A Holly Jolly Poly Christmas December 2021: Highs and Lows

[moosha]

A Holly Jolly Poly Christmas December 2021 - Highs and Lows

We’re back! Still can’t quite believe we actually made it to Florida after all the craziness of the last 22 months with four cancellations during the pandemic, and especially with the chaos of the last month or so with the new variant and case increases. The stress of us all trying to stay covid-free in the run up and with the testing to go was all worth it as we had an amazing time. It was lovely to escape the doom and gloom here and enjoy ourselves in the parks and the sunshine, and in some ways it didn’t really feel like we’d been away, despite the moments over the last two years when it almost felt like we’d never get back there.

Thanks to those who’ve followed along on Instagram and sorry for the spam, but I took a lot of (pretty bad) photos so as always my report will include lots of photos and as those who’ve read my previous reports will know, they’re always extremely long so apologies to those who prefer a concise and to-the-point trippie. Mine are rather over-detailed (for future me to remember the trips mainly) and very long-winded, to set the scene. A beverage of your choice is definitely required before you sit down to read my trip reports, and the highs and lows are no exception as these also tend to go on.

So let’s get into it.

Highs:

Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure

For me, in fact for all of us, Hagrid’s is the best ride at all Universal and Disney parks in Orlando. Seren cried pretty much every time we rode because of how much she loved it. Freya is very much the emo goth teen at the moment but even she was laughing, whooping and smiling the entire time. We’d managed to ride it once on our last trip in February 2020 and it was my favourite then too. It’s just a brilliant combination of excellent theming, effects, animatronics and a thrilling coaster that’s super fast and exciting without being too much for someone like me who won’t ride a ‘proper’ coaster like Hulk or Velocicoaster (although I would ride that if it wasn’t for the absolutely huge drop.) We managed to ride four times in our two days at Universal this trip thanks to early entry for resort guests and waiting until the end of the evening, and only had a really long wait the first morning when we’d arrived later than planned and the ride went down while we were in the queue. It seems to be a lot more reliable now than it was when it first opened which hopefully means shorter waits and more chance of riding at least once even if you’re only there for one day.

With all the hype around Rise of the Resistance I was prepared to put that above Hagrid’s in my favourite rides list since you hear a lot of ‘best ride ever’ but for me it wasn’t as good. Rise is a longer experience and I liked that there were different elements which is certainly a benefit but the actual ride portion for me had moments of brilliance and parts where we just seemed to be moving around the star destroyer with nothing happening. I think going into it with really high expectations based on all the hype didn’t help. And the absolute faff (and cost of Lightning Lane) it took to ride also made it a bit bittersweet, plus it’s definitely still a bit unreliable as it was down for quite a while on our two Studios days which didn’t help wait times. We also waited in standby for it during early entry for 40 minutes while it was down (it went down once we were in line) before abandoning ship to actually do something during the quieter time, having wasting two thirds of our early entry time.


The Polynesian Village Resort

We all loved staying at the Polynesian.





[

It is now my favourite Disney resort by a country mile and I have been a fully paid up member of the Yacht Club fan club for the past nine years. Mat and the girls also say it’s their favourite Disney resort we’ve stayed in. Besides the Yacht Club (twice), we’ve also stayed at Caribbean Beach (20 years ago), Contemporary (twice), Boardwalk Villas, Wilderness Lodge, Art of Animation and Saratoga Springs. Seren and I agreed that we’ve wanted to stay at the Polynesian for ages and worried it wouldn’t meet our high expectations but it managed to exceed them. I always loved the Poly when we’ve visited in the past for drinks, shopping and dining so it wasn’t a surprise that I loved it so much, but I felt really lucky to finally get to stay there, especially because availability is so rubbish for UK guests (I’m currently trying to get us booked in again for our August trip and I think I’ll need to use the US site). It wasn’t cheap, as to be expected for one of the monorail resorts over Christmas, which is one of the reasons we only spent four nights there. The new rooms are beautiful (similar to the lovely new rooms at the Yacht Club) with the little Moana touches and the hotel facilities are great.





Being able to see Cinderella’s Castle from Grand Ceremonial House was so special and the smell of the resort is amazing. We walked to Magic Kingdom in 25 minutes and it was a beautiful walk past the Grand Floridian and the Wedding Pavilion where we got married.





The only tiny niggle was waiting over 10 minutes for a resort monorail to get to Magic Kingdom at the beginning of early entry on our last morning, therefore wasting a chunk of that quieter park time but that was partly our own fault for not being packed up and out earlier. Also I’m a really impatient person when it comes to waiting for Disney transport so it was my bad that I didn’t just walk as planned and gave into the teens moaning about their legs aching and therefore ‘needing’ to take the monorail. We will definitely return to Polynesian Village.

