Fun, Food, Fantasmic!

Day 7 and we headed to Hollywood Studios at 8:30am for 9am opening. It's such a nice walk from the Beach Club to this park and we always arrive before a servicing boat. We had just a few must do's to accomplish on our last day at this park so we planned our schedule and got to it! We saw Muppet Vision 3D, Beauty and the Beast live show, The Great Movie Ride, and Lights Motors Action before heading back to the room to freshen up for our dinner reservations in Epcot. Ally passed out for a nap on the walk back so we let her sleep and walked to Epcot for a cocktail in France since we had a little extra peace to enjoy it. The view from World Showcase Lagoon was amazing, and the added drink was fantastic.  Jace kept occupied with a sucker. We forgot to grab pants for the kids for the evening since it gets cooler and Ally is sensitive to cold (aka, complains a lot about being cold if it's less than 75 degrees), so we walked the 5 minutes back to the resort to take care of that.

 Ally wanted her picture taken with Ariel in front of our Villa building

 View of Hollywood Studios on our walk from the Beach Club

 Back alley area of Hollywood Studios

Jace asked for "more more" so Ally helped him get some applesauce. She can be so sweet when she feels so moved!

 Napping for 2 hours and NEVER letting go of the ever-important sucker

 The sucker monster mess

 View of Epcot's France as we come to the back entrance, from Beach Club.

 Pretend smile and the beautiful Grand Marnier Slush

Ahhhh, the good stuff


Our dinner reservation was at 5:50pm at Les Chefs de France and we knew we'd be cutting it close to get to Fantasmic's 8pm show at Hollywood Studios. We got there at 5:15 and they sat us IMMEDIATELY. Thank goodness because I always forget how leisurely that restaurant experience is. No complaints, we love how relaxed it is and we never feel rushed to turn the table and it never feels like a long time (for us...we like slower meals). Our food was wonderful, as always here and our server, Baptiste, was probably the best server we'd had all week. He was totally engaging and interactive with the kids. I had the shrimp and scallops like I always do and Ryan did the 3 course option. He chose the french onion soup, the macaroni gratin, and I had his dessert option, profiteroles. YUM all around!

 Ally: "Take a picture of you and me Mommy!"

Oh. My. Gah.

It was 7 when we left Epcot for the walk to Hollywood Studios and again we beat the boat coming from the same location. We walked right in to the Hollywood Hills Theater and found seats on the far left side of the set. There really isn't a bad view in that theater, except maybe the standing only area in the back. Ally talked all the way through the show and pointed out every single character based on the music she heard before seeing them. The woman sitting in front of us turned to her pre-teen girls and said, "She's a professional." HA! We're so proud. ;-) Ally gets so excited with the characters and points them out, then waves...so cute! Jace slept through the entire event. We waited on the bleachers to let the crowds thin a bit. No sense it trying to hurry out when we had Fast Passes for Toy Story Midway Mania still and Extra Magic Hours had just begun! Not leaving the park just yet!

Ryan and I have a running competition on both this as Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. He beat me, we think (not sure if we recalled the numbers correctly since they were so drastically different), on Buzz Lightyear so we'd been trash-talking all week about Toy Story. This ride is regularly an 80-90 minute wait even in lighter crowds so this was our only chance to catch it. No do overs for this, unfortunately. Final scores, Ryan: 151,400, accuracy 37%; Tara: 146,000, accuracy 36%. Poop. Next year, baby, next year. I guess I'll have to play our Wii version a little more and train for the next rematch!

We wandered to the Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights and this was pure Christmas bliss! I've been saying all week that I've been really underwhelmed by Disney's Christmas decor. It's just not what I pictured WDW to look like during the holiday season. I expected it to look almost as thought Christmas threw up all over The World, but tastefully Disney-done. This light display was so in-your-face, over-the-top, Christmas-awesomeness! Not acceptable Resort wide but absolutely invigorating for a couple blocks worth! Ally insisted we dance while the dancing lights soundtrack played all around us and Jace wasn't about to miss out on some shakin' so he got in on it too!

 No detail overlooked!

If you're not familiar with this lighting display, Google it. The story behind it is fascinating. It's inspired by a real family with this type of show on their house/lawn!

