Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights

Terye and I visited the Osborne Lights twice during our visit.  Once during regular park hours and once as part of WDW Today podcast's Reunion after park closing.

The short story of how the spectacle came to be.  Many, many years ago Arkansas resident Mr. Osborne has an extensive Christmas light display.  So extensive that the local government made him stop putting it up.  Disney World acquired the display and now you can see the Osborne Lights daily during the holidays, it is one of the best light shows out there.

The first night we went it was PACKED, tough for me to get around with my camera on the tripod, but most of my pictures are from that night.  We did not attend the turning on of the lights, which I know can be extra busy.  But these were the coolest lights I had ever seen.  And they danced to the music, AWESOME!

The second time we went it was a private event, about 200 guests.  I didn't have my good camera, just my iphone, it was freeing  I was dancing in the streets, literally.  I had so much fun, I was sad when they turned off the lights and escorted us out.

There are a few special things within the Osborne Lights:  find the hidden Mickey's.  Between the two nights Terye and I found almost all of the Mickeys, if you use the official number.  There is always a black cat hidden (it's actually purple, but it looks like a black halloween cat).  We also found a razorback (University of Arkansas mascot), a toilet paper tree and a paper towel tree.  One of the angels is in white, to honor the passing of Mr. Osborne in 2011.

The lights are rearranged every year, so you can have a fun night of exploring every year.  I would rank this as my second favorite holiday event in Disney World.  And, it's free!  As long as you pay to get into the park.

For my Jewish readers!

 

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Fast Pass Fairies

On the Thursday of our trip to Disney World we visited  Hollywood Studios. My sister had previously given me the impression that they were running pretty close to opening times for the parks, so when we arrived at the park an hour after opening I was thrown off a bit from what I had originally planned.  If you arrive at park opening what you're supposed to do (to maximize your time and do as much as possible) is get fast passes for Toy Story, ride Toy Story and move on with your day. However, by the time we got to Toy Story there was already a 50 minute wait. I got fast passes, but they were for 2:00 to 3:00. As we were standing around discussing what we wanted to do a man came up to us and gave us 3 fast passes to Toy Story that were valid right then.  Heidi, Alex and I rode while everyone else waited for us. Heidi wasn't overly impressed with the ride, but I still think it's one of the best at Disney World.  Those fast passes were like a gift from god, or at least a fast pass fairy.  When our fast passes became valid Mike, Alex and I went and rode the ride again, but we ran out of time for Mom to ride because of Blockparty Bash.


We finsihed up our day at the Hollywood Studios by going on The Rockin Roller Coaster. We went on the single rider line (Mom stayed behind with the two kids) and it might have actually taken longer then the regular line, they just were not moving the singles well. I hadn't ridden the ride since my 2002 trip so it was great to see how much fun the ride actually is. After riding a cast member came up to us and we were all trying to avoid the woman who was bugging us, then I realized that we were in Disney and it's probably not a crazy person (NY does bad things to peoples psychee) - well she offered us 3 fast passes to Rockin Rollercoaster.  We didn't end up using them, but found another group of people to give them to.  As nice as it is to be on the receiving end of a fast pass, it's nice to be the fast pass fairy yourself.

Pay it forward...