Hollywood Studios

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.

We left Hollywood Studios and headed towards our hotel for the next two nights, the Hyatt Place Orlando/Lake Buena Vista.  The hotel is located near Disney Springs, which sometimes caused problems with the traffic congestion there.  We ended up eating dinner at one of our favorite places, Flippers Pizzeria.

Magic Kingdom

When Disney announced they were going to do the Magic Kingdom’s Fantasy in the Sky New Year’s Eve Fireworks show on December 30th, we knew we would want to see them.  We got a late dinner reservation at 7:30 pm for Skipper’s Canteen so we could have a nice sit down meal to help us stay up to midnight.  Later on, Disney announced they would do them twice, once at 6:30 pm and once at midnight.  Now we were really excited.  We were planning on being up at Epcot the next night till midnight, so we were happy not to have to do that two nights in a row.

We arrived at Magic Kingdom ready for the day, including proper clothing for the colder weather.

The park was pretty busy, including this line for Stitch’s Great Escape.  Yes, we rode it, again.  It was a pretty short line and my younger daughter hadn’t seen it.  She said that she didn’t want to ride it again.

We also made the kids see Country Bear Jamboree.  They weren’t excited but ended up liking it.

The park was fairly busy, so we used our fast passes and tried to get new ones throughout the day.  We spent a lot of time just looking at the details of the park, shopping and eating popcorn.  We got to the hub around 4:30 pm or so to get a good spot for the fireworks.  We were not disappointed.

Once the fireworks were over, we headed to Skipper’s Canteen for dinner.  We had been there once before, but hadn’t been that impressed.  The items we got before were fairly bland and expensive.  To be honest, we really only got a reservation this time because it was available and we’d wanted to have a sit down dinner if we were going to be up till midnight. 

This visit to Skipper’s Canteen was a complete 180 from the first visit.  We found the food to be good.  I think we did a better job as well selecting our entrees.  We started with dumplings as an appetizer.

My youngest daughter got the Sankuru Sadie’s Seafood Stew.

Nancy got the Sustainable Fish Entree, but I don’t recall the type of fish.

I got the “A Lot of Steak” salad.  This was really good.  I would definitely order it again when we go.

My older daughter got the Curried Vegetable Crew Stew.

We would definitely go back to Skipper’s Canteen after this meal.  The service was really attentive as well.  After dinner, we headed back to the hotel.  We had to pack up and change hotels the next morning, so we didn’t want to be out too late.

Epcot

We started our morning out by changing hotels.  We checked into the Dolphin and headed over to Epcot.  Epcot was already getting setup for New Year’s Eve, as were the guests.  Lots of people were taking naps throughout the afternoon.

We had a few FastPasses in Future World in the morning, then we headed around the World Showcase.  We made sure to take a few pictures of the Rose and Crown, former home of our assistant server from our Very Merrytime cruise on the Disney Magic, Debbie. (HI DEBBIE!!!)

Epcot got more and more crowded as the day went on.  Here is one of the many lines we saw throughout the day.  This one was for crepes in France.  Notice the tape arrow on the ground to help with traffic management.

One of the things that Disney did to help with traffic flow was to open a path backstage that went from the Land Pavilion over to the area between the Canada and England Pavilion.  We utilized it a few times during the evening.

There were tons of dance parties setup around Epcot, including in the fountain area of Future World.  They also used Spaceship Earth as a clock so you could see what time it was.

We had managed to snag a last minute reservation for Garden Grill around 7:45 pm.  This ended up being perfect as we were able to get out of some of the worst of the crowd and enjoy a great meal.  It is served family style.  We enjoyed turkey, broccoli, mashed potatoes, sausages, green beans, and meatloaf, along with macaroni and cheese and french fries.

The server brought a separate platter for my vegetarian daughter as well, you can see it at the top of this photo.

We also got a visit from our favorite Mouse!

The dessert was a Berry Short Cake with Vanilla Bean Whip Cream , but by that time, we were pretty full.

After dinner, we headed back over to the Canada Pavilion to grab some seats for the fireworks show.  We grabbed a pretty nice seat right near the wall.  The walkway around the World Showcase got more and more crowded as the night went on.  We probably camped out for about two hours.  Two of us held the space while the others found more comfortable seats to wait.  Then, they joined us for the fireworks.

We had a fairly unobstructed view for both IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth and for the New Year’s Eve fireworks.

The various pavilions around the World Showcase each do a mini fireworks celebration in the minutes leading up to midnight.

Following the mini fireworks celebrations from each pavilion, a large fireworks show happens over the lake. 

The grand finale is pretty epic, ending in a blinding display.

After the fireworks ended, we packed up our stuff and headed for the International Gateway.  It was extremely crowded until exited.  Once we made it though, it was an easy walk to the Dolphin.  We pretty much went straight to sleep since we had to head to Jacksonville the next day for our flight home.

Headed home

It was a bit tough to get up the next day at 9 am, but we had to be at the airport at noon, so we had to get going.  We stopped on the drive to Jacksonville to grab some coffee and breakfast.  We made it to the airport without issue, despite the rain that had moved in.  The weather was actually pretty miserable, with it being raining and cold.  Our flight back was uneventful, although it was really, really cold when we landed at Reagan National.  We took a taxi home and started to get ready to head back to the reality of work and school the next day.

We had a great holiday trip to Walt Disney World and on our cruise.  I don’t know if we would do another trip over Christmas, mainly because we didn’t get to spend it with our extended families.  This one time, however, it was really fun. 

Here are the other parts of the trip:

Planning | Travel | Hollywood Studios | Magic Kingdom | Epcot | Animal Kingdom | WDW Part 2

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