disneyland holidays

When it comes to enjoying the magic of the holiday season with family and friends, there’s no place like Disneyland Resort. The holidays will shine brightly throughout the resort from Nov. 12 through Jan. 2, 2011, as guests create memories for a lifetime.

Guests will enjoy the return of Disneyland Resort’s most popular offerings, including special holiday versions of “it’s a small world” and Haunted Mansion, along with “A Christmas Fantasy” parade, colorful holiday décor and a nightly snowfall on Main Street, U.S.A.

Other holiday highlights at Disneyland will include the traditional snowdrifts and icicles adorning Sleeping Beauty’s Winter Castle. After dark a sensational holiday lighting and special effects show will carry the magic of the holidays from the castle all the way to the Christmas tree in Town Square. The 60-foot-tall Disneyland Christmas tree is specially designed to present a nightly holiday light show like no other with more than 62,000 energy-efficient LED lights.

The Sleeping Beauty’s Winter Castle presentation unfolds throughout the evening in three acts, each of them featuring a touch of winter snow on Main Street, U.S.A. The finale of the show includes the legendary “Believe … in Holiday Magic” fireworks show, which takes guests on a journey of sights and sounds of the season and ends with a touching rendition of “White Christmas,” along with a climactic snowfall swirling down on Main Street, U.S.A., “it’s a small world” Mall and New Orleans Square.

A holiday tradition in Disneyland is “A Christmas Fantasy” parade, in which Disney characters join together to celebrate the magic of the season. Guests can watch as the characters wrap gifts, bake holiday treats and prepare for the arrival of Santa Claus, who shouts a jolly greeting to spectators along the parade route. Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse even take to the ice for some skating fun.

Themed entertainment, sparkling decorations and tasty treats add festive warmth to holiday fun at both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. Guests also will be able to book guided holiday tours that provide entry into “it’s a small world” Holiday and Haunted Mansion Holiday, reserved seating for the Disneyland “A Christmas Fantasy” parade, a keepsake remembrance, and entertaining information about the history behind Disneyland holiday traditions. For information and reservations guests can visit Disneyland City Hall or call 714/781-4400.

Returning holiday favorites at Disneyland park include:

• “it’s a small world” Holiday transforms “it’s a small world” into a worldwide celebration of the season, boasting more than 300,000 glittering lights on its facade.
• Haunted Mansion Holiday presents a madcap celebration as the traditions of Halloween and Christmas collide. The ghoulish but well-meaning Jack Skellington from the film “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” has come to Haunted Mansion to transform it with his skewed vision of the holidays.
• Santa Claus and his reindeer will return to greet Disneyland guests at Santa’s Reindeer Round-up in Big Thunder Ranch, Frontierland. Kids and their families will chat with St. Nick and see real reindeer grazing in a corral.

Disney California Adventure park celebrates the season with fanciful park-wide decorations and lively entertainment.

• Guests approaching the park will immediately get in the holiday mood as they encounter the iconic “CALIFORNIA” letters transformed to appear as swirling red and white peppermint sticks.
• “a bug’s land” transforms as Flik and his bug buddies spread giant Christmas lights and oversized ornaments throughout their realm.
• The holiday scene along the Paradise Bay boardwalk includes a beautifully decorated Christmas tree and lampposts decorated with seasonal wreaths.

Santa Claus will greet guests on the boardwalk near Ariel’s Grotto on Paradise Pier.

Guests in Disney California Adventure won’t want to miss the other park entertainment, highlighted by the all-new “World of Color” nighttime water spectacular, which brings its own brand of after-dark magic to the Paradise Bay lagoon. Meanwhile, in the entry plaza of Disney California Adventure and the adjoining Hollywood Pictures Backlot district, the immersive “ElecTRONica” nighttime street party will put guests of all ages “on the grid” and into the environment of the new Walt Disney Pictures feature, “TRON: Legacy.” “ElecTRONica” parties take place Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and nightly from Dec. 17 through Jan. 2. “ElecTRONica” will continue into spring 2011.

Also part of the regular Disney California Adventure attractions and entertainment lineup:

• “Pixar Play Parade” is complemented by two new shows: the energetic “dance-off” competition of “Disney Dance Crew” on the Backlot Stage in Hollywood Pictures Backlot, and the rock concert-style “Disney Channel Rocks,” featuring music from Disney Channel movies and series, performed on the Palisades Stage in Paradise Park, alongside Paradise Bay lagoon.
• In Blue Sky Cellar at Golden Vine Winery, the Imagineers’ workshop offers guests a preview of what’s coming to Disney California Adventure, including The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure in 2011.
• Guests along Paradise Pier in Disney California Adventure also will enjoy the newly enhanced Toy Story Mania! and Silly Symphony Swings attractions, along with such popular favorites as California Screamin’ and Mickey’s Fun Wheel.

