Christmas at Disney

[M & K]

Hello all,

We will be taking our 3 and a half year old daughter to Disney for the first time on Jan. 3rd. Will be staying off site, January 2nd & 3rd, and leaving on the fourth. We live about 2 hours from Orlando, so will have some time on both the 2nd and the 4th to do "stuff." Being MK & DW rookies, we have some questions:

1. We are planning on visiting Mickey's Toon Town during our one day at Disney; other than that, are there attractions near Toon Town that are "must sees" (i.e. Small World)? We thought of making Toon Town our central location so we could try and take advantage of Speed Pass and then return to Toon Town while we wait for our "appointed time" for our next big ride. We are still a little unsure how best to use the Speed Pass thing.

2. What locations around DW (that don't require a ticket) are nicely decorated for Christmas? We had heard that they decorate the parking lot at Downtown Disney.

This has been the most friendly and helpful bulletin board we have ever been associated with. We apologize in advance for any "dumb" questions.

Thank you all! We, especially the little one, are very excited!

 

[mamaprincess]

There are many attractions in fantasy land which is near toontown that your child will love.

1. Absolutely do Mickey's Philharmagic. It's a 3-D movie that is so gorgeous and incredible.

2. Peter Pan's flight wonderful!

3. Pooh's Honey Pots are adorable

4.Small World is adorable but the song stays in your head! The kids still love it and I don't mind it.

4. Tea Cups are fun but they will make you dizzy so if you don't like spinning around, don't do them. Just don't turn the wheel in the center of your vehicle and you can deal with it. My kids love them.

A good strategy would be to get in the park at opening, head to fantasy land and start with your must see's in order. You may be able to get in everything with minimal waits. You can then fast pass if things start to get busy and you weren't able to get to something you wanted to see. Head to toon town and get autographs while waiting for your fast pass time to come up. If you missed more than one attraction that you wanted to ride, check your fast pass for the time that you can get another one. (You can get two at one time) Go and grab another fastpass.

As far as free Christmas displays, all the resorts are free to visit. The Deluxe resorts are breathtaking. Here is a list of what you can see at each of them:

You simply must visit the Grand floridian resort to see the gorgeous life size ginger bread house. It is located on the monorail right near Magic Kingdom. The resort is awesome during Christmas!

Also the Polonysian has a beautiful display made out of sugar and modeling chocolate.
The Beach Club has an amazing display of a lifesize carousel made of sugar.

The Boardwalk located right across from the beach club has a boardwalk village made of sugar and modeling chocolate. All of the deluxe resorts are all decked out for christmas. They are just gorgeous.

The Contemporay Resort on the monorail also has a beautiful display of a ginger bread village (an around the world theme I think).

I'm not sure what kind of display Wilderness Lodge has, but I have heard that it is beautiful there at Christmas time.

Hope this helps!

 

[M & K]

Joy,

After reading at the link you sent me (great info!), I have a question. Is this a posible scenerio? We get to the park and go right away to say Mickey's Philharmonic and the FastPass time we are given is only one hour from the current time? Then we are sorta stuck. There is not enough time to go to another ride (I assume), but we do not want to wait around for our FastPass time.

Others posted about fastpass and said the actual standby times were shorter than the posted standby times. But how could you know for sure when much of the lines are inside the ride?

Thanks again,
Matt

 

[mamaprincess]

The fastpass time is always ample enough for you to ride at least one other ride usually more. You are going during the Holidays which is busy so you will have quite a bit of time before your fastpass has to be used.

As far as the lines go. We try not to wait in any line that is more than 30 minutes long (40 minutes max.) This is possible when you start at park opening (shorter lines) and use fastpass as much as possible.

Just get to the park about 15 to 30 minutes prior to opening (the lines can be long) and head straight to the area of your choice. Begin Fastpassing and riding immediately, starting with your must-do's first. You'll get to everything you want to do.

Have a magical 1st trip!