Thanksgiving in the parks?

[pixiewings71]

Anyone been to DL over Thanksgiving itself? We are considering it for our family as it's an extended weekend off work. Would appreciate any thoughts or reports from those who have been there. How crowded it might be would be the best place to start.

 

[sonnyjane]

The only time I was in DL for Thanksgiving was in 1992, so I'm sure more recent visitors can help you more, but from what I remember the crowds were not peak-of-summer large or anything. Splash Mountain had just opened, though, so that was a little crazy, but everything else was fine. We even had dinner in the park, but not one of the special Thanksgiving meals.

Found this on this site: http://www.wdwinfo.com/Disneyland/Events/Thanksgiving.html

 

[darph nader]

Why would you want to do Thanksgiving at DL? You'll miss all the football games.

 

[Krissy Marissy]

I think we will be visiting on thanksgiving this year, or the day after. I am curious about crowds too. My best friend's family lives 30 mins from anaheim and they said thanksgiving isn't busy at all but that weekend is crazy!

 

[pixiewings71]

Why would you want to do Thanksgiving at DL? You'll miss all the football games.

Surprisingly I'd be OK with that....and I'm the football fan in the house, not DBF! LOL

 

[pixiewings71]

I think we will be visiting on thanksgiving this year, or the day after. I am curious about crowds too. My best friend's family lives 30 mins from anaheim and they said thanksgiving isn't busy at all but that weekend is crazy!

See that's sort of what I'm wondering too. We would want to be there Thurs-Sun......

 

[got2travel]

I've done a couple of Thankgiving Days at DL, most recently last year. The whole weekend, including TD is crowded, but the weekend is definitely more crowded. We enjoy it thoug. We usually take the Holiday Tour so we can have reserved seats for the Chistmas parade (gotta love the toy soldiers!). And it's kinda cool seeing the presidentially pardoned turkey (or turkeys).

There's also a traditional Thanksgiving buffet served at the hotels, but we haven't done that.

It will be crowded, but if you have a strategy, arrive at opening, hit the big rides, collect Fastpasses, take an afternoon break, then enjoy the evening shows, you'll be fine.

 

[Krissy Marissy]

crowded or not I am still thinking of doing it. Maybe staying over night one night. The holidays are just so fun and magical

 

[gatorfreud]

We went last year arriving TG day through Monday. I thought the crowds were about the same on all of the days.

We know how to work the touring plans well, collect FP, etc... so we arrived at opening (or MM on those days) and went until about 11-12 (some at DCA too) - then we would leave and come back around dinner time. In the mornings I was like "Why did everyone say it is crowded over TG?"... and then when we walked back in in the evenings I was like "OMG!!!! I cannot BELIEVE how many people are here!!!???!!!"

So I would totally do it again, but only if you plan to arrive early!

Kim

 

[Nanseev]

I've been this week, and my experience has been that it gets progressively worse as the week goes on, and the weekend being the busiest (looking at thanksgiving week as a whole). I must say though that Tues/Wed of the week last year were great....not crazy crowded at all.

 

[pixiewings71]

I've done a couple of Thankgiving Days at DL, most recently last year. The whole weekend, including TD is crowded, but the weekend is definitely more crowded. We enjoy it thoug. We usually take the Holiday Tour so we can have reserved seats for the Chistmas parade (gotta love the toy soldiers!). And it's kinda cool seeing the presidentially pardoned turkey (or turkeys).

There's also a traditional Thanksgiving buffet served at the hotels, but we haven't done that.

It will be crowded, but if you have a strategy, arrive at opening, hit the big rides, collect Fastpasses, take an afternoon break, then enjoy the evening shows, you'll be fine.

We went last year arriving TG day through Monday. I thought the crowds were about the same on all of the days.

We know how to work the touring plans well, collect FP, etc... so we arrived at opening (or MM on those days) and went until about 11-12 (some at DCA too) - then we would leave and come back around dinner time. In the mornings I was like "Why did everyone say it is crowded over TG?"... and then when we walked back in in the evenings I was like "OMG!!!! I cannot BELIEVE how many people are here!!!???!!!"

