Yes, we do it that way on purpose! There's virtually no Thanksgiving in the park - I mean, we had turkey legs, but you can get those anytime - though there are special Thanksgiving meals at the hotel restaurants. I don't recall seeing anything about special Thanksgiving meals at the restaurants in the parks, but I didn't look closely at Blue Bayou or Carthay Circle or other TS places, just QS.
Good to know for future years! Since it was the first trip for 9/10 of our party, we opted for turkey legs and corn from the cart so we could keep moving. I've been several times for Thanksgiving and it was always gorgeous - not too hot, not too cold, just perfect. I couldn't believe the rain last year!The TS restaurants all have some sort of Thanksgiving special. We ate at Carnation last year and had a really good traditional turkey dinner. Blue Bayou definitely has one, too. I think for QS, Plaza Inn does turkey in addition to their other traditional family offerings. Even Jolly Holiday had a special turkey sandwich. There are a lot of great offerings. I'm fairly certain several places at DCA had special offerings on Thanksgiving day, too. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain when we were there, so we missed out on trying some of the other options in favor of staying dry, but it's not typical for the rain to be that heavy on Thanksgiving. In fact, most years it's not rainy at all and perfect weather.
That Thanksgiving rain last year was a major winter storm which was forecast for over a week in advance, was discussed in several threads here, and was a super big deal all around in Southern CA! Definitely a noteworthy event! Always do a check here before your trip to see if there are any threads mentioning weird upcoming weather events and how to prepare for them for days in the parks. We had DISers post that they did their research here, packed accordingly, and had a blast in the rain because they were well prepared. And we had people post that they had the opposite experience because they didn't prepare. That rain storm was memorable, that's for sure!Good to know for future years! Since it was the first trip for 9/10 of our party, we opted for turkey legs and corn from the cart so we could keep moving. I've been several times for Thanksgiving and it was always gorgeous - not too hot, not too cold, just perfect. I couldn't believe the rain last year!
I love Thanksgiving at DLR! The most recent Thanksgiving we were there was 2018. We were there on Thanksgiving day, Friday and Saturday. Before we went, many people warned us that it would be packed and we should beware of the possibility of a sold out park, but that was not our experience. Saturday was the most crowded, but none of the days felt unmanageable. We did not have Park Hoppers, and we were able to ride everything we wanted to, many things multiple times, thanks to MaxPass. We also did a character breakfast, reservation at Blue Bayou, and caught a couple parades and Fantasmic - all of that even with taking a 3-4 hour break midday on Thursday and Saturday!Our June trip is cancelled. We are hoping to go mid September now. I won't book our flights until we know Disney will 100% be open. If September doesn't work out we might go the week of Thanksgiving. How bad is it? I would never go to WDW during that week because of the crowds. Is Disneyland as bad? We would arrive the Saturday before Thanksgiving and leave the weekend afterwards. This will be our first trip there so I want to make sure we have a good experience because we probably won't be going back anytime soon.