A tale of our lesson learned: We attended our first ever Very Merry on 11/14. Matter of fact, it was the first time I had ever done anything like this, Halloween or Christmas. I wasn't honestly expecting a park to ourselves, but I won't kid you, I had my inner squealing child inside me thinking it might be.
We arrived a little after 4pm by bus and instantly I was set back by the immense holiday decorated crowd in front of my small family. We played line games to find the shortest and eventually got ourselves the plastic ID bands on our wrists.
As we walked in, Main Street was a giant cluster of people, but an afternoon Move It parade had just started up, so I expected things to settle down. We were directed to the right as we entered the park and it was time for the Very Merry photos. Each line was as long as the last, so we chose one with the hand-held picture frame and had our Photo Pass picture taken. We then pressed to the sugar cookie grab. My kids were extremely excited. The cookie was plastic wrapped and a red sprinkle sugar Mickey. My kids devoured theirs. I took a piece of one. It tasted pretty good, but I was prepping for the night's treats, so put the rest in my bag.
We went to Tomorrowland and rode the Astro Orbiter, due to my kids requesting it. It was a 40 minute wait, which isn't uncommon for that ride and the park was still shared with day traffic. When done we wandered around and I kept hoping for the crowds to thin out. This is my park now! Keep it moving towards the exits! As the night descended on us and 6pm showed, the lights were amazing. The lines to the rides began to tick down to the 30 minute zone. Seven Dwarves consistently stayed almost an hour. Big Thunder was 40 minutes. I began to realize, by searching for ID bands, that all these people were here for Very Merry just like me. Ok. So it wasn't going to be as thinned out as I secretly hoped.
We stood in many lines for rides, but eventually heard music and tried to see the 8:15 stage show, but the sea of bobbing heads kept my 12 year old and 9 year old from seeing. So we retreated to find treats. We saw the fireworks pop for the conclusion of that stage show behind us. The castle was already iced. We went back into Tomorrowland and got in the line for peppermint cookies and apple cider. Not bad for an adult. My kids didn't like a peppermint cookie. We made our way to Snickerdoodle and Hot cocoa station. The castmembers were shoveling out the treats to open hands. More Peppermint. My kids were a little miffed by this.
We cut out and went to into Fantasy Land. Made our way to Goofy's Barnstormer and rode that in a line that was like 10 minutes. Easily done. Saw Santa Goofy from the ride, so tried to get my kids in that Photo Pass line, but when we arrived after the ride, we saw the line was actually a mile long. I realized there was a another stage show to watch, so we tried making our way to the castle again, but the throngs of people stopped us. We instead went to Haunted Mansion and had very little wait. Then Pirates. Each line was about 20 minutes or less.
We stopped periodically to try more cookies. The chocolate chip cookie station had some type of caramel crunch cookie. I wasn't sure the type. Kids liked this one. As we came back through Frontier Land to return to Haunted Mansion, we noticed the immensity of the crowd lining up against the road. I fumbled for the map. It was the parade set up! We struggled against a sea of human backsides to find some sort of place for the 4 of us. I swear every time I found a decent spot, a cast member would magically appear and shoo us from that spot. Even with another family directly standing right next to us. We'd get pushed off. I asked a gentleman to let my son squeeze in and he looked at me and didn't move. My son came up to his belt buckle. No way a 9 year old was blocking him.
With the parade now in full possession of everyone's eyes, I could see on my Disney app that the rides were losing lines very quickly. To my wonderment, Seven Dwarves still was reported 40 minutes. My 9 year old couldn't even see anything parade related and began to cry. Music! Lights! The backs of people... So, I said let's go to Thunder Mountain. It was reporting something close to 10 minutes.
So, we made our way through the cast member mandated open walking areas, but with the people mashed in, it was still hard. I said, Hey its Santa! Like a Christmas miracle, my son and daughter could see Santa. We paused to take in this amazing sight. Santa even appeared to wave to my son. I was thinking, This is good and for a moment it all was worth it.
Suddenly like a hurricane evacuation, the parade was over and every single person now still in front of us beat feet for Thunder Mountain. My 10 minute line sprang to 40 minutes in a heartbeat. We waited and rode. We made our way through cookie stations to get a cement seat for fireworks. By now the cookie stations were handing out cookies by the dozens. Always the Peppermint ones! My backpack was filled with piles of plastic wrapped cookies. The Egg Nog station was out of egg nog.
We found ourselves at the Crystal Palace and paused there for the fireworks. Rain. Oh didn't it begin to rain. Now chilled and wet my wife refused to give ground and there we stayed. We saw the most amazing fireworks. This is no joke. Totally captivated all 4 of us. Drizzling rain, damp, and cold... it did not matter. At the conclusion we had enough and pushed out to the front. So wasn't just about everyone else. We kept steadfast in our walking and found the Art of Animation bus waiting. We boarded, but it was full. Warm, but full. We glumly stood holding to handles and silver bars. My son fell asleep standing up. Hotel. Brush teeth. Bed.
I ended up with Peppermint cookies for the entire rest of our days at WDW. By the conclusion of the trip, the kids didn't mind the Peppermint.
In conclusion, I was ZERO prepared for a Very Merry Christmas event. I think you either ride Rides or you sit and watch parades/stage shows. It appears difficult to do both. My kids wanted Rides. So we rode many that night. But we missed every Stage event and missed the key Parade featured in just about every Disney Christmas related photo and video. And when you think you are getting cookies like the map says, be prepared for lots of Peppermint.
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