It felt like our trip flew by, but you sure can’t tell from these ridiculously long blog posts! Sorry for so many recaps, but I want to try to remember every detail. 🙂 December 7th was our next to last day in the parks, and we had a full day planned! Our first stop was Animal Kingdom bright and early to get in a few expeditions to Everest…
We somehow narrowly escaped the yeti, YETI again. Hahaha. We also went to see the Finding Nemo musical for the first time. It was cute and funny. Finally, we grabbed lunch at Flame Tree BBQ again because it’s our absolute fave. Yum-o.
Next, we made our way over to the Magic Kingdom with a quick bus swap at Port Orleans. We’ve vowed to stay there on our next trip…it’s so pretty!
We arrived at Magic Kingdom to see the filming of the Christmas Day Parade on ABC. YES, SPOILER ALERT: THE PARADE IS NOT LIVE. Neil Patrick Harris was hosting, so it was cool to see him. Also, there was a fun spoof of Darth Vader showing up in Santa’s place. You’re so crazy, Disney. Apparently the parade filming lasted allllll day. We only caught about 30 minutes on Main Street, but, according to some of our friends, they saw us for a moment on TV! We didn’t watch the parade, but that sure would be neat if we had a cameo! 
The park was pretty crazy that day, so we enjoyed strolling around the park, and stopping into Gaston’s Tavern again for a snack for Louis.
I seriously love all of the Beauty and the Beast areas in New Fantasyland. The detail is amazing, and it’s cool seeing one of my favorite movies brought to life.
Louis was sweet enough to let me ride Peter Pan’s flight despite it being pretty slow moving and mega boring. I can’t help it; I love it!
Who doesn’t appreciate this aerial view of London!?
After getting off of our flying boat, we wandered over to Haunted Mansion. We never get tired of this classic favorite. 🙂
Keeping with our theme of experiencing new things this trip, we decided to see the Hall of Presidents next. It was so awesome! I’m sure some people would consider it boring, but we loved it! They had a small museum before the show with different presidential momentos. My favorite was a pair of boots worn by George W. Bush at his inauguration…God Bless Texas! The show was also really neat. They had audio animatronic versions of EVERY United States President. Each one was introduced, and a few even gave speeches. Louis and I love America because it’s awesome, so we definitely enjoyed the show.
Right after the show, we had to hurry over to Be Our Guest for our dinner reservations. I didn’t think we’d get to eat there at all our trip, so considering we had our Fastpass+ lunch invitation AND the dinner reservation I snagged, I was so happy!
We arrived for our reservations and got our pager to wait until the Beast was ready for us.
We were happy to wait and enjoy views of Beast’s castle on the entrance bridge.
When our pager finally went off, we headed up to the castle and were escorted in by one of Beast’s servants.
It was crazy how much the restaurant had changed since lunch. All of the soda machines were hidden, the lights were dimmed, and instrumental versions of Beauty & the Beast songs were piped in.
We were seated in the ballroom with an excellent view of the Christmas tree and snow falling outside the windows.
I’m sorry if you’re sick of seeing pictures of these chandeliers, but they’re just so stunning! They’re even more impressive in person!
The mercury glass candle holders also added to a romantic dinner ambience. The theming went all the way down to the napkins, which were folded to look like roses.
Louis added a paper stem and leaf to mine to make it look even more realistic. 🙂
SHOCKER: Another chandelier picture…
This was our view for our delicious meal.
Louis made sure to create a mustache out of his straw wrapper because…how else would one act in a castle?
First, they brought out some DELICIOUS mini baguettes with sea salt butter. Oh my gosh yum. I could have just eaten 6 of those for dinner. They were so fresh and flaky and goodness gracious. I wish I had one right now. We both decided to order the Grilled Strip Steak with Garlic-Herb Butter and Pommes Frites for our entree, so I had to quit stuffing myself with bread to save room.
It was soooo good. We typically don’t splurge on sit down meals at Disney World, so this was a welcome change from our typical fare of chicken nuggets and fries. You may have noticed our “Happy Anniversary” buttons by this point…time for full disclosure: We’re frauds. Our anniversary isn’t actually until March. However, I had heard that the only way to try “the grey stuff” was to be celebrating a special occasion. For that reason, we pushed our 2nd anniversary up by a few months. Sorry, we’re not sorry. The grey stuff was TOTALLY worth the small fib. We each got our own plate, and it was the delicious just as the song said. According to The Disney Food Blog, the grey stuff is “a cookies and cream panna cotta that’s been whipped into a creamy dessert.” Whatever it is, it’s scrumptious. We both just about licked our plates clean.
Oh what’s that? You thought that was our only dessert? Nope. We’re oinkers and didn’t know when we’d get a chance to eat at Be Our Guest again, so we splurged and got a Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcake to split.
Yes, that is Louis with both his plate of grey stuff AND our cupcake. Whatever. We were on vacation. And that cupcake was delightful.
After stuffing our faces, we explored the West Wing. It was dark and spooky, so it was hard for me to get any good pictures…sorry!
This portrait of the Beast changes every 20 minutes from the Prince to the Beast. Scary magic.
The enchanted rose was, of course, in the West Wing, too! The petals were slowly falling, but we knew better than to try and touch it…didn’t want to Beast kicking us out of the castle, you know.
Once we finished exploring, we headed to the study to meet Beast and thank him for the delicious dinner. He was such a gracious host. Sucks that he’s a Beast instead of a human again though. Didn’t want to ask him about it because I figured it was a touchy subject…
It was an awesome experience, and I definitely recommend it to anyone able to get a reservation there! Great food, awesome ambience, and so fun and unique!
We left the castle in the mood to hang out with more royalty, so we headed over to Princess Fairytale Hall.
We were happy to meet Cinderella and Aurora who were both happy to see us.
By then it was time for us to get a spot for Celebrate the Magic and Wishes. Celebrate the Magic is where they project awesome images and videos on Cinderella Castle set to music…I tried to snap pictures of several of the scenes:
Wreck It Ralph
The Lion King
“Let It Go” from Frozen
Elsa singing “Let it Go” from Frozen…such an amazing song!
Stained glass? I’m sorry, I honestly can’t remember…oops. 🙂
Castle covered with poinsettias 
Cinderella Castle wrapped up like a present! Best gift ever!
Gingerbread House Castle
As you can see the show has tons of amazing elements, and it’s mind-blowing how they’re able to transform the castle! I’m excited to see what other special effects they add in the future. After Wishes, we stuck around for the Electric Parade, which is an old favorite.
We spent the rest of the evening enjoying a few more rides and strolling around the park. It was another full, fun day with great rides, amazing shows, and delicious food. The next day was our last full day in the parks, so we headed home to get some rest!
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