After experiencing a couple of Christmas parties at this point in my life, I feel that I am capable of giving a good well-rounded guide on how to best experience your night.Let’s start out with the basics. Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party takes place on select nights in November and December and tickets are anywhere from $95-$125 depending on the night. The party starts at 7pm and runs until Midnight, but your party tickets gets you entry into the park starting at 4pm that day.
I highly recommend not using a normal day ticket (if you are on vacation) for Magic Kingdom the day of your party. You will have plenty of time if you enter the park at 4pm to experience the park and still enjoy the party.
I also recommend that you take full advantage of the whole party time. If you are planning to leave early you won’t have much free time to experience the event.
There is SO MUCH to do at the party that there would have to be two of you to get it all done. I suggest before you even go, take a look at the top things you want to see or do during the event so you aren’t overwhelmed.
And to make it easier for you I’m going to provide you with all the shows and their show times right now!
Mickey’s Most Merriest Celebration: 7:40, 9:25, 10:30 and 11:55
A Frozen Holiday Wish: 6:15 (prior to party start), 8:15
Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas Time Parade: 8:30, 11:00
Holiday Wishes: 10:00
A Totally Tomorrowland Christmas: 7:45, 8:35, 9:25, 10:45, 11:35
The Edge Effect: 8:10, 9:00, 10:20, 11:10
Club Tinsel: 7:00 – 12:00AM
Storybrook Circus Disney Junior Jingle Jam: 7:00 – 12:00AM
The hardest show in here to see and get a good spot for is the 8:15 A Frozen Holiday Wish. Because the Mickey’s Most Merriest Celebration happens at 7:40, the people who want to see the first showing will already be at the castle waiting, and then they will stay put for the Frozen castle lighting. If you are able to get into the park prior to the party starting, I highly recommend seeing the Frozen Holiday Wish that they put on for regular park guests at 6:15. This way you don’t have to worry about seeing that one show time during the party.
The three most popular events are Mickey’s Most Merriest, Holiday Wishes and the parade. You have 4 chances to see Mickey’s Most Merriest, so take your time getting to that show. We waited until 11:55 to watch this one.
Unless you REALLLYYY want to see the first parade, wait for the second one. 80% of the party attendance will already be waiting for the first parade by 7:30. That’s an hour of their time used for waiting for the parade. An hour of time you could be using to take advantage of lower than normal wait times. And if you are on Main Street, keep in mind that the parade starts at 8:30 in Frontier Land, meaning it won’t be getting to you until about 8:45.
If you wait for the second parade you will have a much easier time finding a great spot about 20-30 min prior to the parade. Last year we walked up to the tree on Main Street and had a font row seat for the parade no problem.
Holiday Wishes is something that you could view from anywhere in the hub or on Main Street. They don’t project onto the castle like they do for Happily Ever After so you don’t have to worry about having a view for that. Standing further back for this one is better since they have half perimeter fireworks, I’d say prime location is behind the partner statue or right before Casey’s on Main Street.
Here’s the good news! Everyone basically leaves after the fireworks. You won’t have nearly as much of a crowd as you did when the party started. This is the time you should find your spot for the second parade.
Fit the smaller shorter shows in between the bigger ones and you’ll be golden.
On to the snacks!
You get FREE snacks during the event. Take advantage of them! But here’s the thing, there will be lines during the first half hour of the event. People lined up 15 min prior to opening for the snowman pretzel in Adventureland.
We walked up later on in the event and didn’t have to wait at all. We actually didn’t have a wait for any of the snacks because we waited until later on in the event to grab them.
Here is your full list of snacks and where to find them:
Adventureland:
Snowman Soft Pretzel & Sno-Cone – Tortuga Tavern
Liberty Square:
Ginger Molasses Cookie & Eggnog
Fantasyland:
A Variety of Holiday Favorites – Pinocchio Village Haus
Chilled Apple Cider & DOVE Chocolate – The Friar’s Nook
Peppermint Crunch Cookie – Storybrook Circus Snacks
Tomorrowland:
Snickerdoodle Cookie & Hot Chocolate – Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe
Chocolate Chip Cookie & Sno-Cone – Auntie Gravity’s Galactic Goodies
All of the cookies are soft and delicious and the hot chocolate is really good hot chocolate. They also have some specialty food items available to purchase throughout the park as well.
A couple extra things I want to add here.
Dress for the weather! It’s fun to dress up in your holiday best, or Christmas PJ’s but this is Florida and it will most likely be 80 degrees during your Christmas Party.
The rides will have shorter than average wait times, so take advantage of it when you can! Space Mountain had a 5 minute wait at 11PM, Seven Dwarfs was never above 30 min, Jingle Cruise was only 15 min. Peter Pan was 25 min consistently. You can’t make fast passes during the event so that also aids in the shorter wait times.
My last and most important tip to you is to have fun and take it all in. Chances are you are only going to be at this event once this year. Magic Kingdom is the most magical place during the holiday season. It makes you feel like you are in a Christmas snow globe. The Castle dressed in it’s holiday best is one of the prettiest sights in the world. You paid to be there so be there. Take your pictures and then put your phone away and enjoy time with your family and friends!
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