Brett, Jo & Marceline's Festive Adventure - Day 12: Our Favourite Christmassy Experience!

[Happyhaunt1000]

INDEX

Just a few more days left… but still we kept up the pace! Alarm went off at 7:30am and Jo threw on some clothes, and went downstairs to get a breakfast croissant and a pastry, while I stayed in the room with Marceline and got her some ‘small cereal hoops’ to eat.

Jo came back with the food, and started getting ready for the day ahead. We'd decided to be ‘that’ couple again… you know, the ‘matching t-shirts’ couple. I don't care though… these Universe of Energy T-Shirts (purchased for us by the wonderful Robot Stew and Nips - aka Stew and Jo Sear) are brilliant and I don't care if people think we look like bells!



We were going to DHS for the morning, and left the room a little bit before 9:30 to make the lovely walk to the park. This was one of those mornings where people at the Beach Club were being rude for no apparent reason! A family of three (mum, dad and grown up daughter) got into the elevator before us, so we followed in behind… but when we reached the ground floor (seconds later… those lifts are rapid!) they were trying to push me and the buggy out of the way so they could get out first! SERIOUSLY… what’s wrong with people? Then, they were exiting the same door as us out the back of the lobby, and unlike most humans on the planet who’d hold the door, they just let it swing closed and carried on walking as if we weren’t 3ft behind them. It appeared they were also going to DHS… so we power walked past them to overtake and then slowed a little so they were walking in the trail of bubbles from Marceline’s bubble wand :thumbup





We got to DHS and Jo took Marceline and the buggy through the No Bags entrance while I took the backpack to be checked. The security guard commented on the Pickle Rick patch on the bag, and said he loves Rick & Morty. He then spotted my t-shirt and said it’s a shame that the attraction is now gone as it was one of his favourites, and asked where I got it from. I told him they were only on sale for a short time when the attraction actually closed, but some friends picked it up for me… and by that time he’d finished searching my bag and I was on my way.

Our first Fastpass of the day was Toy Story Midway Mania. We parked the stroller, scanned our bands and walk through the FP queue. There was virtually nobody in the line and we were loaded within a couple of minutes. I tried to get Marceline involved and showed her how to fire the gun(?), which she did a couple of times, but then she lost interest and I took over. I still managed to beat Jo… my comeback victory was all thanks to that final screen where you smash plates quickly to get the plates worth more points.





We made a bit of a mistake when we left TSMM and went round to Star Tours thinking it was our next FP, instead of Tower of Terror! Jo went to go on first, tried scanning her MagicBand and the Mickey kept going blue instead of green. Then the CM pointed out to her that the Star Tours FP isn’t for another hour, and our ToT one was live! Oops! When Jo went to go on Star Tours, I’d taken Marceline over to get a couple of pictures on the Speeder Bike, and luckily Jo spotted us before we wandered any further.



She explained what happened so we started heading over to ToT, and saw a Chip and Dale meet hidden round a corner, with only a few people waiting. We joined the queue and within a few minutes Marceline was running over to give them both a big hug. Now, normally we just have the Photopass photographer take the photos and then scan them onto our MagicBands, but because there was a second CM standing there I handed him our camera and asked if he could take some photos… and I’m really glad I did because it wasn’t until we got home (and I mean home home... not hotel home) that we realised the Photopass shots hadn’t appeared in our account! But hey, at least we have our own photos!











We made our way to ToT where Jo went on first. Marceline and I hung around outside the store and she tucked into some snacks we'd brought along for her. Just then, standing outside the shop, I spotted vlogger Adam the Woo. I quickly went into full creepy stalker mode and took a picture to show Jo when she got off the attraction!



After a while the pair of us went for a mooch around in the shop and Marceline was fixated on the ToT reception bells. There was a whole shelf full of them and she started meticulously tapping each bell once before moving on to the next one! It killed a few minutes… but then she got bored, so I introduced her to Bellhop Stitch. A CM offered to take a picture of us together with Stitch and I then signed Marceline’s name in his guest book.















We went back outside to wait for Jo, and a few minutes later she appeared. I wasn’t really in the mood to ride ToT on my own, so I popped the Rider Swap pass into my pocket, and we decided to head back over towards Star Tours. As we were walking back out to Sunset Boulevard, I told Jo that I saw Adam the Woo… and just then I spotted him again and point him out. He was deep in conversation with the person he was with, so I didn’t want to interrupt, even if it was to say I’m a fan of his daily vlogs (which he’s actually stopped doing now).

Jo spotted some limited edition Christmas snow globe pins at one of the booths on Sunset Boulevard and she bought all four. We’ve never thought of ourselves as pin traders, because we never trade. But we do buy quite a lot, especially when they’re limited edition or for special events… so it’s probably time we admitted we’re pin collectors!

