What about the week of Thanksgiving???

[allboyhouse]

Hello and Merry Christmas!!

I was just sitting here thinking.....I wonder what the week of Thanksgiving is like at Disney and are there any deals usually?? I booked the week of Memorial Day in May already hoping for free dining like last year but would love to see Disney decorated for Christmas. Any advice/info???

 

[PrincessTiffany]

Hello and Merry Christmas!!

I was just sitting here thinking.....I wonder what the week of Thanksgiving is like at Disney and are there any deals usually?? I booked the week of Memorial Day in May already hoping for free dining like last year but would love to see Disney decorated for Christmas. Any advice/info???

Thanksgiving is one of the most busy and expensive weeks of the enitre year and there are, generally, no discounts offered that week. Your best bet for that time frame is to check in the Thursday before Thanksgiving, because for the last couple of years there has been a Free Dining Promo going on the week before Thanksgiving and if you book on the last day of a Free Dining promo you can have the discount applied to your entire stay up to 14 nights.

I don't think there will be any May FD offers this year. I think that whole Memorial Day FD offer last year was some kind of fluke. Of course, they are offering FD the last week of March this year, which is prime Spring Break season, so who knows what they might come up with next.

 

[allboyhouse]

That is a good idea, to check in the Thursday before. My oldest will be a senior next year and I can't pull him out for more than a couple days, but the week of Thanksgiving they only have school 2 days so that might work. With 3 boys the free dining saves us the most money. They eat like its their job! We got the FD this past May and upgraded to Deluxe and it was SO worth it! Hoping to try to do that again this year!

 

[Missytara]

Hello and Merry Christmas!!

I was just sitting here thinking.....I wonder what the week of Thanksgiving is like at Disney and are there any deals usually?? I booked the week of Memorial Day in May already hoping for free dining like last year but would love to see Disney decorated for Christmas. Any advice/info???

Behind Christmas and Spring Break, it is the busiest time of year. Expect long waits on rides and few discounts - they don't need them that week.

Discounts are offered to bring people INTO the resorts. On holidays weeks, they don't have to do that. That includes Columbus Day, MLK Birthday, Presidents Day, etc.

I arrived consistently every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and avoid the parks like the plague. Attractions are running anywhere from 45 to 120 minute wait.

The next seven days are like heaven.

 

[PrincessTiffany]

That is a good idea, to check in the Thursday before. My oldest will be a senior next year and I can't pull him out for more than a couple days, but the week of Thanksgiving they only have school 2 days so that might work. With 3 boys the free dining saves us the most money. They eat like its their job! We got the FD this past May and upgraded to Deluxe and it was SO worth it! Hoping to try to do that again this year!

Well, if you check in the Thursday before Thanksgiving, and you leave after school on that day, I guess they would miss that Friday, Monday and Tuesday and you might be able to get the discount. Unfortunately those discounts won't probably come out until summer.

We have done free dining every year since 2005 and we are going next December to see the new Magic Kingdom additions and stay in the new Art of Animation Resort. I'm just hoping the new AOA resort isn't exempt from discounts.

 

[hmire]

We are going the Thursday before Thanksgiving until the Tuesday. There was FD this year with those days.

 

[brandip22]

I actually haven't had to wait in many lines even during Thanksgiving week. Maybe because I'm obsessed with our planning though!

 

[Forensicmom]

I just wanted to add that we went on our first trip this year and we went the Wed of the week before Thanksgiving until Tue of Thanksgiving week. It was great and we got the free dining plan, which helped. My 4 kids all missed 3 days of school (Wed-Fri) since they are off all of Thanksgiving week. The crowds were VERY low, Wed through Saturday. Each day you could see the crowd increase but it still wasn't bad until Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week.

My oldest is a senior this year and it worked out perfectly because he only has 3 classes a day anyway. The others are in 7th grade, 5th grade, and 2nd grade. They've never missed school before, so we figured one time couldn't hurt.

 

[allboyhouse]

Thanks for all the replies. Still trying to decide. I have always wanted to see all of the Christmas decorations. With my oldest being a senior next year I hate for him to miss an entire week but if we could work it out to 2 or 3 days I think it would be ok as long as he doesn't have finals. I just wish they would come out with more discounts!

 

[2Pirates2Princesses]

We are also looking at the week of Thanksgiving because we don't want to pull our two oldest kids out of school for more than 1-2 days max, but the WDW resort rates are outrageously high that week and promotional discounts aren't usually available for that week. I would love to see the Christmas decorations and festivities and think the Thanksgiving crowds would be more reasonable than the crowds we would experience if we went during our kids' Christmas break. If we decide to go to WDW for Thanksgiving week we may look into getting a condo offsite because it is too expensive to stay onsite during that week, especially without a promotional discount. I know our best bet would be the week before or after Thanksgiving, but again we don't want to pull our kids from school for more than one or two days maximum.

 

[Forensicmom]

2pirates2princesses - We felt the same way and we considered going at lots of different times of the year. Our kids are in 2, 5, 7 and 12th grade and I was really afraid they were going to miss a lot but they really didn't miss much. They only missed 3 days and the high schooler and middle school did well because they changed classes every 3 days, so they only missed some classes once. We were so happy we went when we did because the crowds were low, the weather was great, we got the discounts (free dining) AND the Christmas decorations were up.

 

[2Pirates2Princesses]

2pirates2princesses - We felt the same way and we considered going at lots of different times of the year. Our kids are in 2, 5, 7 and 12th grade and I was really afraid they were going to miss a lot but they really didn't miss much. They only missed 3 days and the high schooler and middle school did well because they changed classes every 3 days, so they only missed some classes once. We were so happy we went when we did because the crowds were low, the weather was great, we got the discounts (free dining) AND the Christmas decorations were up.

Glad to hear that it all worked out for your family. Our oldest two children will still be in elementary school for when we plan to go on our next trip (our last trip was in August), so even though we really don't want them to miss more than one or two days, our next trip may be the last chance we have to pull them out without it being a major ordeal so we are really going back and forth about this. I really would love to experience both the Halloween and Christmas seasons at Disney so we have a big decision to make

 

[Gymbomom]

We are planning on going on Thanksgiving week as well. The past two trips we pulled our kids out. Now that my dd is high school and heavily involved in drill team, we just can't do that now. My plan is to arrive on Friday night depending on discounts. Staying till the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. They will only miss 3 days that way.
I have to wait for our school calendar to be released. It usually is when they get back from break. They got out the week of Thanksgiving this year, if they don't get it next year, I will have to re-think everything.

My thoughts are we will have to plan on rope drops and then either early lunches or late breakfast. Shows and resort touring during the peak hours during the day.

 

[mommyof3princess27]

We were going to go Nov 10-17th and noticed that the new Royal themed rooms are excluded from the codes out now for spring. We switched our dates to Nov 25th- dec 2nd hoping for FD

 

[mydisneyobsession]

We love to go to WDW at Thanksgiving, and I wanted to share that discounts are available at the Dolphin. (And probably the Swan, too.) We just got a great discount for Thanksgiving week, and it covers the holiday.

If you're open to staying at the Swan and Dolphin, you might want to check it out!

 

[Waseller77]

I actually haven't had to wait in many lines even during Thanksgiving week. Maybe because I'm obsessed with our planning though!

Same here! There are definitely plenty of people, but we were able to do all we wanted to multiple times with good planning! And we had free dining while there as well...