If your priority is rides then DAH is far superior to MVMCP. The lines will be shorter at MVMCP, but not necessarily short. You go to MVMCP for the Christmas specific activities - stage shows, parades, fireworks/projections, ride overlays, snacks, etc…
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I went to MVMCP last December. We went to the parade, watched some shows, walked Main Street in the “snow”, watched the fireworks and about 8 attractions (including our fast passes). Oh! As a DVC member I got in early and we watched the FoF parade!
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I agree with this. But if you are looking for the special parade, fireworks and snow on Main Street, it is pretty amazing. But we were disappointed in the ride wait times (our expectations were not aligned with reality).
Last year, we picked the MVMCP day as our MK day (we weren’t planning on fireworks anyways and didn’t do MVMCP) and it the park was definitely a lower CL. Quieter time anyways (Nov 1st) but we did every single ride at Magic Kingdom between 7:25am and 2:34pm.
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I’m staying in downtown Disney
Hby?
For us MVMCP wasn’t worth the money even remotely because it rained and there were no back up options for the cancelled entertainment. We missed out on the parade (first one cancelled), Tomorrowland show, snow on main street, and then left before fireworks because the lines were too long and the park was unbearably crowded around the hub. The ride lines were shortest in the hours before the event started (5-6:30ish), and we had a nice, low CL morning prior to the party (even though it was raining in the morning, too).
Our experience was mostly just bad luck with the rain, but something to consider before putting down the non-refundable money! I emailed WDW afterwards about our experience and never heard back, which was a further disappointment. If rides are most important to you, I’d recommend DAH or going to MK before the party starts (and stay up to the time when they kick you out 
).
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but hope that helps you weigh your options!
I knew this was the right place for advice!!
I love the forum!! Thank you all for your excellent tested out suggestions 
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I have been to two rainy MNSSHPs. Both times I ended up having a great time! I think if it was my first time I would have felt very different .
I should add that we had two kids in strollers with us, which was a big factor. If it had just been older kids or adults, it would have been much easier to move around and less disappointing to miss the parade/characters. I also went in with high hopes based on trip reports from earlier years with fewer crowds/no rain, which added to feeling let down. Definitely agree it was not a good first time to go!
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We attended MVMCP the Tuesday after Thanksgiving 2018. It was chilly, but dry. We did the party instead of a park ticket day. We were in the park by 4:00, had some FPP, we were able to ride PotC, JC, HM, PP, PM, Buzz, and probably 4 more. We did the parade, stage show, fireworks, ran around collecting all of the treats, aND busing party merchandise… Crowds were mostly around Main Street and Fantasyland. When we were back in Adventureland and Liberty Square, seemed easy to get around. We were just 2 adults and closed the party. The worst part of the night was waiting for a bus, got on the 4th bus after getting in line, and that was for AKL. We had a great time, but I would not do it with DGDs who will be 2 and 4 yr the next trip.
Follow up question:
Would you consider going to MK (low CL) and then staying for MVMCP all in one day a good idea ?? We are 3 adults no kids
…Instead of doing it on two separate days
We’ve done it with 2 kids (10 and 6 at the time). It’s different for every family, but our family is an open-to-close every day of the trip family, so it worked for us. We’re definitely not a mid-day break family. We were actually ride-d out by 4:00 or so, because everything was practically a walk on all day (Friday after Thanksgiving week 2018), so we didn’t even use our dummy account FPs, so I can’t necessarily speak to the rides during the party. It did seem much, much busier when the party started though.
We were exhausted at the end of the party, having arrived about 3:30 to be in line to be admitted at 4:00. We were not back to AKL until after 1 a.m. We would not have lasted through the party if we had done ANY park before the party.
We did an early morning arrival and left MK around 1 for a nap break, then back to the park at 5ish. We left MVMCP around 9 and even the adults were pretty tired at that point! It really depends on the stamina of your group, but it is nice to be in MK on a low level morning like that, and I’m sure MVMCP really thins out towards the end of the evening. I would definitely recommend no early morning plans the following day though!
To me, it was worth the money, but not for the ride part of it. In fact, I only ended up riding a few things the whole night. There’s so much going on, it feels like riding the rides is taking time away from the party (the exceptions being the Speedway, Space Mountain, and other rides with a holiday ‘overlay’) .
2 shows (multiple showings), grabbing treats, parades, atmosphere (snow on Main Street) and fireworks ends up eating up almost all the time available. If it ends up raining and canceling anything, it can feel like a serious waste of money.
If your focus is on rides though, absolutely DAH is the better option. Everything at DAH is walkon short of maybe 7DMT (and in AK, Flight of Passage…because that intro takes forever). But even then, if you’re waiting more than 3-5 minutes to get on the ride, it’s an anomaly.
We went 11/14 and it was spectacular.
Second half of post 21 is our MVMCP event.
We went twice last year for the 1st time. It was a very magical time, even though it rained the 2nd night.
I wrote about it here: Two Nights of MVMCP Very Different Experiences For First Timers
Edited to add recent MVMCP stuff I included in trip reports. The trip reports recount the day so scroll down in both to get to the MVMCP.
Parties up to now have been packed and getting more packed.
Not sure how this year’s will pan out.
You can do a lot during a party, but not everything. You will have to prioritize and be ready to change directions if needed. And patience. Lots of patience.
I have the worst luck with the parties.
I’ve done MNSSHP once (it drizzled the whole time, parade delayed and with no headless horseman, fireworks delayed). And MVMCP three times — the first was magical, the second it rained and the third it poured so badly that Disney refunded the ticket price without argument.
I’m planning on doing MNSSHP in October this year. What could go wrong?
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I actually LOL’d. And I needed to.
What could go wrong indeed? At least ROTR isn’t in MK?