Walt Disney World’s 2026 Santa locations now include a new Animal Kingdom home, named greetings at EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and a virtual-queue-only setup at Disney Springs from November 11 through December 24. MickeyVisit published the updated location and access details on November 7.
Santa has apparently discovered the virtual queue, and Disney Springs is where that becomes a planning rule rather than a cute holiday footnote. There is no standby line, guests must be at Disney Springs to join, and five queue releases are scheduled each day. This is the detail to save before anyone starts promising children a casual walk-up.
Animal Kingdom gets the genuinely new address
At Animal Kingdom, Santa moves from the former Restaurantosaurus location in DinoLand U.S.A. to Santa’s Holiday Grove, across from Theater in the Wild. The new area is also slated to have intermittent snow flurries and a holiday soundtrack—a much more deliberate setting than borrowing a corner of a land on its way out.
The dining location at Santa’s Holiday Grove opens November 13 and is scheduled through January 3. MickeyVisit does not provide a confirmed final meet-and-greet date for Santa there, so the restaurant calendar should not be treated as a promise that Santa remains through January 3.
EPCOT gets two versions of the red suit during the Festival of the Holidays, which begins November 27. Santa meets daily in CommuniCore Hall through December 24, while Goofy dressed as Santa appears at the Odyssey through December 30. That split is delightfully EPCOT: one traditional Santa, one Goofy Santa, and two different end dates to keep straight.
At Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Santa meets inside Walt Disney Presents. MickeyVisit’s November 7 report does not list beginning or ending dates for that greeting.
Magic Kingdom’s confirmed close-up greeting is at Storybook Circus during Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. Santa also appears in Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade. The source says Disney has not officially confirmed a non-party Magic Kingdom greeting location, so the party location should not be stretched into a daytime promise.
Disney Springs has the strictest Santa rules
The Disney Springs greeting runs November 11 through December 24 near Disney’s Pin Traders. Virtual queue entry times are scheduled for 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., and 5 p.m. in the My Disney Experience app, and guests must be physically at Disney Springs to join.
One guest can enroll a party of up to 10 people. A push notification will signal when it is time to return. With no standby line, arriving between releases does not create a second way into the greeting; the five posted queue opportunities are the access path MickeyVisit reports.
Guests can also write a letter to Santa at Once Upon a Toy. That part is blissfully free of queue-drop arithmetic, but the meet itself is not: near Pin Traders, November 11 through December 24, virtual queue only, and no more than 10 guests on one party entry.