The day done, the kids out for the count and our moving day tomorrow. Epcot and then to the Polynesian we go!

Give Us a Break! Vacation Nightmare Strikes Again.

Day 6: (Off Day, aka no park touring) Downtown Disney, Restaurant Akershus Storybook Princess Dinner

Well, our day started at 2am with me being sick with some stomach bug. I felt much better by 8am but I was really weak and too afraid to eat anything to get my strength up. I finally got myself together and felt better by 11am and slowly got down a large bottle of water. I felt better as each hour passed.

Thank goodness this was our off day! We were able to take it slow and were avoiding parks anyway since crowd levels soar on Saturdays. We bused to Downtown Disney to do some shopping. We hit all our fave stores except the pantry store (kitchen goods) and bought a few items for the kids. At about 1, we stopped to get the kids some lunch and me some kind of slush...anything icey. I ended up with an Italian ice. Felt lots better after that.

We started back for the resort at 2:30 and knew our resort wasn't running enough buses frequently enough to service everyone. Our bus makes stops at Downtown Disney Marketplace, Downtown Disney West Side, Typhoon Lagoon, Swan Resort, Dolphin Resort, Yacht Club Resort, Beach Club Resort (us), and Boardwalk Resort. This is absolutely ridiculous and I can't believe they can't split that up between 2 or 3 different routes. Anyway, our bus arrived at 3 and we didn't get off the bus at our resort until 4pm. We were packed full when we got on at Downtown Disney Marketplace and yet the bus driver continued to ask guests to move further to the back of the bus so more people could get on at each stop! Awful. I've had a few bad transportation experiences in WDW but this will probably top my list. It's just not realistic to have 1 route servicing 8 stops and running no more than every 30 minutes (I don't know how long it had been since the last bus when we got there). This made me love our Beach Club location even more though since we can walk to Epcot and Hollywood Studios and not have to touch the buses for those!

We got back to the room and Jace and I napped while Ally drove Ryan crazy climbing all over him and having no interest in quiet rest time.

We made it to our reservation for Ally's Princess dinner just in time and were seated about 10 minutes later. This is a beautiful restaurant. It's themed after a Norwegian castle and the food is (as much as I know) authentic to Norway. The bad thing about this meal is, because it's a buffet and a character meal, all guests are charged whether or not you eat (essentially, paying in order to see characters). Not a big deal if you actually want to eat! I wasn't about to miss this meal so we sucked it up for Ally's special night. I felt better and ate a little but couldn't handle the heavy sauce my pasta just yet. It was so good though, I was really disappointed I didn't feel like eating it! I had the mushroom stuffed pasta and Ryan had the baked chicken. He didn't feel well all afternoon so he couldn't stomach eating anything either. The kids shared Mickey shaped pasta and ate well from the appetizer buffet. I do love that the appetizers portion of your 3 course meal are cold offerings that you serve yourself and the entree is plated and served to you. It's the best of both worlds. The dessert is a trio of full size offerings which I was excited about too. We ended up taking this to go since we just couldn't eat it yet. I didn't end up really liking any of these. I'm sure most people would love them, they just weren't my type of desserts. The chocolate mousse was the closest to being something I'd enjoy but it was just too rich (I'm not a fan of chocolate). The other two were a rice pudding and a puff pastry stuffed with some kind of cream that had a flavor to it that just didn't work for me.

Belle greeted us as we entered the restaurant and we had a family picture taken with her which we were given several prints of as a part of our dinner price and it's also on our Photo Pass so I'll share that in the post vacation picture show blog entry. :-) A special piece of the dinner for Ally was the Princess Processional. All 4 Princesses parade around the restaurant with their bouquet and any little Princesses that would like to join can choose a Princess to follow. Ally of course chose Snow White and followed her like a little duckling. It was just too cute! The Princesses Cinderella, Aurora, Snow White, and Ariel came to our table in a very timely manner...almost too timely. All Princesses had been by before our entree arrived so Ally spent the rest of the meal asking to go talk to them again. I wish they would have been spaced a bit to make the magic last. We will have to do this experience again on another trip when we all feel normal and healthy! I think we would've really enjoyed it a lot more if we'd been completely present in the experience.

