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Welcome to the Travel Journal, a podcast where we explore real trips, one story, and one day at a time. In this episode, I'm joined by a very special guest. My husband will, as we talk about our recent trip, not just where we went. But how the trip unfolded day by day, the moments that surprised or delighted us, and the thoughtful planning that made it all come together.

I'm your host Lindsay, a travel agent with 4 0 7 and beyond Vacation Co. Who loves helping travelers turn their vacation dreams into reality through genuine connection.

On this show, I bring that perspective to vacation stories, highlighting how planning transforms travel from overwhelming to effortless, and how careful guidance makes every journey more meaningful. This is the travel journal.

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Welcome Will. Thanks for joining me on this podcast.

Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to relive our vacation from a couple months [00:01:00] ago, and I'll be trying to remember it.

We went to Disney World last December and took our 1-year-old son for his. Not technically, first Disney trip, it was the second trip in the parks, but it was our first family trip together. We also met up with Will's family and the three of us stayed at pop century.

The trip was for a week .

So this trip we scheduled before I started as a travel agent. So I had been working with another travel agent. But this just goes to show that even if you love to plan your own trips, you can still have a travel agent support. So if you're someone who loves to plan trips themselves, there's definitely ways you can still support travel agents.

One of our biggest goals during this trip was to experience a lot of the Christmas activities. You'll see that as a common theme we tried to hit a lot of those

things

We left on a Sunday and were traveling from Wisconsin. Our flight was originally supposed to be at 6:00 AM and we woke up to a giant snowstorm. That was fun. Will, Managed driving to the airport and he did a great job [00:02:00] getting us there safely. So we're appreciative of that.

I think we were just trying to wait to get in front of the POW truck. But we did get there, and surprisingly our flight wasn't delayed at all until we got onto the plane. And then that's where we sat for about an hour.

We have a 1-year-old, so we were trying to entertain him or hope that he would go to sleep, I think they eventually took off after about an hour and a half. The flight itself went smoothly. We landed, and we were taking Mears connect to get to pop century.

At this point our son had been awake for six or seven hours. He was done, but also was so overtired that he wasn't really falling asleep. We were hoping that our room would be ready. But it wasn't. So we made the game time decision to go over to Disney Springs in the hope that maybe walking around in the stroller would help him go to sleep.

We decided to go to Earl Sandwich for lunch. We were both. Pretty hungry at this point. It had been a while since we had eaten. I think we were debating between Polite Pig and Earl Sandwich Polite Pig is our go-to. Yeah. But we knew that we were gonna be [00:03:00] going back later, when Will's family got in.

So we decided to do something a little bit different for this meal. . It was packed. It was wrapped around, almost out the door. Yeah, we definitely hit it at peak meal time. That's one piece of advice if you're able go at off peak times for meals and you'll have a little bit of less weight time.

We were pretty ready for a meal. , we walked around the springs area for a little bit. The biggest highlight was I became an annual pass holder. If you have bought tickets for, your trip, but you know that you are going more, you can definitely upgrade and use what you paid to apply it to an annual pass.

So those were the two main things that we did at Disney Springs. And then headed back to the hotel, in hopes that our son would actually take a nap, our room was ready and Disney will supply. Any cribs or pack and plays for you based upon availability, but generally you shouldn't have any issues getting those.

We put 'em down . We had a grocery order pickup, so Will went and got [00:04:00] that from, the hotel front desk. I think they had our bags too. Yes, that is true. 'cause we dropped off the bags before we went to Disney Springs. That's right. You can drop your bags off at Bell Services and they'll hold them while you go out and about.

So we think we got our bags and our groceries. Yeah, we did. 'cause I had to get a cart and this was the day in December that there was a. Torrential downpour. Yeah. It was raining. You ventured out. And I stuck back in the room with baby while he did not nap.

We just decided that it was going to be a no nap day. And we went to Pop Century's quick service for dinner. This was probably about 4 30, 5 o'clock . While we were eating, our son fell asleep in the stroller. We made the decision in the moment to just let him sleep and just put him to sleep for the night. But I think the biggest lesson that we learned on this day was no matter how rigid of a schedule your kid may keep at home, vacation may mess it up. And just make sure you go with the flow

first day or two are not gonna be the same as home. . Which kind of sets you up with at the start being a little [00:05:00] bit like, this is gonna be hectic the whole week, but it did settle out after that.

Moving a little bit into Monday, he actually ended up waking up at 3:00 AM and we could not get him to go back to sleep.

We were both awake. We ended up taking turns, entertaining him, so Will took the first shift and I actually got ready for the day and then, we flip flopped. Finally at six in the morning, he fell back asleep for about an hour.

So we were able to get a quick snooze in and then everyone was up and ready to actually rope drop. Magic Kingdom, , we are normally early risers so we're big rope drop. People that works for our family. Yeah. The two of us just go or used to just go. Mm-hmm. I mean, we're there to get as much in as we can in the day and we enjoy doing it that way.

. Whereas this one was a little bit more, relaxed, if that's the right word for Disney. You can have a relaxing Disney vacation. It just depends on what your goals are. So on this day we rope dropped. Magic Kingdom and we started with Peter Pan.

