Candlelight Processional Effect? About This Page:

[aka pastor guy]

We'll be going to DLR Dec 11-14 (Tuesday-Friday) and I'm wondering if and/or how the Candlelight Processional will affect our trip... particularly in dealing with crowds. Any thoughts or information?

[duck addict]

Originally Posted by aka pastor guy

We'll be going to DLR Dec 11-14 (Tuesday-Friday) and I'm wondering if and/or how the Candlelight Processional will affect our trip... particularly in dealing with crowds. Any thoughts or information?

You might want to look at this. An Early Holiday Gift for Disneyland Guests: Twenty Nights of Disneyland Candlelight Ceremony Performances Scheduled for 2012 « Disney Parks Blog

Hope that helps.

[aka pastor guy]

Thanks... still waiting to see how this all works with our trip.

[bobyetman]

They announced today the reserved seating opportunities for this. Basically, AP can enter a lottery and get selected for certain dates. If you're a non-AP holder, you're out of luck, there are no dinner packages this year. You can see the show, but you have to stand in the limited area on the sides of the show to watch. Here's the link:

2012 Disneyland Candlelight Ceremony Viewing Opportunities « Disney Parks Blog

[aka pastor guy]

I'm not particularly interested in trying to stake out a spot (well, 4 spots) - not an annual passholder.

I'm curious about how the traffic patterns are affected - when are the performances? Can guests move in & out of Town Square while the Processional is going on? And other stuff like that...

[bobyetman]

I'm here at DL now, and saw the Processional last night (with James Edward Olmos as narrator). Basically the whole center of the plaza is blocked off with seating, while the train station has all the stands for the choir/orchestra, making the train entrance very small and tiny. At about 4:30 pm or so, they block off the blacktop portion of main street for the choirs to walk up, and they start using one way traffic patterns on the sidewalks on each side of the street to get people into and out of the park. They block off part of the road around the center plaza for the SRO section, which is what we did last night. The views aren't great, various trees and light stands block some views, but the Processional is all about hearing, not seeing. We got into place around 5:10 pm, so we waited about 20 minutes for the first show. Once the show was over, it took a few minutes to get out of the park, since they're trying to get the second showing AP holders who have reserved seats in at the same time they're trying to get the first show folks out, but it wasn't too bad, about 5-10 minutes to get out of the park.

[aka pastor guy]

Thanks so much, Bob - that is EXACTLY the kind of information I was looking for!