A fast and furiously wet Disney Christmas extended family adventure!

It's been so long since I've updated this! Life has been busy. Time for another update tonight!

We left off in Dinoland. We had separated, and my 5 year old, 2 year old nephew, and my sister and BIL were together while everyone else was waiting for Dinosaur.

After Triceratops Spin, we decided to take the boys to the dino dig play area. The rain had stopped and the boys needed to play! I snapped this of my little guy on our way.

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My son was so excited for the play area! He had lots of memories of playing here last year. He was immediately running around like crazy and "hunting for dinosaurs" but I made him stop for a picture.
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After we played for a while, I realized I lost my sister and her son. I texted her and she claimed to still be in the play area but I couldn't find her. One of the cast members overheard me talking to my son about losing his aunty, and the cast member said usually if you can't find someone, they are over in the sand pit. He gave me directions and we found it! Seriously hidden over a bridge but it was amazing.
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I think we could have stayed here happily all afternoon. During this time, I'd been texting with my husband and the bigger kids had gone on Primeval Whirl. I coaxed my 5yo away from the sand and we went to go meet them by the ride. My mom and sister had been waiting in line to meet Goofy (I don't have a picture, they never sent one to me!).

About that time, the big kids got off Primeval Whirl. It was getting closer to our next FP time for Expedition Everest so we headed that direction. When we got to the entrance, my kids were hot and begging for ice cream. I have learned through my various Disney trips to feed my kids when they're hungry, so we got Mickey ice cream bars.


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This ended up causing my drama with my sister, who expressed frustration because we bought our kids ice cream bars and they felt they couldn't afford that for their kids. I felt a little guilty, and yet when we save for our trips, the extras like Mickey ice cream bars are part of that.

After our ice cream was done, we made a plan. We all had FPs for Everest, but my 2 year old nephew couldn't go because he wasn't tall enough. My 5 yo was tall enough but he was absolutely refusing to ride it. We finally decided to my mom and my BIL was going to take the 2 little boys to look at some animals and the rest of us would hit Everest.


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We got a decent Everest picture, debating whether I want to spend 16.95 on it or not lol. But we had a great time! All except my husband. He immediately was very nauseous (this will be a theme of the trip) and had to go sit down. We then met up with my mom and the little boys. My mom and BIL wanted to use their FPs for Everest, and there was some fighting from the kids about who got to use my 5yo's FP. In the end, I used it and went on Everest twice in a row. :) To avoid fighting of course!

After the ride was over, we decided to separate. I took my kids to go shopping. We decided we'd all meet up for the Lion King show that started at 3. My husband hung back, because he was still feeling nauseous. He said he'd meet us at the gift shop. And my daughter ended up going with her cousins to ride on Kali River Rapids.

It started to rain again as we were walking towards the gift shop. Me and my boys in front of the tree!

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We got to the gift shop and it started absolutely pouring rain. The gift shop got very crowded in a hurry! My husband joined us shortly after and said that a very nice cast member selling ice cream cones saw my husband sitting down looking like death and gave him a free ice cream cone. My husband accepted and ate it, and said he was feeling much better. Disney Magic!

Next up, Lion King, Safari, and more!
 
Enjoying reading about your family time in Disney! Sounds like you were doing well dealing with the rain. I admire those that can travel with a group and make it work. The good times usually outweigh the not so good and you make good memories for your kids. Hope the rain stops and you're able to enjoy the rest of your day!
 
Hello everyone!!! I never finished my trip report. :( So sad!! Since I last posted, there's been a world wide pandemic and life has been complete chaos. But two days ago, we book our next trip for Disney (363 days away now!) and it made me long for Disney. I decided working on this trip report could be therapeutic!

I had to look through my photos to remind myself of the trip. I think I still remember enough!

When I left off, we were maybe halfway through our Animal Kingdom day. We had separated, some people went to the gift shop, some went on the river rapids, etc. but we all met up to see the Lion King show.

Some Lion King backstory: I haven't been very successful in seeing/enjoying this show in a long time. One time I went when my daughter was a baby, and she furiously nursed and fussed the entire time. The next time we went, we were standing in line and my dad experienced a grand mal seizure and we were all escorted out of Animal Kingdom to go to the hospital. The next trip, my son (4 at the time) was experiencing motion sickness from a previous ride, and he started vomiting during the show and I literally was catching vomit in gallon plastic baggies, stuck in the middle of the audience.

