Fall
/ Winter
2014-2015 Disney
Daily Blog
Click
here to see a sampling of pictures - December 2014 - January 2015
Click
here to see a sampling of pictures - November 2014
Click
here to see a sampling of pictures - October 2014
December 2014 - January 2015
12/30/14
Today, we arrived in Orlando, and checked into
Caribbean Beach Resort. We were excited
to be staying there because it had been almost
12 years since the last time we stayed there!
We were able to stay in the awesome Pirates of
the Caribbean themed rooms, and the beds even
looked like pirate ships. We boarded a
Disney bus, and headed to Epcot. We ate at our
favorite restaurant, Via Napoli, for a late
lunch. After lunch, we got to se our favorite
Vacation Planner, Courtney, in her booth selling
park tickets and helping guests with
questions. We went back to our resort to get
settled and get our luggage. We chilled in room
and Courtney met us at the resort when she
finished work.
We all headed to Magic Kingdom
for the night. We ate at Cosmic Ray's and then
watched the amazing 360* fireworks. Magic
Kingdom does their New Year's Eve fireworks the
night before, too, so we took advantage of being
able to see them with not as many crowds. After
a long day of travel and fun at Epcot AND Magic
Kingdom, we headed home to Caribbean Beach.
Tomorrow morning, we are headed back to Magic
Kingdom.
12/31/14
We started our day off at Magic Kingdom,
and Courtney had to work today. This is the
busiest day of the year, and she was moved
back and forth between Epcot and Magic
Kingdom.
Once we got to Magic Kingdom, we saw the
Marblestone family. Bonnie knows them from
school, and they were Neil's first Disney
clients now that he is a Disney Travel
Agent. They happened to be going to Disney,
the same time we were. The 3 of us headed to
go eat breakfast at Gaston's Tavern.
We rode the train from Fantasyland to Main
Street. We had a great spot and we watched
the Once Upon A Christmas parade. After the
parade, we had an ice cream treat. Neil
and Megan rode Space Mountain and then we
headed back to the resort.
We ate lunch at
Old Port Royale, the counter service
restaurant at Caribbean Beach, and then
chilled for a bit. We met Courtney at Epcot
when she finished her shift. Courtney
shopped at The Art of Disney and then we
watched Holiday Illuminations. The four of
us took some pictures with our New Years Eve
hats and horns,
that Disney gives out. We
headed out of Epcot, and took the monorail
to the Grand Floridian. After
walking around the beautiful lobby, we ate
dinner at Gasparilla's Grill. After
dinner, we headed to Downtown Disney. We
shopped for new Disney cell phone cases at D
Tech. Neil, Courtney, and Megan had ice
cream treats from Ghirardelli Soda
Fountain. Tomorrow morning, we are headed to
Animal Kingdom. It was great to welcome in
the new year, in our favorite place - Walt
Disney World!
Happy New Year! We decided to sleep in, and
have a late start today. Once we got moving,
we headed to Animal Kingdom. Courtney was
still working, so the 3 of us ate lunch at
Yak n Yeti Local Food Cafe. Neil
and Megan rode Expedition Everest,
while Bonnie took pictures of them coming
down the mountain. We headed back to
the resort to meet Courtney. The
four of us headed to Fort Wilderness to eat
dinner at the delicious buffet at Trail's
End. This restaurant has quickly become a
favorite of ours!
We did some shopping in
the gift shops at The Contemporary Resort,
and then watched Wishes Fireworks from Bay
Lake Tower, at the Top of the World lounge.
We love being DVC Members because we can
watch the fireworks from the rooftop of Bay
Lake Tower, even when we aren't staying
there! We then went to Magic Kingdom and
walked around a little, before heading back
to our resort for the night.
This morning, we woke up and headed
to Disney's Hollywood Studios. Bonnie and
Neil rode Toy Story Mania while Megan rode
her favorite, Rock n Roller Coaster.
Enjoying our Park Hopper, after having a
quick trip to Hollywood Studios, we headed
to Magic Kingdom. We watched the Fantasy of
Festival parade. We ate lunch at Tortuga
Tavern and had our favorite taco salads and
nachos. We went to go see Walt Disney's
Carousel of Progress attraction. During the
busy holiday season, Courtney was working at
Magic Kingdom taking part in a Vacation
Planning pilot test with ticket sales. It
was great that we were able to see her
selling park tickets on the iPad, which has
really helped their department become more
efficient.
