Disney at Christmas?

[DisneyDarling13]

Hello everyone! I've been on a bit of a break from the boards! We had an amazing 2 week trip back in September and then it's been go-go-go back home!

As some of you know it was my boyfriend's first visit to WDW and he absolutely fell in love! He keeps asking to go back ASAP

We decided we want to go to WDW for Christmas 2015. Not AROUND Christmas, but actually ON Christmas. This will be a first for me as I have never gone during such a peak time. Thoughts, opinions, suggestions? Need as much input as possible!

THANKS EVERYONE!

 

[Robo]

We decided we want to go to WDW for Christmas 2015. Not AROUND Christmas, but actually ON Christmas.

The biggest problem with doing that is that what he "fell in love with" will not be in abundance on the busiest
day of the year.

The crowds can be "you can't move across the street" thick.

I'm a H U G E fan of all things WDW, but I would not want to make a trip on Christmas Day.
Nope. Not for me.

 

[mmouseforpres]

Get to the park early. The MK limited entry at 10:00 on Christmas for some guests (those with 1 day only admission tickets). Those guests were told to go to another park. Other than what you have fast passes for, you may not ride anything else. We waited until Christmas night (10:00 pm) to go to the MK. The waits were still long, but we were able to ride a few attractions.

 

[DisneyDarling13]

I know I'm worried about that as well. I've gotten so very used to September-October trips and have only been once or twice other than those 2 months. I love the idea of Disney on Christmas but am worried about the crowd level.

 

[DisneyDarling13]

Get to the park early. The MK limited entry at 10:00 on Christmas for some guests (those with 1 day only admission tickets). Those guests were told to go to another park. Other than what you have fast passes for, you may not ride anything else. We waited until Christmas night (10:00 pm) to go to the MK. The waits were still long, but we were able to ride a few attractions.

I'm not stuck on having to go to MK that day. It doesn't matter much what park we go to on Christmas Day but our trip will most likely be from 12/22-12/29.

 

[si-am]

I've been many times on Christmas, although we've always left on the 26th, so I don't know how bad crowds are after Christmas Day. We've always done AK on the 25th. Get there for rope drop, and you've got the park to yourself til right around lunchtime. At least that's been my experience.

Epcot and MK are both pretty crowded on Christmas Eve. We usually reserve that day as an "off" day for touring resorts and DTD.

 

[dimndgal1]

We went in Sept this year and from the 20-27 of Dec (just got back!)

The crowds are different, the atmosphere is better, the hours are longer, and the weather overall is not oppressively hot (even when it hit the 80s last week it wasn't anything like how hot it had been in Sept).

We had a group of 12 and my biggest recommendation for going at Christmas is early mornings/late nights and resort time! DH and I have already decided we will probably do another Christmas trip in the future when we aren't pushing a stroller because we found it much more manageable than expected. We did AM EMH twice and PM EMH twice (never back to back) and never waited more than 20 minutes all week.

If I had to do it over again, I would book FP+ for an hour after general park opening (we started booking around noon) so that we could leave the parks by 1/2pm when crowds built up. The two nights we did MK late, we slept in, spent time at the pool, rested, grabbed dinner, then got to MK around 8pm for our first FP+. By the time we finished riding our FP rides, everything seemed to be 5-10min waits, max with some things walk-on. We ended up leaving by 1am because we accomplished everything we wanted in those 4-5 hours... had we stayed, we could've knocked out most everything because the park was empty.

Starting around the 25th, things do get busier, but our late night on the 26th was still pretty easy-going. We decided to skip the parks on Christmas and spend the day with our family - brunch at Chef Mickey's and dinner together. Worked great! I def advise doing it once and you may find it's something you enjoy more than you realize!!!

 

[Disneylover99]

We have been here since the 20th and have one more park day tomorrow before heading home. We loved our first Christmas at Disney! We spent Christmas Day at MK. It was awesome! Get there before opening - 7am openings. Ride the rides for two hours, then use FP from 9am-12pm and then get out!

Come back in the evenings for fireworks and more rides.

 

[ladyjubilee]

We are just back. We spent Christmas Eve in AK and Christmas in DHS. It was nice, and overall the trip and crowd levels were not as bad as I feared.

However, I won't do Christmas at Disney again. It was nice, don't get me wrong. A really good trip..... but I like Busch Gardens Christmastown better as a Christmas trip or even Dollywood.

We like the details of the Parks, but with the crowds, you couldn't see many of the details for the mass of humanity. And we just felt like we standing in line to stand in line.

 

[Sunnywho]

Any interest in going over Thanksgiving instead of Christmas? Lower crowds but you'd still get the Christmas decorations.

