"Official" 2018 Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party - Holiday Magic

[Cluelyss]

1 - I just got an email from Kim and Carrie dot com. They state that "Disney holiday merchandise will start to roll out in October."

2 - I NEED this holiday themed D&B tote!!!!!

Oh my. Disney, take my money!

 

[Babs1975]

I see lots of people asking questions about what party to go to...which one will be less crowded, etc...My advice...relax. It doesn't really matter which party you pick. I've been to sold out parties and non sold out parties. I honestly couldn't tell the difference. Go to the party that works best in your plans and enjoy!

 

[Babs1975]

We will be doing our first MVMCP now that the boys are old enough (9,7,7) to hopefully last late enough to make it worth while. I am curious what everyone's IDEAL day looks like.

• Park or no park before MVMCP.
  • If park, which one and why?
  • If no park, what do you do? Pool, Disney Springs, other?
• Where do you eat? Early dinner outside MK, monorail resort? Someplace in MK? QS or TS? What is the best timing? Huge breakfast / early dinner?
• What time do you arrive MK? Would you spend the whole day here or is that over kill?
• How late do you stay? Is there a time you need to stay to make it feel "worth it."?

No park the day of or the day after. Both rest days. We sleep in, maybe hang by the pool a bit. Last time we had planned to eat at Disney Springs beforehand but canceled because we didn't even want to do that. We will probably eat lunch at our condo and then we like to snack and do quick service at MK. We arrive at about 3:30 and stay until midnight. I wouldn't do the party if I wasn't going to stay the whole time! Just wouldn't be worth it for me if I wasn't there the whole time.

 

[Babs1975]

Question about Jingle Cruise. Is it Jingle cruise all day or just at 7 when the party starts? Just trying to come up with a loose plan for our party (first timers here).

Also, if we plan to arrive at 4, will we be able to ride a couple of rides not on the party list (like the train that circles the park - I forget what it's called)?

I'm assuming everything is running until the party starts at 7.

Yes, from 4-6 everything is running and it's just a normal park day. You can ride anything you want. Keep in mind this time frame is extremely crowded and busy. Normal park guests are still there and party guests are there. Wait times on rides will be extremely long. You might want to eat during this time or have fp's.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

See the second parade and knock out the characters early.

Not doing Jack or the Dwarfs will shave an immense amount of time off. Although the dwarfs is an essential photo!

I’d say attack Minnie Donald and Daisy as they’re pretty much all together then run to Goofy who’s nearby and of course Mickey in his Christmas costume!

I attached my dwarf photo as I love it but I stood in line for 45 mins when the party started to get them!

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We will be doing our first MVMCP now that the boys are old enough (9,7,7) to hopefully last late enough to make it worth while. I am curious what everyone's IDEAL day looks like.

• Park or no park before MVMCP.
  • If park, which one and why?
  • If no park, what do you do? Pool, Disney Springs, other?
• Where do you eat? Early dinner outside MK, monorail resort? Someplace in MK? QS or TS? What is the best timing? Huge breakfast / early dinner?
• What time do you arrive MK? Would you spend the whole day here or is that over kill?
• How late do you stay? Is there a time you need to stay to make it feel "worth it."?

I am doing my first party with DD12. We are going to the first party.

Our plans the day of the party are to sleep in, hit the pool and grab lunch around our resort. No other park that morning.

We do have a BOG ADR for 4:40 but I'm canceling that (I have another BOG ADR on our last night). I want to get in line for the Dwarves around 5 instead. I plan on grabbing lunch around our resort before getting to MK. We will grab QS after we see the Dwarves or maybe eat it in line while we wait for the Dwarves. Depends on how we feel.

We will arrive around 2:00ish since we have an extra day of tickets. It was $8 to add an additional day to our 9 day hoppers so we went for it just so we can guarantee 3 FP+. We will start our FP for 1:30-2:30 pm/2:30-3:30 pm/3:30-4:30 pm. After our last ride we will get in line for the Dwarves. This way we are out of line in time for the party.

We will stay until the park closes. DD12 is a night owl and I can hang pretty well. DD loves late nights in the park.

We will be sleeping in the next day and hitting DHS. We will have FP+ starting at 2 that day.

I'm trying to avoid burn out since the party is towards the end of our trip. That's why we are sleeping in and taking it easy the day of the party and the day after.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

See the second parade and knock out the characters early.

