Rhonda Horinski & Family - December 2008

The Horinka Family - Disney Christmas
Day 8 and a little bit of 9 – Friday, December 26 (Epcot) and Saturday, December 27th (home again)
Cast of Characters: Rhonda, 44 years young, single mother of 3 awesome punks and lover of all things Disney, Sharon, 19 year old DD, Morgan, 16 year old DD, and Payton, 12 year old DS.

Last night I placed a baggage pick up call for 8:00 a.m. but called back to change it to 9:00 as I slept in a bit (we decided we didn't need to rush the last day for park opening) and needed time to finish the packing. I'm glad I packed two extra empty carry-on bags when we came because we will need them for souvenirs! Never in my time ever at Disney have I seen such deeply discounted prices on souvenirs! 40% off t-shirts, mugs and hats everywhere and everyday. 50% off Christmas ornaments, tree skirts, Christmas-themed hats and stockings. We really stocked up! Our luggage was picked up at 9:00 a.m. and we were on our way to Epcot. If course it was packed almost as soon as we arrived. Not "packed" per se. Just not "first thing in the morning empty". The kids saw this difference in crowd levels (the park had opened at 8:00 for on-site guests) and actually told me I was RIGHT for making them get up so early every day. Teenagers thinking their parental figure is RIGHT?!? We really must be at Disney, the land of all things magical! J

The first thing we did was to secure our Mission: Space Fast Passes so that Payton would not have to suffer the indignity of riding the "green" side because the "cool side" had a 40 minute wait. The original plan had been to stay here until around noon or so and then head to the Magic Kingdom to end our trip. As you will see, this did not happen, and we were all quite fine and really happy about it! After getting our FPs we head straight back through the World Showcase and to the Yacht Club for our 10:40 ADR at Cape May Café for the Beach Breakfast with Goofy and friends. It was quite a hike (we didn't take the boat) but well worth it! The carousel they have set up in the Yacht Club is just awesome! I took a lot of pictures! We were seated for our meal immediately. The restaurant was only at about half-occupancy, so the character interaction was really fabulous as they came around twice in the hour that we were there. I really do love the out-of-the-park character breakfast meals a lot. Our last trip we enjoyed the Supercalifragilistic Breakfast at 1900 Park Fair in the Grand Floridian. This one was just as much fun. Minnie, Goofy and Donald were a blast, our server was attentive, and the breakfast buffet was fabulous as always. All three of us ate like it was our last meal. We relaxed and enjoyed coloring on the table (Minnie and Goofy joined in this activity, although it was hard for them to hold the crayons) and took our time just enjoying each others company and our last sit-down meal this trip. I'm so glad I booked this one and would recommend it to others without hesitation.

After the meal, we took the boat back over to the World Showcase and then made our way to Test Track to secure FPs, after which we rode Mission: Space using our previously secured FPs. Morgan opted for the green as she is a bit squeamish, but Payton, Sharon and I hit the orange side and had a blast as always. Payton is ALWAYS the Commander. Those are the rules. LOL We had already decided that we weren't going to worry about Soarin' today. Let others have those FPs. We don't want to exhaust ourselves running from one side to the other and the plan is still to head to MK at some point. By now it's noon and we're walking through Innoventions West. The kids stop and do the Rockin' Robots for a bit and then Payton messes around at the Velcro display for a while before we head to The Land pavilion. As Sharon is again in a wheelchair (oops! I forgot to mention that earlier) we head to the elevators and wait FOREVER for one. It only holds two, maybe three if you squeeze well, and the elevator line is about 12 wheelchairs deep. I didn't realize until later that we could have left the wheelchair at the entrance to the pavilion and we would have saved ourselves about 45 minutes total. Oh well! Live and learn! We all rode Living with the Land. Payton and Morgan popped in to the Circle of Life film while Sharon and I waited for the elevator down and then headed over to the Kodak "Picture This" labs in the Imagination Pavilion. Morgan and Payton joined us there and they played a while as I ran over and secured FPs for Test Track.

At 2:30 we headed over to the World Showcase (I know! Can you believe it?!?!? They are up for it! This is why we did not go to Magic Kingdom today!). We checked out Canada, where the holiday performance was going on by that country's respective Santa Claus and then we sat down to enjoy the 3:00 Off Kilter performance. You know who loved this one?!? ALL THREE OF MY KIDS WHO HATE THE WORLD SHOWCASE! They had a blast! I'm sure it helped that the medley the band sang was by the Barenaked Ladies and they knew every word! My 19 year old asked me why I hid this stuff from them and didn't tell them that The World Showcase was so cool? What?!?!? Get a life! I think they are now sold on the World Showcase. After the Off Kilter show ended, we continued to the United Kingdom where we enjoyed a performance by their version of Santa (he was quite funny and a large, jolly man who reminded me of Sebastian Cabot - Mr. French from the show Family Affair – I think I just dated myself. Severely). At this point the girls realized they sell Beatles stuff in the UK and are in hog heaven! Wow! The World Showcase really IS cool! After leaving the UK, we stop briefly in France and then in Morocco to try on the Fez hats and listen to their Muslim "Christmas" story before heading to Japan to see (and hear) the drummers. After their performance, the Fife and Drum Corp was performing outside American Adventure. I had never seen this one and I really loved it! We passed by Italy and Germany and then ducked in to the China pavilion as Morgan wanted to eat at the Lotus Blossom Café. She and Sharon ate here while the Chinese acrobats were performing. At one point, the big bridge at the pavilion went up, and we still don't know why. Anyone else know?

