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[Gemma W]

Hi all! Just wondered if anyone could tell me about visiting Santa is DLP. Whereabouts will he be? do the kids get a pressie or photo op? is there an additional charge? are there huge ques? xx

[princessmya]

sorry i not got the answer but this would be good to know, when will you be going ?

[SUTHEL3]

The programme for christmas will come out towards the end of October (for the first week of the christmas season) and this will detail where Santa is. For some reason, I seem to recall reading that he was in main street USA last year.

No fee to meet him, but i'm not 100% sure if the kids get a present, although in the spirit of christmas and most Santa visits, I would hope they do offer a small gift.

[Sonyak3]

We havnt been in a few years but lst time we were there he was free to see but you didn't get any present.u had the opportunity to take your own picture aswell as the official disney picture which you could buy afterwards.

[msRavenswood]

Santa's Village is located at Cottonwood Creek Ranch in Frontierland.

[gemma2806]

Depending on when you go Santa could be located in one of 2 places. When we went in November last year he was in Santa's Village at the old Woody's Roundup Spot in Frontierland which is tucked round the back of the Cowboy Cookout Barbecue and which you can see from the Disneyland Railroad at Frontierland Station.

You experience a walk through queue which ran past little huts with varying Christmas scenes in it. You then got to meet Santa in a secluded grotto similar to the meets at Mickey Mouse where no-one else is in there with you. The meet is not at all rushed and unlike quite a few places in the UK the children can still sit next to Santa rather than having to stand next to him! You can take your own pictures as well as the official ones being done. Santa was brilliant and spent plenty of time talking to my son about what he'd like for Christmas and if he had behaved! You then moved into another room which was again hidden from view and you got to meet Santa Goofy in his workshop!! Again there was the opportunity to take your own photos as well as having official ones. Also I noted this room was the only place in the whole of DLP that now plays Chante c'est noël my favourite DLP Christmas song!

Alternatively the closer to Christmas you get you find Santa also starts to make appearances at a photo spot in Disney Village near the Sports Bar. The photo spot was there in November but was not used although you could use it to take your own scenic pics! Santa starts appearing here to ease the crowds the closer you get to Christmas.

In regards to queues and waits they are MASSIVE so you have been warned! We visited at an exceptionally quiet time when most rides were walk-on and we did the entirety of Fantasyland in an hour, yet the waits for Santa were still enormous! My son wanted to see Santa and we were there for 7 days so we took our chances and held out for a short(ish) wait time. On weekends Santa is in Frontierland from 10am but weekdays Santa doesn't appear till 11:30am which in my opinion is too late given his popularity. For 4 days of our stay we constantly checked the waits from early morning till late afternoon and found times of 2 hours or more every time! On our last day in Frontierland we decided to take a gamble and got there about 3pm (Santa stops seeing guests at 4:30 or at least that's when the last guests are allowed to join the queue). The queue time read 50 mins and we thought never mind lets go for it. It took us nearly 90 mins to get to the front of the queue not 50 mins! It was very well organised any way but after leaving and doing other rides we noted that the guests who made it to the queue by 4:30pm were still leaving at 6pm!!

Basically waits at Santa Village is the same as the Princess Pavilion without the possibility of the getting advance return times and the queue splitting between 2 people at the end so go prepared!!

Good luck