Can someone who was at WDW the week before Christmas answer some questions?

[realhousewife]

We are thinking of going to WDW and checking in 12/17 (late)and checking out 12/23. We have never gone close to a holiday and I know Christmas is the busiest time of the year. So, I am wondering about a few things...

1. If you were there during that week in 2014 can you tell me if the parks were filled to capacity and therefore the gates closed at any time during that week? (Trying to decide if park hopper is worth the $ if we have to stay put)

2. Also, would early morning EMH be the best strategy rather than late night EMH? (Again, if parks are at capacity, then we may not be able to "hop" anywhere else).

3. Also, how did the new FP+ system affect your riding ability? I.E., were SB times exceptionally long or did you find you couldn't re-ride things?

My frame of reference is that we usually go early November.

TIA!

 

[disneyagain]

We arrived early evening in Wednesday the 17th and departed the evening of Monday the 22nd. The crowds were manageable every day. There was definitely an increase in crowds starting Saturday the 20th. The parks never had capacity closures. We avoid morning EMH park, but rope dropped a different park. Set our FP+ for late morning/ early afternoon and it worked great. Enjoy, it's a beautiful time of the year at Disneyworld

 

[Skywise]

We are thinking of going to WDW and checking in 12/17 (late)and checking out 12/23. We have never gone close to a holiday and I know Christmas is the busiest time of the year. So, I am wondering about a few things...

1. If you were there during that week in 2014 can you tell me if the parks were filled to capacity and therefore the gates closed at any time during that week? (Trying to decide if park hopper is worth the $ if we have to stay put)

2. Also, would early morning EMH be the best strategy rather than late night EMH? (Again, if parks are at capacity, then we may not be able to "hop" anywhere else).

3. Also, how did the new FP+ system affect your riding ability? I.E., were SB times exceptionally long or did you find you couldn't re-ride things?

My frame of reference is that we usually go early November.

TIA!

I went for the weekend before Christmas 2 years ago (12/21 - 12/23) The parks were crowded but not nearly close to capacity as they were when I went this last year for the actual Christmas week. Generally it seemed like the crowds started to pick up starting the Sunday before Christmas as families started to show up for trips that would be through the week of Christmas.

I'd presume that the week before would be a good time as students aren't out of school yet and most people will be planning their trips for the week of.

Personally I prefer the late EMH to the early EMH but I'm older and not travelling with children.

the one piece of advice I'd give it is to get your ADRs as early as possible, along with the FP+ (60 days out) - The rest should be fine.

 

[Brian Noble]

We are thinking of going to WDW and checking in 12/17 (late)and checking out 12/23. We have never gone close to a holiday and I know Christmas is the busiest time of the year. So, I am wondering about a few things...

1. If you were there during that week in 2014 can you tell me if the parks were filled to capacity and therefore the gates closed at any time during that week? (Trying to decide if park hopper is worth the $ if we have to stay put)

2. Also, would early morning EMH be the best strategy rather than late night EMH? (Again, if parks are at capacity, then we may not be able to "hop" anywhere else).

3. Also, how did the new FP+ system affect your riding ability? I.E., were SB times exceptionally long or did you find you couldn't re-ride things?

My frame of reference is that we usually go early November.

TIA!

We were there 12/19-12/26. We mostly toured early and late, though the first few days weren't that busy in any event, and that avoided most of the crowds. We did not hop.

For example, we arrived at Studios at 7:50AM on Christmas Day, did all of the rides, had a nice lunch at 50s PT, saw the Comedy Warehouse show, and left about 1:30. At that time, people were still streaming in, and there were lines at the ticket booths that stretched all the way back to bag check. I don't know what happened to those people, but it looked awful. We came back in the evening around 6:30 or so just to see the Lights, and then drove over to Beach Club for dinner at 1900.

We avoided all EMH parks (except MK, where AM EMH is every day.) The parks are already open early enough and stay open late enough that the mornings/evenings were great without needing to cut into sleep any further. We stayed at MK until it's "normal" 1AM close one night, and it was great.

FP+ wasn't much of an issue for us, but we also aren't habitual re-riders---we prefer to see many different things, but we've been many times. FP+ was really great on our sleep in days, because we knew what we had in advance and didn't have to worry about what might be available when we arrived in the late afternoon.

 

[dwbrewster]

We were there 12/19-23 this year so I'll take a few stabs at your questions.

I don't think that any of the days we were there any of the parks hit capacity. However, if I understand the closing sequence if you have a hopper and/or staying at a resort you won't get locked out of the parks.

We did the EMH for MK on 12/22 and thought it was great. We have a DD4 and DS2 so some of what we could do was limited and our "must-do" items are probably different than yours but we did a lot (4-5 things) within the hour, the longest line was for tomorrowland speedway, maybe 10 minutes.

