MVMCP 2013 Magic Mirror's First Christmas in The World!

Next we stopped at Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride-neither of us had rode it before-
it was ok-but I wouldn't wait in a long line for it-

We went to the see the Tikki Birds-another one we hadn't seen-

Then Amy wanted me to go on the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House-
It has wonderful detailing...but you literally just walk up a tree and down
the tree..it would be more enjoyable if there had been less people, so you
could slow down and enjoy it more, but it was a snake line all the way thru

Then we went to the Jingle Cruise-Amy had never been on this one-
it was sunset when we got in line-we were handed one of these cards:

Which was kind of neat-we had it happen a couple more times on other rides
thru the week...we handed it to the CM at the ride so they could track the accuracy
of the posted wait times.

By the time we got on the Jingle Cruise it was dark.

It was fun to ride it in the dark- our CM was fantastic, she really kept the jokes
rolling. She was really animated and made it fun.

After that- off to find dinner!

We headed to Pecos Bills .. the place was packed but we were pretty
hungry so decided to wait it out... My Magic Bands were still
screwing up-so Amy had to use her's to get our QS meals
ordered.

We both had the Steak & Chicken Platter with Apple Slices, Yogurt,
Corn Bread, Corn and the meat. It was good- but the meat was
only luke warm and on the dry side. It was good for Free-
but it wouldn't had been so good if I had paid $15.49 for it.
It was nice to have the healthier side options as the traditional
pudding choices were not sounding as appetizing by now.

After dinner we hit Pirates of the Caribbean. There was a young
boy ahead of us in line, probably about 4yrs old.. all dressed up
in his pirate gear and sword...he just couldn't stand it..the energy
beaming out of him...so I started singing "a pirates life for me"..
the look he gave me was so funny..its like he couldn't believe
a forty something year old adult was singing pirate songs.
His parents were really nice and we had a great conversation
which helped the time pass more quickly...by the time we got up
to the ride, he was singing the pirate song along with me.

The Liberty Belle was just getting ready to load when we
got to her... so on we went..

It was her last run of the night..incredibly quiet..we had the whole floor
to ourselves as everyone else had chosen to head down instead of up.

It was a nice relaxing ride.

After that, we hit a gift store and Amy was happy to find The Incredibles
for her Magic Band. Although she never put them on, because she was afraid
of losing them.

Thunder Railroad was running...neither of us remembered ever being on it.
The line was about 20 minutes but it moved fast. WHEEE! What fun!
I will certainly go on it again ....

The Electrical Parade was going on... we took a few pics but didn't hang around
as we had FP at the Haunted Mansion.

When we came out the fireworks were being shot off

We started walking towards the castle....it was amazing, so pretty with its lights,
especially reflecting on the water

I had thought the park closed at 11pm-only to find out it
closed at 1am! Yippety!

Some of the rides were shutting down though..so we spent
most of our time just walking around, gazing longingly at the
Castle..taking 1000 pictures of the Castle because it was just
so beautiful you wanted to keep trying to capture it.

Even Amy, who is usually waiting on me to take "just one more" photo..
said "I can't stop taking pictures of the Castle!".

By the time the second parade had started, we got in closer
to get a better view and watched it.

We were starting to run out of steam......
time for a pick me up!

ahhhh- hello Starbucks!

Some Gingerbread bread...

and...such we were using snack credits... VENTI coffee

We spent the next couple hours slowly walking around the shops, sipping our
coffee and enjoying the artisans at work.

It was almost 1am..we were tired..the buses were readily available..so we went back to the
resort. This time, neither of our Magic Bands worked to open our room door..so we dug
out the KTTK card.

We had been at Disney for 4 days and done 3 parks.
The next day was Tuesday and was our sleep in day.
We planned to take it easy, check out the various resort
decorations. Our only solid plans were an ADR at Kona Cafe
and MVMCP.

By the time I hit the bed, I was out.

I was so tired, I didn't even dream of castles.

We slept in the next morning but was still up and around by 8am..
we hopped a bus to MK then jumped the monorail to the Contemporary.

Now you may remember the gingerbread resorts were selling speciality
pins representing each creation and a "mascot" that the artist had chosen.
So we had no plans to collect these pins but what did we end up doing?
Yes, collecting the pins. The most frustrating part was there was no
consistent place to look for them..some were with the gingerbread display,
some were in the gift store, we even found one in downtown disney..so
we wasted a lot of time asking around trying to find them..a few CM's didn't
even know what we were talking about. but in the end..we snagged them all!