After Courtney finished her
shift, we went to Cast Connections, the
special Cast Member store, for one last time
to do a little shopping. We then headed to
Courtney's apartment to help her pack some
things up, since her Disney College Program
was ending in just a few days. The four of
us headed to Hollywood Studios for the
evening. We rode the Great Movie Ride and
had Tess (Courtney's roommate) as our
wonderful tour guide. Afterwards, we went
to see the Comedy Warehouse Holiday
Special. We ate dinner at Backlot Express
and then went to go see The Osborne Family
Spectacle of Dancing Lights. During the
holiday season, the Streets of America have
over 5 million lights of many colors. These
lights periodically "dance" by blinking in
time to music that fills the area, and are
quite a beautiful sight to see during the
holiday season. We went to go to the Frozen
play area for a few pictures, and then
headed to Walt Disney - One Man's Dream. It
was a busy day! Tomorrow, we are going to
Magic Kingdom!
Today, we headed to Magic Kingdom and got to see
Courtney at work again. As we were walking down
Main Street, we saw Mayor Weaver, one of our
favorite Main Street Citizens to see. After
talking with him, we found out he has been
working at Magic Kingdom for 26 years now! We
stopped by the DVC booth to see our favorite DVC
Cast Member, Nichole. We rode The Voyage of the
Little Mermaid and Peter Pan's Flight. After
riding these attractions, we stopped to have
lunch at Columbia Harbour House where we enjoyed
fried fish. The three of us rode the
Peoplemover and went to go see Monsters Inc.
Laugh Floor. Afterwards, we headed back to the
resort to pack up. We enjoyed dinner at Kona
Cafe at Disney's Polynesian Resort, and took the
monorail back to the Magic Kingdom. We rode
Haunted Mansion and walked around a bit.
Tomorrow, we're heading back to Magic Kingdom!
1/4/15
We woke up this morning and headed to Magic
Kingdom. Courtney was spending the day with
her friends, as it was their last day in the
parks together. Neil and Megan rode Big
Thunder Mountain Railroad and Space Mountain
two times. Afterwards, we all rode Astro
Orbiter. Megan needed a little Pixie dust
so we visited a fairy godmother in
Fantasyland. We enjoyed a delicious lunch of
salads, meatball sliders, and homemade chips
at Tony's Town Square Restaurant. We stopped
for a quick picture with Mickey Mouse on our
way back to the resort. We got back to the
resort where we took the Magical Express
transportation.
Bonnie and Megan are flew
back to Houston, and Neil and Courtney drove
back, since she has had her car here on her
program. Courtney is finishing her awesome
Disney College Program. We hope you have
read her blog at www.courtneydcp.com.
She had an amazing experience and can't wait
to see what her future with Disney will be!
Stay tuned for our next Disney blog posts,
in March, when Megan's dance team, the
Bellaire Belles will be performing in Disney
World!
Bonnie, Neil,
and Megan arrived at All Star Music where we
met Courtney. Courtney has a few days
off from her Disney College Program, while
we are here for Thanksgiving, so we are
looking forward to a mini family vacation
together in our favorite place to be.
We first went shopping at Cast Connection
and found new matching shirts. We then
headed to Magic Kingdom. We ate dinner
at Harbour House and from Sleepy Hollow.
Then, we headed to do a little shopping at
The Emporium. We went and boarded the
Jingle Cruise, and enjoyed their holiday
humor. We went back to All Star Music
early, since it was raining so much.
We wanted to be ready for an early morning,
at Animal Kingdom.
11/26/14
Staying on property, gives you the advantage
of extra magic hours. Animal Kingdom
opened an hour early, to Disney resort
guests. Courtney, Neil, and Megan went
on Expedition Everest. Then, we ate
breakfast at Pizzafari. We went and
took some pictures with some characters –
Pluto, Santa Goofy, Donald, who were
greeting in Dinoland. After saying hi
to our pals, we headed to one of our
favorite Animal Kingdom shows to watch, The
Festival of the Lion King. After the
show, we ate lunch at Yak n Yeti Local Food
Café.
