WDW Untangled - Trip Report - Disney December 2007

Day 7 - Epcot, Coral Reef, Candlelight Processional

Pere Noel in France tells his story

Once World Showcase opened, we hoped to be able to do a lot, if not all, of the Christmas/Holiday storytellers. However, this seems to be fairly difficult due to their schedules. We managed to catch Pere Noel in France early on, along with Santa Claus and an excellent storyteller explaining Kwanzaa over by American Adventure. We also stopped inside American Adventure not only for the show, but for Voices of Liberty, quite simply an amazing a capella singing group who do an incredible job year round, but because of the holidays they did Christmas carols which were superb.

We also made a little side trip through the International Gateway to the Beach Club, to look around at the holiday decorations, but also introduce our daughters to Art, the Greeter at the Beach Club, who I mentioned in our July 2007 Trip Report and we'd promised we would bring the kids by next time we were there. We didn't see him around, and we asked a Cast Member if he was working. She asked Vic, another of the greeters, and he was out sick that day. I later learned that he suffered from a bad case of pneumonia and missed quite a bit of work. Fortunately he has sinced recovered, and our next stay in October 2008 will be at the Beach Club, so we definitely should see him again.

The chocolate merry-go-round at the Beach Club

For the evening, we had booked a Candlelight Processional dinner package when the packages were announced, which would give us guaranteed seating for the Candlelight Processional, with Monique Coleman from High School Musical doing the reading, so DD#1 was thrilled. However, this almost turned in to those "they screwed up and I lost out" stories. You know those stories from people who change their reservation times for an ADR but for the same day, only to find out they don't have a reservation on that day any more? That happened to us this time.

Voices of Liberty, at the American Adventure

I probably turned white, and then very quickly red (after all, how would they be able to seat me, and get my CP passes, this late in the game? I knew it was sold out), but before I could say more, they got a manager. Well, major props for manager Alicia, who came out, was able to get us seated very quickly, and was able to arrange for our passes, only we had to get them at the booth near the theater since they only had as many as they had reservations on hand. A fortunate success story.

We got seated in the first row of half-moon seats, so we had an excellent view of the tank - not bad for people who apparently didn't have a reservation. Our server (who's name I've since forgotten) was also excellent, very engaging, and even gave us an extra lobster bisque because he grabbed the wrong soup from the kitchen, and didn't feel like bringing it back!

The meal itself was excellent. After having made the reservations, I started hearing more and more people being disappointed in Coral Reef, so I was a bit apprehensive, thinking I should have played it safe and gone with Rose & Crown or Biergarten. Buy I also firmly believe that we should find out things for ourselves instead of basing decisions on opinions posted online. I was glad we stuck to it, as everyone agreed that it was our best meal at Disney this trip. It was also the most expensive, beating Cinderella's Royal Table by a significant margin. I don't remember what everyone had, but my father-in-law and myself had the grilled mahi-mahi which was delicious. And the Bailey's Mousse was wonderful.

Julenissen playing some tricks on a storyteller

We headed over to pick up our passes and get in line for the Candlelight Processional at 6:15pm - and it was already all the way to Morocco right in front of Mo'Rockin (which was kind of loud...)! Fortunately the CMs allowed my father-in-law to sit and wait for us inside since he wouldn't be able to stand that long. I think the line extended almost to France before it started moving. But on the other side, the standby line was at least that long, probably longer.

The line entered in pretty quickly, but once in, there was very little direction as to where to sit. Most people just went like lemmings following the person in front of them. Eventually we found seating that we were allowed to sit in probably 10 rows from the back, on the stage right side, with a couple of trees between us and the stage - fortunately they weren't that obtrusive, and I used the tree to try and steady the camera for some pictures, but they didn't come out very well.

The "passes" this year were in fact stickers (think "My Name Is..." stickers, except with the show time on them), and a lot of people stuck it on their chests - but they don't stay on. At least two people lost them on the way in, and they will NOT let you in otherwise. You can see the stickers on the ground on the way in. Fortunately at least one of the people found theirs - or at least one that was lost...We kept most of ours on the paper they came on, although some people were told they had to put them on.

Voices of Liberty were joined by a large choir (I'm afraid I don't remember where they were from), and they all did an incredible job with the singing. Monique Coleman did a decent job with the reading, although her delivery was just as if she was reading it.

After that we were pretty much tired out, and headed back to the resort. On the way out, we found out that some of the walkway area by Innoventions has LED or fiber-optic lights embedded in it, producing swirling shapes and colors. We had never seen this before, and the kids were fascinated. It took a bit of effort to get them away from it.

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