Not doing Jack or the Dwarfs will shave an immense amount of time off. Although the dwarfs is an essential photo!

I’d say attack Minnie Donald and Daisy as they’re pretty much all together then run to Goofy who’s nearby and of course Mickey in his Christmas costume!

I attached my dwarf photo as I love it but I stood in line for 45 mins when the party started to get them!

What time did you get in line for the Dwarves?

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

I am doing my first party with DD12. We are going to the first party.

Our plans the day of the party are to sleep in, hit the pool and grab lunch around our resort. No other park that morning.

We do have a BOG ADR for 4:40 but I'm canceling that (I have another BOG ADR on our last night). I want to get in line for the Dwarves around 5 instead. I plan on grabbing lunch around our resort before getting to MK. We will grab QS after we see the Dwarves or maybe eat it in line while we wait for the Dwarves. Depends on how we feel.

We will arrive around 2:00ish since we have an extra day of tickets. It was $8 to add an additional day to our 9 day hoppers so we went for it just so we can guarantee 3 FP+. We will start our FP for 1:30-2:30 pm/2:30-3:30 pm/3:30-4:30 pm. After our last ride we will get in line for the Dwarves. This way we are out of line in time for the party.

We will stay until the park closes. DD12 is a night owl and I can hang pretty well. DD loves late nights in the park.

We will be sleeping in the next day and hitting DHS. We will have FP+ starting at 2 that day.

I'm trying to avoid burn out since the party is towards the end of our trip. That's why we are sleeping in and taking it easy the day of the party and the day after.

Good plan to sleep in. I've done parties at the end of the trip while exhausted with hurting feet and its not fun.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Good plan to sleep in. I've done parties at the end of the trip while exhausted with hurting feet and its not fun.

Out of ten park days we are sleeping in for 5 of them and doing midday breaks the other days. I don’t want to be exhausted and dragging.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Out of ten park days we are sleeping in for 5 of them and doing midday breaks the other days. I don’t want to be exhausted and dragging.

You're a better park tourer than I. It's like a frenzy, gotta get stuff done!!

 

[kpd6901]

We are coming in Thanksgiving Day through Dec. 2. RD to close on Fri and Sat at MK and AK. Party day is Sun. Nov 25. Day of will be sleeping in, with a late Ohana bfast, then checking out GF gingerbread house and heading to MK at 4.
We would prefer to take a rest day after the party, but our plans don't really allow it. We will head over to HS early for Jedi Training sign ups. The Thanksgiving crowds should be dissipated by that Monday, so our HS day should be fairly calm, just focusing on SW, TSL, and Fantasmic on this day and saving the rest of HS for a few days later in the trip. The next day will be a RD to EMHclose Epcot day, so that will be tiring, especially considering the lack of sleep from the two previous late nights of party then HS. Then finally we will have another rest day to just chill, swim, sleep, etc on Nov 28 before closing out the trip.

We don't quite have our plan for the party yet. Parades, shows, fireworks, and night time Jingle Cruise are main items. Some characters, but I believe that lines are typically shorter after the fireworks when most folks leave, is that correct? If that is correct, can someone help me figure which characters are most significantly impacted? Is Moana, dwarves, Zootopia still extra long? Are some characters relatively short both early and late, so that we don't unnecessarily put them off till later when that wouldn't really make a difference? We are torn on Jack skellington. DW wants to meet him and we assumed DS9 also did, since he loves the character. But he recently saw a couple of YouTube videos of M&G with him, and he felt the costume was creepy (not scary, just creepy) and doesn't want to meet him. We are getting several other characters via Pirates and Pals cruise and character meals. Just looking for some character thoughts when there aren't many musts...though Moana is pretty high up there, Jack Sparrow, too (I thought I saw that he is there).

 

[Gophers]

Do you recommend lining up for the characters during the first parade? I want to see some of them but I don't want to start the party by standing in line for 90 minutes!

We like to get all the merchandise for the party right when we go in. Then based on what are character list is we will get in line by 5-530. The weather could play a part as to what parade you watch. Some times they don’t do all the stuff with the parades/shows if it’s rains. We like the 2nd parade as there are usually less people there. We don’t do a sit down meal on the party nights. We just snack around and hit up a QS. Our focus is on the characters, parade and shows. Then late at night we will maybe hit a couple of rides. Our trips are usually 9 days so we have plenty of time for rides then.