Christmas Decorations and Christmas Parades

This was our first time visiting over Christmas or even when the decorations are up and it was magical. All of the Christmas trees and decorations at all of the parks and resorts we visited were beautiful. I loved the Santa hats and the tree at Universal studios, plus the decorations outside the Universal entrance and in the New York area and inside and outside of Diagon Alley. At Disney, the Polynesian tree, the interesting Animal Kingdom decorations and the retro ones at Hollywood Studios were my favourite.

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The Universal Holiday Parade featuring Macy’s was stunning. We watched it the day before Christmas Eve and it really helped us to feel Christmassy despite the warm weather and being away from our ‘usual’ Christmas stuff. And Seren and I watched the Magic Kingdom Once Upon A Christmastime Parade on our last day and loved it so much. We both cried. The parade is part of the paid Christmas party event but Disney put it on twice a day to regular guests during the busy Christmas period so it felt like a special treat (and a thank you for visiting during the craziest time of year.)





Seren also enjoyed doing the Holiday Tree Hunt at Universal Orlando and the girls did the Christmas Tree Stroll at Disney Springs which was fun too. The Universal one was $10 and earned Seren a keepsake tree ornament, and the Disney one was free and the girls got a badge each as a reward. They were nice little extra things to do during the holidays.

Special mention to the Merry Menagerie at Animal Kingdom which was a massive highlight for all of us. We’d watched Molly from AllEars interact with the puppets and Cast on YouTube videos before the trip and even that had made Seren and I emotional so we made Merry Menagerie a must-do for Christmas Day at Animal Kingdom. Luckily enough when we entered Discovery Island, some of the puppets were right there and it was just perfect. Again, another moment where the emo teen became an excited little girl again…priceless.





The Grand Floridian gingerbread house and Beach Club gingerbread carousel were stunning as well.





Universal Orlando Resort

I <3 Universal Orlando. Universal Studios was my favourite park when I was a teen (before Islands of Adventure was a thing) but when we first took the girls in 2012 when they were little, we were underwhelmed with Universal as there wasn’t much for us to do as a family and it just didn’t quite compare to Disney on magic and theming (Hogsmeade aside. Diagon Alley wasn’t yet open). When we went back in 2014, Universal had grown on us, and has continued to do so over the years until last February we were in love with it enough to book a Universal only trip. That was a great holiday; enjoying the three Universal parks and chilling and getting the benefit of Unlimited Express from staying at Hard Rock Hotel. I’ve said it before but I love the entire Universal resort including the hotels and the Garden Walks between them and CityWalk.



We stayed at the Hard Rock again this year and while the rooms are in need of refurbishment and were a bit dirty, we still love everything else about the hotel including the five minute walk to Universal Studios and the atmosphere in the building. I have to mention here that the relaxed feel at Universal of being able to just decide what you want to do in the moment (especially with Express Pass) is a huge plus over the advanced planning required at Disney. We felt it in 2019 when we did both and it was what led us to do the Universal only trip last year, and it hasn’t changed with the new systems in place at Disney now.

Animal Kingdom

My favourite Disney park. The atmosphere, the theming, how beautiful the park is…my favourite Disney ride is here (Flight of Passage) as well as another couple of favourites (Expedition Everest and Dinosaur.) Add in Merry Menagerie, Kite Tails (which was so sweet) the Animation Academy plus petting goats, a cocktail at Nomad Lounge and a pretty good meal at Tiffins (too expensive for pretty average food, but we had a super server, Christian and it’s a lovely setting) and we had an all-round excellent Christmas Day at Animal Kingdom. Initially I had been disappointed that we couldn’t get Magic Kingdom on Christmas Day but I’m so glad it worked out this way as our day at Animal Kingdom was definitely more relaxed and varied than it would have been at Magic Kingdom.



Jaleo

I wouldn’t say we had an amazing week of food. We did table service restaurants every evening and most lunches and there were only two that really stood out as really good. The first was The Cowfish and the second was Jaleo on Christmas Day evening which was definitely the best meal of the trip.



It was a new restaurant for us, and it was fairly last minute that I changed our Christmas Night booking from The Edison (where we have been before) to Jaleo after reading a good review on VeganDisneyFood.com. Our server (I think his name was D’ante but I was a gin and tonic and two sangrias down by the end of the evening) was good, we liked the decor and atmosphere and the food was the best we had all week. I could have eaten a bucket of the patatas bravas, and the vegan paella and empedrat de mongetes (Catalan bean salad) were very good too.



As was the aforementioned red sangria.



