Now I am officially ready for Halloween. While I wasn’t ready for September to be over, one night at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and I am all about October – it’s HALLOWEEN TIME!
Even though I have lived here my whole life, and I am a HUGE Disney fan, for one reason or another I had never been to the Halloween Party. Gasp! So this year, we were determined to go (well, I was!). We invited friends to join us, and we set off for a late night.
If you don’t know about Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, it is a special event at the Magic Kingdom – not included with regular admission. On select nights in September and October, Mickey and his gang close the park early for a rockin’ Halloween party. Contrary to its scary counterpart over at Universal, Mickey’s party is family-friendly, not-so-scary and tons of fun for kids and parents a like. The party runs from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. — LATE for little pumpkins, but totally worth it.
Since it is a Halloween party, everyone gets all dressed up (including the characters). Some of the guests go ALL out. We decided our girls would be fitting princesses, so dressed in matching Cinderella dresses the girls were ready to party.
I really didn’t know how into it adult guests would be so I went with simple, wearing my new rhinestone Halloween shirt. I love my shirt, but sometimes I wished I had gone in costume… Although I did end up wearing my daughters “ears” most of the night.
If you have never been, you might be wondering what separates this night from any other at Disney, let me tell you – A LOT! First of all, it is not near as crowded as a normal day at Disney (although I understand it is already sold out for the days leading up to Halloween, it still isn’t normal day-time capacity). Hello, no lines!!! Second, everyone is decked out in costumes (already mentioned that). Third, the most amazing Halloween parade! (Having never seen this parade, I was THRILLED to see some of the unusual characters in this parade including the Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, lots of Villains and more. Fourth, trick or treat stations are located throughout the park. And finally, TONS of character picture spots.
From the moment you walk into the park you are greeted with haunting music from the Haunted Mansion and tons of staff. I am always impressed with Disney staff, but this night was exceptionally good. You might expect mad chaos as an entire park is cleared out to make room for new guests, but it was orderly and logical. And throughout the night there was extra staff on hand playing games with guests, blowing bubbles, and just mingling. It was really like a big ole party!
Of course, our first stop was the first meet and great with Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger and Piglet. For you Disney fans, they are all together for 1 picture! If you don’t know, that never happens. I am not sure our friends were quite as excited to stop for EVERY character spot as I was, but they patiently waited with us and smiled for pictures.
A note about pictures. My big oops of the night was forgetting to charge my camera so about 30 mins into the park I realized my battery was dying. Luckily, since we were just at Disney 2 weeks ago, we purchased a full photopass CD of all of our trip pictures and since you can add pictures from your trip up to 30 days a part… So we let the Disney photogs take our pictures at every chance. I have briefly looked at them and they are fantastic. If you plan on buying these photos, you can pre-buy the CD for $99 or buy it after your trip for $130. (Guess what I did?) Since ordering pics individually costs $15 a pop, I totally recommend the CD! (I’ll share a couple of those pics when we get them!) The photopass cards from the Halloween party also include a special coupon code for 40% off Halloween photo gifts. Another great incentive, and I am sure I will use it to buy something else!
We had our pictures taken with
- Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger & Piglet
- The Princesses with their Princes (also a rare treat)
- Donald & Daisy (another special treat)
- Minnie & Mickey (of course)
- Aladin & Abu
For you Snow White fans – all 7 dwarfs are available together for photos! We also saw Buzz Lightyear, Timone, Jane (from Tarzan), Anastasia, Drizella and Lady Tremaine and more!
Here’s the amazing part. With all of the exciting things going on, our girls stayed up the whole time and they were GREAT! No crazy meltdowns. Everyone had a fantastic time. It was truly a magical evening. I can’t wait to go to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party!
Disclosure – I was provided tickets for my family to attend the Halloween party to facilitate this review, however, all thoughts and opinions are my own. THANKS Disney!