Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from The One and Only Genuine Family Blog! We have spent two different New Years at Disney but for 2018/2019 we are sitting it out safe, warm, and at home. 

December 31. 2017 Contemporary Resort lobby display

Back when 2000 turned into 2001 we spent most of the evening sitting on the Disneyland hub in front of the castle waiting for the countdown...eventually it became standing room only.

Disneyland, December 31, 2000

It was so packed and we spent so much time just waiting that we have never tried to experience NYE from inside a park again! The New Year's crowds are insane inside and out of the parks. 

Walt Disney World Contemporary Resort December 31, 2017

We were at Walt Disney World to see 2017 turn into 2018 last year and and it was quite the experience. Our vantage point for the New Year's eve fireworks was from an exterior staircase balcony landing at the Contemporary Resort Hotel. The three videos below give a taste of what it is like looking at the New Year's revelry across Tomorrowland to Cinderella Castle from the Contemporary Resort. The perimeter bursts (seen in the second video) are spectacular and the entire show was amazing. It was unseasonably cold last year, we had a great time, but we did not try to go back this year.

January 1, 2018 Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World

January 1, 2018, Overlooking WDW,s Magic Kingdom

Gingerbread display at Contemporary Resort, WDW January 1, 2018

  Happy New Year to all! Here's hoping 2019 is a great year!

Photo Album: The waterways of the Magic Kingdom & Epcot Resort Areas of Walt Disney World

Even under construction and on a cloudy day it's still the place where dreams come true.

We have only been visiting Walt Disney World since 2015, and  are just beginning to scratch the surface of all the amazing things to see and do there. Early promotional materials loved describing how the Disney property in Florida was "twice the size of Manhattan".When they layed out Walt Disney World they placed the Magic Kingdom theme park at the top of the property farthest from the entrance to the resort to act as a draw that would pull folks through the rest of the property. If you have only been to Disneyland in California it is probably hard to wrap your head around how enormous the Walt Disney World Resort is. It is made up of 4 theme parks, 2 water parks, several hotels, several golf courses, 2 miniature golf courses, a sports recreation area, and an expansive waterside shopping center.

"We'll put the theme park in the top corner...that way they have to go through the rest of it to get to it!"

Walt Disney World is organized around 5 "Resort Areas", these are the collections of hotels  grouped together around a major destination. So the farthest north resort area is the "Magic Kingdom Resort Area". Moving south through the property you will encounter the "EPCOT Resort Area" & the "Disney Springs Resort Area". The 2 southern most resort areas are the "Animal Kingdom Resort Area" and the "Wide World of Sports Resort Area". Lakes are such a big part of the charm of Walt Disney World and many of the resorts are built around bodies of water.  This essay will cover the Magic Kingdom & EPCOT Resort Areas.  

Magic Kingdom Resort Area 

Welcome to the Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom Theme Park on the shore of Seven Seas Lagoon

Arriving at the Magic Kingdom dock via ferry boat

At the heart of this resort area is the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake which are linked via a water bridge. The Magic Kingdom theme park is on the shore of Seven Seas Lagoon which is also flanked by the the Grand Floridian Resort, the Polynesian Village Resort and the Contemporary Resort.

The Victorian seaside splendor of Disney's Grand Floridian Resort

Escape to the mid-century tiki paradise of the Polynesian Village Resort

The future is always today at the Contemporary Resort where monorails pass through the Grand Canyon Concourse

Next to the Polynesian Village Resort is the Transportation & Ticket Center where you can board a ferry to the Magic Kingdom or take monorails to the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, or the  hotels around the lagoon.  The main parking lot is at the Transportation & Ticket Center. Behind the Grand Floridian is Shades of Green Armed Services Resort and adjacent to that are some of the Walt Disney World Golf Courses.  The Contemporary Resort sits in between the Seven Seas Lagoon and the Bay Lake at the water bridge that connects them. Also on the shore of Bay Lake is the Wilderness Lodge Resort and the Fort Wilderness Campground.

