Osborne lights one last time... oh and quite a lot of shopping too! Day 7 - going home :(

Wednesday 23rd Dec into Christmas Eve!

So today we were going home :(

We got up and finished packing our bags, we weighed them and they were both pretty close to the weight limit! 

We left our bags with bell services and headed to Disney Springs once again; we got a final lunch at Earl of Sandwich before doing a bit more shopping!

We got some pins and some chocolate at Ghirardelli; then we picked up some small lego toys as part of a Christmas gift. We also got the dog another new collar at the Harley Davidson shop.

We went back to the hotel and got ourselves a hot chocolate and a coffee before collecting our bags.

We set off for the airport, filling up the car with gas along the way - total of $36 which was a bargain!

We were a little early so once we had gone through security we decided to get dinner at the Outback before our flight. I was very puzzled by the glass....

The incoming flight was late and so we were delayed slightly; we ended up being about 30 minutes late landing. 

The flight back was ok, we didn’t eat the hot meal as we decided to try and get some sleep - we struggled as always in economy and I think we will probably upgrade on our next trip so that it is more comfortable.

The breakfast was the same as last time, although the croissant was less cold and so was edible this time. 

We landed at around 8am and had collected bags etc and got back to our car just after 8.45 which wasn’t too bad. 

We weren’t sure what the traffic would be like especially as it was Christmas Eve morning but amazingly we had no problems at all, we got home just after 11 and went straight to the kennels to collect the dog.

We waited until around 4pm before braving the shops to buy some fruit and veg etc and then we put up our Christmas tree before bed!

Osborne lights one last time... oh and quite a lot of shopping too! Days 5 and 6!

Monday 21st Dec

This morning we had a late start after being out last night; we decided to head over to Disney Springs again for lunch at Earl of Sandwich, this time we both had the Earl’s Club.

We took a look in some of the shops for a new phone case for Rob but couldn’t find one he liked. We also looked at adding pins to my collection but I decided to wait and get them another day.

We decided to go to Walmart to look around, we particularly like looking at their Christmas decorations which are amazing! 

We didn’t find everything we wanted so we tried a second Walmart and a Target! We did manage to get Rob an Otter box case and got a nice table runner. 

We went back to our room for a while and then got pizza for dinner at NYPD again, before heading across to Disney Springs to watch Star Wars in 3D. 

The movie started at 8 but we arrived at around 7.15 and managed to find 2 seats on the aisle which was good, it filled up pretty quickly and people were struggling to find seats together.

One thing we found odd about watching a movie in the US was the cheering and clapping that occurred during the show. We also had a guy and his child who did not sit in their seats for the movie - for some reason they stood just above the entrance and the child wandered around which was slightly distracting….

Tuesday 22nd Dec

Today was our last full day :( 

We decided to visit the Premium Outlets at  I-drive, we don’t tend to visit these as often as we can never find anywhere to park. 

We had a wander around but didn’t buy very much; I got a pair of jeans at US Polo Association and Rob got a pair of noise cancelling headphones at the Bose shop. 

We had Five guys burgers for lunch, stupidly we both ordered fries when one portion would have been enough to share!

We headed back to the hotel - passing massive queues of cars headed into the outlets……getting here early was clearly a good idea. 

We decided we should spend some time packing which was a huge challenge due to the lego and the fact that we had bought several pairs of shoes between us! 

We managed to get most of our stuff packed and left the rest for the next morning.

This evening I wanted to watch Holiday Wishes so we drove to the Ticket and Transportation Centre and parked the car. We took the resort monorail to the Grand Floridian and got a couple of pictures.

While we were there we saw Mickey and Minnie dressed in cute Christmas outfits but they had a really long line so I didn’t stop to meet them.

I bought myself a gingerbread and chocolate Mickey head at the shop before heading across to the Contemporary. 

We decided to get food at the contempo cafe, for some reason Rob ordered the caprese flatbread and apparently it did not taste good :(

To end the evening we watched holiday wishes from the stairs next to the viewing platform as there were already lots of people waiting. It was quieter and we got a much better view - they seem to have stopped playing the soundtrack for the moment. 

