Christmas & New Year's at Disney World

I had a cab scheduled to pick us (me, Willie, Chuck, Elaine) up at Genentech at 4:45am. We made it right on time, got to the airport at 5am, checked our bags ($15 each!), went through security (Willie had to go through some weird box with air puffs) and made it to the gate in time for a Starbucks breakfast. We had a layover in Dallas/Fort Worth. Upon boarding the 2nd plane, Elaine got a text from JC "We got screwed" (they missed their flight from LAX). Got to Orlando around 4pm eastern time and then took the Disney Magical Express to the resort which took almost an hour I think. Our resort was the Contemporary, right next to the Magical Kingdom, about a 5 min walk away, but right on the monorail. We checked in and got some dinner there at the resort at The Wave restaurant which was $20/plate but it was good. Then we went to the Magic Kindom at about 9pm. There were a lot of people still there. We first rode Autotopia (the cars you "drive" on the race track) and then had some ice cream, then went over to the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Carribean, Jungle Safari, and Thunder Mountain (which we fast-passed, and which I "forced" Elaine to fast-pass also). Thunder Mountain went a lot faster than I remembered. We went back to the room and were beat. The LAX crew had drama all day since all 4 of them were on stand-by for both flights to Orlando. Since it was Christmas Eve, we thought they wouldn't make it for at least a couple of days. But I think they made it in around 2am. All 4 of our rooms are in a row on the ground floor with adjacent patios so that is cool.