Disney World Christmas Trip Report – Part 1

That is, the experience of having an empty Wonders of Life pavilion to photograph as we lingered behind after everyone else had gone upstairs. I know the pavilion is open during F&WF and other events, but I’ve never seen it empty. These photo ops I got where priceless, in my opinion. Granted, they’re not all the greatest shots, ever, but I think they’re cool. I don’t think I could afford to pay ~$13 for all of the priceless photo ops that might exist at WDW, so I’m glad that they aren’t all priced like this!

Removing the photo op from the price of the event (as I don’t think it was included in the price, anyway), the event was well worth the money. We got to go up to the old Met Life (they sponsored WoL, right?) lounge, had a delicious lunch, and were entertained by the WDW Today personalities. Hearing about Len’s antics towards the other participants on the scavenger hunt made me wish that we would have participated on the TouringPlans team. Unfortunately, neither Sarah nor I knew it would be so fun, when we first heard about it, we didn’t want to take away from our time together that morning. Hopefully the scavenger hunt is held again next year, as it sounded awesome!

Unfortunately, Team TouringPlans did not win the scavenger hunt, but we did come in second place (although, they say second place is the first loser). Somehow, Team Studios Central managed to pull off the win. Given that two large components of the hunt related to photography and Carousel of Progress (a show Sarah and I watch at least–no joke–4 times per trip), I really wish I would’ve participated.

When the formal portion of the event concluded, we again lingered to get some more photos of the pavilion before heading out. We then headed to the United Kingdom with Len and Henry to scope out locations for the TouringPlans meet later in the night.

The next event was a group ride on SpaceShip Earth on which we would all select Skagway, Alaska as our home city. Prior to this, Sarah took some photos of the entire Reunion group, and some individual/group shots of the TouringPlans bloggers and staff.

For the Skagway meet, once again, our group seemed to totally engulf the queue. I’m sure others wondered what the heck was up with all of the crazed Disney fans who knew one another. Once we boarded our time machine, we noticed we could not select Skagway, Alaska as our home city. Not sure if it was just Sarah and I who were barred from being Skagway citizens, or if the option had been removed, I never did ask anyone else. Not wanting to be confused for communists, we ended up selecting a city in eastern Alaska.

We spent the rest of the afternoon meandering around World Showcase before the TouringPlans fish and chips meet started. If you attempted to purchase fish and chips from the UK (World Showcase, not the actual country) on December 3rd, I apologize. I think we made the line ridiculously long. In all fairness, though, who gets in a line for food that is already about 30 people deep? (Although my guess is that first time visitors see such a long line and think, “dang, this must be AWESOME, let’s line up!” Gotta love that herd mentality!) I don’t know why the line became so long, Disney knew in advance that we would be consuming copious amounts of fried fish that evening.

Overall, the event was really fun. We chatted with a lot of people, and near the end, saw Cody and Lisa again. Sarah, I believe, has a syndrome common in the female of the species known as “baby fever.” The symptoms, as best I can tell, are saying “awww” when confronted with babies, and wanting to touch said creatures. Babies of the human species tend to take an interest in Sarah, as her long hair is somehow mesmerizing to them. By contrast, they tend to cry when I hold them. These triplets kept taking off their shoes and dropping them on the ground, and Sarah would respond by putting the shoes back on. I told Sarah it would teach them a good lesson if we took the shoes and kept them. She was not amused. Apparently I’m the only one who thinks babies need tough love.

The event was winding down and we thought it would be fun to take a unique photo of Cody, Lisa, and the triplets, so we headed towards SSE. Oddly, a lot of people randomly touched the kids or commented upon them. I don’t think I could ever have triplets. Not because I wouldn’t want to deal with the triplets, but because I wouldn’t want to deal with all of the random small talk with people commenting upon the triplets. The triplets themselves were fun. Photographing them in a sense of chaos was easy–I think it turned out well.

Following this, we did Living with the Land with Cody and co., before heading to watch Illuminations. Sarah doesn’t really care about Illuminations all that much, so the location from which we watch is usually up to me. I debated between a location that would allow for unique photos and one that would allow for viewing the show fully.

By the time we arrived at World Showcase Lagoon, all that was left were obstructed views. Of those, the view from the shot below was by far the best, and was actually a great compromise between cool foreground and watching the show.

Plus, I view Walter Cronkite as an American legend and hero, and seeing and–more importantly, actually–hearing this show with his narration as many times as possible this trip was pretty important to me. I took away keepers each of the three times we saw it (I’ll give credit to Mr. Cronkite for that!), which is new for me. I know Mr. Cronkite won’t be narrating this tag forever, so I only hope I can enjoy it as many times as possible while his narration is used.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men by Tom Bricker (WDWFigment), on Flickr

With Illuminations over, we had the rest of EMH to enjoy various attractions. We both were pretty tired, so a nap in EO was in order. We also hit the other Future World attractions, accomplishing several of them and thus compensating for a morning and afternoon that were fairly devoid of attractions. We also managed to get some photos of ourselves, something we neglected to do the previous day due to the cold weather. It wasn’t much warmer this evening, but we figured we better get the shots anyway.

Unforunately, by the time we left EPCOT, the Shades of Green bus had stopped running from the TTC. This meant walking from the Polynesian. Not exactly the most thrilling thing to do in the coldest hours of the night. However, we did see some dude getting cuffed and a swarm of cop cars around the front lobby of the Poly. We never did find what he did, but I’m going to assume it was cyber terrorism–that only makes sense. When we returned to Shades of Green, we got our luggage and headed to our room and inadvertently woke my parents.

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