We attended the 2025 Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party together as a family, and it was the first time ever for Baby Bricker to do the Magic Kingdom holiday season party. This photo report and recap shares our experience doing the best hard ticket event at Walt Disney World with a toddler.
If you’re looking for background info about the event, strategy for seeing as much as possible, or even addressing the threshold question of whether MVMCP is worth the money, consult our Guide to 2025 Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. We’ve already updated that following our experience at the 2025 event.
Essentially, this is run-through of our evening at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party–similar to our rope drop and Early Entry reports, which present a snapshot of our days as opposed to exhaustive advice. Since we didn’t do everything during the MVMCP we attended (or anything close to it), this is incomplete from a planning perspective. That is, unless you’re trying to figure out whether Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is “worth it” with a toddler.
We really want to stress the ‘incomplete’ part of this MVMCP report. For the last few years, my reports from these special events have been during my solo research trips. While they haven’t been party itineraries in the strictest sense, I’ve tried to demonstrate how you can maximize your time at the event, arriving during mix-in and leaving after park closing.
This is pretty much the opposite of that. It’s fairly obvious that families with toddlers are going to accomplish less, and we went in expecting exactly that. If anything, visiting the parks has become more difficult since our daughter, Megatron, turned two. She now has strong opinions about what we do, but also doesn’t have the stamina to go nonstop from rope drop to park closing. It was easier when she was a baby and we could (mostly) just carry on while she was asleep.
Recognizing this reality, we did not arrive during mix-in. We instead rested up at the resort, and instead showed up ~30 minutes before Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party started with the goal of making it as deep into the event as possible.
We should note that mix-in has become increasingly popular during both Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party for the reasons discussed in Magic Kingdom’s Mix-In Is Busier Than Ever!
We’ve witnessed this ourselves countless times during Party Season this year, including other days of MVMCP. Some guests are arriving roughly 2 hours before mix-in even starts, presumably to rope drop Country Bear Musical Jamboree, afternoon style. Or maybe it’s for the Sally and Sandy Claws meet & greet. Who knows for sure.
As Annual Passholders, there’s really no advantage to us in doing mix-in. We had been at Magic Kingdom during the optimal hours in the morning, and then headed out for a lengthy midday break.
Just to put out evening into perspective, we attended Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party on a date when tickets cost $189 per adult. Our total cost was $402.58 after tax and the AP or DVC discount.
This is actually the most we’ve ever paid for party tickets. However, our party was actually on the lower end of the pricing spectrum, with most MVMCP dates in December costing $200 to $230 pre-tax. And tickets have sold out in record time, all but guaranteeing higher prices and few changes next year.
This makes the hourly cost of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party roughly $20 to $45 depending on which night you attend, whether you count mix-in as part of the value (obviously it isn’t if you’re an AP), etc. Our magic number was $40 per hour…or so I hoped.
Since we arrived after 6 pm, entering Magic Kingdom was a breeze.
There was also, quite literally, a nice breeze. And it was already dark out thanks to the earlier sunset time. A stark contrast to my experience back in August with Mickey’s Not So Scary (or Scary Hot) Halloween Party. It’s too bad the two holidays can’t flip-flop, as it makes infinitely more sense to wear a costume in this weather.
There were more than enough Cast Members scanning tickets, distributing wristbands, etc. After this, we headed over to the Main Street bypass corridor that’s used as a ‘welcome’ area for MVMCP.
As mentioned in previous party reports, I’ve been doing these events solo for the last couple of years when Sarah was pregnant and Megatron was an infant. This was Sarah’s first time attending MVMCP since 2022.
It was interesting to hear her observations after a 3-year hiatus. She had the interesting perspective of going often–at least once per year starting in 2007, and often 2-3 times–to taking a multi-year break.
Accordingly, she had enough long-term experience to notice the cumulative impact of little tweaks that infrequent guests would miss, and that someone like me felt more gradually. There have been a lot of little positive operational changes that she noticed, all of which I agree with when stepping back, but felt them myself as more of a slow boil over the last few years.
Making this bypass more attractive with a DJ, characters, decorations, and photo ops is one such positive. It’s not that this didn’t exist before–it’s been used for about a decade–it’s that Disney has improved it and made the first impression stronger.
Normally, our first stop at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party would be a popular meet & greet.
The problems with that were two-fold. First, we arrived too late to beat the rush–we’d normally try to be in line for even a mid-tier meet & greet by about 6:15 pm. Waiting in long lines isn’t a concept toddlers really understand, so that would’ve been challenging.