The four of us then took a train
to Rafiki's Planet Watch to say hi to some
character friends, Flik, Princess Atta,
Chip and Dale. After we left Rafiki’s Planet
Watch, we then headed to Magic Kingdom.
Stopping on Main Street to say “Hi” to the
Mayor was next on our agenda. Then, we
went into Megan’s favorite place, The
Confectionery. Megan had a magical
moment! She was invited to make
whatever she wanted, from the dessert case.
She chose to make a Minnie Mouse caramel
apple!!
We watched The Festival of
Fantasy parade and then headed back to our
hotel to get ready for the night. We
headed to Epcot, where we boarded The
Friendship boat from Mexico to Germany.
We walked over to the next pavilion, to
Italy, where we headed to our favorite
restaurant, Via Napoli. We enjoyed a
delicious meal! After dinner, we
headed to Hollywood Studios to meet the 4
parks in a day challenge and enjoyed The
Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights,
such a beautiful sight to see and hear!
It’s an annual event, that takes place along
the Streets of America. Millions of
dancing lights and animated displays are
synchronized to high-energy holiday tunes.
11/27/14
The Suchart family headed
to Magic Kingdom for the day, starting off
the day by eating breakfast from Starbucks.
After breakfast, the 4 of us rode Buzz
Lightyear and Courtney scored a score of
999,999! We went to see one of our
favorites - Carousel of Progress, and then
went to go ride a “doom buggy” on Haunted Mansion.
Then, we headed to have lunch at Tortuga
Tavern, our favorite taco salad and nachos! We love the edible shells, as well as the
taco salad bar of toppings.
After
lunch, we watched The Festival of Fantasy
Parade. Courtney, Neil, and Megan rode
Space Mountain. Then, we all watched A
Frozen Holiday Wish show, where Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Olaf light up Cinderella's
Castle!
We
ate Thanksgiving dinner at Liberty Tree
Tavern and then watched the Celebrations
castle pre show and Wishes Fireworks before
heading back to our hotel for the night!
This was our first Thanksgiving in Walt
Disney World, and it was quite a special
one! We hope to be here again some
year, for Thanksgiving!
After dinner we finished off the night
watching the awesome castle show and
fireworks extravaganza before heading back
to the hotel.
11/28/14
This morning, the four of
us headed to Hollywood Studios where
Courtney and Megan rode Rock n Roller
coaster. Afterwards, we headed to eat
breakfast at Starring Rolls where we enjoyed
bagels and cinnamon rolls. After
breakfast we went to the Frozen
Sing-along Celebration, where we followed
the Karaoke words on the screen to Frozen
favorites such as “Let It Go”, “For The
First Time in Forever,” and “In Summer.” After the sing-along, we
headed to Downtown Disney.
We were happy to visit
with Adam and hear about how his new job is
going. The four of us were so happy to
see that the pin trading board was opened at
The Pin Trading Store, and found some new
pins. Then we enjoyed lunch at Earl of
Sandwich and shopping at World of Disney.
Courtney, Neil, and Megan had ice cream
treats at Ghiradelli's Soda Fountain.
After leaving Downtown Disney, we stopped by
to see Andrew at the DVC Preview Center.
We headed to Epcot to use our fastpass and
ride Soarin’, Bonnie’s favorite ride of all
of the parks. We headed back to our
hotel to get ready for the evening. We
have been looking forward to going to Pioneer Hall at Fort
Wilderness to see the Hoop Dee Doo Revue, a
family fun event of Wild West dancing,
singing, zany vaudeville comedy, and a
delicious family style dinner of fried
chicken, pork ribs, and more! We loved
it!!! Even though we have heard of the
Hoop Dee Doo Revue for years, this was the
first time our family has been to this show!
11/29/14
After packing in our
hotel room, we headed to Magic Kingdom where
we ate lunch at Tony's Restaurant.
Four salads and plates of meat ball sandwich
trios was what we enjoyed eating for lunch.
We did a little last minute shopping around
the Confectionery. We headed to
Courtney's apartment to pack some things.
and began our drive home to Houston.
We look forward to our
next visit to Disney!! Stay tuned!
This is a first for the Suchart family --
with Courtney in Disney for the College
Program and with our Annual Pass membership
that we bought this summer, planned a
weekend getaway to Orlando!