The Downtown Disney district and the Disneyland Resort hotels will join in the merriment with twinkling lights and ornaments, special entertainment and holiday dining. Expanded hours at both Disneyland Resort theme parks will extend the holiday fun. For more information about holidays at Disneyland Resort, visit www.disneyland.com/holidays.

Disneyland Resort features two fantastic theme parks – Disneyland (the original Disney theme park) and Disney California Adventure – plus the Downtown Disney District comprised of unique dining, entertainment and shopping experiences. The resort’s three hotels are the luxurious 948-room Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, the magical 970-room Disneyland Hotel and the 481-room Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel with its day-at-the-beach fun. For information on new attractions and vacations at Disneyland Resort visit www.disneyland.com, call 866/60-DISNEY or contact local travel agents.

Holiday Fun Facts

The first Disneyland holiday celebration was in 1955, when Walt Disney placed a Christmas tree in the Hub at the north end of Main Street, U.S.A., near Sleeping Beauty Castle. For many years now, the tree has been located in Town Square near the Main Street Disneyland Railroad Station.

Since 2008, the Disneyland Christmas tree in Town Square has been artificial. It stands 60 feet tall and has 280,000 pine-tip branches molded from actual tree branches. It is decorated with more than 2,000 ornaments, including the three-foot star on top, and nearly 4,800 LED lights. When the Sleeping Beauty’s Winter Castle show reaches its finale crescendo, 64,000 energy-efficient LED lights and 1,200 strobe lights are added to the effect.

Since the introduction of the artificial Christmas tree and LED lighting technology, the Disneyland park Christmas tree has used 50 percent less electricity than it did previously.

The nighttime Sleeping Beauty’s Winter Castle light show is divided into three “acts” over the course of the evening. Each one begins at the Castle and travels the length of Main Street, U.S.A., finishing at the Town Square Christmas tree. Each act features a magical snowfall, and the final act concludes with “Believe…in Holiday Magic” fireworks.

The nighttime light show employs more than 200,000 points of light, 2,600 individual circuits and more than 85,000 individual wiring connections.

If all the cables and conductors for the show were laid end to end, they’d stretch 48 miles, past the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank.

In addition to the giant Town Square Christmas tree, there are 100 other artificial Christmas trees, lit and fully decorated, in Disneyland, Disney California Adventure park and other locations at Disneyland Resort. There are also more than 8,000 feet of decorated holiday garland installed throughout the resort.

The CALIFORNIA letters at the entrance to Disney California Adventure are transformed at this time of year with candy-cane striping. The largest ornaments used at the Resort may be found in the “bugs-eye-view” world of Flik’s Fun Fair at Disney California Adventure.

The smallest ornaments used at the resort may be found in the Storybook Land attraction at Disneyland.

“A Christmas Fantasy” parade

Each performance of “A Christmas Fantasy” features 105 performers, 18 float drivers and 12 musicians, costumed as toy soldiers from the Disney movie “Babes in Toyland.” In all, with two performances daily, approximately 200 performers appear in the parade during the holiday season.

The parade features six major “units,” each consisting of multiple floats. The units are Santa’s Cottage, the Winter Wonderland Ice Rink, the Candy Shop, the Christmas Ball, the Toy Factory and the Finale featuring Santa’s sleigh.

“it’s a small world” Holiday

Decorators use 50,000 Christmas lights on the façade of “it’s a small world” Holiday, and an additional 200,000 mini-lights in the trees, hedges and topiaries surrounding the attraction.

Among the holiday special effects inside the attraction: pine tree and peppermint scents in the European scenes; 75 gallons of bubble juice to make bubbles throughout the season in the South Seas scene.

Nearly 150 giant candles decorate the Christmas Tree in the European scene, and 7,500 lights sparkle on the Snow Flake Tree in the “it’s a small world” Holiday finale.

Haunted Mansion Holiday

Jack Skellington has his own ideas about appropriate holiday decorations. The Haunted Mansion Holiday exterior is decorated with more than 100 jack-o’-lanterns and the eerie glow of more than 400 flickering candles.

For the holidays, the graveyard in the Haunted Mansion finale is covered with 7,500 square feet of snow. Trees in the graveyard are decked out with 1,000 tiny orange lights.

The gingerbread house in the Mansion’s Great Hall is made of real gingerbread and icing. Each year, the Disneyland Resort Foods and Entertainment divisions partner to create a new, original design for that year’s Haunted Mansion Holiday gingerbread house.

This 2010 gingerbread house features a 12-inch gingerbread zombie rising from beneath a mound of chocolate cookie dirt, a gingerbread replica of the clock from the Haunted Mansion entrance, and a five-foot-tall Jack Skellington who pops in and out from behind the Haunted Mansion Gingerbread tombstone.

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