Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party: A 2018 Review

Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is a ticketed event held at Disney’s Magic Kingdom on select days in November and December. The parties first started at Disney World in 1983, but have grown tremendously in popularity and frequency in more recent history. Guests enjoy treats, character meetings and holiday activities that are only available at Magic Kingdom during the event. This year party tickets cost $94 to $120 each, depending on the date. Are the parties worth the price? Should you add Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party to your Disney World vacation? Today’s post shares my review of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party based on a visit earlier this month.

Pros

There’s a lot to love about Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, well, other than the tremendously long title. Let’s go with MVMCP from now on, shall we? The best aspects of the parties, in my opinion, are the parade, the fireworks and the holiday treats. Ride times and character meetings make the list too, with a few caveats I’ll explain below.

Parade

Let’s start with the super fun parade. It’s entitled Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade (what is it with the long titles?) and runs twice a night at 8:30PM and 11:00PM. The parade includes all of your favorite Disney characters decked out in holiday attire, along with a few newer characters that just happen to be in theaters this season. (Hello Ralph and Vanellope!) It also includes some Christmas favorites like incredible marching toy soldiers, frolicking reindeer and Santa himself.

For our visit earlier this month, we watched the first parade from a curbside, front-row seat near Liberty Square. We also caught a small portion of the second run, behind much larger crowds on Main Street. Both were fun, but the Main Street location is better in terms of lighting (for photos!) and overall ambience (simulated snowfall!). Liberty Square and Frontierland are better for snagging a good viewing spot closer to start time.

Magic Kingdom currently doesn’t offer an evening parade on regular, non-MVMCP days, so the only way to see one is to attend a party. If you don’t attend a party at Magic Kingdom, you can still enjoy the Festival of Fantasy parade most afternoons. I actually think Festival of Fantasy is a bit better than the Christmas parade because of the elaborately designed floats and costumes, but it obviously lacks holiday touches and the evening effect. Once the parties end, you can catch Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade during regular Magic Kingdom park hours on most days between December 22 and December 31.

Fireworks

Another major benefit of attending MVMCP is the amazing evening show entitled Holiday Wishes. It’s more like a visual extravagance than a traditional show, with video projections, fireworks, falling snow and a flying Tinkerbell all perfectly choreographed to favorite holiday tunes. I loved it, just like I love almost every firework evening show I’ve been lucky enough to watch at Magic Kingdom.

During the party we were able to secure a great viewing spot in front of the castle (along with thousands of new friends!) about 20 minutes before showtime. That was a bit of a surprise to me, given the size of the crowd at the party, but a very welcome one.

If you haven’t been to Disney World much, however, I think you’d be equally impressed with the non-holiday evening show at Magic Kingdom entitled Happily Ever After. It’s easily on par with the Christmas version in terms of grandness, it just doesn’t include the holiday feel… or the snow… but mostly the feel.

Treats

Another highlight of the party are the holiday treats. During party hours, Disney associates distribute sweet treats and a variety of drinks at various stations throughout the park. The treat locations are indicated by a giant glowing peppermint stick, which makes them easy to spot (for you and any younger travel partners!). The treat stations are plentiful, especially around Fantasyland, which is exactly how Fantasyland should be.

Most of the stations distribute soft cookies (sugar, peppermint, molasses, etc.). Other locations offer Dove chocolate candy, soft pretzels and a Mickey-shaped shortbread cookie. I noticed a few Disney associates offering allergy-free alternatives too, so be sure to ask if needed. All of the treats are individually wrapped, which makes them easy to stash for later. Drink options included hot chocolate, cider, snow cones and eggnog.

The treat lines get a little crazy at times. We skipped a few of them, much to my children’s displeasure, because of their length. Fortunately, the wait times changed throughout the evening so we were able to revisit some of them later. The delicious hot chocolate was worth the double visit in my opinion, but it was also 45 degrees during our party so the temperature may have frozen effected my tastebuds.

Ride Times

Most of the attractions throughout the park remain open during the party. Although I told my kids several times we were attending the party for reasons other than rides, they didn’t quite accept that (“OK, but when are we going to ride Space Mountain?!?”). We still rode a few (nine!).

Disney allows you to enter the park at 4PM on party days, even though the parties don’t officially start until 7PM. They also let you schedule FastPass appointments for this time frame, which I recommend doing since the park is busiest during these transition hours. We used FastPass for three of the nine rides we enjoyed.

After 7PM, Disney stops using FastPass and the lines for the attractions start to get shorter, or at least move more quickly because they are no longer merging two lines into one. We stood in a crazy line for Thunder Mountain around 9PM that stretched out of the attraction entrance. Surprisingly, we moved fairly quickly and were screaming our way over the mountain in less than 20 minutes. Most of the other attractions had similar 20-25 minute wait times too.

The most popular attraction in the park at the moment, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, still had a 45 minute wait time at 11PM. I’m not sure if that’s really “short” but it’s still less than you would wait in line for the attraction on an average day. If rides are important to you and you focus exclusively on the 22 attractions open during the party, you should be able to cover the majority of them with no problem.

Characters

MVMCP also offers a chance to meet characters you don’t regularly get to see in the parks. There are quite a few of them, ranging from Jack Skellington to all of Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs. You can also meet traditional characters with their lesser seen co-stars, like Bert joining Mary Poppins, Flynn Ryder hanging out with Rapunzel or Scrooge McDuck with Donald. Other characters, like Daisy, Minnie and Goofy feature holiday attire. There are fifteen character locations open during the party this year. Most of these offer the chance to meet multiple characters at one time.

