November 2025: A Magical Birthday Weekend: Day 4, The End

Day 4: Monday November 17, 2025

You’d think that with two late nights in a row, I’d sleep in a bit. I really didn’t. I was awake before 7. After a bit of social media time, I got up and started packing and getting ready for the day. Our getaway was nearly over.

About 9 we did the final check of the room and headed for the rental car. It didn’t take long to load the luggage and program the GPS, and then we were off to the Contemporary Resort for breakfast.

At the Contemporary we parked and headed inside, where I checked in at Steakhouse 71 from the app. Within a couple minutes, I got the text that our table was ready, so we headed inside and were seated a couple minutes later.

Breakfast here was excellent. Service was great and both of us really enjoyed our food. Nick got the prime rib hash and I got the pumpkin spice seasonal pancakes. We would absolutely do breakfast here again.

After we finished breakfast we headed upstairs. First stop? Checking out the gingerbread creation.

 
We then spent some time just killing time browsing the store and then taking in the views from the platform and the walkway to Bay Lake Tower. It was a beautiful day.

Eventually we got tired of some of the people hanging out along the walkway, so we headed down to the second floor and grabbed seats in this really quiet area to kill another 20 minutes or so.

Sooner than I would have liked, it was time to head out. We worked our way down to the ground floor, where we headed out to snag a picture of the big Christmas tree outside.

 
Then it was off to the parking lot where we found the rental car and headed for the airport. This Disney trip has come to an end.

Even with a stop for fuel, it was an uneventful drive back to the airport. It is SO different, though, driving in now with terminal C open. But we made it back to the terminal A/B garage and got the rental car returned. Then we headed up the series of escalators and found our way to the Southwest kiosks, where I printed paper boarding passes. We then headed for security, where we found almost no one in the Pre-Check line. Needless to say, we were through security and headed for the tram to the gate in minutes.

Once over at the gate area we grabbed lunch. I got a sub from Jersey Mike’s. I have no idea what Nick got. I think Nick ate then. I held onto my sub to eat a little closer to flight time. While sitting in the food court, I overheard a person behind me telling the person he was with that going to Boston is on his bucket list. That one definitely left me scratching my head.

We eventually made our way to the gate area. Boarding began eventually and…it was a cluster. First we had to delay boarding to wait for one last flight attendant. Then we had to pause boarding part way through while they swapped out the flight attendant that had arrived late with a different flight attendant. Nick and I were mid Bs, despite having Early Bird Check-in, but on this kid heavy flight, Nick somehow found exit row seats together, which made him happy. And most importantly to me, we found bin space over said seats.

We were a few minutes late leaving MCO because of the boarding chaos, but it was an uneventful flight up to BWI and we got in just a few minutes late.

In Baltimore, deplaning was fast, so we still had enough time to eat at Chick-fil-A on our way to our next gate. When we got to our next gate, all the way at the end of the terminal, we discovered it was an incredibly light flight…approximately 45 passengers for the entire plane.

Needless to say, the entire plane was boarded in approximately 10 minutes, and we had no issues finding bin space. I also did not need to sit in a middle seat for this flight! We pushed back early, because…why not?

The flight up to Manchester was uneventful and short. We landed quite early. With only 45 people on board and an airport that understands how to staff their jetbridges, deplaning was incredibly quick. Since we had only carry on luggage, we headed straight downstairs and waited for John to pick us up. He didn’t appear right away, so then we got on the phone. He’d fallen asleep in the cell phone lot. A couple minutes after that was established, he pulled up to the curb in my car, we headed outside where it was FREEZING, I took over the driver’s seat, and it was off to my in-laws’ to retrieve the dogs and head home.


Final thoughts:

Disney during the Christmas season is just so magical.

Jollywood Nights was definitely our favorite of the two Christmas events.

A getaway is absolutely the best way to celebrate a birthday.

November 2025: A Magical Birthday Weekend: Day 3, Part 2

Day 3: Part 2

Back at Riverside, I did a bit of picture taking as we worked our way back to the room.

 
Once back at the room, we relaxed for a bit, but honestly not all that long, before we started getting ready for the Christmas party.

I’m not a “must enter the party the minute we’re allowed to” person. I’m at the party for the party events and atmosphere, and minus Jack and Sally, most of it doesn’t start the second a party ticket will get you in. So I like getting to the events when I can just walk in, rather than waiting in a holding pen. BUT, we had that 5:50 Beak and Barrel reservation. So we headed for the bus stop around 4:30.

