We started planning this Disney trip around or right after our Barker family vacation in 2021. We nailed down the date & time and instantly found and booked a house in Orlando right outside the parks that fit all 14 of us. We decided that we would go during Christmas & New Years and surprise them on Christmas morning! I'm all about making those core memories!!! Throughout the year we gathered Disney themed things to give them for Christmas. My parents came over early Christmas morning to eat breakfast and watch them open their presents. The last present happened to be new luggage for each of them packed with all those Disney & travel goodies.
This boy and his love for Stitch!
It took them a minute but they finally figured it out - THEY WERE GOING TO DISNEY. They were even more surprised to find out we were leaving that day! After going to John & Joann’s to open presents there, we came home and started packing to leave.
We ended up leaving around 2pm that afternoon. We drove until we made it to our normal pit stop at Buc Ee’s for some gas and road snacks. The boys got a beef burrito and I got the Buc Ee’s club, along with the usual Icee and Beaver nuggets of course. Our new favorite snack is now banana pudding fudge!
We drove until we made it to our hotel in Valdosta, GA where we stayed the night. The next morning we got up -which was a struggle- and ate breakfast in the hotel lobby and got back on the road to our house in Orlando. These boys were exhausted!
We made it to the house around 2-3pm. Once everyone else got there and got settled in we played a few games in the garage turned game room then we loaded up to go eat.
The dinner plan was for Ford's Garage but the wait was so long so we ended up going across the street to El Jefe's.
After dinner we stopped at Walmart and fought everyone else there for food. LOTS of shelves were empty. It's said to be one of the most busiest times of the year and I can agree with that! We got most of what was on our list. Some things we just gave up on and decided to try and get on another day!
Tuesday was our first day at the parks. No matter how many times we go I still feel like I have to get this picture. It's just iconic!
After finding a place to park we made it into Hollywood Studios, stood in line to open the park, took some pictures and got in line for Mickey's Runaway Railway.
While waiting in the first long line for the day we had our own photoshoot....
... and ate our first snacks of the trip!!!!
After waiting a LONG time for the first ride we decided to buy Genie+ and figure it out to see how it worked and if it would be worth it for the rest of the trip. While we were in the first line we grabbed the next showing for Lightning McQueen.
Our next Genie+ ride was Star Wars Smuggler's Run. Walking into Star Wars felt like walking into another world. Which is the point right?! So cool!
The Millenium Falcon!!!
Trying the blue and green milk was on the top of my list to try. Blue milk was the best!
You have to go through Star Wars to get to Toy Story Land. We knew we wanted to ride Slinky Dog and there wasn't a time on Genie+ that we could grab so we knew we were just going to have to wait in the EXTREMELY long line. I think we waited 2-2.5 hours for this one. I got online and ordered some food from Woody's Lunch Box. I called Ryan when it was ready and he picked it up and brought it to us in line to eat while we wait. Making great use of our time in line! Haha!
After Slinky Dog we went back through Star Wars to get to the last Genie+ ride we picked up for the day. That's the magic of Disney - walking through each specific part of the park and feeling like you are actually there in the scene of the movie. Star Wars is just so cool!
Liam stopped to get a Porg!
We used our last Genie+ on the last available ride we could get which was Frozen. It's not a ride but like an interactive show. And it was a good one!
Annalise loved it too!
Each park has their own beautiful Christmas tree during the season.
After frozen was over we noticed on the Disney app that Rise of the Resistance had a low wait time so we made a mad dash to get in line and I'm so glad we did. It was amazing.
It was a perfect end to our first day at Disney!
Wednesday for my crew was Epcot with a park hopper ticket to Animal Kingdom. We got to Epcot early and paid $50 to park in preferred parking so that when we were ready to go to AK we would also have preferred parking there and be closer to the gate. It was early and a little bit chilly if you couldn't tell.
We rope dropped to Soarin first, then took a break for coffee and churros before boarding Guardians of the Galaxy. I was up early that morning to get in the queue to make sure we got a time to ride it. Guardians is the newest ride and if you don't make it in the queue or pay for a limited lightening lane ticket then you don't get to ride it!
After Guardians, we rode Mission:Space and loaded up on more goodies. That was really all the time we had for Epcot.
On our way to Animal Kingdom we stopped at Speedway to blow up the front tire on our stroller then made a pit stop at McDonalds for chicken nuggets for the boys. I'm bummed we didn't take an official picture at Epcot when we got there but we stopped for one before walking into Animal Kingdom.
