Thanksgiving 2013 at Walt Disney World
By Dave Shute
THANKSGIVING 2013 AT WALT DISNEY WORLD
Update October 23: New extended operating hours and 8a openings.
Thanksgiving week at Walt Disney World is busy–particularly Wednesday through Saturday.
While not as crowded as some other holiday weeks–Easter and Christmas, for example–it can be very challenging, and the material below gives some hints on how to deal with it.
WALT DISNEY WORLD 2013 THANKSGIVING WEEK ITINERARY AND DINING
Park schedules indicate that this site’s Autumn-Winter-Spring Itinerary works for Thanksgiving Week, but you will need to arrive at MK and AK an hour earlier than it indicates.
Moreover, a couple of other things are worth noting.
First, this itinerary has you largely off on Thanksgiving itself, and with the only formal meal a morning brunch. Your meals otherwise are in your hotel food court.
If you are looking for something both more formal but fun in your Thanksgiving dinner (not necessarily in menu, but in ambiance and waiters and such), then consider
- Reserving the Liberty Tree Tavern at the Magic Kingdom Thursday, or
- Changing your Whispering Canyon Cafe at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Resort from lunch Tuesday to dinner Thursday, or
- Moving your Hoop Dee Doo Revue reservations from Tuesday evening to Thursday evening
The first option means both another table service meal and another day of park tickets; the other two don’t cost any more, as they are just moving items already in the Autumn-Winter-Spring Itinerary to another day, and are at resort hotels, not parks.
Note that to get a sit-down meal on Thanksgiving it’s critical that you make your dining reservations well in advance. See this for more.
DISNEY WORLD OPERATING HOURS DURING THE 2013 THANKSGIVING WEEK
Starting the day after Thanksgiving, Epcot is open thirty minutes later, and a special Christmas version of Illuminations is shown nightly at 9.30p rather than 9p. Adjust your Friday itinerary for this change in times.
The Candlelight Processional also begins the Friday after Thanksgiving.
Moreover, Disney has changed the operating hours of the parks to accommodate the crowds.
This includes 8a openings all week at the Magic Kingdom and the Animal Kingdom. Disney may also add additional Extra Magic Hours and more 8a openings.
These changes mean that some of your days need to start one or even two hours earlier than the itinerary suggests.
You can get updated park operating hours when you arrive at Walt Disney World. If you want to know what’s up before then, check the park calendars a day or so before you depart for Florida, and then while you are there as well.
Click the links for park calendars
And Disney veterans–please feel free to add more suggestions for Thanksgiving dinner at Walt Disney World to the comment box below!
125 comments
Hello again Dave,
Where can we get cheapest tickets to sea world and universal studios?
Sorry, I don’t know, Glendaliz. Deals for them are much more complicated and common than deals for Disney World, and for that reason I don’t track them–I can barely keep up with WDW!
Hi! Your info is really great! I’ve been reading to see if I can find the answer to my question. We are a family of 6 traveling to Disney on 11/20 and leaving 11/30 in the morning. You mention to avoid MK on 11/21 and this what we actually intended to do (MK on 11/21). We would like to fit Universal & Sea World into our intinerary also. Any particular reason why 11/22 is better for MK? Is it less crowds or more events? Our children are 11,8,5&4. Thank you so much!
Gracie, MK closes early both days (whihc much lowers crowds), but the 21st, it opens an hour early to WDW hotel guests. This will make it a little more crowded after 9a than it will be the 22nd…The 21st will be OK–especially if you are a WDW resort guest and can take advantage of the early hours–it’s just that the 22nd is better.
Thanksgiving crowds will being to pour in the 23rd…I don’t track Universal or Sea World closely enough to have a good idea of when to go there over a holiday week….
So helpful! Thank you! Going to Disney (first trip) on 25th and 26th but have 2 college kids and one high school. After reading your information, going to Epcot on 25th and MK on 26th. Any suggestions on how to form an itinerary for those two days? (Son is military – military tips?)
Hi Cindy, all my itineraries are 6-8 days…suggest looking at EasyWDW.com and Touringplans.com for one and two day itineraries!!
Thank you for the info! We went to HS Thursday (11/21) and lines were 10-30 min (most 10-15), not bad. We headed over to Epcot in the evening and did Spaceship Earth, Mexico and Norway rides and the fireworks show. We would like to go back for a few more hours at some point to do Nemo among a few other attractions. Today we went to MK and most lines were 0-10 minutes, Peter Pan and Space Mountain were 30 min. Overall, very short wait times. We feel like we need a one day break but don’t want to go when the crowds come next week. Do you think tomorrow will be crowded since it’s a Saturday or should Monday still be ok for MK? We also need to go back to HS to do a few rides and AK will be done next week. Thank you again!!
