Disney World For The Holidays

Is visiting Walt Disney World during the holidays worth the hype (and the crowds)? On this episode of Tray Tables and Time Zones, we take you through everything you need to know about celebrating the season at the happiest place on Earth. From the iconic Mainstreet USA and park decor to holiday event reviews and top planning tips, we're sharing all our best insights for a festive trip!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

This is your captain speaking. If you love travel, and we know you do, buckle your seat belts and keep your tray tables in the upright position. You should be seeing the illuminated fun signs throughout the aircraft, because we're about to take off on a chat of epic proportions. Welcome to the trade tables and time zones. The podcast where travel isn't just about taking vacations. It's about enriching your life. We'll dive into the highs, the lows, and the downright absurd moments that come with exploring the world. Whether it's food poisoning on a long-haul flight, trekking to Mount Everest Base Camp, or traveling to Disney parks worldwide, we cover it all. Serious at moments, but mostly we're here to laugh and share some brutally humanest travel stories. So let's do it one time zone at a time. This is Trade Tables and Time Zones. And this is your host, Josh Bogle.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

What's up, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Trade Tables and Time Zones. I'm your host, Josh Bogle. Man, I still have not recovered from this last weekend. It was uh 4th of July weekend, and I'll talk about this more on a later podcast when I actually go over this trip. But my daughter and I were in LA, Los Angeles, for Anime Expo. She had really been wanting to go. She had some friends that had gone the year before, and so she was really wanting to go. So we decided to go. And uh she and I did two days at Anime Expo, and then we did July 4th at Disneyland, which you just knew if I was in the vicinity of Disneyland or a Disney park, I had to go. And we did. We always really enjoyed Disneyland and uh had a great time. Just one day there. But speaking of Disney, today I was gonna talk a little bit about a trip that we did at Christmas time, this this previous Christmas. We had not been to Disney World, like on an actual trip in a while. We had actually been in Florida several times over the last couple years for cruises and such, but we just hadn't spent more than, you know, a couple of hours at at Disney while we were there, you know, running to go have dinner or downtown Disney or I'm sorry, that shows my age. Disney Springs. We just hadn't really, you know, gone and done a Disney World focused trip. So we decided to do that at Christmas time. We like traveling around the Thanksgiving, Christmas holidays. Tends to be a lot of fun. We've done uh you know, Thanksgiving cruises and things like that. We had never really done a big Christmas trip right up against Christmas at Disney, and so this time that's what we did. We did uh five days and basically ended it on Christmas Eve. But here's the wild thing, and I didn't know that I would ever do this, and it's probably mixed results, but anyway, I never thought that I would stay off park, but this trip we did. And the reason was oh, there's a couple of reasons for it. One, the prices at the park were just insane, and actually for the price to get rooms just at like Caribbean Beach or Coronado Springs or um Port Orleans or any of those, it was just really expensive. And one of the things we were taking into consideration is that our kids are now at such an age that it's just easier and more convenient and just just works better to get them their own room. And so we wanted to get two hotel rooms, basically doubling the price. It just didn't make sense. We'd rather spend that money, you know, on more experiences, fast passes, dinners, things like that, than spend it on the room. So we decided to stay off park. And I was a little freaked out, but I dug around on the internet and Reddit and everywhere else, trying to get a feel for the best places to stay and what would be reasonable, you know, and um ended up staying at the Drury Inn and Suites there by Disney Springs. And they were the rooms were incredibly reasonable, and it included a big breakfast buffet area and and things like that, and we were able to get the two rooms, you know, for us, uh for my wife and I, and then for the kids. And so that way, you know, everybody had more room. We had a couple of bathrooms and things like that. It just made it a lot easier. So, you know, we made the trip, flew from Houston to Orlando. That's you know, that's a that's an easy trip, no big deal. Straight down, direct flight into Orlando, and got there and got checked in at the hotel. And I will say it definitely has a different vibe than staying on the park. Um it's it's a little harder, I think, to get into the Disney spirit being off the park, even though you know you walk into the lobby and there's Disney stuff, and they have they're a partner hotel, so they have, you know, um stands set up to where you can, you know, get tickets and schedule things and and all that. But man, it just doesn't have that same feel. So I was a little I was a little disappointed in that, just just from a I don't know, just that generalized Disney feeling of of kind of excitement when you walk into a Disney hotel. This one didn't quite have that same thing. But I will say, as a review for the hotel, while it may have not been a Disney hotel and have that same kind of vibe, the rooms for going through God knows how many, you know, families and and people on vacation to Disney, uh, they were really in good shape. You know, at least