We met up with everyone else at Expedition Everest and hopped in line with them. This was the first time we had ever been on Everest and I can't believe we haven't been on it before. It was actually a really good ride! One I won't skip over again!
We found KEVIN!!!!!!
We also found some yummy cocktails with ice cubes that lit up.
Tree of life!
After Everest we made our way to Pandora to ride the Navi River and Flight of Passage. We utilized rider swap more this trip than the last. They would give Maggie or whoever would stay back with Annalise & Declan, a pass so that when we were done they would hop on the ride without having to wait in line again. Thankfully they let the whole group go with her again. The wait time said it was 250 min when we started but it took us 2.5hr to get through. Be prepared to wait a LONG time during the holidays!
Liam playing the drums.
Pandora during the day ....
Pandora at night ...
Animal Kingdom's Christmas tree.
Thursday was a rest day for us. I had started getting sick before we left and I tried everything I had to keep it at bay. The morning of our rest day I woke up feeling absolutely miserable. I waited 4 hours to be seen at a local urgent care. But they took care of me so that I would be in tip top shape the rest of the week!
Friday was Universal Islands of Adventure day with the whole crew. We were up at 4am to be there at 7am for 1 hour early access. We went straight to Hagrid's Motorbike and waited in line for 4 HOURS due to multiple delays. It's one of those things where you know it's ridiculous to wait in a line that long but once you are there and waiting for any amount of time, you know if you get out of line you will still have to wait somewhere else. So why not just stay in line and knock out that ride. You never know when a ride will be down or have issues or how long it will take to fix it.
Walking into Hogsmeade
First stop at Hogsmeade was Honeydukes for a Chocolate Frog
My first butterbeer! I tried them all - Regular, Frozen and Hot. Hot is definitely the best! Frozen comes in at a close second!
Liam is a big Harry Potter nerd so he was totally in his element the moment we walked into Hogsmeade. He picked out his robe and wand first thing.
Putting his interactive wand to use!
Some of us started getting a little hangry so we split up to quickly get something to eat. My crew had pizza and corn dogs. We walked around and rode rides until we could figure out a meeting place to all get back together. Ryan, Kane and Reid hopped on this rapid water ride. I didn't want to spend the rest of my day wet and chaffed so I opted out of this ride and captured memories from above.
The twins regretting their decision to ride ....
After you get off this ride you come to another long line with people drenched in water waiting to pay to step into this blow dry machine. It cost about $7 for about 5 minutes of air that didn't even really dry anything.
We then met up with everyone at the Velicocoaster. THAT. RIDE. WAS. AWESOME.
We passed Kong on our way to hop on the Hogwarts Express and the wait was short to we decided to get it in as well!
Platform 9 3/4
The train took us to Universal Studios where Diagon Alley is. There we ordered a quick service meal at the Leaky Cauldron for dinner.
After dinner we got on Woody Woodpecker's rollercoaster. I can still hear his goofy laugh in my head.
Minions was a fun ride! I wish there were more minion things there!
We ended the day with E.T. and shut the park down.
It's hard living your best life.
Saturday we woke up, ate breakfast and got to Magic Kingdom round 10 am. Because we had always stayed at a Disney resort the process to get to MK while being off resort was all new to us. We had to take a ferry from the parking lot to MK entrance.
First stop was to watch the Christmas parade. It had been a long week and sister just couldn't keep up!
For Christmas I got all the kids Crocs with Jibbitz to match each kid's personality! They were a big hit!
Santa!!!
I love magical photos!
The Crew!
After the parade we started in Adventureland riding rides. Swiss family Robinson treehouse, Magic Carpets and Jungle Cruise were all checked off the list.
Of course we had to eat a Dole whip.
We even ran into Kelcey and her family getting their Dole whip fix too!
We ate Pecos Bills in Frontierland for quick service lunch before riding Splash Mountain for the last time EVER!
As it got dark we split up for a little bit. With the range of ages we have we wanted to get different rides in for different kids. I took the some of the boys to Haunted Mansion then we all met back up together in Tomorrowland.
In Tomorrowland we did Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin ....
....then hopped on the People Mover for a much needed break.
Knocked our spine out of alignment on Space Mountain. Other than the back pain it caused, it was actually pretty cool because it was blasting Christmas music with red and green strobe lights instead of their normal audio visuals.
We became official Tomorrowland Speedway certified and received certificates to prove it.
We also rode the Barnstormer twice without any wait!
Magic Kingdom's Christmas tree all lit up.
