Magic Kingdom to test earlier closing on Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party event nights

[xdan0920]

It is more vague when you're talking about it's impact to guests visits. I acknowledged that there are more parties now than years ago and I never said I didn't care. You're missing the point.

Yes, there are more days, because they take place over a longer period of time. There have been three or four parties a week for many years now. Starting them the first week of November is what is new.

A guest visiting for a week in December has long had to contend with 3-4 parties a week unless visiting Christmas week. Now guests in early November also have to deal with that problem:

I'm not missing the point. I just don't care about your arbitrary number of "about 3-4" parties a week. I care that more and more the park is being closed down to regular guests. That annoys me. I was illustrating that.

 

[Brad Bishop]

I'm not missing the point. I just don't care about your arbitrary number of "about 3-4" parties a week. I care that more and more the park is being closed down to regular guests. That annoys me. I was illustrating that.

You can still go. As a regular guest you just get to pay twice.

How Disney doesn't see this as affecting regular guest experience and return visits is beyond me. I think that all they see is: We're selling the park twice each day! We're some kind of financial geniuses!!!
...and no thought to the future.

 

[peter11435]

I'm not missing the point. I just don't care about your arbitrary number of "about 3-4" parties a week. I care that more and more the park is being closed down to regular guests. That annoys me. I was illustrating that.

And you're right to be annoyed. It's getting excessive. But the 3-4 per week number is not arbitrary. It's accurate. My point was that the parties are not happening more frequently. Just more. So while more guests are being negatively impacted by them, the guests impacted (of which there are now more) are still having to deal with parties about every other night just like they have for many years now.

 

[21stamps]

Funny how different we all are.. Yes, as I said, I’m sad that we’ll miss HEA, I was looking forward to it...

However, while some are complaining about “extra events” I’m over here wishing that EMM was still offered this year.. it would solve SOOOO MANY of my scheduling issues/what parks I may do.,and what we may realistically get to ride or not ride. I’d take paying for a morning to have exclusive ride time over an 8am general public opening in a heartbeat!

 

[marni1971]

And there you go....

 

[Kman101]

What a vague way of putting it. Per week. Bizarre. Anyways....

Here is some fun facts for you. I went back to 2002, 15 years, made sense as a random yet roundish number...

2002 - 12
2004 - 12
2006 - 18
2008 - 18
2010 - 19
2014 - 19
2016 - 21
2017 - 21

So, not that consistent. Unless you meant consistently increasing.

Going from 18-21 really isn't a big jump. Yes the fact remains they've increased the amount of parties but it's really not that much.

 

[xdan0920]

Going from 18-21 really isn't a big jump. Yes the fact remains they've increased the amount of parties but it's really not that much.

It’s 12-21. I had trouble finding numbers going back before 2002 though so I may be underselling it.

As far as 18-21. Let’s say it’s 5 hours a day the park is closed to regular guests. That’s 15 hours. Or the equivalent of a full park day that it’s closed and being resold. I actually do think it’s a lot. Again, mileage may vary.

 

[Kman101]

It’s 12-21. I had trouble finding numbers going back before 2002 though so I may be underselling it.

As far as 18-21. Let’s say it’s 5 hours a day the park is closed to regular guests. That’s 15 hours. Or the equivalent of a full park day that it’s closed and being resold. I actually do think it’s a lot. Again, mileage may vary.

Sure, when you compare now to 2002, which is 15 years ago. But in the last 11 years it's gone from 18-21, which isn't a lot. But either way I do agree they've gone up. But consistently the last decade, it hasn't been that much.

But then I can agree it's "a lot" when you start to factor in how many extra hours the park is open for a paid event.

 

[peter11435]

It’s 12-21. I had trouble finding numbers going back before 2002 though so I may be underselling it.

As far as 18-21. Let’s say it’s 5 hours a day the park is closed to regular guests. That’s 15 hours. Or the equivalent of a full park day that it’s closed and being resold. I actually do think it’s a lot. Again, mileage may vary.

The five hours a day assumes the park would have been open until midnight if those nights were not parties. That's unlikely. More likely 10. Maybe even 9. They have also been opening the park an hour early at 8am on most party nights.

 

[AEfx]

Never said it was earth shattering. But it has increased from 12 to 21 parties in the past 15 years. How big of a deal that is to you will vary. Once you start factoring in the Halloween parties the whole thing gets really ridiculous. WDW used to be the Vacation Kingodom, now it's becoming the special event kingdom. Again, mileage may vary on how that makes you feel.

You also have to factor in the cost changes. When you look at the hard ticket parties, the overall picture does feel rather sinister.

In 2002, MVMCP cost $34/ticket.

For 2017, they range from $90 to $110.

So, the price has tripled.

Double the events. Triple the price.

THAT is the issue. It wasn't as big a deal back when they were so much cheaper. It was a lot easier for the proverbial "family of four" to budget $150 for a party. Now we are talking $400 for a single night in the MK.

And that isn't even mentioning the fact that the unique offerings as part of the party have been reduced so much, or how many more tickets they are selling, exponentially increasing the crowd levels (and the overall experience) enormously.

It's the same pattern we see over and over at WDW. Prices have skyrocketed past any semblance of reason. Offerings have at the very least stayed the same, or in many cases been systematically reduced. In the case of the parties specifically, impact on other guests has greatly increased, and the value of the events themselves, both perceived and empirically measurable, has reduced significantly.

