This past weekend, David and I attended a Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party with a lot of questions we wanted to answer. Was this hard ticket event worth the money, considering we could see a lot of the same shows and parades if we visited WDW Christmas week? Were the rumors that Frozen had completely taken over Christmas at the Magic Kingdom true? What would the holidays on main street be like without the traditional garlands stretched high across the street? Were the free cookies really as good as everyone said they were? As you can see, this event was truly an investigative foray for these burning questions, and here are our findings about the different happenings at the party.
As we mentioned before, this is a hard ticket event — your normal park tickets or annual passes won’t work to get into the party. Tickets start at $67 and prices go up from there as it gets closer to Christmas. There are discounts available for annual passholders. If you aren’t an annual passholder, and are considering this event, you can get into the park as early as 4 pm, even though the party doesn’t begin until 7 pm. This would make the day of Very Merry a great day to spend the morning resort hopping, or hanging out at Downtown Disney.
Once 7 pm hits, other park guests are ushered out of the Magic Kingdom, and the different party events begin. The night starts off with the first of several showings of ‘A Frozen Holiday Wish’, which has replaced ‘Cinderella’s Holiday Wish’. There have been a lot of unhappy rumblings on the internet about Frozen taking over the Holiday castle show — but we really enjoyed it. It was appropriately themed, in fact it seemed far more appropriate for Elsa to freeze the castle than for the Fairy Godmother to. The music and lights on the castle were beautiful, and seeing Olaf in full costume for the first time was very well done.
Likewise, the inclusion of Frozen into the Christmas parade seemed to fit well, and didn’t seem to be over done. It seemed to fit seamlessly, and actually would have seemed odd for them to have not included it somehow, considering how much of a hit the movie continues to be for the company. Other parts of the parade have been tweaked some, but this continues to be my favorite parade WDW puts on. There’s just something magical about seeing it with the lights on the castle in the background and snow falling over Main Street. Our favorite place to watch the parade is from the end of Main Street, where the flag pole is, and they normally set up the giant Christmas tree.
They still run one of my favorite shows, ‘Celebrate The Season’, on the castle stage several times through out the night. This is a charming show that depicts the fab five’s holiday fun — and while a little cheesy, it’s filled with catchy music and cute moments.
As part of Very Merry, you also get to see a special showing of Holiday Wishes (which is far superior to normal Wishes in my personal opinion), and the Holiday segment of Celebrate the Magic (spoiler alert — the castle turns into a gingerbread house). There’s also a Totally Tomorrowland Christmas which we didn’t bother seeing, mainly because Stich freaks me out.
The one part of the party that David and I found disappointing was the lack of characters we saw for meet and greets. We saw the Seven Dwarfs, and a few princesses in New Fantasyland, but besides that, characters were a scarcity. This made me particularly sad, as I really wanted a picture with Mickey Mouse in a Christmas sweater.
All in all, we think that Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is well worth the extra money, especially if you aren’t going to be visiting the parks during a time when the shows, Holiday fireworks, and Christmas parade is offered. It’s a great way to get into the Christmas spirit, and is an event that will be enjoyed by all ages.
