Christmas?? Are we crazy??

[mmouse1239]

I am a teacher also. I have the same problem with getting time off, so it's either Thanksgiving or Christmas/New Year. We generally go over Thanksgiving, but we are also going over New Years this year. I'm just going to deal with it and realize how blessed we will be to be there.

 

[tgropp]

tgropp....I guess you are a fan of that time of year at Disney. I am looking forward to our trip this December 21-26!

Whenever we have been at WDW at Christmas, we have never encountered crowds until Christmas day and we always saved AK for that day since it was not as crowded. You have picked a wonderful time to go. Most deluxe resort hotels always have activities (afternoon carol sing alongs and guest choirs at night) in the lobby, and I love the aura of the parks on the 23'rd and 24'th. On Christmas eve at your resort there will be many activities there, usually starting at 6. Then we would either go to MK and enjoy main street or head over to HS and see the Osborne lights before we retired for the evening

 

[Nicoleclaw]

Thanks so much for all of your replies!! You have convinced me to try to get it all together. Dh is on board and so is SIL's family! Should be a great time! Anyone else have any info/tips?

 

[Love2BinDisney]

Whenever we have been at WDW at Christmas, we have never encountered crowds until Christmas day and we always saved AK for that day since it was not as crowded. You have picked a wonderful time to go. Most deluxe resort hotels always have activities (afternoon carol sing alongs and guest choirs at night) in the lobby, and I love the aura of the parks on the 23'rd and 24'th. On Christmas eve at your resort there will be many activities there, usually starting at 6. Then we would either go to MK and enjoy main street or head over to HS and see the Osborne lights before we retired for the evening

Tgropp, thank you so much for your suggestions. My husband thinks we are a little crazy for going that time of year but I am looking forward to it. We were there in November the week before Thanksgiving a couple of years ago before I returned to teaching and some of the Christmas decorations were up and it was beautiful. Osborne lights were amazing. With the magic of being there at the holiday I am sure it will be great.

 

[phisigprincess]

Like PPs have said, it's a love it or hate it thing. Personally, I hated it. Though, knowing what it's like to be on a teacher's schedule, I think you should go for it.

Plan, plan, plan is the advice I'll give you. I'm not sure if you're a big planner or not, but at your 180, be sure to be on the phone at 7 a.m., note the least crowded park days, and mentally prepare for the fact that you might not get to do everything you want to. It can be done, and Disney in the Christmas spirit is amazing.

 

[mareed]

We've been twice for XMAS and will be going again this year. The key for us is definitely to get to the parks at opening on most days. We also spend the entire XMAS break (2 weeks), so we have plenty of time to do everything we want to in spite of the crowds. It would be more difficult with a short trip, which for us would be only a week.

 

[tar heel]

We went last year and absolutely loved it! Disney with NO HUMIDITY is wonderful. I'm not sure my advice helps the OP b/c we had no small children and drove. We were there to visit our oldest who was doing the Disney College Program and working pretty much every day from 6 a.m. until early afternoon. All of us toured together in the afternoon/early evening and had dinner together, then the CP son went back to the room and went to bed while the rest of us took advantage of the truly outrageous extra hours. We left MK at 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve! Our ride was Pirates, and we were the only people on it. We took advantage of fast passes and didn't find the lines unbearable.

For Christmas, we took a miniature tree and a couple strands of lights to decorate the room. We wrapped pictures of gifts that would be waiting at home, so our little tree had lots of "gifts" under it. There were a couple of real gifts for CP kid, but it was mostly IOUs. We opened the gifts slowly, laughed at lots of things and had a truly wonderful time.

We were at All Stars and still found nice holiday extra touches. For example, on Christmas Eve, they were giving away fresh baked cookies in the lobby. There was live music in the food court a couple days and once even at the bus stop.

Here's my Scrooge part: I drug my DH to the Candlelight Processional b/c he's into choral music, sings in a very good choir that has an orchestra at Christmas and was missing it b/c we were at WDW. We didn't have reservations and waited in line until after it started. Then DH was totally unimpressed b/c the musical arrangements were so simple, as it they would have to be with limited rehearsals. Oh well . . . We enjoyed the Harlem Gospel Choir at the Studios more. We also thought the decorations overall were neat but didn't really think they were wonderful enough to tour just for decorations. For example, I found the GF gingerbread house underwhelming b/c so much of it was wood. We also had dinner problems on Christmas Day even though we had reservations -- over two-hour wait at Raglan Road.

 

[323sarg]

How is DW the week of Christmas? We want to go the 19-23?