Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread #4

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Wow all these pictures look amazing! Our family visits DL every year but have only been during christmas time once! We are hoping to visit again from the 19-22. Kinda worried about crowds since the last time we visited at christmas was when CA was under construction. Are the crowds similar to that of Grad Night?

Really excited to go back to my happy place! Our last trip was so magical and perfect in every aspect. My girls even meet their favorites comedians Seth Rogan and James Franco while standing in line at the Hungrey Bear! Hoping this trip will be just as special
 
Wow all these pictures look amazing! Our family visits DL every year but have only been during christmas time once! We are hoping to visit again from the 19-22. Kinda worried about crowds since the last time we visited at christmas was when CA was under construction. Are the crowds similar to that of Grad Night?

Really excited to go back to my happy place! Our last trip was so magical and perfect in every aspect. My girls even meet their favorites comedians Seth Rogan and James Franco while standing in line at the Hungrey Bear! Hoping this trip will be just as special

Welcome, Awholenewdisney --

I remember reading someone's trip report either last year or early this year and there was a James Franco sighting at DLR then too! I didn't hear about Seth Rogen being with him but maybe he was nearby.

So you're going from December 19-22, or November 19-22?

Well, the first thing you should know is that California Adventure is much more in the spirit of the holiday season now. It doesn't have the same exact holiday feeling as Disneyland has, but it no longer feels disconnected from the holidays like it used to! The Cars Land decorations are amazing. The Buena Vista Street decorations are great. Every land in DCA has some sort of décor -- whether it's a random strand of garland or an elaborate display -- except for Condor Flats.

And Viva Navidad is not to be missed! The music is really infectious and lively. World of Color - Winter Dreams has gotten mixed reviews. Olaf from Frozen is very prominent.

If you're going in December, those dates will be crowded because they are close to Christmas, but I've never been there during Grad Night so I cannot make a comparison. My guess is that the crowds will probably not be worse than Grad Night crowds, and there will be times when they are more or less manageable.

If your trip is in November, then you'd be there (partially) over the beginning of the pre-Thanksgiving weekend, which is when a lot of folks show up, though you'd be leaving before too much of the holiday rush kicked in.

Think of it this way -- no crowds will probably be as dense or unruly as the ones in between Christmas and New Year's -- and a lot of people go during that week and say that it is not as bad as they expected. So if people can manage the post-Christmas/pre-New Year's week, I think that any crowds prior to that time can be tolerated.
 
These are from 2009-2013. I can't wait for our vacation in 54 days!

2009 Pier Christmas Tree.
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Nothing Christmas in this photo just love that WOC is still being worked on and the Maliboomer is in the background.
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2010
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2013
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Still bummed when I look at this photo that the lights were out on the Mickey Wheel.
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Sherry- Pumpkin Spice milk might be good to make a rice or bread pudding at least sounds good in theory. If I find some out this way I think I might try and make some rice pudding with it first. :)
 
Sorry should have clarified! We are going 19-22 in December. We went from the 20-23 in 2012 and we thought that the crowds were mangeable. The advantage is that we know what rides to hit first and what to be skipped. But just from observation from our last trip in June during Grad Night, park attendence has gone way up!
 

Sorry should have clarified! We are going 19-22 in December. We went from the 20-23 in 2012 and we thought that the crowds were mangeable. The advantage is that we know what rides to hit first and what to be skipped. But just from observation from our last trip in June during Grad Night, park attendence has gone way up!
Please tell a newbie @xmas what to skip lol.

Were going during the same time, so any helpful info is appreciated.

Thanks
 
Hello friends! Last month when we were planning to go to Disneyland the weekend of Nov 7 through Monday the 10th we had gotten a little information about different things that may or may not be up since that weekend isn't officially Christmas. I was wondering if there was any more info on dates? Or does anyone have a link I can stalk! :rotfl2:
These are the things we talked about
Chrstmas parade taping any news if this is in fact the weekend?
Will Christmas trees be up?
Jingle Cruise?
Small world Christmas overlay?
Will there be Christmas fireworks yet?
I looked at the first page of this thread and I didn't see anything. But the thread is so large I always worry I over looked something! HAHA! Plus I do find myself distracted by the beautiful picture of all of the desserts!! ;) I have been looking at the Entertainment schedule and they do have the hours but not the actual schedule. I thought that that was usually up 30 days out but maybe I'm wrong. :confused3 Any insight would be greatly appreciated! We are so excited having never gone during Christmas season!!!


The Holiday Fireworks and Parade begin on Friday, Nov 7th per the Disneland calendar.

