Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party Review

It’s that time of year again, time to go to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party! We love this party so much. With the free hot chocolate and warm cider, cookies galore (also free!), the most beautiful fireworks, a great parade, and you cannot forget about the snow on Main Street, this party has a lot to offer! So join us as we go through our amazing night at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party!

First, the basics. Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is a paid event that occurs multiple times a week from November until just before Christmas. If you don’t have a party ticket, you will not be allowed to stay in the park after 6:00PM, so if seeing the parade and party fireworks are on your must-do list, and you won’t be there Christmas week, you’ll need to purchase a party ticket. Note, during Christmas week, there are no parties, and the parade and fireworks from the party happen during regular park hours.

With party tickets you can enter the Magic Kingdom at 4 PM even though the party doesn’t officially start until 7 PM. We have APs so entered a bit earlier at the non-party tapstiles. Generally we like to get in a bit before the crowds, especially since we enjoy doing an early dinner prior to the start of the party, and we can pick up our party wristbands from inside the park.

This evening we had early dinner reservations at Liberty Tree Tavern, which we find to be one of the more solid choices for dining in the Magic Kingdom. We entered the park around 3:00 and since it was about an hour before our reservation decided to head over to ride Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin which had a low wait time and it’s a fun ride to kill some time! We also popped over to Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor since we still had a good amount of time before our reservation and that’s another fun attraction with typically a very low wait time.

A bit before 4:00 we headed over to the party credential distribution point in Tomorrowland, which was just at the entrance to the land and very hard to miss. They have cast members in their party outfits and a big sign pointing you in the right direction. They have a few of these in-park party credential distributions, so if you are already in the park the day of your party, you don’t need to leave and come back in through the party line, you can just pick up your wrist band, and in the case of the Christmas party, your ornament, at one of these stations around the park.

This evening they started handing out the wristbands and ornaments a bit before 4:00, it was right around 3:55.

We still had a bit of time before dinner after getting our wristbands, so decided to head back up Main Street to then head down the party bypass where they had some party exclusive photo ops.

By the time we made it through the bypass, it was time for our dinner reservation, so we made our way over to Liberty Tree Tavern. Here we had a great meal, basically Thanksgiving dinner, and then finished up with one of our favorite desserts, the Oooey Gooey Toffee Cake!

After dinner it was only a bit after 6, still before the start of the party, so we made our way over to the hub to watch the Frozen castle lighting show.

At this point there were still non-party guests in the mix, so the hub did feel very packed, but the cast members were starting to do their sweep of the park to remove those who didn’t have the party wristbands, so the crowds do typically reduce after this point!

Frozen castle lighting show

A crowded Main Street before the party 

While we do really miss the dream lights they used to have on the castle, the Frozen show is cute, and the castle is still beautiful all lit up!

There was still some time before the party started, so we went to ride Pirates of the Caribbean which at that point was essentially walk-on. We typically don’t recommend doing rides during the parties unless they have an overlay since the parties offer so much, but if the lines are short before the party starts at 7, that is a great time to get some rides in!

Finally, after exiting the ride, it was after 7 and the party had officially started! We decided to start the night with getting our first cookie and some hot chocolate.

This is one of our favorite things about the Christmas party, they have various locations set up around the park where they give out free cookies, hot chocolate, and some locations have warm cider! We usually bring a backpack with us to put the cookies in (they’re all individually wrapped) since we can’t eat that many cookies in one night, and it’s a fun snack to have for later in the trip!

After picking up our first cookies and some hot chocolate, we decided to hop in line for Space Mountain. During the Christmas party they do an overlay of this ride, playing what sounds like Manheim Steamroller and have the ride lit up in reds and greens. It’s so much fun, although with the extra lighting you can really see the coaster, and I swear some of those beams look to be so incredibly close, I think I prefer the ride when I can’t see any of it!

Since this ride has the overlay, the lines can get long during the party, we ended up waiting just under 40 minutes this evening for it. So this did eat up a lot of time, so I’d recommend watching the wait for this one and getting in line if you see the time drop. Later in the night the wait for this was much lower than when we went!

After riding Space Mountain we got some special party photopass pictures, then made our way to Tomorrowland Terrace to get into line for the dessert party we had booked for that evening.

The dessert party during either the Christmas party or the Halloween party I feel is a bit of a controversial topic, especially the seats and sweets one where you watch the fireworks from Tomorrowland Terrace. Yes, this does take up a lot of party time, however we love having this as a scheduled break in the evening. It’s nice to sit down with your beverage of choice (wine and beer are included) and a plate full of treats. It is recommended to arrive early to have a better pick of table, not all tables are along the edge, some are pushed back under the roof so you don’t have as good a view of the fireworks, but once you get your table, they put a reserved sign on it, so you can leave and enjoy more party offerings if desired so you don’t waste too much time!

We decided to go see a bit of the first parade on Main Street after getting our table since we love seeing the snow (snoap), but since it had rained earlier and the ground was still wet, they didn’t have the snow during the first parade. Oh well!

The view from our table at the Seats and Sweats Dessert Party

Tink flying!

After the fireworks, we hung out at the table a bit to let the crowds clear before we headed out to get some more cookies around the park.

Finally, we made our way over to Frontierland to find a spot to watch the parade. We love watching the parade from Frontierland. Usually the Country Bears are out entertaining before the parade starts, which is always fun to watch, it’s generally easier to get a front row spot, plus since the parade starts there, it give you more time to do more party activities after the parade ends since you don’t have to wait all that time for it to get to Main Street.

The parade was great, we love the toy soldiers and the reindeer, and who can forget Santa!

After the parade passed, we cut over to Adventureland to get some more cookies and hot chocolate. We spent the limited remaining party time walking around the park getting cookies and stopping at photopass photographers to get the special party photos.

Overall it was such a fun night! The fireworks are spectacular, we love the parade (although Boo to You is still our #1), and it’s so nice being able to get as many cookies and hot chocolate as we could! We definitely recommend doing this party at least once, it is such a magical time! Bonus for us, as we were leaving they finally turned on the snow on Main Street!