Our Verry Merry 24 nighter. Highs and Lows

Our Very Merry Christmas Trip

Firstly I'd like to apologise for being awol lately! It was so manic after we came home getting ready for Christmas that I've not had 5 minutes. Back into the swing of things now though so I'll be around a lot more again (sorry! Haha).

I can't believe we have been home for 3 weeks already! Wah! Luckily arriving back home just before Christmas managed to starve off the Disney blues a little and we are actually not *that* sad - I mean it totally may have a little something to do with another trip in the pipeline which is just 12 weeks away today... but you never can tell

Let me start by saying honestly, this was the best trip to date! I was a little apprehensive about the weather situation, and the crowds during Thanksgiving but it was lovely and warm in the day and we avoided most of the crowds by doing very little parks in the holiday week.

Highs and Lows

Lows

I'll start with the lows as there were so few.

Main one for me personally was getting sick about a week into the trip and it continuing right up till we came home. It was only a nasty cold but it knocked me sideways. We had to skip a lot of things due to it.

Dinner at Ohana' on our friends last night, 2 hrs 45 minutes for dinner really isn't acceptable. Our server was terrible, I actually had a word with the manager but he really didn't care which shocked me. First time ever I actually asked for the tip to be removed from our bill as he didn't deserve 18% as he forgot us, we had to ask for drinks 3 times, didn't bring round food, he plonked the dessert down while we still had our plates as we hadn't finished eating our mains. T.J. was his name, if you ever get him don't plan to do anything else that night like we did! We were meant to be meeting friends up at TOTWL but of course that didn't happen, we watched the fireworks from inside the restaurant while waiting for him to bring the bill. He was so bad that after he knew his tip had gone he was messing about with the magic band scanner, he must have tried reading my band 30 times or more but kept moving it around so it wouldn't connect just to hold us there longer as I told him we were in a rush. I was actually shocked at his behaviour. I will be emailing Disney. I did tell the manager about the magic band scanning and he said not a single thing - just shrugged his shoulders.

Not really a low but more of a 'meh' was Morimoto Asia. I just didn't get the fuss. The food was like chinese we have in the UK (which is way nicer than American chinese food) so it was just like what we could have back hoe but 3x the price (even with the exchange rate in our favour). I totally get why locals love the food though. The setting was wonderful the food was just meh, nice enough but nothing special. Its in the lows cause I was looking forward to it so much and it sadly didn't live up.

Highs

Where to begin?!

Christmas in Disney is AWESOME!! If its something you've been toying with trying, seriously just do it! You wont regret it!

Osborne lights are something that need to be seen to be believed, they were magical.

Candlelight processional. I'm not very religious so I wasn't sure it was going to be something I enjoyed but wow, it was amazing. We queued from 6:30 and got into the 8:15 showing with NPH. We did have a meal booked but as I was ill we decided to cancel as I wouldn't be able to eat much and it would make it an expensive show.

The resort decorations, the gingerbread house, the mini village and train. It was all so pretty!

DVC merry mixer, I saw the queue to get in and almost bailed on it but it didn't take long at all. It was a great atmosphere inside. We queued to meet Donald and Daisy in their Christmas outfits.

AKL Club level. Wow. It wasn't quite GF club level but the people there were so lovely.

Getting club level access for the whole AKL stay thanks to a very kind CM there called Andrea. We stayed 6 nights club level and then moved to a Value room but our bands still worked so I went to ask why and was told that Andrea didn't know why at all but whoever did sort it made sure it would be like that for the rest of our 13 nights there

Seeing Neil Patrick Harris loads of times in the club lounge, Sy spoke to him and wished him a good trip. Sadly I didn't get any pictures with him - didn't want to disturb him while he was with his family.

Spending some quality time with the hubster. We spent a lot of time chilling out at the resort just the 2 of us.

Black Friday sales, we decided we were too chicken on black Friday so we went out Saturday and a few days after. Got some great deals on Disney fabric got all of our Christmas presents and even treated ourselves to some Seaworld annual passes buy one get one free!

Which brings me on to, not having to pay for the extra case we brought home! We weren't able to check in online, at the airport they asked if we had pre paid and we said no but then nothing was done and we were wished on our way! Woohoo! We bought so much that we actually left all of our summer clothes with our friends for April! Hehehe.

Meeting up with great people, some old friends and some new!

Thanksgiving at our friend's house. Wow! Just Wow! It was something special. Food was delish and all the little details were perfect.

Narcoossees Brunch. Amazing! Booked again for April's trip.

Late night EMH, nothing compares to MK at night, being able to ride pretty much anything in Fantasyland (apart from peter pan and dwarves) with no wait. We even rode Dumbo twice without getting off it was that empty.

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. The parade is my new favourite. Didn't care for the cookies or hot chocolate though.

Be Our Guest Dinner. Having never tried it before cause there was nothing on the menu I could eat. We actually ate here twice!

'On Wednesday's we wear pink' Dapper event in MK. Was fun to dress up for the day, even if my feet did kill me by the end lol

Seat plus with Virgin. Having an extra seat between us was really good on the way home as it meant we could both sleep and Sy didn't keep fidgeting and waking me up lol.

But the biggest highlight of all has to be some of the amazing Cast Members who made our trip special. Andrea and Brian at the club lounge, I actually stopped by to speak to the hotel manager at check out to tell him how amazing they were. Such lovely people! Really went above and beyond and made us feel like friends. Shelly, our server at Be Our Guest, we actually asked for her table when we went back. Sarah at the Candlelight processional, so friendly and chatty. There were SO many more but I didn't catch their names. We stood chatting with a lady in Disney springs who had just celebrated 15 years with Disney and she told us all about the evening Disney had put on for them to celebrate, she was so touched by it all - it was lovely to hear about. Of course the lovely Louis who is a CM in MK city hall, but I class him as a friend rather than just a CM who went out of their way to be nice. We had a lovely experience with Tigger in 1900 Park Fare, I facetimed my aunt who is his biggest fan and he was so good 'talking' with her! We also had amazing interactions with the characters in Minnie's holiday dine. Before we went way I had read a lot about the level of service slipping recently, and going on some of the experiences we had on the big family trip in October I was starting to worry, but we honestly felt CM's were even nicer than normal (Ohana' aside).

We are heading back to WDW in April for 14 nights and just today we booked our flights for the BIG meet up in October! 24 nights in Orlando again, we are very blessed <3 <3

So on that note, I'll say goodbye for now and start sorting through the 2000 odd photo's from our trip ready for the trip report! I did debate whether to do one this time but was told absolutely that I had no choice haha so its in hand

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