ETA: Oopsie! Cross-posted with Sherry! Move along.
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That happens a lot - I'll be typing up something, and at the time I
start typing my reply no one else has answered the question. By the time I submit my reply and it posts, I suddenly see that 3 other people have answered the question!
That is correct Sherry. On the third week of December, the park hours should be just like on the weekends. In early and mid November F! will be playing on Friday to Sunday. WoC will be nightly like every other night while there will be only one on the shorten days and two on the longer days. When it gets to the third week of December, F! should be running every night.
You are correct Sherry that you do get reserved seating for F! if you buy the package. There is no tables for the F! dessert seating. There are no seats for WoC unless you are sitting on the park benches in the handicapped sections or VIP seating. The dining packages or picnic gets you FPs for the show so you don't have to get a FP at GRR.These FPs does not guarantee you a great spot where there is no one in front of you during the show. It depends on how long you want to wait to see the show. The longer you wait to see the show before it starts the better view you will have.
Oh, so you do not get a table for the dessert seating for Fantasmic? Thank you for clearing that up. It seemed like, in the past, I remembered people showing photos of their dessert boxes and talking about sitting at a table. But maybe they had the table just to eat the dessert and not to watch F!
You mentioned the lack of seating for WoC - that makes me wonder what I would have gotten this past December...IF I had used my VIP access (which I had hoped to do, but didn't). I wonder if they would have put us somewhere in the handicapped section because one person in my group was in a wheelchair, or if we would have just gone straight to VIP. Oh well, I'll never know!
**Fingers crossed** Either way, though, we'll be at Disneyland for the Christmas season, so I can't really complain.
I've lived in California my whole life (NorCal) but never been at Christmastime, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Hopefully you will love it! You have a lot to look forward to. If you love Christmas time in general and love Disneyland in general, you should have a fantastic time.
Unless Disney decides to conveniently 'remove' some of their decorations from certain areas this year (and they have had an annoying habit of doing that, but they probably assume no one will notice), I think this
could be one of the most well-rounded, exciting and immersive holiday seasons thus far...and I've seen a lot of holiday seasons at DLR.
I think that IF the themed decorations in Cars Land and Buena Vista Street are there, and IF California Adventure gets fully into the season like Disneyland does, both parks should be magical. When I saw Buena Vista Street in June I thought, "Okay, this street is just begging for some vintage holiday decorations." Disney certainly has the money to invest in the holiday season, so as long as they keep everything as is in Disneyland and add more to California Adventure than ever before, it should truly be amazing!
Hmmm... I was just thinking that maybe they are having 20 performances of the Processional, ending on December 20th, because they want as many people to see it as possible before the world ends on December 21st.
That's true! I hadn't thought about that. I know I thought it was odd that there would be no CP on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (but maybe there isn't a CP at WDW on those days either). It hadn't occurred to me that they are stopping the CP right before 12/21!
I am dreaming of a HalloweenTime trip AND a ChristmasTime trip both in the same year, hmmmmm, now only if my bank account would allow it
A girl can dream, right?
I like your dream! That's the best scenario.
Sherry-I didn't even think about how the nightly CP would change the parade times! Eek, someone tell me to stop worrying, lol!
Did they have to deal with that when they added the Halloween party, or are the things added for the party never there before? They could always do it like at WDW, the special Christmas parade, fireworks, and shows are only at the party until the week of Christmas. Then the parties stop, and the parade, fireworks, and some shows are done every day for the rest of the year for everyone. There are still a few things only at the party, like some characters and I think the snowing (which, I've never understood the appeal of, it's just soap that will ruin your lens if it gets on your camera, but I know I'm alone, lol), but you can still catch the main things with a regular park ticket. This is different than the Halloween party, which is just one reason I like the Halloween party better.
Yep - the CP should have some sort of impact on the parade times, which will then, in turn, have some sort of effect on the holiday tour (since the parade seating is a selling point of the tour). It may just be a minimal shifting of the schedule, but there should be some effect.
Disneyland Resort treats the holiday season as a much bigger deal than Halloween Time. While Halloween Time has become extremely popular in the last several years, I think that it stands to reason that more people actually plan entire vacations or trips around a holiday trip. People certainly plan trips for Halloween Time too, but I think it happens
more at Christmas time.
