Kellie and I arrived in Orlando on Saturday night, Dec 9. On Sunday, we went shopping at Downtown Disney. My parents came down to meet us that afternoon.
After meeting with my parents, we checked into the Boardwalk Villas. They had a gingerbread livingroom scene setup in the lobby. Our room was overlooking the main pool and had a good afternoon view of the taller buildings in MGM.
Dinner on Sunday night was at Boma in the Animal Kingdom lodge. We arrived about an hour before our reservation, so we got to look around the lodge.
On Monday morning we started our day at the Animal Kingdom with a ride on the safari. We were lucky to see 3 new animals there: a baby giraffe and 2 young elephants.
We spent the rest of the day at the Animal Kingdom. Mom rode on the new Everest ride with me, while Kellie and Dad waited. We also saw the new Nemo musical show.
On Monday afternoon, we went back to the Boardwalk to rest from the first park. Kathy and Kristyn met us there and joined us for a trip into Epcot for dinner at the Biergarten in Germany. We stopped briefly on our way back to check out the Candlelight Processional (which was SRO) and then found an empty spot near France to watch the Illuminations show.
On Tuesday we went to Disney / MGM Studio for the day. We had lunch at the '50s Prime Time cafe and checked out the new Lights, Motors, Action show. Kathy and Kristyn joined us for rides in the afternoon. Kellie even rode the Tower of Terror and liked it.
After dinner at Hollywood and Vine, we ended the day on Tuesday with a walk through the Osborne Light show.
We started early on Wednesday morning with a reservation at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom, so Kellie could have a chance to meet Pooh and friends.
Kathy joined us after breakfast for the rides. We all got soaked on the "new and improved" Splash Mountain. It rained on us a little bit as well. Lunch was at the Liberty Tree Tavern. Kathy stayed to ride Buzz Lightyear with us, then we all left the park for a break.
We took the monorail around through the Contemporary and over to the Polynesian and Grand Floridian. The Poly didn't have much to see, but the 3+ story tree and life-sized gingerbread house in the Grand Floridian were both very impressive.
After our break, we claimed a bench in the middle of the circle to watch the Spectromagic parade. The parade was at 7pm.
We held our seats for another 30 minutes or so to catch the Wishes finale for the day.
We started our Epcot day on Thursday by signing up for the Behind the Seeds walking tour. Our tour guide wasn't much of an expert, but we enjoyed getting to see the greenhouse exhibits up close.
It rained on and off for much of Thursday. We ended up staying in the Land for lunch. Dad went back to the room for a nap so Mom, Kellie and I walked around the World Showcase without him. The rain picked up again when he came back to we ducked into Spaceship Earth and the Sea while we killed time before our dinner at the Coral Sea restaurant. Luckily we had already seen Illuminations on Monday, so we skipped a soggy repeat on Thursday night.
Assorted pictures of us from around the parks.
Video clips from the Flights of Wonder show in the Animal Kingdom, the Lights, Motors, Action show in MGM, and the Osborne Dancing Lights.
Other photos that didn't fit into the pages above.