Visiting Disney World during the Christmas Break

[zxrst]

I know it is crowded but it is hard to take teenagers out of school during non-peak time. We normally stay on-sites but the resorts' prices are through the roof. If we stay off-sites, will we be able to get the FP+ in only 30 days? If there are too many people, will on-site guests have the priority to get into the park?

 

[gap2368]

If you do go know you might not get to ride the best ride with out waiting in a long line. But it can still be fun. You can still be close to the front of park opening if there is no EMH

 

[DisneyWishes14]

I know it is crowded but it is hard to take teenagers out of school during non-peak time. We normally stay on-sites but the resorts' prices are through the roof. If we stay off-sites, will we be able to get the FP+ in only 30 days? If there are too many people, will on-site guests have the priority to get into the park?

Some Disney Springs hotels and Swan/Dolphin get 60-day FP+ pre-booking, but other offsite resorts get 30 days - so it depends on where you are staying. The parks have "phased closures" and, yes, in some phases, on-site guests will have priority to get into the parks. https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/capacity-closures

Also keep in mind, traffic is jammed during Christmas week, so, if driving in from offsite, prepare for long lines of traffic heading into theme park parking lots.

 

[rdaky]

Our oldest has reached the point where it's too difficult to take her out of School. We found Summer more tolerable than Christmas time. It really is a matter of which is worse: heat or crowds. I'm not a huge fan of the heat, but I'll take heat over unbelievable crowds.

I'm going to add that for Summer, we just there a couple of weeks ago, and we were able to get 30 day FP for everything except FOP and 7DMT. Your options at Christmas time would be much more limited and increased overall lines, more people at rope drop, etc. It's doable, but it's a crazy time.

 

[Ladyandthepuppies]

We went the first week of December last year and we felt that the crowds were too big for us to enjoy much. In the afternoon wait times were 60+ mins for everything, even less popular rides. On our MK day I got us reservations for everything I could... 3 FPs, 2 ADRs, and a BBB apt. There was still free time in between when my little one wanted to go on rides and the wait times were just astronomical. Waiting over an hour for the Barnstormer was miserable for us.

At 30 days out, you won’t be able to get any of the more popular fast passes. I can’t even imagine enjoying being in a park on a day when it’s close to capacity. I absolutely love Disney, but I would not recommend a trip that week. I guess I’d either go during the summer and deal with the heat, or go during Christmas week and only do EMM/MVMCP/etc. ticketed events where the crowds are “limited” (MVMCP still gets pretty crowded imo).

 

[Deb & Bill]

You'll need to try to get to the parks extremely early in the morning for any park you want to go to because the lines for cars to get into the parking lots will be extremely long and slow moving. FP+ and getting on attractions will be the least of your problems. If you really want to get into the theme parks Christmas week, you'll want to bite the bullet and stay onsite.

 

[Rach3975]

I know it is crowded but it is hard to take teenagers out of school during non-peak time. We normally stay on-sites but the resorts' prices are through the roof. If we stay off-sites, will we be able to get the FP+ in only 30 days? If there are too many people, will on-site guests have the priority to get into the park?

We're in the same boat. Looked into going during Spring Break 2019 since our oldest is in high school, but the prices were just through the roof. I don't think they were nearly as bad when we went during Spring Break 2016. If you decide not to go during Christmas, what we ended up doing was finding a week when the kids had 2 teacher workdays. That way we could squeeze in a 6 day vacation with them only missing 2 days of school. Turns out that week is very popular for people from our school district to go to WDW.

 

[Klayfish]

First, you won't have to worry about being shut out of the parks. Typically the only park that reaches phase closure is MK on Christmas Day itself, and even then your odds of being shut out are really small. You'll be fine.

I will disagree with the previous posts and say that yes, you will be able to get FP+ at 30 days out. We are an offsite only family and have done Xmas week twice. No, you won't get FOP, but pretty much anything else is possible. Plus, if you learn and understand how to refresh, you can get just about anything you want the day of. As has been said in this thread, lines during Xmas week get crazy long. There are even lines for womens' bathrooms (felt bad for DW and DD11), so if you don't have a FP+ or know how to get one, you're going to be waiting in lines. However, we never waited for anything and got a good selection of attractions every day...FOP was the only one we didn't get.

 

[zxrst]

Thanks everyone. Looks like it is better to stay onsite.

 

[gharter]

If you have to go at Christmas, I would definitely stay onsite. You will need the extra magic hours in the mornings.
Its nice to use their transportation, especially when its really crowded and not need to drive.
Just expect it to be very busy, plan well, do what you can and enjoy it.