Christmas Family Trip, Pre-Trip Report

It's been a long time since I've posted on here. I meant to post my pre-trip earlier, but we've been busy planning and making reservations. So here goes.

We are leaving in 5 days for WDW. Our DD is working in the College Intern program, so we wanted to spend Christmas as a family. Side note - she's been loving it (who wouldn't?) despite getting a touch homesick now and then.

We are staying at Art of Animation and are looking forward to something new since most of our last few trips have been to Shades of Green.

We have ADR's at Chef Mickey's, 50's Prime Time, Crystal Palace, Tuskers, Be Our Guest and San Angel Inn.

For special events, we are doing Fantasmic (a standard), the Osborne Lights, MVMCP, the Candlelight Processional (Hello, Trace Adkins), Illuminations, and Cirque de Soleil. We may also try to get in a viewing of The Hobbit at the Dine In Theater. We ate there opening week for POTC4 and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I went ahead and prepaid for the PhotoPass again this time. Loved it last time and am looking forward to using the Plus option this time with the character dining and ride photos.

We are also doing the DDP for the very first time this trip. It's just never been anything that seemed like it was suited for us, staying at SOG all the time. But this time it fits perfectly with our schedule.

Anyway, I'm excited. The DW has been counting down for two months. DD calls us every morning and yells how many days are left. Even DS is a bit excited.

I look forward to sharing the trip report with everyone.

How exciting to reunite with your DD! Will she be working during your trip or is the program completed for her? I am struggling with my DD leaving. Any advice for handling her departure would be most welcome. Sigh.

She is working but only two days while we are there. We drove her there when she checked in and got her moved into the apartment and all set up. Then we lost her because she was running around with all her new friends having fun.

We stayed a couple of extra days just in case the homesick blues set in, but she really was too excited for that (until she'd been there about a month).

As for advice, for her - just keep talking about how exciting it's going to be. For you - begin planning your trip down to visit as soon as you can.

I'm going to PM you!

Family togetherness at Christmas combined with a trip to Disney World - can't get any better than that!!

The planning never stops.

Today, we added two more ADR's - one at Tokyo Dining and one at Cap'n Jack's in DTD. We also cancelled our second reservation at Be Our Guest that was a fallback reservation.

Very exciting for your daughter to have you all there for Christmas! Thanks for reporting.