Convince my DH 12/19 - 12/25 is doable

[mmeb144]

We are tentatively planning to visit WDW during the 3rd week inDecember. My DH is concerned with the crowds during Christmas. This is not our first trip. I've read a lot of the posts, it sounds very doable. We are thinking of staying at the Contemporary (Gotta love the monorail through the building! )

My plan is to hit the parks hard during the early part of the week and back off towards 12/24-12/25. Does this sound sensible?

Also, how do I convince DH this will be a blast?

Marie

 

[drusba]

You will be there during "growth" week. When you arrive it will be very crowded but doable; as each day progresses it will get worse and on the 22 or 23 you will reach full Christmas size crowd where it will be wall to wall people in the parks everyday. If you have been before you can survive because you do not have the burning need of the newcomer to do/see everything and every ride.

 

[mmeb144]

Just what I wanted to hear, wall to wall people. My DH gets really anxious around crowds. If my family is on a mission, like to make a ADR seating, will we still be able to move in the parks?

Marie

 

[blueangel]

I certainly hope so...we're doing the same thing - CR and all, but we are switching to RPR at Universal the 22. (Seasonal pass black out). Plus, we figure that the front of the line perk at Universal might cancel out the crowd. Don't worry, we're spending Christmas at Disney anyway!

 

[drusba]

If you are wondering how large the crowd will be, many years ago they used to publish the average number of park entries per day to MK during the various seasons (that is entries and not necessarily number of people actually in the park at any given time of day). Off seasons like most of January and September averaged about 25,000 entries per day. Spring break weeks other than the two Easter weeks averaged about 45,000; Thanksgiving and week of the Presidents holiday about 52,000, summer weeks other than July 4 about 65,000, July 4 week about 75,000, the two Easter Weeks 85,000 and Dec 22 to January 1 was 90,000. It is very crowded during the Christmas holiday, you can still move about (although very slowly many times of the day). One way to picture it is you are standing at the base of Main Street after you have just entered and looking down toward the castle. During off-season at noon, you see people milling about on Main Street but it is mostly open space. During the Christmas season, you don't see the street, you don't see the sidewalks, you just see bobbing heads all next to each other moving en masse.

 

[disneyeveryyear]

We went during that time last year.

I had subscribed to Tour Guide MIke for that trip. We followed his instructions as to which parks to go to on which days, and we also followed his touring plans.

We had a great time. We never waited more than 10 minutes for a ride, rode everything we wanted to (Dumbo to Mission Space) and wouldn't hesitate to do it again.