Personally, I think SW on Christmas Day is Orlandos best kept secret. We had an amazing time there last December 25th.
We arrived about 30-45 minutes prior to park opening, and there was already a small line of cars. They didn't open the parking lots, though, until about 15 to 20 minutes before the park was scheduled to open. The atmosphere, even in the line up of cars, was pretty festive though. Most folks turned off their vehicles, got out, and chatted with each other while we waited. Being Christmas Day, the mood was light and there was lots of goodwill toward men!!
The park itself was very, very quiet in the morning. Some parts (like the Sea Carousel and the Polar Express) were virtually deserted. If you check out my trip report via the link Lynne provided, you can see there are hardly even any other people in some of our photos. We had free Quick Queue for all of us as we were staying at one of the onsite hotels, but until the mid afternoon, they really weren't needed.
The decorations at SeaWorld during the holiday season are incredible. There are lots of places for Christmas photo ops around the park. The park photographers are out taking pictures in front of the giant Christmas tree at the park entrance, by the large snowman bench outside guest services, with Santa at the North Pole after you exit the Polar Express, and they even have two giant snow globes that you get inside and can have your family pictures taken in. A little known fact is that you can get your photos taken all over the park, keep all the claim receipts, and turn them all in at once at Adventure Photo and get a CD burned of all the photos taken during a 7 day period. Cost us $40 but we ended up with about 30 pictures (one 6 x 8 print is $20....so this is a great deal). They had neat little Christmas themed photo frames (even one specifically themed for the Polar Express) which were only $5 each with our CD purchase, which I thought was super reasonable. Great trip memories for a pretty reasonable cost
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By afternoon, things picked up quite a bit and the park was much busier (but still very manageable). They had little Christmas performers that popped up here and there, which were fun to stop and watch. The restaurants all offered a selection of holiday favourites, in addition to the standard entrees. I had turkey and stuffing in a bread bowl that was super yummy from Seafire Inn.
The atmosphere is awesome.....holiday music is playing, you can stroll the Christmas Market and get a Rudolph Shirley Temple or a Snowman (white chocolate) hot chocolate, and the globes of the lamp posts are all redecorated to be snowman heads. The Christmas shows are incredible....I hated to see the Sea of Trees end....and best of all, all the holiday extras are free as part of your regular admission.
I would do SW on Christmas Day again in a heartbeat. It was awesome!
Any other specific questions, feel free to ask
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