How does Disney put up the holiday decorations?

[skadar2]

I understand that the holiday decorations go up in mid-November... but how does it happen? Do they close the park for a day or something? Overnight? Or do you see everyone on ladders stringing lights?

Anyone know?

[laughingplace<3]

Overnight, I'm pretty sure.

[CaptainJessicaSparrow]

It's a gradual process done over several nights, but in such a way you don't notice it's being done. A lot of it starts sooner, especially at DHS. The Osbourne Lights start going up around August.

[Mufasa]

The holiday decorations really are a year-round operation for a dedicated department at WDW that operates with military precision.

There's a central warehouse facility that houses holiday services- it's about a 78,000 square foot building that is a pretty amazing place. Picture walking into a home depot that's full of holiday decorations with one area that stores every sort of ornament you could imagine rows deep on shelves.

Then there are literally miles of garland (in a typical year WDW will string up over 16 miles of garland at last count) some 300,000 yards of ribbon used to create things like bows and if you were to walk around the rest of the warehouse floor you'd see aisles neatly organized by the individual resort, theme park or cruise ship with trees, wreaths and other set pieces all sitting there neatly covered in plastic.

There's a year-round crew of about 40 people who plan and design the decorations for each of the theme parks, resort properties, downtown disney and the cruise line ships. Through about a five year cycle, they'll completely redesign the decorations for each location- so between holiday seasons they'll determine which decorations they'll clean-up and pack away for next season and which new decorations they'll design and create for a particular theme to be applied to a location.

Each area is pre-staged in the warehouse. For example, the trees that you'll see in the hotels or theme parks even including the giant centerpiece trees for each of the parks are synthetic. They are decorated and tested in the warehouse and as they are checked out and given the final ok then they get packed up and stored away until they're ready to be moved "on-stage" so that all the pieces are ready to install when the particular day comes. Everything from the largest tree down to wreaths and every other holiday decoration you can imagine gets tagged, cataloged and stored ready to go.

When it comes time to put the decorations up whether in the park or at a hotel everything gets loaded out onto a tractor trailer and then they'll hire on an entire crew of temporary/seasonal workers who actually move pieces into place- for a resort, the move can often be done in a single evening (they give themselves about a 9-hour window to complete a resort so it appears that the transformation took place overnight) where a theme park may take several evenings to complete the decorations. In all, it takes about 150 full tractor-trailer loads to move close to 1,500 christmas trees in and around the resort.

[Mr. Brass Bonanza]

WOW! Thanks Mufasa for that incredible insight!

Now...I can I get a job as one of those 40 people? I would LOVE that job!

[Mickeydream]

That is incredible! We were at WDW Nov 21- Dec 1 and just love the Christmas decorations. It's obvious that it has to be a well-planned chain of events that happens to get everything so perfect. Thanks for the insight, Mufasa. When we go again for Thanksgiving 2009, we will appreciate all the had work that goes into the final results that we enjoy. :mickey:

[irish1967]

I don't know if I can explain this well - but we've been there pre-Chistmas and every morning, the decorations were a little more extensive but never seemed to be unfinished. In otherwords, they do it in phases and each phases is complete in and of itself. Each additional phase adds on to the previous phases.

The only exception would be the gingerbread house in the Grand Floridian - it was obviously a work in progress.

[jefmblrd]

You can go and visit the Christmas warehouse if you take the Backstage Magic Tour. My wife and I took it last year and loved it. We actually spent a great deal of time there, and it was great to see everything. If that's something you really want to see, you might want to ask if they still go there; I don't know how often they change it.

[BigBaloo]

Couple of years ago in early Nov. at the Poly I left the main lodge around 11pm. Next morning I went back around 7am & the whole place had been transformed w/ Christmas decorations. It was soooo cool...

[Jasper]

Several years ago we were staying at the All Star Music and I couldn't sleep. So about 3am or so I took a walk around the resort and happened across the crew that was putting up decorations. It was really amazing!

The decorations at the All Stars are not nearly as lavish as some of the more upscale resorts are but there was still a ton of stuff going up. There were people everywhere on ladders, in cherry pickers, and "fluffing" trees and the like. I even walked out to the truck and watched them unload for a few minutes.

