After Thanksgiving Weekend or First Weekend in December?

[DanBTheMan]

My family and I are planning to travel to WDW this upcoming fall to attend one of the Christmas parties and the parks for a quick 3 night and 2 park day visit.

We are looking at two possible Sunday- Monday options for visiting the parks. The options are either: the Saturday-Tuesday after Thanksgiving (Christmas party on Sunday night and parks on Monday) or the Saturday-Tuesday the first weekend in December (same plan as above) We are planning to stay at AKL and the price is just $50 more a night for the first weekend in December, so I assumed that meant it would be less crowded the Thanksgiving weekend option.

Any thoughts on which of these options would be best for smaller crowds or an overall better visit.

Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and opinions.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Having experienced both of these weekends over the years (although often pre-Covid), the first weekend in Dec was much better for lower crowds than the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Many folks seemed to have off Thanksgiving week/weekend, and would be there through the weekend.

 

[CarolynFH]

I agree that the first weekend in December would be less crowded. The Sunday after Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year because “everyone” (well, the majority of workers) is off Thursday through Sunday that week. The parks are usually very busy Wednesday through Sunday.

 

[Beachmom0317]

I can echo that I have been both weekends and the crowds are significantly busier on thanksgiving weekend.

 

[maryj11]

We arrived the Saturday after Thanksgiving last year and stayed til the next Friday.
I picked that week because I had read and watched YouTube videos that said it was a good time to go without heavy crowds.
Well it was really crowded. I thought maybe once we got to Monday crowds would thin out. They did not. I believe it was because so many people were rescheduling their cancelled vacations from covid.
I’m hoping it was anyway . We are arriving December 11 this year.