I listed characters as a “pro” because if you really have your heart set on meeting one of these unique characters, the party provides your only chance to do so. Unfortunately, many of these unique characters also draw massive crowds. We reached the line to meet the Seven Dwarfs (buried in the back of Fantasyland) around 6:30PM. That’s a half hour before the party officially begins and the line was already two hours long. The line for Donald and Scrooge McDuck was also over an hour.

In other words, although it’s great to have the opportunity to meet tons of unique characters during the party, you don’t really have enough time to do so. At least not very many of them. The lines are way too long to cover all fifteen, or maybe even half of that, within the five hour timeframe. This is especially true if you intend to enjoy any of the other entertainment options at the party too.

Cons

Well, since that last point already seemed like a partial “con” let me list a few more. None of these points, including crowds, timing and organization, are necessarily deal breakers. How or if these issues effect your party decision depends on what’s most important to you.

Crowds

I kind of already hinted at this one above, but the size of the crowds at the party surprised me. Disney limits the number of tickets sold to the parties so I think I had a distorted view of just how busy it would be. In my recent experience, based on a Friday night party in early November, the crowds were not noticeably different than an average day at Magic Kingdom. In fact, it felt more crowded then an average day at times because the majority of guests in attendance are all vying for the same limited number of party-specific activities. If you want to attend the party because you think you’ll have the place to yourself, then you will probably be disappointed. Crowds are pretty much the norm at Disney Word, even at ticketed events.

The busiest time is clearly between 4-7PM when party goers are allowed to enter the park and the regular park guests who are not attending the party have not yet left. The overlap gets a little crazy. Large lines of people start pouring into Magic Kingdom while another mass of people are trying to make their way out. I felt like a salmon at times. Disney discerns who’s coming and going based on the wrist bands party goers receive upon entering.

After 7PM the crowds thin out enough to navigate the park a little more freely, but that’s because most guests are standing in line for other activities. (sigh)

Timing

Timing also lands on my “con” list for the party because there just isn’t enough time to cover all of the fun options. This is a typical dilemma for Disney World guests, so I’m not saying it’s specific to just MVMCP. The parties are just shorter so timing becomes more important. I felt rushed to make the most of my five precious hours.

Unfortunately, many of the activities overlap too. So even if you breeze through the character lines by some lucky miracle, you’ll still have to make some trade-offs due to basic scheduling. If you want front row seats on Main Street for the parade, for example, you’ll probably have to secure a spot at least an hour before showtime. That limits your time to wait in line for a character or to catch one of the other holiday shows located elsewhere in the park. We arrived at the Seven Dwarfs character line after the wait had risen to two hours, because we chose to watch the castle lighting ceremony (from the side of the castle near Fantasyland!) at 6:15PM instead. Not a bad trade-off, we still got to see them during the parade, but you get the idea. Choosing one activity could eliminate your chances of enjoying a different one.

Organization

Another slightly negative aspect of the party, at least for me, was the lack of organization before the party officially began. It’s kind of like arriving at a friend’s house for a party before the party starts. They’re not quite ready and they may even be running around in a frantic manner trying to finish. We passed Disney associates wheeling out new merchandise and setting up what would later become snack stations. Most of the character meetings in Fantasyland were not marked or roped off in any way prior to 7PM. Guests just started lining up in various places, presumably because they’ve attended the parties before and knew where to go.

Of course I had a printed party map and the Disney Experience app, but neither of them were all that helpful with the character meeting details (like who you’d actually meet and when you could start doing so). The app also crashed on me more during the party then it did through the rest of our trip. Eventually I tracked down a Disney associate in the Barnstormer queue, since there weren’t any present at the various guest lines to nowhere, and learned the details. She was helpful and the only reason we were able to meet Minnie and Daisy within a reasonable amount of time.

Conclusion

Speaking of a reasonable amount of time, I better wrap this up. I’ve discussed a few “pros” and “cons” for attending Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. So what’s the bottom line?

If you’re worried about price in any way, I would recommend skipping Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party and attending Magic Kingdom during regular hours instead. You’ll get longer hours to explore all of the attractions and you’ll still find plenty of holiday fun (decorations, Jingle Cruise, Santa Claus meet ‘n greet, etc.) to enjoy too. If you delay your visit until after the parties conclude on December 21, you’ll also get a chance to see the holiday parades and fireworks during regular Magic Kingdom park hours. Of course the crowds will be even crazier then, but that’s another trade-off.

Otherwise, if you aren’t scared away by crowds, a slight lack of organization or the knowledge that you won’t be able to cover everything on the party map, then go for it. I hope you have an awesome experience. It helps if you go into the park with a healthy dose of holiday cheer.

I started writing this review thinking it would skew slightly more negative than it has. Now that I’ve reflected on the details, I realize just how much stuff we were able to do at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. We rode nine rides, watched one full parade and part of a second, enjoyed the firework show, watched the castle lighting ceremony, met two characters, posed for pictures with Disney photographers, ate dinner and countless treats and left with a backpack full of cookies.

Oh, and we made some pretty sweet memories too.

Add a little (holiday) magic to your world!