Thanksgiving Week - 2017

[my2disneyboys]

We are heading to Disney again for Thanksgiving week! Soooo excited !! About 118 more days!

Is there a thread already started that I've missed? I am interested in hearing what your strategy is for dealing with such heavy crowds.... where you will eat Thanksgiving dinner... and what is happening this year for the holidays that we will not want to miss.

Thanks!!

 

[Shellyb84]

We are heading to Disney again for Thanksgiving week! Soooo excited !! About 118 more days!

Is there a thread already started that I've missed? I am interested in hearing what your strategy is for dealing with such heavy crowds.... where you will eat Thanksgiving dinner... and what is happening this year for the holidays that we will not want to miss.

Thanks!!

We're not going this year, but we were there Thanksgiving week last year (and going again next year). Our strategy was RD, use our 3 FP+ and then leave the parks pretty much. It was so crowded, which I expected, but still it was unpleasant by late morning. We were there for Mickey's birthday which was cool, and we did MVMCP one night.

We had a snafu with our Thanksgiving dinner plans, I had booked a lunch at Trails End (the phone CM told me they would be done with breakfast by then but turns out they weren't), so we ended up with Le Cellier for dinner. It was not very good. I'm planning to book Trails End dinner for 2018.

 

[my2disneyboys]

We're not going this year, but we were there Thanksgiving week last year (and going again next year). Our strategy was RD, use our 3 FP+ and then leave the parks pretty much. It was so crowded, which I expected, but still it was unpleasant by late morning. We were there for Mickey's birthday which was cool, and we did MVMCP one night.

We had a snafu with our Thanksgiving dinner plans, I had booked a lunch at Trails End (the phone CM told me they would be done with breakfast by then but turns out they weren't), so we ended up with Le Cellier for dinner. It was not very good. I'm planning to book Trails End dinner for 2018.

Thank you We haven't gone to Trails end but almost did that Mickeys BBQ for Thanksgiving at FW the one year we went on Thanksgiving. - So far here is our thinking... we have an 8AM ADR at Crystal Palace (I am not sure I scored this for 7 people on Thanksgiving - but I am not going to question it!!) Use our 3 fastpasses and grab turkey legs at that cart - i wonder how long that line will be!! Then we will be in the park and leave after the parade. (We booked that Tiana's Ice Cream and Parade viewing thinking it might make the parade more enjoyable on such a busy day) - We have plans to just go back to the hotel that afternoon and then have dinner at the hotel (At Sanaa) What do you think!? Doable? Crazy? The last time we went on Thanksgiving we stayed and resort hopped - so I am nervous actually being IN the park - especially MK on Thanksgiving day!

 

[Shellyb84]

Thank you We haven't gone to Trails end but almost did that Mickeys BBQ for Thanksgiving at FW the one year we went on Thanksgiving. - So far here is our thinking... we have an 8AM ADR at Crystal Palace (I am not sure I scored this for 7 people on Thanksgiving - but I am not going to question it!!) Use our 3 fastpasses and grab turkey legs at that cart - i wonder how long that line will be!! Then we will be in the park and leave after the parade. (We booked that Tiana's Ice Cream and Parade viewing thinking it might make the parade more enjoyable on such a busy day) - We have plans to just go back to the hotel that afternoon and then have dinner at the hotel (At Sanaa) What do you think!? Doable? Crazy? The last time we went on Thanksgiving we stayed and resort hopped - so I am nervous actually being IN the park - especially MK on Thanksgiving day!

I bet the turkey leg line will be long!! I definitely think that's a good plan. Do they have a traditional meal at Sanaa on Thanksgiving day? We've eaten there before and it's really good but I need turkey and dressing once a year lol. I honestly can't even remember which park we went to Thanksgiving day last year, but I don't think that day was any worse than the rest of the week.

 

[my2disneyboys]

I bet the turkey leg line will be long!! I definitely think that's a good plan. Do they have a traditional meal at Sanaa on Thanksgiving day? We've eaten there before and it's really good but I need turkey and dressing once a year lol. I honestly can't even remember which park we went to Thanksgiving day last year, but I don't think that day was any worse than the rest of the week.

Yes! They have a traditional turkey dinner I made sure because my kids will want that and I think I will too but my DH loves Sanaa and is excited for that buttered chicken I may have to think of a plan B at the MK ... we are thinking with that huge breakfast and ice cream at 2 - do we really even need lunch?

