This past weekend we had a great time at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party! How you spend your time at the Christmas Party is much different than how you would spend an average day at Magic Kingdom.
We have Disney annual passes, so we chose to do Magic Kingdom as our park that day. We entered a little before noon because we had a lunch reservation. However, if you only have tickets for the party that evening ( and not a day pass), you can get in the park at 4:00pm.
I LOVE that Disney lets guests take advantage of a few extra hours ( while the sun is still out) to see Magic Kingdom in all it's festive glory. Our very first time doing Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party ( 16 years ago), we did not know that we could get in early, so we didn't show up till 7:00pm!
Be warned, the lines at 4:00pm will be long. You may want to plan to come an hour or so earlier to get your place in line, if being in the park right at 4:00 is important to you.
During the party we went to, lines were not extremely long. I would say most were shorter than lines would be during the day, but even if you start at 4:00, please don't plan to do everything. We really had to prioritize what we wanted to wait for. ( We don't usually like to wait more than 25 minutes for anything)
Here are some things we prioritized for this night!
1. We wanted to make sure we got the exclusive Christmas ornament for the event.
If you are entering the park at 4:00 pm or after, you will be taken to a "secret entrance" to the right of the hub on Main Street. This is where you will get you wristband for the evening, and your special ornament.
If you are already in Magic Kingdom before 4:00, then you can go to several locations throughout the park. We went to Tortuga Tavern in Adventureland to get our wristband and ornament.
2. When it comes to rides, make sure to do the ones that have the "Christmas Overlays".
Jungle Cruise becomes the Jingle Cruise, The Mad tea party spins to Christmas tunes and colored lights, and on the Tomorrowland Speedway you drive through a sea of Christmas lights.
The Speedway was our favorite overlay! All the other rides are the same as they are every other time of the year.
3. Choose at least one classic character in their Christmas gear to get a photo with.
Our priority was Mickey in his holiday suit. We assumed this line was going to be long, so we got in line before the party started. Most characters will leave their picture spot around 5:30 ( because the park closes to day guests at 6:00pm) and they will come back out at 7:00pm. The only exception to this was Jack Skellington.
We hadn't planned to get a photo with him because we saw his line was 120 minutes long! This character was an exclusive to party guests only. However, while we were waiting to get in line for holiday Mickey, we noticed a very short line for Jack, so we got in line. We had never met Jack before, so this was a fun interaction! Both these characters can be found at in the Town Square Theater.
Other classic characters in holiday attire include Santa Goofy ( which can be found in Storybook Circus), he is on the outside, and Holiday Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck are in the inside, as well as the Seven Dwarves. The Seven Dwarves were not a priority for us since we just saw them at the Halloween Party. We would have liked to seen holiday Minnie and Daisy, but we decided to leave their line to do something else and then when we went back, it was too late. Note: Characters leave their spots prior to the 12:00 am park closure. I think their lines stop at 11:00pm.
4. Now for one of the best parts of the night, the cookie stroll!
Okay, technically this is not the cookie stroll, the cookie stroll is in Epcot! However, this is much better than the cookie stroll in Epcot because all these cookies are completely FREE! ( Free in the aspect that they are included in your ticket price). There are 5 location ( at quick service spots) that are giving free cookies and drinks. The drinks include Cider, Eggnog, and Hot Cocoa. The cookies were supposed to be sugar cookie, gingerbread, red velvet, chocolate chip, and snickerdoodle. The night we were there, we noticed that the location that was suppose to give out sugar cookies, gave out gingerbread instead. That was okay by us because now we got to go to two gingerbread locations!
These are Cheryl's cookies and they are tasty! Even though there were many party exclusive treats to purchase that night, we decided that we were not going to buy any sweets. We would have enough sweet treats with all the cookies we would be collecting.
We stuck to our plan and the only holiday exclusive food item we purchased was the holiday pot roast sandwich at Cosmic Ray's. We needed to eat something of substance before snacking on cookies.
5. Even if you aren't going to wait for character pictures, there are plenty of other holiday photo ops around the Magic Kingdom.
There are standing photo frames set up all day long. There are photo pass photographers there, but you can certainly use your own camera as well. We counted 3 of the frames. One between the hub and Tomorrowland Terrace, One in Tomorrowland across from Monsters inc, and one in Adventureland.
6. Don't miss the Magic Shots. There are also several Magic Shots you can get with a Disney Photopass photographer.
We found this one in new Fantasyland.
And this one was near the hub.
7. Random character sightings.
Keep your eyes open because you just might see Characters flying around Magic Kingdom, like we saw Peter Pan. This was totally unexpected and such a fun interaction!
8. Be sure to catch the snowfall on Main Street!
We just so happened to catch the first one of the night. It happens sporadically and only on Main Steet!
9. We don't always make a point to stop and watch the parades on a normal park day, but we always make time to watch the one for the parties.
10. Other entertainment during the night includes a holiday stage show on the castle stage, and multiple dance parties with characters.
We watched the earlier stage show and we saw some of the dance party( The Disney Junior Jingle Jam) while we were eating at Cosmic Ray's. I had wanted to check out the the Club Tinsel dance party with Chip and Dale near the Tomorrowland stage, but we never got there!
Of course, the main event of the evening is Minnie's Wonderful Christmas Fireworks show at 10:00pm.
The fireworks are the best part of an Magic Kingdom day ( or night).
Here is a peek at the map.
As with any Disney special event, I highly suggested looking at the map ahead of time. You don't want to spend precious time trying to figure out where your favorite Character is going to be or where you can get that special holiday snack!
What is your favorite part of any Magic Kingdom Party?
Thanks for reading and letting us share the top 10 things we enjoyed at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party! M & L
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Fairytales and Fitness is a personal blog authored and edited by us, Meranda and Lacey. The thoughts expressed here represent only our own and are not meant to be taken as professional advice. Please note that our thoughts and opinions change from time to time. We consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind in an ever changing society. Any thoughts and opinions expressed within our out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those we may express today. Some links may contain affiliate links. Some links are just to pages we'd like to share.