Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread #4

[mvf-m11c]

No question that the weird plastic trees (as you know Sherry that I call them the ugly plastic trees) are just awful to look at after replacing the nicely decorated trees at Mickey's, Minnie's House and Toontown City Hall from DLmama picture a few years ago. If DL didn't change the plastic trees with the nice one's than I would have accepted it just like you over the years during the holiday season.

Good grief...let's hope that DL doesn't decide to replace all of the themed wreaths and garland with plastic wreaths and garland!

That will be awful if DL replaces all the theme wreaths and garlands for plastic types.

 

[butterflymouse]

Looks like we might be taking advantage of our annual passes one last time before they expire! Holiday time at Disneyland in mid November!

 

[dhorner233]

 

[Sherry E]

Denise -- Another great set of nighttime photos (I was also impressed with your nighttime photos of the wreaths around IASWH)! They are great - even the horrible, plastic City Hall tree looks good in your picture because the lights on it are covering up the awful plastic branches somewhat! How and when were you able to get to Toontown after dark? Had it not closed yet (it looks pretty dark in the photos, but I have no clue what time it was)? Anyway, you have another entry in the random draw!


Bret -- Yes, I am always so amused when you call the trees the Ugly Plastic Trees ("Mickey's Ugly Plastic Tree," "Minnie's Ugly Plastic Tree," etc.)! Compared to what the trees used to be, the current ones are awful. At least the rest of the themed décor around Toontown is still good.

Looks like we might be taking advantage of our annual passes one last time before they expire! Holiday time at Disneyland in mid November!

Welcome back to the Superthread, butterflymouse!

I'm glad to hear that you will be getting in one more trip before the AP expires, and a holiday trip at that!

Did you happen to get the invitation for the AP party in DCA on Tuesday, September 2nd? It's supposed to take place from 8 p.m. - 12 a.m., and will feature a throwback theme, music, special characters, etc. Apparently, everyone whose AP is expiring between October and December should get the invitation (I got one, as my AP is expiring in mid-November), and registration for the event starts tomorrow (8/20). We can bring up to 5 Passholder guests, but we have to have their AP numbers in order to register them too.

 

[Minnie Sue Oz]

I have been waiting to add some pics so here goes! From Christmas 2010.















Brings back some wonderful memories

 

[Luisa]

Not that great but they are Toon Town during the holidays!

 

[Elk Grove Chris]

 

[Sherry E]

Where, oh where, is Disney with some sort of official announcement on the start/end dates of the holiday season? We are going to assume that the Holidays officially begin somewhere between 11/10 and 11/14, so we are already at (or past?) the 3-month mark.

At this point in time last year and in 2012, we already knew what was going on for the holiday season. This year there's no Backstage Pass newsletter for AP holders to give us the dates. There's no specific date on the DLR website (it only says "from mid-November to early January").

The silence is ominous to me, only because of that "Select nights Nov. and Dec." sentence that was in the Disney Side decal insert a while back (which we discussed in this thread). I feel that this could be the calm before the storm, and that DLR is gearing up for a "big announcement" before August is over.

Or, it could mean that nothing new or out of the ordinary is happening at all and they just don't see a need to post the official dates!

​

Minnie Sue Oz --

Welcome back to the Superthread! I'm so glad you joined us, and posted some lovely photos for this week of the Countdown! You have now earned your first entry into the random drawing for the $25 Disney gift card (I'll do the drawing in early November)


Luisa and Chris --

Great photos! You each have another entry into the random draw.

​

 

[tksbaskets]

No news....tick tock. DH and I still might squeeze in a Holiday visit. Perhaps I should look at flights? Be nice to know when the happenings are.

TK

 

[Sherry E]

No news....tick tock. DH and I still might squeeze in a Holiday visit. Perhaps I should look at flights? Be nice to know when the happenings are.

TK

TK --

Well, the good thing is that you and DH would probably be squeezing in your quick visit (pre-AP expiration!) in December, correct?

Whatever is going on for the holiday season would surely be in full swing by December. November is a bigger question mark, especially before Thanksgiving.

It can't hurt to look at flights if a holiday trip is really a possibility for you!

 

[Misskitty3]

Did you see this about Frozen going in for the holiday season over at CA?