We bought the gingerbread man to share - it was delicious..a very strong
molasses taste...

Next we headed to the Poly-back on the monorail-

This one's just for you MrHub!

We had reservations at the Kona Cafe for 1pm and it was now 1215p.
The cafe was empty, only 2 tables had people seated, so we asked if we
could get in now..they said yes..then handed us a pager. Really? (someone
else mentioned this, they are empty yet they make you wait to be seated)
The Kona Cafe had been a special request of Amy's because she had liked
it so much the last time. So we wandered around for about 10 minutes
when our pager went off and we were seated.

Our waiter was very nice and he seemed very friendly. We already knew
what we wanted so we didn't waste anytime looking at the menu.

We both had the raspberry lemonade

Amy had the Sustainable Fish (Salmon) served with swiss chard, forbidden
rice, and hibiscus -beurre rouge

I had the pan-fried chicken with coconut & mango sauces with sticky rice and pasta salad

By now it was getting busier..tables were filling fast...we got our drinks and
our waiter promptly disappeared. I saw him serving other tables but he never
made eye contact with us or stopped back to check our table. Time was ticking..
I was trying to not think about it..we were having a lovely conversation..but it felt
way too long. I figured Amy's salmon probably was taking longer to cook. I glanced
at my watch it was going on 30 minutes since we placed our order. I started trying
to make eye contact with the waiter who wouldn't look my way. I watched
two tables of 8 people that came in after us, get served, eat and leave. It was now
almost an hour since we had ordered. Our pleasant conversation had stopped and
now all we were discussing is whether I should get up and walk over to our waiter
who still had not come back. I had the strong feeling he had forgotten to put in our
order or someone had forgot it and now he was trying to stall while it was cooked.
About this time the food was finally served. 80 minutes. I really wanted to say
something as the waiter offered no apology or explanation for the wait. I bit my
tongue (most unlike me) not wanting to start a confrontation.

The food was delicious if only my attitude was slightly soured by the wait time.
We hesitated on ordering dessert...I really didn't want to sit there another hour
to wait for it..but in the end.. we did.. because Amy really wanted it.

She had the Banana Chocolate Creme Brulee with a chocolate spiral.

and I had

the Pineapple Upside Down Cake with Lemon Grass and Caramel Sauces.

Both were little slices of heaven.

I had pre-made tip envelopes for everything..little christmas cards with
thank you's, cash and stickers.. I debated on the very generous tip I had
left in the envelope, only looking generous now because
of the lack of service I felt he had imparted
..part of me wanted to reduce the amount..but..the
other part thought what the heck, it's christmas, i'm sure the waiter had
his own stress, the envelopes were already made out, big breath, breath
deeply and just leave it. So I left it and we walked down to the beach.

We decided to walk over to the Grand Floridian.

It was an easy walk, we were the only people on the trail except the feathered guy above.
We made it to the atrium in no time.

We browsed around, picked up our gingerbread pin, then hopped the bus to MK
and grabbed a boat to Wilderness Lodge.

Thank you for the kind words about the photography.
I've found that thinking ahead to doing trip reports has helped the
way I look at things in Disney. I'm always thinking ahead to what I
want to share with you guys and trying to find a different view
on photographing it.

Wilderness Lodge was fantastic!

From there-it was a bus to Hollywood Studios

So we could jump a boat to Swan & Dolphin.
Another fine feathered friend by the water:

The tree was very pretty

But the smell was nauseating to me... it must have been the spices from the kitchen...
but it overwhelmed the whole place.

We stayed only long enough for a few pictures and we left.
We walked over to Boardwalk but on the way we saw a Bald Eagle.
I had no idea Florida had Bald Eagles.

The Boardwalk was outstanding! I see why it is a favorite of many people on this board.
Amy fell in love with it too..it has a lot of charm.

I find the headless mannequins slightly disturbing..

It was time to eat, and upon the recommendation of so many of you,
we stopped at the Boardwalk Cafe... OMG... AWESOME!

Lobster roll with the cucumber salad:

Amy had the tomato & mozzarella

and we shared the tomato-basil soup which unexpectedly came with bread

Let us not forget dessert-
I had a fruit tart and Amy had the salted caramel chocolate
which she has pronounced the BEST EVER:

We sat outside on the boardwalk, enjoying the sun setting, eating
our scrumptious feast, letting time slowly tick away...
when it hit me like a bomb-

ACCK ! It's almost DARK
that means its after 5pm!
ACKK

We had plans to meet up with AliceMouse at MVMCP-
Amy needed to get her last gingerbread pin so we started
running the boardwalk as I was frantically texting Holly
(who bless her heart had already texted me)

We arrived across the shore in quick fashion..Amy
running around asking about the pin...while I quickly
grabbed photos.

