Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread #3!- HOLIDAYS BEGIN 11/12/13!!

[egritz]

Just a quick note - we arrived yesterday around 2:30 - holy moly the CROWDS! We waited about 30 minutes for pirates, then saw Jack, waited about 45 minutes for HM, ate some dinner, rode Jungle Cruise with a 15-20 minute wait & then exited during the parade.

This morning we did EE and I got to meet Janet (momt2rk? Sorry, internet is slow and I can't remember your exact screen name!) We got on Peter Pan, Dumbo and Small world during EE, then Nemo at 9 & had some breakfast, Toon Town for my 2 1/2 year old to ride her 1st coaster (thank you for the 35" height limit Disney - she loved it!) and met Goofy, Pluto, & Merida, Then broke for nap. When we re-eneted around 3:45 everyone was already lining up for the parade so my parents staked out a spot for us while we met Rapunzel, Rode the Carrousel, and then Buzz (where a random CM came up to us halfway through the line and asked if we'd like to be taken to the front of the line ... no clue why we were singled out but SURE!) We watched the parade, both Castle Lighting ceremonies & the fireworks from right in front of the Walt & Mickey statue. I totally forgot about seeing Small World all lit up at night, I'm not sure we'll have a chance to make it back over there on Thursday night. Whoops.

I have to say my initial impression about Holiday at DL is that I'm underwhelmed (my husband, mother, and father all agree). I honestly feel like the Halloween Decorations we saw in 2007 & 2009 were more elaborate, but maybe it is that the Christmas decorations blend in more??? Not sure. I also haven't really noticed Christmas music playing in the park. And oh my, the crowds! It wasn't this crowded during any previous trip (you can see the dates in my signature) and one person told us they were there on 4th of July this year & it wasn't this crowded. I wonder if the late Thanksgiving has something to do with it -only 3 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas?

Anyway, tomorrow is a looong day with no break planned (eek) at DCA. On Thursday we will hit Jingle Jangle Jamboree so maybe that will help it seem more festive for us then.

 

[Astylla]

I'll be honest - with the exception of Sunday I feel crowds have been normal. I expect 30-45 minute waits on everything.
I know I may be the minority because I don't have kids to be concerned with but I really don't consider the crowds very high. Busy - sure but at no time have I felt cramped. I've mostly encountered 20 minutes for HMH, 10-25 for Pirates and 30ish for most others.

It's been really pleasant actually. But maybe I just have low standards for wait times /shrug

 

[aidensmom31]

Where is this from????

 

[KCmike]

Oogie Boogie by KC MikeD, on Flickr



Carsland by KC MikeD, on Flickr

 

[WestMom2two]

So if you were looking at the week before Thanksgiving week or the first week of December, what would you go with based on crowds?

If this has been asked I apologize. My husband just gave me the go ahead to plan next years trip to see Christmas at DL and I can't decided on the week. I am crossing my fingers that The View will not be taping the week before Thanksgiving again because not having accesses to the front of the castle would be horrible for my little princess lol Can we just start a December 2014 thread!? lol Im only kidding. Maybe...

 

[elamarca]

Maybe it's that we always make our trip the week between Christmas and New Years when it's CRAZY.. but 30 minutes for Pirates and 45 for HM sound reasonable. I definitely wouldn't consider that to be extremely crowded. Maybe I've been going during peak time for too many years!

All of the rides in Carsland are open, but not all of the rides in the rest of DCA. I found a list on Touring Plans, which indicates which rides are open.

http://touringplans.com/disney-california-adventure/attractions/morning-extra-magic-hour
http://touringplans.com/disneyland/attractions/early-park-admission

As others have said, great photos everyone! I'm getting excited for my trip!

Thank you!!

 

[czmom]

We thought crowds were high (only in DL) too. We were in the parks Dec 1-6. But, a 30-45 minute wait is crowded to us. We are used to walking on rides, or 5-15 minutes max at WDW at this same time.

I know some of our problem with high waits for POTC, HM, and JC is we did not go straight there at 9:00. We used EMH every morning and hit up FL, Tomorrowland, and Toontown at 10. One morning was spent meeting the princesses at 9:00. By the time we always made it over to the Adventureland area, POTC was either closed (A LOT) or had 30-40 min wait. Same wait times for JC and HM. At least Indy has FP and single rider, so we did that one quite a bit.

DCA was not crowded at all! And I thought Sunday, December 1 would be a nightmare. It was our lightest day!

We still had a fantastic time, and will definitely be returning to DLR one day.

 

[disney4cam]

So if you were looking at the week before Thanksgiving week or the first week of December, what would you go with based on crowds?

We go every year the week after Thanksgiving, and it's wonderful. Crowds are low, decorations are up, and the weather is USUALLY nice. This year was the busiest we've ever seen for this week, but it was still great.

 

[briggscreek]

Ugh, 3rd day here and I'm sick. I think it's food poisoning (had chicken at Rainforest Cafe yesterday and started feeling bad a few hours later). So I'm stuck in the hotel. We only have a half day tomorrow before flying home. I'm so bummed out, we were supposed to see Carsland lit up at night and watch WoC tonight. At least the kids are out having fun with my husband. Crowds have been a bit heavier than I prefer, but not bad. Hoping to feel better tomorrow!!!

