Merry Snickerdoodle and Happy Dole Whip! A TR Full of Christmas Joy!

[dblr....Rennie 224]

I think you should have made him WALK THE PLANK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That sounds strange to me also, glad you kept an eye on him and the mom spoke up.

[stefa70 205]

Love Maddie the pirate! Especially while wearing Converse :rofl2: That Photopass picture was money WELL spent.

I agree a grown man taking pics of someone else's daughter = CREEPY! While Disney is a happy, magical place, weirdos are everywhere! :argh:

[FtWildernessFamily...Holly 25]

Love Maddie the pirate! Especially while wearing Converse :rofl2: That Photopass picture was money WELL spent.

I agree a grown man taking pics of someone else's daughter = CREEPY! While Disney is a happy, magical place, weirdos are everywhere! :argh:

Stef, she LOVES her chucks. She has a pair of pink hightops too. I don't think I got a picture of it, but she took her jeans off and put shorts on under that shirt/dress. It went down to her knees. Haha.

[wak648...Bill 94]

I have had that happen when my daughter is done with her skating. Man with no kids with him asked her if he could take her pic right after she got off the ice. Needless to say I went into Hockey mode put him into the boards. He was even stupid enough to call the cops. Needless to say, cops gave him more of a hard time than me.

Just sad that things like that need to happen to take the magic out of your sails even just briefly.

[wak648...Bill 94]

I cant believe we were at the Fort at the same time and did not cross paths

[fladogfan aka Gretchen 259]

What a shame the man had to be such a creep. Ooooh even reading about him gives me the shivers.

[MicknMin...Holly 54]

I love the pictures of Maddie the pirate! So cute! Tell her she did a great job decorating her room in the RV. It looked very festive!

I'm glad you were keeping an eye on the little girl on the boat. That is very creepy! I hope security caught up with him.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Love the updates....but that guy was just not right. It's sad we need to be always so vigilant, even at Disney.

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

Thanks for the update, Holly. It got me through the last few miles tonight. I'm so sorry that some of your magic got tarnished but very proud that the mom involved spoke up.

Maddie is the sweetest pirate of them all and her photo pass picture is worht every penny!!

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

Holly love the update! Maddie is just gorgeous! I love the pic with the man applying the lipstick, haha, you're right we all do that!

How sweet that she decorated her room in the camper!

It's too bad someone didn't "accidently"bump the creep into the lake!

[CKCK 45]

There is no doubt in my mind that anyone taking random pics of my girls will be in the market for a new camera. I'm not a violent person, but you don't mess with my girls. Not to mention that no strange man would ever be sitting next to them in the first place.

Now I won't be able to go to sleep because that's got me all riled up!

[FtWildernessFamily...Holly 25]

I cant believe we were at the Fort at the same time and did not cross paths

We laid VERY low all week. We were all pretty stressed out as the 5 weeks leading up to our departure were very difficult for our family after the loss of my brother.

[FtWildernessFamily...Holly 25]

Ok, to finish out Thurs, 12/22....

I jumped online to see if I could find any dinner reservations available at DHS - and was lucky enough to get an 8:05 reservation for 50's Prime Time Cafe!

We ran and grabbed a bus to head to the outpost, then over to DHS.

Maddie was still dressed like a pirate. ARGH!

We got to DHS around 6. We headed straight over to the Streets of America to find a decent place to see everything when they turned the lights on.

It was very festive...they had musicians out playing and singing Christmas carols.

We settled into a place right in the middle, right in front of the BIG tree. We saw the family who had been selected to flip the switch get prepped on what to do, etc.

There was another family with this sweet, little old lady in a wheel chair. It was her birthday. She had to have been in her late 80's, early 90's. She was grinning from EAR TO EAR and was squealing like a little kid. She melted my heart.

Then they turned on the lights.....and THAT was amazing. To see that street go from nothing to WOW was incredible. We got so caught up in the moment yet again. That's what I love about Disney......that feeling of total immersion.

Here are more pics of the Osborne Lights. Some may be similar to the ones I posted from our first night...