Second, Megatron wanted to do the Club Tinsel dance party in Tomorrowland. This was an objectively awful idea, but I’ve tried in the past to present her with the hard facts and data to support my strategy. Like a commenter on social media, she finds all of that unpersuasive.
Her argument is that Chip ‘n’ Dale dance with you at Club Tinsel, and that is fun. Hard to dispute the logic in that. She also got to see a bunny and a fox, two of her favorite animals.
After closely observing Chip ‘n’ Dale and bunny & fox at Club Tinsel for a while, we headed to our next stop: Storybook Circus.
The biggest addition for last year’s Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party was Santa’s Christmas Carnival. This featured Storybook Circus transformed into a holiday destination for families filled with joyful Christmas cheer, friends from the North Pole—and Santa Claus.
To Sarah’s point (and she hadn’t even experienced Santa’s Christmas Carnival during MVMCP previously–just daily ops), Walt Disney World iterated and improved on Storybook Circus for the 2025 Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. There are new decorations, added atmospheric performers, and more.
One specific act that’s not brand-new, but is new to MVMCP is the circus performers, known as the “Jingle Jumpers.”
All of us enjoyed this act, Megatron included. Bright lights, exaggerated mannerisms, and jumping around all are right up her alley. And given that we didn’t know when the Jingle Jumpers set times would occur, it actually did make sense to just stop and see them earlier in the event.
This is one thing worth noting about Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party–if the clock is your friend, you might as well do low stakes/friction things in the first or two of the event. Lines are not getting longer later for pretty much anything, whether that be characters, cookies, or attractions. Watching atmospheric acts after knocking out your first high-profile character actually is savvy strategy!
After this, we did Dumbo. Yes, that’s right.
In the last few months, Megatron has become a big fan of flat rides at Disneyland after not having much interest in them or downright disliking them. They’re thrilling to a brave toddler, whereas they were previously intimidating for a brief period.
This was the Walt Disney World trip of flat rides for us, and I have a newfound appreciation for them. (Just to be clear, I’ve never been an anti-flat rides snob. I’m on record being pro-flat rides, right down to arguing that replacing “a bug’s land” for Avengers Campus was a bad idea. Now I’m really feeling that! But I digress.)
Suffice to say, we did a lot of flat rides…including at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. I’m not going to recap all of them, but by my rough calculation, that was about an hour of the event. That should underscore the point that this MVMCP photo report & recap is not a blueprint for maximizing your time at the event.
After this, it was finally time for the Pete’s Silly Sideshow meet & greet.
One of the big negative changes to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party last year was that the Seven Dwarfs meet & greet was retired. I would’ve been fine with this if it meant 7 distinct character meet & greets elsewhere, which would’ve been a huge capacity win.
Instead, the ducks–Daisy, Donald, and Scrooge–have been consolidated together at this one venue. Minnie was here with them last year, but she moved up front to appear with Mickey Mouse. I’m mixed on this change. Having Santa Goofy and a couple of other unique characters back here, appearing alone or in pairs, would be the best outcome. On the other hand, we had a great experience at this meet & greet.
We were quoted a 45 minute wait for Daisy, Donald and Scrooge McDuck, and that’s almost exactly how long it took.
That’s a really long wait for a toddler. The objective approach to this meet & greet would be pre-queueing or doing it at the very end of the night. I did the version of this at MNSSHP this year pretty close to midnight (I’m honestly surprised the queue wasn’t cut) and there was literally no one in line.
Of course, “wait until 11:45 pm for no wait” is not exactly realistic advice with a toddler. Hence the line being long at this hour, and not at 11:45 pm. Our options were either to wait, come back later and hope for the best, or skip it entirely. As even commuting takes more time–and “risks” riding Dumbo again–we opted to wait it out. Sarah and Megatron took a bathroom break halfway through to mix things up. It worked out fine.
The meet & greet was fantastic.
The characters really take their time with each party and make it feel like a special experience. This is a good or bad thing, depending on your perspective. Were this a meet & greet at Oogie Boogie Bash, the wait time with a line the exact same length would’ve been 15 minutes or less. They are much more efficient and run those like assembly lines.
The downside to a shorter wait is that it feels like an assembly line. There’s usually a bit more grace granted with a toddler than, say, a TikTok influencer, but it’s still rushed. This felt special and was much more memorable. Megatron was grinning ear to ear, talked about it later, and it yielded a Christmas card photo for us (probably without the Santa Claus head).
Pete’s Silly Sideshow exits into a gift shop, so we spent some time in there checking out every available option.
