Magic Kingdom at Christmas

My interest in seeing Disney at Christmas was peaked after reading a magazine article about it last year. The article talked about snow on Main Street, carolers, hot chocolate, cookies, special fireworks, Christmas parade, and more!  When I decided to go to Disney for Christmas, I set my expectations low: I only wants to experience these Christmas elements and if the crowds were too thick and I couldn't ride anything? That would be OK.

After visiting the magic Kingdom today, I have concluded that the magazine article I read must have been about Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party - a special extra ticket event (and extra cost). Because we saw nearly none of the elements I expected.

We arrived and were impressed with how easy it was to get on the rides. We skipped Main Street so we could ride the rides we haven ridden dozens of time before. And by doing so, we missed the few Christmas celebrations they had. 

At one point we asked a cast member about it and they said "All the scheduled activities have ended and the park is winding down". We missed it!

We did see a Christmas song played to animation on the castle. And we saw the Christmas decorations around Main Street. The castle looked incredible! The giant Christmas Tree wowed us. We road the Jingle Cruise (jungle cruise with a Christmas theme). Best of all, we were in Disney World on Christmas Eve Eve.

Our experience of the Magic Kingdom at Christmas wasn't very different from any other trip to the Magic Kingdom (mostly our fault). And my expectations were completely wrong. Nevertheless, we had a great time!