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Cast of Players: Marjorie (40, super Disney fan)
Gary (DH, 46, practically perfect in every way, let's me have my way often!)
Brynna (DD, 15, loves things Disney, but in moderation)
Our Plans: December 25 - January 4 - Walt Disney World
January 4 - Ft. Lauderdale
January 5 - 12 - RCCL Enchantment of the Seas
January 12 - 14 - Walt Disney World
December 25, 2002 (Wednesday - Day 1)
I can't believe it's Christmas! We arrived at the Marriott airport hotel at about 10:00 p.m. on the 24th after opening gifts with our family and
gluttoning out on turkey dinner. Straight to bed once at the hotel. Wake up call at 4:45 a.m., ouch! Got ourselves together and had the shuttle haul us and our 4 bags over to the Vancouver International Airport. Once there had no problems getting thru security and our flight took off on time. After a brief layover in Phoenix we were off to Orlando! We arrived at 7:00 p.m., picked up our car from National and zoom we were off to our hotel, the Renaissance World Gate. No problems finding the hotel, checked in and lo and behold, I was handed my Mickey MFL mascot at the desk (he'd arrived by
priority mail). Next stop was Walgreens for water, pop and snacks. Then we proceeded to have our Christmas Day dinner at....Denny's! Just like in the Santa Clause! It was late, 11 p.m. by this time and there were sure a lot of other folks eating at this time too! Once we fuelled up we were back to the hotel for sleep and an early wakeup cause we were off to the MK the next day!
December 26, 2002 (Thursday - Day 2)
I woke up first, 6:53 a.m. to be exact. This proved to set the pattern for the remainder of the trip. I would have a shower, putter about tidying up the room, pack our backpack for the day and wake up Gary & Brynna so they could get ready. Brynna can't handle breakfast, it actually makes her ill if she eats any, so Gary & I planned on eating cereal in the room often.
This morning being no exception, we ate and headed out to the TTC. It was a very chilly morning but with layering we managed to keep up with the erratic weather. Once at TTC we proceeded to exchange our Canadian 7-day hopper plus vouchers into passes. Unfortunately the CM we dealt with hadn't done this often so it took about 20 mins. Once we had passes in hand, mine actually, (I feared losing the passes if they weren't kept together snugly in my purse) we grabbed the monorail over to MK. After a brief security check we were in! Yeah, I was now experiencing sensory overload. There were several characters just inside the park and the trolley was heading down Main Street with an abundance of happy singers.....Clang, clang, clang
goes the trolley! I truly enjoyed being greeted this way. I made a mad dash into City Hall to pick up a birthday button for Gary, as his 47th
birthday was the next day. We then headed into Fantasyland, through the castle of course, for a walk through and from there to Tomorrowland. We then did Space Mt. and Buzz Lightyear without any wait at all. From there we headed to Liberty Square where we had a snack and then did the HM, BTMR, Pirates and the Tiki Room.
It was time for lunch at El Pirata. I had been looking forward to their taco salad for a long time. It was as good as I had anticipated. After
eating we went on to the Jungle Cruise. Brynna wasn't feeling well after our cruise so we meandered back down to Main Street and strolled through a few shops on our way out. Once we got back to our hotel we had a brief rest and then headed to Epcot where we did Innoventions East & West, Ice Station Cool (where I got Gary with Beverly again!) And then onto the Sunshine Season Food Fair at the Land for some dinner. We finished off Epcot with Spaceship Earth and headed to our hotel for a well-deserved rest!
December 27, 2002 (Friday - Day 3)
Happy Birthday Gary! We slept until after 8 today and then headed out to the Contemporary to Chef Mickey’s for Gary’s birthday breakfast. We had our photo taken and I did buy it cause it was such a nice picture of the 3 of us. We were seated by the window with a lovely view and got to meet lots of characters during our meal. Gary received a yummy birthday cupcake and I made him wear the pin I’d picked up the day before at MK.