Maddie loving on the snowman outside of the Christmas shop next to Pizza Planet.

Phineas and Ferb in their Christmas gear.

And even 50's Prime Time Cafe had a pretty tree up in Mom's living room.

Up next....on Friday, we take a nice bike ride, head over to Animal Kingdom and complete our resort tour!

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Love the story about the elderly lady! That's awesome.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Holly- I missed some of your updates, but I am all caught up now.

Maddie decorating her room in the camper is too cute!

I love all the Pirate League photos. That and the BBB came along too late for my girls to enjoy. They would have loved this when they were younger.

We have never been at the Osborne Lights to see them get switched on. I will have to remedy that later this year!

Looking forward to more!

TCD

[Hotmamac aka Misty 11]

I'm finally all caught up! What a great report!! I've found my head mysteriously leaking at various points along the way.

Thanks for sharing!!

[FtWildernessFamily...Holly 25]

I'm finally all caught up! What a great report!! I've found my head mysteriously leaking at various points along the way.

Thanks for sharing!!

Glad I'm not the only one! Haha!!

[FtWildernessFamily...Holly 25]

Love the story about the elderly lady! That's awesome.

Yeah, I thought so too Dave. She was just so sweet and everyone around her - her family - was tending to her every need.

Holly- I missed some of your updates, but I am all caught up now.

Maddie decorating her room in the camper is too cute!

I love all the Pirate League photos. That and the BBB came along too late for my girls to enjoy. They would have loved this when they were younger.

We have never been at the Osborne Lights to see them get switched on. I will have to remedy that later this year!

Looking forward to more!

TCD

Thanks TCD. She did BBB last February and loved it too. My only issue with BBB is the heinous amounts of glitter that they put on the kids. There is still glitter in our 5'er that we're finding a year later. :)

[Lou... 3,118]

Too bad you didn't ride one of my buses. I would have played the Pirate message over the PA system for Maddie.

I get a lot of princesses on the bus, but not many pirates, and hardly ever girl Pirates, so it's a special occasion.

[FtWildernessFamily...Holly 25]

Fri, 12/23 We didn't have anything planned for the day - no dinner reservations, no shows - and we knew that the parks would be packed. And I see that I stated there'd be a bike ride today. Had my days screwed up - that is Christmas Eve. :) We relaxed a lot this day and decided that we needed to make a store run. We wanted to pick up a couple of things for Christmas day lunch, plus we were short on bottled water, etc. So we had to break the news to Maddie, again, that we were going off Disney property. That went over like a lead balloon. I decided to upload some pictures to Walgreens, as I had received a text from my friend Judy (see her above on Monday, 12/19) and she was going to come spend a couple of hours with us on Christmas day. I wanted to get her one of the Mickey frames from a gift store and put the pictures in it. So we head out....and go to the Walgreens and Publix in Celebration, just past I4 on 129. This was an interesting decision. We find a Checkers and have lunch. Just behind Checkers they have a small "amusement park" - the kind with the slingshot bungee ride things, etc. There was a new addition coming to this park! And it made me almost as excited as the Fantasyland Expansion. I hope this ride is open when we are back at Disney in 16 days! Yes! The Vomatron! Coming in January 2012! I can't wait!!! So we finished our adventures. That Publix was just ok. It was kinda packed...not surprising, seeing that it was the day before Christmas eve. We get back to the camper and relax a little more. We then decided to try and finish our reort tour, by way of a detour at Animal Kingdom. We had not been there yet this week and usually when we go we try to accomplish only 3-4 things: 1. Safari 2. Expedition Everest 3. Bug's Life 4. Either Nemo or Lion King show. **we normally only do 1-3 then leave. When Maddie hits 48 inches we'll add Primeval Whirl to our intinerary. We get to AK. take some pictures of their tree: We head over to the safari.....and it was closed already! I had completely forgotten that they shut the line down 30 minutes before dusk. FAIL! So we haul our cookies over to Everest....and find a 65 minute wait! EPIC FAIL! We were not waiting in that line. No FP's left. So we decide that we just came to walk for a while and see their tree. Oh well. It was still a nice visit. We get on a bus over to the Poly to round out our resort tour. We've never been to the Poly before so it was nice to see it. And then we jumped the monorail and headed over to the Grand Floridian. Ah, the Grand Floridian. We fell in love with this place back in September when we had a dinner ressie at 1900 Park Fare. We arrived early and sat in their lobby for a while, had a couple of beers and listened to their band play. That experience alone made me fall for this place. One day, when I hit the lottery, I will stay there. Their tree was grand: The gingerbread house was grand-er: The decor was beautiful: And Maddie had a little fun. This one made it to our Christmas card as well: We jumped back on the monorail and went over to the Contemporary. We planned to ride the ferry back to FW. We came across this beauty, we'd never seen it before. And then this beauty had to partake in the fun: We headed back and had dinner, relaxed a little more, and actually went to bed kinda early. Christmas Eve was the next day. The excitement was building. We had dinner reservations at Liberty Tree Tavern at 5:30 but nothing else planned for the day. Up next - our bike ride (yes, this is the correct day) and our adventures into MK on Christmas Eve. :)

