Thanksgiving or New Years?

[weluvdizknee]

Wow, just got off the phone with family members who are putting together a family reunion. The plan is to all meet at Disneyland for three days over the holiday season. They've narrowed the reunion to one of these two weekends:
Thanksgiving or New Years Eve.

They're able to get enough motel rooms now for either weekend, but need to make reservations soon, as rooms are going fast.

They want input on which of these two weekend would be the most fun for all. The age groups are 14 years to 67 years old. Everyone is able to walk and participate in everything at Disneyland. We're looking at 18 family members going.
Everybody will split up during the days and meet for family dinner and fireworks at night.

Any pros and cons on these two holidays at Disneyland would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks.

 

[AStarOnMars]

My family goes every Thanksgiving weekend .... I don't think the crowds are as bad as other holiday weekends ... and all of the Christmas stuff is up too.

 

[casiland]

When I was growing up we always went every other year on New Year's Day and never had longer than a 10 minute wait.

My mother grew up in Southern California and her joke is that everyone is either at the Rose Bowl, watching the Rose Bowl, or hung-over.

 

[disneychrista]

New Years Eve will be PACKED!!

My choice of those two is Thanksgiving. It will be busy of course. But no where near as busy as the time between Christmas and New Years.

 

[goofyfordisney]

We've done both--I would definitely pick Thanksgiving weekend!



Have a great time!

 

[weluvdizknee]

I just read an article about how Disneyland will close their entrance gates when they reach maximum people capacity. The article didn’t mention what that capacity limit is. Many people years ago had bought hopper passes ahead of time for both New Years Eve and Thanksgiving holidays. They entered the park early in the morning, left in the early afternoon, and when they returned that evening, the gates were closed, and they were not admitted back into the park. One New Years Eve, according to this article, the park had reached its capacity by 11:00 am, and people were turned away the rest of the day, and didn’t get to participate in bringing in the New Year.

My aunt remembers reading about that in her California newspaper the year it happened. She recalls Disneyland would only let guests of their hotel resorts re-enter the park, which was only Disneyland at the time. She says that another article stated that since California Adventure has opened, they just redirect people to that park when Disneyland is full. They’ve been doing that since the new park opened. They offer guests free admission to California Adventure park if they have a 1 day only pass. I would feel very cheated if I planned a family trip to Disneyland to spend New Years Eve in front of the castle, and was herded over to California Adventure to stand on Hollywood Blvd.

I’m just assuming that if you purchase hopper passes ahead of time, it’s no guarantee that you will get into the parks, no matter what day you plan to arrive. I also assume that we shouldn’t leave the park on New Years Eve if we’re planning to see the midnight celebration. That could be a very long Disney Day.

Disney nightmare: Flight is over-booked and you’re bumped to the next flight, hotel is over-booked and you’re moved to motel six 3 miles away, Disneyland reaches people capacity by 9:30am, and your hopper passes are only good for one free fast pass to Mission to Mars. Wake up Wake up!!

 

[Firefly777]

I heard horror stories about the park filling up and not being able to get in. When we went two years ago, we left the park (much to my dismay) for awhile. We came back around 5 and got back in fine. I don't know if we were just lucky or not.

 

[dletz]

Since New Years eve is a Fri, and New Years is a Sat, and if you're planning on Fri, Sat, Sun, maybe Mon, I would choose New Years. NYE will be crowded, but it's fun, we go most NYEs. While we have been told when leaving the park we leave at our own risk, we have never not been let in when we wanted to. We were there for 99/2000 and still got it no problem (we didn't get there early in the morning either. Usually the week between Xmas and NYE is bad, and I've there when they've close one or both park early in the day, but we've always been lucky on NYE and July 4. NY is usually very low key, being a weekend it may be a bit more crowded, but generally everyone is too tired, or too busy watching parades and football.

Thanksgiving is extremely crowded the whole weekend. I would think that Jan 1 and 2 crowds would be a whole lot less than Fri, Sat after Thanksgiving.