Party tickets for Very Merriest After Hours are just over $100 bucks each. Thinking it would be like the after hours events we’d done before, we jumped at the chance to purchase tickets before the party sold out.
I’m not sure if we weren’t thrilled with the event because it was held at Magic Kingdom, (we’d always done Animal Kingdom before where the rides we love are), or if there were more people, or because a couple of the rides broke down, or exactly what it was we didn’t like so much. It was probably a combination of all those things. But whatever it was… the party was barely merry. I even skipped riding Test Track and Space Mountain…
A comparison…
- AK (Animal Kingdom) after hours we rode our favorite rides multiple times.
- VM (Very Merry) we rode a few rides that we didn’t care if we rode again.
- AK had a very limited number of people and there was ZERO wait to ride even the most desirable ones.
- VM was shoulder to shoulder until around 11:30 PM and there were still waits to ride anything.
- AK had an awesome light show and lighted floats on the water in Pandora.
- VM had a nice Christmas parade.
- VM had snow.
We had a good time, but not an amazing time. The Disney magic wasn’t even close to what we experienced before. Not a total disappointment, but absolutely disappointing. I’m thrilled we got to go — so were Ben and Coco. I loved spending extra time with my son and granddaughter celebrating the upcoming holiday — I hope they felt the same about the extra time with me.
My biggest complaint is that even the premium, paid experience didn’t feel like Disney. Why?
- Not one cast member referred to Coco as a “princess” as they’ve always done in the past.
- None went out of their way to smile except for the robot wavers as you exit the park.
- Workers in shops would just walk right in front of shoppers (GUESTS!) without saying “excuse me.”
- And even though you expect Disney prices, it doesn’t feel magical to get gouged at every corner for more and more money.