Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday

[Pollyanna3]

Wow, I cannot beleive the wealth of info from this website. I have been an avid Disney vacationer since the early 80's and just stumbled onto this site a week ago. It has been consuming my sleeping hours though-but I LOVE IT.

OK, my questions- and there are many (sorry)... Now that my DH has time to take vacation, I am planning three Disney trips- OCT, NOV and New Years for us (DS 1, 4, 5 yo and us). First time for our 1 year old.

My thoughts were to stay at FW cabins in OCT and CR in NOV, but I am up in the air for New Years (26th-JAN 3). Any thoughts or recommendations? We have always stayed at POFQ, CSR, CBR-kept getting fantastic deals in the mail from Disney ($79 night), but prefer deluxe accomodations.

We also would like to see all the exciting Christmas decorations. We are planning to go to MVMCP Nov. 27, but need to leave the next day for school- leaving little time to see decorations. Do all the parks decorate for Christmas? For anyone who has been there during the holidays, do they leave the decorations up until New Years, or is there a mass CM party and everything is removed by the morning of Dec 26th?

Do all the parks stay open late for a New Years celebration or is it limited? Any suggestions for the Best Park (will probably be pushing at least one sleeping baby in a stroller)?

OH- almost forgot- Any awesome, memorable, traditional Thanksgiving dinner suggestions?

Thank you everyone for your help!

 

[BrianD]

Welcome to the DIS! We to are Disney fanatics so it is hard for me to stay off these boards. As to your questions, Christmas is by far our favorite time of year at WDW. Disney does it up big time for Christmas. ALL parks and resorts are decorated to the nines. In fact they start decorating in early November and it's usually all there by the day after Thanksgiving. Also, everything thing stays up until after New Years. So you will definitely be able to see everything.

A couple of words of warning though. Accomodations may go quickly for you Thanksgiving & New Year's trips as it will be very crowded during both periods, especially New Years. In fact, the week between Christmas & New Years is the busiest week of the year at WDW. Another caution, the resort hotel rates for that week after Christmas are also the highest of the year and there are usually no discounts for that particular time period. So you may want to do some checking on rates for your time period.

As for a park recommendation for New Years Eve, basically either Epcot or MGM. I would go to Epcot, because it is the most spread out park and you will not feel as crowded. Also, I hear the fireworks there for New Years is great. The Magic Kingdom is an absolute bear on NYE and frequently has to close it's gates early on that day because the park fills up. And yes, all parks (except for Animal Kingdom) are open very late during that entire week.

As for a Thanksgiving meal, I've heard that the Liberty Tree Tavern in the Magic Kingdom does a great one, but it fills up early, so you would want to make reservations as early as possible.

Have some great trips this fall! We'll be there in December!