When [00:06:00] it's just the two of us, we actually normally rope drop the rides that are, the individual lightning lanes and skip paying for those. But on this trip, we used both, lightning Lane and individual Lightning lanes.

Every day we were in the parks. So we started with Peter Pan and this was a ride that our son could do he liked flying over the city. Then. We hopped over it's a small world. That was about a five minute wait.

That was quick. Yep. But, that one was the, the ride he really liked, actually, he was dancing . We don't normally ride that ride, I highly recommend taking. Your kiddos on that ride. So then our next one we had a lightning lane.

This is one of the tips for lightning lane using what I call a burner attraction. This is one where you get very close to the start. And why you do this is it unlocks your ability to book some of those tier one. Attractions. So our burner attraction for this day was actually Phil, our Magic. After that our baby was very ready for a nap so he slept in the stroller and we , [00:07:00] strolled around Tomorrowland enjoyed the, ambiance of it.

That's my favorite for Magic Kingdom. Yeah. I, I, I , I feel like all of Disney is your favorite. Yeah. So I feel like for ambiance actually Main Street might be one of my favorites. Hmm. Okay. I can see that. But Tomorrow Land has some of my favorite rides, so depends on what I'm there for, but we strolled around there.

I got some breakfast at the Lunching Pad. And had a little egg bowl we made our way over for our Tiana's lightning lane. So we used Rider swap there. You rode first. This was your first time on Tiana's. What did you think of it? It was good. It is still the same ride mechanics.

So it, that hasn't changed. The thinking's different. I don't think I like one better than the other. I always like Splash Mountain. I just remember it was just humming the theme song around the house playing with, our kid. And, I didn't realize it was from Splash Mountain, but that's a memory from, when I was riding on it.

. I dunno. It's nice to have something different. Yeah. I had ridden, the Disneyland. Version of Tiana's last September. The theming is the exact [00:08:00] same. But the ride vehicles are a little bit different. I think I like Tiana's a little bit more just because the Princess and the Frog is one of my favorite movies, so I relate to this one a little bit more.

I was disappointed there wasn't a bear butt Easter egg hitting on that ride. So if anyone else found one, let us know. Yeah. We have an inside joke from slash Mountain of how many, animal bear, but there are, so we were hoping there'd be a little nod to that and we didn't see one.

So Will wrote it and then I wrote it and somewhere in there our son woke up. While he was on, the ride, I did some cool photo pass pictures that were around that area.

After we both got done riding, tiana's, we went over to one of our favorite restaurants in Magic Kingdom, Pecos. Bill.

This restaurant is your Tex-Mex food. It's changed though, I preferred the old options. They had different rice. . And a couple different options. They've changed it quite a bit in the past. I don't know, a year or two. I really like their new protein options , but I wish they would've kept, the [00:09:00] rice that they had from a couple years ago. But that was pretty good. After this we jumped onto pirates, which we had a lightning lane.

Our sun. Like touching the walls in the cave area. Before you get on the ride, you like the texture. He was at that age where, you like touch everything so we use lots of baby wipes. I was the All right. Don't suck in your fingers after this or start eating food. Yep. So after pirates, we had a lightning lane for jungle crews. Our son is a big fan of animals,

his favorite word is Kitty and where there's the lions. He was yelling kitty. Yeah. He was really into saying kitty during the trip. And high. Yes. But everything's a kitty that's four legs and furry. So that was fun to see him on that. And our skipper was really good. , He had some good jokes.

It was one o'clock or so, and it was his second nap of the day. We made the decision to do a stroller nap, but take the monorail over to the contemporary. Because this was Christmas time, they had the gingerbread house set up. Normally the gingerbread house is in the Grand Floridian, but

in 2025, they [00:10:00] didn't have it in the Grand Floridian due to construction, so they had a version at the contemporary. We went over there and hung out in the lobby and lounged will took a nap in there.

Yeah, it was a nice chair in the front lobby. Yeah. I don't know if they're a fan of us, napping in the front. But no one said anything. No. , People do it all the time. And I was awake. I was out. Yeah. I was out, out. That was nice. After Will woke up, our son was still sleeping, but we, ventured back to Magic Kingdom on the, the monorail. And while we were walking into Magic Kingdom, our son woke up. So we decided to hop on the people mover. This one was fun because while we were standing in line, there was a little girl, maybe four or five years old, standing in front of us.

Our son and her just kept saying hi to each other back and forth, the whole line of the people mover. That was really cute to see. We rode around there, got to show him Space Mountain, which is both of our favorite Magic Kingdom rides. Speaking of, we rider swapped Space Mountain with lightning lanes and then had our individual lightning lane [00:11:00] for seven dwarves, which we also rider swapped after, seven Dwarves, we hopped onto Haunted Mansion. We originally had a lightning lane for this earlier in the day, but it was down, wasn't it? Yes, it was down. So we received a multiple experience pass and decided to just keep it for haunted Mansion.

