So.Many.Questions

[bariww]

I consider myself a planning pro, but we just decided to plan our 4th trip Christmas week and with the new ressie system and it being such a big week I feel like a total noob! We arrive on Sat the 19th and leave on Sun the 27th, plan to do do 2 UO days (new for us) and have 1 day to rest (ideally Wednesday). What park should we try for on Christmas Day? Suggestions on how to fill in the rest of our week? Is the best strategy if you can't get the park you want on the day you want just to buy tickets and book another park and change the ressie if what you want becomes available?

 

[nkereina]

The Universal parks do not have reservations, and there have been times recently where they fill to capacity. I would expect that to happen multiple times over Christmas week. I would avoid the Universal parks on Christmas Day and weekend days, and arrive before park opening to ensure you get in. I also would suggest not leaving the park you're in as you may not be permitted back in, if you wanted to re-enter. Express passes for Universal will also be crucial. You can purchase them, but they are included as part of the perks of staying at a Universal deluxe hotel. I believe Portofino Bay will be closed through Christmas, so they would be included for stays at Hard Rock or RPR. It may behoove you to price out a night or two at Universal during that time both for the included Express Passes and because they give on-site guests priority for entering the parks when they reach capacity.

For Disney, we were there last week. No telling what Christmas week will be like, but we did find DHS to be the busiest so I would avoid Christmas and weekend days there. We found Epcot to the be the least busy, so that might be my choice for Christmas Day. If you're staying at a WDW hotel, there is a separate pool of availability for park reservations and its generally easier to obtain what you want when staying on-site, especially if you book early. I suppose its possible for them to increase capacity, but I would not be confident in them releasing more park reservations if one has filled up.

 

[empedocles]

AP or park tickets?
MK & HS are both unavailable on Dec 25. (Unless you have an AP.)
HS is gone that entire timeframe. (Again, except for AP.)

 

[bariww]

park tickets

AP or park tickets?
MK & HS are both unavailable on Dec 25. (Unless you have an AP.)
HS is gone that entire timeframe. (Again, except for AP.)

Park tickets. Per reports I'm seeing, people have been able to get parks that were previously not available as cancellations and other things change.

 

[nkereina]

Park tickets. Per reports I'm seeing, people have been able to get parks that were previously not available as cancellations and other things change.

Anything is certainly possible. But I believe the parks are operating at 25% of maximum capacity, and with Christmas Day/week being a time that normally reaches maximum capacity, that means 75% of people who may want to go then will not be able to. I can't imagine cancellations at this point are driving significant changes in availability, since those would be few and far between - unlike ADRs, where you can quite literally pick up someone's cancelled time.

Are you staying on-site? I think that will make a difference, since that has generally had the best pool of availability. If you're not staying on-site, your pool of availability is smaller which unfortunately doesn't help.