Gracie I got behind, so tomorrow has already come and gone–sorry…
Thanks for your information. Going to Disney for the first time from November 28 to December 2. We will do MK the 28th, AK 29th and Universal Studios 30th. We have a 5 year old kid. Some of my family will take the 29th for shopping day. So i decided to take my son to Animal Kingdom, just me and the kid. o you have any suggestions for my itinerary. Thanks
I’m sorry, Nubia, but my stuff is almost all focused on kids 8 and older…do take a look at this, as it may help: https://yourfirstvisit.net/2011/03/09/the-comprehensive-guide-to-walt-disney-world-rides-and-attractions/
Hi! Love your site – has been so helpful. We are at WDW from 11/26-11/30. Plan is to spend our half day on 11/26 at Downtown disney (we have a BBB reservation there for our 6 year old). I’m wondering if we should try to do a park after the Boutique?
Then MK on 11/27, HS morning of 11/28, then Akershus lunch and Epcot on the afternoon and evening of 11/28, finally back in MK on 11/29. What do you think?
No prob! 🙂 we went to MK Saturday and it was not crowded in the morning/early afternoon at all. By late afternoon there were lines for Peter Pan, Dumbo, Space Mountain etc but we got fast passes for a few rides and managed to do a lot. Today we went to Animal Kingdom and it was great! Your info helped a lot in helping me plan. 🙂
Thanks Gracie! Have a great trip…
We are back and had a great trip. Many of your tips made it even better. My family was so pleased with all of the planning I knew to do – thanks to you.
A few comments – we LOVED Yak and Yeti at Animal Kingdom. We had a great table for 10 – terrific service – and really amazing food.
Be Our Guest – we had a terrific dinner here for 4. It lived up to all the hype, and we so loved the food and the feeling of the place. We were in the West Wing – so perfect.
Artist Point – none of us were impressed – at $65.00 per person/$22.oo for the kids. We waited 40 minutes past the reservation for the table (other parties of ten with later times were seated before us) – and 1 hour and 40 mins after our reservation, we still did not have our main dishes. They did come right after I spoke to the manager – hum…
The food was good – but not great. We had little kids with us and waiting for well over an hour to eat was crazy…
I would not recommend it to anyone – the food was not worth the lack of organization, wait or price. We frequent very pricy places in Napa BUT this was not worth the $$$. We really liked the Whispering Canyon, however, and that food was good.
They did take some off of our check – but it was still not a good experience.
MagicBands are awesome! One CM did tell us that we could not use the regular Fastpasses because of the MagicBands – but later, we gave the room key cards a shot, and it worked.
Being there at rope drop is worth the effort to say the least…
We liked the transportation – and only had to wait more than 10 minutes on the last day.
Thanksgiving at MK was not very busy. 6 of our group went between 2:00 – 5:00 and had no wait longer than 10 minutes (they did have Fastpass+ for Big Thunder which had a long line of 40 mins). We think the cold weather might have affected the crowds.
We loved the meal plan – it was fun ordering whatever you wanted, not thinking about the price. My Yak and Yeti meal was shrimp and steak…so so so good!
We had character meals – we should have skipped the meet and greets in the park – and waited for the meals. That would be a great reason to have the meals in the first day or two. I spread ours out.
I pre-paid for the Photopass+ – for our group, it was worth every penny. We have over 400 pictures – many of the whole group of 10. They are great reminders of the whole event.
Pin trading was so much fun for my kids. I know people feel the quality of the pins has been affected by lots sold on eBay…but for us, it was really a blast seeing what we could find as we walked around the parks – it was like a treasure hunt. The “worth” was in the fun – not the quality of the pin. We wish we had brought more to trade!
We wish we had skipped the park-hopper. The parks are not that close, so we did not get a chance to use it. Funny, at Disneyland, we hop back and forth all the time…but the parks are so close.
Our favorite “new” ride is PeopleMover – short lines, a great view, restful and fun. We liked it best at night!
I am not sure all of this fit – I cannot see the start of this post…maybe that is a hint to bring it to a close.
Thanks again, Dave, for all of your help. It was a fantastic trip – and your info really helped make it so.
Until the next trip,
Wendy
Oh Wendy, I’m so glad that other than Artist Point it seemed like you had a great trip! And I’ll miss your comments and questions–you know, you can still come back to the site and ask them even if your next visit isn’t for a while 🙂
What did you think of the Wilderness Lodge overall?
The last part should read “and your info really helped make it so.”
I am sure that is not the only error!
Wendy
Fixed!
We loved it. We did not find it hard to get to the parks – very little waiting for buses, and we loved the boats. Having your tip about the morning boat to the Contempory was great…got to MK well before rope-drop. It was a long trip to Downtown Disney – but that was OK. We loved Earl of Sandwich and were happy to find we could use our dining plan there.
