We were so excited to go somewhere! Anywhere! But especially someplace warm and our second home at Disney World. With the long holiday break, we decided we had time to go to Disney for the first part and then isolate at home for the second part, and William would have completed a 10 day quarantine if our travels made us sick. Luckily we stayed well, and we had a lovely time being in the sunshine. We used our DVC points at Beach Club, the same as last Christmas. The big difference was that last year, I had to book the stay 7 months in advance. This year it was only a few months in advance, which is just unheard of for Christmas at Disney.
Masks were required in all public places. Elevators were restricted to only one party. We were on the 3rd floor, so walked down most of the time and often walked up. Capacity at the parks is restricted, but I was expecting the resort to be somewhat crowded since DVC members need to use their points. But it wasn't bad at all until the day we were leaving.
Arrival day
Our first day was the best weather forecast for the week, so our first stop was there for fun and lunch. Stormalong Bay is by far the best pool at Disney! We found a nice trio of chairs on a cement island in the middle of the lazy river that was perfect to keep our distance. The only disappointment was food service was super slow and quality was much lower than normal due to everything being in convenience store type ready made containers versus grill items. Oh well....my margarita was delicious and they serve John's favorite Florida beer there.
My goal for the week was to try all the yummy holiday treats! This was a tasty milk shake with an entire red velvet cupcake as a topper! Yes; we shared.
That evening we went to the Magic Kingdom to take in all the sights, ride a few rides and do our Christmas stocking shopping!
Christmas EveOur park reservations for the second day were at Hollywood Studios, and once again, I had quick fingers at 6:59 a.m. (while, again, the rest of my family was asleep) to get our Rise of the Resistance reservation. We rode the Skyliner to the park for a leisurely-ish start to to the day. Since this was my 4th or 5th ride, I decided to try to get some photos versus my usual just ride and enjoy. I thought a few of them turned our really well.
Since it was Christmas Eve and this was the only park we were going to, we needed to complete our Christmas shopping for our stockings. While William shopped, I had a ronto wrap for breakfast. My favorite Galaxy's Edge food. The best thing I ate that day though was the red velvet whoopie pie. We had that in November, too, and it was worth a repeat. The margarita was too sweet. John just rolled his eyes when I walked up with it - knowing I wouldn't like a slushy margarita from a machine! But those boba balls were so cute! Instead of formal parades and shows, there are "spontaneous" shorter character cavalcades. We've been impressed with them as they feel frequent and about our attention span to wait/watch!
Back at Beach Club I tried to get a picture of our neighbor's Stop Here Santa sign. Either that's a popular item to bring and place on your balcony at this hotel, or these people were also our neighbors last Christmas! We think the latter, since many people have their Disney Christmas traditions.
That evening we went to Disney Springs for dinner. The Boathouse has a patio, so we could get a fancy Christmas Eve dinner without dining indoors. However, the weather had other ideas for us and it poured down rain! Actually that's wrong. The rain was blowing sideways! However, we managed to stay dry enough in our raincoats and stayed firm on the patio! But before that craziness we stopped to get cookies for Santa and our Christmas morning breakfast at Gideon's! We bought three half-pound cookies. Amazing! And while we were waiting in line, William and I heartily enjoyed the live performer on the patio at Raglan Road.
Matching Disney pajamas for Christmas Eve night! We even exchanged pictures with Cousin Jake in Indianapolis who wasn't able to join us due to COVID concerns but still had his jammies at the ready!
Christmas Day
The stockings! And I could see as soon as I came into the room that Santa or my guys delivered me exactly what I wanted: Baby Yoda!
After we unpacked our stockings and sugared up on those cookies, we donned our Christmas Day matching shirts and headed to the Magic Kingdom! It was a good thing we had this photo op inside the hotel, because the weather was much colder and we wore jackets most of the day.
The big treat was that the castle was open to walk through. This is rare because the castle forecourt is usually set up for stage shows. No stage shows these days = access! A churro and eggnog were the treat of the day this day.
Saturday
We learned how cold it is in Pandora, Africa and Asia! Luckily we learned our lesson from the wind of the Magic Kingdom the day prior and wore real coats and gloves. So then we were quite toasty.
William has named one of the birds at the front of the park, Jerry. Now, that's his name for a lot of wild animals (like the chipmunk that lived on our porch one year), but we love to stop and visit this little enclosure each time we are at AK and see how Jerry's doing!
Chocolate cookie ice cream sandwich dipped in peppermint bark. Yes, it was delicious! The other Christmas week exclusive treat was peppermint mousse. It was good but not a good value.
Departure DayEventually all good things must come to an end. We spent our last few hours over at Epcot, since it was so close to the hotel. We slept in and got lax about line monitoring since crowds had been low. Apparently everyone had arrived overnight because Epcot was a zoo! We rode two rides, had two snacks and then left for the airport. That Lego box was bigger than his suitcase!
A highlight of departure day was the bird hunting for lizards in the parking lot of the hotel. We watched that with tremendous interest and regretting not getting a photo of a lizard hunting a weird insect at the quiet pool. John and I saw that without William and couldn't explain how intriguing it was to watch all the lizards appear from under the bushes and still not catch the cricket thing!
It was a lovely holiday. As with the trip in November, the only uncomfortable parts were the crowded planes. And for that reason, we'll plan to drive when we can travel again in early 2021. But we had no regrets of creating holiday family traditions at Disney.
