During our week in WDW we had quite a few Santa sightings, which I figured I’d share in case anyone is on their way and wondering about Christmas theming, or anyone is depressed at home during a pandemic and just needs to see a Disney World Santa cruising the parks in a sweet ride.
They are really pushing the Santa cavalcades in all the parks. We didn’t see him in Animal Kingdom, but in each of the other parks we saw him repeatedly. In Epcot we saw him at least 3 times during our two afternoons there, and we only saw one non-Santa cavalcade (Mickey and friends, not the princesses, grr) in that park. In MK it took a few visits, but then we saw him twice in one afternoon. In Hollywood Studios we saw him at least twice per day, but we did still also see the Pixar cavalcade, so don’t worry, they haven’t scrapped that oh-so-important one for the kiddos, haha.
First we spotted the Big Man in a horse drawn carriage in the World Showcase of Epcot on Thursday. We spotted him over by Japan around 2:30 in the afternoon.
Look at those beautiful horses. I’ve never seen horses out in Epcot. I always feel terrible for the Magic Kingdom horses in the summer heat, but the weather was pretty beautiful during our visit, so hopefully they weren’t too miserable pulling the big guy.
Let’s see if I can post a short clip of him going by…
So that was Epcot Santa…. and then below we have Hollywood Studios Santa. He was the only cavalcade we saw on our first HS day (Friday). He was taking the regular cavalcade route, which for those who haven’t read my other posts is from the front of the park, straight back towards Mickey and Minnies Runaway Railway, and then over towards Star Tours. It’s a fairly limited route considering you won’t see any characters if you are in Toy Story Land, Galaxy’s Edge, or over by the Tower of Terror/Aerosmith, so plan accordingly if you want to see characters.
We saw him in HS again on our subsequent days, but as I mentioned, we did also see the other characters, so I don’t think that Santa has replaced another cavalcade, but has just been worked into the rotation (very frequently, I must say).
Lastly, we saw him heading down Main Street USA in Magic Kingdom! We saw him twice in the afternoon. It might be my imagination, but I’d say the cavalcades are extra frequent in the mid afternoon, as compared to the morning. In a stretch from 3pm-5pm when we were hanging around Main Street and the castle, we saw Goofy’s Gingerbread cavalcade, Mickey and friends in their Christmas attire, the princesses, and Santa twice. Maybe they are that frequent all the time, but we just typically don’t spend long enough on Main Street.
Moral of the story: if you head to the parks this December, it will be hard to miss Santa. He seems to be the most frequent cavalcade in Epcot (World Showcase), Hollywood Studios, and MK. I’m not sure if he makes an appearance in Animal Kingdom, but if he does, we missed him.