Longtime readers might know that Disney Tourist Blog has not, historically, been a great resource for merchandise news. With few exceptions (Figment, Muppets, Country Bears), my attitude towards merchandise is basically “it exists.” Most of it is also expensive.
The good news for souvenir fans is that all you have to do is give it some time and Megatron will work the family farm as our merchandise correspondent. She has strong souvenir opinions, all of which are positive. She recommends you buy everything, especially stuff that’s soft.
While we’re on the topic, I want to give props to the Walt Disney World merchandise team on the 2025 Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party product line. It’s the best I’ve seen in years. Maybe ever.
The graphics are great, everything is tasteful–just an all-around fantastic job. My only complaints are that, although there are multiple t-shirts, they all follow the same formula of designs on the back and only a small graphic on the front. To each their own, but I prefer the large design on the front.
My other issue is a common one, which is that the mug isn’t dishwasher safe. I assume Disney does this to cut costs, but that makes it a non-starter for me. I’d rather pay $5 more for a mug I can use without ruining it when I accidentally put it in the dishwasher, like any normal adult doing dishes in the year 2025.
After that, we caught the bootleg Coca-Cola polar bears who are now doing a dedicated meet & greet near the entrance of Storybook Circus. They had a very short line.
I’m a longtime fan of these bears, and am really pleased that Santa’s Christmas Carnival gives them a more prominent role. They used to be in Cosmic Ray’s, busting a move as part of the dance party.
I hope their next promotion is to Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade. I think we can all agree that the one thing it’s missing is a Polar Bears, Penguins & Snowman unit.
Honestly, I would love if Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party featured more low-stakes characters like this. I would take a 5-minute wait for these polar bears over 55 minutes for Sally & Sandy Claws any day of the week.
Our toddler loves bears and has no clue what Nightmare Before Christmas even is. While she recognizes many Disney characters, she also just loves hugging adorable animals. This is why I have a newfound appreciation for the free-roaming Country Bears, and I didn’t think it was possible to love them more!
After leaving Storybook Circus, we did exactly that–more low-stakes characters, photo ops. We also ducked into Cosmic Ray’s for cookies and that dance party, which was not a hit with Megatron.
These things took 5-10 minutes each, and it was satisfying to knock them out in quick succession. Pretty much every princess or prince we encountered had a manageable line.
If Megatron were a couple years older, this would’ve been awesome. The only problem is that she has no clue who any of these royal couples are, so they just look like pretty strangers to her. And strangers, even pretty ones, are dangers.
After doing a couple meet & greets in Fantasyland, it was clear she’d rather ride the carousel.
So we did that.
Unsurprisingly, there was no line and they were allowing guests to re-ride without getting off. This was a stark contrast to our very busy days in the parks, so Megatron and Sarah took full advantage. Since my visit had dual purposes–refining our strategy guides and having fun, I headed over to Frontierland to check out the parade crowd.
One thing I’ve noticed in the last two years is that parade crowds have gotten worse for the first performance, especially in Frontierland. It used to be dead back here for the first parade, or close to it.
The crowds have definitely come close to normalizing between Frontierland and Main Street. The latter is still busier, but there’s no longer a massive disparity. At least, when it comes to the first parade. In fact, you might be able to find a better Town Square spot last minute than you could in Frontierland. (Exactly that happened to me at Halloween.)
Frontierland is still less busy for the second parade. But even then, Town Square is fairly laid back and not nearly as bad as the main section of Main Street or the Central Plaza in front of Cinderella Castle (which is worse for photos, anyway).
My only goal was checking out the crowds, so I didn’t stay for the full performance.
After rejoining Sarah and Megatron in Fantasyland, we wandered around a bit before heading back to meet Belle in her winter dress. There are a couple of face characters Megatron recognizes and likes, and Belle is one of them. (Anna and Elsa are the two big ones, but their line was too long.)
We wanted to meet Winnie the Pooh and friends, who are some of Megatron’s favorite characters, but the long line coupled with the proximity to bedtime made it a non-starter.
At approximately 9:15 pm, we put Megatron in the stroller and she was out almost immediately.
She’s a theme park kid, which is to say that she can sleep through anything, so our night continued. Sarah really wanted to try a couple of the cookies (I’m not even kidding–it was all her!), so we did that.
For those keeping score at home, Sarah’s favorite is the Buttercream-Frosted Gingerbread Cookie. You know she loves a sweet treat when she eats more than one!
My favorite is the Hot Cocoa Cookie, which Sarah hated. “Tom” and “hate” are not words that go together when discussing cookies. I ate multiples of everything, for the sake of Very Important Research.
