Monday and Tuesday were our only park days on this trip. Wednesday was supposed to be a pool day as we checked in to CBR, and skyliner hopping. Brunch at Chef Mickey’s, and coincidentally it was the first day characters were back. The character interactions were amazing there. Like at H&V, there was a lot of space between us and the one other party in our section, with plexi glass between sections. We eat at Chef Mickey’s a lot- it is my kids’ favorite. But this time it was more enjoyable. I love that the food now comes to us. The new items on the menu were really good. The banana french toast was delicious, and that is what I mainly ate. We also treated ourselves to fancy drinks. Mine was of the “adult” variety. I think it was called Gingerbread Delight. It was very good, but very strong! A lot of the cocktails that I see at Disney are things I feel like I could make myself at home, but this was something different and I don’t think I can replicate it. I recommend it if you like ginger, nutmeg/cinnamon, and vodka.
We got exactly the room I requested- Jamaica 4121 (view of the courtyard, corner room, near the skyliner.) It turned out to be a stormy day, so we only got a couple hours in the pool, and no skyliner because I was afraid it would shut down and we’d be stuck at a station. I don’t know if it ever did shut down. One thing I will mention about this- if you get one of the rooms there near the skyliner, be aware that people who have driven will drive to the parking lot of your building to park closer to the skyliner. I hadn’t thought about this, left to get coffee from the Marketplace (which was silly, I ended up going back and getting it from the Joffrey’s outside the skyliner station right across from our room!) and couldn’t find a spot, had to park very far away and walk with our luggage. Just something to remember for that particular building. We actually ended up not doing the skyliner at all, which was a real bummer. We overbooked ourselves. The kids loved this resort. The beds were comfy compared to the pullout that DH and I had at the cabin. The pool was a huge hit, and the Diva loved the pineapple decorations. I wish I had taken a picture of Peanut sitting on her “little bed.” She loved the fifth sleeper.
We had an underwhelming meal from Banana Cabana. I don’t understand, I asked if I could order some food to go. They said they don’t do that, but if I sit at a table then a server would just bring it to me in to go boxes. The only tables they had available were out in the pouring rain, and the cabana itself was crowded and not totally socially distanced so I wasn’t comfortable. I stood out in the rain waiting for a server to take my “to go but not to go” order of a salad and three cheeseburgers. The jerk chicken on the salad was meh, and the kids liked the burgers but they forgot to put ketchup or pickles or anything on them! Just plain dry burgers. Interesting… So I recommend the banana cabana for drinks- those were really good (I love rum, and most of their drinks were rum based) but not food and not if it is raining. After dinner we went to Night of a Million Lights. My phone pictures do not do it justice. It was an amazing event. Everyone was so nice and happy to be there, and it is an amazing organization that has done a lot of good in the world. The lights themselves were breathtaking. Again, I was missing my camera.
And finally, yesterday (Thursday Dec 18) was our departure day. Before heading back to the snow in Ohio, we had brunch at the Grand Floridian and spent some time at Disney Springs. I forgot that it is one week until Christmas now, so was expecting it to not be very crowded given that it was a chilly weekday. But it was pretty crowded. Brunch at the Grand Floridian Cafe was another underwhelming experience that I don’t think we will be doing again. I have a lot of fond memories of visiting the Grand Floridian with my grandmother. She loved it there. We used to go to eat at 1900 Park Fare because we could see Mary Poppins without actually having to go to MK. I haven’t been in that resort since I was a little girl, and wanted to revisit those memories. It is beautiful at Christmas; the decorations are very nice. I could have spent all day looking at them in detail. The Cafe however, not so much. I’m not really complaining, but I do want to give an honest review of everything so others know if they should also try things while they are there. The service was really odd. We were seated after a lot of confusion. The server came out and asked for drink orders. I started by asking for some water, and the server then looked at something she was holding and said “Oh shoot, I’ll be right back sorry.” and left for about ten minutes. Meanwhile, because of the new virtual menus, we only had two menus for the whole table to look at (only two phones, mine and DH’s) and some very indecisive children. She brought biscuits and butter, but no water, and didn’t take any more drink orders. She left for a couple more minutes. When she came back and I ordered Eggs Benedict and press pot coffee, Bugsy ordered a salad and was trying to order a drink when the server noticed that I was helping Peanut read the menu on my phone. She said “I’ll just bring the drinks if you aren’t ready.” The problem was, I was the only one who had managed to order drinks- coffee and water (which still hadn’t been brought.) So she brought my coffee and the rest of the table ordered. It was just REALLY odd. I figure everyone is still getting used to this new virtual menu thing so I didn’t bring it up, but I can’t get over how weird it was that she kept leaving mid-order. The eggs on my eggs benedict were overcooked too, and it wasn’t anything to write home about. They had a small version of the gingerbread house, which we were lucky enough to sit next to. And my kids saw Molly from All Ears and were star struck.
