Hi friends! It's been a while, I know. Since we've had a lot of forum members who have been fortunate to travel this season and bring back tales of the world, I'm just going to do a brief look at our recent brief trip and tell you about some of the things that we tried for the first time.
1. Backstage Magic Tour
I have wanted to book this tour for forever, but being one of very few tours that does not require participants to hold a valid theme park admission for the day, we've always put it off. This time, however, we weren't getting park tickets. (Well...um...we weren't supposed to and then DVC released their new ticket offer and we kind of sort of ended up with annual passes...oops.)
We kept the tour anyway and I'm glad we did! Spoilers abound in the next few paragraphs. Feel free to skip ahead.
Our tour began at Epcot. When we had previously taken the UnDiscovered Future World Tour at Epcot, the meeting location was at guest relations to the left hand side inside the park, so when we arrived, we located the PPO reservations Cast Members expecting that we would be entering the turnstiles. Not so. They directed us to the Guest Relations window outside of the park. As you stand facing Epcot, the window is all the way to the right just before you would exit the metal gates to the buses. We took advantage of the fact that we were early to activate our Annual Passes awhile and gathered at the sign that read "Epcot tour meeting area". It was unclear whether or not the other Epcot tours are also meeting here now. We made small talk with a few members of the group and met our guides Jenessa and Rae. It was then that we learned that this tour is actually under the umbrella of Adventures by Disney and it was indeed AbD-lite. We received lanyards that held a credential that showed that we were allowed to be backstage. The AbD "paddle of power" was in full use and the snack basket (complete with unlimited water) was available to us throughout the day. The coloring of the lanyards and paddle did not match what AdB is using right now and the snack basket was a cookie-only basket as opposed to the wide variety of snacks that we usually have access to on regular full AbD experiences, but for the purposes of a day tour, it was more than adequate. It makes perfect sense for this tour to fall under the heading of AbD even though you book it through WDW Tours because the backstage tour departments at each park are separate entities and this tour visits more than one park as well as non-park locations. This tour could not be logically assigned to Epcot or Magic Kingdom, so AbD is the perfect alternative. Jenessa is a regular guide for this tour and she has been with the company for 12 years. She was the primary guide for our half of the group, so we spent quite a bit of our day with her and we were quite pleased with her as a guide. Rae has been with the company for 21 years and has worked a dozen different roles. She has another primary role, but since there are only 4 full time guides for this tour, she was helping out today.
Stop #1 was at the American Adventure pavilion where we got to have a peek underneath the stage. We got a look at the scene changer that silently and flawlessly executes this show with the help of the original 1982 computer that has run the show since opening day. While many of the new, more complex attractions require multiple cast members for their operation, The American Adventure requires just one cast member to run the show. That cast member's job? To push the "Start" button. 
The system is so simple, yet so sophisticated for its time. Have you ever noticed the scene changer moving beneath your seat during the show? Because it's happening right under your nose, but you'd never know it! After our backstage experience, we walked onstage and talked about the use of forced perspective on the building.
Stop # 2 was Creative Costuming and this was my favorite stop of the day. WOW! These are the costumes that are created in batches of 50 pieces or fewer, so characters, parade performers, special event items, even costumes for a one-shot Barbie fashion show. We got to stand in the room where costumes were literally being tested, cut, sewn, and bedazzled. We got to hold Jack Skellington's coat. We even got to see two of the most sophisticated costumes that Disney has ever designed. They were supposed to be "fire" and "water" for Rivers of Light and they were painstakingly crafted with individual tiles that would follow the performers movements and create the illusion of being the appropriate element through the use of color and motion. The tiles on the costumes had to be completely redesigned when they were found to be too heavy and instead of metal, they were 3-D printed and sprayed to look metallic. These two gorgeous pieces are hanging in Creative Costuming because after months of redesigning them to make them perfect, they were cut from the show in the final days before it opened. 
Stop #3 was the largest of 4 textile services locations on property and this facility specifically washes towels, sheets, and pillowcases. The carts that housekeeping uses to transport these items are called "metros". Each metro arrives full and is dumped by machine. While the contents are hand sorted by cast members, washed, compression dried, and inserted into folding machines by cast members, the metros go through a "car wash". They are then restocked on the other side. Ever notice how the towels and linens are just a little bit fluffier at the deluxe resorts than at the value resorts? There's no chance of mixing them up because every sheet, pillowcase, and towel is RFID tagged to insure that it returns to it's proper home.
Stop #4 was lunch at Whispering Canyon Cafe. This was our first time trying the skillet and it was fabulous. One thing that I think restaurants do a terrible job with is making corn on the cob. The corn is always way too mature and relative to what I can buy locally and cook in my own kitchen, restaurant corn is awful. The corn on the cob in this skillet was so delicious that I would have sworn that it was made in my kitchen. For dessert, we had strawberry rhubarb...pie? cobbler? delicious plate of who even cares what it was called? The only downside to the experience was that some of our table mates seemed genuinely put off by our servers attempts to make us feel like we really were at a lodge in the wilderness. I don't think they got the joke.
