What will Thanksgiving Day be like for overseas visitors
 

My wife and i are coming over to Disney's Old Key West Resort in November. As our stay overlaps with your Thanksgiving Day holiday, we were wondering what to expect. i.e. will it be very busy or will everyone be at home with their families? We are visiting from Scotland
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Colin & Wilma

Disney World will be VERY busy. Check out this site for info about the world and dinner resv.

allearsnet.com

But have a great time. I LOVE disney!!

Thanksgiving Day.

Firstly, sleep late. Turn on television and watch Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Around 12 or 1PM go to Thanksgiving Day Buffet and stuff yourself senseless with turkey and all the fixings.

Go back to hotel room and turn on American football games. Take nap.

Congrats. You have now spent your first Thanksgiving Day the way most Americans spend Thanksgiving.

Throw in a fight with a family member and you are an honorary American.

Gobble gobble.

"Throw in a fight with a family member and you are an honorary American."

ROFLMAO, GoTravel!

That's how I intend to spend my Thanksgiving :))

J_Correa, having a fight with a family member??? :-)

FOOD FIGHT!!
:-P

One more thought... keep in mind that most all retail establishments and business will be closed that day. Restaurants, Disney, and a few grocerly stores will still be open, but that's about it.

Fight with a family member - quite possibly. Usually though we are too doped up from the turkey and the wine to fuss too much ;)

I actually spent my lst Thanksgiving in the Uk. I loved it. No turkwey hang over. keep in mind, no stores open here. Disney will probably be packed, but enjoy yourself.
Where in Scotalnd do you come from?
I lived in Stirling, I miss it!

Movie theaters usually open in the afternoon. I've taken my nieces & nephew to a flick a few times in the past.

Gets everyone away from the turkey for a while. The kids are so stuffed I save half the cost by not having to buy popcorn & soda too.

INDYTRAVELER - GOOD One! It IS THE COST OF POCORN THAT JACKS THE PRICE UP SO MUCH........

We love Orlando and will probably be there in December for a few days. One thing about the area that we love other than Disney are the great discount outlets and they are all over the area. You hotel will probably have some coupons for additional discounts or you can also get coupons at the outlets as well. Great place to shop for the holidays.

Have fun, but know that Disney will be crowded, it's the busiest time of year for Disney, so be prepared for large crowds.

Annesherrod
We come from Old Kilpatrick, which isn't to far from Stirling.
Thanks everbody for all the info.I will try to be a good American!!!
Colin

When you get to Disney find a family who is arguing loudly. Tell them you are foreigners (they won't have a clue where Scotland is, accept that its somewhere in Disney) and you want to spend time with them for an American Thanksgiving. By that time they will think you are English (those Pilgrams).

When you get to their hotel room filled with a dozen more relatives and a room full of beer bottles, screeming children, and football blasting on the TV just sit back with your paper plate full of fixins and wait for the fireworks when someone gets accused of not being a father to his children, or a women is accused of being a no good tramp. By late evening everyone will be passed out drunk and you can go back to your hotel room. Happy Thanksgiving. (~~)

honestly, our Thanksgivings are not like that at all! We usually go to church in the morning, pray and give thanks for our many blessings and then stuff ourselves with turkey, dressing, veggies, potatoes, pumkin pie, etc. with the whole family, maybe have an argument with family member, :-) lots of wine and beer, watch football or just talk in the kitchen with other women. Welcome to our Thanksgiving Day!!! Hope you have a great holiday!

Hmmmmm, now I remember why I hated Thanksgiving as a child. LOL :-)

Your Thanksgiving sounds just like our Christmas - except that in the UK we have to put up with relatives for TWO holidays - Christmas day and Boxing Day. Normal routine - get up late - open presents - men ( try ) and go to pub whilst women cook Turkey and get tipsy doing so drinking the sherry - have very late lunch - drink some more - watch Queen's speech at 1500 and try to stay awake - then at teatime eat Turkey sandwiches , Christmas cake and sherry trifle - drink some more - watch stupid reruns on the tele and then go to bed. Boxing day is reserved for family fights .

Chrissie, I always wondered what the British did on Boxing Day. But I didn't know that they actual got into boxing matches with family members. Too funny!

I think we need Boxing Day in the states. Get up late, open presents, and men get to go to the Pub? Now there's one Brit Tradit I like. =D>

No, no Jor. Get up late, open presents and go to the pub on Christmas Day.
Boxing day is to fight (guess like box them over the head?) with your family members.
Please don't get the traditions out of order. Civilization will not continue
if things are not done according to schedule.

Hi Colin and Wilma- if I were nearby, you'd be welcome at our Thanksgiving table, for years, various family members bring "Thanksgiving orphans" to our little gathering, at which my brother always serenades us briefly with his bagpipes, which isn't half dreadful! (as he's a close relation, I'll say no more...)

We always have set crowded table with endless things to eat. Everyone cooks, men and women both.

There was the year my British boyfriend insisted on cooking the turkey himself, made a v. delicious stuffing, and ended up cooking the bird upside down-Tenderest turkey I ever ate! The same year, my brother made a huge pitcher of Bloody Marys to start the day off right, (family heirloom glass pitcher). He entered the room with the pitcher and a tray of glasses, one of the visiting dogs got underfoot- Crash and splash! A "bloody good start" to the day...

