december 15-20, 2016...am i crazy?

[IndyRnRfan]

I'm seriously getting so excited now! Decent crowds mixed with the cooler weather...it sounds like it will be perfect!

I'm a little bit crazy and love cold weather, but the last time we were there during Christmas it got really cold for Florida. It was right before Christmas and the temps dipped down into the 30's on two nights. One of those nights MK was open until 2am. By 10 pm the park was dead. You could really tell the northerners from the southerners by who was out and what they were wearing. We walked down Main Street and had our picture taken with the castle as the backdrop by 4 different Disney photographers(they were spaced out from the entrance to the castle). There was no one in the background and the rides were all walk on too. No waits whatsoever. BTM was a little chilly at midnight but we rode it 3 times. One time we didn't even get off because there was no one in our line to get back on. It made Christmas feel a little more special IMO.

 

[CTDisneyfan816]

Planning a large family trip and the earliest we can get there in December is the 15th...is this going to be insane? I'm a pretty good planner and we do ripe drops, but I've read horror stories of Christmas time in Disney and I'm starting to worry. Anyone go this time and feel it is completely manageable?

15th to the 18th no, actually should be pretty "quiet" Disney standards. Crowd may start building around the 19th or 20th.

 

[lovndisney12]

"Bad" is relative. Crowds will start to increase throughout your stay but completely manageable if you plan, pick best park for the day and RD. So I would estimate Thursday and Friday to be better than the weekend and then as it approaches the 25th it will even become more packed. Last time we were there we did not experience any park closures until Christmas day. We avoided the parks mid-day starting on the 25th but prior to that it was fine. But at RD on the 25th and beyond we were able to ride plenty of rides without much wait. One morning they rode EE at AK probably 3 or 4 times in a row (and this was a 10 on all crowd calendars)

Taking last two days to visit resorts - sure! Because the additional ticket cost will be minimal I would still get the tickets for those days too. You never know what can happen and those days won't be bad at RD. One year my husband got sick and had to miss our big Epcot day so I was so glad we had some extra days at the end so he could experience Soarin' as well as the rest of the park. Who knows, maybe if you have been doing RD all week you would want to sleep in and try a few late EMHs for a little different experience.

 

[glohoffman]

That is a good idea to buy tickets for the extra days...that gives us a little more freedom. The Christmas atmosphere will be more important to us than rides (although the kids want the rides!), so I think it will work out well. We are leaning towards staying at the boardwalk, and maybe getting park hoppers would be a good idea so we can jump ship if a park gets too busy.

 

[Disney93]

You have nothing to worry about. We had one trip 20th to 29, crowds didn't get bad until a couple of days before Christmas.