Disneyland Nov 15- will it be decorated for Christmas?

[Reader]

We have been planning to go to Disneyland in December for ages but now it looks like there is a kid scheduling conflict the week we were planning to go. An alternate time we could go is November 15-19, which is the week before Thanksgiving week. Will it be decorated? Crowd calendar says "it's alright", and I'm assuming most kids would be in school (mine are homeschooled so we try to take advantage). I really love Disneyland at Christmas.

[Tenasparkl]

I don't know if they've released the exact dates yet, but that's around when it usually starts. The avengers half marathon is that weekend, so my guess is the Monday or Tuesday of that week 16th/17th).

[lalasmama]

Overall, it should be a good week. I never believe crowd calendars (I'll get into why they don't work well for Disneyland in a moment). As you point out, being the week before Thanksgiving week will lessen the crowds, because a lot of families will wait until the school break. Choosing to go in the week is the smartest thing you can do, and, assuming you are in the parks on the 15th (a Sunday), you'll be able to see the weekend entertainment that won't necessarily be happening nightly (like World of Color and Disneyland Forever fireworks show).

Decorating happens quickly after Halloween, and is in place, typically, by the middle of November. . The Haunted Mansion will be the "Nightmare Before Christmas" themed. Space Mountain will likely be "Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy." There will be a holiday Its a Small World, too. These *should* all be in place by the time you are going, but there's a miniscule chance they won't be. With the 60th Anniversary celebration, we aren't 100% sure what decorations there will be throughout the parks, but, we expect there will be some!

Now, if you don't care about why I dislike crowd calendars, feel free to ignore these next few paragraphs. A fair amount of this comes from the Disboards. In essence, a crowd calendar company took a basic formula for WDW, and tried to apply it to DL. Of course, there's a lot of differences between WDW and DL; first and foremost is that DL is a "locals" park, attended mainly by people living in the immediate area. Yes, clearly it's also a destination vacation, but not on the same playing field as WDW being a destination vacation. People that are likely to make DL a "destination vacation" are those who are going to be staying longer, and therefore, probably won't pull their kids out of school for it. So, WDW is busy busy busy on long school breaks. But DL? DL is most busy on Friday nights, Saturdays, and no-school-days when APs aren't blocked in addition to school breaks.

Next, my issue is with historical data aspect of the crowd calendar. With the opening of Cars Land and upgrading of all of California Adventure in June 2012, there's only 3 years of historical data to use to draw conclusions on the crowds. I don't know about you, but I'd have a hard time believing a crowd calendar that can only use 3 days (for instance, Nov 15, 2012, Nov 15, 2013, and Nov 15, 2014) to figure out how busy Nov 15, 2015, will be.

Then, there's new things that they are trying each season/year that will affect crowds, and are designed to bring more crowds, like Frozen Fun and !Viva Nativadad! So, a day may have been a "2" before, then a "4" with Cars Land, but with Frozen Fun's debut, crowds may be a "7" that same former "2" day.

Lastly, I just find the whole "assign a number to the crowds" to be a bit faulty. They say the limit of Disneyland is about 85k without counting cast members (employees). The most popular crowd calendar maker says the top 10% of days are a "10," the top 20% are a "9," the top 30% are an "8" and so on. Yet, their numbers don't jive with that. Using one of the most popular crowd calendars, they list 56 days as a 10. How can 15% of the days be the top 10% of the year? Furthermore, there's another 60 or so days rated a 9... which means almost a third of the year at Disneyland is 20% of worst days. So, the math just doesn't add up.

So, why do I think the week you've chosen is a good one? Many reason: most people won't take their kids out of school a week before they will be out for a week, and then out for 2 more weeks; there isn't any huge convention in the area; historically, it's a slow week...

ETA: Crap, I missed that there is a race that weekend... but that will only affect Sunday, most likely.

[rkold]

I've never been to DL a race week end, but in WDW, it's always fun to see the runners in their costumes at the parks, because often times you will get to see that. My costumes are always on the low key end of the spectrum, but some people go all out and their costumes are pretty awesome. I don't know the routes in CA, but they can cause traffic congestion. I know when I do the Princess, there are lots of runners still going into Epcot once the park has opened. I think the last people don't cross the finish line until closer to 10 am.

Lalasmama, I'd agree with you that the crowd calendars always seem off for DL. I find Touringplans is great for WDW and relatively accurate, but their DL info is the pits. I keep wanting to write in and give them feedback but then I get busy.

[Reader]

Thanks. We'd be in the park Nov 16-19, arriving November 15. We don't like to go on the weekends. We've been to DL in early May, not very crowded and in December (2nd week), and not very crowded. Initial plan was to go 2nd week of December again but now we have a scheduling conflict. We all really want to see it decorated for Christmas again so hope it will be decorated by then. Hope the race won't mean there are too many folks in the parks the week after. The week before incorporates Veterans' Day so I'm sure it will be busy then.