From MiceAge:

Taking a cue from the successful Frozen Summer Fun promotion they pulled together very quickly out at Walt Disney World, a new Frozen offering will be shoehorned into DCA for this Christmas season. Setting up in, you guessed it, the backlot area of DCA’s Hollywoodland, the characters from Frozen will be moving in for the holidays. An indoor ice rink and character meet n’ greet will be installed in Stage 17, while next door the Muppets will go on hiatus (again) and the MuppetVision theater will be repurposed for a small stage show and Frozen sing-along. Frozen décor and set pieces will be plopped down around these two venues and take over some of the existing Mad T Party facilities, and the existing Studio Store nearby will be turned into a Frozen merchandise headquarters. This will create a Frozen miniland of sorts in DCA, and should help take the pressure off the Frozen frenzy currently found in Fantasyland.

http://micechat.com/77851-marvel-at-disneyland-resort/

 

[mvf-m11c]

It is so amusing when I call the ugly plastic trees at Toontown during the Holiday season so I am calling them plastic trees this year.

This is getting crazy with no news of the Holiday season at the DLR.

No news....tick tock. DH and I still might squeeze in a Holiday visit. Perhaps I should look at flights? Be nice to know when the happenings are.

TK

That is great news to hear TK that you are trying to get one more trip until your AP expires in December. At least everything should be up and running in December while it is all in limbo in mid November with everything going on where we don't have an official start up date for the Holiday season.

 

[mlnbabies]

Did you see this about Frozen going in for the holiday season over at CA?


Taking a cue from the successful Frozen Summer Fun promotion they pulled together very quickly out at Walt Disney World, a new Frozen offering will be shoehorned into DCA for this Christmas season. Setting up in, you guessed it, the backlot area of DCA’s Hollywoodland, the characters from Frozen will be moving in for the holidays. An indoor ice rink and character meet n’ greet will be installed in Stage 17, while next door the Muppets will go on hiatus (again) and the MuppetVision theater will be repurposed for a small stage show and Frozen sing-along. Frozen décor and set pieces will be plopped down around these two venues and take over some of the existing Mad T Party facilities, and the existing Studio Store nearby will be turned into a Frozen merchandise headquarters. This will create a Frozen miniland of sorts in DCA, and should help take the pressure off the Frozen frenzy currently found in Fantasyland.

http://micechat.com/77851-marvel-at-disneyland-resort/

I really hope this happens! My 2 dd's who are 10 and 14 will be thrilled!

 

[tlovesdis]

Did you see this about Frozen going in for the holiday season over at CA?


Taking a cue from the successful Frozen Summer Fun promotion they pulled together very quickly out at Walt Disney World, a new Frozen offering will be shoehorned into DCA for this Christmas season. Setting up in, you guessed it, the backlot area of DCA’s Hollywoodland, the characters from Frozen will be moving in for the holidays. An indoor ice rink and character meet n’ greet will be installed in Stage 17, while next door the Muppets will go on hiatus (again) and the MuppetVision theater will be repurposed for a small stage show and Frozen sing-along. Frozen décor and set pieces will be plopped down around these two venues and take over some of the existing Mad T Party facilities, and the existing Studio Store nearby will be turned into a Frozen merchandise headquarters. This will create a Frozen miniland of sorts in DCA, and should help take the pressure off the Frozen frenzy currently found in Fantasyland.

Oh man, between this and the Studio 365 makeover, my 8 year old niece is gonna pass out! She will be in Frozen heaven!

 

[Sherry E]

Misskitty3 --

I'm glad you posted. Thank you so much! You know, the funny thing is that I did see that article on MiceAge/MiceChat (in fact, it was delivered to my RSS/news feed), but, for some reason, only the first paragraph of the whole article was showing. The Frozen stuff was not showing at all. In fact, I kept going down the page and it looked like it was stopping short of finishing, and I kept saying to myself, "Where is the Frozen stuff they were referring to?"

So I have no clue if it was an issue with my browser or with the actual web page, or what was happening. Now I can view the Frozen section of the article, but I only checked back there again because you posted about it! If I had seen the Frozen paragraph yesterday, I surely would have posted here.

It sounds like Disney is just taking the existing Frozen elements from Fantasyland and from Downtown Disney in 2013, and moving them into DCA -- perhaps because that is where Winter Dreams is, and Olaf is a big part of Winter Dreams. And then they would be adding in the sing-along too.


BUT... two things to remember:

1. MiceAge is not an official source of Disney news. So far, Disney has not officially mentioned anything Frozen-ish happening in DCA, and we cannot consider it official until they do. However, since this news or rumor has leaked out, perhaps the Parks Blog will now be announcing it (since they are overdue for some sort of holiday announcement)!


2. If there is an indoor ice rink in DCA, then that means there probably won't be an Olaf ice rink in DTD this year -- that is big news, if true, as that ice rink was supposed to go hand in hand with the Winter Village in DTD.



