Christmas & Santa at Disney Springs
After spending the prior several weekends either traveling or decorating for the holidays, we were ready to get out of the house and get some holiday cheer. Ever since I can remember, we have singled out one weekend day in December to head to Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs) for a visit and photo op with the big man himself… Santa. We also take advantage of our Disney Springs visit by heading over a little early to enjoy breakfast at Wolfgang Puck Express. Lucky for us my aunt and uncle, Jim & Mary Langlois, and my cousin Dan and his wife Sara and their family were all down visiting from Wisconsin for the week and agreed to meet us for brunch. It was an absolutely beautiful morning and a great opportunity to catch up and hear about their Disney visit and visit with the kids.
After we finished eating we grabbed a few photos of all of the kids together, with the one above being the best of the bunch, and they headed back to their hotel to swim while we made our way to see Santa. One of my favorite things about the Santa experience at Disney Springs is that they now utilize a FastPass type system, giving you a pager that buzzes you to come back when your wait time is around 20 minutes. We were extremely thankful for the FastPass system due to the fact that it was a 150 minute wait as soon as Santa arrived.
We took our pager and made our way around Disney Springs, checking in on our normal stops like the Co-Op shop, Once Upon a Toy, and more. The boys also got to take a train ride on the little train outside of the pin store. There was also a Holiday Tree Trail that they set up this year that had a bunch of trees themed around the different Disney animated movies. All of our activities took just enough time to bring us back to a return spot just in time to get in line for the boys to see Santa. Although we had enough cameras in hand to document a space flight, we didn’t actually capture any great photos of the boys with Santa (our best attempt highlighted below).
We waved goodbye to Santa and started making our way to the car through the Lego Store. The boys were sure to remind us of the Lego sets they absolutely had to have for Christmas. By the time we had circled the store twice, we were done with our morning at Disney Springs.
When we left the house we didn’t actually plan much past the Santa experience, but since it was such an amazing day, and we still wanted more holiday fun, we agreed to set the Waze app to the Contemporary Resort to grab a late lunch/early dinner at the Contempo Cafe. We also wanted to check out the gingerbread house and decorations around the resort. It was the perfect stop for dinner and a place for the boys to run around. Hunter wanted to get a gingerbread cookie after dinner, and Sawyer insisted that he wanted one, too. I recommended that Sawyer try a bite of Hunter’s and, if he liked it, we would get him his own. Chalk one up for the parents who were right (maybe for the first time this year), and it turned out that neither of them actually liked the cookie (no disrespect to the wonderful culinary team at the Contemporary).
Being on the fourth level of the resort, I took the boys outside overlooking the monorails and the Magic Kingdom where we took some photos. Emily came out to meet us, and as I saw her coming toward us, I could tell that she was brewing yet another one of her plans. She had already researched the FastPass situation at Magic Kingdom and had us booked at the Under the Sea with Ariel and Friends ride. Before I knew what was happening, we were making the walk from the Contemporary to the Magic Kingdom.
Since it was a Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party night, the park was closing at 7 pm. At the time we agreed we were going to the park, it was just before 5 pm. I am glad Emily recommended the idea because we made the most out of our two hour visit. We took a spin on the People Mover as the sun was setting on the Magic Kingdom, providing an amazing view of the castle as we passed. We rode one of Sawyer’s favorites, the Ariel ride, and then hustled back to Adventureland where we rode the Magic Carpets and our favorite, the Jingle Cruise. For those who haven’t visited Magic Kingdom during the holidays, they convert the Jungle Cruise into the Jingle Cruise, where they update not only the ride elements, but also the corny jokes that make the ride truly magical. We had an awesome skipper that made us laugh with the Christmas themed script changes as well as his impromptu jokes.
We used every last minute of time making our way back down Main Street just after 7 pm. This was our first time this year seeing the Magic Kingdom castle decked out in the holiday lights, so we had to capture a few photos of that as well. It was the perfect Sunday at Disney and really got us into the holiday spirit.