After the girls had their food, we headed back to Future World, skipping Norway and Mexico as we had explored them on our first day. We rode Test Track using or FPs and then rode Spaceship Earth and sent the e-cards to ourselves. At 5:30 we headed to The Land for dinner at Sunshine Seasons (my favorite of ALL Disney fast food places). I purchased a meal for a family of three also as those were the last three CS dining credits we had and we were leaving in the early morning. After our meal, we headed over to the Living Seas pavilion and rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends before taking in another showing of Turtle Talk with Crush. There was no wait, and Payton sat up with the "little kids" again. This time, something magical happened! Crush talked to my son! He took his question! (what types of foods do turtles eat?) It was totally awesome, dude! After the show, we spent about an hour exploring the pavilion. The room with the huge Bruce the Shark was a real hit with my son, as was watching the scuba divers in the big tanks. My son even found a cool hidden Mickey for me in the tank! The area that houses the dolphins – if you look straight down at the tank floor, the CMs or Imagineers had arranged the rocks at the bottom into a HUGE Mickey head! Very cool! After we left the pavilion, we headed over to the other side and did some beverages in Club Cool and then watched the Fountain of Nations Water Ballet as the water was in sync with Christmas songs by The Trans Siberian Orchestra. It was just awesome! As we were headed over to Test Track for our last ride, I had a call from Jessica, my travel agent at TMFL. She was also in Epcot and preparing to watch Illuminations and then heading over to the Beach Club for a drink and invited me to join her group. I really, really, really wanted to meet her this trip, but we were totally exhausted, on the whole other side of the park, we had a 7:00 a.m. flight the next morning, and I knew that if we did it, we wouldn't be back to CBR to collect our bags until at least 11:30 or so, plus the trip to our hotel, etc. I was also pushing a wheelchair and the kids were all getting quite tired. Although they were willing to do it, I opted not to as I just didn't want to be so exhausted that I risk sleeping in late, not hearing the alarm, and missing our flight in the morning. I reluctantly decided against it but hated it none the less.

We went ahead and rode Test Track using our last FP and then took the bus back to CBR. We got back a bit after 9:00, then collected our luggage and caught a cab to the Hyatt Regency at the Airport. We all got settled in and I got to sleep about midnight. I was up at 5:00 a.m. as we did not have our boarding passes yet, which is usually a bad thing on Southwest as that would generally put us in group "C", thus not sitting together, getting stuck with middle seats, etc. But it was also the 7:00 a.m. Saturday flight, so I decided to bet the odds that it wasn't even a full flight. I was right. Our boarding passes had us in group B, numbers 3-6, and we were the next to last people on the less-than-half-full plane, so it was not an issue. We departed uneventfully at 7:00 a.m., landed in Raleigh at 8:25 and were home and unpacking at 9:00.

CLOSING NOTES:

It was a great trip and a Christmas the kids and I will remember for a very long time! Although I didn't mention it is previous posts, the weather was wonderful (I've been there when it's really cold and I hate it) as we had 79-82 degrees all days except our first Epcot day (December 22). It was in the low 40s to mid 50s that day. All of the other days were fine for either jeans or shorts, with a jacket sometimes needed in the evening.

I am still amazed at the deep discounts on so much of the standard Disney souvenir merchandise. You know Disney is taking a hit in the economy when they do the discounts that they did!

I will never stay at CBR again. Too spread out, to many bus stops before leaving the resort, too long waiting on busses. I've been to other resorts that shared busses (POFQ and ASSp) and have NEVER had the waits and issues we had here. I'm glad I stayed just to say that I did, but never again.

Table service dining was a pleasure again. Although it was not convenient to have to tip the wait staff (we had the DP and it was free), it was the only cost associated with our meal and I noticed that the service was MARKEDLY better than it had been when we went on the DP in 2006 (when tips used to be included). It's nice to have an attentive and polite wait staff again. The only thing I wish they would do differently on the dining plan is to offer EITHER appetizer OR dessert. I don't always want something sweet, and I can only imagine that it's almost a nightmare for those with glycemic issues.

Thanks for reading along!

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