Christmas Day at WDW???

[WaltD4Me]

My niece's friend and her family are going to WDW for 10 days and will be there the full Christmas week. They have never been to Disney before...I know it's going to be crazy busy, but they want to know if EVERY park is packed to capacity on Christmas Day? I told them definitely MK will probably close due to capacity, but I wasn't sure how the other parks do? They would like to go to a park for a few a hours on the 25th, but won't bother if every park is going to be shoulder to shoulder. I was thinking maybe Animal Kingdom might not be as bad?

 

[beachwarmer]

Last year we were in the MK Christmas Day until around 1:00. The crowds were not bad the first couple of hours (7 am - 9 am) We got to do all of Fantasyland a couple of times and collected Fastpasses for the rides we wanted to do. We had BBB reservations and then CRT so we were out of the crowds from about 10:30 to 1:00. If you are staying on site and get there early MK is okay on Christmas morning. We did it two years ago too and due to rain it was even less busy than last year.

We had no problem getting into Epcot for our dinner reservations at 5:00.

Here is the info that I saved from last year that listed which parks and when they closed during Christmas week.

Last week was extremely busy at all of the Walt Disney World parks, as the Magic Kingdom began phased closings on Monday (25th), Wednesday (27th), Thursday (28th) and Sunday (31st). Disney's Animal Kingdom also closed on Wednesday (27th) and Thursday (28th), while the Disney-MGM Studios had parking lot overflows on Wednesday (27th) and Thursday (28th), as well. Epcot, with its larger parking lots and much larger capacity, did not close at all. It's uncertain when three parks last closed at the same time.

While Epcot did stay open, lines were extremely long, with waits for Soarin' regularly around 3 hours and lines for many Future World attractions running all the way to the Innoventions breezeways. New Year's Eve saw Soarin' waits of up to 4 hours.

Hope that helps.

 

[klam_chowder]

I went with the AK logic last yr...here's what I wrote after our trip:

Started Christmas Day at AK with our logic (borrowed from these Boards, of course!) that it had much fewer Christmas events happening so less people would be inclined to spend "THE Day" there (altho other sources listed AK as "busy" or "park to avoid"). Lots of people at rope drop but with the help of FPs it was very easy to see all the highlights, except the Pangani Trail. We started heading for the exit before 3 pm, and again it was very crowded by then.

On Dec 26 [we headed to Epcot], I chatted with a CM while waiting for rope drop told me that the previous day (Dec 25) attendance was at 59,000; usual attendance is 35-40K, so that's a 50% increase over average attendance!

As for New Year's Eve, get there early. Again from last yr, I wrote:

On Dec 31, it [Epcot] was extremely crowded. When we returned to use our Soarin' FPs at 10:25 am, the FP distribution was showing a time of 10 pm! On the tip boards, line ups for the most popular rides were showing wait times of 120 minutes by 11 am.

At about 3 pm, I had heard at Guest Relations that Epcot was at Stage 3 closing and MK was closed. When I spoke to another couple an hour later, they said that the park had closed with signs out front informing guests that there were no more stroller or wheelchair rentals available.

Hope this helps with some of your family's planning. Last yr was our first trip to WDW and while it was extremely crowded (we there there from Dec 24 to Jan 1), it was very enjoyable if one took things in stride (and had a game plan) - in fact it didn't even scare DH, who lacks 'the gene', away from another trip

cheers,

 

[zulemara]

I was at the TTC last xmas day for the grand rush to the monorail and then got into MK early. It really wasn't that bad, but we hit the rides early and it was like our 3rd day in MK on our trip. We ended up leaving the park mid day and went back to our hotel to take a nap.

That's good info posted above. I know MK is always the worst on xmas day. After all, where would you rather be? hehe I love MK

 

[poohbear2]

One of my bus drivers said Christmas Day and New Years Eve are the busiest. Everyone is packed like sardines. He said New Years Day seemed empty in comparison.