I am also waiting on reviews for non-party nights as we have a dessert party booked on the day after Thanksgiving but if it's going to be totally packed with before and after party guests then maybe it won't be worth it anymore...
We are going the day after Thanksgiving too! We get off of the Disney Dream that morning from a 4 night cruise and are heading to MK. I bought the desert party tickets because I figured it would give me a guaranteed spot to watch the fireworks. I assume it will be super crowded because of the holiday week but it is our only chance to go!!
 
Has anyone been to this party since they started having MNSSHP? I'm wondering how crowded the hub gets given that HEA is only showing limited evenings now. I have this dessert party booked but was considering cancelling it and saving some money. But, I also hate being crowded...so hoping someone has some recent experience with it.
 
I've done the dessert party during MVMCP time on a non party night, which I assume is similar. Since HEA is only available to non party people three nights a week, the Hub is absolutely jam packed. I mean miserably, almost intolerably crowded. The dessert party is an oasis at times like this, giving you an uncrowded and perfectly centered place to watch HEA. At that time of year, it's well worth the money, IMHO.
 
I've done the dessert party during MVMCP time on a non party night, which I assume is similar. Since HEA is only available to non party people three nights a week, the Hub is absolutely jam packed. I mean miserably, almost intolerably crowded. The dessert party is an oasis at times like this, giving you an uncrowded and perfectly centered place to watch HEA. At that time of year, it's well worth the money, IMHO.
I completely agree. However, I think the question was more around having both the before AND after parties in the garden this year. I still think even a doubled garden crowd is a million times better than the hub crowd, but would love to hear some firsthand reports!
 


True. Initial reports seem to be that the plaza garden area is still relatively uncrowded, even with the addition of the after party. But it was noted earlier in this thread that the real test will be for the dessert parties on non party nights during MNSSHP and MVMCP, which may draw more people looking to avoid the extreme hub crowds. As the PP noted, it will probably still never be as crowded in that area as it is in the Hub.
 


DD24 and I attended the Before party, garden viewing. Our reservation time was 7:30 with fireworks at 9. We got there about 8pm. We were escorted to our table, plenty of space for everyone. For savory food, there were cheeseburger egg rolls (weird, but tasty, but only handed out 2 at a time), cold spinach dip, cheese/cracker tray, and fruit trays. Desserts were... I don't know, cupcakes, a few different fancy bars, some cheesecake bites, macarons, cookies, ice cream, s'mores. There was sparkling cider, tropical juice, lemonade, strawberry lemonade, coffee, tea, milk, water. We went down to the garden at about 8:30, went immediately to the back railing as close to Main St as we could get. Everyone was sitting down, relaxing, kids playing, etc. We talked with a lovely family from England who were in the States for a 3 week vacation. When the show started, people stood up but there was still plenty of space- and from where we were, I really could have stayed sitting down and had just as good a view. The show was magnificent; we had a direct, straight-on view of the castle, and the projections were amazing. We loved this show, and I went in with ho-hum feelings as we ADORED Wishes! While I am not sure I'd pay the money again, it was definitely worth it. The Hub and Main St. were packed- I swear, out in the crowds you could have picked up your feet and not fallen down, it was that crowded and closely packed in. I am definitely glad we did this party. HOWEVER... MK was open for evening Magic Hours, so DD and I stayed to close the place down. After the fireworks, it was craziness getting into the rest of the park! Thinking it over, we maybe should have opted for the after party, as we spent at least 30 mins hanging around in the garden after the show, waiting for the crowds to clear, and still had to fight our way "upstream" to Haunted Mansion.
 
Has anyone been to this party since they started having MNSSHP? I'm wondering how crowded the hub gets given that HEA is only showing limited evenings now. I have this dessert party booked but was considering cancelling it and saving some money. But, I also hate being crowded...so hoping someone has some recent experience with it.
I am doing the after party tonight. I will report back at some point, our trip is just starting though so I won’t be on much.
 
DD24 HOWEVER... MK was open for evening Magic Hours, so DD and I stayed to close the place down. After the fireworks, it was craziness getting into the rest of the park! Thinking it over, we maybe should have opted for the after party, as we spent at least 30 mins hanging around in the garden after the show, waiting for the crowds to clear, and still had to fight our way "upstream" to Haunted Mansion.

This is the exact scenario we will have in a week and a half. Will they let you hang out in the garden area for a little bit while the crowds disperse? We definitely want to do evening EMH.
 