Disney Springs

I say it every trip but Disney Springs is always a real highlight for me. I could easily spend a couple of days and evenings of any trip just hanging out there. This year we made two evening visits and one lunchtime trip to Springs and although it was the busiest I had ever seen it, there was still a great atmosphere. After dinner on Christmas Day, Freya and I watched Right on Key, an a capella group performing their last show of the holiday season at the Waterside Stage and it was just a really fun Christmassy time. The food at Disney Springs is usually always good. This year as well as Jaleo we went to House of Blues and Blaze because have you really even been to Disney Springs if you don’t go to Blaze? It’s always excellent and good value. Jock Lindsey’s Holiday Bar was worth the 20 minute wait to get in, and the Holiday Tree Stroll just rounded off the day nicely at Disney Springs.





Lows:

Genie+, Lightning Lane and the Absolute Faff of Planning Disney Days, Mobile Order etc.

I really don’t like to be negative but I know I’m not the first to be disappointed with the experience at Disney. The complete lack of flexibility in booking park pass days (for Christmas week when they’re all sold out so you can’t change) and booking ADRs 60 days out (again very little availability because of Christmas) is a bit irritating but the ‘experience’ of Genie+, Lightning Lane and mobile order on the day is worse. First of all, the Disney Parks app with Genie and Genie+ does not feel intuitive at all and feels like a faff trying to find where you need to be for bookings, wait times, mobile orders, PhotoPass photos etc. I don’t want to be on my phone all day at Disney. Then there’s Disney’s terrible tech which means you get a lot of this:



The wait times wouldn’t load on several days, one day my Tip Board defaulted to Magic Kingdom every time I went into it even though I had booked and was at Hollywood Studios all day, the Disney wifi is garbage (luckily data is included in my O2 plan), the Disney ‘free’ Genie is a waste of time as it offers ‘experiences’ like this (this was just at the top of my tip board, I didn't actually bother with free Genie) :



And that’s before we discuss the lack of availability we experienced for Genie+ and Lightning Lane. I had read before we went that it was pretty impossible to buy both LL for Rise of the Resistance and Genie+ for Slinky Dog Dash as you need to buy both dead on 7 am and thought ‘surely not!’ But it really is like buying high demand concert tickets every morning trying to click through which isn’t easy anyway with the rubbish app. We did manage to get Rise and Slinky on the same day both times we were at DHS because there was a second drop of Slinky Genie+ at around 7.15 am (so keep checking if they all go at 7 am) but it was stressful. Our Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom days worked out pretty good with both Genie+ and Lightning Lane, and it was just the messing about on the phone and cost that irked us, but our Studios days did not run so smoothly. Availability was poor both Studios days. I know that’s partly because they were two of the busiest days of the year (I have honestly never seen the park so busy) but we ended up getting a refund for Genie+ on the second studios day when we booked a total of one Genie+ and everything except shows and Star Tours was sold out by 2 pm when we were eligible to park hop to the park.

The AllEars videos I had watched had made mobile order sound like a benefit and it is to a point, but we ran into various issues with it. Trying to buy just a Diet Coke from Restaurantosaurus at 10.30 am spontaneously when you’re thirsty and being told they were only using mobile order, and it then taking ten minutes for them to fulfill our order was not great. Neither was having to book a lunch slot at the quick services in DHS at around 9 am to be able to get lunch at lunch time. Usually a counter service lunch day means less time spent organising / buying / eating than table service so more time to do rides, but that wasn’t the case this time (especially because we were ordering from three different quick services including Woody’s Lunch Box which is just too small to be fit for purpose and took ages even with mobile order.)

I will caveat all of the above with the fact that we were there over Christmas which is obviously the busiest time of the year. At a quieter time, I’m sure Genie+ etc would have more availability but then, what would be the point in buying it if the parks weren’t busy? I’ve seen it said that you don’t need it when the parks are quiet and you can’t get the benefit of it when the parks are busy and I think that’s accurate. And let’s not forget it’s not cheap. Genie+ each day was about £47 for the four of us. And then there’s Lightning Lane on top.

I think if the present system is still in place when we go back in August, I’m going to plan our days better so we don’t use Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane selections as much. Rope dropping the ILLs is the way to go to save money on those, especially if staying on-site with early entry.

