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Walt Disney World Holidays – What to See During the Christmas Season
December 7th, 2009 by Nancy Bobby, under Vacations. No Comments
If you have plans to travel to Walt Disney World during the Christmas holiday season, congratulations! You will be visiting during one of the most magical times of the year, even for Disney. My family and I have been fortunate to celebrate a few Walt Disney World holidays in years past, so this article will discuss a few of our family’s favorite things to see and do during the Disney Christmas season.
First stop is the Magic Kingdom. There, you will find Cinderella’s Castle shining in stunning “icicle” lights that are truly breathtaking. Make sure you get pictures! If night-time pictures are not your specialty, then have a PhotoPass photographer preserve the Castle holiday magic for you.
At the Magic Kingdom, you can also attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, a nightly event held on selected nights during November and December, prior to Christmas. Since this event requires a separate ticket, you will need to purchase Party tickets in addition to your park passes. One of the highlights of this Party is the Christmas parade, which features the famous Wooden Soldiers. If you would like to see the parade but do not plan to go to the Party, and will be visiting after Christmas, you are in luck, as it is also shown every afternoon, typically starting Christmas Day…and a separate ticket is not needed. (Please note: The Walt Disney World Christmas Parade that you see on TV every year on Christmas morning is not a live event and is, in fact, taped weeks before. So do not plan to visit the Magic Kingdom on Christmas morning expecting to see/be in the parade!)
What about Epcot? While the decorations are beautiful, World Showcase offers a number of wonderful programs related to the “Holidays Around the World” theme, and if you have ever wondered what it would be like to celebrate Christmas in another country, here is your chance. Each country presents their favorite holiday traditions, and many have Holiday Storytellers that highlight some very interesting and fun customs: don’t be surprised to see Father Christmas in England, Pere Noel in France, and St. Nicholas in Germany to name a few. It is delightful and yes, educational, in a very fun way.
Probably the highlight of the Walt Disney World holidays in Epcot is the Candlelight Processional, a nightly presentation of the Christmas story with a celebrity guest narrator and a huge massed choir made up of professional, college, and high school choirs from around the country. Although there are 3 showings each night, the line for seats starts well in advance of each show. You can reserve a seat by purchasing a Candlelight Processional dinner package, and I highly recommend it. If you don’t want to do the dinner package, then assign someone in your group to wait in the stand-by line to be certain of getting a seat. This is a dramatic and powerful performance that is always the highlight of our Disney Christmas visits.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios also has some great holiday entertainment with the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Light, which is held every night on the Streets of America. With literally millions of lights, this is one awe-inspiring display, that will be enjoyed by the entire family…especially anyone who puts on their own light display back home. Be warned however that the streets get very crowded during the Christmas season, so a helpful tip is to plan your visit while the nightly Fantasmic show is going on, or at the end of the evening just before the park closes: it is more enjoyable without being wall-to-wall with people.
And if this is not enough, then hop on over to Animal Kingdom for Mickey’s Jingle Jungle Parade, featuring all of the characters in their holiday finest. In addition, Downtown Disney showcases the Festival of the Seasons, the perfect place to finish your holiday shopping. While there, visit Santa before Dec. 24, and say hi to Santa Goofy from Dec. 25 to Jan. 4. And be sure to also visit the Disney resorts to see their wonderful holiday decorations! Of special note is the Grand Floridian for the Gingerbread House, the Boardwalk for the Carousel, and the Wilderness Lodge and Animal Kingdom Lodge for the enormous trees. Whimsical and festive, these displays are a wonderful way to also get away from the crowds for a little.
There is probably no season more beautiful to visit than during the Walt Disney World holidays. Beautiful holiday decorations and Disney magic provide a festive atmosphere that helps to create truly magical vacations and wonderful memories for your family.
Nancy Bobby has been visiting Disney World (and doing it frugally) for over a decade, and has experienced 11 (and counting) family vacations to Walt Disney World. To discover how to plan an affordable Disney family vacation, and to receive a free Disney vacation planning bonus, visit The Affordable Mouse.
Discount Disney Family Vacations – Saving Money on Food While Eating Like Royalty
August 27th, 2009 by Nancy Bobby, under Vacations. No Comments
Our family enjoys visiting Walt Disney World as often as we can. To do so however, saving money on our trip is important. Fortunately for us, planning a discount Disney family vacation is something that I enjoy, so in this article, I will share some of the strategies we use to save money on food.
I have to say that visiting Disney World is, for use, a great excuse to eat! There are so many great choice, and most of the sit-down restaurants are good quality. In addition, it is so much fun to try new things, so we truly enjoy the eating experience at Disney World. But to do this, it can be expensive, so we have found a few ways that work for us to help save money while still enjoying the food options at Walt Disney World.
First of all, we signed up for the Disney Visa card, and we use the rewards dollars for our meals. Since we visit about once a year, by the time we go each year we accumulate a pretty sizable amount of Disney dollars to spend on food. Now, I am not advocating blindly running up a credit card (especially not in this current economic climate) but since we use one card for all of our basic purchases (and pay it off in full each month), it is a strategy that works extremely well for us. In fact, it works so well that in many years, I have paid hardly anything for our food on our Disney vacation at all!
Second, I have to say that we love using the Disney Dining Plan. This is basically a pre-paid “meal plan” that allows you to choose from one of several levels of options, each providing snacks, counter meals, and in some cases table service meals: you choose the option that is right for your budget. The key is, it is only available IF you are staying on Disney property. Now our family enjoys having a table service meal each night, so we always choose the Plus Disney Dining Plan, which gives us one snack credit, one counter meal (entree, drink, and dessert), and one table meal (again entree, drink, and dessert) per person, per day. We use the snacks mostly for breakfast and the others for lunch and dinner, and have found that it is usually more food per person than we can eat! We usually end up getting dessert “to go” since we are full from the meal. This plan saves us quite a bit of money, as the cost per day for our family of 3 is less than we would have paid just for dinner.
Related to the Disney Dining Plan is another great way to possibly save hundreds of dollars on your Disney vacation: plan your trip to be eligible for one of the Free Dining promotions that Disney offers from time to time. In the past, this has been a traditional late summer/early fall offer, but the economic climate this year has prompted Disney to offer Free Dining for most of the summer, and now through mid-December as well. Is there any better way to enjoy Walt Disney World than by eating for free?
I must say that, with all the wonderful food our family eats while at Disney World, it is a good thing that there is so much walking involved! We have definitely found that by saving money on food, it has truly helped us to plan a fantastic discount Disney family vacation on a regular basis.