Christmas Must-Dos?

[Tuvalu]

Excellent advice but a lot of resort hopping to take in in one day. For me, I would save Boardwalk area resorts for another time so it would not seem so rushed, that way I could linger longer at each place. Of course, my wife and I are guilty of the linger longer thing when it comes to Christmas decorations.

I was suggesting the "cram plan" in case @Disnee4Me was limited to one afternoon. We have done it and yes, it is a lot to do at once. Much prefer a lingering pace!

 

[epcotisbest]

I was suggesting the "cram plan" in case @Disnee4Me was limited to one afternoon. We have done it and yes, it is a lot to do at once. Much prefer a lingering pace!

Cram or linger, either is better than not seeing the Christmas decorations.

 

[R W B]

Hello friends!

You were all so wonderful in helping me plan our summer trip that we are going back for a 3 day visit in December. I've never been to the parks during the holidays and I am a little overwhelmed with all of the different show/event options. My two daughters, 12 and 9, are super-excited to see as much as possible, but we are only there for 3 nights. Should we try and do Mickey's Christmas Party and the Candlelight Procession? How about the Frozen event at Hollywood? I'm not psyched about all the additional ticket charges, but if they are worth it and we are there, I will try and secure reservations.

As always, I am so grateful for your help and knowledge!

Christmas season is my favorite time I like to go honestly. Even if its busy, the decorations make it tolerable to me.

I would definitely do a Mickey's Christmas Party, those are really fun and you get to see stuff that doesn't happen on normal nights. Lines for rides do tend to be shorter but IMO you're not really there at a Xmas party for the rides. I try and do a few of the main ones but that's it. The rest of the time we're enjoying the special activities going on that you pay $65 for lol. Get as many free cookies and hot chocolate as possible too lol.

The Osbourne lights in DHS are a MUST see. Last year I bought 2 one day tickets to DHS for us just to see the LED lights. They are amazing. They do different things to different songs, I could literally spend all night in there! The way they are choreographed to the music is brilliant! Also with the cuts and randomness going on at DHS you never know when will be their last year. (Just a little FYI, I own my own LED business so that why this attraction is my favorite of all at WDW)

I have never done the candle light precession so I can't speak to that other then to say I've started looking into it more and I'd like to do it on my next trip.

We also love to resort hop and see the ginger bread house at the GF, and all of the big Christmas trees at all of the other resorts (my favorites are WL, POFQ, GF, FW, & AKL). This can take up some time but its worth it to us, again, we're not all about the rides on these trips.

The last MUST do for us on a Christmas trip is to drive around (if you have a car, might be able to rent a golf cart too) Fort Wilderness campgrounds at night and look at all the decorations the RVers put up. Some of them have to spend thousands of $$ on this stuff because they go all out and it's better then some of the resorts. The guests in the RVs tend to do a lot more decorating then the guests in the cabins although some of them have the spirit of the season as well. When you pull up to the main entrance just tell the guard you want to check out the decorations, I've only been turned away once and that's because they had someone special at the resort at that time and only guests staying there could enter but I was told I could come back the following night so we did without any issue.

All in all, Christmas time is a great time to go. Hope you and your daughters have the best time possible and you all really enjoy it.

 

[FutureCEO]

The Epcot area resorts have the best decorations.

 

[mergatroid]

Osborne Lights no question.

 

[MaryJaneP]

May we just add to bring (at all times) weather appropriate clothing and a warm coat as we have experienced very enjoyable daytime temperatures followed by very cold (relatively speaking) nights. We have had to purchase more sweatshirts to keep warm than we would have hoped to. Also agree with above comment concerning linger vs. cram and keeping the beach club/ yacht club/ boardwalk visit for a separate future trip around the holidays. Simply too much to do to race through everything.

 

[Matt_Black]

One other thing- keep an eye out for characters in special holiday garb. In addition to MVMCP, you can also stumble across them at the resorts, which is how I got a picture with Santa Stitch at AKL.

 

[Disnee4Me]

I was suggesting the "cram plan" in case @Tuvalu
Thanks for the advice, @Tuvalu. I was thinking if we got in late (it would be a Thursday night) that basically we'd spend most of the day Friday resort hopping, and then getting back to our resort by 9 p.m . to get a good nights rest for the next day when we hit the parks.

 

[BoarderPhreak]

Go to each resort and check out their lobby Christmas tree. While I didn't quite hit them all one trip, I did manage a LOT of them. Very cool.

 

[dreamfinder]

Skip the Frozen hard ticket upgrade. The lights are better viewed from all around, and that $90 per person would pay for a MVMCP ticket, and buy a few hot chocolates and cupcakes to eat while watching the lights.