A bus to Magic Kingdom came along soon enough and pretty soon we were (successfully) cruising through security and doing some picture taking as we entered the park.

 
As we emerged onto Main Street we found the flag retreat wrapping up, so we stopped to watch the last couple minutes of that. Nick had never seen it before and was slightly annoyed he had never known about it. To be fair, we aren’t usually in Magic Kingdom at this point in the day.

We then continued through the party entrance route where we collected our event maps, souvenir marshmallows and ornaments. We’d gotten our wristbands as we had entered the park.

From here we worked our way towards Frontierland and Adventureland, and basically killed time once we got near Pirates. We were really only a few minutes early for checking in for our reservation, so there was no sense in doing anything other than kill time.

When we were able, I checked in for our reservation and we moved closer to the entrance to Beak and Barrel. We were called for our reservation pretty much exactly at our reservation time, which was surprising.

No surprise, we were “seated” at a standing table in a side room with 2 or 3 other couples. That being said, we had a fantastic server. She was SO in character. She took our drink order quickly. Nick got the Plunderer’s Punch and I got the Hibiscus Rum Punch Royale.

 
So…the drinks were strong and good enough. We both definitely prefer the drinks at Trader Sam’s though. The theming of Beak and Barrel is fantastic, and at least the room to the left of the entrance, which is where we were, is definitely less awkward than the back corner of Oga’s. Would I make a huge effort to go back to Beak and Barrel? Probably not. Would I go back again if I easily found a reservation. Probably. But Trader Sam’s is higher on my themed Disney lounge list.

When our 45 minutes were up, we headed out into the park and worked our way to Pinocchio Village Haus for dinner. The line was surprisingly long here, but soon enough we had food in hand and grabbed seats outside. Nick got the party exclusive toasted ravioli and I got a kids chicken tender meal. The ravioli was fantastic and worth all of the praise it was receiving. The kids meal was the perfect portion size for me, and was the standard fantastic Disney chicken tenders.

Dinner eaten, we headed for Tomorrowland to get Nick a party treat that he had been eying. I want to say this was a cherry cordial cold brew at the little place near Cosmic Ray’s. He said that this was nothing special.

From here, we headed back towards Adventureland. We hit a couple of cookie stops where Nick was like “wait, they’re giving us whole cookies AND stuff to drink?!”, and then went to Aloha Isle, where I got the Yule Float, which involved pomegranate dole whip and ginger ale. This was amazing.

Float in hand, we made our way to Frontierland to find a spot for the parade. We found one we were both happy with, and settled in to wait for the parade, enjoying the float while we waited.

The parade was fantastic, of course. My favorite part will always be the wooden soldiers.

 
I had very intentionally chosen a parade spot on the side of Frontierland closer to Adventureland, rather than the side closer to the former Rivers of America. As soon as the parade passed us, I quickly led Nick to Adventureland and on to Jungle Cruise for the Jingle Cruise, with a whole pack of people behind us. The posted wait time was 25 minutes, but it was clear from looking at it that it was less than that. And honestly even 25 minutes is a decent wait time for this one. We actually only waited about 10 minutes, watching the queue simply explode behind us. Nick’s reaction? “Good job Disney Dork”.

Jingle Cruise was fun, and even Nick laughed at some of the jokes. He also said he didn’t remember ever actually riding the standard Jungle Cruise. Huh?! But honestly…I don’t remember riding Jungle Cruise with him, so it’s a definite possibility.

After Jingle Cruise, we made our way to Main Street. We found a spot along a rail in front of Crystal Palace for the fireworks. The fireworks started about 15 minutes later. They were good, but they’ve definitely changed them since I last went to MVMCP, and they weren’t quite as fun as they used to be. Impressive though.

As the fireworks ended, I quickly checked wait times and then we headed for Tomorrowland, where we basically walked right on to the Peoplemover. It was definitely time to put our feet up. We both enjoyed taking in all the party sights from the Peoplemover. Among other things, there was a pretty impressive dance party happening near Space Mountain. Space Mountain had also been Christmasifyed, but nothing is getting me on that ride again!

After the Peoplemover, we collected some more cookies and then worked our way down Main Street.

 
At the end of Main Street, we headed into Town Square Theater. I think we waited about 15-20 minutes for pictures with a couple of mice.

Pictures taken, we headed for the exit. It had been a great Christmas party and a great birthday too!

I think we managed to hustle onto a loading bus, and soon enough we were back at our room where we showered and crashed.