the ones that we had were very clean, were not beat to hell, you know, um, like I've seen some, you know, just just get the crap beat out of them just because there's so many people in them so often. This one was not that way. The rooms were nice, they were spacious. I mean, they were kind of basic, but you know, uh bed was comfortable, it was a place to sleep, you were wiped out at the end of the day anyway. And that, as far as the room goes, I was fine with the rooms. So no complaints there. They were just generic hotel rooms, but like I said, they were clean, they were nice, uh, they were comfortable, uh, you know, no complaints there. Now the room did also come with free breakfast, and I think I don't I think that comes with every room there at the hotel, and uh, it's just included. But it's it's kind of a it's not a continental breakfast. It's you know, they have eggs and pancakes and Mickey waffles and things like that. But it is, you know, a middle of the road hotel breakfast. So it's not, you know, don't expect anything crazy fancy or anything like that. It's gonna be the basic things, right? Sausage, eggs, cereal, yogurt, fruit, uh, like I said, Mickey waffles because they're a partner hotel and those things. So there was plenty of variety, it's just pretty basic, right? It's just the basic foods. You're not gonna, like I said, you're not gonna get anything crazy fancy. But it was free. Or I say free, but it was included with the room. And, you know, for our purposes, for you know, heading downstairs to get ready to go to the parks and wanting to get a little bit of something in your stomach before you go, it was definitely worth it. I mean, that was it was a nice, nice thing. I mean, it was a zoo in there. The the room where they have the buffet and all the tables, it's huge. Like it's really big, but man, it is full tilt zoo, right? Like there's people everywhere, there's kids everywhere, it's loud. I mean, it's not somewhere where you want to go in and sit down and just hang out and enjoy a nice, you know, relaxing breakfast. It's going there, get some food, and get the hell out because it's not the most enjoyable experience. But again, I don't know that I have really anything bad to say about it because it was, you know, included and it was decent. What they had was decent. I mean, it, you know, it worked for what you needed. You need when you needed to fuel up a little bit in the morning, that was the place to do it. And it was right there, ready to do ready to go for you. So, no complaints there. The one area where I will say I I misjudged the transportation. So, as most of you know that that have been to Disney or that are uh familiar with Disney know that you know the hotels have various modes of transportation to get you to the parks, to Disney Springs, things like that, right? They have a big, huge transportation system. They have the buses, you know, they have the monorails, the boats, the skyliner, all those different kinds of things, right? And this hotel being off the park did have bus shuttle service to the different parks, right? So when I initially saw that, I thought, great, you know, this would be an easy way. They also have buses that can get us over there, and it's only going to one hotel, so it won't be that bad, right? And you know, they'll be available and all those things. And so I've just assumed that that would work out well. Well, let me tell you, uh, it didn't work out that great. The biggest issue I think they have with their you know transportation is that they have at least when we were there, they had like two buses, and that was it. And those buses were covering multiple parks, right? So, you know, one bus may take Magic Kingdom and Epcot, another bus would get, you know, uh Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios or or whatever, right? And their runtimes were not that often, right? There were there were they were there was some pretty decent gaps between the pickup times or the drop-off times just because they didn't have the volume of buses. Now I understand they don't they're certainly not gonna have like Disney level volume of of vehicles, but I was a little disappointed that they didn't have a few more going and that the times were a little bit more frequent so that you could come and go. Uh because there were several times where we were ready to leave the park, and there was not a bus coming for, you know, 45 minutes or whatever. And, you know, we didn't want to sit out there and wait 45 minutes for the bus to show up. So we ended up, you know, we would take an Uber back to the hotel. And that was fine. I mean, the Ubers worked great, and and we used them several times, but it's just something that we kind of hoped would work out, thought would work out, and in the end, it really didn't work out that great for us. We ended up using our rental car some and also some Ubers and such. I mean, we used the buses that just wasn't that frequent because they're just they just didn't really align with our schedules. So that's one thing I would be aware of is that if you do stay off the park and the hotel advertises, you know, transportation to and from the Disney parks, if you can find or you can request a schedule of you know when they leave, when they arrive, what parks they go to, things like that, it'll give you a little bit better feel for whether it's going to work for you and is if it's gonna be as frequent as you expect, because that was my failing. I didn't look to see if they did have a schedule. And once I did see it when we got there, I realized pretty quickly that it was gonna be kind of an issue because it just it just wasn't available enough for us. Because we kind of kind we come and go and things change, you know. We don't