We got to Star Tours and I went on first. Considering how many potential variations in ‘story’ there are, the only difference between that experience and my one earlier in the trip was the beginning! Every other segment was the same! I went outside and met up with Jo and Marceline… who was sporting a new pin lanyard that Jo had just bought her. Maybe she’ll become the pin trader in our family!

We could tell that Marceline was getting hungry, and seeing as we were right nearby, we went into the ABC Commissary... a place I would never ordinarily choose to eat in! But if there’s one thing I learnt this trip, it’s that sometimes you need to eat out of necessity, and you can’t be too picky as to what or where it is you eat. ABC Commissary serves bland boring food, and I’d pick pretty much anywhere in the park over that place, but to avoid a ‘food meltdown’ we joined the queue. We got some chicken strips for Marceline, and a chicken burger and fries for Jo and I to share (neither of us were feeling particularly hungry). I’ve heard that some vloggers/bloggers go in there with their laptops, buy a drink and the sit at a table working. That sums up the atmosphere of the place! But, as I said previously, it does a job… and to avoid those tantrums you need to bite the bullet and just find somewhere… ANYWHERE to eat sometimes.







With our bland food consumed we walked over and had a little look around outside the Chinese Theatre, where Marceline took great pleasure in splashing in the little puddles that had formed in the hand and foot prints!





We decided to go over to One Man's Dream to take the obligatory ‘Marceline in front of the Marceline sign’ photo (which we’ll take every time we go to WDW… so long as it’s still there!) Since our last visit they’d changed the end of the walkthrough to a Coco exhibit, so we had a little look around appreciating the artwork even though we hadn’t seen the film at that point. The queue for the new Starlord and Baby Groot meet was 30 minutes, which was too long for Marceline to wait to see a tiny animatronic twig (regardless of how cute that little twig is) so we made a quick exit!









We came outside of OMD and both of us needed a wee, so we walked round to Animation Courtyard. It seems I missed all the excitement while I was having a tinkle, because when I got back to Jo she told me that a park guest had tried to get into a backstage area, claiming to a burly CM that he was looking for the smoking area! Jo said he was definitely not looking for a smoking area! Nothing interesting happened while Jo was in the bathroom… but the aftermath of the park guest’s actions were still being dealt with, as CMs came over to where he’d been trying to sneak behind a gate, and there was a lot of pointing and talking into walkie-talkies!

It was about 1pm and we decided to call it a day at DHS. As we get to the end of Hollywood Boulevard we saw Donald and there were only a few people in the queue. Marceline was super animated and excited at seeing him so we joined the line. We were only waiting a few minutes and then it was Marceline’s turn to meet her favourite duck. She was beyond happy… and slowly walked to Donald and gave him a great big hug. The next few minutes were another one of those ‘this is why we come here’ moments. Their interaction was so cute, and Donald was clearly having as much fun as Marceline, because when it was all over and Marceline was walking back to Jo, Donald was patting his heart, pointing at Marceline and doing heart signs with his hands… cuddling himself and pointing at Marceline… you get the idea! I wish I’d recorded the event, but I was too caught up in the moment, and ultimately, isn’t that what it’s all about?

















We left the park, walked back to the resort and before going upstairs we had a little look around the shop and I ended up buying a shiny green apple cake/dessert thing. It looked like it should be delicious but, as I tend to find with a lot of Disney cakes, it was style over substance and had no real flavour of any description.





Marceline was tired and went down for a nap while Jo and I got on with yet more packing. All the cases were getting to around 20kg and we still had some light, but very odd shaped objects to pack (goddamn you Pluto popcorn buckets!)

Around 5pm we started to get ready to go to Disney Springs. When we got downstairs to the bus stop we seemed to have timed it right for once, as we were only waiting a couple of minutes before one arrived. The bus was already quite full, but Jo got a seat with Marceline on her lap, and I stood with the buggy near them. There was a problem with the hydraulics and the driver couldn’t seem to get them to raise properly. He turned the engine off, walked down to the little control panel near the back door, lowered the bus manually, then raised it again, but the bus still didn’t want to move. He tried it a few more times, and while it was happening there was a lot of tutting, eye-rolling and muttering from the mainly older people on the bus. They were all sitting there quietly minding their own business when we’d got on, but now there was a problem they were joining forces and muttering to one another. It was like they were becoming one giant consciousness, with their main purpose being to tut in unison! One old woman was rubbernecking so hard I thought her head was gonna pop off! There’s no way a neck should stretch that far… especially at her age… she looked like a female Mr Burns!

The driver turned off the engine for about the fifth time, and this finally reset everything, fixing the problem (ahh the old ‘turn it off, turn it on’ trick… always works eventually!) As we pulled away the old throbbers on the bus gave an ironic cheer in unison, then went back to not speaking to one another and staring off into the distance.

