3rd Week of December Questions - Please post here anything we need to know! :)

Antonia

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May 25, 2000
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Haven't been to WDW at Christmas in nearly 20 years!!! How can that be? We have been many times since then including last October. But now I am planning a December trip that will include myself and DH, our grown son and his wife and our two grandchildren a boy 5 and a girl 3. This will be their third trip. Our first night is at BLT and after that we have 5 nights at VWL. We are DVC members. Considering the dining plan for convenience due to the time of year.
Anyway I have a few theme park questions. First, the afternoon parade at MK - will it be the regular 3 o'clock parade or a Christmas version of the parade? Will AK have the Jammin Jingle parade in the afternoon? For some reason I thought they had discontinued the afternoon parade at AK. MGM has Osborne lights. Is Fantasmic the same or a holiday version? Epcot - well I think there is a holiday version of Illuminations. Storytellers and/or Santa in each country in World Showcase. We are not planning to do a CP package and so if there is a long line for that w/o a dining package we will just skip it this year.
Anything we need to know about the parks at Christmas please post it here!
 
I'll do what I can. The MK afternoon parade will be the usual park parade until after the last MVMCP. Then the afternoon parade will be a Christmas parade. I'm not sure if the dates for MVMCP are out yet, but it usually ends around December 18 or 19. You are correct that there is no afternoon parade in AK because of construction. Fantasmic doesn't change - no Christmas theming. Illuminations at Epcot adds a five minute Christmas-themed ending that is spectacular. Illuminations is a little later - 9:30 instead of 9 - because the last CP performance is 8:15. We generally do CP without a dinner package because they're so expensive. If you can go on a weeknight when there's a narrator who isn't super popular, it's usually pretty easy to get a seat. I often wait til the line for the show has been seated, and then just go in the back and find a seat. Again, not that hard to do on a weeknight. Even if you can't get a seat that way, I wouldn't waste a lot of time standing in a long line. You can sit behind the America Gardens Theater in front of the American Adventure or in the seats outside the counter service place and hear the CP just fine. There really isn't a lot to it visually, so, as long as you can hear it, you'll be able to enjoy it from there. If you can, take time to just enjoy the decorations in the parks and the special displays at some of the resorts, like the Grand Floridian and the Boardwalk.
 
Thanks for the info. We are doing no park hoppers so I am trying to plan when to be at each park, etc. and get to enjoy holiday happenings! We have one dinner planned at the GF so we can dine there and see the Christmas decorations. We are staying at VWL and hopefully we'll tour a few more deluxes.
 
You can easily mix resort Xmas touring on Epcot day if you like. You can get to Yacht Club, Beach Club, and Boardwalk Inn by walking out the entrance/exit at the International Gateway. You can take a break from the park for a while and walk to these resorts in about 5 min for BC and YC, a few more to BW. (ETA - info, which, looking back at your post, you may already know, as a dvc owner, lol - missed that when I first read). They have some great decorations and Gingerbread creations! Then when you are ready, you can easily go back to Epcot for some more park time! You can easily tour the GF, Poly, and the Contemporary Resort and Bay Lake Tower(haven't seen the last two mentioned for decorations, myself), using the monorail.

The Osborne Lights at DHS are really awesome, and it snows! And they have little light shows every so many mins, where the lights dance in time to the Xmas music! Usually light up around 6 or so, and you can tour them for about an hour after close. Though, you might need to be back there right before that, or, I've read another poster has said they might just direct you to front of the park if you aren't inside back there yet.

Epcot has the holiday Storytellers in the countries that are really fun to see! And the Candlelight Processional with guest celebrities, that you don't need to be inside to hear the show nicely.

Sadly, no more Jammin Jingle parade anymore! Nor any parade at AK at this time, you were right that they've just recently been discontinued!

The last two MVMCP's at MK are Dec 18 and 19, and then after that the 3 p.m. parade will be the Xmas parade. My DD23 and I love the Xmas party nights, and really gets us in the Xmas spirit! JMO, but you could do the MK during the day(usually less crowded day), and the party at night, having a whole MK day, but you need a hard ticket for the party, so a park ticket and the party ticket. Or, you could use it like a hopper day. Use your park ticket for the earlier part of the day at a different park, then 'hop' to MK where you can get into the park at 4 p.m. with your party ticket. The party is 7 -12, but you get 8 hours in MK if you enter early at 4! Or you could even buy one less park ticket, buy a party ticket and just use it to enter at 4, and have the earlier part of the day free to relax or tour resorts or even DTD. And, they have a special Xmas themed Fireworks Wishes which are awesome!

Allears dot net has some nice info on these holiday things, and ticket info for the Xmas party at MK if you need it.

Have a very Merry Disney Xmas holiday!! :santa:
 















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