Oga’s Cantina

I had two reservations for Oga’s Cantina, the first on our first Studios day was at 9.45 am. We’re not big Star Wars fans but I like a cocktail and with all the hype I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. As you’ll see when I write up this day, we were not having the best luck that morning, and having first struggled to find Oga’s (I get theming but NOTHING is signposted or labelled in Galaxy’s Edge) we were looking forward to a sit down and a chill over a drink. As our host took us in, she announced cheerily ‘You’ll be standing at the bar today!’ Disappointed, we persevered, but standing in a crowded bar in the middle of the pandemic was not really what I had in mind. The server behind the bar rubbed me up the wrong way with the way he told me to open up the menu on the QR code and we decided to call it quits and cancel our reservation for the following day too. Over-hyped springs to mind, and I’m not a huge fan of the ‘two drinks or 45 minutes and you’re out’ rule as it’s just a conveyer belt. Nomad Lounge in Animal Kingdom is a much better guest experience in my opinion. I may book us in at Oga’s again for August when we will definitely will need the a/c if things are better pandemic-wise and hope it goes better the second time around.

Crowds

We knew it would be busy and I honestly didn’t expect wait times or crowds to be any lower. We were just happy to be there. The issue was really that everything else took longer than expected which isn’t ideal when you only have roughly a day at each park on a week-long trip. Again, I expected this for rides etc and using early entry and the paid line skips got us around the long waits to an extent. And there was never a wait at security / bag check or tapstiles. The low for me was the waits at food kiosks / Starbucks etc which meant we didn’t get enough coffee or drinks and trying to find snacks without a 20 minute queue for hungry Freya was a pain. Waits were 30 - 40 minutes plus at Starbucks so some days we just didn’t have coffee, and we usually have two per day so this wasn’t ideal with getting up at 5.30 am each day. We just didn’t have time between ride bookings to wait for half an hour for a coffee or a donut or a Diet Coke if we wanted to do other attractions. Again, this was a bigger problem at Hollywood Studios than anywhere else. It also meant we bought more bottles of water from carts in the parks because queueing up for a free iced water at a kiosk with a long line or mobile ordering from a quick service wasn’t an option. And there were also often lines for restrooms so we were trekking across the parks to find quieter bathrooms.

I waited 30 minutes for this delicious black Americano at Hollywood Studios:



Wardrobe Issues

The weather was generally good and we didn’t have any rain..yay! The temperature in the day was usually low to high 20s so no complaints there but the first half of the week it was chilly enough to need a sweatshirt for the first half of the day, and the evenings were chilly at the beginning of the week too. When I’d checked the weather before we came away, it was forecast 18-19 degrees in the evenings so we’d packed dressed and sandals. The first evening it was chilly, around 14 degrees with a chilly breeze (so not as forecast) and we needed jeans and jumpers, and most evenings weren’t much warmer so the girls and I ended up wearing the one pair of jeans and couple of jumpers we had over and over again in the evenings and our lovely summer dresses and sandals went unworn. It’s a tiny thing, but I felt a bit unprepared and scruffy in the evenings as I had packed for the weather I was expecting rather than the weather we ended up having.

Coming Home with Covid

Pretty self-explanatory. I’m so thankful I tested negative on the return home test the day before we flew but by the time we got home about 40 hours later I was positive on the PCR. I had been feeling a bit rundown from the last day but put it down to the tiredness and lack of water plus unhealthy food, especially when we were all negative on the return home LFTs. I had been so worried about us getting it before we went and therefore not being able to go, I hadn’t really thought about getting it while I was out there. Mat and I hit our two weeks after booster while we were there so thought we would be better protected than the girls who’ve had one dose, but clearly I was the unlucky one. As cases are high and we were amongst so many people it’s not really a surprise, but we felt pretty safe in the parks because mask compliance indoors and on rides was so good, and a lot of the time we were outside. I believe I got it from the guy I passed just inside a shop doorway in Disney Springs who literally sneezed on me unmasked (I was masked and he should have been as per Disney rules) as that’s the only such incident I recall. Since we got home I’ve had cold symptoms, a sore throat and headache, and Mat tested positive yesterday and feels the same. Fingers crossed the girls don’t get it. No regrets though, I would do it all again even with coming home with covid.

With time on my hands being stuck home isolating I should be getting stuck into writing the report pretty quickly. Thanks for reading along.

[lovinit]

Fab photos and a great report.
Thank goodness you tested negative while you were out there
Hope you all feel better soon.

[Florida1972]

Thank goodness you got home before the positive test. Great report and I will look forward to reading more. Polynesian looks beautiful 😍

[caj]

Way more highs than lows!

[Disneycraft]

Love this report can’t wait to read the whole thing .Hope you get better soon x

[Goldia]

Wow, sounds like a fantastic trip Michelle I'm really looking forward to reading the full report a Moosha trippie is always fun to read.

It seems like you really loved the new Genie + system oh dear, what a pain. That combined with the teens who take an age to get up and the busiest time of year does seem to have created a perfect storm.

