Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread #2 (Closed)

[Sherry E]

Shannon/sirvin12 -

Again, I apologize for taking soooo long to get back to you in this thread! I don't know where the time is going!

Thank you so much for your very kind words. It means a lot - I really appreciate that you enjoy this thread and the Halloween thread and have been following them both. I tried to create 2 fun threads that would be not only informative but also help build excitement for Halloween and/or holiday DLR trips, so if I have succeeded on any level I am very pleased!

About your question regarding the PIN codes - from what I have seen, it seems like, when there are Fall PIN codes (and they are not always abundant), they tend to tiptoe right up to about the mid-December range, like maybe right through the weekend immediately before Christmas, at the latest. Early December would be a good time for PIN codes or discounts, if there were going to be any at all, and they should be applicable even on a weekend, as long as it's not a holiday weekend.

I have no idea what Disney might do this year in terms of offering hotel discounts, with all the changes at DCA happening. On the one hand, I kind of think there may be a huge push to get people to stay onsite at a Disney property because they expect tons of new guests to descend upon the parks to see Cars Land, etc. On the other hand, I could also envision something happening like, perhaps, Disney cuts back on the discounts somewhat because they are expecting massive crowds anyway, with or without discounts. It could go either way.

But if there are PIN codes available this Fall, they would probably be targeted at the weeks in which Disney expects lower crowds - the weeks that are not expected to be jam-packed. They want to pull in extra hotel business during the off-peak times. And early December is more off-peak than others, simply because it is in between the Thanksgiving break and the Christmas break.

It will still be busy on weekends in December, but it will get exponentially worse as the month progresses, I think. So early December is probably your best bet in that regard.

I'm not sure when the Candlelight Processional is taking place this year - either 12/1 & 12/2 or 12/8 & 12/9. If you end up there on a CP weekend, beware that the crowds could be huge on those days. I didn't find it to be that horrible on Sunday, 12/4 last year, until mid-to-late in the afternoon, but I heard that the Saturday crowds were awful.

I have a feeling the CP dates may end up being 12/8 & 12/9 this year - no way of knowing for sure, though. So your best bet may be to go with the trip that starts on 11/30 and ends on 12/4.

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Yay, Michele! Welcome! You found us!

There are lots and lots of folks who have posted on this thread before, who have gone to DLR in November for the holiday festivities. More than you'd even expect! They range from the early November visitors to the post-Thanksgiving visitors. Lots of people have been there over the official opening day of the season - whichever date it was in the past. And, of course, we have our December people and a few early January folks here too.

Like any thread on the DIS, sometimes it gets quiet for a while and then other times it's hoppin'. Hopefully some of our other folks will chime in soon.

So you already booked your hotel? Wow! You really are in full planning mode! Which dates did you end up going with - the mid-November dates? And are you back at the Ayres?

 

[kaoden39]

Hi Sherry!!
Yes, we are staying at the Ayres again. They happen to be running a special in November for 25% off for AP holders. I had to jump on it. It is too good of a deal to pass up.


The dates I had to go with are 11/12-11/17. Kacy can't really miss any later than that because of review for finals.

 

[MissMichigan]

Very happy to say I may be joining in on this one again this year. I've been at Christmas once before, in November 2011 (trip report in my signature line) and have contributed to this thread (my old username is mattsprincess). My boyfriend and I were discussing a possibly trip for my birthday this June, and in trying to show him what it's like at DL I made the mistake of using my Christmas pictures. Then came the "hey...maybe instead of june..." thought, and he bit.

So, if we work it out, I'll be going sometime in earlyish November, probably within the first week or two of the season starting. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Sherry E]

Very happy to say I may be joining in on this one again this year. I've been at Christmas once before, in November 2011 (trip report in my signature line) and have contributed to this thread (my old username is mattsprincess). My boyfriend and I were discussing a possibly trip for my birthday this June, and in trying to show him what it's like at DL I made the mistake of using my Christmas pictures. Then came the "hey...maybe instead of june..." thought, and he bit.

So, if we work it out, I'll be going sometime in earlyish November, probably within the first week or two of the season starting. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Yay! I really hope it works out for another holiday trip - your last DLR Christmas photos were absolutely beautiful! (I think I put a link to your TR in Post #3 of this thread on Page 1, and if I didn't I had certainly planned to do it!) The June trip would be fun because of Cars Land opening and the excitement of all of that, but during the holidays you'll get to see all the new stuff at DCA as well as all the holiday highlights you have already become familiar with (and possibly even more).

I have to admit, when I first read the "I've contributed to this thread" part of your comment, I was thinking..."You have? I don't remember you." I was looking at the MissMichigan name and it threw me off.