At Disney Springs we did the Christmas Tree Stroll. The kids loved all of the trees. We also stopped at the Basin store and the Lego Store. Of course I had to go to the Marvel and Star Wars store. I got an adorable loungefly (I guess I need a pic of it!) with the characters on it, and a Millenium Falcon long sleeve shirt. Peanut got a baby Groot plush, and we all got things to pamper ourselves from Basin. We tried the peppermint churros and the gobbler poutine, both were amazingly good. They were gone before pictures were taken I tried to get into the Ganachery because they had some treats I wanted to try, and I also wanted to get some Christmas gifts for my in-laws and my parents. I waited in line for a half hour and it didn’t budge. No one came out, no one went in, for over a half hour. I called it quits, my feet hurt too much. The kids thought Santa in a boat was hillarious. I didn’t see him (I was waiting in that darned line for chocolates!!!) so no picture. I did get a selfie with the grounded balloon (we have never been when it is actually flying! Someday we’ll get to go on it.) and some pictures of the Minnie Mouse tree. It was so crowded. And we got there about 1:00. Maybe you need to go even earlier to miss the crowds
Now we are back home. The drive back was much easier. We made very few stops. Although I had to drive slower through the appalachian mountains because it was snowing/icy. The Snow was not a fun thing to come home to after we just left the tropical paradise of the CBR, but I guess maybe we’ll have a white Christmas??? I will probably post some overall thoughts tomorrow after I’ve had some time to collect them. Some final take-aways are needed.
She is hilarious with posing. Either she goes all in with the super model thing, or she doesn’t cooperate at all- there is no middle ground
I really wanted to bring home the chocolate pinata and chocolate house as christmas gifts to family, but that line was not worth even chocolate. It wasn’t that long, I guess people were just taking a really long time inside!
We will never skip picking up groceries again: We arrived at 5:00pm when we intended on arriving closer to noon. Those first hours were supposed to be spent playing mini golf at Winter Summerland and picking up groceries from Publix using curbside. One of the biggest reasons we chose the cabins at ft wilderness is because it had a kitchen and fit our family of five (Art of Animation Family Suites, and rooms with a 5th sleeper can fit us, but there is no kitchen) We planned on cooking all of our breakfasts and one meal (lunch or dinner) every day. We arrived just in time to freshen up and get to our dining reservation at Whispering Canyon, so we skipped picking up groceries. This cost us a lot of $$$ but more importantly it put us in situations where we weren’t comfortable. More on that farther down. We always stay off property and almost always cook our own food, and I think we learned from this trip that this is what works best for us.