I was a little nervous, didn't know, how our son would react to it, but he, I don't think he's old enough to like realize. Yeah. It's like, could be a little scary. Yeah, he did. It's just something different. Yeah, he, I think I was mostly concerned 'cause we were getting close to bedtime and I didn't want it to be spooky, but Hey, you mean a child screaming on how to reaction fits right in?

Yeah. He wasn't phased by it. We went over to Columbia Harbor house for dinner, and this was around six o'clock ish, six 30 ish. We both had lobster rolls. Which they were pretty tasty. something I forgot to mention at the beginning with this trip, we had , the promo for free dining plan.

Based upon what we were purchasing, for our tickets and how long we were there, it made sense to use the free dining plan. Is that just [00:12:00] for tickets or is that ' cause of the hotel too? To get the free dining plan last year, and actually they have a promo running until the end of April that if you have a, Walt Disney Resort package. That includes a four plus night stay at a Disney resort and a four day plus park hop ticket. You receive the free dining plan. That was the promo that we had on this trip. We had the quick service dining plan.

At Columbia House. I feel like the food's good, but when you're at Disney, you're walking around a bunch. I feel like it's never enough calories. I'm still always hungry afterwards. , refreshing ' cause it's usually something cold. But then I'm always hungry for more. Yeah. Columbia Harbor House has a lot of seafood, if you're snacking throughout the day, it's a good choice.

But I think if you're just having breakfast, lunch, dinner, I'd probably pick somewhere with a little bit more to eat than after we had a lightning lane for Tron. At this time they had the tron overlay for the newest movie. I really enjoyed the overlay that it did to Tron. But you rode first I did not notice there was an overlay.

But I wasn't aware there was an overlay when I went on the ride, was it [00:13:00] while you were riding or pre-show stuff while you were riding? I don't remember it being any different. It was different colors. Okay, so I think if you hadn't written it before, you wouldn't know it's different.

Maybe not. It had a different soundtrack plot and colors. It's a short ride in general. It's a fun seated position kind of ride, like you're on a motorcycle, it's unique.

They just need to make it longer. That won't happen, but yeah. So you rode that first and then I rode it after. And I actually met, a super nice couple in line, and they had asked me if I was by myself and I said, in the ride I am. , They gave me a physical card and they're like, we were given this by some other people, but we can't use it.

Here are three lightning lanes that you can use. We had received a Space Mountain, a tron, and a little mermaid. So I got off and we were trying to decide what we were going to do, at this point it was probably eight o'clock or so, and all three of us were just completely, exhausted.

So I decided to give it to a cast member to pixie dust another family. I had initially been intending to [00:14:00] stay for the Starlight Parade and happily ever after. But the thing about this day and the way that our schedule worked this was one of the non-party days and on a Monday, and you'll find during the party seasons that any non-party day tends to be.

Pretty slammed. And then you top that on. With Mondays, are also busier because that's usually the start of people's vacations. So usually when I'm planning trips or planning itineraries for my clients, I usually recommend to avoid, magic Kingdom on Mondays. But with the way that our schedule.

Fell. And we were going back to Magic Kingdom. Yes. So it wasn't like it was our only day there in the park. If it was, we wouldn't have picked a Monday non-party day. Right. So we decided to head back. But when we went back to Magic Kingdom, we weren't going to be able to see Happily Ever After or, the Starlight Parade. We ended up missing out on both of those for this trip.

So we woke up the next day to Rope Drop Hollywood Studios, and since we were staying at pop century, we got to take the Skyliner. Pop Century is one of my [00:15:00] favorite resorts to stay at from a value perspective because of the Skyliner access. Would you agree? Yeah. Skyliner is nice. Easy to get on and off.

Don't have to worry about folding up strollers that's my biggest piece of advice for people is when they're looking to book their hotel, is to pick a hotel that has transportation options other than the bus so that you're not having to, fold up a stroller if you have one.

So we rope dropped Hollywood Studios. We got there a little bit later than we normally. Get for rope dropping, but we were still able to get, on and off rise of the Resistance pretty quickly. You wrote it first and I walked around, with our baby while he napped and I picked up ATO wrap for myself and then I was originally going to split it with you, but then I realized I hadn't ordered the allergy version. I ordered you a run wrap from the allergy menu ' cause you have a severe tree nut allergy that we have to accommodate. Then I rode Rise of the Resistance, with Rider Swap, I got to walk through the lightning lane.

That was pretty quick line. The ride itself is a little bit longer of [00:16:00] experience. , Then we met up with Will's mom, dad, and brother. They were staying off property, so they didn't have early entry access.

So we met up with them at Star Tours. That was our first lightning lane. As our burner attraction to book, more, rides from that tier one category. Before we jumped on, I was able to actually snag. Slinky dog for your family later in the evening. We hadn't been able to get it for them during the initial three day window. That's a good tip if you can't get a lightning lane, try to check back in the morning and even throughout the day. you might have something pop up

We rode star tours, but your mom stayed with the baby. I think that one with the 3D glasses will make her sick. After we rode Star Tours, we went and met Olaf. He is one of my favorite characters. Got some cute pictures with the baby

it was kind of a filler thing to do before we had breakfast over at Hollywood and Vine. They had the Christmas theme during this breakfast, and then we also did the fantasma dining so that we could get priority [00:17:00] seating at the show. You wanna talk about your experience with the buffet ?