We made it back to the resort just in time for Ryan to be stomach sick too. Ugh. Thank goodness, he ended up only having this one round and slept well. Good news, we were all finally well by morning and ready to start a great day!

Day 7: Hollywood Studios, dinner at Les Chefs de France in Epcot, and Fantasmic!

Our Long Day!

I missed my entry last night because we had a late night and I just couldn't stay awake any longer!

On the plans for yesterday was Animal Kingdom for the first part of the day and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party in the evening (and after hours). This normally isn't a park we visit since Ryan and I really don't care for. Nothing about it really excites us and there are so many things to do in The World that we choose to forgo this one. However, Ally loves animals and has so much fun at our local zoos I decided to schedule us for a half day to see just 4 attractions. The hard part about this park is the attractions we want to see are shown only at specific times so it's a puzzle to get to them all. This park also requires a lot of back tracking to get to each show. We arrived at opening (9am) and were hoping to do Picnic in the Park lunch but found out when we arrived Disney canceled this food option last spring. SO bummed! Ally adores picnics and she was so excited. We promised her we'd do a picnic at our resort on another day instead.

We hit the Maharaja Jungle Trek (tigers and such), Nemo the Musical, Festival of the Lion King, and Kilamanjaro Safari. We did lunch at Flametree BBQ instead and it was decent. We also did the Boneyard which is a play area for kids. Another disappointment here...this used to be a sand playground with dino bones hidden that kids could uncover with various tools. They apparently got rid of this too. It's now just rubber flooring everywhere with slides. Ally still liked it since she loves slides, but it wasn't what we were expecting. We probably won't return to this park anytime soon. I really enjoyed the Nemo Musical but the park in general just doesn't do it for us. The kids didn't seem as enthralled as we thought they'd be.

Jace's attempt at sliding by himself. HA!

 Ally watering the plants, with her Minnie Mouse thermos....oh my.

Back to the resort for rest time before our late night at the Magic Kingdom. The naps didn't happen again so we headed to Hollywood Studios to catch a few things before going to dinner. We did the Disney Jr. show and Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Both were hits with the kids. We hopped from Hollywood Studios to the Contemporary Resort which took forever, and then walked to the Magic Kingdom.

 Ally watching the Disney Jr. show

The party goes from 7pm-12am and is a separate ticketed event with most attractions open, complimentary hot chocolate & cookies (apple juice and apples as well), an exclusive Christmas parade and fireworks, and lots of character greetings. We had dinner at Pecos Bills so we wouldn't waste party time with a long sit down meal. This was fine but since we had to cancel our breakfast reservations for a character meal at Cape May Cafe this morning to get to the Animal Kingdom in time, we didn't do a table service meal at all today which really bothers me. I need that time and service in my vacation day and I always plan 1 everyday.

We did several attractions and Ally begged for more after doing Dumbo for the first time. With the line being 20 min, we promised her a ride on the Magic Carpets later. She did this ride 2x back to back since there was no wait. LOVED it. Mommy & Jace stayed on the ground...I don't do round-and-round rides. It's all I could do to watch and wave to her. Same goes for the Carousel; she and Daddy did it and had loads of fun.

The parade and fireworks were wonderful and Ally got all kinds of attention from characters again. It's so special to see her so excited and interacting so intensely! We did Small World one more time and then Pooh before leaving. I noticed on Pooh that I was bothered by bouncing with Tigger which is not something I normally have issues with, though I am sensitive to motion. I chalked it up to it being so late and worn out. We got back to the resort shortly after midnight and got the kids to bed. I was fried so I turned in immediately too. Ryan hung out on the Awesome Balcony for an unknown amount of time.

 How many shots does it take to get Ally to cooperate......here's the sequence.

 Hunkered down for the parade...she swore she was cold so she has one 2 jackets, mittens, and a hat...I had on a short sleeved shirt. Silly girl.

Ally had a little meltdown when the parade ended and she didn't get any candy canes from Santa Claus...that took a lot of talking to get her to calm down and understand.

Here's where things took a horrid turn. I woke up at 2-something throwing up. I did this all night. So much for being spared the misery my family had already endured.

Tomorrow: Off day (no parks), Downtown Disney, lunch at Portobello's, dinner at Restaurant Akershus in the Norway Pavilion with Princesses!