Has anyone spent Christmas at WDW?

[antietam]

Has anyone spent christmas at Walt Disney World?

I was thinking of going out on 20 Dec and Back 28th.

How is it, is this a good time to go?

[Dr.JumbaJookiba]

We've been over Xmas/NY seven or maybe eight times. Atmosphere and decorations etc in an around parks is great, it's packed though. On Xmas day for example we would normally do 3 or 4 hours in MK, lunch at GF Cafe, chill in the afternoon then dinner at Cali Grill. After missing it for 3 years we've booked for 23/12 to 6/1 and are really looking forward to it.

[KarenG]

Many times. Extraordinarily busy beyond anything you can imagine.

Weather can be dodgy but also can be lovely.

Despite that it’s magical.

[gilmouad]

We’ve been over Xmas. It was the busiest I’ve experienced in the parks with them limiting guests from 12pm.

If you are happy to get up early most days and leave at lunch it’s great.

One thing however, I felt personally hearing all the Xmas songs that I hear at home took me out of the bubble you should be in at Disney.

On the whole though it’s still very good.

[MFras23]

It is one of our favourite trips! It was busy and our expectations were low ... we went in thinking our 3 FP+ rides and a mooch around the parks. But we took advantage of EMH and were up early everyday and got on plenty. We didn’t stay much past noon and when we did it was just a slow wander out of the park, before going back in the evening. We enjoyed it that much it is something we want to do again.

[nothingless]

Yes we did, in 2018/2019! I did a full trip report on it, it's linked in my signature below in case you want to see exactly how we handled it!

The parks are definitely busy. But we absolutely loved our time there, and we all found it very manageable as long as you just plan a bit in advance: make sure you have your fastpasses and don't count on doing too much aside from those, book your meals for the busiest days (I'd recommend Dec 25 and 26, and definitely Dec 31 as well if you were staying that long), and just keep in mind that with things being busy, everything will take a little longer. From transportation to simply walking to a ride in the parks - it'll take away a lot of annoyance if you just calculate that in. That's what we did, so the crowds didn't bother us - we expected them and made sure we weren't running late for anything by leaving in plenty of time where we could.

I wouldn't hesitate to go at that time of the year again, especially if I got a good deal or couldn't travel in other weeks! My whole family agreed it was the best and most special Christmas ever!

[tink111]

We did in 2016! Found it fairly quiet before Christmas Eve... after that it was chaos in the parks! 3/4 hour waits at the big rides at universal a couple of days after Christmas! It was lovely though so magical- we had a villa so managed to cook a Christmas dinner and enjoy a normalish Christmas Day! We went for a walk round celebration in the morning- it was fab.

[Orlandobelle]

Universal on Christmas day was a dream. 2 days, later it was rammed 😂

[tracey1302]

We have done it - but not since 2004 - so a long time ago.

The decorations and atmosphere in the parks is truly something else. We visited Magic Kingdom on Christmas Eve and it was just pure magic. They made it snow on Main Street. It was amazing. We also spent NYE at Epcot which, to this day, remains my best NYE ever. We ate dinner in Alfredo's in Italy, and celebrated Italian New Year, then British New Year (the whole restaurant sang 'God save the queen' to our table - it was bizarre! ), and then American NY. Illuminations was just epic (it was an "extended edition").

We always got into the parks but both Epcot and MK closed due to capacity while we were there on Xmas Eve/27th December and NYE. I imagine that can be extended now to the entire two weeks over Christmas! Queues were really long, but we were able to make use of the "old" FP system then so the main rides weren't too bad.

[blades]

We are off this year and it's really good to read some of these positive comments - gives us something to look forward to