But then I read ahead to the rest of it - "my old username is mattsprincess"- and instantly said aloud, "Oh, of course! It's mattsprincess! Thank goodness she identified herself!" It makes me wonder how many other DIS'ers end up changing their screen names and we don't know it.

 

[I❤MICKEY]

MissMichigan -

We will be going for both Halloween and Christmas this year. Making the most of our annual passes. I just looked through your trip report with my DS3. He loves looking at all the pictures. I thought it would make you smile when I tell you that he said, "Look Mom, she's a crayon, a sparkly blue crayon".

 

[Pjimmeyer]

Sorry it's been so long since I posted, but our 28th anniversary trip in early December was fantastic! It was our first trip to DLR during the holidays (usually spent the holidays at WDW) and we were NOT disappointed! We did the holiday tour at DL and it was really fun. Having the prime seating for the Christmas parade was great! We also did fantasmic dessert party seating and a WOC dining package at Ariel's Grotto. All was well worth it. The renovations were almost completely done at the DLH and everything was beautiful (but we still miss the water falls). Also miss having a balcony on all of the rooms. Overall though we really like the renovations taken as a whole. A few pics:

 

[Pjimmeyer]

A few more...not a very good photographer I'm afraid

 

[Pjimmeyer]

and a few more...

 

[kaoden39]

Oh thank you for sharing these!! I was just showing them to my DH. So pretty!!

 

[tksbaskets]

Pjimmeyer I think your pictures are great Night time pictures are so difficult and yours are crisp and clear. Thanks for sharing. We almost did the dessert Fantasmic. I'd love to hear more about that.

 

[supersuperwendy]

Everyone's pictures are AMAZING!!! We are in the pre-planning stages of a trip to Disneyland!!! I think either Thanksgiving week or early December 2014 is the time frame we are thinking of. I can't wait!

 

[Pjimmeyer]

Thanks! As far as the Fantasmic Dessert party I was a little underwhelmed by the box of goodies they give you. Nice quality but not really a whole lot to them. It was a cold night however, so the hot chocolate came in handy. Nice to be off the ground in a cushioned seat and in a good spot near the left front. You get to pick your spot ahead of time by checking in at a podium on the haunted mansion side of the Rivers of America. They will show you a seating chart and you can pick your spot in the reserved seating area and then you can go play a bit without having to stake out an area super early for good seats. Worth doing once if you haven't or just want to absolutely make sure you have good seating during a busy park time.

 

[Cocobean]

Oh boy, looking at everyone’s photos is getting me stupidly excited for my Christmas trip!
I’ve been reading this thread on and off for the past few months and thought it was time to finally join in.

I’m planning on visiting both Disneyland and Walt Disney World in November/early December with my mother, our first trip to WDW and our first time at Disneyland during the holiday season (Mum and I went Feb 11, I went Feb 12 alone, prior to that it was the early 90s). I love planning holidays (especially ones that involve Disneyland) so I’m finding waiting for the holiday dates to be released difficult. Thanks to every one who has posted photos and trip reports, your helping to distract me from making countless hypothetical hotel searches.

 

[Minnie Sue Oz]

Hello there everyone!

I have been reading this thread for so long and have finally decided to chime in! My family and I spent a whole month in the USA and especially for Christmas time at my favourite place on the planet!
So, as you can imagine I have soooooo many pics from the holiday time in the park, and I thought you might like to see a few!
There really is nothing quite like it............

Hope this helps to give you an idea of just how magical it is

 

[Sherry E]

Everyone's pictures are AMAZING!!! We are in the pre-planning stages of a trip to Disneyland!!! I think either Thanksgiving week or early December 2014 is the time frame we are thinking of. I can't wait!

supersuperwendy -

While it's too bad that you have to wait so long to get to Disneyland for the holiday season (you said 2014, right?), I think it's exciting to imagine what the decorations and everything could be like by that time. I am hoping that after Cars Land has been open for a couple of years in DCA, we will see some wacky Cars-themed holiday decor in that land (like we see in ToonTown and in A Bug's Land during current holiday seasons)! That's what happened with ToonTown - it opened in 1993 but it didn't really start to get some fun, whimsical holiday touches until it had been opened for at least a couple of years, and then it increased over the years!

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Oh boy, looking at everyone’s photos is getting me stupidly excited for my Christmas trip!
I’ve been reading this thread on and off for the past few months and thought it was time to finally join in.

I’m planning on visiting both Disneyland and Walt Disney World in November/early December with my mother, our first trip to WDW and our first time at Disneyland during the holiday season (Mum and I went Feb 11, I went Feb 12 alone, prior to that it was the early 90s). I love planning holidays (especially ones that involve Disneyland) so I’m finding waiting for the holiday dates to be released difficult. Thanks to every one who has posted photos and trip reports, your helping to distract me from making countless hypothetical hotel searches.

