Christmas at Magic Kingdom

Thursday morning Susan and I went to Magic Kingdom to check out the decorations there. Christmas decorations go up as soon as Halloween is over, and Very Merry Christmas parties begin. The parties at Hollywood Studios, called Jollywood Nights, also returned.

We made a loop around the park, rode the peoplemover, ate some lunch, and watched the new Country Bear show. We also looked through some shops and Susan visited with some of her former coworkers. I would have liked to ride the Jingle Cruise, but the park was fairly busy for early December, so we headed out.

On the way into the park, we stopped at the Grand Floridian to see the decorations there and the gingerbread house.

Over at the Polynesian Resort, crews were putting the final touches on the Island Tower. It opened today.

Last evening Susan, Jenn, and I returned to Amalie Arena to watch the Lightning defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 5-3.

Festival of Holidays

Yesterday afternoon Susan and I went into Epcot to check out the Festival of Holiday booths as well as the holiday decorations. We parked at Hollywood Studios and took the Friendship Boat up so I could visit some of my old co-workers, then made a lap around the World Showcase. We took the Skyliner back to the Studios.

We didn’t try a lot of snacks from the festival booths because we knew we were going to Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary for dinner. The kids joined us. Chef Mickey’s is an all you can eat character buffet. The food and decor aren’t great but we hadn’t been there in over a decade. 

After dinner we wandered through the shops at the Contemporary and admired their gingerbread house.

Universal Christmas

I've been wanting to get into the parks to see the Christmas decorations since the start of November, but we've been too busy. This week we finally had some time. Yesterday Susan and I went to Universal for a few hours. On our way through CitiWalk, we stopped at Margaritaville for a late lunch/early dinner. 

We started in Islands of Adventure. The entry area had decorations up, but Marvel Superhero Island, Toon Lagoon, and Jurassic Park didn’t. I stopped for a ride on Spider-Man, my favorite ride in the park, and would have like to try Velociocoaster but the line was too long. The parks were pretty crowded for a weekday in early December. 

The Harry Potter area had lots of decorations and I’m sure Seuss Landing did as well, but we took the train from Hogsmeade over to the Studio park. 

We walked through the New York area to see the decorations there, then watched the Christmas parade in front of Mel’s Diner. The balloons were fairly impressive. 

On our way out we looked through several stores, including the new Wicked store. Besides merchandise it had some props and costumes from the new movie. I'm hoping Universal will add a family style Wicked ride some day.

Magic Kingdom Cruisers

Last week, I started training to drive cruisers at Magic Kingdom Watercraft. I finished my training on Sunday. Monday night Jenn and Bryan attended a concert at Kia Center in Orlando.

Tuesday night we went to see ICE! at the Gaylord Palms. Gaylord’s are large resorts with big convention centers. There are a handful of the, around the country, and each one holds an ICE! event each year, which displays ice sculptures with a Christmas or winter theme. 

This year at the Gaylord Palms the sculptures were themed to the movie Elf. Besides the ice sculptures, there were several other Christmas themed events. After checking them out we had dinner at the steakhouse there. It was good, but pretty expensive. Yesterday morning we all went to see Wicked Part 1.