Joking aside, this year’s cookie lineup is really strong. I still miss the Peppermint Crunch and Ginger Molasses Cookies from ~2018-2019, but the switch to Cheryl’s Cookies is a net positive. We may or may not have recouped a lot of our value of MVMCP via cookies, and I may or may not send a dozen to my dad as opposed to a Cheryl’s Cookies subscription.
Otherwise, we mostly just wandered around for the next 30 minutes, soaking up the atmosphere.
Even though Megatron can sleep through anything, we split up for the fireworks.
I arrived to an almost perfect spot ~15 minutes in advance. By showtime, Main Street was comfortably crowded. Plenty of breathing room, but progressively busier closer to Cinderella Castle.
This is because some guests stake out one spot for the fireworks, stage show, and parade. That makes the Central Plaza almost nightmarish, even as it’s perfectly pleasant deeper back. If you watched from near the Christmas tree or Town Square, it’d be blissfully uncrowded.
Completely opposite experiences at the two ends of Main Street, which is a good microcosm for why some people complain about crowds be awful at MVMCP and others praise how dead the park is. Both experiences are possible depending on the decisions guests make.
We regrouped to meet Winnie the Pooh and friends.
Probably won’t be using this photo for our Christmas card, but I do find it amusing that Piglet is pretending to push the stroller. You can’t tell from the photo, but Pooh recognized there was a light shining down directly into the top of the stroller and covered that with his hands. That was sweet.
Really wish we could’ve done this one while Megatron was awake, but just in watching other interactions, we absolutely made the right decision in prioritizing the ducks. Pooh and friends are great, don’t get me wrong. The whole package is just better in Pete’s Silly Sideshow; the lighting is better and there’s also more space, making it more conducive to interactions.
After that, we walked around for a bit.
The plan was to dip into the Minnie & Mickey Mouse meet & greet in Town Square. The couple was back meeting together for the first time in years, and thought it’d be nice to have a photo from that.
Unfortunately, the line was 60 minutes long…and looked it. Meeting characters just isn’t the same without Megatron, and we wouldn’t have waited in an hour-long line even if she were awake. Doing this meet & greet right before–or during–the second parade is usually savvy strategy, and I’d imagine that’ll be true again at later parties during the season.
Since we were near the front of the park, Sarah decided to call it a night and leave. I stayed for the second parade, last stage show, and a bit more wandering to check things out. And of course, collecting a lot more cookies for Very Important Research. Here are my photos from the last hour or so of MVMCP:
Ultimately, we had a fantastic family experience at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party even though our daughter only experienced a fraction of what the event has to offer. I’ve gotta admit that as we were standing at Club Tinsel and then riding Dumbo to start the event, the first things going through my head were the per minute dollar cost and opportunity cost.
Then I saw the smile on Megatron’s face. How happy she was on the dance floor with Chip ‘n’ Dale. The “thrill” of having the wind in her face when looping the carousel, teacups, and Dumbo. The joy of hugging an off-brand Coke polar bear. Even enjoying “too many” Christmas cookies with my health-conscious wife.
While I absolutely could put a precise price on each of those things, our daughter’s reactions were priceless. The same goes for the fun we had as a family, and even just the two of us after she fell asleep. This is the ‘lightning in a bottle’ type of magic that made us fall in love with Walt Disney World in the first place, not the checklist-style MVMCP completion I’ve been doing by myself for the last couple of years.
A big part of that is the fact that we’ve done all of this before, and will have a chance to do it all again. We could just go with the flow, doing whatever Megatron wanted to do, knowing that she was having fun and wouldn’t have regrets about what she was missing.
We’ve also (mostly) learned to temper our expectations and not give in to FOMO or the pressure of doing everything. We’ve watched other families do this over the years, and promised ourselves we wouldn’t make the same mistake. (Easier said than done sometimes.)
If we were first-timers or one and done guests, we might’ve felt differently. Or maybe not. There’s a reason why Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party sells out faster with each passing year. It’s truly a special special event, and that’s true even if you spend $80.40 of the party flying high with Dumbo.
For comprehensive tips for planning your Christmas-time trip to Walt Disney World, check out our Ultimate Guide to Christmas at Walt Disney World. For Walt Disney World trip planning tips and comprehensive advice, make sure to read our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide and related articles.
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you attended the 2025 Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, or the event at all in the last few years? What was your experience with MVMCP? Thoughts on the crowds, entertainment, food, or anything else? Any thoughts of your own to add? Agree or disagree with my assessment of the event? Hearing from you is half the fun, so if you have questions or comments, please share below!