Bonnie, Neil and Megan flew in to Orlando.
We met Courtney at Art of Animation
Resort. This is our first time to stay
here. We have eaten in the food court and
walked around before.
We checked in, ate lunch in the food court
and then our room was ready!
Afterwards, we headed to Magic Kingdom in our Halloween
costumes.
When we activated our new Annual Passes, the
cast member gave us Fast Passes because he
liked that we were dressed up as Fast Passes
for MIckey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.
We rode Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain
Railroad and Seven Dwarves Mine Train. The
party didn't start until 7 00, so we had
time (with our fast passes).
We took pictures with so many characters -
Seven Dwarves, The Hag, Pooh Eeyore. Piglet
and Tigger.
We enjoyed watching "Mickey's Boo To you
Halloween Parade." After the parade,
we had time to see more characters: Jack
Sparrow, Mickey, Daisy, Minnie, Goofy and
Donald.
We did lots of trick or treating along the
candy trails throughout Magic Kingdom.
We watched the
Celebrate The Magic preshow in front of
Cinderella's castle.
Hallowishes fireworks were awesome to see!
After a fun filled day, we headed back to resort.
Tomorrow, we head to Epcot!
We slept in and then headed to Epcot for the
Food and Wine Festival!! With our fast
passes, we rode Soarin! Then we headed
to
Canada, and started off our day of eating
with 4 filet mignons, topped with a
delicious truffle butter sauce and sautéed
mushrooms. Next, we headed to
England for traditional Fish and chips.
We then went to
France, where we tasted Boeuf Bourguignon,
which is a fancy name for braised short ribs
in Cabernet with mashed potatoes. By
now, we were ready for dessert, so we headed
to
Belgium for a Belgian Waffle with warm
chocolate ganache.
We stopped in to Via Napoli to say hi to our
friends. Next, we boarded the Friendship Boat
to go across the World
Showcase Lagoon. Mickey's pal, Duffy the Bear
was in his
pumpkin outfit, waiting to say hi to us.
We headed to our reservation of a culinary demonstration with
Chef John Hui Maelstrom. We went to go ride
Maelstrom, in Norway
before it closes forever. This was the
last weekend, that you could ever go on
Maelstrom, as they are now starting to
renovate it, to become a Frozen attraction,
still with a boat. We decided we could
still eat some more, so we headed to Japan
for Salad with Miso dressing and some white rice.
We decided to eat just a little more, so
stopped back in Canada, for some more filet
mignons!
We went to go explore the
Ghiradelli exhibit and then headed to Magic Kingdom.
We walked around a bit, and then watched Disney's
Electrical Parade and Celebrate the Magic.
We ended the night, watching
Wishes Fireworks, before heading back to Art
of Animation.
10/5/14
Day 3 of our mini October trip, we slept late
and then went to Epcot for a short bit.
Of course, since we needed to eat lunch, we
headed to where else - Canada, to eat some
delicious filet mignon. We
headed to Patagonia, where we ate Grilled
Beef Skewer with Chimichurri Sauce and
Boniato Puree, and a Beef
empanada. Afterwards, we headed to
Italy, to taste the Ravioli alla Caprese (a
cheese ravioli) and a Cannoli al Cioccolato,
a chocolate covered cannoli.
Since we were quite full, we headed
back to the resort to chill for a little
while. Then we headed to Magic Kingdom
where we rode the refurbished Peoplemover.
Of course, we stopped in to our favorite
place, the
Confectionery. Luckily, we saw our
good friend, Elizabeth. Who else
should we see in the Confectionery, but our
other friend, Lou Mongello! We headed
to Fort Wilderness where we ate one of our
favorite buffet dinners, at Trails End.
After dinner, we took a short boat ride to
The Contemporary and then to Bay Lake Tower
to see Hallowishes fireworks from the
rooftop. Tomorrow morning, we will be
headed home to Houston, while Courtney
continues her Disney College Program!
But - stay tuned, as we will be coming back,
the end of November, to spend Thanksgiving
with Courtney in our favorite place!
Email us with
questions or comments.
Click
here to see a sampling of pictures - November 2014
Click
here to see a sampling of pictures - October 2014
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