What happened with Mickey's Halloween Party at Disneyland is that they (Team Disney Anaheim) made the Halloween Screams fireworks total party exclusives after one year. BUT - and this is the main point - the Halloween Screams fireworks were
only available to the general, Disneyland-visiting public for one year before they became party exclusives. Halloween Screams debuted in 2009, and in 2010 it became an exclusive party selling point. The mini-parade/character cavalcade is only available at the party too, and it had never really been at Disneyland before so it wasn't like it was a longstanding tradition to which people had become attached.
So, in other words, Disney was smart in that it made the fireworks available to everyone for one year - just to get people interested in them and intrigued enough to want to see them again, so they would be inclined to buy a ticket to the party the next year! Clever! Throw in a mini-parade and you have justification for buying a separate ticket. But no one had gotten 'attached' to these things as part of the regular roster of Halloween entertainment before they became party exclusives. That's the key.
If Disney were to have a Christmas party in Disneyland and suddenly take away a few things that people come out to see every year - like the parade, snow and fireworks - by making them party exclusives, it would elicit a lot of backlash. The holiday tour would be impacted and probably restructured in some way, too, because of the parade. And if they
did make all of those things party exclusives, would the people who have been enjoying them for years feel that it was worthwhile to suddenly pay extra to see them? Maybe not, if they have already seen them dozens of times. It could backfire.
Unlike Halloween Screams and the character cavalcade, the snow/holiday fireworks/holiday parade have been highlights of the holiday season at Disneyland for years and they have become part of the regular seasonal festivities. I think that to have a holiday party in Disneyland would mean that they would have to add in something totally new and exclusive - a new parade or a new fireworks show or whatever - to lure people into buying a ticket. Or they would have to add in something else for the general, non-party people to see in Disneyland if they took away the snow/fireworks/parade.
I don't think DLR can quite get away with doing things exactly as they are done at WDW in this specific case. They may try at some point, but it's a little bit tricky. I'm certain that this is a large reason why we have not yet seen a Christmas party at DLR. The creative minds are probably trying to figure out exactly how they could pull it off to make all parties happy ("all parties" meaning Disney and the public).
If Disney starts putting more holiday things in California Adventure to kind of balance it all out (like a holiday World of Color and a holiday TSMM, etc.), they might be able to get away with having the Christmas party in DCA to begin with, and use those things as the selling point. I still think they might end up having the Cast Member parties in DCA this year because I don't see when they could do it in Disneyland, unless it's after 12/20 or before 12/1.
Or by adding more to DCA during the season they would have more leverage to get away with having an exclusive party in Disneyland, because there would be enough other holiday things to do at California Adventure to entertain people who didn't want to pay for a party ticket in Disneyland.
I don't know if any of that makes sense, but that's what I have been pondering.
I think that this year's holiday season will be very telling and may foreshadow what is to come in future years.
If the multi-night Candlelight Processional is a huge hit and not a crowd-building nightmare, Disney may think, "Aha! We can make the CP a selling point of a Christmas party!"
If California Adventure's holiday decor is a big enough hit this year, Disney may think, "Aha! We can get away with having a party in Disneyland next year because anyone who doesn't want to go to the party can still enjoy the season in DCA and not feel like they are missing out on anything!"
Or, Disney may think, "Aha! California Adventure is now fully involved in the holiday season too, so maybe we can have a party in DCA and do an all-holiday World of Color as the selling point!"
I think that the creative and strategic minds are waiting to see what happens with this first holiday season since the DCA makeover has been finished, and if the holiday highlights seem to be
balanced well between the two parks, I think there will be more possibility for a party next year or the year after.
The key is to not leave the non-party people feeling like they are missing out on holiday fun in the other, non-party park (whichever ends up being 'the other park'!), and/or to not send everyone over to the park with the party and leave the non-party park almost empty (comparatively)! There has to be a balance.
I haven't set definite dates yet but I had an idea of when I wanted to go, and I'm not going to worry about CP crowds. I think that the CP will change the crowd flow and patterns a bit - but it could work either way. It could be that the crowd patterns change for the better or for the worse. As some folks are saying, perhaps the fact that the CP will now be spread out over 20 nights will alleviate the large concentration of crowds over the first weekend.
I'm so glad you joined us.
For the Christmas season (we'll be there the week before Christmas so crowds will likely start swelling while we are there), is BTR BBQ open? Do Fantasmic and WOC run as well? Just curious. Also, if you had to choose with 2 kids 4.5 and 6.5 between WOC and Fantasmic, which would you choose, especially if dessert seating was an option or WOC Carthay Circle seating was an option? TIA!
