Christmas or New Year's?

[mollymcg]

We are in the early stages of planning a trip over Christmas 2020 and plan to do 5 days in Disneyland and 5 days in San Diego. I know the parks will be insanely crowded the entire week, but would it make more sense to do DL at the beginning or end of the trip? Any unique experiences on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve that we should consider before deciding?

We are coming from the East Coast, so rope drop would be easier at the beginning of the week, before we adjust to the time change.

 

[bcla]

Not really. It's going to be insanely crowded simply because that's when school is out and a lot of people take time off from work to visit with their families. Some employers have mandatory shutdowns between Christmas and New Year's, although that's typically in the middle of a typical school's two week winter break.

All of the Christmas experiences extend at least a week into the new year. We went after last Christmas and they had all the Christmas menu items (candy cane beignets were spectacular) and all the stuff like Mater's Jingle Jamboree, Haunted Mansion Nightmare Before Christmas overlay, and It's a Small World Holiday.

But I can't think of a better place to ring in the New Year than Disneyland. We park hopped and they had designated stands where they were handing out party hats and horns in both DCA and DL. We were planning on a ride in DL but we got in a bit earlier and were able to walk out at midnight during the countdown. They had additional fireworks on top of the standard 9:30 fireworks. Both parks had DJs and there was alcohol flowing at DCA although I wouldn't say there wasn't anything I would worry about my 9 year old seeing.

 

[ParkHopper1]

While the entire season is buys, the week BETWEEN Christmas and NYE is tradaiolly the busiest with capacity closures common.

Except for the midnight countdown, NYE has gone significantly downhill in their offerings and was nothing more then a super busy day over the daytime and leading up to NYE

I would do week leading up to Christmas and end with that.

 

[basketballmom]

We went for 5 days in 2016 with our last park day being Christmas Day. I thought the crowds were good, and not as busy as the summer season we are used to. Christmas Day did get really busy as the day went on.
The crowds were MUCH busier the following week. (I checked.)