You would really be surprised at what a science they have it down to! As things came off the truck the person on the truck called off a location and a decoration number and there was a person standing there who was specifically assigned to that piece of decoration who grabbed it and scurried off to put it in its place. If you remember the scene in Cinderella where the animals are all going in a thousand directions at once to make her dress that is what this decorating crew looked like!

[cujo31]

It's Disney Magic.

[crltkcagle]

We have only been for halloween and it was literally done overnight. i am sure the Christmas decorations are much more extensive. We were amazed that when we came back to the park the next morning it had been transformed into a spooky halloween town. those princesses and dwarves must have been up all night! LOL

[fairies*n*fireflies]

Oh I can't wait to see the decorations! I just started working with Wendy at Magical Journeys to book our trip for Christmas 2008. I am so excited. Its always been a dream to be able to see Disney at Christmas!:joy::santa3:

[mousehappy]

We centered a vacation once around Halloween and we went to ak one night and the next morning went back to snap a picture of something and couln't get it because it was replaced with a xmas wreath!!! Yah just overnight. I't definately magic!!!

[Bethis26fan]

The holiday decorations really are a year-round operation for a dedicated department at WDW that operates with military precision.

There's a central warehouse facility that houses holiday services- it's about a 78,000 square foot building that is a pretty amazing place. Picture walking into a home depot that's full of holiday decorations with one area that stores every sort of ornament you could imagine rows deep on shelves.

Then there are literally miles of garland (in a typical year WDW will string up over 16 miles of garland at last count) some 300,000 yards of ribbon used to create things like bows and if you were to walk around the rest of the warehouse floor you'd see aisles neatly organized by the individual resort, theme park or cruise ship with trees, wreaths and other set pieces all sitting there neatly covered in plastic.

There's a year-round crew of about 40 people who plan and design the decorations for each of the theme parks, resort properties, downtown disney and the cruise line ships. Through about a five year cycle, they'll completely redesign the decorations for each location- so between holiday seasons they'll determine which decorations they'll clean-up and pack away for next season and which new decorations they'll design and create for a particular theme to be applied to a location.

Each area is pre-staged in the warehouse. For example, the trees that you'll see in the hotels or theme parks even including the giant centerpiece trees for each of the parks are synthetic. They are decorated and tested in the warehouse and as they are checked out and given the final ok then they get packed up and stored away until they're ready to be moved "on-stage" so that all the pieces are ready to install when the particular day comes. Everything from the largest tree down to wreaths and every other holiday decoration you can imagine gets tagged, cataloged and stored ready to go.

When it comes time to put the decorations up whether in the park or at a hotel everything gets loaded out onto a tractor trailer and then they'll hire on an entire crew of temporary/seasonal workers who actually move pieces into place- for a resort, the move can often be done in a single evening (they give themselves about a 9-hour window to complete a resort so it appears that the transformation took place overnight) where a theme park may take several evenings to complete the decorations. In all, it takes about 150 full tractor-trailer loads to move close to 1,500 christmas trees in and around the resort.



I would love to work doing that.

[scootch713]

We stayed at the wilderness lodge this year and got in very late after MVMCP... the lobby was empty.... we woke in the morning to a HUGE tree in the center of the lobby. It was kinda unbelievable!

[AeroRnRer]

Interesting read. Someday I hope to see Disney in all it's Christmas glory.

[DisneyTwirler13!]

We know someone who works at Epcot, and she says that after the park closes at night, they immediatly start putting up decorations during the holidays.

[LoriMistress]

Disney have been putting up their decorations earlier and earlier each year. Last year, they put up Halloween Decorations in August!!!! For Christmas, they put up decorations within 1-3 days after Halloween. It takes normally up to 7 days for Disney to put up ALL Christmas decorations.

[laward32]

We were there Oct 26-Nov 2 and on Oct 30 at MGM they already had the big Christmas tree out front and the wreaths and garland down the main street. On Nov 1 Epcot had the big tree up and lots of little decorations around. We ate at Coral Reef that night and they already had their decorations up. MK didn't have anything yet, but the last MNSSHP was Nov 2.:mickey: