Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party

I had very high expectations of Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party when I bought the tickets. For the extra amount of money it cost me, I would have liked to walk out of the park with some gold coins in my trick-or-treat bag. Alas, all I ended up with was candy, but the experience overall was better than I expected.

The night that we went, Disney closed the Magic Kingdom to regular visitors at 7 PM and opened up the entrance for party visitors at the same time. I was wondering how they were going to manage stopping people from sneaking into the party and I got my answer once we went through the ticketing gate. There were Cast Members just past the gate that put a wristband on us to signify that we were there for the party. There were also a few times in the park where we were stopped before we were allowed to enter an area when Cast Members would check for the wristband. I’m not sure that it completely stopped everyone from sneaking into certain areas of the Magic Kingdom during the party, but it was a decent effort.

Cinderella's Castle at Night

One thing to be aware of is that there are huge crowds for this event. I thought we might be safe by going on a Tuesday, but the Magic Kingdom was still full of people. It took quite a while to make it down Main Street. Once we did, we headed over to Cinderella’s Castle because my cousin and her daughters were at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, getting their princess makeovers. The Boutique was a bit backed up, so my Mom and I took the boys over to Fantasyland to begin trick-or-treating. We had a map showing the trick-or-treat locations, but I have to be honest when I say that I thought this was the weakest part of the evening. Having not been to the Magic Kingdom in 21 years, I was not overly familiar with the park layout. The Halloween Party map was not as detailed as the regular Magic Kingdom map and I had a lot of trouble finding the trick-or-treat locations. So much, that I told the boys that I wasn’t looking anymore and that I’d buy them a bag of candy from Target when we got back to Michigan. In lieu of the treats, I let them ride a bunch of rides in Fantasyland and they seemed happy with that.

Once the girls were done at the Boutique, we headed to the front of Cinderella’s Castle to get ready for the 9:30 PM fireworks. They had a lot of live entertainment going on in front of the castle that my boys loved. My son John is a huge fan of the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and he loved that they were playing a bunch of music from that movie. He was very cute when he was dancing in the streets during the party. Once the fireworks began, I forgot my earlier frustration over the candy and sat back to enjoy the show. I have to say, Disney really knows how to do fireworks right. The show was beautiful and I loved how they timed the music to everything. Well done, Disney, well done.

Fireworks behind the Castle

After the fireworks show, it was time to line up for the special Halloween themed parade that started at 10:30 PM. It was a very cute parade and the boys were dancing along with the music. I wish I could have gotten better pictures from it, but I’m still learning how to use my new camera and most of the shots of that came out blurry.

John dancing to the music

Once the parade was over I would have liked to stay at the park and ride some of the rides, but my little guys were exhausted. In retrospect, I’m not sure it was a good idea to keep them up so late when we had been spending so much time exploring other attractions during the day. I think that they really enjoyed the experience, but I probably wouldn’t do it again until they are old enough to be able to make it through the entire evening.

Start of the parade

Overall, I’d have to say that I enjoyed Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. There are a few things that I would change, but those things wouldn’t stop me from visiting again. Now that I’ve been once, I know what to expect the next time I buy tickets for something like this at Disney. If you can overlook the crowds and some general disorganization, you should have a good time.

Laura…

These adorable guys were hanging all over the park!

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 30th, 2011 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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