typically just go to the park, you know, at rope drop and stay at the park all day long, you know, and never leave. You know, we might, you know, come back to the hotel and relax for a little bit or take a swim or do something else and then go back to the parks later or go to a different park, right? And it just didn't really work for that method of of going to the parks and and moving between the parks and the hotel. But lesson learned. Now I know I would be more diligent in checking those schedules the next time if I were to stay off park again. Um, which, you know, I might very well. I again I prefer staying on park, but just this situation kind of put it into a uh uh a point of where we wanted to go ahead and try staying off park, and it was it worked for us because of the kids and the extra room, and it wasn't didn't turn into you know a huge expense. But it was definitely uh an eye-opening experience to learn the things that we had kind of taken for granted are not you know exactly available, even though it kind of is promoted that way, right? So if you were to ask me, would you stay off park again? I would probably say yes, I'd be willing to do it, but I would be very select about where I stayed and would do a ton of research into kind of the schedules and the availability of transportation and things like that. But all that said, if you're looking for a place that's off park and you want to save some money by doing that, and you're not as you're you're more of a go to the park and just stay and just you know go hard all day, and you can kind of plan for those return times on the bus, um, and you're pretty, you know, you're you're pretty set on your timing, then you know, it's probably a great option. And and it would work great for that type of traveler, or just not that type. So anyway, but uh again, no shade at the drewery. I don't really have any complaints. Like I said, it was for a for a hotel that's that's used quite often and um you know has to deal with a lot of people and a lot of families. It presented itself really well. It's a pretty damn good location because it's really close to Disney Springs. You're technically on property, you know, as a partner hotel, you're in that area over there by Disney Springs, where there's some other hotels that are not Disney hotels, you know, quote unquote. So the location's good. Uh, the hotel's clean, definitely got some perks, and I wouldn't have any issues with it. It just, like I said, didn't particularly work with us. As for the parks, we had a blast. I mean, yeah, they were crowded, but I don't think they were as crowded as I thought they would be that close to Christmas. But it was great to be kind of in the holiday spirit, and the, you know, the Christmas spirit and getting to see the parks all decked out in the Christmas holiday, you know, decorations. You know, it's it's always one of those big thrills for me when, you know, Main Street USA is all decorated up, decked out in lights and ornaments and all those things. Um, it really adds to it. And to even take that one step further, we went ahead and did Merry Holiday Party and really enjoyed that. Had a had a really great time, you know, with the crowds being reduced. We got some rides in and you know, went around and picked up the cookies, had the cookies that they give out, and you know, the hot chocolate. Even though you're in Florida, you still just take it because you know, like I said, it kind of puts you in the mood. And so that was a lot of fun. Uh the kids enjoyed it, you know, being less crowded and and having more availability and kind of the exclusivity of it. And we got some cool party-specific shirts and pins and things like that. Since I'm a huge pen nerd, I love that stuff. So that was really fun. The rest of the park was parks were great. We spent a uh a really a pretty big amount of time at Hollywood Studios and finally got to ride Cosmic Rewind, which was awesome. I was surprised that I liked it as much as I did. I was a little nervous before we got on, and not because it's a roller coaster, but because of the cars, you know, the the ride vehicles independently rotating, you know, toward how it rotates into turns and things. I didn't know how my body would react to that. I don't get motion sickness really, and I don't I don't you know I don't get seasick and I don't get car sick or any of those things. But sometimes my body is not a big fan of you know of the spinning type thing. And so I was worried that that would affect it. But we got on that ride, and I was actually riding with my daughter in in my little car, and she was really hoping it would be one way or an one way or another by Blondie the song to to ride to. And so we it just so happened that was the song we got. And so she's just singing her heart out next to me. We're flying around through this this roller coaster, and uh it was an absolute blast. I mean, I think it's one of it's up there for one of my favorite rides at Disney Parks, you know, worldwide. It was it was an absolute blast and really, really enjoyed it. And of course, you know, partook in some, you know, big like the Oreo cookies and cream funnel cakes while we were over there and um got some cool pictures and um of course rode Minnie and Mickey's uh runaway train because I love that ride. Because if you if I haven't mentioned this before, I am a giant fan of the 2000s, I don't remember the exact dates for when they were being produced, but the Mickey shorts, right? Which is that cartoon artistic style of that ride. And I I just love those cartoons. I think they're so funny, they're so well done, and so anytime there is something related to that, uh, that style, I'm just all in. And for the ride to be as good as it is, um, it's it's a must