I’ve been at Disneyland during a Candlelight Processional evening, and it had a significant impact on our trip because it uses the area on Main Street in front of the train station.
We’ll be headed to DW in early December and are especially looking forward to enjoying the World Showcase in the evenings. We are not at all interested in the Candelight Processional. Can you tell me a little bit about what we’ll notice in terms of extra crowds or closed areas? I’m hoping the fact that I’ve tried to search and haven’t found anything means the answer is: not much.
If I might piggy-back on this…we actually want to know similar information, but for the opposite reason: We WANT to do the Candlelight Processional. I’m wondering about how necessary it is to actually get a dining package reservation to ensure seating, etc.
I’m also curious as to when they typically post who the narrators will be. We found a YouTube video of a presentation of it where the celebrity narrator was Kurt Russell. Frankly, he was pathetic. He seemed disinterested and almost like he had never read through the Christmas story in his life until that moment in front of the audience. Hopefully other narrators are better than he was!
We went 15 years ago, so I don’t know how CP effects EP now, but I will say that of the 4 parks, EP is least effected by crowds. The walkways in WS are huge.
Nothing is closed off that I remember.
Some narrators are more popular than others. NPH is probably the most popular.
Does Candlelight affect the crowds and/or ability to travel around World Showcase? Not much, if at all.
There are onlookers and/or people waiting in line for the next show alone the side of the walkway by the theater … but other than rubbernecking, did not affect traffic every time I’ve seen it.
Related side story: We were walking by the Candlelight Processional the night that Edward James Olmos was hosting. As we walked by, heard his distinctive rumbly voice … and then, a shout:
SO SAY WE ALL!
Girlfriend almost collapsed, hearing Commander Adama shout like that, ‘in real life’. Pure magic.
We personally were not interested in this event while we were there last holiday season and we had no trouble walking around. The stage was out of the way and it seemed like there was plenty of viewing had we wanted to stop and watch.
We went a couple of years ago in November with a not very well known (to us) host (missed NPH by 2 days!). We got a dining package and they advised us to line up half an hour before. We were actually done with our touring about 45 mins before and came upon a line with about 50 groups ahead of us, by the advised 30 minutes the line stretched so far I couldn’t see the end. I’m not sure how many people were let in from the standby line but it could not have been a lot. If it’s one of your must do’s I would definitely get the dining package rather than risk it
Follow up. How does the dining package work, exactly? Like, my wife was investigating and found that Via Napoli is one of the participating eateries. But will we need to make an ADR for Via Napoli, and then when the packages open up, “link” the ADR to that? Or will the package reservation include the location at that time, regardless of any ADRs we may (or may not) have?
Our thinking is that we should make an ADR for Via Napoli as a backup (in case we don’t get the dining package) since it is one of the places we want to eat, but if we end up getting the CP dining package, we can cancel the ADR.
I would highly suggest getting the dining package once they are released. There are usually 2 showings of CP also. Make sure that the dining package reservation that you make is for the CP show time that you want. They slowly release the narrators as they get them booked. We made our CP dining package reservation without knowing the narrator. We only had 1 day that we could see it.