It was hard to order food from quick service and then carry it to a non-crowded place to eat. Because we had no groceries, we had no breakfast at the cabin before leaving for MK. The kids had some gogurt and apple sauce pouches that we brought down in our cooler. Everyone was hangry by the time we reached our fourth ride. At 11:00 I was very hungry and the churro we bought was not cutting it. DH wanted to try Pecos Bill. I thought it was an off-time so we mobile ordered. It started to rain. I think this is why so many people were suddenly at Pecos Bill. There were no open tables outside, no social distancing, and because they don’t have to go containers we couldn’t just pick it up and go elsewhere. There were soooooo many people. We did find a table outside, and ate tacos in the pouring rain. This would have been avoided if we had stuck to #1 above
Crowds get big really suddenly. When we ordered our food at 11:00 we felt really okay with the crowds. Also, once we left the Pecos Bill eating area, we felt very okay. We got in line for splash because the rain had caused it to get shorter (it was in our plan to ride earlier, but the kids really wanted to do Dumbo, Barnstormer, and Little Mermaid… I think they needed time to work up courage) The crowd level at that time was fine, we were not uncomfortable. We did rider swap because Peanut decided it was a no for her. When I got off with the older two, there was a bit of a larger crowd. By the time DH rode it with the Diva, it was elbow to elbow, and I was very uncomfortable. And worse, we couldnt’ find our way out because a lot of the exit paths were roped off, or being blocked by the now long line.It happened very very quickly. I recommend being out of the lands by noon if you are uncomfortable with crowds right now. We went to Main Street and just hung out, and it was very spacious/not crowded.
Hanging out on mainstreet brings me to a very random point. The best gingerbread at DW is at the mainstreet confectionary. We tried the gingerbread at almost all of the resorts. Each one was different, and none of them were bad, but everyone in our family agrees that the best was from the confectionary.
Snacks and water breaks are hard with kids with the mask rules. At one point at HS, I had the kids by myself and we were taking a water/snack break. Because kids are messy eaters, I taught them a routine for taking off their masks, putting it into a zipper pouch, and using hand sanitizer before eating/drinking. While I was in the middle of trying to get all the kids their hand sanitizer, a CM came over and pretty aggressively told me that everyone needs to have a mask on if we are not actively eating or drinking. I tried to explain that we are trying to be actively drinking and she said again “not everyone in your party is actively drinking, they need to put their mask on between bites and sips.” I was not trying to be argumentative at all, but felt she was being very agressive about it. No one was near us, and the rest areas and eating areas were all crowded and full. The result of this was that my kids put their masks back on and we were back to step one of the process. They were afraid to take it off to drink water because they don’t want to break the rules. I also did not want to break the rules, but we were not abusing the “while eating or drinking rule,” we were just trying to safely take our masks off to drink. The kids definitely did not get enough water that day. I am not mad at the cast member, because I’m sure she had to deal with a lot of rude people who actually don’t want to follow the rules. But I was very confused about what/how we should do. The snack we had at that time was very messy and if the kids had just pulled their masks down, they would have gotten food all over it for sure.
If there are things at a resort you want to do, you need one full day there without a park planned. Check in and check out days can’t be relied upon. We wanted to visit the ranch and do horseback riding at Ft. Wilderness, and possibly canoe, but there was zero time for this. We also wanted to do a skyliner hop while staying at CBR, which is why I requested a room close to it. Our “resort day” was also the day we checked out of Ft. Wilderness and into CBR, and it stormed a lot that afternoon.
They are no longer social distancing on all the rides. We sat with strangers on SDD, although not on 7DMT. I understand that they are trying to mitigate wait times, but social distancing on the rides was one of the things Disney was doing that made us feel safe going. They did not make it known that we’d be sitting with strangers, so we couldn’t make an informed choice before getting on the rides. This was upsetting to me.
The character interactions at the meals were some of the best we’ve had, even though it was sad we couldn’t give them high fives and hugs. I can tell that the character actors are really happy to be back at work and that they enjoy doing their job. They spent a lot of time at each table, and I also felt that because we just took the one picture when they first came around, the kids got to enjoy the interactions without the parents constantly sayign “Look! Look! Give him a hug! Give him a high five! Now look! Now pose!” It seemed a lot more genuine. And I really like the precautions they’ve taken at the table service restauarants. We don’t eat inside at restaurants at home, so I was really nervous, however if the restaurants at home had done what disney has done I would have no problems (we do support them, we just get carry out or delivery…)
One more note about crowds. I said above to be out of lands by noon. However that flips around sundown. Everyone files to main street to see the lights and projections, and the lands are empty. We walked onto Space at around 5:30, and there was no line at Aloha Isle to get our treat. The line for 7DMT looked amazingly long and said 70 minutes, but we waited only a half hour. Considering the last time we went, Standby for it was over three hours (which is why we’ve never ridden it before!), we’ll take that. Main street empties out at close but they continue the projections for an hour, so we enjoyed them crowd free after close.