Yeah. They gave me a allergy menu, so told me what items I could and. Couldn't eat. So I knew what I could get from up there. And they said if I wanted to, I could ask them and they could get stuff separate, if I didn't feel comfortable with what was on the buffet line.

But it was pretty good. I don't recall anything with nuts that was near other items. They might have had something on the dessert that was at a separate station. But that was pretty. Safe as far as not having tree nuts, spread throughout in different dishes that day, and then they also brought you out a plate of allergy friendly Mickey waffles. Yeah, that was, that was nice. The only problem was by the time I got the menu they were already starting to switch over from breakfast to lunch. So by the time I was able to know what I could eat, they'd already closed one of the two lines.

So then I had to wait in line for forever. So by the time I got back, my waffles were cold. We were trying to get that spot of breakfast, lunch. So you do get both. Yeah. So that's partially our fault for doing that, but just one thing to take into account if you have allergies, is that extra time you need? Yeah, just in general with food allergies, you have to plan for a little bit more time they are really good with food allergies, but they [00:18:00] definitely take their time and making sure that they get the correct information.

They're cooking everything separate. I normally try to time our breakfast towards the end of the breakfast period closer to the lunch that we can get both. But if you have a food allergy, it might not be worth it. If your goal for the day is to do as many rides, don't do this. If you wanna have a little bit more relaxing day, sit down, enjoy some good food and talk a bit, it's a good thing to do.

Yeah. It really depends. My main intention for doing this one was to get fmic seeding. 'cause I didn't wanna have to wait in line with the baby. Sure. So there are some good perks. Do the other ones have that There are other restaurants in Hollywood studios that have, the fantasma dining and at Epcot, they do have dining packages. Then at Magic Kingdom, they have dessert parties you get, specialty seating for happily ever after. It was a decent meal. I thought the food was good. they had a lot of good options at the lunch. Like there was some good steak, there's some good chicken stuff.

Yeah, the food was good. I think if I were to do a character meal, I'd probably go over to the Beach Club and [00:19:00] go to cape May Cafe. I really liked their breakfast that was a bit smaller, so it felt like you had a little bit more time.

I really liked Hollywood and Vine. for the Christmas theme, all of the characters were dressed in, Christmas outfits. Afterwards we went over to the Indiana Jones Show. I was originally gonna stay back with the baby while he was going to go down for a nap but he wasn't going down.

So I ultimately ended up coming into the show and. He really enjoyed watching. It he was intrigued by the people behind us. I can't remember what he was saying or doing, he was blowing raspberries to 'em. Ah, that's right. He was in that stage.

After that, he did go down for a nap and he stayed with your mom. The rest of us went and rode Millennium Falcon in standby. We, they were nice enough to let us be the pilots. They didn't really care about the positions in the ride.

It was posted as a 50 minute. Wait, and we waited 40 minutes for it. By the time we got out baby had woken up and we all went to ride Mickey and Minnie's runaway railway using a lightning lane that we had gotten in the early booking [00:20:00] window.

After we immediately booked it over to the frozen show. This is one of my favorite shows, and then at Christmas time it becomes even more of a favorite because they bring out Olaf as a surprise guest. This is my nap show every time.

I don't think I've made it through a whole thing yet without falling asleep for at least a few seconds. Their jokes are so funny. Entertaining. But it's always the, , indoor relief, whether it's hot or cold out. . And then you sit down and you're just like, ah, yep, this is nice.

After this we went to go ride Tower of Terror, but it was actually down supposedly. I don't know if it actually was down. But we pivoted and went to rock and roller coaster. This one, we were standing in the standby line and it was saying, I think it was saying it was a 30 to 40 minute wait. And we ended up waiting 25 minutes and then while we were in line for that, we got a lightning lane for Tower of Terror.

The notable thing about rock and roller coaster was the pre-show was closed, and it was just the ride. At this point, the ride is fully closed to be converted over to a Muppets theme. Then we [00:21:00] went to Ride Tower of Terror. Your brother originally wasn't gonna ride this, but then he joined in. So it was the four of us. Not a lot of rides from my mom at Hollywood. But she had fun with our kid.

Yep. She enjoyed spending time with him. After we got off of Tower of Terror, Will's family decided to go back to their hotel room. We did end up missing our, toy story mania Lightning Lane since they went back, but the three of us went and watched the new villain show. This was the first time that all of us had seen it, and I thought it was really good.

Yeah, something new. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, they did a really good job with that. I'm excited to see. If this expands or moves over to the new villains, lands coming. Yeah. I wonder if they'll , keep it the same or be something different after a few years.

Yeah. There's good opportunities to bring in different villains after this our baby loves lightsabers and we had a little mini lights saber that he loves to play with. From home and we went into Galaxy's Edge and , had a little photo shoot with a photo pass photographer, we got some really cute pictures. Then I [00:22:00] went and rode Slinky Dog. With a lightning lane and you mobile ordered dinner for all of us at Docking Bay Oven after I rode Slinky Dog, I met up with you. We ate dinner real quick and then we booked it over to the fantastic seating to meet up with your dad to watch the show.

