It's A New Year!

What better way to start off the new year than a visit from Russ’ sister and her husband!  We picked them up at the airport on the 1^st, they spent their first night with us in the RV after enjoying some homemade lobster bisque and a yummy prime rib roast we had prepared, and then spent the remainder of their nights in hotels on Disney property.  However, we saw them every day during their stay.

One place none of us had ever visited was Disney’s Art of Animation Resort that opened in 2012.  This is one of the value-priced hotels on Disney property created especially with families in mind featuring 4 of their most popular themes: Finding Nemo, Cars, The Lion King, and The Little Mermaid.  Located throughout are giant versions of various items and characters from the movies.  We wandered through 3 of them but never made it over to The Little Mermaid…maybe next time.
















          Christmas decorations were still up at most of the resorts and it was one of the things Terri definitely wanted to see this trip.  We rode the monorail to The Grand Floridian which is always incredibly beautiful any time of the year but especially at Christmas time.  When we arrived, a cast member dressed in period costume was singing songs from Disney movies accompanied by a pianist dressed in black tux.  We wandered through several of the shops, and from one of the
decks marveled at the newest pool where an upside-down Mad Hatter’s hat fills with water and then dumps onto guests below!  Nobody was in the pool since it was too chilly but you can see how fun it would be!  From there we continued our ride to the
  Contemporary Hotel, again wandering through the shops and checking out the decorations, and then rode to the Polynesian Hotel for a relaxing cocktail even though their decorations were no longer up.

Another day we met up with them at Epcot’s Japan to watch Bill’s favorite, Matsuriza, traditional Taiko drummers.  They're amazing and just watching them made my arms hurt...such strength needed!  We wandered in and out of most of the shops (do you see a theme here?!), stopping to watch the Spirit of America Fife & Drum Corps, and finishing with nachos and margaritas in Mexico.

  Continuing with the shopping theme (plenty of grandkids for Terri to buy for!), one day was spent at Downtown Disney where there are plenty of stores and always plenty of photo opportunities not the least of which is The Lego Store with lots of Lego built items on display.  Terri
took our picture with Buzz Lightyear, and I snapped one outside of a “vacationing family” all of which are completely made of Legos.  After a quick and yummy lunch at the Earl of Sandwich (www.earlofsandwichusa.com/), it was off to more stores including the World of Disney, the world’s largest Disney Character store. Don’t forget to look up because there are all sorts of characters and scenes hanging from the ceiling!

Sunday we drove them over to the Contemporary Hotel where they’d be spending their last two nights.  The monorail drives right through part of it, and I’ve tried several times at Christmas to get a photo of the Mickey head wreath but it’s almost impossible from inside the
   monorail.  However, being in the parking lot I was finally able to get a decent shot (the monorail was even on the track heading in!) and then got one of it all lit up that night when we went back over to watch the fireworks from the rooftop of their building.

 The Castle was still draped in its "icicles", but the fireworks were a little disappointing from up on the hotel's roof mainly because most of them didn’t appear over the Castle.  The wind didn't help matters as it pushed them even further away, but I did get a couple of decent shots, even one including the Castle.  We returned to their room and were also able to catch the Epcot fireworks in the distance from their balcony.

Epcot

Epcot




   The hotel is located on Bay Lake and every night the Electrical Water Pageant winds around the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake.  Shortly after the Epcot fireworks finished, the Pageant had made its way past The Contemporary and we watched from the balcony.  It
  consists of 2 strings of 7 barges, each carrying a 25 foot tall screen of lights depicting sea creatures moving and changing in time to the music and then concludes with a salute to the Stars and Stripes set to a patriotic medley.

Their last day in town was spent at the Magic Kingdom.  We caught up with them around noon and watched the Hall of Presidents audio-animatronic show before heading back towards the front of the park going through nearly all the shops on Main Street.  At one point we even got to enjoy the Main Street Trolley Show as dancers/singers disembarked from a horse-drawn trolley and entertained the crowd with a couple of songs.  We also stopped at the Crystal Arts Shop to watch a gentleman demonstrate the age-old art of
glass sculpting…pretty amazing!  The temperature was starting to drop rather quickly so we caught the monorail back to the hotel where we visited for a bit longer before heading home.  It was a great visit, but time just flew by all too quickly.