Thanksgiving week

[HollyMD]

We have never been to WDW during Thanksgiving week, but we are going Tues- Fri this year, because my daughter has a cheer thing that week for the Thanksgiving parade. What can we expect the week of Thanksgiving? Other than being what I assume will be extremely crowded, do they offer anything for Thanksgiving day that is different? What about weather? Thanks!

 

[Mike&AllisMom]

We have never been to WDW during Thanksgiving week, but we are going Tues- Fri this year, because my daughter has a cheer thing that week for the Thanksgiving parade. What can we expect the week of Thanksgiving? Other than being what I assume will be extremely crowded, do they offer anything for Thanksgiving day that is different? What about weather? Thanks!

We were there last Thanksgiving week and will be there this year too. Crowds were not as bad as I expected. We went out early, took a break after lunch & went out in the evening. A lot of the Christmas decorations will be out then. There are many places that offer traditional Thanksgiving meals. The weather was good last year, I think low 80's & 70's. It can vary greatly during this time though. We packed for summer, winter, and in between.

 

[ELSA711]

This is our first time going and we are headed down Monday (I think) of Thanksgiving week.
I am wondering if it will be a tad more crowded based on FD offered through 11/19 which is the Saturday before the holiday.

 

[Melwhit16]

We usually go for a week and leave the day before Thanksgiving. It does get busier as the week goes on but it isn't too bad. The weather is always perfect, 70s with little rain. Top that with the Christmas decorations and it is my favorite time of year!

 

[SA mom]

We went during Thanksgiving week in 2010. It was extremely crowded. I would stay out of Magic Kingdom on Thanksgiving day. We were told that MK was in the first stage of closing due to capacity. It was very hard to move around the park at all, but we are from San Antonio and it was just like a Fiesta event to us. There was no special Thanksgiving events since everything was already geared toward Christmas.

I would recommend making reservations for a Thanksgiving meal if you want to eat inside a park that day.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, the Christmas speakers started in World Showcase. We did not get a chance to see that, but wish we had. It was the one trip we did not have park hoppers and we regretted it.

I hope you have a great time!

 

[HollyMD]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Unfortunately, we can't skip Magic Kingdom Thanksgiving Day since DD is in the parade there. But maybe we can dart out after! lol

 

[Klayfish]

We were there the last year, from Wed-Sun. The only time it was really crazy crowded was MK on Thanksgiving Day, and even then it wasn't until after lunch. The morning wasn't that bad. I don't recall seeing anything "special" that day, outside of all the holiday decorations being up, which was really cool for us to see. After making at least a dozen summer trips to WDW, that was our first holiday trip so we were pretty starry eyed. We lucked out on the weather, it was really warm. Mid-80's every day, shorts and t-shirt weather.

 

[dlavender]

We have been numerous times, but this year will be the first time we will be there the day after Thanksgiving. We will use our normal Rope Drop commando plan, and I think it will be fine.

 

[Order66]

We were there last Thanksgiving week from the Tues before to the Tues after. It was our first visit during that time of year and our first over a holiday. The crowds were not as bad as I expected. Pretty similar to our June trips. So to us, totally manageable. We spent Wed in DHS and it was probably the most crowded we experienced of the week. Everything had longer wait times, but the rides there are also less numerous. With FP's and constant checking we did get on all the big rides, including TOT and Star Tours more than once. We spent Thanksgiving at Epcot. The only thing for Thanksgiving itself is that a lot of the restaurants do have a turkey dinner on the menu, so no need to skip out on that part of the holiday. For that time of the year, all the parks and resorts are decorated for Christmas and it's pretty cool. Epcot starts there holiday stuff on black Friday. The Candlelight show is excellent and the Holiday Illuminations is pretty amazing. We don't generally spend much time even exploring the resort we are staying at, but for that week we did make a point to set a side some time just to walk through the MK and Epcot resorts to see everything decked out for the holidays.

As for weather, last year it couldn't have been better if I had ordered the temperatures myself. It was high 70's to low 80's in the day and low 70's to upper 60's in the evening. Where we live Thanksgiving is sometimes full out winter weather and it's not uncommon for us to have to shovel snow by that time of year. So to us it was heaven. Shorts during the day and a light jacket or hoodie in the evening. Swimming on Thanksgiving morning. I can't even recall if it even rained once? So I guess if it did, it wasn't much. Reports from others were that cold fronts can happen during late Nov/early Dec. So we prepared for that by also packing a few jeans and never needed more than our jackets in the evening. Though being from the Northern Great Lakes area we drove to the airport with winter jackets and gloves so we were prepared for extreme cold too. LOL

We traveled a few times in early fall when the kids were younger and changed to early summer once they hit middle school. This was supposed to be a special trip for their sixteenth birthday in December, but we has such a great time and loved the Christmas theme of everything that were going to do it again next year over Thanksgiving.

regards