 

[SeilerBird]

I spent Xmas morning at Epcot and the crowd was quite reasonable. I left around 10 am and the line of traffic to get into MK was obscene. Several miles long.

 

[MsThumper]

We were at WDW the first week of December this year (had a wonderful time), but were thinking of going Christmas 2015 (to be there on Christmas day) as it will be our first year without family commitments. We decided against it because:

• No hotel discounts
• Our FL Resident weekday passes are blocked out (understandably so) - we would have to pay a lot more for tickets
• I hate maneuvering through crowds

We already booked a cruise.

 

[glassslippergirl]

We've spent lots of time at WDW during the two weeks around Christmas. It's beautiful, well worth maneuvering through the extra crowds. You just have to manage expectations. You have to get to the parks early and stay late (afternoon break is up to you), and you will have to stand in lines for everything from the Peoplemover to the bathroom. But you get to see the most amazing decorations ever, and they are all around you all the time. Holiday Wishes, the Christmas parade, the holiday tag on Illuminations, Osbourne Lights, life-sized gingerbread house at GF, Candlelight Processional (get the dining package), decorated mobile homes in Ft. Wilderness-- these are the reasons to go at Christmas.

 

[DisneyDarling13]

Any interest in going over Thanksgiving instead of Christmas? Lower crowds but you'd still get the Christmas decorations.

I was there over Thanksgiving once, about 8 years back. We were visiting my grandfather so we were not staying on Disney property, so I didn't get the full effect. We bought a 2 day hopper pass and I do remember it being more crowded than "usual" (for me at least!). We want to go for Christmas because of some unfortunate family situations that make the holidays kind of a bummer around here. We'd like to go on vacation and DBF wants to do WDW. I would be open to doing something like a cruise but he's not very interested in that kind of thing. So looks like it'll be WDW! Which I have no problem with of course!

 

[DisneyDarling13]

Thanks everyone for your input!

 

["Cinder" Ella's Mom]

Thanks everyone for your input!

We just returned and had a great time! We did the 7:00 am MK opening two days and rode tons of rides from 7-9. Then we had our scheduled fast passes. On Christmas we got to Epcot around 11:00 for our fastpasses and had a 2:50 ADR at Teppan Edo. Then we ADRs headed to cava Tequila while the kids waited an hour for Test Track (posted wait time was over 100 minutes-actual time not even close!). Was it crowded...yes, but most days we left the parks by 1:00 and returned late. We stayed in MK last Friday night until 2:00 am. There were maybe 50 people total watching the MSEP from Frontierland at 12:30. Tons of fun and great weather!!

 

[DisneyDarling13]

[QUOTE="Cinder" Ella's Mom;52809117]We just returned and had a great time! We did the 7:00 am MK opening two days and rode tons of rides from 7-9. Then we had our scheduled fast passes. On Christmas we got to Epcot around 11:00 for our fastpasses and had a 2:50 ADR at Teppan Edo. Then we ADRs headed to cava Tequila while the kids waited an hour for Test Track (posted wait time was over 100 minutes-actual time not even close!). Was it crowded...yes, but most days we left the parks by 1:00 and returned late. We stayed in MK last Friday night until 2:00 am. There were maybe 50 people total watching the MSEP from Frontierland at 12:30. Tons of fun and great weather!![/QUOTE]

That's so good to hear! Glad you had a great time!

 

[Dawnlight]

We just got back yesterday from our trip starting on 12/22.

We squeezed every last drop out of all 4 parks (MK and Epcot twice), but it did require waking early (5:15am on MK days for 7am opening) and staying late. It'll also require planning to make the most of it.

I'll be writing up detailed reports later, after I get a much needed rest from our vacation.

 

[1stvisit0909]

We just got back yesterday from our trip starting on 12/22. We squeezed every last drop out of all 4 parks (MK and Epcot twice), but it did require waking early (5:15am on MK days for 7am opening) and staying late. It'll also require planning to make the most of it. I'll be writing up detailed reports later, after I get a much needed rest from our vacation.

We got back 12/26. This was our second Christmas trip. The first one was 12/24-12/31 and it was much more crowded than this past trip 12/20-12/26.
The 7am EMH is awesome. So is late a night. We also had plenty of pool time.

Writing a trip report now!

 

[Dawnlight]

I'll quickly add that we didn't wait in line for any ride for over 30 minutes (and that was a FP we had for Toy Story Midway Mania- and only because we had one in our party in a wheelchair and had to wait in that line; others in our party went to the regular FP line and got in with no wait).