Our Favorite Things About WDW During the Holidays

[Sooze]

Hi all!
My family is going to WDW during that "HORRIFYING" week between Christmas and NYE. We have done this before, and it always cracks me up how people act when I tell them we are going at that time. While the crowds are indeed crazy, we have found that there are a lot of GREAT reasons for going. Here is my short list.

What can YOU add?!

• The timing of the holidays. It is between semesters at school (DH and I are both teachers), so our whole family can truly relax and not worry about anything!
• The holiday tag at the end of Illumninations. Worth every bit of crowd-exhaustion!
• The decorations. Yes, I know we wish MK was decorated more thoroughly, but I love how there are hints of the holidays everywhere you turn.
• Voices of Liberty- holiday edition. This vocal ensemble is one of our favorite groups EVER. We love to hear them change up their repertoire for the holiday season.
• The weather. We live in Indiana, and while the winter is just starting to grip us in December, it is nice to escape to warmer temperatures.
• The hot chocolate. I would NEVER think of this when we are there for 4th of July! But there is nothing like a Disney hot chocolate while sitting on Main Street watching the crowds go by.
• The pace. When we go at the holidays, we COMPLETELY slow our pace down. We sleep late, we walk slowly, we spend more time enjoying our resort, we bench-sit and people-watch constantly. Thanks to MDE and FP+, we book a few fast passes and enjoy those rides or attractions, but spend most of our time just BEING THERE!
• The memories. My children are growing quickly. I love just holding their hands, or cuddling with them on a FriendShip boat. I love how happy we all are when we are HOME at WDW!

I refuse to buy into people's apocalyptic view of the holiday season at WDW.
How about you? What do you enjoy most?

 

[Accident]

I've never been there during that exact week but last year was our first non-summer trip and we enjoyed october so much we came back for december and both were high crowds and we loved every minute...

1. The theme/decorations. It just adds to the trip, enough is different to not be the same old trip yet again and in the case of halloween, trick or treating in magic kingdom is something you'll remember for a long long time.
2. Many resorts become a destination with their holiday extras like gingerbread houses and holiday trees. Most trips, another resort might be a dining destination but a nice casual day going between some of the resorts gave a really nice relaxed day and a great reason to just window shop those resorts. It really adds to the holiday time for us.
3. The weather, not just because it's warmer than being at home but because it's a really comfortable temperature to be in Florida. The place is just much more comfortable to be at and you slow down your pace, take it all in and just wow..
4. It's more than just being at disney and easily turns into a extended family destination after everyone grows up and goes their own way.
5. We got an extra month of holiday season! While stores and everyone are early at getting you in to buy stuff, disney was just celebrating the holiday and it felt like "christmas came early" for us.
6. The parks have much better hours without the extra magic hours. Our first trip we were surprised that normal park closing was much later than a summer extra hours closing. Makes sense in hind sight, you can't see the holiday lights during the day so the night lasts longer.
7. Some really interesting tours that center around the holiday don't run during other seasons. We love to do 1 tour every trip and some of them make the holiday time even more special for us.
8. If you've never been to WDW in the fall, you need to make it at least once. It'll give you a lifetime of memories.
9. The different parades and parties offered at MK. it's just something different you can't easily see any other time of year and great to do MK 1 day normal and then the next day it's the party evening with different activities happening. Same park, 2 very different experiences.

To be complete, there is a couple things that we don't like about it.

• It messes with your internal clock. We celebrated the different fall holidays a month early so when halloween really happened, it felt like thanksgiving. When thanksgiving came around, it felt like christmas. By the time christmas actually came it felt like the year was never going to end...
• Refurbs and sudden closures. You have to really be on your game with planning and watching what's happening with different must see attractions. It's not uncommon for 1 favorite to suddenly close for a cleaning or refurb especially when other rides finish their cleaning/refurb early. I suspect with most rides having the new interactive ride queues and magic bands stuff now installed this will become less and less in future years but for the last few years, there was a lot closed for a couple weeks here and there during dec/jan to install their queue upgrades.