Stop #5 was Central Shops, the building where the ride vehicles, set pieces, parade floats, etc. are built and maintained. We got to see the maintenance life cycle. There is some sort of silicone (maybe?) washer that goes under every screw and bolt on every ride vehicle that gives the CM running the attraction an opportunity to check for malfunctions on every single vehicle every time it runs. It was really cool to see ride vehicles in various states of disassembly and we saw a set piece that is presumably for Toy Story Land partially assembled. Our guides advised us to memorize the scene and keep an eye out for it in the parks somewhere soon.
Stop #6 was the utilidors and to be honest, I was disappointed in this choice for the tour. I doubt that there were very many people on the tour who haven't done the Keys to the Kingdom tour, so this was kind of an anticlimactic stop. I was really hoping that in an effort to mirror the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour at DL that the tour would include a tour of the suite in Cinderella Castle. The utilidors are cool and it's amazing to have an opportunity to see them, but I don't feel like they need to be duplicated on two different tours.
All in all, it was a great tour! As is customary, we received a pin at the conclusion and the pin was on a card that included the exclusive backstage photos that our guides had taken of us that day. Like I said, this tour was AbD-lite in that there were only 3 photos taken of each party. Still, they are photos that you can't get any other way. SO I'm sure you can image my devastation as I was unpacking our bags to find that our pins and photo cards were missing! 
We called Wilderness Lodge and there were no pins turned in to Lost & Found. Plus, we had swept the room pretty thoroughly before we left. We checked and double checked every nook and cranny and every bag that was in our possession on the trip was we will often consolidate bags before we come home. They were simply gone. If it wasn't the most ridiculously farfetched thing to steal from a suitcase, I would swear that they were stolen out of our bags between dropping them off for airline check-in and receiving them back at the baggage carousel in Baltimore. Well, just yesterday, I received word from AdB guest services that they were providing us with the photo code and they are even shipping replacement pins to us. I was so thrilled!
Be good at something. It makes you valuable. Have something to bring to the table because that will make you more welcome. --Randy Pausch
Trip Reports:
December 2013: 10th Anniversary, 1st DVC Stay | April 2014: Birthday on the Boardwalk | May 2014: Star Wars Weekend, Navigating WDW with a wheelchair | August 2014: Villains Unleashed | September/October 2014: MNSSHP, F&W, Tower of Terror 10-miler | March/April 2015: Disneyland and California Coastal Cruise | November 2015: Wine & Dine Half, Food & Wine, 1st Disney Cruise | February 2016: Presidential Classic Gymnastics Meet | March 2016: "Work" Trip, Tours, F&G Festival | April 2016: Conference at Disneyland | Fall 2016: Festive Fall Fun | January 2017: Festival of the Arts | May 2017: AbD Backstage Magic | July 2017: AbD San Francisco | Sorry I had to give up doing trip reports. Too many time commitments right now.
As I hold a degree in Economics, I found her flawed assessments and her misinformed lecture during my Christmas party to be quite annoying. Also, she was loud and brash and devoid of any holiday joy. She eventually left the line to our delight and to the obvious relief of our new line friends. I don't mean to bust on millennials. Some of the charts put me in that category, myself, and earlier in the evening, we met a very nice young man around the same age as Millennial Sally. He was delightful to talk with and his excitement and enthusiasm for life were contagious. In line for our very brief wait for Minnie and Daisy, we met two off-duty DCL Cast Members who were also a lot of fun. After our meet & greets, we stocked up on some pretty delicious ginger & molasses cookies and watched part of Holiday Wishes from Liberty Square. Then we secured a Frontierland spot for the parade. This is not my favorite place to watch from, but it was the most convenient so that we could meet Genie and Jasmine immediately after. While waited, I picked up up blue raspberry sno-cones and snowman pretzel flats. This was a great new inclusion in the holiday treats lineup. While I enjoyed the parade, I will only watch it from Main Street in the future. It's too sparse without the backdrop of the snow and the Christmas lights. We capped off our evening with a ride on Pirates. We were going to try to make it to BTMR, but we ran out of time. We lingered on Main Street and took some photos and we both agreed that at our next Christmas party, we will spend the majority of time on Main Street. Also, in the future, I would seriously consider doing two party nights in the same trip if the scheduled allows. There are too many wonderful things to see and do for just one party, especially if you do the character meet & greets. Another party guest asked us at the beginning of the night if MVMCP was worth the extra money. At that point, they had already bought a ticket, so it seemed like an odd time to ask the question. But I told them honestly, on paper, no. It is not a good value. Was I glad that I had attended in the past? Yes. Will I attend again in the future? Absolutely. Would I attend with anyone who couldn't hang until midnight and use the full party time? Not a chance. Value is in the eye of the beholder. I love this party and for me, it's worth it. But I could totally understand how someone could justify skipping it.
I had been really disappointed at Pin Traders both by the selection and by the fact that the giant trading board has gone missing. Between that and the price increases at the Christmas store, I just wasn't feeling a lot of Christmas magic. After lunch, we finished up our experience with a rice pudding/ pistachio/ hazelnut gelato from my favorite Vivoli Il Gelato and a walk down the Christmas Tree Trail and it was a really nice way to finish out our trip.