Happy Holidays in WDW, 2-year-old-style! Day 08: Boxing Day in MK and Be Our Guest

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December 26, 2018
[-- Trip Index --]

Today was Boxing Day! This day had also been planned out quite carefully in advance, since I knew it would be SUPER BUSY in Magic Kingdom today. We had a quiet morning planned, late lunches booked in MK (Be Our Guest for our family, Tony's for my brother and his family as they booked later than us and I couldn't get them a BOG reservation anymore), and some FPs into the early evening with the plan to see the Christmas fireworks at the end of the night.

We woke up to lots of hot air balloons in the sky, such a pretty sight!


Then it was on to Walmart for some groceries - we were rapidly running out of Goldfish as that was Myla's new favorite thing to eat. What a choice of sugary cereals!


These were our outfits for today:


We headed to MK around noon and were in the parking lot tram by 12:20. Selfie time:



What a faff with the stroller, by the way! Getting that thing into the tram was so awkward! We were really discovering this trip that we definitely preferred to stay on-site - with a younger child, anyhow!

Myla got to choose our second mode of transport from TTC to MK itself, and she choose the monorail:


Lots of great decorations everywhere, it felt SO festive and really Christmassy!


And we were in the park for exactly 12:55, according to this photo's timestamp! So it took just under an hour from Windsor Hills to inside MK - pretty good for one of the busiest days of the year!



We stopped for some Photopass pictures on our way to our BoG reservation:

Love this one of Michael and my mom!

I wanted to get a nice photo with my skirt in front of the castle - and Myla climbs out of the stroller to copy me!


I was seriously wetting myself haha. Mental note, get the poor child a skirt next time too lol!


We watched the band for a few minutes, Myla loved them!


And we checked in to BoG at 13:30 on the dot!


Another funny moment - we were waiting in the small queue before you can pick your meals, and the suit of armor beside us sneezed! My mom managed to take a photo just as Myla turned around very alarmed. 😂


My new hip carrier still coming in super handy:


We nabbed a table in the main ballroom beside the windows, score!


At this point, Myla hadn't seen Beauty and the Beast yet, and Michael and I had eaten there before, so we mainly went for my mom, who loves this movie and was very impressed with the restaurant! Our Croque Monsieurs were yummy, but unfortunately Michael's French Dip was very dry and not nice at all. He definitely regretted his choice, should have gone with a Croque too!


They brought all the food out at once - so of course Myla pushed away her fries and claimed this cupcake as her 'lunch' haha:


We checked out the other two rooms when we were finished:



and Michael was like, here take my photo! Alrighty then... 😂


Followed by Myla going, "mama photo!" OK then - at least she picked a nice background and wasn't making weird faces! 😂I told daddy to pay attention to her skills.


It was nearly time for the Parade now, so we headed over to Liberty Square to find a spot. It was SUPER busy everywhere, literally elbow to elbow. The walking path between Peter Pan and Small World was divided into two lanes to separate the traffic, and it was pretty hectic. We just took our time, and were glad we weren't rushing to find food or rides with cranky kids or anything! We managed to find a decent spot to watch the parade:



Michael, my mom, and Myla were on the wooden platform at the stockade, I was on the pavement with the stroller, but we could all see everything pretty well. Myla loves parades, and this one was no different, she waved at everyone and clapped the whole time.






We were supposed to meet up with my brother & family before the parade and watch it together, but due to the crowds, they ended up stuck literally across the street from us, in front of the Christmas Shoppe. After the parade finished, they were finally able to cross, and we all walked over to the Little Mermaid ride together, our first FP.



Us adults loved it, Myla was a bit scared of how dark it was, but was happy sitting on my lap taking it all in.

We had some time after this for our next FP at Speedway Motors, so we walked around to Barnstormer - my sister-in-law wanted to ride it with Jesse, and the queue wasn't bad. Myla unfortunately was too short to ride it, which led to some tears when she couldn't follow her cousin. We waited outside with the others - here's Michael with my brother and Nina:


Jesse did say he liked Barnstormer, but also immediately said he didn't want to go again haha!

We then headed over to Tomorrowland for our Speedway FP.


I explained to Myla what we'd be doing - she'd be sitting *beside* me in the car, and I would drive it, and we would follow oma and daddy and Jesse and Ramona, who'd be in the cars in front of us. I asked if she definitely wanted to do it, she insisted she did. So it was our turn, we got in, and she suddenly didn't want to sit on her own anymore. And of course, she's not allowed to sit on my lap, so after holding up the entire FP queue for 5 minutes while I was trying to convince her she'd enjoy it if she sat down, I gave up and got out again without riding.