[FtWildernessFamily...Holly 25]

Too bad you didn't ride one of my buses. I would have played the Pirate message over the PA system for Maddie.

I get a lot of princesses on the bus, but not many pirates, and hardly ever girl Pirates, so it's a special occasion.

Bummer, Lou. It would have been nice to see you again, and we did check EVERY SINGLE DRIVER hoping it was you.

Maybe we'll see you over Prez Day weekend!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I never heard of a vomatron.

So I had to Google it.

I came up with this photo:

So you want to go on that thing?

Wow.

TCD

[FtWildernessFamily...Holly 25]

Yeah, Andrew.....not so much.

I'm sure it's called VOMATron for a reason. They should replace the A with an I.

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

Wow, somehow I missed your update and just got caught up. I am so enjoying your trip report, Maddie is a very lucky young lady!

[FtWildernessFamily...Holly 25]

Sat, 12/24

Once again, we sleep in with no real agenda. We had dinner reservations at MK at 5:30 - that was our only firm plan.

I have to say, there are so many advantages to spending 10 days at the Fort with an annual pass. You don't feel obligated to get up at the crack of dawn every single day so you don't risk not maxmizing your day.

Maddie woke up purely electrified. It was Christmas Eve!!!

On the last day of school before break, they made one of those countdown calendars out of rings of paper. I brought it with us and hung it on her door. Here she is removing the last ring:

We had breakfast and decided we wanted to take a bike ride. We agreed that we would take the path over to the Wilderness Lodge....at least the path we THOUGHT went over to WL. We headed over and yes, we were on the right path. It was such a nice ride and all 3 of us enjoyed it. We decided next time we are there and have a reservation at Whispering Canyon that we would bike it instead of boat it. I am fairly certain that path is VERY dark after the sun goes down.

On the way back, Hubs and Maddie headed off down the nature trail. I wanted to join them but I have an issue with being clumsy. I didn't want them having to stop and pick me up so I went on back and said I'd meet them at the Settlement. I did a little shopping. We met up and Maddie played on the playground for a while. Then I remembered I had made a couple of purchases at DHS on Thursday and needed to go pick them up from Meadows. We split up - Hubs and Maddie went to get our tickets for HDDR for Christmas night and then back to the camper to start on lunch, and I headed down to meadows.

What is it about Meadows that no matter how many times you go in there, you are mesmerized by all of the merchandise? It happens to me every single time.

Once again I stalked the FW section for the car tags, magnets, bumper stickers....and NOTHING! Bummer. I did get my FW shirt the first day we were there though and I love it. I decided while I was there to pick up one of the red Walt Disney World shirts with Mickey wearing a Santa hat. I have a purple one, Maddie has a pink one and Hubs has a gray one and normally on each trip we wear them on the same day. We saved them for Christmas Eve this time, mostly so that we'd be easily identifiable by each other since we were headed into MK for dinner and we knew it would be crowded.

