Mickey’s Very Merriest after-hours event seems to be in your brains. I’ve had multiple private messages about this event, and Disney in general right now so I felt it warranted a blog post so I don’t have to keep typing up individual responses.
Masks at Disney
Let’s start with the question “do I have to wear a mask at disney world?” Yes and No. They are not required at anything that is outside with free-flowing fresh air. But they are definitely required at anything indoors like on the monorail or at an indoor show or ride. We had to wear them on the indoor roller coasters – like Space Mountain and on the Millenium Falcon, Smugglers Run ride. As well as for the Lion King show. The Disney staff are MILITANT about not allowing you to eat or drink during the shows since you have to remove your mask to do so. They WILL yell at you and threaten to remove you from the attraction if you do not comply.
When you’re outside, you absolutely don’t have to wear a mask. I’d say about 70% of the crowd is maskless, a few are wearing them 100% of the time.
Crowds at Disney
The current crowd situation is HIGH. This was our 28th trip to Disney and it’s safe to say we have experienced all levels of crowds. Including spending actual Christmas week there, which is parks bursting at the seams kinda crowds. The current crowd level is definitely high. The park with the least crowds was Animal Kingdom. That was tolerable on a weekday. What really surprised us was the weekday, daytime crowd at Epcot. It was not like anything we had seen before. Hard to get through to different places. Food & Wine Festival is still happening and the lines for the food booths were maxed out. We actually ended up eating in a restaurant and then saying “ciao” to Epcot for the rest of the day. We went back at about 7pm when the crowds had thinned quite a bit, and were able to get to several food booths with minimal waits. Magic Kingdom was nutty. We showed up at 7pm on a Monday night and it was uncomfortably full. However, that was the night we stayed for the after-hours party, so let’s dive into that!
Mickey’s Very Merriest after-hours event
We have done the Mickey’s Very Very Merry Christmas Party numerous times – it’s free and open to all ticketholders. However, this was a first for us to do an after-hours event. You buy tickets online here. They do sell-out, especially when it gets a week or two out from the date you’re considering. If you buy the after-hours ticket, you can gain access to the park at 7pm, even though the event hours are actually 9pm-1am. You don’t need a park reservation, nor do you need an additional Magic Kingdom ticket. Just the after-hours ticket is it.
When you arrive to the park, they will give you a special wristband. If you’re already inside the park then you’ll have to find one of the inside lines for the wristband – we saw those lines and they were very, very long. You could’ve left the park and come back inside much faster than waiting in one of those lines inside the park, in my opinion. Also be sure to grab the red brochure for the event. It has info on the special snacks, treats, shows, etc. The info was not on the app, so get the brochure.
Part of the park entry is the inclusion of special snacks or drinks. Pop, water, hot chocolate, popcorn, ice cream bars, and special holiday cookies are included snacks. There are snack carts all over the park handing out these free treats. The lines were insane for the snacks for the first two hours of the event, but after that, you could walk right up without waiting. Our event night did sell out. And everything I read said the snacks can “sell out” as well, but we didn’t experience that at all. We found snacks available all over the park, all the way until the end of the event.
There are also some special treats/drinks you can purchase. Again, the brochure tells you where to find these treats. We tried the gingerbread cake-pop and the milkshake. The cake pop was huge and dave says it was really tasty. The peppermint milkshake was really tasty and had a cute minnie bow made out of chocolate.
The info you’ve all been waiting on though, the rides. They were all open, I think. And there was literally no line on the majority of rides. The 7-dwarfs mine train ride had a 20 minute wait which is super low for that ride. But everything else was literally a walk-on. And that, is obviously the magic of the after-hours event. It was worth every penny to walk-onto all the rides.
The musical show was also really spectacular. They run it several times during the event and it’s worth watching. We didn’t see the parade, but we did enjoy the fireworks show!
Misc. Park Information:
Things are a lot different at Disney Parks if you haven’t been in a few years. The Genie+/Lightening Lane situation is interesting and I can see how it can frustrate people quickly. It’s too much to unpack here in this post but I’ll work on a second post then come back to link it up here. I’d suggest doing some reading and make sure you understand that system and the app before you book your trip. As a Florida resident who has been to the parks numerous times, I wasn’t upset that many rides just didn’t work out for us thanks to the G+/LL thing. But if you are making the most of your trip, you’ll need to prepare and know what’s going to happen every day with that system. In my opinion, it makes park hopping more difficult because return times for rides become later than I planned to be in certain parks. We had to do a lot of things we’ve never taken the time to do, just simply because other wait times were far too long. We saw 2-4 hours wait-time on some of the bigger rides, and everything else was 50-80 minutes. We also struggled to get any dining reservations – but did find a few tips and tricks that worked. Again, probably for another post.
Cheers to the ears!
Enjoy your trip planning and all the Disney Magic!
-Stac