Disneyland around Thanksgiving - Question?

[Anjelica]

We are thinking about going to DL around Thanksgiving this year (actually Saturday, November 21st checking out on Thursday, November 26th (TDAY) then going on to Legoland for a couple of days. We are WDW pro's but are complete newbies when it comes to DL (I was there like 25+ years ago so no clue).

We plan on flying out of STL to LAX (thought about ONT or one of the other airports but we have a 2 year old and 6 year old and there are NO direct flights from STL to ONT). STL->LAX actually was pretty reasonable as well.

How busy would you say Disneyland gets around that Thanksgiving week (more so before the actualy holiday itself)? Are we talking 2 hour line waits or fairly reasonable? We will be staying at Disneyland Hotel (probably Californian) using DVC points (not the villa's as I know they don't open till after our vacation).

Any other pointers? (We plan on staying at the Sheraton next to Legoland for three nights and spend a couple of days at Legoland). What should we expect in terms of driving from Disneyland -> Legoland - 1.5 hours? What about LAX to Disneyland? We were probably going to rent a vehicle.

Thanks for the help in advance.

 

[Quilter007]

Thanksgiving week is one of the busiest @ D-land. Some of the local schools are out all week. Other crazy people (like us) go for the whole week to S. Cal. So -- get to the parks early, do the slow loaders, get fastpasses, take a break in the afternoon & use up your fastpasses after naps.

Legoland -- love it, but can't imagine spending more than 1 day there on a trip. There just isn't that much to do there -- have 2 lego fanitic boys & they are ready to go home (or to D-land by 4 - 5 pm). So -- you might want to think about the Wild Animal Park or SD Zoo as an alternate for some of your Legoland days. You are much closer to SD than OC from Carlsbad.

 

[Escape2Disney]

We LOVED our Thanksgiving week visit in 2007! The park decorations are amazing, and everyone is in a holiday mood! It is crowded, but we weren't overwhelmed. That may be because we were expecting worse.

I agree - taking a break in the middle of the day helps.

We also found that making PS arrangements ahead of time really helped! We made reservations for about an hour before we thought we'd be hungry, so nobody was cranky.

Have a wonderful time!

 

[JadeDarkstar]

why dont you do lago land first an then dland after. we try to go right after thanksgiving. 1st week of dec last week of nov is the best time to go

but if you go the week of it will be very busy

 

[thisismyhappyplace]

thanksgiving is the best time to go!!! we go every year at that time, and there is hardly any crowds hardly! it's the best....

 

[Anjelica]

Thanks everyone for their responses. Sounds like maybe we should try and hit up possibly SeaWorld one of the days that we were going to do Legoland. My children LOVE the aquatic animals.

Good tip on taking a break in the afternoon. We usually do that at DW BUT wasn't sure if that would also be the case at DL.

We actually wanted to go to DL before Thanksgiving since we are going to use DVC points and since FRI/SAT are premium nights in terms of points we decided to just do one Saturday and the rest of the nights are Sunday-Wednesday so less points. We also thought DL would be less busy prior to Thanksgiving day vs. the day of and after it.

 

[abouley]

We were there Nov 2007 the early part of Thanksgiving week. I just remember thinking that the early part of the week wasn't too bad but it kind of got busier and busier the closer we got to Thanksgiving. I'm thinking we were there Sat-Wed maybe. The crowds really weren't bad early in the week but by Wed were getting bad (although we went between christmas and New Year's sevearl years ago and THAT was really bad. T-day week was nothing compared with that)! The only bad part was that the decorations were still going up while we were there. Our hotel was hardly decorated when we arrived but by the last day suddenly was very pretty! Of course we were at WDW right after T-day this year for 2 weeks and had the same problem!!

We have only been to legoland once and I thought a day was more than enough but I know they have opened some new parts but I think they might be more water focused so might not be something to do in Nov! I do really like seaworld so that should be fun. It depends on your timing with traffic as to how long it'll take to get to legoland. Not sure on LAX to DL as we always drive down.

DL is a lot more laid back than WDW as far as planning. You won't need a ton of dining reservations and you can park hop easily each day (in fact we often PH most days as DCA is much less busy in the afternoons than DL tends to be). Hit the parks early just like WDW and break mid day just to get away from the crowds. GC is so close that breaks will be super easy! Same general rule applies with collecting FP's throughout the day to use at night, hitting rides like peter pan and dumbo first ,etc!

Alison

 

[love2go2disney2]

We will be there the week at DL during that week. We cant wait!!

 

[Vacation Dad]

We have been to Disneyland a couple times the week before Thanksgiving, and what abouley says is exactly right. It is very busy but it is manageable, and the parks are open long hours. Getting there early is the only way to go, and you will find that it starts getting really, really busy on Wednesday. Since you know how to use fastpasses, etc. you should be fine. While I would prefer to go during a less busy time, I would not hesitate to go that week again.

Whatever you do, do NOT go to Disneyland on Thanksgiving day!