It was starting to feel like the show was cursed for us lol.

I'm happy to announce that we were actually able to attend and enjoy the show this time around!

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And my son's mesmerized face. He LOVED it.
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After the Lion King show, we had some time open before our next fast passes so we decided to take the train to go to Rafiki's Planet watch. I hadn't been there in years and we thought the kids would enjoy exploring. My 2 year old nephew threw a tantrum and refused to get on the train so everyone went except him and my sister and her husband.

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We actually had a blast here and stayed longer than anticipated. It was so empty there and there was lots to see. My kids got to have their own question/answer session with a cast member to learn all about tarantulas and see a tarantula.
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When we got back on the train, we had fast passes for the safari! It was unusual for us to do the safari so late in the day, in the past we would rope drop the safari. But with not having Flights of Passage fast passes, we had to rope drop that instead. The safari was super fun and the animals were active.

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The last part of our day was reserved for Tusker House for the next post!

Thanks for reading. :)
 
Our last stretch of the night! Tusker House reservations!

We lucked out and were able to get reservations for all 17 of us. Yikes.

Honestly, it was a little chaotic with that many people. The characters started showing up right away, which was tough when some kiddos were super ready to go get food. My two nephews refused pictures with characters at first. There were disagreements about who wanted to sit next to who. The usual when you're with 17 people for a meal. But ultimately it was a good experience!

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By the time around dinner was over, it was close to 7 and close to the park closing for the day, so it was time to go back to our resort. But first, I needed to snap a couple pictures of both trees all lit up.

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To finish up our Animal Kingdom day, just a few more pictures.

To show how truly soaking wet we were all day, I give you my son's feet after being trapped in his wet shoes all day long.

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I spent the better part of the evening blow drying his tennis shoes for the next day.

But here was our fun pixie dust moment for the day! My son had left several of his toys lying around on the floor, and Mouse keeping picked the toys up and displayed them around the bed. My 5 y/o was soooo excited. It was like a Toy Story moment for him.

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And that's it for our Animal Kingdom day! Next up, we wake up suuuuuper early to make our way over to Magic Kingdom!

Spoiler Alert: there's a lot of rain again. Lol.
 
Welcome back. Congratulations on your new trip - even if it is far away
 
Welcome back! We’re planning our trip for December 2021, on here looking for some pre-pandemic magic. Happy to be following along!
 


Welcome back. Congratulations on your new trip - even if it is far away

Thank you!! Yes, we are excited even though we have no idea what the future will hold.

Welcome back! We’re planning our trip for December 2021, on here looking for some pre-pandemic magic. Happy to be following along!

Thanks so much! Ooh December 2021, should be a great trip!
 
It's Magic Kingdom day! Only a year later, it's fine lol. Will I remember any of the details at this point??! Guess we're going to find out. :) As we passed our 1 year anniversary of the trip, I am missing Disney sooo much. Can't wait for our next trip!

Our Magic Kingdom day started super early. The park opened at 8 with extra magic hours at 7 and we planned to make every minute count. We arrived fairly close to 7 but between the pouring rain and wrangling 9 children, we were a little late.

Typically upon arrival to Magic Kingdom, we would get a picture taken on Main Street in front of the castle. Unfortunately, it was absolutely pouring rain so we had to skip it. 😭

Our first stop was Tomorrow Land! We planned to hang out there for our EMH and head over to Adventure Land at 8.

I was so excited for my 5 year old's first ride on Space Mountain! He was terrified. I wasn't sure he'd go through with it, to be honest. But he did! My husband is too tall to ride Space Mountain (he's tried, doesn't fit). So he took my 2 year old nephew, and I actually have no idea what they did. He doesn't remember. :rolleyes:

My daughter, my 5 year old (looking terrified) and myself:

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My niece, sister and BIL:
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My oldest, middle son, and dad:
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My niece, sister, and nephew:
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And my mom and brother (I'm shocked he even rode, tbh. He doesn't like roller coasters!):
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After Space Mountain, we looked around the gift shop a bit. It was still pouring rain, so after we wrangled everybody up, we ran over to Buzz Lightyear.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this experience as much as I could have! Literally just as I was about to climb on with my 5 year old, my mom suddenly says, "Where's Jackson?", my 10 year old. We all look around, and he's nowhere to be seen. As you can imagine, traveling with 17 people can make it hard to keep track of everybody. I generally was keeping the closest track of my 2 youngest, and assuming the older 2 could keep track of themselves. But I was wrong!

