It does happen so it's certainly possible, though I think the fact that they have a countdown might make it less likely than previous events that have just listed an end date.

I'm only 900 bells away from the island so I'm changing my neighbor strategy to only tap on cannons and hatches. Since it's not critical for me to earn my own bells, I don't even have to abide by the 30-town limit--I'll just hit all the towns that have those two items available. After I make one pass through, I can make another pass later and see if the cannon is again free for my third tap of the day.

Hopefully then you can save some taps for the rest of us. Frickin cannon hog!
You could probably just coast to the finish line just firing off your own cannon.
I've slowed down, once I get pass the 5/10 bell rewards I stop visiting neighbors. Very bored with this part 2 xmas event. It is rather tedious and not very rewarding/fun. I will probably finish this a day or two early, just over 20200 currently.

I just now got the island. I figured I'd get it, but it would be close, as I reached the point where it was a struggle to jar up enough elves to do three cannon shots. I was only having one or two elves to spare and waiting longer than the standard recharge before shooting again. And I'm more or less an hourly-ish player. It's gotta suck for those unable to tap that often. I agree that as the cannon upgraded more elves should trickle into your town more often.

Anyway, now the quest is to get 4000 bells in exchange for an undetermined amount of donuts, but I don't think that's going to happen for me. I'll still be visiting everyone and hitting their cannons and elf hatches, though.

Feel free to beat me to tapping others' cannons!

My strategy is to only tap the items that will give bells to *those town-owners*. If the owners are active, the cannons/hatches will be available again soon anyway. Earlier I *was* leaving cannons untapped if I wasn't earning bells anymore, but I figured I was simply shorting the owners who might not get those items tapped by anyone else. For all I know, they might not have any other friends! . So I figure I'll just help the town owners without worrying about what else might happen. I can leave bells on the table for myself since I just got the island and probably won't hit the donut bonus.

If that makes me a cannon hog, so be it!

I get so many more bells by only tapping on the cannon and the tunnel than I do by just clicking on random bells; I do however go though all my friends several times per day, but it does go by pretty fast since I am only looking for two items.

Just reached that point, where you need to really look for elves

At least I'm at 22,000 bells, so hopefully it shouldn't be that hard. I need 39 elves every 2.5 hours.

I finally burned through my elf backlog, but it was just as I got to 22,500.

In one hour I shall fire my cannon for the final time and claim my island!

And I got my island!

Last night I didn't have enough elves for my last shot, but this morning my Springfield was full. I visited my neighbors and was able to get to 25K bells.

Tip: If you are visiting your neighbors, and get to 25K, stop there and go back to your Springfield immediately. So you can get your island and start the new task, get 4000 bells for donuts. Any bells you get from your neighbors won't count, unless you start that task. I "lost" 30 bells that way.

Looks like the event has been extended for a day. I got the island and one 4000 bonus so I was ready to be done, but hopefully some of you have a better chance at prizes now.

...and of course I didn't tap this weekend thinking I wouldn't get an extension. Silly me. Is the island cool? I may be just shy of it but EA customer service gave me an extra 40 donuts for a snafu they put me through. I might be close enough to snag it for 15 or so donuts. Worth it?

It's kind of cool-looking, and there's a brief quest for it, but it doesn't do anything. I myself probably wouldn't spend for it. Of course it depends on how many donuts you have, what you've already bought and what you might buy instead, etc.

That was a lot of work for a useless island, at least have one of the characters do something on the island.

Yeah, after I sent Homer on the suntan lotion mission, I went to the island expecting to see him there. When he wasn't, I thought maybe he'd go there for the second part of the quest line, but no, that's the only mission.

Then there's the Sequel Stop, which has a cool animation whenever anyone's inside -- but once you finish the quest, none of the characters have any activities there.

Seems like for the last few events all the cool buildings have been premium items (Drive-in, Ice Castle, King Winter's Cave) while the winnable stuff is really lackluster.

I got my first donuts from getting an extra 4,000 bells this morning. Now I'm ready to be done.

Was able to just get enough Bells for the island. Phew. I'm done with this event.

2000 bells away from the next donut bonus, 100 cogs away from getting cannon upgrade #16 out of the goal of 20--yeah, I'm done. I'm taking one last pass through my neighbors' cannons.

New update in the apple app store.

That update took forever for me to download. Lots and lots of force closing and restarting.

It's so weird to see my Springfield all green again. Guess it's time to take my Christmas decorations down.

You can just hit the festive light plunger and it'll turn everything off. I'll probably switch my houses back manually, but I don't need to. It's like leaving the house lights up all year!

Nice to have the Kwik-E-Marts back as well.

side-show me in krusty land is back as well.

I just got a pop-up notification that my town was full of elves and I needed to clear them out.

So who has bought the castle?

Pass. If I want a castle for Lisa I'll bring the Clash of Crowns one out of storage.

I still have Gil donuts left, but I'd prefer to spend them on buildings with characters since I have very few of those.

Slick: The plunger actually DOES change all the buildings to non-Christmas status.