So this had better not mean that the Winter Village is gone from DTD! DTD finally felt like it was part of the holidays in some way with the rink and the Village.

Maybe Disney has something else in mind for DTD this year? A bigger Village?


Hollywood Land just got new decorations last year. As it is, the Mad T Party doesn't really fit in with the Hollywood Land theme, but there it is nonetheless. Frozen does not fit in Hollywood Land either, and the brand new decorations that came to HL last year had better be returning!

The word "shoehorn" really does apply here (and it was used in the MiceAge piece). To put anything Frozen-ish in DCA -- especially in HL -- seems forced and awkward.

It seems to me -- IF this all turns out to be true -- that Disney is desperately trying to add in extra things to DCA to make it more of a holiday attraction, so that when they have their eventual Christmas party people will have other holiday things to do if they choose not to buy party tickets for Disneyland.

Also, and this is just a small side note, taking the Frozen meet and greet out of Fantasyland takes away a chunk of the very few decorations that were in that land! FL needs more holiday décor -- not less!

​

 

[blackjackdelta]

a couple more,

Jack

 

[crystal1313]

I have a ton of photos in ToonTown at Christmas time and you can't tell! LOL ALl the angels I have and there are no decorations!

This is quite old as my oldest DS is 6.5 now! LOL

 

[Cheshirecatty]

Sherry...…I got kind of nervous when you used the word "Ominous"(but probably rightly so!)

I really, really hope that the silence is not a case of "calm before the storm", but like you said, that maybe nothing new, or out of the ordinary will be happening this year!!!!(knock on wood)!!!!!

 

[dec2009mama]

just noticed I don't have many toontown holiday pics!

 

[Sherry E]

Crystal -- You have another entry in the random draw! All it takes is one photo!

dec2009mama -- You also have another entry into the random draw! I love that second photo -- so cute!

​

Weird -- once again I tried to view the MiceAge article (the one that mentions the possible Frozen mini-land in Hollywood Land), and could only view a portion of it. The text only went as far as the "How Marvel-Ous" heading and then the rest of the page was blank white. That is basically what happened to me yesterday, when I was trying to figure out where the section about Frozen was after seeing it mentioned in the title.

However, just a short time ago, after Misskitty3 mentioned the MiceAge article, I clicked on the link and could view the whole thing. Maybe it's an issue with my browser, or with accessing the article through my RSS feed. I noticed that there was another web page I couldn't access either, and it used to be fine. I'll have to look into that, as I cannot be missing breaking news as it rolls in!

In any event, if Olaf, his ice rink, Anna and Elsa and a new Frozen sing-along are moving into Hollywood Land, that should be announced in a Disney Parks Blog and in a press release right around now! We are already overdue for a holiday season dates announcement from the Disney camp, and a Frozen mini-land would be a good thing to throw into the Blog too!

But now I am really curious about the fate of Downtown Disney for the holidays! I certainly hope Disney builds it up and puts a bigger Christmas Village there -- like a whole holiday festival/Christmas market sort of thing! Even though the ice rink did take up a lot of space in DTD, and the Christmas tree looked kind of weird in the center of it, the rink went hand in hand with the Village. If they get rid of the DTD ice rink (which was also available to people who were not going into the parks), then I wonder if the Village will be placed around the tree?

​

Sherry...…I got kind of nervous when you used the word "Ominous"(but probably rightly so!)

I really, really hope that the silence is not a case of "calm before the storm", but like you said, that maybe nothing new, or out of the ordinary will be happening this year!!!!(knock on wood)!!!!!

Cheshirecatty --

Let's hope the silence means nothing! (Fingers crossed!)

I was hoping the silence and delay in announcements meant that nothing out of the ordinary was happening, but now that the rumor has trickled out via MiceAge about the ice rink and the Anna/Elsa meet and greet moving into DCA this year, that could be the delay. Maybe, as that article indicates, Disney is trying to figure out the best time to announce it as well as announce some 60th anniversary news.

Even though I think that forcing too much Frozen into DCA could end up being weird, especially with the kind of classic, retro décor of Hollywood Land nearby, and I don't know what it means for Downtown Disney's festivities if the ice rink is removed from the Winter Village, I'd rather have a Frozen mini-land wedged into Hollywood Land than have a Christmas party that holds a bunch of longtime, established things hostage in Disneyland!

A party in DCA would be fine -- and, in fact, they can make Olaf and company the stars of a DCA party! I just don't want a party in Disneyland, with the same old parade and fireworks that have been there for 100 years, also holding IASWH, the Winter Castle and HMH hostage in the process!