This is the exact scenario we will have in a week and a half. Will they let you hang out in the garden area for a little bit while the crowds disperse? We definitely want to do evening EMH.

Yes, they let us hang out in the garden after, waiting for the crowds to disperse. I feel like we wasted time, though. I think we should have gone to the after party, instead of the before party. We could have spent more time on the attractions, then watched the fireworks and eaten desserts AFTER the fireworks while the crowds were clearing out, instead of just hanging around in the garden.
 
I am doing the after party tonight. I will report back at some point, our trip is just starting though so I won’t be on much.
Please let me know how it was. I will be there on Sat 9/22 and I am still undecided between the before or after with Garden seating. Leaning toward the after but would like to hear how it was last night.
Thanks
 
Please let me know how it was. I will be there on Sat 9/22 and I am still undecided between the before or after with Garden seating. Leaning toward the after but would like to hear how it was last night.
Thanks
I'm doing the After party on 9/22
 
We did the After Dessert Party for HEA on 9/2. We showed up to the garden viewing area about 15 minutes before the fireworks started and there was tons of empty space and could easily move around. We got escorted to the terrace a few minutes after the show ended and there were only 4 families there, including our own. It was very empty. We had done the MNSSHP version a couple nights earlier with the terrace seating and it was only about 2/3 full, at most. A light crowd week, but I was still surprised to see so many empty seats/tables for each of these parties.
 
We did the After Dessert Party for HEA on 9/2. We showed up to the garden viewing area about 15 minutes before the fireworks started and there was tons of empty space and could easily move around. We got escorted to the terrace a few minutes after the show ended and there were only 4 families there, including our own. It was very empty. We had done the MNSSHP version a couple nights earlier with the terrace seating and it was only about 2/3 full, at most. A light crowd week, but I was still surprised to see so many empty seats/tables for each of these parties.
I know you said you got to the garden area 15 minutes before the fireworks. Did you check in earlier in the night or right at that time? I am going to the after party but I don't want to spend alot of time waiting around before.
 
We're going on November 2 and I have the before party booked. Now I'm wondering if I should change to the after party since we will probably sit in the garden area for a bit waiting for the crowds to die out. Maybe it'll be time better spent if we change it to the after party.

Only other option would be to do it November 2, after party, but we have HDDR at 6 pm so I don't think that'll work.
 
Please let me know how it was. I will be there on Sat 9/22 and I am still undecided between the before or after with Garden seating. Leaning toward the after but would like to hear how it was last night.
Thanks

There were a fair amount of people in the garden but still a lot of room to move. We did have a couple of tall people stand several feet in front of us that blocked a little view but still way better than the hub, which was jam packed, all the way back down Main Street. Having dessert while the masses jostled around was great. There were maybe 12-14 tables in use at the after party.

I know you said you got to the garden area 15 minutes before the fireworks. Did you check in earlier in the night or right at that time? I am going to the after party but I don't want to spend alot of time waiting around before.
We got in line to check in about 7:45 and the line was very long. If we had waited 15 minutes the line was much shorter. They did say you could leave and come back to enter the garden later if you didn’t want to enter right away.
 
There were a fair amount of people in the garden but still a lot of room to move. We did have a couple of tall people stand several feet in front of us that blocked a little view but still way better than the hub, which was jam packed, all the way back down Main Street. Having dessert while the masses jostled around was great. There were maybe 12-14 tables in use at the after party.


We got in line to check in about 7:45 and the line was very long. If we had waited 15 minutes the line was much shorter. They did say you could leave and come back to enter the garden later if you didn’t want to enter right away.
Would you have been able to check in later?
 
Please let me know how it was. I will be there on Sat 9/22 and I am still undecided between the before or after with Garden seating. Leaning toward the after but would like to hear how it was last night.
Thanks
We will be there Saturday 9/22 as well! Doing the before party.
 
I've done the dessert party during MVMCP time on a non party night, which I assume is similar. Since HEA is only available to non party people three nights a week, the Hub is absolutely jam packed. I mean miserably, almost intolerably crowded. The dessert party is an oasis at times like this, giving you an uncrowded and perfectly centered place to watch HEA. At that time of year, it's well worth the money, IMHO.

This makes me feel better about investing in the package. I considered swapping our pre-fireworks tickets for post-fireworks party tickets when I heard of the new party, just to give us a little more time to explore MK before HEA. But we'll be back at MK early the next morning for Early Morning Magic and need to head back to our resort for the evening and rest up.::MickeyMo
 

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