If I lived in it, it'd be devoured in a week

One quick monorail hop later, we are stepping out at the Grand Floridian Resort. Although this is my fifth trip to Walt Disney World, I have never before gone into this spectacular resort. I’ve only seen it from across the lagoon, or looked at it from the monorail.

We enter the grand atrium on the second level. Wow. This place is amazing – high ceilings, chandeliers, gleaming white, with a massive Christmas tree as its centerpiece. A live band is playing Christmas carols, and the atrium is teeming with people. There’s a dance floor laid out on the other side of the tree, and – hey! – three big bags of balloons suspended from the ceiling! It is New Year’s Eve, after all.

We walk around to the elevator, and pause at the rail to look down on the gingerbread house. It looks just like it does on the Food Network, except somehow more impressive. Tastier, I guess.

The elevator seems to be having a problem – a group of people got on before us and can’t get it to move – so we turn and walk down a grand staircase. This resort certainly has me using the word “grand” a lot, but it really does fit!

Once on the first floor, we walk across the dance floor to the gingerbread house. We pause to read the sign about the ingredients that go into making it, and then take our time examining the house up close. It really is spectacular. There is so much detail in its decorations, which I find even more impressive than its size.

We make our way around to the back of the house. We’ve known that there is a shop within the house where they sell gingerbread, including (smaller) gingerbread houses, and our mouths are watering for a late-night snack. And… the shop is closed. On New Year’s Eve? It’s barely 9:30. Bummer.

Walking around to the left side of the house, we spot an amazing Stupid Guest Trick in progress. Close access to the house is limited by greenery in some places and velvet ropes in others, but two kids, a boy and a girl about four or five years old, are inside the ropes at the side of the house, pulling pieces off and eating them!!

Now, I don’t fault the kids at all. They’re young, and edible houses have been enticing to kids since the days of Hansel and Gretel. But the SG (stupid guest) is their mom, who is standing a few feet away, watching them, and completely unconcerned about the sabotage they are doing to this masterpiece.

It only takes a sharp word from Becky’s dad to chase the kids off. They scamper away, probably to find some other work of art to destroy. Mom wanders after them with the vapid look on face unchanged. She’s probably distracted by the wind whistling through her ears.

We’re satisfied with our examination of the house and the other decorations here, so we head back upstairs and pop into the gift shop. A friend of mine, who is in the business of custom clothing, embroidering logos and such (in fact, he did the shirts for our last trip and our windbreakers for this trip), had told me that the Grand Floridian had some of the better quality clothing in there gift shop than other places. Makes sense.

Brandon finds a Grand Floridian pin he wants to buy, and Becky likes a pair of Mickey Mouse sweatpants. After our purchases are completed, we hop back onto the monorail for the nighttime ride around Seven Seas Lagoon, which is always a peaceful and magical trip.

We’re back in our rooms by 10:20, and I’m pretty tired. There will be no late-night Magic Kingdom trip for me this evening!

Mousekeeping has been here for turn-down service, and our stuffed "friends" are arranged on our beds. Heh! "Bari"(our "barbershop bear," named after my voice part) is wearing one of the leis!

While it would be interesting to be awake at midnight and hear New Year’s fireworks simultaneously from the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Disney-MGM, that’s not going to happen for me either. The only questions I have are (a) how fast will I be asleep after my head hits the pillow? and (b) will the midnight fireworks wake me up?