Am I wishing on a star or can we actually pull this off?

[gryphonm]

So, at breakfast this morning, the girls (14, 8, & 6) asked us if we could go to Disneyland for Thanksgiving. My husband thought this was an excellent idea and of course mom gets tasked with all the planning and logistics.

I thought I'd come here and get some advice from the pros; can I pull this off in less than 3 months? Or is it a waste of time and I should start planning something a little further out?

We will probably drive down (we live about 10 mins from Portland, OR) on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (my 6 year old's birthday) and drive back on the Saturday or Sunday afterwards.

Any advice/suggestions would be great!

 

[Lynne M]

I'll move this over to the Disneyland board for ya...

 

[MattsPrincess]

I think three months should be plenty of time. We just started planning yesterday to go next month. You can't even book dining until 60 days out anyways, and tours at 30. I'd say go for it for sure!

 

[disneychrista]

I don't see a reason why you couldn't pull it off. You do not need months and months of planning for a trip to Disneyland, like you might for WDW.

In generally I say book your hotel as soon as possible.

We have been so many times, we don't really "plan" too much. Other than dates. We book our hotels as soon as we think we might go.
If you have any specific questions feel free to ask.

 

[Hoku]

As long as you can afford the trip with only 3-months notice, you should have no problems. There are rooms available for that time period at any of the Disney hotels as well as at neighboring hotels. If you want reservations for anything at the park, like World of Color, character dining, or Fantasmic, you still have about a month and a half before they even open the reservation lines. Go to Disneyland.com and play around with their reservation system to see prices of the various hotels and park tickets to see if it fits your budget.

I hope it works out for you!

 

[Minnie Loves Mickey]

I think it would be very easy to plan and I would jump on any trip to Disneyland! Especially while my kids were young now it seems like my kids are so busy it's usually just my DH and I that go.

 

[specialks]

I think you will do just fine. Get your hotel booked soon. Now that summer is over, people are going to start looking ahead to the holidays. Also, consider whether Ridemax will work for your group, because my guess is that the crowds will be heavy during your dates.

 

[DLovinFam]

I think you can do the planning in 3 months. How exciting! We also live about 10 minutes outside of Portland. I just want to add to be prepared for possibly driving in snow that time of the year.

 

[Shimmer]

You can totally make it work. Now would be a good time to make hotel reservations.

One thing to consider if driving is the potential snow on the pass in Southern Oregon, the area of I5 by Shasta and the Grapevine. Some of those can be closed due to weather conditions even in November.

 

[MyYearWithTheMouse]

Plenty of time

 

[ParkHopper1]

3 Months enough???? I WISH i could plan for a vacation that far out...More than once we have started driving without even a hotel booked. Go for it!

 

[LVTiffy]

3 months? wow...try 2 days lol..i just started planning 2 days ago and we leave tomorrow lol (i'm in vegas, 4 hours away)..anything is possible :]

 

[Disney Dreams]

It's more than enough. Because it's over Thanksgiving, get your hotel booked as soon as possible. What fun for your girls to have their request honored! Smart girls to ask!

I can see it now, "Mom, Dad, can we each have a Mercedes?"

Enjoy planning your trip,
Dreams

 

[larina]

Plenty of time. When we went in the spring we had about 6 weeks and we had a great trip. Since it's Thanksgiving, get a room as soon as you can, but the rest will be fine. Oh, have fun!!!

 

[MyYearWithTheMouse]

I suspect this person is used to going to WDW. Aside from booking your hotel, DLR requires very little advanced planning, unlike WDW

 

[rramstad]

Go for it. We were DL newbies and started planning our trip in late March for early July. Once we made a few decisions, everything came together very quickly, the whole process took probably three weeks, and so from mid April through departure, I was just doing some side reading here on the boards and whatnot so I'd be more prepared, but I wouldn't say all that time was absolutely necessary. Someone who can make decisions is all that you need... keeping in mind that that can be a busy time of year, so you'll want to get your hotel and transportation set soon.

Enjoy!

 

[ConnieB]

Easy to plan with only 3 months for Disneyland...you can't even make dining reservations until 60 days out, so you have an entire month to figure out where you want to eat.

Normally, I'd say you don't need reservations for about 90% of the dining in Disneyland....but since Thanksgiving is one of the busier weeks of the year at Disneyland, I'd say if you have your heart set on a particular meal during your stay, then book it. You can always try to change at the last minute (much much easier than at WDW) and often you can walk up to even the busy places in the morning and walk away with a reservation for sometime later in the day.

Do start getting into the mindset that it will be a busy time. So long as you don't go thinking you'll walk on rides like you can do right now, then you'll be fine. Have the kids make a list of "must do" things and work on getting those planned so that they get as many of their musts as possible done.

You will have a wonderful time! We went one year during THanksgiving week and while it was pretty busy it was also full of holiday spirit and lots of happy people! We prefer the week AFTER Thanksgiving because the crowds disappear in spades, but you'll be in the Happiest Place on Earth, so life MUST be good, right!

 

[gryphonm]

Thanks for the info everyone! I just got a PIN code via email that I'm going to try and use.

I spent months planning our WDW vacation in 2008 so I guess I just worried that it would be just as time intensive.

 

[DisneyMomma81]

You'll be fine - we were there last year, Thanksgiving day - Sat - we had a fantastic time ~ low to minimal crowds. We're headed back *same days* this year! We're staying at Best Western Stovall's Inn - $65 per night. We'll arrive late Wednesday and head home late Saturday *stopping for the night in Vegas or S UT and make it home on Sunday.

I think you'll be pleasantly surpirsed about the lack of crowds *if you go Wed it'll be CROWDED* check out this great *thread* and *this* for more info....

The *this* was taken from *thread* that was Thanksgiving 2009 - Thanksgiving 2010 was no different and I don't see this year being any different *same block outs still in effect.