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/calendars/five-day/2014-11-05/
 
I love when the theme is in California Adventures, since I have never been there. I went through some old photos with my Mom last week and figured out the last time I was at Disneyland was 1980! So much has changed in the past 34 years!



Getting caught up on some replies/comments...


Tracy --

Did you happen to catch the Halloween movie on Hallmark -- Midnight Masquerade? As I was saying to tksbaskets in this thread, I wanted to love it but it was not as good as the Christmas movies. It was missing something -- a certain spark. They tried to really do up the Halloween decorations in the background of every scene, but it just lacked something that the Christmas movies seem to have in abundance.

I didn't get a chance to watch it until this past weekend. I agree it lacked a certain spark. It didn't feel very "Halloween" even with the decorations in the background. I didn't care for the leading man either. Something about his hair drove me nuts. I was really hoping for more Fall like scenes.
I am going out of town for 10 days, but I have set my DVR for the two new movies coming out on the 11th and 18th, Recipe for Love and My Boyfriend's Dogs. They both look good. I can't believe the Christmas movies start at the end of the month. I am really looking forward to those and finding new favorites.
 
I just chatted with a CM and asked about the Jingle Cruise. She said there still has not been anything official but she (herself) doesn't see why it wouldn't return. I sure hope it does. I'd love to go on it, sounds so cute. I've never been.

I also asked about the CP. She said for the earlier time, 90 minutes in advance (probably around 4 if 5:30 is the start time, this is NOT at all official just my own from what I've read on here) would be when CM's allow the public to begin lining up to view. I know I have asked a lot of questions about the CP and wanted (I hope) to be able to provide a tiny bit of into back. :santa:
 
I just chatted with a CM and asked about the Jingle Cruise. She said there still has not been anything official but she (herself) doesn't see why it wouldn't return. I sure hope it does. I'd love to go on it, sounds so cute. I've never been.

I also asked about the CP. She said for the earlier time, 90 minutes in advance (probably around 4 if 5:30 is the start time, this is NOT at all official just my own from what I've read on here) would be when CM's allow the public to begin lining up to view. I know I have asked a lot of questions about the CP and wanted (I hope) to be able to provide a tiny bit of into back. :santa:

flyingdumbo127 --

Thanks!

Jingle Cruise has been officially confirmed. Scroll up this page ^^^ and see my earlier post of what we know about the holiday season so far, in terms of Official and Unofficial information.

You should know that the Cast Members on the phone and via email at Disneyland are the last to know anything -- which I always tell people, but now you see what I mean, as the CM told you that Jingle Cruise's return was not yet official. It has been confirmed.

About the CP -- What the CM on the phone was telling you is when the CMs will allow you to stand in their designated spots. However, there are people who will nab benches in Town Square and wait all day, way before the 90-minute time frame. That's how the people get benches (the benches are different from the reserved seats for invited guests) -- they literally wait allllllll day!
 
Thank you, Sherry on the Jingle Cruise. I'm sorry for not reading your update before I posted that. It would be fun to get to go on that with some of you on here. :)

I know I said being at DL makes me happy and it does. I am sincerely so thankful to be able to go this December. That said, I'd rather not spend the day sitting on a bench! Your (Sherry) original suggestion of talking with a CM at DL Saturday morning on official schedule and also seeing the crowd for myself makes a whole lot more sense. :)
 
I love when the theme is in California Adventures, since I have never been there. I went through some old photos with my Mom last week and figured out the last time I was at Disneyland was 1980! So much has changed in the past 34 years!





I didn't get a chance to watch it until this past weekend. I agree it lacked a certain spark. It didn't feel very "Halloween" even with the decorations in the background. I didn't care for the leading man either. Something about his hair drove me nuts. I was really hoping for more Fall like scenes.
I am going out of town for 10 days, but I have set my DVR for the two new movies coming out on the 11th and 18th, Recipe for Love and My Boyfriend's Dogs. They both look good. I can't believe the Christmas movies start at the end of the month. I am really looking forward to those and finding new favorites.

Tracy --

Indeed, you will have a LOT of new things to see, do, ride, eat, etc., when you venture to DLR for the holiday season! You will see a lot of things that are the same (but freshened up), and you will see a whole lot that is different! I will be very, very curious to hear back from you after the trip is over and find out what you thought of it all! I wonder if it will be 'overload' in a bad way, or overload in a good way!:rotfl:

The Halloween movie -- Midnight Masquerade -- also wasted too many scenes in the office building! There were lots and lots of pumpkins on the walls in the background, but it still felt like a boring office. The guy's hair was frustrating, but I also just saw no chemistry between the two leads. And the Masquerade Ball was boring too! At least Hallmark tried to make a Halloween movie, but I think we can see that there is a reason why their Christmas movies are popular, and why there is a whole 2-month marathon devoted to them!