 

[Gophers]

I see lots of people asking questions about what party to go to...which one will be less crowded, etc...My advice...relax. It doesn't really matter which party you pick. I've been to sold out parties and non sold out parties. I honestly couldn't tell the difference. Go to the party that works best in your plans and enjoy!

Agree 100%

 

[10MoreMinutes]

Our party day is also our arrival day. The tentative plan is to leave home around 8 am and get to Pop around 12 pm.

Right now, we have a 4:35 pm ADR at Skipper Canteen, but I'm still searching for the elusive 3:30 pm Ohana ADR. If I can't get Ohana, we may either cancel Skipper Canteen and eat QS or try to find a slightly earlier ADR (I'm leaning toward cancelling altogether). If we can get Ohana, we'll go to MK immediately after dinner. If not, we plan to be at MK at 4 pm.

None of us are show or parade people, so we plan on utilizing party time mostly for the lower ride wait times and the fireworks. Can y'all give me an idea of what normal wait times are for rides during the party? If they're super low, we may try to hit a couple character meets as well.

 

[Gophers]

What time did you get in line for the Dwarves?

We got in line for the 7 Dwarves at 515 and we’re about 20th in line. Once they started taking pictures it was pretty quick.

 

[Tessaf]

We will be doing our first MVMCP now that the boys are old enough (9,7,7) to hopefully last late enough to make it worth while. I am curious what everyone's IDEAL day looks like.

• Park or no park before MVMCP.
  • If park, which one and why?
  • If no park, what do you do? Pool, Disney Springs, other?
• Where do you eat? Early dinner outside MK, monorail resort? Someplace in MK? QS or TS? What is the best timing? Huge breakfast / early dinner?
• What time do you arrive MK? Would you spend the whole day here or is that over kill?
• How late do you stay? Is there a time you need to stay to make it feel "worth it."?

Never been to an Xmas party yet (will in November), but we’ve done MNSSHP. We do MK before the parties. We stay at the GF and spend the morning at magic kingdom and then come back to the hotel for a couple hours to relax and change into holiday clothes. Last year we even had MNSSHP party days on days were we had EMM too. So we were at the park for most of the day from 7:45am on. My girls (9&7) didn’t have any problem handling that long day.

For dinner, We usually do an earlier reservation in the park. We’ve done everything from Crystal Palace to Tony’s and I try to have those booked during the 5-6 time frame. One time we did do a quick QS at our resort. Since we weren’t lining until for M&G like 7dwarfs or Jack we were okay having our dinners possibly be done around 7pm.

As for how late we’ve stayed at the party, I believe 11 was the latest we’ve stayed.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

You're a better park tourer than I. It's like a frenzy, gotta get stuff done!!

With ten days i feel like we can relax a bit more. I still want to get stuff done but I’m really forcing myself to take it a bit easy this trip!

 

[lovingeire]

You're a better park tourer than I. It's like a frenzy, gotta get stuff done!!

I'm a frenzy tourer no matter what I think. This trip is so short for us that it really feels like I have to cram a lot in to the long weekend!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Our party day is also our arrival day. The tentative plan is to leave home around 8 am and get to Pop around 12 pm.

Right now, we have a 4:35 pm ADR at Skipper Canteen, but I'm still searching for the elusive 3:30 pm Ohana ADR. If I can't get Ohana, we may either cancel Skipper Canteen and eat QS or try to find a slightly earlier ADR (I'm leaning toward cancelling altogether). If we can get Ohana, we'll go to MK immediately after dinner. If not, we plan to be at MK at 4 pm.

None of us are show or parade people, so we plan on utilizing party time mostly for the lower ride wait times and the fireworks. Can y'all give me an idea of what normal wait times are for rides during the party? If they're super low, we may try to hit a couple character meets as well.

I wouldn't worry too much about ohana. They tend to seat late and you really don't want to rush that meal and feel like you're missing party time.

To justify the cost of ohana I feel like I need to sit there for quite a while shoveling food in ahaha.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Is the jingle cruise only during the party? When does it turn from jungle to jingle and wgeb does it run?

Deciding if we should do it during the party or another night we’re in MK.