Parrish - December 2005

New Year's Eve

Cast: Myself, Brian DH, DD Brooke 5, DS Drew 3, My Sister, My Sister's DD 11, My sister's DS 7, My Mother, My Step-father

I have not had a chance to post a report from our short trip to the mouse, but I will try it now. It started Thursday Dec 29 when my sister called me and said my BIL was heading to NJ to see his mother. She asked if we wanted to head to FL for NYE. We called all day to get a place to stay on property and finally got the All Stars right before close. We had to book and pay for at arrival a 7 night stay and then we checked out early. My mother and sister got the credit back on their CC already and I got cash back at check out and had no problems at all. We learned this last year that Disney no longer likes to book short stays, so we have to book longer stays and then change once we have the reservation. Since we were within over 5 day window we have to pay for the whole reservation and then get the money back when we checked out.

Friday Dec 30 we left SC around 3 and arrived in Orlando right before midnight and stopped on the side of the road to watch Wishes. The kids had slept most of the way so we could enjoy Magical Hours until 4 AM. We checked in and were in the MK right before close at 1.

On the monorail to MK the I got to ride in the front car with some of the kids. Once in the MK, getting the kids down Main Street with the snow coming down was next to impossible. We got hot dogs right before they closed and then it was off to the rides. We did Jungle Cruise, Aladdin, Pirates, Thunder Mountain (I love this ride in the dark), Peter Pan, Philharmagic, Snow White, Dumbo, Pooh, Tea Cups and Buzz.

On the way out of the park I got a call from DH that he was in our room already. He was going to leave in the moring and arrive in the afternoon, but after watching both our teams lose in Bowl games he decided to start driving around 8:30. He then called to say since our bags were not in the room, he sees we never stopped by the room before leaving for the Mk so we will meet us in the parking lot to get our stuff out of the car, that was the best call of the day!

We were finally in bed around 4:30 and we all slept until around 10. I expected the MK to be more crowded during Magical Hours, there was no line longer then 10 minutes. MK is the only park we do during Evening Magical Hours when we go in peak times, but I was surprised to see the park so empty.