Disney in December?

[shel112676]

Hey Everyone!!

Glad to be back now that we are planning our next trip to WDW!!
I do need some opinions so I apologize in advance for the long story to follow but I thought I'd throw it out there to see what you all think...

I have two daughters ages 4 and 20 mos. Our most recent trip to WDW was this past October. I had the itch to go and thought this trip would satisfy me for a while but by December the itch was back! I am also a full time student at our local university as a returning adult learner so I was pretty flexible with what dates we could travel being that I was able to take advantage of the many university breaks.

I had a very stressful spring semester and so my husband came up with the idea that we should get away for a long weekend as soon as my final exams were over....he said "wherever you want to go" Of course my answer was to go back to WDW and so I began looking into the travel arrangements. However, I began to feel extremely guilty about not taking the girls with us My husband reminded me of all the things we wanted to do on our last visit but were unable to enjoy but I still couldn't do it. So he came up with another suggestion...we could all go on my dream trip as my graduation present. ( I will be graduating in May 09 with a degree in Elementary Education) Great Idea! Problem is that my family is insistent that I walk at my graduation so we run into the problem of not having enough time between finals and grad day for our trip. I do not want to go in the summer because of the crowds once school is out and we'd also be hitting the extra expense of traveling over the memorial day holiday.

I will not have my usual university breaks during the semesters since I will be student teaching and have to follow the schedule of the school district rather than the university's. So we are left with one option...to go over my winter break.
This would be from December 13th until the end of January. We are considering leaving on the 13th and being home for Christmas eve.
This is appealing to me because from the research I have done, it is a time when the crowds are low, price is right (great in fact) and it will be nice to get away after the stress of holiday season and my school semester. The drawback for me is that we live in PA and when I go to Disney one of the things I enjoy most is the weather! I like to take full advantage of the hotel pools and waterparks. I love that we can wear tanks/shorts all day/night. I don't want to have to pack jackets and sweathsirts for Disney....I get plenty of use out of them at home!!!
Is it worth the trade off of the weather to see the magic of the holidays at the world?
So finally to my question.....what have your experiences been at Disney
in December?

Thanks!! and sorry again about the long story....I'm long winded when I talk too!

 

[stacy6552]

we went in early Dec a few years ago. We had a great time. we wore pants and t-shirts during the day and sweatshirts in the evenings. However, when we stayed late for MVMCP, we had on winter coats (which we had left in the carduring the day).

It is a wonderful time to go, but you wont be swimming and basking in the sun.

Also, if you plan on traveling home very close to Christmas, I recommend driving. That flight home will probably be a huge pain in the next, with over booked flights and overstressed attendants who dont care about pissing you off because the flights are all overbooked anyway. Then and spring breaks are the two times of year, I would drive before flying. There's a great website with I95 info called usastar.com.

 

[fireworks fan]

We went last Dec and had absolutely beautiful weather-sunny and 80 everyday. We were able to go swimming and wear shorts. The mornings would start out cool, so we still needed sweatshirts.

We loved all the Christmas decorations and really enjoyed MVMCP. My kids were 2 and 5 for the trip, and we all had a great time It was still pretty crowded in the parks though. I'd recommend December