Michael and my mom were already away by then, and spent the whole ride trying unsuccessfully trying to spot us behind them lol.


Jesse absolutely LOVED this too, and got to ride it a second time as Steven and Ramona did rider switch with him on account of Nina being too little to ride.

We sat down outside of Cosmic Ray's where we all had some snacks, and Myla was very helpful putting Nina's dummy back in when she spat it out:



It was time for our last FP, for Winnie The Pooh! No photos of this was it was dark by then and they're all blurry. Everyone liked this ride though, the kids loved riding in the little honey pots!

So that was our FPs done by 18:30, and we still had quite a lot of time to kill until the fireworks at 22:00. It was waaay too busy to attempt any other rides, or even just enjoy the atmosphere - we were all getting a little frazzled from the huge crowds. Luckily, I'd anticipated this would be the case, and had a perfect backup plan ready!

When Michael & I visited WDW for our Florida honeymoon in 2015, we'd stayed at Wilderness Lodge for a week, so that was a perfect little escape from the crowds. We slowly (very very slowly due to the crowds) made our way out of the park, stopping for some photos on the way:



The hub was completely packed!








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According to the timestamps on my photos, it took us in total 45 minutes to get from the castle-side of the hub, to the entrance. Just keep these kinds of things in mind if you do ever go at Christmas, everything takes longer! It didn't bother us, as we had lots of time, knew to expect this, and weren't rushed. But we saw many families around us who were not so relaxed at all, and quite grumpy! Anyway! We were soon on a Friendship boat on our way to WL. Both Jesse and Nina had by now fallen in the double stroller, but the kind captain made room for us so we didn't have to wake them and collapse it! Myla was still wide awake, so we did collapse hers.




I was actually really excited to show everyone Wilderness Lodge, as Michael and I had loved it SO much on our last trip, and it really didn't disappoint - it looked AMAZING with all the Christmas decorations, and everyone loved the wooden walkways from the boat dock!



We found a group of seats in the lobby, and all sat down. Jesse and Nina sleeping, my mom minding the two sleeping kids plus wide-awake Myla. Michael and I headed to Roaring Fork for coffees and snacks, while Steven and Ramona headed to Territory Lounge for beers for everyone. I got the delicious Campfire Cupcake:


and Myla ran around near the gigantic Christmas tree for a bit:



It was so relaxing sitting there, snacking and having our drinks and admiring the decor of the lobby. Just a perfect break! The plan for after this, had been to go back to MK to see the fireworks. Unfortunately my mom was starting to get very tired, and said she was too tired to brave the crowds for the fireworks, and especially afterwards, getting back to the car and all. Since she was traveling/staying with us, we had to alter our plans a little, and we decided to watch the fireworks from TTC instead. I kind of regret this in retrospect - I wish we would have gone into the park after all. But oh well...if you're traveling with others, you do have to mind them as well, and my mom was just exhausted. So after taking the boat back from WL, we got back onto the monorail to the TTC, and my brother and sister-in-law headed back into MK. They later reported that they had a great fireworks view from the bridge into Tomorrowland. It definitely was busy, but they also didn't need to get back to the car park - they just walked over to the Contemporary and got an Uber back to their hotel.

We did have a nice view from TTC too - it just wasn't *as* super magical as from inside MK (in my humble opinion!). The music, although piped in, was super soft too, we could barely hear it. It was still nice, don't get me wrong - I just prefer it from inside MK!






The upside was of course, that when they ended, we were on a tram within a few minutes, and at our car before the rest of the crowds had even left MK. We all went to bed as soon as we came home - it had been a great Boxing Day!

[Palm trees]

Thanks for sharing another lovely day. We've been to DIsney at Christmas (also staying offsite) and the crowds really were intense at MK, you're right about allowing extra time. What a great idea about taking the boat to wilderness lodge

[kadypants]

Some fab tips there! I know my DH struggled with the post-fireworks crowds when we were there last, so watching from the TTC might be a good option for us. Is this something that alot of people do?

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Originally Posted by kadypants

Some fab tips there! I know my DH struggled with the post-fireworks crowds when we were there last, so watching from the TTC might be a good option for us. Is this something that alot of people do?

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Not a LOT of people, but some yes! I think there were maybe another 10-20 people beside us on the TTC dock that evening. Plenty of room for everyone, and it's definitely a great solution for anyone not wanting to fight the crowds after the fireworks. If he struggles with that, this would definitely be something to try out for you!