for me at this point. You know, it's it's definitely become a must ride when it's available because I I just love everything about it. And of course, we finally, with that also, we finally got to go to uh do Rise of the Resistance in Florida. We had done it in California several times, but hadn't, again, you know, like I was saying, we hadn't been to Disney World in forever, it seemed like. And so we were clicking off rides that have been around for a while now that we just had never gotten around to doing because we had been going to Disneyland or to Tokyo Disney. You know, we had had other places had kind of taken those taken those spots away from Disney World. So it was great to be back, but it was also an opportunity for us to see and ride a lot of the things that had changed over the last couple of years at Disney World. And of course we did some of the other favorites. Of course the Magic Kingdom everything's a favorite I mean it's just like a wonderland of classic rides that I love you know Big Thunder, It's a Small World, Jungle Cruise. I mean I did I I love it all. Hell we did Autotopia You know my wife hated that ride. I don't think she'd ever been on it. And they had their car was just constantly bouncing off the little guide rails and she was just like God it's so tedious and it's loud and agreed it is loud and uh so I don't think she was a big fan of it. But you know we just wrote everything and just had a good time and and really really enjoyed the parks. It was nice to be back because Disney World will always have a special place in my heart because it is the first park I ever went to as a kid. It was you know my kids' first park it was my wife's first park. You know of course we kind of grew up middle middle to southeast US and that's obviously the closest and easiest for for us to go to as as we were growing up. So that'll always you know have a really special place in my heart and it's it's different because it's just so huge. It's and it just keeps growing all the time I mean it's crazy uh to think all the changes that are coming here in the near future with the you know car's land and Magic Kingdom and you know there's another uh resort going up that's almost done and I think that one's going to be DVC though um if I hear if I remember hearing that correctly but anyway it's always great to go back and you know because of Disney being so large now and having so many different entities and experiences out there sometimes you know magic kingdom and and Disney World kind of uh slip down just because there's other things to go experience that we haven't gotten to yet or you know there's something that we just love so much like Disney Cruise line that you know a lot of times when we think of doing some type of Disney vacation um you know Disney Cruise is the first thing that comes to mind. So it was great to be back at the parks I really enjoyed being in Orlando again. It's always fun to see some of the the greatest hits and also see all the new stuff and um that was a lot of fun especially at Christmas time. That was what made it even better. Lastly you know I had to hit a couple of restaurants that I just adore going to one our our thing is Crystal Palace for lunch on Magic Kingdom Day is just it's a must right like I love Crystal Palace I love Winnie the Pooh and so it's got everything right you go in it's hot you go in for lunch you cool off you get to have a nice buffet uh dinner or I'm sorry you get to have a nice buffet lunch and you know I I like the food there I like the service I love the setting you know I think Crystal Palace is a beautiful restaurant and you know being right there in the heart of Magic Kingdom is just so great. So I love going to Crystal Palace and it was great to be back there for sure. And then a restaurant that we seem to get to hit every time we're in Orlando no matter what if there is a sliver of time that I can squeeze in a trip to this restaurant if we're in Orlando I do it. And um you'll hear more about that one in in a in another podcast but of course of course we made dinner reservations at Boma because I'm not a huge fan of the Animal Kingdom Lodge. I mean I it's it's a it's a beautiful resort don't get me wrong and I love going to see the animals and things like that. I'm not a big fan of the location it feels really kind of remote and so you know it's not ever been a top choice for like where to stay when we're at the hotel when when we're at the resorts but I guarantee you I will drive my ass to Animal Kingdom Lodge to get to Boma because I love that place. It's I love so many of the dishes there that I I just I can't miss it. And my kids love it and my wife loves it. It's just always so good so good. The only issue that I will bring up with Boma with Crystal Palace hell with any Disney buffet is that people have a real lack of understanding about how these types of buffets work. They all think or a lot of people seem to think that you have to get in line and start at the very beginning and trudge along the and buy the food you know one thing at a time in order you know and pass God knows how many things that you don't actually want to eat or get but they just stand in the line and just kind of shuffle through well that's not how it works you know I mean if I want something that's on a different part of the buffet I'm just going straight to that little section and I'm gonna get that food and then I'll move on to the other section and get whatever food that is and so on and so forth. And every time somebody gives you like the dirty look or the you know stink eye or whatever because you're stepping up there and grabbing something and then stepping back out but I'm going back to my table now and enjoying my food while your shit is getting