With the dining package, we got really good seats. Unfortunately with fmic seating, you have to leave your strollers, in stroller parking. Our son was not falling asleep on me like I thought he would.

And he was mad. We ended up having to leave Fantasma early, just between how loud it was and the water sprays. He was not falling asleep. So we left early, grabbed the stroller, he's a fantastic napper in the stroller. As soon as we put him in there, he fell asleep so you and your dad went to go ride Slinky dog with the lightning lanes.

And I picked up a jack, jack num, num cookie then you and your dad rode rise of the resistance with a lightning lane. I had bought your brother a lightning lane. But he didn't come back so you were able to take his lightning lane [00:23:00] and we were able to ride it together while your dad stayed with the baby. That wrapped up our day at Hollywood Studios. We had back to the hotel on the Skyliner name, called it a

Night

so the next day was Wednesday and we had a late start. I was debating between doing lightning lanes or not on this day, I ultimately decided to do them so that we could have a later start.

I don't think we got into the park until about 10 30, 11 o'clock. We slept in, had breakfast in the room, we gave our baby a Mickey Waffle for the first time and he enjoyed it. And then your dad came and picked us up and jocked. Me baby and your brother off at Animal Kingdom, and we went straight over to Kilimanjaro Safaris.

We were hoping the Lions would be out because our baby loves kitties and we were hoping he'd say Kitty. They were hiding. so we didn't get to hear that. But what was cute is after we got off of the ride, we went over to festival with the Lion King.

And we happened to be seated in the lion area before the show starts, they have you go around and make the animal noises they were having us [00:24:00] roar and it was the first time that we heard our baby roar like a kitty. And it was pretty cute. Everyone enjoyed the Festival of the Lion King. It's a really good show with live entertainment we had lunch at SAT Canteen, and that's one of our favorite restaurants an animal kingdom. It might be one of my top restaurants. I I think I got the chimichurri beef with shrimp and noodles.

I think you get the chicken potato bowl, that's what I get. Yes, that one's good. But I don't think I've ever eaten at any restaurant besides that at. Animal kingdom.

That's probably true we're just creatures of habit and we always like to go to sat canteen and we're usually only there for one meal.

Usually we're not there till late. Yeah. I mean, it closes at six, so we're usually not eating a dinner in Animal Kingdom. But after lunch we went to Navi River Journey. This one was a big highlight of our trip, . I like how Navi River journey is a highlight. When we were on it, as we were floating through on the ceiling, there's lily pads and shadows of frogs on them, and our son recognized.

That they were frog footprints. And [00:25:00] he, at called frogs ghee. Throughout the whole ride he was going, gee, gee, you had pointing at him too. After we got off I picked up my annual past magnets that were being offered, and then we did Rider swap for Expedition Everest. You and your brother rode this ride first and then I rode it then we ride or swapped Flight of passage.

You and your brother went first

and my son and I walked around the front of the park. I wanted to watch some more of the Merry Menagerie, which is their Christmas puppets. They're really spectacular. And then I did some shopping. Picked up a couple of Christmas items and then actually during this time I had met up with, one of my travel agent, friends, for the first time .

I went over to Flight of Passage to ride it. You and your brother walked around with baby. He was napping during this time. I think you saw the otters. Oh yeah. We basically watch the otters. Yeah. That's my brother's favorite animal.

Yeah. When I came off, we walked over back over there and I liked seeing them. Then we were going to ride dinosaur, but it was down. So we pivoted [00:26:00] and went to the new Zootopia show and I really liked that.

I never saw, it's tough to be a bug. I'm not a big bug fan in general, and so it kind of creeped me out.

But I personally think it's a good replacement ' I think it's a little bit better for kids. So then once we were done watching that show, dinosaur was open. So you and your brother went to ride it. And I took the baby to go meet Donald Duck.

He had a little Christmas set up, then I rode Dinosaur. And actually throughout the time that dinosaur was closed, I was picking up lightning lanes for it. And then I would get the multiple experience passed. We ultimately ended up not using any of them ' cause we were heading out.

Afterwards. But that's a good tip if you see a ride that's closed and it has lightning lanes available, keep picking them up so that you can get the multiple experience passes and get more Lightning Lane . We were picked up by your dad and headed over to Disney Springs.

, Main thing that we wanted to do there was go to Polite Pig. That is our. All time favorite restaurant within Disney property? That one definitely has been the winner. There's definitely not been a trip you've gone on that We [00:27:00] didn't go to polite pig. No. It would not be a Disney trip for me if Polite Pig was not included. Yep. I love their mac and cheese. I need a trip to Polite Pig in the Lego store.

We were gonna go to the Lego store afterwards, but it was getting a little bit late. We were standing in line at the Lego store with your whole family, and then we decided to get outta line.

We went back to the hotel and called it a night.

