Planning first Christmas Season Trip and need help with dates please!!!

[OregonMinnie]

We go to DL every other year, and always around the end of Oct.-beginning of Nov. We have decided after being teased with minimal Christmas decorations for our last four trips that we want to do the. Christmas season this year.

Immediately I began worrying about picking the perfect dates. We are completely opened far as dates and just need help on when to go. We usually do one week.

My questions are:

When??? Should we look at between Veterans Day and Thanksgiving? Should we do early December? Obviously we want to avoid any big events like the parade taping, any conferences that are over a few days, etc.

Is there larger crowds right when the Christmas season starts and then it "slows" down a bit until the school breaks begin (other than Thanksgiving) or once it starts, is it just crazy everyday?

As many of you know, dates can make or break you. This is my biggest concern which is why I came here. Pleeease help with any suggestions and things to watch out for.

Thanks! Traci

 

[figment_jii]

I've been at a couple of different points during the holiday season and in general things aren't too bad during the weekdays from mid-November through early-December (excluding Thanksgiving). I went last year during the week you mentioned (Sunday before Veteran's Day through the next weekend) and the crowds were quite manageable during the weekdays, but they were high on the weekends. There is a marathon on Veteran's Day weekend (Avenger's), which adds to the normally high weekend crowds. Luckily, the park was pretty much in full holiday swing, so the parade, fireworks, Winter Dreams and overlays were all up and running.

I've also gone the first and second weekends in December. The first weekend is okay, but it does overlap with Candlelight Processional (usually), which means crowds in DL on the nights when that happens. The second weekend in December is getting close to when the AP blockouts go into effect, so there were pretty high crowds on the weekends. In both cases, the weekdays (Mon to Thu) seemed manageable to me. The parks weren't empty, but it wasn't wall-to-wall people either.

For lots more information about the holidays and other points of view on crowds, check out the Christmas/Holiday SuperThread.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3358217

 

[Angrose]

We went over Thanksgiving weekend last year, Fri to Mon, and felt it was no worse than regular weekend crowds. I have a friend who went during Sun to Wed that same week, but the days leading up to Thanksgiving, and she said it was packed. A lot of schools have the whole week of Thanksgiving week off now and no AP block-outs so that is a super busy time to avoid. Good luck with your planning!