Hello, Cocobean!

Welcome! I'm so glad you decided to join us. (I always wonder who is out there, following along with us in the non-holiday times. I think there are lots of people who have photos to share but they probably think that no one wants to see them when it's nowhere near Christmas, so I was thrilled to see that we had some photo activity happening too!)

And I know how you feel - I still get "stupidly excited" for my Disneyland holiday trips!! In fact, I am currently working on my trip report for my December 2011 trip, and there is a point in the story - which I have not gotten to yet - where I am going to describe the delight I felt when I walked into the lobby of the Paradise Pier Hotel and saw the stunning Christmas tree (which glows in blue-green lights) again. Seriously, there was a song in my heart and I felt like dancing around the lobby in my gleeful state (I managed to restrain myself, but I felt like doing it!). I even thanked the Bell Desk guy for displaying such a gorgeous tree in the PPH lobby - even though he had nothing at all to do with it! I get impossibly giddy at DLR during the Christmas season.

How wonderful for you that you are going to visit both WDW and DLR for the holidays this year! How long will you spend at WDW? A week or longer?

I've never been to WDW during Christmas time but it is on my bucket list of things to do before I die. I've never been to WDW at all, but if I am only able to go there once or twice in my life...it would be during the holidays because there is soooo much to see, it seems, and because that's my favorite time of year (in case that was not obvious from this thread!). I could spend days just exploring the hotels alone, and then another several days in Epcot. It looks amazing.

I have heard from many WDW visitors how frustrating it is to not have the Halloween season dates or the Christmas season dates for DLR. WDW gets its dates up way in advance and we are sorely lagging behind at Disneyland. I am certain that the Disneyland Resort planning masterminds must figure out all of our dates at the beginning of the year - I don't know this for sure, but this is what I suspect. I think they don't want to release them right away in case they have to change the dates over the course of the months, and also because they think that mostly locals visit DLR and don't need dates way in advance. But it helps all of us to know when the season dates will be - if we are planning a trip for longer than a day, it helps us to know the dates in advance!

Just looking at the calendar and logically breaking down the possible season start dates at DLR based on certain previous patterns, I have to think that the holidays will "officially" begin on either Monday, November 12th or Friday, November 16th. (Possibly Friday, November 9th, but I think that may be a tad too early for the full array of holiday offerings.) That doesn't mean that there won't be decorations up before the official start date - the decor will start going up as soon as November begins - but the official start date is when the holiday entertainment and such begins, as well as snow on Main Street, Reindeer Round-Up, etc.

The 3 DLR hotels begin to get their decor in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, and more often than not it seems that the hotels are fully decorated immediately after Thanksgiving ends (like by the day after Thanksgiving). The Grand Californian Hotel tree and the Paradise Pier Hotel tree are each gorgeous, and the Disneyland Hotel tends to have some other cool stuff. So if you happen to schedule the Disneyland part of your trip for the time frame in which the 3 hotels are fully decorated, it's worth a stroll to each of them to check them out. The Grand is a particularly nice place to relax and enjoy the holiday atmosphere.

In any case, thank you for joining us and keep us posted on your plans as the year progresses!

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Pjimmeyer & Minnie Sue Oz -

Thank you so much for sharing the lovely, amazing photos with us! It was just the right dose of the holidays that I needed (in the middle of March)!





Now...I have been seriously lagging behind in getting my own photos up here (from December). I must post something...

 

[Sherry E]

Here is my December 2011 contribution...

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[3Minnies1Mickey]

I'm baaaaack! Well it's been almost 2 years since my last DL trip (we did WDW last year!), and we are coming home! We're booked in the kids suite at Portofino Dec 15-18 for a quick Disney Xmas fix and to get our APs!!!!

 

[Cocobean]

Hello, Cocobean!

How wonderful for you that you are going to visit both WDW and DLR for the holidays this year! How long will you spend at WDW? A week or longer?

Thanks for the warm welcome!
We are still trying to figure that out. We probably have three weeks to play with, and in addition to WDW and DLR we are definitely visiting Las Vegas for a few days (obligatory family and friend visit), and depending on the NFL schedule I’m hoping to squeeze in a Vikings game somewhere (although it doesn’t look like they’ll be visiting anywhere that’s convenient). At the moment I’m thinking a week in Orlando- 6 days Disney, one day IOA (Wizarding World of Harry Potter is a must visit). Based on what I’ve read, under no circumstances do I want to get caught up in Thanksgiving crowds, does anyone have any opinions on when the Thanksgiving crowds arrive and leave? I was thinking Tuesday to Sunday is probably a no-go for both resorts.