The next day. We were rope dropping Epcot. We got to the Skyliner a little bit later and we were definitely further back in line we got in and we went to, Guardians and set up Rider Swap. You rode first and I actually hauled it back to France to go to Leal to get some breakfast for myself, and then went back to Guardians to eat it .

And then I rode Guardians. Guardians is probably my favorite ride on all of Disney property. It's my favorite for Epcot. It's not my favorite for all of them. Space Mountain's. Got that one.

Gotcha. So then afterwards we went over to the Pixar short films to meet up with your family. This was a lightning lane that I got in the early booking window to use as our burner. [00:28:00] Attraction. We actually just scanned in and I'm pretty sure cast members are used to that happening. 'cause they said the show was not happening for another 20 minutes.

We could go walk around and come back or just skip it all together. We walked over to Moana Journey of Water, we decided to not skip around and do everything in a giant loop we started a journey of water, our son had a lot of fun playing in the water. I think he's been enjoying just playing with water in general since then. So then we went on to the Finding Nemo ride. He did not like it. Was that this time or the time before? Both times that he iss been on that ride? He time like's? I don't know why. I don't, I don't know either. He, because like he's got his toy fish bowl looking and thing and he loves that at home. I don't know what about it he doesn't like

We started walking to the World Showcase. We went into Mexico and rode three three Eros. That one was cute. He was entertained. I think this was the first ride that he had actually been held by your parents on a ride. They got to enjoy that ride with him. And then we went over to Norway and rode frozen .

This one ended up [00:29:00] being you, your mom, baby, and me. Your mom was excited for the frozen ride, then at this point, the booth for the festival of the holidays were starting to open up. So I went to the China booth and got the ramen bowls that was really tasty. That was probably one of my favorite things I had. And then we walked through Germany and I got the cheese, cheese fondue bread bowl with some veggies.

That one was okay. Even though I love cheese, it wasn't my favorite. I think your dad got a brat. Your brother got a pretzel. He really enjoyed the pretzel from Germany.

So then we made our way over to Regal Eagle. You were getting lunch there. Yeah. I usually get either lunch or dinner at Regal Eagle. Yeah. Sometimes the festivals are really good for your food allergy and others aren't. This one was not. They had a lot of nuts at at things, which kind of makes sense.

Usually at Christmas people are cooking. Or baking with nuts. So you couldn't really eat at a ton if you have allergies, some boosts had the allergies listed on, the website, but they gave a QR code or a link to it.

But only some of the boosts showed the other boosts. It didn't mean they weren't. Allergy [00:30:00] friendly. But you had to go to the booth, wait in line, and then ask. So if the line's super long, you don't know if you're gonna be able to eat it. You're probably better off just picking one that you know you can.

They've. Improve their allergy menus a little bit. , In the past years we went they didn't even have that link. Yes. So it wasn't improvement upon that, but all the boosts weren't covered. Even with food allergies, I still recommend, asking

You ended up eating. A meal from Regal Eagle. Instead of just eating a boost. Yeah. And while you were eating , your mom and I went into the American Pavilion to watch the Voices of Liberty Caroling Show. And that was really pretty, they did an amazing job.

I really enjoyed watching and listening to their songs. Then we made our way over to Sorin. We had lightning lanes for this. Your parents and brother rode first, but they , misunderstood. Didn't realize we had a lightning lane, so they stood. In standby. Then. We rode it and since they hadn't used their lightning lane, your mom was able to ride again. That was, that one was one of her favorite rides. Yeah, so she [00:31:00] got to ride it twice and then at this point we did Guardians of the Galaxy, this one was the lightning lane, and your dad came, your mom and brother did not ride this, so they hung out with the baby in a little park area.

And then we had bought your brother a lightning lane, but since he didn't use it, I got to use it. So I rode guardians three times that day and I was very happy. After we went over to Remy's. This one we had a lightning lane for, and this was another one that your mom was really excited for because I had taken our baby to Epcot when he was almost three months old by myself, and his favorite was Remy's.

And so everyone was excited to see his reaction. It had switched to 2D. I don't know if it made that big of a difference. Did you, do you get motion sick on Remy's before? No, I don't. I liked it better with the 3D. I don't know why they got rid of it.

I think it was because a lot of people were getting motion sick. Like our friend Nat, she got very motion sick on the ride. Is there something different during the ride? They changed the video so that it wasn't and they added in more food and set [00:32:00] pieces into the ride. Okay. Well I think you'd rather have it some more people can enjoy it. Yeah.

Probably a smart move that gets more people able to do it. I like the smells though, on that one. Yeah, it's a very immersive experience. I it'd be cool to be the person that has to come up with that.

At this point, Will's family was heading back to their hotel room and they took baby back and we got a little bit of a date night. We continue to walk around world showcase. The first thing we stopped at the Canada booth, we got everything at the booth. There was a salmon a steak and the Maple shortbread cookie was by far the best cookie we had had. Yeah, that was good. It was so good that you got the recipe and made it for Christmas cookies. Yeah. And we were excited. 'cause you could actually eat it. Yes. Normally you can't eat the cookies or desserts.