As I walk out of Meadows, there is a table set up by 2 CM's and they are giving away lemonade and SNICKERDOODLES. What??? I walk over and talk to them, tell them how much Hubs LOOOOOOOOVED the snickerdoodles at MVMCP and she said "well send him over!" and I told her he was back at the camper.....so she bundled up a heaping handful of them in several napkins, put them in my bag and said "give these to him and tell him we'll be here the rest of the afternoon and tomorrow". I thought that was so cool!!

I head back, we eat lunch and I give him the cookies. To say he was happier than a kid at Disney World is an understatement.

We get showered.....get our stuff together.....and bike down to the marina. It was about 2:45 or so.

I had some concerns about being in MK on Christmas Eve. I've read the reports....I've seen the pictures.....and to be honest, it made me kind of anxious to anticipate how crowded the place would be. Probably the best advice I heard was "pack your patience and do not expect to do/ride everything you want to do". That was really our motto for the entire week. Prior to this trip, the most crowded we had ever seen WDW as in Feb 2011 during President's Day week. The only other times we've gone have been Sept and Oct - LOW CROWD TIMES. We were so well prepared for this trip mentally that the crowds had not put a damper on our experience at all.

The ferry comes and we head over to MK.....we walk in, in true Holly fashion, just as the 3pm parade was hitting Main Street.

Oh.My.Goodness. There had to be at least a million people just in the Town Square area. Haha. I had to laugh. As we are passing the new area where the princesses and Mickey and Minnie are, I look up and it says there's a 15 min wait. Maddie looks up at the same time and asks if she can see Mickey again.....I tell her the princesses are there too and she decides she wants to see them instead. I have to say I was relieved because with that many people just standing still, I wasn't sure how we'd get through the crowd to get anywhere else.

We walk in and walk RIGHT in to see the princesses. Seriously - no wait. I guess there are some advantages to coming in at parade time.

There were 3 other families in front of us with the other princesses and no one else walked in until we were almost done. Each of the princesses took at least 5 minutes with Maddie. It was wonderful.

Here is Maddie with Cinderella:

Here is Maddie with Belle. She is my favorite princess, second only to Maddie. :)

And here she is with Aurora:

I have to say that for the past couple of trips, Maddie hasn't asked to see the princesses. It's kinda hurt my heart that she has "outgrown" them. But even though she didn't ask to see them initially, when she gets in front of them she is still mesmerized. There is just something about that that is so sweet, so innocent....and it's hard to explain.

We walk out and I repeat:

Oh.My.Goodness.

This explains better than I could in words:

We always have "the talk" with Maddie on our first day - what to do if she gets separated from us, who to go to, etc. Additionally, we ALWAYS take a picture of her right before we walk into a park. That way we have a photo of her in what she is wearing, how her hair is styled, so that we can show that to security if we get separated. We don't hold her hand every single moment of every single day but we do not let her out of our sight and we tell her that if she can't see us, she should not be that far. Well.....all of these people made me VERY nervous so we pulled her aside and gave her the speil all over again. We didn't scare her, but we told her that on a day like today, if we could not reach her by simply holding out our arms, she was too far away. It didn't help that we heard at least 3 frantic parents screaming out their kids' names either. In the end, the crowds didn't pose any issues but I'd much rather be safe than take the chance of being sorry.

More pictures. I love this one.

And this:

More crowds:

And what's cooler than a picture of the castle taken on Christmas Eve?

Maddie took this one:

Then a very nice guest offered to take one of the 3 of us. She was so concerned with getting the full castle shot that she almost cut Maddie out of it!

More crowds, headed to Tomorrowland:

We jumped in line to ride the Peoplemover ~ 15 minute wait! ~ and notice there's even a long line for the Carousel of Progress. What the FORT?!?!

Peoplemover:

Next Hubs and Maddie rode the teacups...about a 20 minute wait. Not bad.

Then she and I rode the carousel:

And then we headed over for dinner....