Despite that though lots of highs. A new favourite Disney resort in the Poly. Lovely to be able to walk to MK now the path is open. The room looks lovely. Did it have a the 5th Murphy bed? Good luck with changing your resort over to Poly for your August trip. If you struggle with availability have you thought of renting DVC?

The parades all sounded brilliant too, I wish they would replace the Main Street Electrical Parade, I'd love a night time parade in MK.

The decorations, trees and gingerbread houses all look fab too and I'm excited to see all the photos in your full report. I'd love to go at Christmas time one year to see all the decs.

A shame you ended up catching covid I hope you're not too poorly with it.

[Lizzim]

Glad you got to go with all the pre trip drama, wasn’t at all jealous seeing the pics on instagram

More highs than lows (based on my count) so on balance looks like a good trip, and you were so lucky to get home without testing positive. Hopefully you remain ok for the rest of your isolation.

Can’t wait for the full report

[moosha]

Originally Posted by lovinit

Fab photos and a great report.
Thank goodness you tested negative while you were out there
Hope you all feel better soon.

See more...

Thank you. Yes, such a relief to get home before testing positive 😊.

Originally Posted by Florida1972

Thank goodness you got home before the positive test. Great report and I will look forward to reading more. Polynesian looks beautiful 😍

See more...

Thank you . It is such a beautiful resort 😍.

Originally Posted by caj

Way more highs than lows!

See more...

Yes definitely, I’m always wary of sounding like a right moaner in the highs and lows so I’m glad it came across that there were more positives than negatives .

Originally Posted by Disneycraft

Love this report can’t wait to read the whole thing .Hope you get better soon x

See more...

Thanks so much 😊x.

Originally Posted by Goldia

Wow, sounds like a fantastic trip Michelle I'm really looking forward to reading the full report a Moosha trippie is always fun to read.

It seems like you really loved the new Genie + system oh dear, what a pain. That combined with the teens who take an age to get up and the busiest time of year does seem to have created a perfect storm.

Despite that though lots of highs. A new favourite Disney resort in the Poly. Lovely to be able to walk to MK now the path is open. The room looks lovely. Did it have a the 5th Murphy bed? Good luck with changing your resort over to Poly for your August trip. If you struggle with availability have you thought of renting DVC?

The parades all sounded brilliant too, I wish they would replace the Main Street Electrical Parade, I'd love a night time parade in MK.

The decorations, trees and gingerbread houses all look fab too and I'm excited to see all the photos in your full report. I'd love to go at Christmas time one year to see all the decs.

A shame you ended up catching covid I hope you're not too poorly with it.

See more...

Aww thank you Abby 😊.

Yes Genie+ was a real highlight 😬🤣. As I said I think there are times when it could work well but not at the busiest time of year with teens who won’t get out of bed early 😡😂. Like you say, the perfect storm! I’m really hoping by the time we go back it’s not needed or not a thing anymore 😬.

Yes the room at the Poly had a 5th bed in the sofa and it didn’t feel like a cramped space at all, the rooms are pretty big and there is space under the beds and furniture for suitcases which makes a difference. Also separate toilet to vanity and two sinks helps when you have two teenage girls that take forever to put make-up on in the mornings 😫. The walking path was just lovely, a real highlight.

It did cross my mind to think about renting DVC but I don’t know where to start so I’d best get over to the relevant section on the Dibb for help, thanks for the tip .

I know what you mean, such a shame the evening electrical parade hasn’t been replaced as it would benefit all guests with shorter lines for those who don’t want to watch it too.

I would definitely go back at Christmas because all the decorations and extras were just magical but it’s definitely not easy to get through a huge number of rides. Just taking in all the special Christmas details is amazing though.

Thank you, not feeling too poorly just mainly a cold and headache but still no regrets 😊.

Originally Posted by Lizzim

Glad you got to go with all the pre trip drama, wasn’t at all jealous seeing the pics on instagram

More highs than lows (based on my count) so on balance looks like a good trip, and you were so lucky to get home without testing positive. Hopefully you remain ok for the rest of your isolation.

Can’t wait for the full report

See more...

Sorry about that 😊😂 and yes I think I was still in a state of disbelief when we actually got to go!

Definitely more highs than lows and I hate moaning about the not so good bits as I really am just grateful that we got over there.

Thanks for the well-wishes…Mat and I are just feeling a bit sorry for ourselves with feeling a bit rough but keeping fingers crossed the girls continue to test negative and get back to school .

[Talland 2016]

Thanks for posting
Hope you feel better soon

[mick]

Enjoyed reading your highs and lows hope you are soon feeling better!


Joan