Carnival Sunshine Review, Part 2: Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Partyfeatured

How do you spend exactly one full day somewhere?

I should probably hold some expertise in that by now, with all of the cruises we take and my penchant for short weekend travel.

But when it comes to being in Disney, one day is never enough, and off the bat, I knew it wouldn’t be wholly satisfying.

I was up earlier than I wanted to be. Stephanie had an early morning flight in and Mom woke me up to talk to Stephanie on the phone long before I wanted to face daylight. I decided to stay up after she took off, taking my time in getting dressed and ready for the day.

We wouldn’t leave for the airport until Stephanie had her luggage, so while she made her way southward, Mom and I headed to the Orlando Premium Outlets to check out the inventory at Tory Burch. It was a Friday morning and the clouds were angry and gray, which meant we wouldn’t be fighting crowds on this visit.

We have a Tory Burch outlet at home, but the inventory is, for some reason that I can never really pinpoint, always better in Orlando. And with an extra 30% off on top of everything, I found a sweet deal on a beautiful black leather handbag to take on our Europe trip this spring.

After Tory was the Cosmetics Company Store to check in on some MAC pigment and then the Disney Character Warehouse, which liquidates excess inventory of souvenirs. Seriously, if you need souvenirs for family, friends, classmates, whatever? They have much of what’s sold in the parks at heavily discounted prices. Hoodies? $12.99. Coloring books? $1.99. Vintage style Disney pins will only set you back $0.75, and if you’re looking for a gigantic stuffed Olaf that’s larger than your toddler, they have those, too.

The skies opened up just as we were about to leave for Orlando International, where Stephanie’s flight had landed, as we checked out at the Disney outlet. If you’ve been through Florida storms before, you know they’re generally pretty intense, but they’ll let up within a few minutes. So we waited out the storm while Stephanie waited for some pretty delayed luggage.

It took just under a half hour to get to the airport from the outlets, and Stephanie’s luggage didn’t appear on the carousel until we were just about there (and it was soaking wet, too – she sent a not so happy Tweet to American Airlines for that one). We all reunited at Arrivals and set out for…Wal-Mart. Florida Wal-Mart’s are their own breed. They’re huge. They’re insanely busy. And they have literally everything (including some super discounted but probably not licensed souvenirs). We stocked up on everything we didn’t pack (liquid hand soap, shampoo and conditioner, cheap champagne…you know…just the essentials), grabbed a couple of sandwiches at Subway and headed back to the hotel.

For Hanukkah this year, I bought Mom and Stephanie tickets to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. Our pre-cruise day in Orlando coincided with the last day of the party, it’d been a few years since we’ve visited Magic Kingdom and we love the Halloween party, so we were all really excited for this party. But with Stephanie up at 4:00 am to catch her flight and Mom and I still catching up on rest from our busy travel day the day prior, we knew we needed to take an afternoon break to be able to take full advantage of the party. So Stephanie took a nap while Mom and I grabbed some fro-yo and wandered around the hotel.

We’ve had at least half a dozen stays at Gaylord hotels over the past seven years or so. It’s been awhile since our last one (which I think came in 2012), but no matter how much time passes, there’s still something about this hotel that evokes a sense of coming home. And no matter how many times we visit, I still find myself in constant awe and delight. The attention to detail that went into designing that vast atrium filled with greenery is really something to take in, especially when it’s decked out for Christmas.

The party started at 7:00 pm, but our tickets granted us access to Magic Kingdom beginning at 4:00 pm. We wanted to take advantage of as much time as possible as we could in the park, so I strapped on my fanny pack (…seriously. That’s my biggest Disney tip, btw. I never visit Disney without it) and we headed out.

Parking set us back an additional $20 (it’s not included in your party fare), but an unseasonably cool day in Florida combined with the early closing time for the park meant low crowds (they kick out anyone without a party wristband at 7:00 pm). We parked at the TTC, hopped on the ferry launch and enjoyed a quiet boat ride to the park.

We’ve never visited Disney during the holidays and Magic Kingdom certainly didn’t disappoint. I hadn’t really felt that holiday season festivity this year. Between working through peak season at work and the unseasonably warm Chicago winter we’ve been experiencing, on some level, my subconscious still thought it was Fall. But walking down Main Street, decked out in holiday décor and blaring Christmas tunes from every speaker, it was a new kind of festive. We climbed up the stairs to the platform at the railway and just took it all in.

I stopped every few feet as we inched towards Cinderella Castle, taking pictures of everything and nothing, alternating between my real camera, my phone camera and the new instant camera Stephanie got me for Hanukkah.

We decided to do a quick ride on Haunted Mansion before grabbing an early dinner, taking a few minutes to appreciate the new updates to the queue (and noting how bad we’ve gotten at figuring out which wall will open to the ride).

After we rid ourselves of the hitchhiking ghost trying to follow us home, we headed towards Frontierland and Pecos Bill’s for a quick dinner. Pecos Bills used to have decent burgers with an awesome toppings bar, but underwent a pretty significant menu change since our last visit, now boasting generic Mexican cuisine and a new and different (but still impressive) toppings bar with plenty of different salsa options, cheese and even guacamole.

Chicken Fajitas and Fixin’s

Full on fajitas and anticipation for the hours to come, we headed out to go on as many rides as we could get in. We walked right onto just about everything (except for Peter Pan’s Flight, which has a new never-ending queue), stopping every once in awhile to grab some cookies and cocoa in between rides. The pamphlet for the party mentioned sugar, oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies, but we only found sugar cookies and snickerdoodles. If cookies and cocoa don’t do it for you, you can also get apple slices and apple juice.

We traversed from Frontierland to Fantasyland to Tomorrowland, going on as many rides as we could get in. Some of them were new to us (Voyage of the Little Mermaid). Others were longstanding favorites. But within a couple of hours, we’d gone on every ride we wanted to.

Once we’d finished on our last ride (Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, for those of you keeping track at home), we headed towards the castle for the fireworks show.

The Christmas party fireworks were less impressive than the Halloween ones. The score isn’t as moving and it’s a bit shorter. But no one does fireworks quite like Disney does and even if it’s not the best we’ve seen from them, it’s still pretty fantastic.

We headed back into Fantasyland and Frontierland after fireworks, going on a few more rides, sipping on cocoa to keep warm and doing some last minute holiday shopping for souvenirs.

We didn’t intend to stay the entire time (the park shuts down at midnight), but even tired, cold and sore, we managed to make it through to the very end of the party, exiting the park to a fake snow shower on Main Street USA.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I was deliriously tired and I was pretty sure my contact lenses were stuck to my eyes (thanks in large part to the psuedo glaucoma test I got when the bottles of champagne all pop in Mickey’s Philharmagic), so I sat on the balcony enjoying the last bits of the nighttime quiet of the Gaylord Palms while Mom and Stephanie packed, and then I finally passed out around 2:30 in the morning.

Vacation? Sleep? Yeah, not this time.