Once at Springs we wanted something to eat straight away and D-Luxe was our restaurant of choice. We got a cheeseburger and the holiday special… which was a turkey burger with cranberry, stuffing and gravy. Both were delicious, and the three of us looked like we were playing a food iteration of ‘Pass the Parcel’ as we took bites of a burger and passed it onto the next person. Marceline was constantly cheating though and hogging the burgers once she got one in her hand!

[Happyhaunt1000]

We were at Springs for some very specific things so there wasn’t any mindless wandering about in and out of shops. We popped into Co-Op Marketplace to ask about a Pandora charm for Vicky, as she couldn’t seem to find it anywhere, but had no luck. We then went into Days of Christmas to carry on the tradition of buying Jo’s mum a Christmas ornament every time we go to WDW. We found one we thought she’d like (or at least Marceline found one she liked that she wanted to give to nanny). I told Jo I’d go and pay, and she should take Marceline over to the Art of Disney store and start looking at the ‘Art on Demand’ thing to see which canvas we should buy this trip (another tradition!)

Sending her over to the store was basically just a ploy to get her out of the shop because I wanted to buy her one of the limited edition Christmas gift cards that came with a special Christmas pin. I was going to put $150 on the card as one of her Christmas presents, but what should’ve been an easy transaction really wasn’t! I was there for a good ten minutes with several CMs having difficulty putting the desired amount on the card. Finally, the manager came over and explained that these limited gift cards had a fixed amount of $100 on them! It didn’t say that on the board they were attached to, but at this point I thought Jo would be questioning why it had taken me ten minutes to buy one ornament! So I quickly paid for both items and left to meet Jo.

She’d had ample to go through the designs, and after a quick look myself we settled on a retro ‘82 Epcot canvas featuring the Dreamfinder, Figment, Spaceship Earth and the Mexico Pavilion/Mayan temple (among other things). The CM who put our order through, Pat, was the same woman who’d served us in December! While her and another CM was dealing with Jo, getting delivery details etc, I walked around the store and Marceline spotted a silicone Stitch pencil case… and without really thinking I bought it for her. She was cuddling this pencil case like it was the real Stich, and when we got back to the counter where Jo was, Pat spotted it and started scribbling on a piece of card. I say scribbling… what she was doing was drawing a Marceline her very own stitch! As Pat was drawing she asked what Marceline’s name is... we told her and she stopped drawing and looked at us. She asked if we’re big Walt Disney fans and we said we are, and she then asked if that’s why we chose the name Marceline. Again, we said yes. Pat and the other CM who was helping with the canvas order said it’s rare that they encounter people who actually know their Walt history. I responded by saying it’s also rare to encounter CMs who get the relevance of her name! Pat and the other CM are the first (and only) CMs who picked up on it during the whole trip! When Pat had finished, she held up the picture and said “who’s this, Marceline?”
She, of course, replied “Stitch!” with a big smile on her face, and Pat handed over the drawing. We thanked her for the picture, and she gave us a bag to put it in for safe keeping.





We left the store and made our way to what I think was the best festive experience of the trip… The Christmas Tree Trail. It was a walkthrough of 25 trees in total, and each one was individually designed/decorated by imagineers, and based on a different movie or character. What I liked about the way the trees were decorated is that they’d not just gone for your standard baubles and lights... instead, the items hanging from the branches were almost like props. For example, on the Robin Hood tree they used Prince Jon’s crown as the tree topper, and there was a large bow and arrow poking out, some archery boards, and also the lute that Allan-a-dale (the musical rooster) plays in the film.

There were also posters in each tree’s area… almost like fan-made designs you’d see on Teepublic or Etsy. Near the Snow White tree, one of the posters was for Seven Guys Farms, est 1938. They were really clever, and show how much fun the imagineers must have had designing them. I wish they’d release them as posters because they’d look really cool on a canvas!

(I apologise for the ton of photos to follow… I was so impressed with all the trees I want to include photos of each one with some of the cool details!)

[Happyhaunt1000]

OK, THAT'S THE END OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE PHOTOS... FEEL FREE TO CARRY ON READING FROM THIS POINT

Once we’d gone through the trail, we exited into a big open area where there was a dance party for kids going on. Marceline was throwing shapes and dancing like no one was watching! The music being played was a bit weird considering it was 99% toddlers and young kids dancing… it was like some ropey midweek DJ set you’d hear in a downtrodden area of Benidorm!