My mom was further back in the line (we were literally on the conveyer belt about to climb on) so she called out that she would go find him, and she left. The rest of us climbed on. I felt fairly confident that he was just fine (he's 10 after all) but of course I was feeling pretty panicked during the ride.

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After leaving the ride, I check my phone and my mom has texted that she has Jackson and they're getting on the Space Ranger ride too. So I am super relieved, looking forward to hearing the story!

We waited outside in a covered area. As we're waiting, we notice the benefits of a rainy Florida day. A beautiful rainbow! It was absolutely breathtaking!

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And my youngest sister:
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When my mom and son finally arrive, I get to hear the story. We had been in the gift shop coming out of Space Mountain, and there are actually 2 doors to exit the store. My son heard us say we were leaving, but must have been just slightly too slow and then left out the wrong door and didn't see which direction we went. But he did the right thing and went back into the store, told the cast members that he couldn't find us, and they hung out with him until my mom came back. The cast members said he did exactly what he should have done, and he was calm the whole time! Thank goodness.

Next up, we catch the opening show at the castle and head over to Adventure Land!
 
The rain had slowed down some as we headed out of Tomorrow Land. The welcome show was already underway at the Castle! It was not nearly as crowded as I would have expected for December 23rd. I think the rain had kept some people away.

I managed to get right up to the front to get this picture taken! Not crowded at all.
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And we were on our way to Adventure Land!

But right when we reached the Jungle Cruise (our first stop) my sister realized that her 2 year old son had somehow dropped his komodo dragon, one of the toys he had gotten at Animal Kingdom the day before. He had been obsessed with it and bringing it everywhere. They decided to retrace their steps to see if they could find it. We hung around outside the entrance while we waited.

Jingle cruise!

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They finally returned, sans komodo dragon. He was unfortunately a goner!

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We love "Jingle" Cruise!

I can't remember the exact order of rides after Jungle Cruise, but I am pretty sure it was Pirates of the Caribbean next!

Seriously, why do these pictures always turn out so boring? Lol. The fun thing was we got an entire boat to ourselves!
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After Pirates, I think we did the Magic Carpets. I think we skipped the Tiki birds this time.

We did a quick meet and greet with Jasmine and Aladdin after that!
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After Adventure Land, we headed over to Frontierland and discovered that Thunder Mountain had a short line!

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The details are fuzzy here, as you can imagine after a year. 😂After conferring with my mom, we are both thinking we ate an early lunch at Pecos Bill's.

I *think* after lunch we went to It's a Small World.

Around this time, Magic Kingdom was getting horribly crowded. The rain had gone away and it was now hot and sunny. We had an upcoming fast pass to Haunted Mansion but we had some time to kill the meantime. Some people wanted to go shopping on Main Street so we did that for a while. We separated into smaller groups.

After doing some shopping, we went over to the ice cream shop on Main Street because we were hot! We watched the parade from our seats.
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Next up: Haunted Mansion for some of us, the chicken exit for others.
🐔👻
 
As the park started filling up with the Christmas crowd, we were happy that we still had all of our fast passes coming up. We had a Peter Pan fast pass (which I think I got out of order and we went on that earlier after It's a Small World). And our next fast pass was for Haunted Mansion!

Showing up at the Haunted Mansion was a little overwhelming because even the fast pass line was ridiculously long. We even considered whether or not to stick it out because the fast pass line was curving way out along the lake. But we figured we would run into long lines everywhere, and maybe the line would go faster than it seemed so we got into line.

The line did move pretty fast. But it was hot, everyone was getting grumpy. We stuck it out though and we finally started to get close!

Now, my 5 year old has never ridden on this ride. He has refused every time because it's too scary. I was hopeful this year that he would try it. As we got closer, he suddenly started getting really agitated. He insisted that we open one of his toys that we had bought him so he could hold it on the ride so we did that and he seemed ok. But as we entered the big round room, he went into a panic and absolutely refused. So I said I would just take him out the "chicken door".

The cast member that took us out was so kind. He gave us some special passes and he said if we changed our minds later, we could use the passes to try again. He told us some history about the ride and pointed out some cool things on our way out.