Sometimes it gets really cold in Florida!

Catch a monorail from the Transportation & Ticket Center

Ferryboat dock of the Transportation & Ticket Center

Take a monorail from the Transportation & Ticket Center to the Polynesian Village & Grand Floridian Resorts beyond

Across the Seven Seas Lagoon from the Magic Kingdom you can see the Ferryboat dock of the Transportation & Ticket Center, the Polynesian Village & Grand Floridian Resorts

The Resort Areas are connected by roadway open to vehicles and by "Disney Transportation", a fleet of busses, boats, and monorails. All resorts have complimentary bus service, some resorts have boat and/or monorail service.

EPCOT Resort Area

Welcome to EPCOT

Monorails to and from EPCOT

EPCOT theme park is the center of this resort area. It is connected to the Magic Kingdom Resort Area by monorail service and to all other resort areas by roadway. Directly adjacent to EPCOT's second entrance is "Crescent Lake", a body of water that links EPCOT and Disney's Hollywood Studios Theme Park. 

Disney's Boardwalk Inn on Crescent Lake next to EPCOT

Disney's Boardwalk Inn

Dolphin Hotel beyond

Disney's Yacht & Beach Club across Crescent Lake from the Boardwalk Inn next to EPCOT

Disney's Beach Club Resort

The lake is flanked by several hotels: Disney's Yacht & Beach Club Resort, Disney's Boardwalk Inn Resort, and The Swan & Dolphin Hotels.  The Crescent Lake hotels have boat service between each other and to EPCOT & Hollywood Studios. Behind EPCOT and connected to the resort area by roadway is Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort. Caribbean Resort is contained in it's own area around it's own lake, soon an aerial tramway system will be connecting the Caribbean Beach Resort to EPCOT directly.

A twilight walk at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort

Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort

Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort

Pirates & Pals Fireworks Cruise at Walt Disney World

We recently went on the Pirates & Pals Fireworks Cruise at Walt Disney World and it was an incredible experience.  Your evening begins in a ballroom at the Contemporary Resort where there is a meet & greet and dessert party.

The lobby in front of the ballroom has pirate statues you can pose with and a coloring table for the kids. Each member of your party is given a pirate bandana to wear as your ticket.

Inside the ballroom there is an endless supply of treats while you wait to meet Captain Hook & Mr. Smee. There are treasure chests of gold coins, cupcakes, cookies, popcorn, pretzels, soft drinks, tea & coffee and chips & salsa.  In a refrigerator there is a generous stockpile of Mickey & Disney ice cream treats. The menu is all you care to eat.

Meeting Captain Hook & Mr. Smee was delightful...they were very generous with the time they spent with each family. Toddler Son enjoys sharing toys with the characters...in this case he presented his Duplo Lego Captain Hook figure and the good Captain seemed to appreciate the gesture.

Teenage Son has a vintage Figment Plush he likes to take pictures with and the pirates were very accommodating. The ballroom was relatively dark presumably in keeping with a "pirate atmosphere" and they played lots of music from Jake and the Neverland Pirates television show.  The hosts of the party were two pirates named Patch and Patch...respectively. Of course they issued orders to all of us (we were their pirate crew) to which we were supposed to reply "Aye, Patch!". Once everyone had met the Captain & Mr. Smee and gorged themselves on endless Mickey Bars Patch and Patch led us to the boats! The group was split up into 2 groups....Hook & Smee.

We then walked out to the Bay Lake dock (Captain Hook saw us off) and boarded the boats for a wonderful cruise from Bay Lake over the water bridge to the Seven Seas Lagoon. We were in the "Hook" boat on the Port side (that would be left to a landlubber) of the boat.  Our cruise led us by the beach of the Polynesian Village and over to the Grand Floridian.

Patch had all of the lights turned off and had us attempt to scare the folks on the Grand Floridian Dock. We cruised up to them then turned on the lights and proceeded to shout "Arrrggh!"....they seemed mildly amused but mostly disappointed that we were not their water taxi.