cold on your plate because you're standing in line and just mindlessly following along past all these things that you don't care about getting because for some reason you think you have to stand in the line. Just go get what you want it's like that at every buffet at Disney hell on the Disney on Disney cruise line it's the same way you go into cabanas and people like right when they walk in they line up right there and there's tons of other stations and the food repeats itself further down the line in cabanas on the cruise ship and people just stand in this line and think they have to go down the whole thing and it's just madness. And then they give you dirty looks like if you're reaching in to grab something or whatever but they're just standing there. They're not they're just in a line because they think they need to be in a line so it's just wild. I've never figured it out but it happens every time and I noticed it of course on this trip you know at Christmas time it was you know just a bunch of people just standing there you know losing the will to live waiting to get to something that they actually want instead of just going and getting it. You know and they created these huge lines where people wait have to wait forever to get anything and I'm just back and forth. I've already got second plate third plate gone to get dessert gone to get soup whatever and and these people are just fighting waiting to get up to one little section. So anyway that's my little rant about buffets at Disney I love them but the people that get in that people that just mindlessly stand in lines at a buffet drive me insane just my little two cents but back to the trip overall it ended up being a fabulous trip Disney never disappoints you know I always I always leave with a few little bitches and moans about something you know uh here and there but in the end Disney does it so well you know the cast members are great the rides are enjoyable the surroundings you know the atmosphere is so great the theming is great it's just it's always good to be at a Disney park right it's always enjoyable and like I said before while there are a lot of good things about staying off park um you know the the savings on money um the ability like you know at least for us to get additional rooms and have more room to move around um and such was was really worth it but in the end I still think I would take staying on park 99 times out of a hundred just because if nothing else it just feels good right it feels right it's you're kind of immersed like in Disney people always talk about you're immersed in the bubble right you're surrounded in the Disney bubble and you know whatever happens in there is different than the outside world and that is true even at a hotel that is right down the street from Disney Springs and the parks and everything else by it not being part of Disney it just there's there's something different about that right it just doesn't feel the same. So like I said if you're a stay off the park person you know the Drury in is a great option I I would not hesitate to stay there again but if I had my druthers I would stay on park um the next time we were in Orlando for for a true park vacation well I think that's probably gonna about wrap this one up I uh I've been trying to keep them a little bit shorter I tend to get long-winded and so I'm trying to be more mindful of that and keep them a little bit shorter a little bit easier to manage uh for everybody listening so again it's great to be back I'm loving putting podcasts back out again I've got uh several other trips to talk about and of course the ramble is uh about uh being an uphill athlete is is definitely got more uh episodes in it in fact I had some things happen today with that and so I can't wait to share those with you and continue to uh bring you on that journey um as we uh as I move through uh getting ready for another another push in Nepal and uh try to round out my my time as you know but before it's all gone of being able to uh to get up into the mountains and get out on the trails and and kind of see those those mystical things that are out there to uh to experience and to try to try to uh have some have some conquer some personal goals on that so can't wait to share all that with you and of course more trips and and things uh to look forward to uh there's a Disney trip in there another a Disney cruise line trip in there there's a trip to Paris and London that we'll be talking about um so all types of stuff coming up so again I appreciate everybody listening and and being coming back to uh to listen to the new episodes uh I know I kind of hung y'all out to dry for a while there but hopefully you'll uh you'll forgive me and and come back and listen to more and uh hang in there with me because I I really enjoy sharing all these things with you all and uh and putting them out there hopefully you know there's tidbits in in each episode that maybe somebody can take and and use or make them think about something and and helps them uh have a better travel experience no matter what it may be. So anyway look forward to uh continuing these conversations and I will see you guys on the next episode. Thanks bye.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

This has been Trade Tables and Time Zones worldwide travel is one of the funnest things you can do in life and it's our passion to talk about the good the bad the funny and the ugly nothing is off limits. We hope you've enjoyed the show if you did make sure to like rate and review we'll be back soon but in the meantime find us on Instagram at Trade Tables and TimeZones. And for questions or comments send your email to tradesandtimes at gmail.com take care and see you next time on Trade Tables and Time Zones