I think that is it. I hope this helps others who are planning a trip but are crowd averse. I am normally very crowd averse- I have panic attacks if I feel like there are too many people- but now the COVID-19 situation makes that so much worse. I was really nervous for this trip because of the recent surge. But we found it easy to avoid the crowds except in the situations I mentioned above. I’m hoping by sharing those times and experiences, other people can avoid them even easier than we did
I assume you just mean no empty rows between you, not that they filled an empty seat in your row? The former I wouldn’t be too worried about given it’s outside, masked, and very brief (though I agree you should have been made aware of this since everyone has different risk thresholds), but the latter would be a problem for me.
Yes, this is what I meant. Sorry for the ambiguity. I know it’s not a big deal for most, but I wish we had known. When they say “this is what we’re doing to keep guests healthy” and then we get there and that isn’t happening, it is a bit unnerving.
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The cavalcades did cause some pinch points as you see in the pictures. Social distancing was hard because everyone was pushed into the same space. We just stood back from the crowd, finding steps and other things to stand on (I think for Santa we were on the platform that has the stockades)
One thing I regret was not telling DH and the Diva to look towards the park when they got to the thorn patch on Splash. I thought that they would naturally look that way, but they didn’t. The picture of the soldiers was taken right at the moment when the crowd was closing in. After the band went through, the area just flooded with people. You can see the crowd on the other side. This was the only time that I really felt panicky about the crowd. I was uncomfortable at Pecos Bill, but definitely panicky when we were all getting done with Splash.
These were taken with a telephoto lens, so keep in mind that the distance between objects/people is compressed by the lens. We didn’t feel that over crowded during Santa and the Rainy Day cavalcade. We quickly walked to Mainstreet by Casey’s Corner to see the gingerbread cavalcade, and everyone was appropriately spaced.
Hanging out on Main Street, seeing the Dapper Dans, some princesses, and Whinnie the Pooh characters! The family saw Mickey and Minnie, but I was in the confectionary getting treats when they came through. Sad I missed it, but glad the kids saw. Sorry I have no pictures to share though
I agree with you on Disney not giving fair warning on the changes on every row ride loading. I was very surprised, I probably was OK, but a change in COVID procedures must be communicated in reasonable time/order.
I forgot one of my takeaways, and it might help someone who is going near the holidays next year: If you are going during the holidays, do not think you will be getting a holiday themed souvenir to commemorate your holiday visit! Unless you go very early in the season. I had a couple things in mind that I wanted, and the castmembers I asked all had the same response “I haven’t seen that for a couple of weeks!” I don’t think we will ever be going at Christmas again, so this was a little sad. I wanted one of the “Milk and Cookies for Santa” plates and the gingerbread christmas countdown statue. I did get one of the resort pins that opens up to show the gingerbread house (from Wilderness Lodge) so I’ll have something to show we were there at Christmas, but pickins were slim.
I tried to get into the Ganachery because they had some treats I wanted to try, and I also wanted to get some Christmas gifts for my in-laws and my parents. I waited in line for a half hour and it didn’t budge. No one came out, no one went in, for over a half hour. I called it quits, my feet hurt too much. The kids thought Santa in a boat was hillarious. I didn’t see him (I was waiting in that darned line for chocolates!!!) so no picture. I did get a selfie with the grounded balloon (we have never been when it is actually flying! Someday we’ll get to go on it.) and some pictures of the Minnie Mouse tree. It was so crowded. And we got there about 1:00. Maybe you need to go even earlier to miss the crowds