 

[kylie71]

I usually keep silent, but people are Underwhelmed?? I was there Thanksgiving week, and every land with the exceptions of Fantasyland and Tomorrowland have decorations.... I love the feel of f the parks on the holidays and Buena Vista street was amazing!!! I do not know what you expect, but I LOVED IT!!!!

--Lori

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

I usually keep silent, but people are Underwhelmed?? I was there Thanksgiving week, and every land with the exceptions of Fantasyland and Tomorrowland have decorations.... I love the feel of f the parks on the holidays and Buena Vista street was amazing!!! I do not know what you expect, but I LOVED IT!!!! --Lori

I completely agree!!! I do wish FL would get some decorations - it seems so obvious to me, but I love the decorations everywhere else. And we heard Christmas carols everywhere we went - I embarrassed my children regularly by singing along

For those who were underwhelmed, what would you have liked to see?

 

[tiffjoy]

I usually keep silent, but people are Underwhelmed?? I was there Thanksgiving week, and every land with the exceptions of Fantasyland and Tomorrowland have decorations.... I love the feel of f the parks on the holidays and Buena Vista street was amazing!!! I do not know what you expect, but I LOVED IT!!!!

--Lori

I agree! On our way home now. We thought the parks were just beautiful. This was our first Christmas season visit to Disneyland, though. I'm not sure how many more decorations they could put up! I thought it was just amazing, and the crowds were as we expected. We reaped the rewards on Saturday and Sunday of bad weather, and DCA was really empty as a result. We spent most of those days there because of CP. Monday was quite busy in DL because the weather was upturning, but the wind emptied the parks in the evening. Yesterday the crowds weren't that bad at all, to us, for a holiday time. It was an amazing day, for a bunch of reasons.

I do recommend watching the parade and fireworks, then on the rest of the nights, using that time on rides. Last night, after the fireworks, the parks cleaned out. In an hour, we all did POTC twice with no wait, then DD4 and I did HM twice, with no wait, while DD2 and DH did teacups twice, carousel, and Dumbo. We did everything we wanted in 4 days, and I have two smalls and we are never at rope drop and are rarely even there by opening.

 

[splashtastic!]

I ate that today - totally delicious! Haven't seen the peppermint ice cream anywhere else, though. Did you see that club 33 and bb were evacuated this afternoon?! What a mess!

The evacuation had me totally confused! I asked a CM what was going on and I thought she said to "go over and wait by the fountain for instructions" and when I headed over to the fountain by the Haunted Mansion, she chased me me down and told me that she was actually referring to the chefs, servers and other employees! We had a good laugh over it.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[storralva]

Ugh, 3rd day here and I'm sick. I think it's food poisoning (had chicken at Rainforest Cafe yesterday and started feeling bad a few hours later). So I'm stuck in the hotel. We only have a half day tomorrow before flying home. I'm so bummed out, we were supposed to see Carsland lit up at night and watch WoC tonight. At least the kids are out having fun with my husband. Crowds have been a bit heavier than I prefer, but not bad. Hoping to feel better tomorrow!!!

Oh no! I hope you feel do feel better tomorrow!!!! I had food poisoning from chicken once and it was AWFUL! I hope no one else starts feeling sick!

 

[ksromack]

Carsland[/url] by KC MikeD, on Flickr

Another great shot! Where was this taken from?

So if you were looking at the week before Thanksgiving week or the first week of December, what would you go with based on crowds?

I don't think all the decorations would be up before Thanksgiving week so if you want the full effect of the Holiday season, i would say the first week of December would be better!

Ugh, 3rd day here and I'm sick. I think it's food poisoning (had chicken at Rainforest Cafe yesterday and started feeling bad a few hours later). So I'm stuck in the hotel. We only have a half day tomorrow before flying home. I'm so bummed out, we were supposed to see Carsland lit up at night and watch WoC tonight. At least the kids are out having fun with my husband. Crowds have been a bit heavier than I prefer, but not bad. Hoping to feel better tomorrow!!!

Oh, no! That stinks...and so frustrating because I know there is nothing to make that get out of your system!

I was there Thanksgiving week, and every land with the exceptions of Fantasyland and Tomorrowland have decorations.... I love the feel of f the parks on the holidays and Buena Vista street was amazing!!!

This was my first time at DLR and we really loved the decorations and everything! I don't remember whether or not we heard lots of christmas music or not. I remember distinctly hearing the Christmas music on Buena Vista Street, though. I loved all the garland and trees up in Carsland and actually on most of the windows at DCA.

The evacuation had me totally confused! I asked a CM what was going on and I thought she said to "go over and wait by the fountain for instructions" and when I headed over to the fountain by the Haunted Mansion, she chased me me down and told me that she was actually referring to the chefs, servers and other employees! We had a good laugh over it.