Happy Holidays, WDW style...

 

[peter11435]

You also have to factor in the cost changes. When you look at the hard ticket parties, the overall picture does feel rather sinister.

In 2002, MVMCP cost $34/ticket.

For 2017, they range from $90 to $110.

So, the price has tripled.

Double the events. Triple the price.

THAT is the issue. It wasn't as big a deal back when they were so much cheaper. It was a lot easier for the proverbial "family of four" to budget $150 for a party. Now we are talking $400 for a single night in the MK.

And that isn't even mentioning the fact that the unique offerings as part of the party have been reduced so much, or how many more tickets they are selling, exponentially increasing the crowd levels (and the overall experience) enormously.

It's the same pattern we see over and over at WDW. Prices have skyrocketed past any semblance of reason. Offerings have at the very least stayed the same, or in many cases been systematically reduced. In the case of the parties specifically, impact on other guests has greatly increased, and the value of the events themselves, both perceived and empirically measurable, has reduced significantly.

Happy Holidays, WDW style...

They've also more than doubled the number of tickets they will sell for the parties.

 

[21stamps]

In 2002....

I didn’t have crows feet, and I weighed 15lbs less. Good times.

 

[Grimley1968]

Looks like they've had one MVMCP already and have one tonight. I'd be curious to read anyone's (who has been to a MVMCP this year) report on whether they're actually enforcing this or not. It can't be a terribly popular thing for CMs to tell people who paid for admission to 7 PM that they cannot get in attraction lines after 6.

 

[peter11435]

Looks like they've had one MVMCP already and have one tonight. I'd be curious to read anyone's (who has been to a MVMCP this year) report on whether they're actually enforcing this or not. It can't be a terribly popular thing for CMs to tell people who paid for admission to 7 PM that they cannot get in attraction lines after 6.

They didn't pay for admission to 7pm. The park hours were posted as closing at 6pm from the beginning.

 

[Brad Bishop]

It wasn't as big a deal back when they were so much cheaper. It was a lot easier for the proverbial "family of four" to budget $150 for a party. Now we are talking $400 for a single night in the MK.

...after dropping $500 ($125 x 4) to be in the MK for that day.

You (general) can argue all day about: "Well.. It's only $125 if you buy the one day..."

The fact remains that if you wanted to go to the MK w/ a family of 4 and only had 1 day to do it, based on the odds, you're more likely to land on a party day than not (4 out of 7 days are party days) and if you wanted the full experience it's nearly $1000 for a family of 4 because you have to buy the park twice.

...but you get candy/cookies at the end of the night so you have that going for you.

 

[Grimley1968]

...after dropping $500 ($125 x 4) to be in the MK for that day.

You (general) can argue all day about: "Well.. It's only $125 if you buy the one day..."

The fact remains that if you wanted to go to the MK w/ a family of 4 and only had 1 day to do it, based on the odds, you're more likely to land on a party day than not (4 out of 7 days are party days) and if you wanted the full experience it's nearly $1000 for a family of 4 because you have to buy the park twice.

...but you get candy/cookies at the end of the night so you have that going for you.

My family went last December to MK for one day and to EPCOT for one day. Picking the day to go to EPCOT was easy but choosing the day to go to MK involved far too much analysis like what you just posted for my liking. We managed to find a day when there was no MVMCP, because we didn't want to "buy the park twice" just to be in the park until we had enough time to do everything we wanted. It was very crowded the day we went, and I believe it was partly due to many other people thinking exactly as we did, among other factors of course.

 

[FigmentForver96]

...after dropping $500 ($125 x 4) to be in the MK for that day.

You (general) can argue all day about: "Well.. It's only $125 if you buy the one day..."

The fact remains that if you wanted to go to the MK w/ a family of 4 and only had 1 day to do it, based on the odds, you're more likely to land on a party day than not (4 out of 7 days are party days) and if you wanted the full experience it's nearly $1000 for a family of 4 because you have to buy the park twice.

...but you get candy/cookies at the end of the night so you have that going for you.

Umm I can see Goofy dressed as Santa! That is obviously worth the double price!

 

[HauntedPirate]

I remember going to the MVMCP in 2004, and everyone had the opportunity to get their picture taken (in the old Timekeeper space). You would order what you wanted, you also got a special MVMCP frame with your pictures, and they were ready for pickup by the end of the night. It wasn't crowded, even for Holiday Wishes!. I also seem to remember hot chocolate and cookies and other treats available almost *everywhere*, but that could just be 13 years of other junk clouding my memories.

 

[flynnibus]

Going from 18-21 really isn't a big jump. Yes the fact remains they've increased the amount of parties but it's really not that much.

It is 'much'... because you are stuffing more events into the same limited space. The number of available weeks not impacted by the ticketed events decreases dramatically. It's not just about "its only 1 or 2 days a week" - when you travel you don't get to exclude continuous days that way.. nor can you discount the advantage long weekends offer vs random days.

The MK has these parties now from the end of Aug all the way through Dec. That's 18 weeks out of the year! Over 1/3rd of the year!

The calendar is fixed... the more you stuff in, the less open space you have.

 

[larryz]

I wonder if Thursday and Friday parties are less crowded.. I’d think the back to back would help with that.

Tuesday would be the uncrowded day. Unless it's in Christmas week.