Christmas Time in Disney!! Tips?

We love Disney for Christmas, but the week between Christmas and New Years it will be CROWDED. Like "at capacity" crowded. When the park nears capacity, offsite guests are high on the list of people who are turned away early. I highly recommend that you are at the park for rope drop or as close to it as possible, especially for Magic Kingdom. I also recommend that you steer clear of MK on Christmas Eve/Day and New Years Eve/Day. Tour early, have a plan, pack your patience. If there is any way that you can go at the beginning or end of the break and tack on a few non-holiday break days, do it! How much time you do have off at Thanksgiving? If you can snag a few extra days with your school holidays, it's usually slightly less crowded then. All of the holiday stuff except Candlelight Processional should be going on.

As for holiday entertainment, we LOVE the Holidays around the World storytellers at EPCOT. It's tough to hit them all because their presentations don't happen sequentially, so you really have to plan if you want to see them all. For us, this was the most "organic" holiday celebration. The groups were usually small and the storytellers often make eye contact with the guests. I even got to be in the show in Norway! We read the schedule ahead of time and by being about 5 minutes early, were were in the front row nearly every time. If you have to choose just a few, our favorites were Norway, Germany, Italy, Morocco, France, and UK.

Many people rave about Candlelight Processional, so we tried it. It was good, but I didn't find it as moving as I expected to. If you want to do it, definitely do the dining package. People start waiting for standby seats 3-4 hours before the show starts and there is no guarantee that you'll get a seat even if you first in line if you're standby.

Osbourne Lights at DHS is amazing and beautiful and cannot be missed.

We did Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, but I can't give you a really accurate review. DH was having some intestinal distress that evening brought about by a sandwich that he had eaten for lunch. Our touring was not normal that night! Although we did get photos with Mary Poppins, Bert, and the penguins and all 7 dwarfs. We also saw the parade and fireworks which are beautiful, but it's tough to get a good view. It's a closed ticket event and it is considered "sold out" well under park capacity, but it's still really crowded. The good news is that a sold out night Christmas week won't be any more crowded than our sold out night the first week of December. Oh! Free cookies & coco. Basically all you can eat/drink.

If you have a chance (easier since you'll have a car), stop by Contemporary, Grand Floridian, Boardwalk, and Beach Club to see the Gingerbread displays. They are really amazing!

We also enjoyed the Jungle Cruise makeover into the Jingle Cruise, complete with holiday jokes. The reviews were a little bit mixed, but we thought it was well done and very funny. It was nice to see the holiday decorations extended into other areas of the park.

My husband and I have had Annual Passes for six years now and we go to WDW every November and December. We've gone once at Thanksgiving and once the week of Christmas. Alicemouse is correct, it will be extremely crowded the week you are there. Thanksgiving week is crowded too, but in our experience not nearly as crowded as Christmas week. But if you don't mind occasional wall to wall people, it won't be a problem. Christmas week was too much for us. We'll stick with the beginning of December.

We have never gotten ANY kind of preferential treatment because we have AP. If your SIL gets in the parks quicker, or gets any other perk with her AP at Christmas time in WDW I would love to know what it is and how she did it!!! If the park is at capacity, we are turned away as AP holders the same as non AP holders.

I will say that IMO Christmastime in Disney world is the most amazing time of year. The Osbourne lights are an absolute must for us each year. They are stunning and I'm in awe of them every year. One other not to miss on our list is the lighting of the castle show, Cinderella's Holiday Wish Stage Show. The fairy godmother lights up the castle. It's only about 8 minutes long but definitely worth watching. Check the day you are there for times. it is sometime between 6-6:30pm, but the times can vary day to day.

From Touringplans.com

Closures
Disney uses different closure "phases" to gradually restrict the types of guests allowed into a theme park. Closures start at Phase 1 and progress up to Phase 4, where no additional guests of any sort are allowed into the park. Phased closures do not necessarily last all day: for example, if Magic Kingdom is under a Phase 4 closure at 10:00 a.m. on Christmas, sufficient guests might leave by 7:00 p.m. that all restrictions on park entry are lifted.
Note that what is below is what we believe to be true; however, Disney does not publish its park closure procedures and may change its practices at any time.

Phase 1 Closure
Casual visitors are turned away at the automobile toll plazas. This means that people without tickets, those with one-day, single-park tickets, and those intending to use cast member passes will not be allowed to park.
Other guests may enter:
Those with multi-day or multi-park tickets
Those staying at a Disney Resort
Annual Passholders
Those re-entering the park that day.
Those "hopping" from another park.
Those with in-park reservations or appointments.
Those arriving via Disney transportation

Phase 2 Closure
The following guests are allowed through the turnstiles and into the parking lots:
Those staying at a Disney Resort
Annual Passholders
Those re-entering the park that day.
Those "hopping" from another park.
Those with in-park reservations or appointments.
Those arriving via Disney transportation

Phase 3 Closure
The following guests are allowed through the turnstiles and into the parking lots:
Those staying at a Disney Resort
Annual Passholders
Those with in-park reservations or appointments.

Phase 4 Closure
The park and parking lot are closed to all arriving guests.

Buy tickets to Mickey Very Merry Christmas Party.

Do a tour of various resorts for their Christmas decorations, especially the gingerbread carousel at Beach Club, gingerbread house at Grand Floridian, and the spectacular tree at Jamboree House, Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Go to the Wilderness Campgrounds in the evening and tour the holiday decorations done by the guests staying there.

A few of the photos of these can be found in my last trip report:

http://www.wdwforgrownups.com/forum/2013-holiday-trip

Zz.

I don't have any Christmas time advice (we're going for our first "Christmas" trip the first week of Dec 2015) but just wanted to say on the upcoming trip and back!

I wonder if Osbourne Lights will be back next year. I hope so.

Candlelight Processional is pretty cool.

I'm crossing my fingers it at least makes it through next year. We've never seen it so I'm hoping we get at least one chance!

They could relocate it. The first time I saw it, it was behind MGM Studios- then they moved it and it got much bigger.