There’s never a bad time to visit Walt Disney World, but if there’s a best time to visit Walt Disney World, it’s probably during the holiday season. While it's frequently crowded, there’s just a totally different vibe in the air during that time of year. If you’ve never had a chance to visit the most magical place on earth during the holidays, however, you’ll get a chance to see it later this year when the first Disney World Christmas movie debuts on Hallmark Channel.
Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True will be part of the cable channel’s slate this holiday season. It’s one of the very few films to actually be filmed inside a Disney resort, at least legally. It also appears to have been a great deal of fun to make, as a post to Instagram announcing that production had wrapped also indicates that, of course, Magic Kingdom hosted the wrap party.
As somebody who has been to both after-hours events at Walt Disney World, as well as occasional media events, I can say that nobody throws a party quite like Walt Disney World. I can also say that has somebody who covers theme parks for a living, and has had to be at Magic Kingdom while I was working, and thus couldn’t just go on rides whenever I wanted, it can be brutal to be so close to so much fun and not be able to just do it.
I’m sure the cast and crew of the upcoming Disney World Hallmark movie had a blast at the wrap party. If they truly had free rein over Magic Kingdom, then they got to experience the most popular theme park in the world in a way that few people get to experience it. Imagine being able to go on Tron: Lightcycle Run or Tiana’s Bayou Adventure with basically no line. Even if they didn't really get access to the whole park, being able to have fun at Disney World after working there for so long had to be nice for all involved.
Holiday Ever After stars genre mainstay Lacey Chabert and Travis Van Winkle as two people who go on a terrible blind date, and then discover they’re staying near each other during dueling Disney World family vacations. The bringing together of Walt Disney World and a romantic Hallmark movie feels like a perfect match. It’s almost shocking that such a thing had never happened previously.
I’m not usually much of a Hallmark Channel guy, but I love Walt Disney World, and I love Christmas movies, so I’ll certainly be checking this one out when it comes out later this year. I'm just bummed I can't use my Disney+ subscription.