I had not heard about this......what a fiasco! I know Kim was evacuated from her meal at Carthay Circle last week too.....what is going on?

 

[egritz]

I usually keep silent, but people are Underwhelmed?? I was there Thanksgiving week, and every land with the exceptions of Fantasyland and Tomorrowland have decorations.... I love the feel of f the parks on the holidays and Buena Vista street was amazing!!! I do not know what you expect, but I LOVED IT!!!!

--Lori

we talked more about this today - I think the best analogy is when everyone sees an "awesome" movie and hype it up so much, then you go see it and eh, it was good, but not the best movie ever made as everyone made it out to be.

I just remember being in AWE of the Halloween decorations the 2 times we went in the Fall and people saying "if you think this is awesome you have to see it for Christmas". I found the Halloween decorations to be really "in your face" - probably because everything is ORANGE. Versus for Christmas, the decorations (in our party's minds) kind of blend in, at least during daytime. We did spend most of our time in Tomorrowland/Fantasyland/Toon Town, so that could be part of the problem too. Our first afternoon, though, I felt like I didn't see much decorations in New Orleans Square either (POTC area).

We did stay for the parade last night which i thought was great, and the fireworks as well - where we thought we had a prime spot in front of the walk & mickey statue, but many of the fireworks were blocked by trees & light posts from the bench we had - had we known all the fireworks would be to the left of the castle, we would have sat in the benches across the walkway, oh well, lesson learned).

Today we spent the day in DCA and I had to say I enjoyed the decorations in Car's Land & Buena Vista street. I also like the touches in the Monster's Inc ride. Crowds were way less in DCA today too which was nice (but we didn't do many rides - we were there mainly for characters for my 2 year old, and the parade). We also got to see the GCH Santa tonight who was very nice.

Sorry if I upset some people by saying we are underwhelmed, but that is our honest opinion. Today & tomorrow my mom & I are going to really try to and look at the little touches all around Disneyland to see if we can change our minds. (From Sherry's weekly themes I feel I have a grasp of the little details to be on the lookout for). And we are finally going to hit Jingle Jangle Jamboree.
Regardless, think of the bright side - we are not likely to be repeat Christmas-time visitors so that is one less family to contend with year after year ;-) With the crowds we are experiencing this trip in DL, I think our next trip will be planned for a non-holiday week in February!

 

[HeddyRuth]

We arrived today and really felt the spirit of Christmas everywhere. We really enjoyed WOC and had seen it before. Just a different feel and theme so I don't feel really the two shows can be compared. It did make me want to go see frozen again

I personally thought the decorations at DCA were gorgeous and can't wait to get to DLR tomorrow to see what they have there.

Crowds were not bad at all. The only "difficult" line was RSR which is par for the course. Otherwise we pretty much walked on to everything else all day.

The weather was gorgeous and as a tucsonan I felt comfortable at night in jeans and a light jacket. I am a desert rat, FYI, and love the sun and HEAT.

 

[rentayenta]

This is probably too late for your trip but we got in line right away on an EMH day at DCA at Trolley Treats and I asked how many bands they were giving out. The cm said, "as many as we need to"! Today we did a quick walk through DCA and it was almost regular park opening time and the cm at trolley treats had a handful of blue armbands still. We didn't wait in any lines at all. We walked up, got an armband, then went about our day. We were the first group And we're told we could pick up our candy cane any time after 9:30 am
But before 4pm. She we went to pick them up a whole group of CMs were wrapping them in bubble wrap and bagging them so they'd be ready for guests. They were still warm

This is good to know. I am torn with wanting to spend the time as our park time is limited but I really want a fresh candy cane.

 

[tksbaskets]

Maybe it's that we always make our trip the week between Christmas and New Years when it's CRAZY.. but 30 minutes for Pirates and 45 for HM sound reasonable. I definitely wouldn't consider that to be extremely crowded. Maybe I've been going during peak time for too many years!

We have too. Waiting an hour for TSM is par for the course. 30 min and we'd be jumping for joy. We are going a week earlier than normal this year so I'm wondering if the crowds will be noticably different.

Ugh, 3rd day here and I'm sick. I think it's food poisoning (had chicken at Rainforest Cafe yesterday and started feeling bad a few hours later). So I'm stuck in the hotel. We only have a half day tomorrow before flying home. I'm so bummed out, we were supposed to see Carsland lit up at night and watch WoC tonight. At least the kids are out having fun with my husband. Crowds have been a bit heavier than I prefer, but not bad. Hoping to feel better tomorrow!!!

Oh no, to be sick in the Happiest Place on Earth is the utmost bummer Been there. Last year I was really ill for 5 of our 7 days at WDW.

egritz I appreciate honest reviews. I liked your analogy of the 'awesome' movie that you might enjoy but not be overwhelmed. Enjoy your time in DL!

 

[ksromack]

This is good to know. I am torn with wanting to spend the time as our park time is limited but I really want a fresh candy cane.

Honestly, it doesn't take any time out of your day! You just walk by and the girls with the arm bands are outside the door on the sidewalk. Get the arm band and return at the designated time. They really have it down to a science!