Osborne lights one last time... oh and quite a lot of shopping too! Days 3 and 4!

Saturday 19th Dec

Another breakfast at the hotel, I think I just had fruit and pastries today. 

We decided to go back to Premium Outlets at Vineland Avenue again. I got a long cardigan from Ann Taylor and some more sketchers to add to my collection….I really must start wearing some of the new ones! 

I got a polo shirt at US Polo Association and then we decided to get lunch at McDonalds across the road. 

We had a fairly lazy afternoon and then got ready for our dinner at Sanaa. 

On arrival at the lodge there was a group singing Christmas songs in the lobby which was nice, we were early so we watched them for a while and then sat on the chairs until our reservation time. 

We had the bread service as usual and then I had Tandoori Chicken whilst Rob had Butter Chicken and Beef with basmati rice.

The dessert trio has changed slightly - no banana cheesecake instead it has been swapped for a lemon tart (I think). I stuck with my chocolate mousse which was delicious as normal. 

With our DVC discount I think we paid around $80 including tip.

Sunday 20th Dec

We had an early start this morning so we skipped breakfast at the hotel. We arrived at Hollywood Studios at about 9.15, thankfully the line for bag check wasn’t too bad and we hired a locker on our way in to store our jumpers and lights for later.

We got ourselves a super healthy breakfast of cookie and muffin at Starbucks, we checked out the wait for Rock n Rollercoaster and it was already 50 minutes so we decided to head over to Star Tours instead and got straight on with no wait. 

Next up we decided to check out the Launch Bay, it was a 10 minute wait for the movie and then we got in line to meet Chewbacca. It took about 25 minutes and then we took our time looking at the art and toys that were available to buy….we could have bought so many things but they wouldn’t have fitted in our bags!

We took a walk down towards Toy Story and popped in to meet Sorcerer Mickey (he had less than 10 min wait) and then we saw Santa Goofy (probably about 15 minutes for him). 

I bought myself a green Osbourne lights top and we rode Star Tours again with FP, the standby wait was now up to 50 minutes. We dropped our shopping in our locker and went to check in for our lunch reservation at Sci Fi.  

Lunch was good, I got a turkey sandwich and Rob had the special burger and we both had a sundae for dessert. It’s not fancy food by any stretch but we’ve always enjoyed our lunches here.

We had a little wait before our Toy Story Midway Mania FP - and no surprises here…Rob won again! 

Next up at around 4pm was Tower of Terror with FP, I’m reasonably sure we stopped for a drink at some point as well.

After riding ToT we went to see if there was anything available for a 4th FP and amazingly we got Rock n Rollercoaster! 

It wasn’t until 5.40 so we had a little bit of time, we decided to ride the Great Movie Ride. The wait was posted as 30 minutes and it was a little bit shorter; we got the cowboy scene which I hadn’t seen before. 

We headed back across to Rock n Rollercoaster but it was experiencing technical difficulties so we went to see if we could catch the start of the Osborne lights - unfortunately we missed the start by about 1 minute!

The lights were packed so we made our way through the crowds and decided to head back across to RnR in case it was fixed. For some reason our My Disney Experience app decided to stop working at this point which was a pain as it meant we couldn’t easily check wait times.

We got back across the park and it was working again so we used our FP and were on the ride in just a few minutes. I did check for FP after we were done and got one for the 2nd Fantasmic which we ended up not using. 

We got our proper camera from our locker and headed back to the lights to try and take some better photos, they were already much less busy which made it more enjoyable to walk around. I lost count of the number of photos we took for other people!

Once we were finished we put the camera away and got a drink from Starbucks which we drank whilst sat on a wall listening to the music at the dance party. 

It started to get a little cooler so I put on my Osborne lights top and Rob put on his Christmas jumper…!

We went back to the lights again and just watched them for a while - we ended up staying until they were turned off at 10pm. I think we spent a good couple of hours here over the evening. 

We followed the crowd out and went to find a spot for the fireworks, this was probably the only part of the day that dragged - I felt that an hour was too long to wait for them. Having said that the fireworks were great and I was glad we stayed, and in the end I felt like we got reasonable value out of our 1 day tickets.