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Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!


We had planned to try to get to the party a little early, it's official start time is 7:00. After our rest time and supper though, we weren't very early. It was about 6:30 when we arrived and there were droves of people headed both in and out of the park. (It closes @ 7:00 if you don't have a ticket to the party.) I was beyond excited!!!

We walked down mainstreet and it brought tears to my eyes, but really...what's new with that? That always happens to me there. I'm such a sap! The Christmas music was playing, the lights were up and it was snowing!! How more perfect could it get??

We headed over to Tomorrow land and hopped into the Buzz line. It was crowded at this time and hard to tell what it was going to be like for the evening, 5 hours...what could we do with that time? You got an arm band when entering the park for the party and if you didn't have an arm band on, you weren't allowed on rides. (or anywhere else for that matter) They were checking for them as you went between sections of the park as well. It was all pretty organized and we were impressed by that. Our first line, took all of 10 minutes!
We decided we'd struck gold and were thrilled!


We don't do "Stitch" anymore, so skipped on by that. "Space Mountain" was about 25 minutes, so we decided to keep on moving for the time being.

We wondered on into Fantasyland and waited only about 10 minutes for the "Pooh" ride, not bad at all!! I could get use to this! We waited 10 more for "Peter Pan" and then decided it was time for round 1 of FREE hot chocolate & cookies. We were both expecting it to be watered down and maybe even luke warm, it was FANTASTIC stuff though!!!! It took about 10 minutes in that line as well. There were different places in the park to get it.


We skipped over to ride "Haunted Mansion" and walked straight in and on it, woooo.... Now that's fast! We hit parade traffic heading towards Frontier Land, so back tracked a little. We went back to catch "Space Mountain" where we walked again, straight through and RIGHT ON!! Wowie, that's never happened!! We came back through and caught "Snow White" & "Small World", walking right on both!! We usually skip Dumbo, Tea Cups & race cars...so that's typical for us.

The parade was over so we headed back to Frontier Land choosing to skip "Splash Mountain" for sure. (What were those people on it thinking?? I was finally warm in my jeans & sweat shirt and no stinkin' way was I getting wet) We rode "Big Thunder", yep...walked right through, moved the whole time and right into a waiting spot for the next train!! We had never ridden it at night and man that was AWESOME!! We were on it just in time for watching the fireworks while riding, I TOTALLY 100% recommend that!! Wowie!! That was our favorite ride of the night!!



We looked for a special bear friend of mine, who wasn't "on" during the particular half hour. We did catch some other bear friends though and they were hilarious! The little band was out there playing and the bears were cutting up with all the people and having a grand ole' time. I was SUPER SAD to find out that this year they aren't having a Country Bear Jamboree Christmas Show. That's one of my top 3 favorite things, the bears. What's up with that? I love the regular show, but had never seen the Christmas one and was looking forward to that!!!! We saw the regular show though and again, missed my beary friend. Ugh!



We walked on over (expecting a wait) to "Pirates" and found we could walk right into that too! Man, what a night! I LOVE the new Davy Jones feature, that's sooooo cool! I liked Captain Jack in his scenes too, especially the end scene. I wasn't thrilled with how they'd turned the song soundtrack down so much though. Obviously they want you to hear the comments about "Captain Jack" and have turned the music down for that. I think that STINKS and wasn't thrilled. All in all it's still the same ride you know & love though! Different areas had a few added things to buy just for the Very Merry Party and I took a minute to buy a reindeer!

Then we headed out for a spot to watch the late parade. We decided to have our picture made first though, the castle had snowflakes projected on it and I thought that was cool. The first picture we didn't get snowflakes, they'd gone off for a minute. So, we hopped into another line when they came back on. Waiting for pics took all of about 5 minutes at each photographer, moved pretty fast. No complaints here!! (When you get home and view your pics online with your handy card..don't forget to do it that way, no reason to wait in those dang lines there at the parks now....you get to get one 5X& from the night for 1/2 off b/c of your party ticket)


We got hot chocolate and cookies again (round 2) in the Crystal Palace were there WAS NOT A SOUL and TONS and TONS of snacks laid out for you!!!
(they also offer apple juice & apple chips for the kiddos)

We had NO TROUBLE finding a spot for the parade, though it was only 5 minutes to show time when we decided to settle down. Now, that's unusual for a parade. We had a great spot and enjoyed it for sure!! I LOVE parades and Andy enjoyed this one too.
(mainly b/c we didn't sit and wait an hour on it to come by!)


When it ended we had about 30 minutes until the park closed. We had planned to leave right after the parade, but that is what several thousand of our closest friends were doing and it looked like a mad house headed out to the gates. Instead, we went back to Fantasy Land to catch "Philharmagic", that was the perfect thing to do since we had skipped it earlier. We walked on it and waited about 3 or 4 mintues for the next show to begin. That is such a cute/fun little 4D movie, good stuff! By the time we came out, it was time to go. We walked straight out of the park and ran up to the monorail to catch the one there waiting, hopped on and were off. The bus to "Shades" was there waiting on us at the TTC and we were back to the resort & in bed before we knew it! There was not a complaint in sight for the evening!!!

We rode EVERY SINGLE thing that was open that we wanted to ride! We were amazed that there were NO lines! Perfect!! We didn't see the 2 Christmas shows, but that was totally by choice. We didn't hit Toon town either...again by choice.

I didn't no what to expect from the party, I'd heard both sides of loving & avoiding it. For us, it was a perfect evening!! It was a bargain to buy a ticket and get to do all of those things! Much cheaper & more worth it than if we'd paid for a full day and then had longer lines. We WILL do it again. I can see that it might be a waste of money if you were staying for a whole week and had park hoppers for the entire time. After all, you get extra magic hours to yourself if you are a resort guest on another night. The "Christmasy" effects might not be worth the $40 ticket if you've already spent a day there during the week. (and had extra magic hours) All of the kids we saw were of course totally in awe though and having a blast! They said the crowd was a sell out and still, there were no lines. There were people there mind you, but enough stuff going on that it was spread out. I can't figure out how people that say it's too crowded complain, not sure where they are or what they are expecting?! We are already talking about doing it again. We can go down for a long weekend and play golf during the day, go to the park & party at night. Great fun!!

(and who doesn't love snow in Florida! can you see it in the picture?)