And the pictures of those who did ride!
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And when we got out, we had to take this picture of my daughter next to this sign because my daughter's best friend's name is Penelope. 😂
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Now, at this point in the day we were all HOT. The rain was gone and had been replaced by that famous, repressive Florida heat. It was around 1 pm and the crowds were serious. We all gathered in the shade to discuss afternoon plans.

Most of the kids wanted to go back to the hotel. They wanted to swim, my sister hoped my 2 year old nephew would nap. It seemed like that was probably the best plan.

However, my lovely daughter, who usually goes with the flow, was insistent that she wanted to stay at Magic Kingdom all day. I mean, she fought her case hard. "This is what we're here for, mom, why would we go to the hotel? I want to go on rides." I tried to explain that it was crowded and I didn't know how much we would even be able to go on. But she put her foot down. So I finally agreed that I would stay with her while everyone else went back to the hotel.

Next up is my absolute favorite part of the entire trip. I've been so excited to share it! My mother-daughter Disney day, which I never thought I would get! 💕
 
Glad you decided to finish your TR! Sounds like you did pretty well traveling with such a large group. Splitting up at times I'm sure helped a lot. Wonderful you get a special day with your DD!
 
After the rest of our group left, my daughter and I tried to decide what we should do next. We checked the app and it looked like the majority of rides had suuuuper long lines (like an hour or more). We had another fast pass scheduled, but not until after 3 (it was about 1 at that point). It was so hot and crowded.

I have to admit, I felt a little grumpy.

But my daughter's positivity about the situation was contagious. She was determined that we were going to have fun. We first made our way to a gift shop and walked around there a little bit and I tried to think through some ideas.


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I finally decided that our best bet was to cancel our upcoming fast pass for 7 Dwarves Mine Train. I hated to miss it, but if we canceled that then it would allow us to use the refresh method to make other fast passes for just the two of us.

The first fast pass option that popped up on the app was Splash Mountain. My daughter was on board to get wet, considering we had been soaked by rain all day anyway! So we booked the fast pass and made our way to Frontierland!


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We made the decision in the fast pass line that we wanted to sit in the front seat, and we wanted to try to do peace signs right when they snapped the picture.
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We made it to the front row! But I was unsuccessful in the peace sign lol. I was too freaked out and had to grab the hand rail!

We were DRENCHED! I have never been so wet on that ride before. 😂
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After we got off Splash Mountain, we refreshed a few more times to look for more fast pass options. We ended up going for Dumbo next. Unfortunately, it was parade time and we had to make our way across the park using a narrow, crowded pathway. But both of us were patient and in no hurry! We checked out some parade floats as we walked.

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We finally made it to Dumbo!!
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It was somewhere around this time that it started POURING RAIN again. Of course, I had sent my sweatshirt home with my husband because I was dying of the heat earlier. But now I was getting drenched and I was so cold!

We got a fast pass for the Tea Cups next! It was nice to be out of the rain!
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I think the rain started messing with our brains a little. We decided we just HAD to go on Splash Mountain again in the pouring rain! So we got another fast pass for Splash Mountain and started making our way across the park again!

It's really fun when it's just two people! We were dodging and weaving through the crowds, we were tired and wet but we were laughing and having fun!

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Finally, we made it! This time, for sure, we were going to get our peace sign picture!

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Note: Everybody else wearing their ponchos, and we're just dressed for that Florida heat. In the pouring rain. 🤣

I think it was around this time in the late afternoon that we decided we were hungry. We were in the mood for pizza and decided to grab an early dinner at Pinocchio's Haus.

Up next: More rainbows and mom/daughter time!
 
Glad you decided to finish your TR! Sounds like you did pretty well traveling with such a large group. Splitting up at times I'm sure helped a lot. Wonderful you get a special day with your DD!

We did pretty well as a large group! It helped that my mom and I just became the decision makers of the group. When we did the large group a few years ago, we spent way too much time trying to make decisions so everyone was happy. This time we realized someone just needs to be a decision-maker!

Thanks for reading!
 
I hope there is more to come! I am SO jealous of the extended family vacation that looks like SO MUCH fun. I am an only child and while husband has lots of siblings, I don't see a joint vacation in the cards for us. Thank you though for pointing out something that not everyone probably considers- that different families have different budgets and it might come up awkward ways, like you mentioned of one set of kids getting the mickey bars and the other set doesn't. If I ever do manage to finagle a trip with multiple families, I will probably keep this in mind.
 

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