Pin located and purchased and off we went to the buses where we sped to
MK for MVMCP!

We sprinted front to back of MK and easily located AliceMouse by that
warm smile! I love that about this board, that everyone is so fantastic!

We met the 7 Dwarfs

Had time for some great conversation

So we grabbed a photo to share

and we split up, with Amy and I heading for the hot chocolate & cookies!

Mary Poppins and the penguins were out..but the line was pretty long..
we had already saw Mary Poppins so we opted to stand out of the way on the sidelines
to just snap a photo between shots...we were having a terrible time trying
to get a shot without people walking past our frame and Mary Poppins
became aware of this and went out of her way to make eye contact with us
between each of her photo shots knowing that we were attempting to get her
picture- considering we were about 20 feet away that was pretty amazing of her!

Then we headed back towards Main Street

We decided to skip the first parade after seeing how packed the streets were..we jumped
on a couple rides we have never done before...

I had previously been on Alien Attack and didn't think much of it..but Amy
had never been on it and with it being Stitches Great Escape I thought I'd
give it another try. I hated it. Amy hated it. She just looked at me and
said "that's it?".

the Tomorrow Land Indy Speedway-we weren't that thrilled with this ride..the steering
wheel was pretty loose and took some time to get the steering smoothed out, even
with the "no hitting cars" sign, the two young boys kept ramming us with their car
when we were in the stopped lane to the point I had to turn around and tell them to stop.
Maybe when you're used to driving fast for a living I expect too much from a ride

We made our way down to Main Street to watch the fireworks which of course are fantastic.
After that we watched the flow of people oozing out the front gates. We went to Main St.
and found about a 5 foot by 2 foot section on the curb that had nobody on it. So we
stopped and stood there, with the flow of people still filing out, shoulder to shoulder
, heading out of the park. I knew we'd be standing there for about 45 minutes to an
hour to hold our place for the next parade. So we are standing there and people are
filling in around us when a lady on my left suddenly turns around and snaps
"I have to save a spot for six more people".

I already don't do well being packed in like a sardine and considering the spot
had been wide open when we arrived my answer was probably as snappy.
I wished her luck with trying to hold out a spot for six people who were no
where to be seen.

Now a woman's voice behind us said "Those ladies took my spot!".
Her (i assume) husband said "I told you not to stand five feet from the
curb and expect that no one is going to take the spot".

So she sends her children out to basically start crowding/pushing us.
We didn't move, frozen like nutcrackers to the curb. She had her
children sitting on one of my feet.

The other lady who is saving the six spots has TEN (yes TEN because
I was counting) kids and a man show up. She starts going off to the man
about how she had the spots all saved until we took them. About
how her kids couldn't finish the rides they were on because they
had to come back to find a spot to stand. The man
walked up and was standing right in Amy's face. Amy is usually pretty shy
but she wasn't backing down and by the time she had her say (no profanity)
the man didn't even say anything and just turned around. So they stood
there, and more people showed up, till there were 21, twenty one, of her
family and friends all shoved in next to us. By now we had kids sitting on
all our feet, people shoved against us to the point I could hardly bring
my camera up to shoot a picture as there would be no room to put my
arm back down.

It was uncomfortable, My legs were cramping because I couldn't even
shift my weight from foot to foot, and I got to stand there for an hour
like that. Mostly I felt bad for the kids of these parents. Not only were
they learning to be not nice to other people but I'm sure their viewing
experience also was not so pleasant.

The parade itself is lovely. It can sure put you in the Christmas spirit.
Would I do it again? Probably not.

After the parade we went to Magic Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
I liked the part where Tiggers Bounce the best...the rest of it
didn't seem to have any story line..which perhaps it was for younger
children so a story line really wasn't needed..

We walked right on Peter Pan's Flight and then went to the Haunted
Mansion. We headed to Starbucks for some caffeine only to find they
had closed. Many of the stores were closed so having not much left
to do and with MVMCP almost done...we headed back to the resort.

It was a fun party but I'm not sure like we took advantage of it
enough to get our money's worth. It felt way too crowded for a
"limited event". I am glad we did it but I don't know if we would
hurry to go back to it. Amy said between MVMCP and MNSSHP
she would do Halloween before Christmas.

We Love the Snow! It is really pretty and makes for fun pictures...plus I like that the
snow isn't cold