Christmas Comes Early to Theme Parks

If Halloween’s over, it must be Christmas.

That’s the strategy at Disneyland, where a Christmas tree already towers over Town Square, decorations glisten on Main Street, and a $49 pass good for admission most evenings until Dec. 24 has returned.

The growing encroachment of winter holiday themes reflects the push at the Magic Kingdom and other amusement parks to encourage attendance during traditionally slow times. Ever youngster-friendly, Disney can’t compete much on the fright front with Knott’s Berry Farm and other parks that have created busy Halloween seasons. So the 44-year-old Anaheim theme park increasingly is emphasizing Christmas, laying on seasonal foods and souvenirs and sending carolers into its streets.

Other Southland theme parks are doing likewise. Universal Studios in Hollywood, whose Halloween Horror Nights ran for three October weekends, will truck in four tons of snow daily to go with seasonal foods, songs and entertainment from Dec. 17 through Jan. 2.

Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, which conducted a Fright Fest for four weekends last month, features December weekends with free admission for customers who donate new toys worth $10 or more to Christmas charities.

And from Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve, Knott’s converts its Ghost Town section into a Victorian-style “village” with carolers, choirs, brass bands and crafts merchants. The cost will be “nominal,” perhaps $5, spokesman Bob Ochsner said.

“The theme park enthusiast has already been to the park in the summer,” Ochsner said. “You have to give them another reason to come back, with another product. So it’s Knott’s Scary Farm, [the Christmas promotion] Knott’s Merry Farm and now apparently this two-month Disney Christmas.”

The “Merriest Pass on Earth” promotion was first used last year. The $49 pass is good for one full-day admission and allows customers to return to Disneyland after 4 p.m. every day until Dec. 24, except for Saturdays, Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving.

There’s also a $39 child’s pass and a $12 parking pass good through the period, when the park typically closes at 8 p.m. on weekdays and later on weekends.

A Christmas parade begins Thanksgiving Day, and Disneyland again is giving a Christmas makeover to the “It’s a Small World” attraction, which reopens Friday in holiday regalia. And Disney’s two Anaheim hotels are offering nightly rates as low as $109 through Dec. 23--compared with normal late-November rates of $165 to $210--for guests who mention the holiday pass.

All this fuss simply acknowledges the fact that some people like to hang out at Disneyland during the holidays, park spokesman Ray Gomez said.

“There are a lot of people who want to come in after work, do some shopping, maybe get something to eat and enjoy some entertainment, but they don’t want to spare a full day,” Gomez said. “Managing the population of the park is something we’re trying to do in many ways.”

The lower-priced Christmas pass positions Disneyland as an alternative to a night out with dinner, or a visit to an entertainment-oriented mall like the Block at Orange or the Irvine Spectrum Center, Ochsner said.

In 1973, when Knott’s first tried its Halloween Haunt for a single night, “the consensus in the industry was that no one would come out” for the holiday theme, Ochsner said.

But the success of the promotion has been so great at the Buena Park tourist attraction that “it’s transformed a slow month of the year to one of our busiest months,” Ochsner said, with the Haunt running 19 nights this year, up from 17 last year.

Ochsner wouldn’t disclose figures, but he said the lessons of Halloween at Knott’s are clear: Usually slow theme park seasons can attract large numbers of crowds if marketed as special events.

In another attempt to encourage visits during slower times, Disneyland has cut the cost of its lowest-price annual pass from $99 to $79--but also increased days when the pass isn’t good from 60 to 160, putting nearly every summer day off-limits. Holders of $99 passes can renew them, but blocked-out days will rise to 75, from 60.

Premium annual passes, which cost $199, still will allow buyers into Disneyland with free parking 365 days a year. But $129 deluxe passes will be good for just 320 days a year, down from 335.

Tim Runco, director of entertainment operations for Disneyland, said the holiday activities get started in earnest Friday, with one big change being more Christmas-themed music and food in New Orleans Square than last year. There also will be “more and we hope better” lights and decorations on the castle and Main Street, he said.