We would highly recommend it to families (first time and other) – but we think we will try a different one if/when we return. There were so many to pick from!
A question – my son was wondering how many days you spend at WDW a year…AND he thinks Disney should pay you since you help make trips go better – leading people to return for other trips due to the success of the last one. He was a bit shocked to learn that they did not at least give you free passes and hotel rooms!
Take care,
Wendy
Thanks, Wendy! Re your son…this year, counting the visit that starts TONIGHT 🙂 I’ll be on property about 40 days. Disney pays me after a fashion by competing (via Google Adsense) to put ads on the site–if people find those ads worth clicking, then Disney pays both me and Google. But I’ve never asked for free tix or hotel rooms, as paying my own way for everything means I can be completely objective, and don’t lose touch with how much stuff really costs!
40 days! We think you are awesome!
Wendy
🙂
We are going Thanksgiving 2014, yes I know it will be busy, but that’s what works for our family. We are going with 5, 8, and 9 year olds. Do I need to purchase a special ticket for MK during the holiday time like the mickeys magical Christmas? We will be doing the parks Monday through Friday.
Hi Molly, all you need is regular tickets. The Christmas party is not scheduled during Thanksgiving week….
Hi, we are planning to arrive Thanksgiving Day 2014 and depart Dec 1. We will have a 2 yo and an 8 yo with us. This will be everyone else’s first visit and I have only been once. We know we want Epcot, MK, AK, but not that interested in MGM. What would your itinerary suggestion be?
Hi Courtney, I can guess based on old patters, but I’d rather wait until Disney’s calendar for then is out–which it will be in a few months. So can you check back in late April??
Oh, we are staying at Art of Animation and also want to know if park hopper is worth it
Thanks 🙂
Usually you can work without a hopper!
Shoot I meant HS, not MGM… But still not all that interested
We are travelling to Disney from the UK on Tuesday 25th – Saturday 9th December. Me and my husband have been numerous times but it is the first visit with our Daughter – 3 yrs. We originally wanted to avoid Thanksgiving knowing it would be busy but it actually worked out much cheaper to fly the Tuesday rather than the weekend after! We obviously want to book the Mickey party, candlelight processional dinner package etc. Do you think everything will be published end of April? We ideally would love to see Neil Patrick Harris if he is doing it again!
Hi Sharon! The official dates for the party will be out likely in early May, and I’ll have a forecast for them out tomorrow. The processional narrators tend to firm up much later than that…
Hi! We are going to Disney over Thanksgiving (arriving 11/22 but not doing parks that day; departing Friday morning after breakfast and no parks that day). Care to critique my park schedule?
Sunday – MK
Monday – HS
Tuesday – Epcot
Wednesday – AK
Thursday – MK
Any changes or suggestions? I know it is going to be crazy crowded. Thanks!
Becky, ummm, you have sort of hit every park on what will be its busiest day. A much less crowded and lower wait set of days would be
Sunday: HS
Monday: Epcot
Tuesday: MK
Wednesday MK
Thursday: AK
Thank you so much for this great website. We are traveling to WDW this Thanksgiving. Just started our planning. We will be there nov 29-dec2. We have 2 kids (ages 6 & 3). We aren’t doing AK this trip.
We will have a 4 day pass.
Does this sound reasonable
11-29 MK (with a CT lunch reservation) (we are driving in from in laws and I think arrival would be around 9am at hotel check in)
11-30 HS
11-31 MK
12-1 Epcot (or back to MK)
Um, Ann, there is no 11-31…the December calendar isn’t out yet, so I can’t comment on December dates. But I would not do HS on 11-30–it will be very crowded.
My family and I will be in Disney Nov. 24th through Nov. 29th and staying at Port Orleans – Riverside. It will be our first time going for the week of Thanksgiving, we always went in June. What parks do you suggest on what days. We have the park hopper and we like to do one park in the morning then take a break and do another park that evening. We are huge Disney fans and we go every 2 years. Thanks
Hi Jennifer, if you are hopping, and doing FP+ at the second park, I’m a fan of morning EMH. You can get a ton done by 10.30 or 11. However, I don’t like the morning EMH schedule that week so here’s the parks I’d start the day at:
Epcot 11/24
HS 11/25
MK 11/26
AK 11/27
Any park but Epcot 11/28, especially MK
ANy place you choose 11/29…
OOPS! HAHA! Trying to sneak an extra day in!
Its 11-28 (Fri after Thanksgiving) MK with CT lunch
11-29 HS
11-30 MK vs Epcot
12-1 MK vs epcot
Thanks!
OK Ann I still don’t like the 29th at HS, nor the 30th there. That kinda puts HS the 1st. Epcot will be crowded the 29th because of evening EMH, so do MK the 29th, and Epcot the 30th…
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