Just looking at the calendar and logically breaking down the possible season start dates at DLR based on certain previous patterns, I have to think that the holidays will "officially" begin on either Monday, November 12th or Friday, November 16th. (Possibly Friday, November 9th, but I think that may be a tad too early for the full array of holiday offerings.) That doesn't mean that there won't be decorations up before the official start date - the decor will start going up as soon as November begins - but the official start date is when the holiday entertainment and such begins, as well as snow on Main Street, Reindeer Round-Up, etc.

Those dates are what I’ve been thinking, however I don’t want to risk being too early. Mum had suggested that we do DLR first AND last so that any decorations and shows that aren’t up and running the first time we can catch at the end of the trip, so we might end up doing that. Even though I’d prefer not to lose the time in checking in and out, transferring from the airport etc, doing this is also convenient for flight times (already looking at 14 hours MEL-LAX, there is no way we are going to do ORL-MEL coming home- I think with connections that’s over 24 hours in transit).

Now back to admiring the photos...

 

[Sherry E]

I'm baaaaack! Well it's been almost 2 years since my last DL trip (we did WDW last year!), and we are coming home! We're booked in the kids suite at Portofino Dec 15-18 for a quick Disney Xmas fix and to get our APs!!!!

Yay, Shannon! I'm so glad for you that you're heading back to DLR, and are going to get in another holiday trip! I remember you had some big plans set for a while (it may have been plans for WDW and I can't recall), and then something came up in your family and you were not sure if the plans would go through. Correct? Or am I totally imagining that ever happened? And for a while you had plans to do Halloween at WDW and the holidays at DLR.

Anyway, I hope this December's trip goes off without a hitch for you.

Thanks for the warm welcome!
We are still trying to figure that out. We probably have three weeks to play with, and in addition to WDW and DLR we are definitely visiting Las Vegas for a few days (obligatory family and friend visit), and depending on the NFL schedule I’m hoping to squeeze in a Vikings game somewhere (although it doesn’t look like they’ll be visiting anywhere that’s convenient). At the moment I’m thinking a week in Orlando- 6 days Disney, one day IOA (Wizarding World of Harry Potter is a must visit). Based on what I’ve read, under no circumstances do I want to get caught up in Thanksgiving crowds, does anyone have any opinions on when the Thanksgiving crowds arrive and leave? I was thinking Tuesday to Sunday is probably a no-go for both resorts.

Those dates are what I’ve been thinking, however I don’t want to risk being too early. Mum had suggested that we do DLR first AND last so that any decorations and shows that aren’t up and running the first time we can catch at the end of the trip, so we might end up doing that. Even though I’d prefer not to lose the time in checking in and out, transferring from the airport etc, doing this is also convenient for flight times (already looking at 14 hours MEL-LAX, there is no way we are going to do ORL-MEL coming home- I think with connections that’s over 24 hours in transit).

Now back to admiring the photos...

Cocobean -

You are going to have a busy trip, between Las Vegas, WDW, IOA and DLR (and possibly the Vikings, too!)! Wow! It will be a lot of fun, though.

I have no clue about Thanksgiving at WDW, but you're right - it seems that most people have said that the week of Thanksgiving and on until that Sunday is very, very crowded at DLR. This would make sense. It's a 4-day weekend for most people, and many folks extend their vacations to cover the entire holiday week, so they get off the Monday - Wednesday prior to the holiday as well. It is the week immediately after Thanksgiving weekend/Sunday is over that is supposed to be wonderful.

That's a really interesting idea to go to DLR first and last! Very clever! Yes, it will eat up time and be a bit inconvenient as far as the hotels and airport transfers, but if it can work for you with the flight times then it's a great option. This way you would be sure to see everything you missed the first time around - or get another chance to see whatever you loved all over again.

 

[Cocobean]

Cocobean -

You are going to have a busy trip, between Las Vegas, WDW, IOA and DLR (and possibly the Vikings, too!)! Wow! It will be a lot of fun, though.

I have no clue about Thanksgiving at WDW, but you're right - it seems that most people have said that the week of Thanksgiving and on until that Sunday is very, very crowded at DLR. This would make sense. It's a 4-day weekend for most people, and many folks extend their vacations to cover the entire holiday week, so they get off the Monday - Wednesday prior to the holiday as well. It is the week immediately after Thanksgiving weekend/Sunday is over that is supposed to be wonderful.

That's a really interesting idea to go to DLR first and last! Very clever! Yes, it will eat up time and be a bit inconvenient as far as the hotels and airport transfers, but if it can work for you with the flight times then it's a great option. This way you would be sure to see everything you missed the first time around - or get another chance to see whatever you loved all over again.

It certainly will be busy, but after doing Hawaii, Disneyland and LV in two weeks earlier this year without feeling rushed, I’m fairly confident that three, maybe four destinations in 3-3.5 weeks should be okay.
I may need a holiday to get over my holiday, though