Tuesday, November 9, 2010

It's the Holiday Season at the Disney Parks!

So it's that time of the year again. By that time I mean November.

Often times people complain, or at least mention, that "every year, Christmas seams to start earlier and earlier." At the Disney parks, this is not true. Christmas starts the same time every year: Nov. 1.

"It's A Small World Holiday"
The night after Halloween, at the Magic Kingdom and at Disneyland, experts work throughout the night taking down the remnants of Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party and other various Halloween decorations, and begins putting up the yule-tide decorations.

The Orlando Sentinel wrote a great article that goes into the details of how it all happens, from the horticulturists (fancy gardeners) to the cast members' reversal reversal of the parade, it's a huge endeavor that Disney takes on every year.

I remember when we went on our trip to Disney World, we stayed at the Swan and Dolphin. It was mid November, and one day, the lobby was normal, the next, there was a 50 foot tall, fully decorated Christmas tree where there were once chairs and coffee tables. The change was an amazing feat.

As I spoke about earlier in my similar post, holiday overlays change the park completely. But at the parks, Halloween is Bush-league compared to Christmas. That's when Disney gets the big guns out. And by big guns I mean the machines that blow the "snow" onto Main Street every night. That stuff never seams to stick though. Could be because it's glorified foam, but I don't want to ruin the magic.

From an early age, November and December have been the typical time my family took a trip down to Anaheim, and thus I have the most experience out of any holiday at the parks. Often have I seen the thousands pounds of glitter that takeover "It's a Small World," and I have some very fond memories of Santa making an appearance in the Main Street Electrical Parade.

The the great new merchandise, fun parades, and the special fireworks all culminate, making the park give you that Christmas morning feeling not just for a couple of hours or days, but for the entire time you spend at the parks.  

It's something no one else can do. Other companies may implement a tree here and a snowflake there, but Disney does it like not other. It's just another thing that makes the Disney parks more magical than any other destination in the world.

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