After getting in all the rides that we could, we made our way to Main Street for fireworks and New Year's countdown.
We decided to get as close to the exit as we could so that when it was over we could be one of the first ones out. Plus the cast members told us that we would be able to see the fireworks no matter where we were. There was no point getting close to the castle because it was packed!!!!
Ryan went to the Emporium and bought us all 2023 Mickey Ears.
Bless. Liam tried his best to hang but he just couldn't do it. I snapped a picture of his sleepy smile before he was out!
We were told that New Year's and July 4th have the biggest firework show. They shoot them with a 360 view and they were right. They were all around us!
It was absolutely the most magical thing ever. Standing in front of the castle, counting down the time until the new year, friends and family all around you.... what could be more magical you ask???? Maybe, snow?! Yea, "snow" started falling all around us. It could have been the exhaustion but I think I shed a tear or two of happiness!
Happy New Year!
So remember when I said we got as close to the exit as we could so that we wouldn't have long to wait once it was over? HA! What were we thinking? After the fireworks were over the stampede ensued. We decided it wasn't worth fighting the crowd and decided to continue being on cloud nine for a little while longer. After it had cleared out a little we made our way to get in line to hop on the ferry and get back to our car. We also got in trouble for sitting on these ferry steps. We just needed to rest our tired, worn out legs!
We didn't get home until 230am. Would I ever do it again? Probably not. Was it an amazing experience that we can say we did it and check it off our bucket list? Absolutely! We didn’t get to ride a lot of the rides due to the amount of people and wait times, plus 14 people trying to get organized and make plans can also be a time thief.
Sunday was a much needed rest day. The boys swam at the pool all day. We made a run to Publix for some last minute things we needed. No way we were going back to Walmart!!!! Had dinner at the house and ended the night watching Avatar, lounging in Star Wars Pj's and eating Mickey ice cream.
Monday for our family was day 2 of Universal. Everyone else went to Epcot. We chose to park hop AK & Epcot the day everyone else did AK because we knew we wanted more time at Universal. We started in Universal Studios by stopping at the stroller rental place to get more air in our front wheel of the stroller. The boys really are too heavy to be riding in the stroller but it comes in handy when they are tired plus it holds all our stuff.
We rode all the rides we missed the first Universal day. Transformers, Revenge of the Mummy, Fast and the Furious, Men in Black and the Simpson’s all knocked out first thing with little to no wait.
After getting those rides in we then made our way to spend some time at Diagon Alley where we tried to ride Escape from Gringotts. We waited 1.5 hours and were given express passes to come back later as the ride had been delayed. The dragon breathes fire every 5 minutes or so.
Waiting in line drinking Gilly Water (AKA expensive purified water)
And eating jelly slugs.
Main room in Gringotts. All the goblins are moving and look so lifelike!
Watching Liam walk through the Wizarding World is what it is all about. He was in absolute awe every corner we turned.
We then stopped into Gringotts Currency Exchange where we exchanged $20 USD into Gringott dollars just to say we did it (waste of time and effort) to use somewhere in the Wizarding World.
Then used those Gringott dollars to buy the other 2 kids an interactive wand.
The plan was then to take the Hogwarts Express back over to Hogsmeade at Island of Adventure but the train wait was 100 min so we just decided to walk there. You still have to have a park hopper ticket!
We chose to use our express passes to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.
This ride took us inside Hogwarts where we got to see inside Dumbledore's office....
...and see the Sorting Hat! Liam says he is definitely Gryffindor!
I ordered dinner at the Three Broomsticks then the boys and I hopped on the Flight of the Hippogriff ride. We wanted to make sure we soaked up all the Wizarding World that we could so we jumped on the Hogwarts Express and went back over to Universal to try to ride Gringotts again. We only had 2 express passes left but we conveniently walked by a stand that was printing express passes and Ryan asked the girl if we could just get 3 more to ride our last ride together. She was more than happy to give them to us!
We ended the night with that ride and then accidentally wandered into Knockturn Alley where all the Dark Arts part was. We walked around the shops and let the boys play with their interactive wands for a little bit.
I did a mobile pickup for some Cinnabon as we made our way to the car to go home. Everyone was passed out by the time we got back to the house. I even dozed off too!
Tuesday morning we woke up around 730am and started packing. Check out was at 10am but we were loaded up and out of there by 9am. This trip was totally one we will never forget! It's hard to top a Disney/Universal Christmas surprise but I forsee more experiences like this and less presents in our future!
No comments:
Post a Comment