We didn't try to re-ride anything but also didn't want to. Lines were getting pretty long near the end of the stay as we got closer to Disney. For example, we were able to walk right onto Dumbo on the afternoon of the 19th (Friday) but when we were there on the 22nd, line was a decent wait. I was going to bring my DD on SDMT but the line was 90 minutes late in the afternoon so that was no go. We did luck out though and managed to do Splash Mountain with only a 25 minute wait or so.

Also note that MK may close early (7 PM) the first day or two you are there for MVMCP, tickets for that are like $60 or so (could be wrong).

Definitely going to be more packed than early/mid-November from what I understand those crowds to be, but the Christmas decorations makei
Hope that helped, feel free to PM me if you have other questions.

 

[siskaren]

I've never heard of the parks reaching any closing level before Christmas. It's the dates from Christmas through New Year's where it could happen.

 

[gtpoohbear]

We were there Dec 19-23, 2014. It wasn't actually as bad as I was expecting. About the same as spring break or summer crowds, but not the craziness you hear about at/after Christmas. I don't think anything was even close to capacity closures while we were there.

EMH was great, especially the 7am EMH at MK. We left just as the evening EMH was starting (1am) and the park was almost empty. If you can handle the late nights (we couldn't) you will likely have most of the park to yourself.

FP worked great, we had everything we really wanted booked ahead of time, and were able to get several more after we used those.

Definitely wouldn't hesitate to go at this time again!

 

[chartle]

It varies every year due to when Xmas is in the week but 2 years ago, 2013, we were there the last full week (Sun to Fri) before Xmas day week and it was very manageable.

The scariest part was being at the TTC that Friday and seeing the preparations for the crowds. They had a super long queue ready to go for the Ferry.

 

[greatvacay]

We were in Disney World from December 20 until January 2. This was our first christmas trip. We usually go to Disney World in the summer. With fp+ and planning, we found the lines to be manageable and I would definitely go Christmas time again. It was so much fun. There were so many things to do other than rides like watching parades, and shows that we always found something to do that everyone enjoyed.

 

[Airship Ariadne]

was there 12-14 till 12-20;

never capacity, and really only crazy crowded the Saturday day...we did the late EMH as we find those more useful...two hours extra instead of one, plus most people start filtering out after the fireworks anyway.

So the final Saturday we did a mid-morning Tomorrowland three hours, with a FP+ for SM and then headed back to rest.

Got back to the park around 5:30, used some FP's and then by 9:30 most peple were leaving...certainly by 11 it was almost walk-on on everything but 7DMT...stayed until 3 am.

 

[Greatfalls]

I've gone three times the weekend before Christmas - '07, '09 and '13. It's a good time to go. The crowds are moderate. The big crowds start rolling in on the 23rd.

 

[realhousewife]

Thanks everyone for your input. It was so helpful!

I just booked our trip and I am super excited. I love that the MK is open early and late so that we can take advantage of both with a long leisurely nap in between. We will definitely be closing it down at least one night. Also, the Disney agent told me FD is very likely at that time as well, so bonus!

Many thanks!

 

[RedSox68]

We were there 12/13 thru 12/16. We did this time period a few years ago and found that this time it was much more crowded than we expected, but manageable. We even went to MK on Saturday 12/13 for the Be Our Guest lunch and we had no trouble entering quickly and getting through the crowds. We always did EMH as opposed to late night hours -- except at MK when late night hours were advantageous. Early morning hours were invaluable for Sunday at MK and Monday at AK. We always buy park hoppers because if the parks get overwhelming we can visit another -- or visit another once one closes. We did the four park challenge on that Sunday for my birthday and were able to get around easily through the parks. Epcot was the most crowded that Tuesday, which really surprised us. We only used the FP on our bands twice, but did not like the inability to book more fastpasses later once those were used -- there were never any available for what we wanted.

We really did like the convenience of the bands for both the FB and our room and park entry. Hated the fingerprint required though as 50% of the time it didn't work without several tries.

However, I can't stress enough how INCREDIBLE it is to go in December. The decorations, both in all the parks, the restaurants and the hotels, were awesome and the Osborne Lights and snow in Hollywood Studio and all the ambiance and special holiday events are just plain worth it all!

 

[cvjw]

We were at Disney the 19th thru the 23rd of December 2014. Judging by the posts above me, those dates were very popular We loved it - one of our best trips ever. We thought the crowds were very manageable and we loved seeing and experiencing all of the extra Christmas fireworks and activities.

We thought 4 nights would not be long enough, but we made them work. We will be back that same time next year - waiting until my DVC 11 month window opens tomorrow to book for December 2015!