I do like some of the non-holiday specific movies too (because they usually involve the same sort of formula and plot), and will watch the ones you mentioned, but the Christmas movies are definitely a cut above the others, I think.

I am now in a position where I have to clear off the DVR or won't be able to record anything new, so it is a good thing that at least a few of the movies taking up space on the DVR are available at Amazon!

Thank you Sherry on the Jingle Cruise, I apologize for not having read your earlier post before I posted that. I hope to get to go on that with some of you and yes, you, Sherry, too)

I don't think sitting on a bench all day is my idea of a magic morning or afternoon. Your suggestion, thanks again, is so much better to ask a CM at DL that day what the schedule is and go from there.

flyingdumbo127 --

I've often wondered how the bench folks can deal with sitting there all day, but I guess it's okay as long as they are sitting and as long as they have someone with them to take turns with, going to get drinks or food or whatever. As long as the benches are out and available for them to sit on and the CMs don't shoo them away, they will hunker down and wait.

Last year I was in the standing portion of the crowd for the CP, but I was literally standing right next to the bench folks. Those benches were full from end to end.

At one point, two silly girls came along and tried to sit on the edge of a planter to eat their food while we all waited for the CP to begin. A CM saw them sitting on a planter and made them get up and leave. However, instead of escorting the girls to the back of the crowd, the CM escorted them into 2 conveniently empty seats reserved for VIPs and Club 33 folks!!! There are rarely any empty seats because the CP only runs for 2 nights, and those two girls who tried to sit on a planter (which was not allowed) got escorted into seats!:confused3 It is up to the discretion of the CMs if they want to pick anyone from the crowd and put them in empty seats (if the seats should become available).

As for Jingle Cruise -- what was interesting is that the return of Jingle Cruise was apparently not even significant enough to Disney to mention it in their initial holiday season Blog!:rotfl2: It's like they forgot about it. Several of us asked in the Blog if it would come back, and eventually Erin (who wrote the Blog) came back and confirmed that it is coming back this year, but she only posted that a couple of weeks ago or so.

But, why on earth wouldn't they have thought to tell us about Jingle Cruise in the initial Blog, since they told us about everything else that was returning this year?:rotfl2:
 
I should also point out that, once again, Dreyer's Ice Cream is on sale for $2.99 at CVS this week. And... CVS just happened to send me $3.00 in ExtraBucks (free cash to use at CVS) today. Well, now they are practically just begging me to come in and take the Peppermint Wonderland ice cream from them, aren't they? A free carton of peppermint ice cream that would ordinarily run for $6-ish is a pretty good deal. How can that be a bad thing? If loving Peppermint Wonderland is wrong, I don't want to be right. That's all there is to it.

Target has it on sale for $3.50, which isn't a big savings (their regular price is $4), but I don't think I could've waited any longer, so I bought some today.

And I completely agree with the bolded. ;)

LOVE your picture!!

Me too! The colors are gorgeous!
 
Target has it on sale for $3.50, which isn't a big savings (their regular price is $4), but I don't think I could've waited any longer, so I bought some today. And I completely agree with the bolded. ;) Me too! The colors are gorgeous!

Now I'm going to pout. Our Target doesn't have it!
 
Is there some reason that the 11/7 Holiday fireworks and Christmas parade are still being listed as unofficial? These appear on Disneyland's own park calendar.
 
Is there some reason that the 11/7 Holiday fireworks and Christmas parade are still being listed as unofficial? These appear on Disneyland's own park calendar.

Pheran --

Yes, there is a reason. The reason is that I haven't moved them to the "official" status category in my post yet. :) And the reason I haven't moved them yet is because I am keeping watch over the calendar for another couple of days or so to see if anything changes (last year there were things appearing and disappearing from the calendar every other day, the Enchantment Lighting of the Castle was missing from a lot of calendar dates even though it took place every night, and even IASWH was not listed every day but it was showing on certain dates).

The actual holiday season does not officially begin until 11/13, so that means that if Disney suddenly decided to not run the holiday fireworks until 11/13, they could do it because nothing is guaranteed to be available for the public until 11/13. Or, they could run the fireworks and Christmas parade on 11/7 -11/9 and then stop them for a few days, resuming them on 11/13.

So I will change what I have assembled in my "What We Know..." post very soon.
 
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