 

[Shellyb84]

Nevermind, I remember - We had dinner at Le Cellier, so we went to Epcot obviously! (It's been a long day)

I don't think we went anywhere in the morning though.

 

[Shellyb84]

Yes! They have a traditional turkey dinner I made sure because my kids will want that and I think I will too but my DH loves Sanaa and is excited for that buttered chicken I may have to think of a plan B at the MK ... we are thinking with that huge breakfast and ice cream at 2 - do we really even need lunch?

Nice! That butter chicken is my fav!

I'm not sure, breakfast doesn't tend to stay with me very long for some reason. But you could probably just snack. Surely at some point it wouldn't be too bad of a wait to get that turkey leg!

 

[kelliejason]

We are going this Thanksgiving too. We went that week a couple of years ago and it wasn't too bad until Thursday. MK was packed so we went to Epcot. Wasn't super busy. Turkey & fixings at Akershus was good. This year, we are going to Biergarten. They do a Thanksgiving meal which also comes with the normal German Cuisine. If you see a group of 10 adults staggering around World Showcase with 5 kids in tow, that's us, lol...

 

[my2disneyboys]

We are going this Thanksgiving too. We went that week a couple of years ago and it wasn't too bad until Thursday. MK was packed so we went to Epcot. Wasn't super busy. Turkey & fixings at Akershus was good. This year, we are going to Biergarten. They do a Thanksgiving meal which also comes with the normal German Cuisine. If you see a group of 10 adults staggering around World Showcase with 5 kids in tow, that's us, lol...

LOL! so fun! I think we should have planned for Epcot that day but booking dining this year messed me up because it was SO limited Thanksgiving week - I have never seen it like this - so I am planning on this week being the busiest I have seen it!!

 

[rtbreneman]

We will be there from Wednesday through the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Expecting very heavy crowds. Our plan (like it almost all trips regardless of time of year) is to rope drop, go hard until lunch-ish, and then avoid the crowds until the evening. We are also going to try MVMCP the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so that will be a first.

As for Thanksgiving meal, Garden Grove over at the Swan/Dolphin has a traditional Thanksgiving meal that we are going to try. Hopefully it's worth the steep price!

 

[my2disneyboys]

We will be there from Wednesday through the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Expecting very heavy crowds. Our plan (like it almost all trips regardless of time of year) is to rope drop, go hard until lunch-ish, and then avoid the crowds until the evening. We are also going to try MVMCP the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so that will be a first.

As for Thanksgiving meal, Garden Grove over at the Swan/Dolphin has a traditional Thanksgiving meal that we are going to try. Hopefully it's worth the steep price!

Have you had dinner there before? We did a couple years ago and the character interaction was AWESOME!! It was a really quiet place and I can't imagine it being too busy - even on Thanksgiving so the characters would come over and hang out a lot. lol

 

[rtbreneman]

Have you had dinner there before? We did a couple years ago and the character interaction was AWESOME!! It was a really quiet place and I can't imagine it being too busy - even on Thanksgiving so the characters would come over and hang out a lot. lol

Never have been there, so I'm excited to try something new. I'm not sure if the schedule is any different there because of Thanksgiving and it being the buffet, so I'm not 100% sure there will be characters. I am just planning on none, and if they are there, it's a nice surprise!

 

[CynBeth]

We did dinner at Boma's a few years ago on Thanksgiving and it was great!

 

[MrsDuck]

Well, we were going to go for Thanksgiving as we've done the past 2 years but this year I'm pregnant & our son is due 11/16 so we cancelled

Last year we ate at Boma and loved it! The year before we ate at Garden Grove - it was wonderful! Food was great (traditional Turkey Day Dinner) and we got to see the characters too!

Our crowd strategy was to prioritize what we really wanted to do and hit rope drops. Then take very long midday breaks. We typically went back in the evening - if we felt up to it. Mostly, during our Thanksgiving trips, we just enjoy the resort & do lots of hopping to see the Christmas decor!

I hope you have a wonderful time!

 

[SaintsManiac]

We'll be there 11/14-11/24 (doing 2 split up days at Universal). Not really worried about the crowds. We are there so early that we feel like we can get some quality park time in before it gets crazy. We don't have many full days planned. We are either doing RD or doing late night.

