My December Pre-Trip Report

Cast of Characters

• Jason, 23, my husband
• Me, 22 turning 23 at WDW :-)
• Mr. Elephant, my little rambuncous stuffed elephant.
• Oso, My shy but ferocious stuffed polar bear, and Mr. Elephant's partner in crime.
• Mufasa, My stuffed Colobus monkey, in charge of keeping the peace (he thinks he's a referee, you should hear him watching football games)
• Yoda, Jason's stuffed giraffe and Jedi master
• Snoopy, Jason's stuffed...Snoopy, of course. He's famous you know.

Jason and I are going to WDW for our big, fancy honeymoon. I also get to celebrate my birthday at the "world", and what do you know, it's Christmas! Mr. Elephant is looking forward to visiting his friend Dumbo, but is rather bummed out that he can't drive a car to hell anymore. Oso is ready to fight the trolls and protect his polar bear cousins on Maelstrom. Mufasa has found out there are Colobus Monkeys in Animal Kingdom. Yoda is ready to check out the giraffes in Animal Kingdom, and the Jungle Cruise, as well as ride Star Tours. Snoopy, has to check out his pavillion at Epcot (you do remember that MetLife is the sponser of the Wonders of Life pavillion, and who's in the MetLife commercials?)

Dates:

We will be departing from SeaTac Airport in Seattle at about 6PM on December 18th, arriving in Florida around O dark thirty. (ie. 5:30 AM EST). We depart MCO in Orlando about 5PM on December 28th, arriving in Seattle around 9:30PM.

Hotels:

We will check into Port Orleans on December 19th, and will stay there until December 24th. We plan to run ourselves ragged at the parks before the deluge of holiday travelers arrive. We got an MKC discount for the first 4 days, and are paying full price for the 5th day (1st day of holiday season).

On December 24th, when the exahustion is starting to get to us, we will check out of Port Orleans and check ourselves into the Honeymoon Suite at Wilderness Lodge. Once we arrive at Wilderness Lodge we will collapse into bed, watch the fireworks from our balcony, and relax with a soak in the jacuzzi tub that is in each of the four honeymoon suites. We will walk around the resort, laughing at all the people running around trying to see the parks. We will sit by the fire, search for hidden mickeys, and watch the geyser erupt. For the price we are paying we are going to get our money's worth out of Wilderness Lodge. We will do this for 4 nights, until we check out to go home on December 28th. We're thinking we might go to the parks for a couple of hours too, just to walk around.

Dining:

These are the restaurants that we are planning to eat at, most of which we have already made our priority seatings for.

Dec. 20th: Breakfast - Donald's Breakasaurus at Restaurantasaurus in Animal Kingdom.

Dinner: - 'Ohana at the Polynesian

Dinner with RADP friends, yeah!

Dec. 21th: Dinner - California Grill at the Contemporary

This is my birthday dinner, we have it timed out that we can eat while watching Fantasy in the Sky.

Dec. 23rd: Dinner - Gulliver's at the Swan

For this dinner we will be using the $50 coupon found in the back of Rita Aero's "Walt Disney World for Adults" book. If you want to have a $50 coupon too, head to your local bookstore and buy the book, you can even order it off amazon.com. The coupon does expire on December 31, 1998.

Dec. 24th: Dinner - Rose & Crown, United Kingdom, Epcot

For Christmas Eve dinner, we will be feasting on Prime Rib while watching Illuminations. My traditional Christmas Eve dinner is German and Polish food (which I hate). My husband's traditional Christmas Eve dinner is Swedish food (which he hates). This year we are going to eat what we want! Jason also wants me to mention that eating here was *his* idea.

Dec. 25th: Dinner - Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary

Christmas dinner we both want to have traditional food. Our original plan was to eat at Liberty Tree, but the more we started thinking about the crowds in the Magic Kingdom, we started getting a little hesitant. Therefore we are eating at Chef Mickey's!

Dec. 26th: Dinner - Artist's Point, Wilderness Lodge

We ate breakfast here in 1997, and want to come back for dinner. Plus our room is going to be right upstairs. We've heard that dinner here is one of the best on property, and yes, we are planning to get the Berry Cobler.

Dec. 28th: Breakfast - Crystal Palace, Magic Kingdom

On the last day of the trip we are going to share our meal with Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet.

Park Touring Itinerary

At this point in time this is the order in which we plan on touring:

Dec. 19th:

Check-in Port Orleans around 7AM, take bus to MK in time for EE. I know Saturday is the busiest day at the Magic Kingdom, but I need to start my trip at this park. First ride will be the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. We will play around the Magic Kingdom until about 1 PM, then it's back to PO to get settled in our room (hopefully), and then about 3PM we will jump over to Animal Kingdom to check out the new park.

Dec. 20th:

Start the day with breakfast at Animal Kingdom. We plan to spend a chunk of the day here, and then later on, who knows. We might go back over to the Magic Kingdom.

Dec. 21st:

We are going to spend the day at MGM, then head over to the Contemporary for dinner.

Dec. 22nd:

We are going to spend the day at Epcot. This is the day after Early Entry so we are hoping to get a lot done this day.

Dec. 23nd:

The current plan is to spend the day in Epcot. I think we might start out the day at Blizzard Beach.

Dec. 24nd:

We are going to start the day at the Disney/MGM studios, in the middle of the day we will head over to Wilderness Lodge to check in, then end the day with dinner and Illuminations in Epcot.

Dec. 25nd:

It's Christmas, I've spent 20 years watching the WDW Christmas parade (I know it's taped) but I am going to be in the Magic Kingdom on Christmas. After I've done that, we might just go tour some of the resorts. I don't know.

Dec. 26nd:

This day is up in the air. We can tour resorts, go to Downtown Disney, mini-golf, or if we want to go to a park we can.

Dec. 27nd:

This is supposed to be the first day that Typhoon Lagoon will be open on our trip, so we are most likely going to start our day here.

Dec. 28th:

Our last day in the parks needs to be at the Magic Kingdom, so that's where we will be.

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Page last updated January 13,1999