Too Early for Christmas 2019?

[Pamela M]

I've booked December 7-14th a couple of weeks ago. Even then Pop Century didn't have any rooms available. I would book now. You can always cancel.

 

[wdw&sonny]

Is it to early to plan and book for Christmas 2019? We are planning December 23-27 2019. What do we need to know? We will be going with a 15yr old and 8yr old.

OP, yes too early. Why? Because if you have to ask, you will not be prepared or pleased with the crowd levels you will face. If you ask "what do we need to know?", you need to know way too much. Not trying to be facetious or funny. I just worry that you will not enjoy that trip. Do research on crowd levels and realistic expectations for that week. You will experience a different vacation than during other "slower" times.

 

[elaine amj]

OP, yes too early. Why? Because if you have to ask, you will not be prepared or pleased with the crowd levels you will face. If you ask "what do we need to know?", you need to know way too much. Not trying to be facetious or funny. I just worry that you will not enjoy that trip. Do research on crowd levels and realistic expectations for that week. You will experience a different vacation than during other "slower" times.

Awww... it's super fun during Christmastime. But I agree - very, very, very busy. I planned my last Christmas week very carefully and we had an awesome time. But definitely move at a slower pace than normal. I am looking forward to Christmas 2019. A bit worried about the crowds but we're pretty good at dealing with it.

 

[ericar]

We just got home from Disney on Dec 23rd and I started planning our Dec 2019 trip the next day.

 

[barbieb21]

We already booked ours for December as well last month. If discounts come out, they can always get applied then (I'm going through a TA) but this way, if GE does come out in time for our trip, we will have a room already. I fear, like everyone has said, will make it much crazier.

 

[soccermom54]

We have already booked our October and December on-site stays. WDW is so busy all the time now, that if you want to visit on certain dates and stay at a certain resort........book it ASAP. If a discount comes out, then all the better. But most importantly, you are going to WDW when you want ,staying where you want and this will really add to the magical experience. As others have said, book your dining at 180 days and you fast passes at 60 days.

 

[shawnh199]

We went on our first Christmas Week trip last December. You can never start planning too early for a Disney trip any time of year, IMO. If I had let all the negative comments when I asked questions about that week get to me, we would have never gone. But, I was very aware of what the crowds would be like. I did my research on this website by looking at previous posts regarding Christmas week and reading post trip reviews. Don't hesitate to ask questions. There are lots of people on this site that have a wealth of information to share. My kids are 14 and 11 and we had the best trip of our lives, despite the crowds. We have gone every other year since 2007 so we've been plenty of times, just usually late May/Early June for Star Wars Weekends. But this trip was really special to all of us. We made our ADR's 6 months out and had no problems getting everything we wanted. The only thing we had a little issue with was getting the time for the Candlelight Processional we wanted. We got the Fast Passes we wanted. We had better luck with FOP and Slinky 3 days or more into our trip. And, while we were there, we used the refresh method and were able to get multiple fast passes for other rides after our first 3. We did EMH or rope drop most days, especially if we were at Magic Kingdom. Christmas morning at Magic Kingdom at 6am was amazing. We will never do morning EMH at Epcot again. Not sure if it was just a bad day, but something was going on with security that morning in the park and nobody got into the park on time. We used our FP that morning and headed back to Poly (our DVC home resort). We left the parks by noon or earlier most days (especially the ones opening extra early) and rode most everything we wanted to, some more than once. We had park hoppers and went to a different park in the evening. I used times guides from the previous year to plan our days for EMH and park hours, and for the most part they were right on. MK opened an hour earlier on Christmas morning, but that was a bonus for us. There were so few people in the park before 9am it was awesome. If Slinky Dog Dash is on your list of things to do and you can't get a FP, we found getting in line before the park closed to be the much better option over rope drop. We had a FP for Toy Story Mania first thing in the morning and when we got off that ride the Slinky line was already over 2 hours long. We got in line at night when the wait time was listed at 55 minutes. It only took about 35 minutes to get on the ride.

Maybe a little more info than you were asking for, but hope the info helps with your planning.

 

[Buzzsgramma]

I have been waiting years to celebrate our 55th wed Anniversary at the Grand Floridian in Dec.....I booked BWV's as soon as i could for Dec 1-5th and then planned GF for the 5th-8th..CL.......I am second guessing myself now...even tho we only care to do MK one day....We are big SW people....!!!!! Our plan is mostly dinners and lounge around the hotels....I am going to wait to see when SWGE opens and how much the up sell tix will be if there are any........We go every year so we are at the parks often...