Welcome to our trip report covering the start of Christmas Season at Walt Disney World! The primary purpose of trip reports is to supplement our existing content to let you know how our strategies are actually working at a given time! This post introduces the trip report and covers booking the trip and our arrival at Walt Disney World!
About This Trip Report
This trip report covers a five-night visit to Walt Disney World for the beginning of Christmas season at Walt Disney World. Following the end of Halloween season, Walt Disney World takes a few days to transform into Christmas mode.
This year, Christmas season officially kicked off on November 8 with the start of the holiday celebrations at Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom and the first Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party of the season. You can read more about the specific holiday events here:
Holidays at Animal Kingdom (coming soon)
The Epcot International Festival of the Holidays doesn’t kick off until November 29. During our visit, the Epcot Food & Wine Festival was still ongoing.
Finally, Hollywood Studios continues its transformation. The next big event is the opening of Rise of the Resistance on December 5. We have a separate post that discusses visiting Hollywood Studios through December 4, though really Part 3 of this trip report should suffice.
We don’t know exactly how we’ll be breaking up this trip for the purposes of this report, but posts will go up here as we publish them:
Disney World Holiday Trip Report Part 1 — Introduction, Booking, and Arrival (you are here)
Disney World Holiday Trip Report Part 2 — Updates from Around Disney World
Disney World Holiday Trip Report Part 3 — Day at Hollywood Studios
Disney World Holiday Trip Report Part 4 — Rainy Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party
Disney World Holiday Trip Report Part 5 — Day at Animal Kingdom
Booking This Trip
We booked this trip in order to be on-site first night of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party was announced. As always, I emailed Lauren Quirk, our go-to travel agent for Disney trips.
Initially I booked a room at All-Star Music, which was the lowest-prices Disney option. The room was $768.42 for five nights. After the Skyliner was announced and AP discounts too, I decided it would be good to switch over to Pop Century.
The Skyliner stop is between Pop Century and Art of Animation, you can read our comparison of those two resorts here. The stay came out to $918.46 (with an annual passholder discount) for five nights.
While you could roll the dice and land the same day as the first party, that’s a risky move, particularly flying from Chicago where winter weather can derail a trip. We flew in on November 7 and home on November 12, buying separate tickets for United and Frontier flights, totaling $373.20 for two people.
As we have Walt Disney World annual passes, we didn’t need ticket purchases. So the cost of this trip comes out to $1291.66. We do have a guide to buying Discount Disney World tickets, for those of you interested.
Well…one more thing.
Another Lesson About “Cheap” Flights
Our Skyliner trip report started with one lesson about cheap flights, where we decided to Uber from our apartment to the airport in the morning.
We could have done that again, but I decided to make an even worse mistake this time. With a 6:15AM flight, I decided to book a stay at the airport the night before.
I’ve done this before and its more of a personal treat than a necessity. The Hilton O’Hare offers runway views and I’m a little bit of an aviation geek, so I get a kick out of them. And really I needed to stay at this hotel to review it for another website anyways, so this isn’t really a waste at all, but still it’s worth mentioning.
The $377.72 I paid for a single night is pricey, but it’s downright ridiculous when you factor in two issues. First, I was going to wait for Emily to get off work to head to the hotel, so after 5PM. Second, it’s November, so by the time I got to the hotel it would be dark. Dark means not great for plane spotting, which makes my room choice pretty pointless.
Anyways, the real lesson here is always to remember—when booking a “cheap” flight, ask yourself if it has other costs. Not just baggage, but Uber costs, parking costs, or overnight hotel costs.
Magical Express & Skyliner
Landing at MCO on time, we arrived at Disney Magical Express check in at 10:06AM. The lines weren’t bad, and pretty quickly only Pop Century and the All-Star Resorts buses had lines. We boarded the Magical Express bus at 10:28AM and were at the hotel at 11:00AM (we were the only stop).
Lunch didn’t start until 11:30AM, so we waited for that. Emily had the veggie burger (Beyond Burger, we think). It’s fine but nothing special. I wasn’t feeling well so didn’t eat.
Our room wasn’t ready yet, so I left Emily (who is a pro at working in the Pop Century cafeteria by now), and headed to Hollywood Studios by Skyliner. I boarded at Hourglass Lake at 12:09PM, took about a minute to transfer at Caribbean Beach, and arriving at Hollywood Studios at 12:19PM.
I might have more commentary about the Skyliner in this report, but our assessment this trip was pretty much the same at the first trip You can read our Guide to the Disney World Skyliner here.
The Skyliner is really great for casually getting around midday. It’s beautiful and efficient, and midday there are rarely any lines. When I’m casually making my way around the resort, I always take a ride.
But to start and end the day…it’s more complicated. It starts operating too late to get to Hollywood Studios for a successful rope drop. It’s good for rope dropping Frozen Ever After at Epcot, but if you’ll be starting with Test Track you’ll prefer the bus.
And when a park closes, lines get long. This, coupled with the standard temporary delays the Skyliner experiences, means evenings won’t be as efficient as you might like. But it probably still beats buses.
Next In Part 2…Updates from Around Walt Disney World
Learn More About The Holidays at Walt Disney World
Want to learn more about Christmastime at Walt Disney World? For starters, we've got a Guide to Christmas at Walt Disney World, which introduces you to everything you need to know.
Need more specifics? You'll want to read about the park that gets the most Magical decorations in our post on Christmas at Magic Kingdom. You'll also want to read about Flurry of Fun—the Christmas celebration at Hollywood Studios, the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays, and the Holiday Celebrations at Animal Kingdom.
But the flagship event of the season is Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party—and our guide has you covered with everything you need to know. Or check out the quick version in our 12 Tips for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.
Last but not least, let's not forget that the celebrations don't stop at the parks! You can visit our post on Christmas decorations at the Disney World hotels to see how even the hotels get into the spirit!
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Disney World planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.
Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And at 180 days out it's time to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World FastPass+ strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom FastPass, Epcot FastPass, Animal Kingdom FastPass, and Hollywood Studios FastPass.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.