Yeah, usually dessert for tree nut allergies is mostly off limits except for some things. Including the Mickey bars. Yeah. Which a couple years ago, they were safe, but now they're making Tam. Yep. Disney. If you're listening, you need to find a new supplier. Get that in a separate building.

I'm sure there's someone else like me that and can't have Mickey bars anymore. Safely. After we enjoyed, those then we went to the France booth. Then I [00:33:00] stopped at Heim, which is the Jewish pavilion, and got a potato pancake with salmon, and we watched the show telling the story about, Hanukkah. We were originally gonna watch the, candlelight Processional show. But we didn't get in line in time and the line was very long, so we just kind of walked by and got some food at the America Pavilion. They had a Turkey dinner and we split that

The last ride that we did was test track, and this was the new version the first time for both of us. I really like the new version. It fits the area a little bit more, A little bit futuristic. You have any thoughts on Yeah, it's something different.

It's a neat, fun ride. Yeah. I thought it was a good change. I got one more food item. I got the Reuben Croquettes and those were not good. I actually ended up throwing them away. One tip that I have for, festivals. One tip that I have for your Epcot day, if you have the dining plan, save your snack credits to buy food from the booths, they're good value.

They're usually six to $7 per item, [00:34:00] and the average snack is usually three to five. Can you save your snacks from other days to use all of them on that day? Yep. That's what we did. So if you have snack credits from the whole like trip, you can save them throughout the trip and let them stack.

They don't expire at the end of the day. Same thing goes to your meals. If you're booking any vacations with me and you're getting the dining plan, I'll definitely walk you through what makes sense to purchase so we went back to the hotel. Your dad dropped off the baby at the hotel, and then we called it a night.

The next day was Friday. We had a little bit later of a start. We knew we were gonna be having a later night, so we slept in a little bit. And then we went over to Disney Springs. This was your parents' last day. So this is when we went to the Lego store. We each bought some Legos.

We got CA Christmas present. We got him a little train set that has the numbers, then we went over to World of Disney to walk through. It might have rained briefly while we were in there.

Oh, I think you skipped for effect, you bought way more Legos than all of us. Yeah. And you haven't finished them yet? Yeah, you got a stack of Legos from three years of Disney trips? Yeah.

I'm making sure I [00:35:00] have a lifetime supply of Legos. See my problem is my Lego shelves are full. So it keeps me from getting more, I only buy Legos when I'm at Disney then we went over to World of Disney. I found the Olaf sweatshirt that I'd been wanting.

And then your mom was wanting a dessert type thing. And normally I love going to Gideon's cookies, but their line is just way too long to wait in. And Summer house on the lake actually has a really good cookie bar. We went over there and I always pick up a couple of cookies to bring home no matter what.

That's totally part of their business keeping the hype up. Like, oh, there's an hour and a half wait, I gotta go there right away, maybe. So then I think your mom and dad found something for lunch and you, your brother baby, and I went to Blaze Pizza.

I'd never been to the Disney Springs location. We used to have a bunch of Blaze Pizzas around here, they kind of disappeared, didn't they? Yeah. I would never go to the one that was in Disney, 'cause we could go to them around here. But since they've disappeared, we figured it was a good opportunity to get it again.

And then at this point, you, me and baby went back [00:36:00] to the hotel to take a nap because we were going to Mickey's very merry Christmas party. That's when they weren't heading home that day. I think they stayed at Disney Springs a little bit longer, and then were heading home when we got to Magic Kingdom, I think we got there a little bit after four, which is the earliest you can get in with the party tickets. We went straight to Splash Mountain before it got too cold.

And we changed into our Christmas outfits, we had a super nice, magical moment from the cast member. When you do ride or swap, it's supposed to be that someone stands in the standby line and then the second person or group can go through the lightning lane, but the cast member ended up letting both of us go through.

The lightning lane. After that, we went and rode Pirates of the Caribbean and Winnie the Poo, and then it was about seven o'clock and that's when the party started. So we went around to some of the treat trails picked up the cookies and the drinks, it was nice for you. They had allergy friendly treats that you could ask for.

So you got your own versions of cookies. Was it non allergy friendly treats like. Bagged products? Yes, it was. So [00:37:00] both were okay. Well, begged in the sense like one individual kind of fresh cookie, so it was like a fresh ish. Okay.

Yours was Similar to a chips. A hoy bag. Yeah. He had one that kind of tasted like thin mints. It's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. I, but like I found after we went to fume, they realized it was basically the same thing, just different flavors.

Yeah. So you got like a strawberry lemon vanilla or a chocolate, but they're good. Yeah. At least they had an option for allergy friendly. Then we wanted to get a photo pass picture in our. Christmas outfits. We had the matching Old Navy Disney Christmas pajamas. Oh, that's like every fifth family there.

Yeah. There were a lot of families there, but we looked cute. Got our picture match, match matchy. And then you wanted dinner from Pecos Bills? Yep. Again, of course, again. And then we went over to Space Mountain and. I like this overlay where they have a lot of the green and red lights and Christmas rock music.

So you rode that first. And I went and got dinner at Cosmic Rays. Even though that's not normally my first pick of food during a park day. I think they have really good party food and unique options. So then after I ate, I went and rode Space Mountain. And [00:38:00] you stayed with baby. And then we went to go find a spot for the Christmas party special fireworks.

