After leaving Nomad Lounge, I decided I’d begin to make my way over toward Magic Kingdom (MK). I had tickets for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party (MVMCP), so I would be able to enter the park around 4:00. It was only around 1:30 when I left AK, but since I was relying on Disney transportation, I wanted to give myself plenty of time.
I decided that I really wanted to go to MK by way of the Wilderness Lodge. It’s my favorite WDW resort, and I especially love to visit during the holidays to see all of the beautiful decorations. Unfortunately, I missed the Wilderness bus by about 2 minutes, and ended up waiting about 25-30 minutes for the next bus. The wait did give me a chance to rest my legs and plug in my cell phone to ensure it would be charged for MVMCP pictures later on!
I’m always happy to arrive at Wilderness, and I’m sure I was grinning like crazy when I walked into the lobby. To me, the lobby is spectacular any time of year, but at Christmas time I love the giant tree, the welcoming fireplace, the garland on the railings – it’s just an extra level of awesome. Stitch and other characters (I think Pluto for one) were greeting guests around the tree, and there was a special display set up in the lobby selling holiday snacks and stocking stuffer type items. I spent quite a few minutes browsing there as well as visiting the excellent gift shop. I don’t always get tempted by resort-specific Disney merchandise, but Wilderness is totally my vibe. I treated myself to a buffalo check, fleece-banded Mickey ear Christmas hat to wear for the holiday party.
Having gotten my fill of the lobby, I decided to walk around the resort grounds a bit. We hadn’t been to Wilderness since they added the Copper Creek Villas & Cabins and opened the new Geyser Point Bar and Grill close to the old Trout Pass Pool Bar location. I didn’t have enough time to go see the cabins, but I did make time to stop at Geyser Point for a beer. You know, research, and blog fodder. I very much liked the vibe at Geyser Point, with its outdoor bar and more casual seating. I decided not to get a snack since I was headed to the Christmas Party, but I would definitely be interested in getting food there another time.
With my beer in my belly and feeling content, I strolled over to the dock to catch the boat over to Magic Kingdom. There was a line building of people headed to MVMCP, and I still had some time to kill, so I decided to take the “long way” – AKA the boat to the Contemporary by way of Fort Wilderness. In addition to the Wilderness Lodge being very much my aesthetic and vibe, I find the boat to be such a relaxing and beautiful way to travel to MK. I take loads of pictures and enjoy every minute of the trip.read more
I had intended to wake up very early on Thursday to make it to Animal Kingdom for morning Extra Magic Hours (which started at 7 AM). But I had a lot of trouble leaving my cozy hotel bed when my alarm initially went off. The one thing that finally motivated me to get moving was remembering I could hit up Creature Comforts when I arrived at AK. I’m not an everyday Starbucks drinker, but I do like my morning caffeine, and it’s nice to walk around the parks with a warm coffee in hand.read more
The next morning, I got ready and headed to Epcot a little before 8 AM. Having read that some visitors to the B Resort were frustrated by the shuttle bus service to the parks (apparently the shuttles are shared by several Disney Spring hotels and travel time can be long), I decided I would take an Uber to Epcot. The Uber was quick and easy, and the driver dropped me off at the corner of the Journey parking lot – a very short walk to the Epcot entrance. I waited in line to enter the park (they didn’t begin letting people in until after 8:30) and then again for “rope drop” past the entrance to Spaceship Earth, checking out some of the holiday merchandise at Gateway Gifts as I waited.read more
We’ve got a special guest post from our favorite Disney friends! They recently took a great combined trip to Walt Disney World and a Disney Cruise to celebrate the end of the school year. One of the special events they attended was a Disney Villains After Hours Event at the Magic Kingdom.read more
We would like to start answering reader questions in a once a week post. Our only problem is that we don’t have any sitting in our inbox! Please feel free to add a question as a comment to this post or to any post that generates some questions for you! You can also send them to us via our contact form.read more
After our Christmas cruise was done, we headed back up to Orlando and Hollywood Studios. We noticed it was a bit cool when we got off the ship in Miami. Once we arrived in Orlando, we realized it was a lot colder than we had anticipated. A cold front had moved in between the time we had left on the ship and when we returned. Unfortunately, having come from the Caribbean, we weren’t prepared (or dressed for) cool weather. We didn’t want to let it interfere with our visit to Hollywood Studios, but it definitely helped convince us to spend a shorter amount of time there. We used our three FastPasses that I had setup for the afternoon. We also spent some time in the Star Wars Launch Bay, mainly trying to stay warm. When we headed to Star Tours to use our fast passes, Nancy headed over to the Baseline Tap House, which is in the old Writer’s Stop location, and got a flight of beers and cider.read more
Our main goal when visiting Animal Kingdom this trip was to ride Flights of Passage at least once. We couldn’t get any FastPasses for it, so we made sure to rope drop Animal Kingdom twice on this trip. We got to ride it on both days. We made sure to pick days that didn’t have Extra Magic Hours in the morning, and we arrived at the park about an hour before opening. On both days, we got into the park about 45 minutes early and everyone headed towards Pandora.read more
