Hi Sherry
Ask and you will receive. A review of the Holiday Tour. We had booked for the 3pm holiday tour so we would see the evening parade on December 22 last year. I had booked our tickets at 30 days out for the six of us, Grandma and Grandpa, DH and I and our two daughters aged 12 and almost 10. We love a Disney parade and one of the main reasons to book the tour was to have a lovely seat waiting for us.
I collected our tickets for City Hall during the morning, and met at around 2.30 at the gazebo in the Tour Garden to the left of City Hall. People began assembling. This was around the time of the first parade of the day.
Three separate groups departed on the day with around 15 people in each group. We were the last of the three groups to head off. Each of us received a special tour tag that identified us as part of the group. We all also received earphones to hear instructions from our tour guide along the way. Our tour guide had a magical candle that would be powered by our Christmas spirit. We had to yell out Happy Holidays to make it work. DH hates anything were group participation is involved and the tour was just within his limits.
Whilst walking music also played in our ears. As we walked down Main Street special Christmas traditions were pointed out at Walt's Apartment, Hannukah in one of the stores on Main Street. As we walked passed the candy store we all received a sample of fudge. The air vents that send out the smells to Main Street were also pointed out. We wandered through Fantasyland, past Reindeer Roundup, through Frontierland to New Orleans Square. In each land we spoke about Christmas traditions in Europe, in the new Frontier and in New Orleans. We learnt lots of different ways to say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays.
We then went to the front of the line at Haunted Mansion all decorated for the holidays. This was my only time for the whole trip. My youngest DD is not a fan, however because it was part of the tour she went along which was great. Was happy to ride again.
We then boarded our private reserved carriage for our train ride from New Orleans Square to Toon Town where we were encouraged to join in a Carols sing a long which got the whole train bopping along. Very nice.
On disembarking we made our way to Its a Small World were again we went straight to the beginning for our magical tour through Christmas around the world. I do really love this ride at Christmas.
From here we headed back to Toontown to collect our Hot Chocolate in Souvenir Cup and a Christmas decorated Mickey Gingerbread Man. We took these with us back to the promenade outside Its a Small World where the three row of chairs were waiting.
Each group had a set of seats around 8 across. Grandpa was not having his girls miss the front row (as they were the smallest) and walked briskly at the front to reserve our front row seats. He was not nasty or mean, just determined. There were no bad seats but he is a Grandpa after all who adores his only two grandbabies. He would have taken the back row for them to sit in front.
We sat and shortly afterwards the parade began. Just as good a view of waiting in the gutter. The dancers and characters all came over to dance and high five us (including Woody!). It was truly enchanting.
The tour concluded here and we handed back our headsets and received our special Holiday Tour Pin. We then continued to enjoy our evening at the park.
Would I do it again? Probably not for DH and the kids as we can brave the gutters but for my parents it was a great way to spend time and save their weary bones waiting for the parade. Also knowing that we had it planned we did not have to worry about when to put the tour into our plans. We could also make the most of the slightly shorter queues whilst the parade was going on.
Am I glad we did it? Sure am, it is a must do just once and it was a really special memory of the trip.
We didn't take the camera along with us on the tour as we just wanted to be in the moment and enjoy which became quite a theme on the trip. Do have lots of photos but did not travel with camera every day.
DH just wanted to enjoy the parade go by.