Then after those wrapped up, we went over to seven doors, mine train, and swapped that. And then it was. Almost time for the second parade. That's one of my tips is if you can swing it, try to go to the second parade. 'cause usually families with kids will leave after the fireworks show and they go to the first parade.

And so we ended up deciding to watch it in Frontier Land because we were near seven doors, mind train, and didn't think we would get a spot on Main Street. And we also wanted to ride one more thing. So we watched the parade. I it's cute and a cool nighttime parade. And then we booked it over to Tron for Rider Swap, and this was probably about 1140. It was getting late enough at night that they had been having anyone who wanted to do rider swap, walks through the line together,

and then one person rides and then they swap in the line. Well, our baby was sleeping in the stroller, and I had asked that we not take him out of the stroller if [00:39:00] possible. So they ended up just letting us both go through the lightning lanes, um, separately, I think I was getting on at like 1155 so I made it just in time. But then we wrapped up and took the bus back. We did have to full out the stroller, but I think the baby was so tired. He slept on me on the bus ride home.

The next morning again, we slept in since we were up pretty late. And then we did have to pack up, 'cause this is our last day.

So we spent a little bit of time packing up and then took the skyliner over to Riviera, checked that out. I don't think you had spent too much time at Riviera before. No, I don't think so. Then we ended up sky lining over to Epcot I went in since I had the annual pass.

Bailed on me to go Epcot by yourself. I got us fish and chips to share and we took those over to the beach club and ate those. And then we took the skyliner back to pop century and then we knew we probably weren't gonna get much of a meal.

So we ordered one, one last meal at pop century. That was a little stressful 'cause they were taking forever to make that. Yeah, it was slow that day and. We were, I think our mirrors [00:40:00] connect was coming in about five minutes, and I still hadn't had my meal I had to go there and say, Hey, our ride is coming soon.

Is this gonna be ready soon? They were able to get it ready. Yeah. We were eating as we were walking out the door with all of our stuff. It was, that was hectic. . That was not the way to do it. No, but normally they're quicker than that. Like that shouldn't have been a problem.

I think we ordered it like an hour before we had to leave. Yeah but we were picked up by Amirs Connect. Dropped off at MCO and then had a flight home and nothing notable on that.

Baby was playful, kept us busy. Yeah. Back and forth. Different toys. Yep. Yeah, that's definitely my biggest recommendation is make sure to have a variety of toys that are lots of variety, and make sure some of the toys are new. Yeah. Thank you. He'll be more intrigued with something new for a bit,

Then we went home and that was the end of our trip. Were there any moments that really stood out to you or surprised you?

Christmas party was fun. It was cool to watch our son kinda understand and enjoy parts of it Not just be there actually interact, like the Moana water thing he was actually interacting Anytime he got to interact with things, you could see 'em light up. That was fun. And then it was fun to have a couple hours by ourselves. [00:41:00] Yeah. That was nice. Kind of felt like times we'd gone the past, just us before.

I really enjoyed the Christmas party. That was fun to do as a family. I had done it before solo. Yeah. But I enjoyed doing that as a family. .

And then what would be your advice for someone who's feeling overwhelmed about planning a trip right now?

Use a travel agent. Or be married to one. ' cause I am not a vacation planner. I'd like to just not think about anything on vacations. And so Disney would not be something I would do on my own because you do have to plan it. I just don't think about this stuff.

If you have a travel agent, you don't have to think about it. You can just follow what they say and you can have a good time. You just write the check

what is your next travel adventure? My next travel adventure is for a three day weekend trip down near Atlanta, Georgia for a paintball competition. Very fun. And then I'm working on figuring out how to get you back down to Disney

she's trying very, very hard. The Disney cruise might be on our minds. I think that's on your mind. I'm nervous about my motion sickness on a cruise, so at some point I gotta [00:42:00] try one. That's why we'd be going on a shorter one as a trial.

Well thanks for joining me on this episode. It was fun , reliving our trip together and excited for all of our future family trips thanks for having me on the podcast and jacking my memory of our trip. You are definitely the memory, one of the two of us, so it was fun to reminisce on our fun family trip.

And that wraps up this journal entry. I hope you enjoyed hearing about our moments, surprises, and memories from this trip. If this episode has inspired you to plan your own holiday trip, now is the perfect time to get started, and I'd love to help make that a reality. As a travel agent, I provide personalized planning, expert guidance, and support every step of the way.

So your vacation is as smooth, relaxing, and memorable as possible. You can reach out through the link in the show notes to start planning your next adventure. Be sure to follow along on Instagram at plan with Lindsay Mann, where I'll be sharing tips, photos, highlights, and behind the scenes moments from this trip, giving you even more inspiration for your own [00:43:00] journey.

For even more podcast fun. Head over to 4 0 7 and beyond's flagship podcast Back to the Magic where they give their own tips and tricks through fun games until our next entry keep dreaming, exploring, and savoring every moment. This is the Travel Journal and the pages are just getting started.