy]

So....we left off at the point where my daughter decided we should let
TikTok decide what we have for lunch! We got lucky -
they suggested we have "corn dog nuggies" as the kids call
them and a chili cheese dog from Casey's, so off we went!
While waiting for our lunch, we were able to watch the parade
from the window inside Casey's. Win Win!

After lunch, we did a little shopping and then
headed to use our LL at Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Since we
were park hopping to Animal Kingdom after this, we made a
Genie+ selection for Expedition Everest before heading into
the mines!

The price for Genie+ was a little ridiculous this whole week.
It was $29.95 per person per day, but there was no way to
ride everything we wanted to ride without it. The line for
SDMT was at nearly 3 hours when we arrived for our LL. We stood in line for about 10 minutes before riding. This wasn't entirely
unheard of during our trip. Most lines were an hour or
more for most rides daily - on this day, the people mover had
a wait of over 45 minutes all day long. It was nuts!

After SDMT, we headed out of the park and over to AK for
a few rides there before ending the day at Disney Springs!​

 

[mcgypsy]

We hopped over to AK and were a little disappointed that we had
forgotten the safari closes so early in the winter. We never did
get to ride it this trip, but that just gives us a reason to come back soon.


We headed straight to Everest when we arrived and got in line only to have
the ride shut down. We decided to look for something else to do so we grabbed some dumplings from the kiosk by Yak & Yeti and then headed over to Dinoland to play some games. I also managed to talk her into It's Tough To Be a Bug even though she swears it traumatized her as a child!
Once we finished there, it was time for Avatar. We made our way into the line and were on the ride in 20 minutes. The standby line was OVER FOUR HOURS.
After the ride, my thoughts were that it was cute and I liked it, but FOUR HOURS?!? That just seemed a little nuts.
When we got off, we realized that Everest was running again. We went straight on and were able to get a Genie+ return time for Dinosaur as soon as we got off Everest.
As soon as we had tamed the Yeti, we headed over to track some Dinosaurs.
Once we finished with that one, we took a bus straight to Disney Springs and bellied up to the bar at Rainforest Cafe to watch my daughter's alma mater - East Carolina University - play in their bowl game. After dinner, it was time to crash! Day 3 was set for Hollywood Studios and we knew 7am phone readiness would be required to get everything we wanted!

​

 

[mcgypsy]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

Thanks for joining!

 

[footballmouse]

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

I love your mother/daughter trip report.

 

[suse66]

Such a fun trip so far! Looking forward to reading more about your special trip!

 

[mcgypsy]

I love your mother/daughter trip report.

Thank you! We had so much fun

 

[mcgypsy]

Day 3 was our Hollywood Studios Day. I woke up around 6 to make sure
we could get Genie+ for the day. We booked an ILL for Rise of the Resistance
and Genie+ for Slinky Dog. Even booking right at 7am, our return time of 1:25pm. We bought breakfast this morning at the Carousel Coffee shop and ate
in the room while we were getting ready. I loved being able to
walk to Hollywood Studios! The location was one of the very best parts of
our Boardwalk stay, especially since we ended up at HS and EPCOT more than
anywhere else.
So, we made it to Early Morning rope drop. I had Claire list all of the rides
at each park that she wanted to do in order of importance so this helped
us create our itinerary for each day. Today, we started with Toy Story Mania!
I kicked her butt and was thrilled for redemption after losing on Buzz.


From there we headed to Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. It was
cute, but I really miss The Great Movie Ride. The line for this moved
painfully slow, but we stuck it out. When we came off the ride, there was a 90 minute wait! We walked over to Star Tours and walked right on.
When we came off, we were able to get our next Genie+ for Rock n Roller Coaster. But first, we had an ILL for Rise of the Resistance to use. This was another crazy standby line. The park had only been open 2 hours and the posted standby wait time was almost 3 hours! This was the longest LL line we stood in all week - at a whopping 30 minutes. As I said before, I'm not a fan of the Genie+ price tag, but there is no way I would do these standby lines!

While in line for RoTR, I snagged a reservation for Oga's Cantina!
I was so excited!!! My daughter thought I was nuts. She has never
seen any of the Star Wars movies and had no clue what my
excitement was about, but there were cocktails involved so she was in!

I LOVED Rise of the Resistance! The theming was incredible and
the details just blew me away. This was my favorite of the "new" rides
we tried. I was surprised at how long it took to get through each
part of the ride and quickly figured out that this is why the line is so long!

As soon as we finished the ride, we hoofed it over to Oga's and were immediately taken inside. It's been 5 years since our last trip to Disney, so none of the Star Wars area was there and I was just blown away - it was like
being transported back to my childhood and waking up on a movie set.
We stood at the bar in Oga's and ordered some drinks. I quickly got my
hand slapped for trying to use a straw - apparently they don't do that
on their planet! We had the best time, but it was before lunch still
so we only had a couple of drinks and then headed out to find food.

Next up - Slinky Dog, Rock n Roller Coaster and a hop to Splash!
​

 

[mcgypsy]

Such a fun trip so far! Looking forward to reading more about your special trip!

Thanks for joining! It was a trip I will always remember.