We try our best to have a roaring family row like the old days, but we usually end up kind of mumbling and draped all over various sofas while the TV drones away in the background. Have a great Thanksgiving!

So maclean, as you can see Thanksgiving is an exercise in excess.

We are supposed to be taking time to give thanks and notice that the glass is half full but rarely does that happen.

Instead we eat too much, drink too much, watch too much mindless television, and spend too much time in too close of quarters with our relatives.

And then we do the same thing all over again on Christmas Day.

To us, it's the day when the family opens the door and invites others to share whatever is on the table. We all contribute something to eat, and I think if we were eating just sandwiches, that would be fine too!

We get to share some laughs, It's just about being together! Which is a very good thing in our case since we're normally scattered all over the map and some aren't even around anymore!

maclean, Here is a little tongue in cheek history about Thanksgiving based primarily on truth.

The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock because the crew ran out of beer and refused to sail any further. They didn't have a clue how to provide food for themselves so the Indians took it upon themselves to teach the tourists from the Mayflower Royal Princess cruise line how to grow crops in this harsh environment. The Indians and Pilgrims later celebrated with a mixer with the new harvest bounties (Thanksgiving).

In later years the Pilgrims got all cocky, claiming everything for themselves, and chased out the Indians to places west.

Most Indians ended up in unproductive lands the US government called luxury resort locations (Reservations). In my state of Minnesota Indian men, women and children were removed from their land and escorted to a resort hotel called Fort Snelling. The settlers were paid a finder's fee for each Indian who became a guest at this fine establishment. The settlers could then build condos on the lake without all those pesky Indians getting in the way. To make amends for all the displacement of Indians and the destruction of their culture the Dept. of the Interior renamed Indians to Native Americans. Canadians thought Indigenous Peoples sounded more politically correct.

After generations of selling tourist trinkets for peanuts Native Americans are building the worlds largest casinos to get back the $28 worth of beads they sold Manhattan for, as well as payback for most of the great plains and mountain regions they lost.

Have a happy Thanksgiving in America and give thanks to the Indians...ah Native Americans. (~~)

No one mentioned men relaxing on the couch after dinner with the tops of their pants undone to let their stomachs expand; while the women somehow end up cleaning. Or maybe that's just an Italian-American thing, I don't know.

Maclean -- try renting some of these movies: Planes, Trains and Automobiles; Home for the Holidays; Ice Storm; and throw in a Thanksgiving episode of the Sopranos for good measure. But at least you'll be at Disney World.

Jor -- you gave me an idea. American families should rent out space in their overeating, football watching, family arguing holidays for foreign tourists who REALLY want the American Thanksgiving experience. Kind of like student exchange program meets interactive theater. Foreign tourists who want to participate: make sure you forward information in advance of actual or perceived wrongs you have committed against parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/siblings over the years so that your host families can make you feel guilty all over again by throwing said events back at you. Extra credit for a vegan family member trying to get everyone to eat Tofurkey.

In all seriousness, Disney should be crowded, but you will still have a great time.

If you're looking for Disney info, you should consider going to the other websites for real details.

We were at Universal Studios Wednesday before and were at Disney World - Friday after Thanksgiving 2003 - and didn't feel that the crowds were excessive. At 11:30am the crowds began to swell. Until then, we had the run of the park.
I suggest going to the "most popular" rides first. Get the Fast Passes where you can. On Saturday, we ate while in line to save time and were glad we did. That's when the park was truly busy.

Maclean, Thanksgiving is a wonderful and uniquely American holiday, kind of a pre-Christmas pause: turkey and feasting, but no decorations or presents to fret about. I (English expat)love it! (And those four days off work are really great, too.)

Okay, so my post is really nothing to do with the original question, but I'm loving this topic...

The thread brought back memories of when we first migrated to the US, back in 1970 (she said, dating herself...) We'd lived here for 6 months, really knew nothing about T-giving: anticipation was high.

We were delighted to be invited for the day to join the family of a woman I'd met in Yoga class. Her parents lived in a big old New England farmhouse, and loved to invite international guests to share the holiday with them. Must have been more than 20 people around the table -- family and not, American and not, adults and children of many different ages. We started with a walk through their woods (it was a mildish late fall day, no snow yet.) Once we sat down to eat, we took turns to share what we were thankful for, then ate very well over several hours. It was a lovely and memorable time, and to me epitomized American hospitality and kindness, the best of the American experience.

Now all these years later, we still love T-giving, and welcome our own now-extended family of inlaws and outlaws to our table, or travel to theirs. Sure, sometimes there might be a fight, but not often -- the family is more scattered these days, so we're glad to have time to catch up, meet new babies, hear the stories in person. And yes, eat too much, watch some football, doze on the sofa when things quiet down.

And this year, DH and I will be in French Polynesia at Thanksgiving. No Dinde Roti for us, I guess. But that's okay -- I'll be snorkeling. :) :) :)

I just love this thread!! Colin, I wish you could spend teh Holiday with a Typical American family...I love Thanksgiving. I love that it is not about presents and such, but family. Go travel has it spot on :-). Perfect itnerary IMO. Instead of footbal, a classic like Sound of Music will be on...that's my fave fro Thanksgiving.