I’ve just got back from a two-week December trip to Walt Disney World and I’m going to run through where we stayed, what we did, and how we found the experience.
We stayed at the Walt Disney World Swan, right on the Disney Boardwalk in easy walking distance to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. We last stayed in this area in 2019 when we were lucky enough to get a February stay at the Beach Club.
The Boardwalk area is my favourite place to stay. There are five hotels (six if you count the Swan Reserve) all in easy walking distance of each other, meaning you have the pick of all the restaurants and lounges wherever you stay.
Staying around the Boardwalk usually comes with a Disney deluxe resort price tag which - especially in 2024 - is eye-watering. The Swan and Dolphin resorts bring you that Boardwalk experience (as well as early entry, extended evening hours, and other deluxe resort perks) at a price closer to a Disney moderate than a deluxe.
There’s also a huge bonus for either of the walkable parks: at the end of the day, you don’t need to deal with the bus queues to get back to your hotel. This is a huge benefit for me and sometimes makes the difference between leaving before the end of a park day to beat the rush or staying to the bitter end!
We spent a lot of time in the Crews Cup Lounge at the Yacht Club, which quickly became our favourite place to relax.
Visiting in December meant that we got to see everything decorated for the season, and the resorts are just as dressed up as the parks. Some of our favourite decorations were at the resorts, which all had themed trees and some had gingerbread displays too.
One of the most popular attractions during Christmas is the Jingle Cruise at Magic Kingdom. It’s a tongue-in-cheek tour around animal-infested waters of the Jungle, led by your ‘punny’ skipper who reels off a series of intentionally terrible Christmas-themed puns.
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Disney's Hollywood Studios: Echo Lake at Hollywood Studios dressed up for Christmas.
I think the most frustrating aspect of the trip was not the crowd levels themselves, but how up and down they were based on whether there was a ticketed party event happening at either the Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios.
On a party day at Magic Kingdom it’s usually expected that the crowd level in the day would be somewhat lower than normal, this can be an advantage if you plan your visit on one of these days. What we didn’t then follow was how much it affects the attendance at the other parks.
As an example we found a Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas party day would push crowds up at EPCOT and Hollywood studios quite significantly. This makes sense, we just didn’t follow the logic through until it had happend multiple times!
I think in general going in December was a touch too busy for us, and the weather wasn’t the best (a ‘feels like’ of 6 degrees some days!) so we’re glad we did it, but probably wouldn’t go at that time of year again.