At one point we got a water view of the Electrical Water Pageant. Patch led the crew in classic Disney songs ("Yo ho...a pirates life for me" and others) before the ship anchored in a position just off the Magic Kingdom dock. Since we were on the Port side (left) we were on the Magic Kingdom side of the boat and our view was unobstructed. The canopy of the boat is very high so the view is acceptable form the other side but you will be looking over people to see the Magic Kingdom. We did not make a request one way or the other but did end up getting some of the best seats on the boat and we were thrilled.

The view of the Fireworks was spectacular and the music was piped into the boats. At one point there was a torrential monsoon down pour that lasted mere minutes, it was remarkable to watch...the show just continued through the rain without missing a beat.  The fireworks would light up the night sky and you could see the enormous rain drops splashing into the lagoon! The boat had a canopy so for the most part we did not get too wet. The considerable rain passed quickly and took some of the heat out of the air. After the Fireworks ended the boat returned to the Contemporary Resort dock. Patch was very high energy and hosted a trivia contest among the crew to pass the time. Our boys both won pirate hooks.

When we returned to the ballroom Peter Pan was waiting for us. Again Toddler Son presented Peter with a toy to which Peter joked about keeping. Of course Toddler Son did not want to lose his toy but Peter was very sweet about it. This was a marvelous experience, we have never been much for camping out for a Fireworks viewing spot so this was right up out alley. And the view from the Lagoon is just breathtaking with Main Street lit up in the distance, the Monorails passing by and the Fireworks reflected in the water. It is one of those very uniquely Magic Kingdom moments where it really shines above the other Disney Parks...a real example of "The Magic of Walt Disney World".

Review: Chef Mickey's at Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort

Recently we kicked off the celebration of Teenage Son's (aka "Agent P") 13th Birthday at Chef Mickey's at Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort and had a wonderful time. It was Mom's idea to give character meals a try way back in 2006 when we lived in Southern California. Our first character meal was at Disneyland's Plaza Inn, and we've been hooked on them ever since. We've done several at both Disneyland & Walt Disney World and our time at Chef Mickey's did not disappoint.

Mom and her "Sleeping" Boys

In contrast to some folks we tend to take several smaller trips spread out through the year versus a longer annual or biennial visit to Walt Disney World. Our trips can be fairly impromptu and are sometimes little more than long weekends.We ended up kicking off "Agent P's" 13th birthday celebration with a long weekend trip to Walt Disney World that would include 3 nights on property, dinner at Chef Mickey's, attending the last Magic Kingdom After Hours Party of 2018 and a day at the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival.  We were very surprised to snag an 8:00 PM dinner reservation for Chef Mickey's at about 60 days out. 

Dining(well..sleeping)under Monorails!

Our Chef Mickey's reservation was for our arrival day- a Wednesday. We left Charlotte Tuesday night and drove straight through to Orlando arriving early Wednesday morning (about an 8 hour trip). Many times we have been fortunate enough to receive early check in at our Disney Hotels but we were not so lucky on this trip. So we spent the morning and afternoon doing some shopping, opening a Disney Store and visiting the Character Warehouse Stores at the local Outlet Malls. After a day out and about in greater Orlando we were able to check in at our room at the Caribbean Beach Resort right between 3-4 PM. We had a pretty full morning & afternoon so we got some rest at the room and then got ready for dinner. 

We decided to drive from Caribbean Beach to the Contemporary, and were probably in the car by about 7:15 and on our way. Ideally we try to give ourselves 30 minutes to drive between destinations on property at Walt Disney World, so we figured we'd get to the Contemporary by 7:45. Toddler Son had pretty much slept the entire drive down from North Carolina, so he seemed pretty rested most of the day but as soon as we were in the car and on our way to dinner he fell asleep. He is not much of a napper...if we are lucky he will take a 2 hour nap, but the time is not consistent no matter how hard we've tried. He just seems to be too afraid to miss out on something (even if we are not at Disney World...or "Walt Dee" as he calls it.). So there would have been a very good chance that he would be up for an 8:00 dinner...but not this time.  We got to the Hotel, made our way up to the fantastic Grand Canyon Concourse, and checked in at Chef Mickey's. And Toddler Son stayed asleep in Dad's arms the entire time.