We're having an early Thanksgiving dinner at Minnie's Dine H&V with the Fantasmic! package. Looking forward to spending the day at HS

We don't intend on following a detailed itinerary. I chucked it out the window

Here's our plan:

11/14--driving day --check in Cabana Bay
11/15--Universal
11/16--MK
11/17--Check in Beach Club--Pool? Epcot? MK? HS? dinner at Beaches and Cream
11/18--Epcot
11/19--Back to Universal for Christmas at Wizarding World!!!!
11/20--HS/Epcot
11/21-- Dessert party at MK
11/22--AK then EMH at MK??
11/23--HS
11/24-- Drive home

Had to split up Universal to get to see the Christmas stuff. It's annoying, but what are ya gonna do?

 

[kmoehall]

Hi! We'll be there Thanksgiving week also, from the 18-25. We have Thanksgiving dinner res at Whispering Canyon, which we've heard great things about. I love hearing others' strategies/plans since this is only our 2nd trip.

 

[ColoradoMom12]

We'll be there the week of Thanksgiving. We're having dinner on Thursday at Crystal Palace because it was the only place I could get a reservation lol. My family really wanted to be in MK on Thanksgiving and nothing else was available. We prefer breakfast there but we're happy with dinner.

Our park strategy that week will be RD and save our FP, 1 for late morning and the others late afternoon/evening. We visit WDW at some of the busiest times of year (Easter, New Year's, Columbus Day, President's Day) so we are accustomed to large crowds. In fact, when we visit in the summer (we just go back yesterday from a week long trip), the crowds feel really small! We are at the parks about 30-40 minutes before they open, play hard for 2-3 hours, get lunch (at about 10-11 AM...we're ready by then as we usually wake up around 5:30 or earlier to make RD), FP something, go back to our resort for a rest and/or swim and head back to a park for our other two FP and dinner. I'll add that we are early birds so getting up predawn is our normal habit. We do not stay in the parks any later than 8 PM. If everyone is up for it (it's a late night for us), we'll have dinner at the GF one night during our trip and watch fireworks from there and then uber back to our resort. We don't RD the following day!

 

[TJA]

You guys are all making me re-think my Tgiving Day plans - lol. Glad to find this thread - it will be fun following it for ideas!

We are staying at BC for 2 nights and doing the CP package on one night and possibly the HS show(?) on the other night. I have Chefs de France booked for my CP package with the 5pm show, but I'm fiddling around trying to change the show time to a later slot so it's darker outside.

I have dinner on the boardwalk scheduled too at Trattoria al Forno. This is going way back, but when my girls were babies/toddlers, we spent many nights eating at Spoodles so I'm excited to finally have the right opportunity to at least eat in the same building as our old hang out .

Then moving to GF for the next few nights and have bought tickets for MVMCP already. We'll also take one of the days to spend at AK. We should have a fair amount of "spare" time during this GF portion of our stay, purposely so we can soak in the holiday atmosphere there and also resort-hop to see decorations/trees.

I'm pretty excited - we've been to Disney earlier in November a couple of times, but never this late into the month when there is much more of a holiday theme.

Edit to add: Not worried about crowds either. We'll book our FPs to do the rides we want, but I'd say the main reason for our trip is to enjoy the holiday parties and shows.

 

[martymcflyy85]

We are going Nov 18-25. Can someone recommend which day would be best to visit Magic Kingdom and which day would be best to visit Animal Kingdom crowd wise? I already know Thanksgiving Day is out, so we'll probably go to Disney Springs that day or something. Right now I"m thinking Magic Kingdom on Tuesday and Animal Kingdom on Friday. Any thoughts? Would Sunday and Monday be better? Trying to avoid the parks with extra magic hours as I hear those are usually the busiest.

 

[570traveler]

We are going Nov 18-25. Can someone recommend which day would be best to visit Magic Kingdom and which day would be best to visit Animal Kingdom crowd wise? I already know Thanksgiving Day is out, so we'll probably go to Disney Springs that day or something. Right now I"m thinking Magic Kingdom on Tuesday and Animal Kingdom on Friday. Any thoughts? Would Sunday and Monday be better? Trying to avoid the parks with extra magic hours as I hear those are usually the busiest.

We went last year (and are going again this year) the same dates. Last year the parks were less busy Saturday-Tuesday. As it gets closer to Thanksgiving day, the crowds worsen. We spent Thanksgiving morning at Disney Springs (Blaze for lunch) then went to Cape May for dinner. I had fast passes for HS at night. So my suggestion is to do as much as you can early on. We used the fast passes to our advantage, getting a 4th as soon as we scanned the 3rd one. We went knowing it would be busy. Having things planned out is your best bet. Many popular rides had waits at 2-3 hours!