After ten minutes of dancing it was time to make a move, as we’d decided to go into Epcot for a little bit… and as we were approaching the bus loop we could see a bus pulling away from our stop. We sat for ten minutes waiting for another bus, and during that time Marceline had pooped… so we needed to get her changed ASAP! When we arrived at Yacht Club, someone on a mobility scooter wanted to board, so to avoid sitting there for extra time with an already stinking child, we jumped off and Jo took Marceline to the ladies… except the one pull-down baby-change table was in use, and after waiting a few minutes and it still being occupied, she took Marceline into a cubicle and rather awkwardly changed her in there. For the sake of an extra ten minutes it probably would have been easier to just wait and do it back at the room! We walked round to Beach Club and I quickly popped upstairs to dump our bag in the room, then met Jo and Marceline back in the lobby and we continued on to Epcot.



We walked to The Land so Jo could use her Soarin FP. I was parking up the buggy and said to Jo that she should carry on and I’d see her in the waiting/seating area outside the attraction. As I was fiddling with the buggy I decided that I’d do something nice and go to Starbucks and grab Jo a Peppermint Mocha for when she finished the ride.

There was quite a queue in the store, and a CM was calling out asking if anybody wanted any food. I asked for some of their Mini Vanilla Bean Scones, but she told me they were all out… and proceeded to list everything they do have (none of which I wanted). She then spotted the Universe of Energy logo on my t-shirt and started telling me how much she loved the attraction and how much she misses it. That then suddenly switched to how excited she was for the Guardians of the Galaxy ride that’s coming! After I collect the mocha for Jo, the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate I’d ordered for myself, and a kids’ Hot Chocolate for Marceline, we headed back to The Land. The drinks were piping hot so I left them in the tray on the buggy and walked to the waiting area for Soarin’.

I had half expected Jo to already be waiting for us, but there was clearly a late night rush to ride, as we waited another 15 minutes for her. When she did eventually emerge I told her that Marceline had been talking about the Three Caballeros ride and had been saying “Donald… Donald, Daddy… on boat… Donald on boat!” and when I asked if she wanted to go on the boat she’d said yes! So we grabbed the buggy, explained to Marceline (who was fighting being put in the buggy as usual) that if she sat like a good girl we’d go on the boat with Donald… and she immediately turned into a little angel! I handed Jo her Peppermint Mocha, which was still super hot, and we took in turns pushing the buggy so the other person could drink their drink. I don’t know how, but we made it to the attraction just before it closed (again) and after we’d ridden it, we made a couple of last minute purchases. A tiny red tin cup with a day of the dead lady on it for Marceline (which she chose herself), and a Coco mug that Jo had intended to buy earlier in the trip, but had kept forgetting about until she saw it again in the Mexican marketplace.

We left the building and again, as in previous nights, Illuminations was in full flow. Marceline still wasn’t totally ok with the loud bangs that came with being so close to the water and the fireworks being set off, but she was gradually getting better with them over the course of the holiday.

We got back to BC and after stopping to get some drinks from the shop we went up to the room and began getting things ready for the following day (which would be our last full day in the parks ) Marceline went to sleep without an issue and by 10:30 we were in bed too and I was doing one final voice memo before going to sleep

Day 12… done.

It’s strange… as I write these reports, the start of the holiday is always really easy to remember, but as I approach the end, things always become blurred and I struggle to remember all the little details! (Thankfully that’s what the VMs are there for!)

As I said, the Christmas Tree Trail was my favourite Christmas themed thing we did the whole time we were in Orlando. I know it was just a load of decorated trees, but it was done way better than I thought it would be. There was a lot of ‘thinking outside the box’, and I really appreciated that. So often Disney plays it safe with things, but this was different and interesting.

Anyway, enough reminiscing about fancy decorated Christmas trees (which I will be attempting at home in the future!) Our final day involves us hitting three of the four parks as we park-hop like pros.

Thank you for taking the time to read our report and thanks for all the lovely comments.

I love you byeeeeeeee xxx

[Guest]

Peter Pan tree is my favourite

[JudyC]

Loading all those tree photos nearly sent my iPad into meltdown 😄 They do look amazing though.

[Davy Crockett]

One of my all-time favourite days in your TR’s. Some classic photos, especially the one of you, Marceline and BellHop Stitch in ToT shop. The Christmas Tree Trail is awesome and unique, I haven’t seen that before. Great t-shirts btw.

[mick]

A good day love your photos of all the trees


Joan

[Goldia]

What a fab day, I loved seeing all the Christmas trees thanks for putting in all the photos!

[margyloveswdw]

Yet another great day!

I love that the trees all have a lantern type decoration with the character of the theme in them. They really are lovely. We missed them when we visited at end of December in 2016 thanks to me being ill so I'm glad you've put them all in with so much detail! Thank you

[Lisa_Lollipop]

Oh those photos of Marceline with Donald are amazing! It's seeing interactions like this that totally confirm how much I want to take Charlie whilst he is still little (I will totally be ignoring the 'but he won't remember it' comments!)

The Christmas trail looked amazing, I would so love to get out there at this time of year to see them!

Awesome you got to see Adam the Woo too!