They checked us in very quickly, and we had a very short wait. We let them know it was Teenage Son's Birthday and they made him a very nice birthday button...sometimes the cast members can be really great at doing "Disney Script" with a sharpie on the button and this was one of those times. They remarked how Toddler Son was knocked out and assumed he was down for the evening. We told them he was most likely napping...he would wake up in 2 hours...they were sceptical. The photo pass photographer was great and suggested we pretend to sleep like Toddler Son in some of the pictures and we ended up really liking a photo of Mom with her "sleeping" boys.  We were seated at a very nice table against the East Windows overlooking Bay Lake...you could make out the Orlando Eye in the distance. 

Minnie insisted on taking pictures with the whole party...

including a sleeping Toddler

The characters were delightful and very efficient. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, & Pluto would visit us. This is definitely the appeal of Chef Mickey's as you get to see all of the Fab Five at one time, here they are wearing Cooking Outfits. Teenage Son is a VERY young 13, he genuinely loves meeting the Characters, getting their autographs, and filling out his collection of Autograph Photo Albums...he has a collection dating back to his first trips to Disneyland and our trips to Disney World.  He had so much fun meeting the characters, taking pictures, getting autographs and joking with them. There were several standout interactions with the characters. Goofy noticed that Teenage Son was wearing a Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade T-Shirt, he then repeatedly pointed to the shirt and pantomimed that he used to drive the parade float! Minnie made sure to greet everyone at the table and insisted on posing for pictures with all four of us even checking up on sleeping Toddler Son...who in fact slept through the ENTIRE meal. Minnie gave Teenage Son a kiss for his birthday too!

A kiss from Minnie on his 13th Birthday

Hugs from Pluto

We found the food to be delicious, Dad enjoyed the shrimp cocktail especially and the carving station, while Mom really enjoyed the soup. Teenage Son could not get enough of a mushroom gravy on one of the meat dishes. Teenage Son was brought a cupcake and a wonderful souvenir birthday card signed by all 5 characters. Our personal view on Character Meals is that the price includes a "live entertainment" component and don't generally expect the food to solely justify the price. We had read reviews that said the food was not very good, or that the meal itself was overpriced. Chef Mickey's is definitely on the expensive side if not the most expensive of the character meals...but as a special occasion we felt very satisfied with our experience. There was a variety of food and plenty of it, there were 5 characters (many character meals at WDW have only 3 or 4) and you have the remarkable ambiance of Monorails traveling by you through the spectacular atrium of the Contemporary Resort. We definitely would return to Chef Mickey's.

Poor Toddler Son was noticed to be asleep through the whole experience by the cast and like we said earlier even Minnie herself. Dad tried in vain to wake him up but to no avail. We finished our meal and proceeded to browse the shops of the Grand Canyon Concourse.  Right at 2 hours Toddler Son woke up, he knew we were here to celebrate big brother's birthday with Mickey & Friends and in his way asked about that. At first we were pretty heartbroken that he had missed the whole thing and...and by minutes. He awoke from his nap within 10 minutes of leaving the restaurant.

On a fluke Dad took Toddler to the check in desk, by this time they were to close within an half hour. He explained how Toddler Son had slept through the whole thing and would it be possible for him to go in and real quickly meet the characters? The cast member said she would check with the manager. The manager came out and said "Oh I heard about you, they were talking about the kid who slept through the whole meal, of course we can have him meet Mickey & Friends". So the manager took us to a transitional area between the different dining rooms and proceeded to bring each character by to meet Toddler Son. It was such a sweet gesture and we were thrilled he did not get to miss out on the experience entirely. We were very grateful to the staff of Chef Mickey's not only for the great service and memorable birthday meal for Big Brother but for this kindness to our little guy who otherwise would have really missed out.