So I would totally do it again, but only if you plan to arrive early!

Kim

Thank You! I think I'm going to do it. I know hotels will cost more so I'm going to see how many points it would cost us at our timeshare, maybe we can use points instead. Altho I would LOVE to stay onsite.....lol We are definitely good at touring, we've had a lot of practice the past couple of years and I think the holiday tour is a great idea. Can anyone give me more info on the buffets at the hotels? Or do they serve a turkey dinner inside the parks that day? Or at RFC or the Jazz Kitchen?

 

[Princess Row]

We went this past november on Thanksgiving and the days before and days after, and in the park on that day. Suprisingly the crowds werent bad at all. We did all the rides and i have seen the crowds much worse on other occasions.

 

[eeyore3847]

We had such a fabulous time last Turkey day. Loved the parade for the presidents pardoned turkey! Loved everyone dressed for thanksgiving. The characters wer great. Love the cm's. It was not busy till about 6pm. At that time we booked the buffet at the DL hotel! WOW!!! Was that an amazing buffet. The service was way horrible, but we had a blast anyways. It was definetly one of the best trips we have had. Loved it all! We went back after the buffet and DL was crazy busy!
I highly recommend!!!

Lori

 

[gatorfreud]

We ate at Jazz Kitchen - I got something normal, but DH got the traditional Thanksgiving plate. He really enjoyed it. It was a very nice meal - and he says that is high praise since he really values Thanksgiving!

Kim

 

[DisneyDork1969]

We will also be there that weekend (celebrating my 40th on that Sunday, then headin to San Pedro to board a 7-day cruise)...We won't be in the parks on Thanksgiving Day when we fly in, but we will have dinner at Jazz Kitchen for TD...we don't plan on doing 'everything', mostly classic rides...we will be doing the Holiday Tour & maybe Fantasmic! (not sure yet)...we'll proabably be at the parks by 8am (9am the latest)...I will also use RIDE MAX to tour the parks, probably print up a couple touring plans depending what time we get to the parks...as long as we hit our Top Five in DL and TSM & CS at DCA, the rest will be BONUS for us...

Jon C / DisneyDork69 on TWITTER

 

[DisneyDork1969]

I've done a couple of Thankgiving Days at DL, most recently last year. The whole weekend, including TD is crowded, but the weekend is definitely more crowded. We enjoy it thou. We usually take the Holiday Tour so we can have reserved seats for the Chistmas parade (gotta love the toy soldiers!). And it's kinda cool seeing the presidentially pardoned turkey (or turkeys).

When did you do the Holiday Tour? Did you do it on TD, Fri or Sat? Did you do the morning tour or afternoon tour? Was the Christmas Parade in the afternoon or at night?

Jon C

 

[pixiewings71]

Ok, so we are pretty sure we will do Tgiving this year at DL!! We will probably book a time at Mimi's for dinner, we just LOVE the Turkey dinner there!!! soooo good and soooooooo big, last year we had enough leftovers for the next couple of days! This way we could have lunches for a couple days. Thanks for the input, I appreciate it!!

We are also considering going over New Year's, our APs expire on the 3rd so we might...

 

[got2travel]

When did you do the Holiday Tour? Did you do it on TD, Fri or Sat? Did you do the morning tour or afternoon tour? Was the Christmas Parade in the afternoon or at night?

Jon C

We did the afternoon tour on Thanksgiving Day. The last part of our tour was to ride Small World. As soon as we walked off the ride, we took our seats for the parade. The special seating was right there in front of Small World. The parade was either a 6:30 or 7pm start. It started at Main Street and worked it's way down to us so I'm guessing that there was an afternoon parade too. I can't remember if there was or not but since our parade started at Main Street, that makes me think there was an earlier one that started at Small World.

Someone asked about dinner. We actually had a turkey leg at lunch to get in our Thanksgiving turkey, then chose to have dinner at our (used to be) favorite French Market. (I don't care for the new menu they launched this spring)