Rhonda Horinski & Family - December 2008

The Horinka Family - Disney Christmas – Day 1
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.

A bit of a forward. I took my punks on a 10 - day Disney trip in August of 2006. They have not been back since. I have been twice in 2008 – a one-day trip in February that involved the morning on a Segway in the World Showcase and the evening at the Pirates and Princess party in the Magic Kingdom. I was also here for Mother's Day (sans the kiddos – aren't I awful?!?!?) that involved all four parks in two days. We had planned on doing Disney last Christmas, but Sharon's college schedule didn't fit it right (didn't want to be there the maddening week of Christmas to New Year's). This year it did. Our trip ran from 19 – 27 December.

Against my own intuition, I chose the Caribbean Beach Resort as this was the resort of choice for the kids. They had wanted to stay here on our last trip (I chose Port Orleans French Quarter instead). I did pay for preferred as I know the resort is very spread out. We had "something magical" happen before the trip when Jessica, who, IMHO, is the most awesome of all Travel Agents, informed us that we would have free dining (I had already booked with the dining plan) which is always awesome! This, incidentally, happened to us when we went in August 2006 also. I let each of the kids pick one restaurant and I picked the other four, taking each of their tastes into account. This is not an easy task when you have one child who is strictly meat and potatoes, one who likes nothing but cheeseburgers and fries, and a vegetarian, but we always make due!

I had secured an awesome deal on our flights. We were originally going to drive (we live in Wake Forest, NC) as airfares were coming out at about $1400 round trip. About 6 weeks before our trip, Southwest (the only airline that flies direct from Raleigh to Orlando) came out with some sweet ding fares and we were able to fly all four of us down for less than the cost of driving plus a hotel for one night, plus the flight is only an hour and 25 minutes, so we get a lot more "Disney time" than we would have driving. The lowest fares were on the early-afternoon flights and the early morning Saturday flights, so that is what we did. I book our departing flight for 1:45 in the afternoon on Friday, December 19. Of course, being Southwest, and given that the flight was originating somewhere in the Northeast and they were having some wicked winter storms up there, our flight was delayed until 4:40 in the afternoon. The only time in my life that I did not check before heading out to the airport. Ugh. I was hoping this would not be some sort of harbinger for the rest of our trip. Fortunately, it was not. We arrived at Orlando around 6:00 p.m. and headed straight for the ME counter. We immediately boarded the bus and were on our way to CBR. Check in was VERY quick (we were the only ones there) and we were given building 25 in the Martinique section. The CM who checked us in was telling me that they were only at 70% capacity, and normally it was about 85% that time of year. He also said that CBR would not hit 100% until December 27th (our check out date) which was much later than normal.

The kids and I dropped our carry-on bags in the room, freshened up and then went to the bus stop for a trip to Downtown Disney. We saw an Epcot bus, then MK, then AK, then DS, and ANOTHER Epcot bus, MK bus and AK bus before the DTD bus ever showed up. We waited for over 25 minutes. Frustrating. Then the bus had to stop at the other "Islands" before heading to DTD. This is why I had not wanted to stay at CBR. We arrived at DTD at 8:45 p.m., strolled in and took pictures along the way, then headed to the Rainforest Café for a late dinner. The waits for inside dining were over an hour, and we weren't into the whole "theme" thing, so we requested a patio table, which was just perfect! We were seated immediately and had a lovely view of Fulton's Crab House. The meal was great and well-plated, which is something I always appreciate. As they say, the first bite is taken with the eyes! We were finished and out of there at 10:00. We headed to Disney's Days of Christmas and were quite surprised to see signs all over the place advertising 50% off all hats, ornaments, tree skirts and stockings! The kids each bought a Christmas themed hat (I had my own made for me by Wendy Hayton – THANKS WENDY!!!!) and I stocked up on Christmas ornaments. After, we did a walk-through at Goofy's Candy Company but didn't make any purchases. I tucked into Pooh's Corner and picked up a Tigger mug for my next door neighbor (all mugs and t-shirts were 40% off everywhere our entire trip!) and then we headed back to the bus stop and our first evening at CBR. When we arrived in our room, our luggage had been delivered. We unpacked, brushed our teeth, placed our Mickey ears on the shelf in the room (a tradition with us) and hung our Christmas hats on the headboards before falling asleep at midnight.

This was different for us as we used to fly Delta into WDW (they no longer offer a direct flight) and we would arrive at 8:30 in the morning and hit the ground running. It was nice to have a relaxing evening, although our original plans had called for heading over to Fantasia Gardens for some miniature golf, we scrapped this when our flight was three hours delayed.

Tomorrow morning – the Magic Kingdom.

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