Ugh, it’s like a knife to the heart whenever there is a Disney announcement about additional cancellations further out in the year. The announcement of the modification to Christmas celebrations hit me hard since I keep hanging on to hope that our weeklong trip in early December will be as magical as our November trips in prior years. We love love love the Christmas season in Disney. It’s always a somewhat low crowd season in mid November and early December, and the holiday decorations are so beautiful. Plus the weather is the most perfect of any time of year, in my opinion (especially after our sweat fest on our summer trips this year).
So I’m just trying to process my thoughts and remind myself of what we do and don’t care about ….
Mickeys Very Merry Christmas Party has been canceled…. this seemed inevitable. We aren’t at the stage where we pay for extra ticketed events because our toddler can’t last that long in the park’s to begin with, so this isn’t a loss for us. Honestly it probably means people will cancel trips which means park’s will be less crowded for our trip in early December, so I should view this as a positive I guess.
No Gingerbread Houses. What the heck man!!! Why?!? They said they can’t maintain physical distancing around the gingerbread houses, but that seems like bull. I’ve never seen massive crowds around the gingerbread displays, nor do I see why they wouldn’t be able to put distance markers around them. This has to just be an attempt at cost savings. They are cutting costs left and right to make up for reduced revenues during a normally peak revenue time at the holidays.
Projections on the castle instead of the lights. Hm. I guess this is another cost cutting thing? The lights were always pretty cool…. but projections will be cool too…. I just hope the park is open well after dark so we can get a good look at them.
No Candlelight Processional…. again we never attended this, so no loss there for us. Sorry not sorry…. I’m sure it’s nice, lol. We are more of the…. use big events as opportunities to jump on rides with lower wait times type as opposed to actually partaking in the big events.
Christmas cavalcades in the parks. Ok, I’ll take it. We like the cavalcades. We will be happy to see something new. Some surprise appearances from Santa will be fun too. My kiddo will be quite pleased with this new development.
Christmas trees in the lobbies…. the wording of this makes me wonder if they are cutting back on Christmas decorations throughout the resort grounds. I hope they still have the Christmas tree up outside at the Boardwalk in the grassy area!! We love that one. I’m pretty nervous that it sounds like Christmas decorations will be cut generously as a cost cutting measure, but call my cynical.
Christmas meal at Hollywood and Vine! This will be a character meal we will have to book. We haven’t been able to dine with Goofy at all since the reopening, which my perceptive toddler has commented on, so I’m glad to see Goofy will be at this one !
Honestly my reaction upon hearing this Disney news was negative just because I was sad to hear anyone already talking about modifying the Christmas experience. I’m worried about Christmas in general. Kids won’t get to visit Santa this year? Sigh. This year is so depressing. But back to the Disney news… upon further review there is really nothing in this announcement that is particularly detrimental to our December trip. I’m going to remain optimistic at this point (and continue praying for them to allow us to book reservations at more than one park eventually….).