Today was our resort hopping day as we had to return our vehicle to the airport and pick up a new one (because we added on 2 extra days to the beginning of our trip, our car rental would have increased horribly if we’d amended it so it was easier to rent another car for 2 days). We hopped on the monorail to tour the Grand Floridian, which in it’s Christmas glory, was quite beautiful. Then back to the Contemporary to pick up our car and we went off to see the Wilderness Lodge. Another beautiful Christmas tree. We “found” PO Riverside by accident and went in and had a look and some lunch.
By this time we all felt like a rest so we went back to the hotel for a bit. When we entered the room, there was a gift on our bed for Gary. It was a Fairy Godmother gift box I’d ordered before I left home. I was so happy to see I didn’t have to go looking for it. Gary really loved the stuff inside, it was a Buzz Lightyear theme and there was lots of candy too. We headed out to the airport via Celebration. What an awesome place to raise a family, it gave me goosebumps when we drove through. We got to the airport where we traded vehicles and this time we got a PT Cruiser, awesome car, we really grew attached to it. We drove to Downtown Disney and wandered about. We planned to do our shopping on our return to WDW after our upcoming cruise so we went to build our pins, mine had 3 Mickeys against fireworks and was engraved with my name. Brynna chose Lilo & Stitch (her faves). I also bought a NYE sweatshirt that I planned to wear on NYE. After our brief bit of shopping we went over to the RFC where there was a 2 hour wait! Well, I pulled out my Safari Club card and managed to get a wait time of 30 minutes! It definitely paid to sign up for the Safari Club (Brynna did it for me when she went to DL last year). Had a wonderful meal, with a free appie (Orlando Magicard) and our waiter took 10% off the bill with my SC card too. After our meal we checked out Once Upon a Toy (couldn’t wait to get back to get our Potato Heads after the cruise) and then went over to Virgin to check out DVDs. It was a very long day and we really needed a good sleep so we headed back to the Renaissance.
December 28, 2002 (Saturday - Day 4)
We had a good sleep, until 9 actually. We arrived at Epcot around 10:30. Went to TT to get FP, it was for 4:10! Glad we got here when we did. We headed off to the World Showcase and did Mexico and then Norway, loved the Maelstrom which I'd never got to do before. Gary's Norwegian (back a few generations) so it was neat to check out Norway. I got a Rice Cream there as I had heard they were so good and I wasn’t disappointed, mmmmm. We then went to China where we really enjoyed the film. We wanted to get to Beaches & Cream for lunch so we caught a Friendship over to the Yacht & Beach Club, had a brief look around, and put our names down for a table. It took about 30 minutes but we didn’t mind as the weather was quite warm today and we were enjoying the sunshine. Once our pager went off we headed into the restaurant and couldn’t believe how tiny it was. Very popular though! We used our Connections vouchers, 2 of them, so split a double cheeseburger, prime rib sandwich and fruit between the 3 of us. This was so that when we ordered the humungous sundaes, we wouldn’t be too full. Well! The food was very good but the sundaes were awesome, and they weren’t even the Kitchen Sink. There was so much but we dug in and managed to lick the bowls clean! Now we were so full, we rolled our way back to Epcot and straight over to Test Track for our FP time. What a great ride!
Since we hadn’t finished the World Showcase we headed over to Canada and said hello to our fellow countrymen. The CM inside the theatre was very nice and spoke with us at length about Canada, where we were from and he even gave me a pin. What a great guy. After Canada we did France, Morocco, Italy and Germany. I even managed to get a brief glimpse of Gary Sinese before the CP ended. I had told my Gary that I wouldn’t make him sit though another CP (we did it 3 years ago, not his cup of tea) which was okay, except that I really wanted to see Gary Sinese. By the time we had visited all these countries we were getting hungry again (can you believe it?) so we finished off at Cantina de San Angel with combo plates. We were tired so we headed back to the hotel and I proceed to wash & dry 2 loads of laundry and we watched tv before retiring for the night.
Part One, Part Two, Part Three
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