halloweentime – Remain Seated, Please

October 29, 2011September 23, 2017

Trip Report: October 22, 2011

What’s better than Disneyland on one’s birthday? Going the day BEFORE your birthday and reaping all the perks of it being your birthday. However, since this was a Saturday, we had to be strategic.

We showed up to the parks relatively early at about 1pm and took some great pictures of the halloween decor basking in the daylight of this warm October day. Boy do those colors pop!

My wife, Suzi, headed over to City Hall to grab a birthday pin for me and to try to get us a couple seats on the Lilly Belle while I headed over to Ghost Galaxy to get a fastpass for the evening. While she had no luck with the Lilly Belle seating, I was able to snag some 10pm fastpasses as well as this neat Captain EO preferred seating pass.

I had never seen these before but I love that they do surprises like this from time to time at the fastpass queues.

We then met up at Big Thunder Ranch BBQ for a little birthday lunch. Since most of our park visits are during the evening, we never get to eat at this daytime eatery but today was my special day and I wanted to gorge. And gorge we did! But not before our 45-minute wait time for a table. So, we used our time wisely and checked out the amazing pumpkin carving and goats next door at Big Thunder Ranch Halloween Roundup. There will be a post soon with all of the great pumpkins we saw but here’s a little sneak peak!

Just before we were sat for lunch, I admired the Norman Rockwell halloween art that was set up around the restaurant. I really love his style and I think this halloween work is among my favorite of his! It really captures the imagination and wonder and most importantly the emotion of the holiday through the eyes of these almost cherub-like children. Absolutely an amazing touch!

We were soon anxiously awaiting out meals with some great cowboy-style entertainment. The trio that was performing we had seen a couple years ago when we came over to the BBQ and they had some really great halloween tunes to share with everyone. It was really well organized and paced and the food was equally as amazing! This is definitely a once-a-year type of meal but wow what a meal! I even got a flour-less chocolate cake for dessert!

After lunch, we planned on riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad but unfortunately it was closed! Not sure what the problem was but we then headed over to Disney California Adventure. The construction in front is coming along nicely and the detour is becoming increasingly tolerable. The first attraction to which we headed for a fastpass was the appropriately halloween-y Tower of Terror. I am a new iPhone user so today, the MouseWait app was in full effect and super useful! Luckily it was only an hour wait so we headed into A Bug’s Land.

Suzi and I have planned for years to use the “Thank You” Chinese food box on Flick’s Flyers as our wedding gift “Thank You” cards. This is really well done for such a run-of-the-mill attraction. The details were on-point and the cast members, while chatty, really seemed to enjoy their jobs. They did some fun voices over the intercom system and even took Suzi and my photo in the Thank You box for us before take-off!

Just before we lifted off, the cast member controlling the ride made sure everyone in line and on the ride know that “today [was] a special day in A Bug’s Land because it’s David’s birthday!!!” It was really a nice touch and away we went for a circular tour of this corner of the land. It had some great views of the Tower at angles I had yet to see so I snapped a few shots off before we landed.

We then headed over to the Blue Sky Cellar to check out the new exhibits and new imagineer video. I really liked how this one was done — it was more of a forma documentary style and the filmmakers used a slider and some great voiceover for profiling each imagineer. And I am not sure if it’s new but the screen on which they show the film looked incredibly clear and vibrant! It was probably the best looking HD monitor I have ever seen.

After a tear-jerker of a cinematic experience, we wandered over to California Screamin’ when suddenly Suzi spotted Hollywood “celebutant” Ryan Philippe (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Flags of our Fathers, Cruel Intentions) who was there with his son. It was nice to see him without a plaid vested cast member — he was just out an about on his own. Screamin’ had quite the wait but we rode and it was great. Cars Land is really coming along and Screamin’ really offers some great views of it!

We then headed over to Suzi’s favorite DCA attraction, The Silly Symphony Swings. This is so fun at dusk because the sunset behind the Paradise Pier Hotel is always stunning — especially on a chilly autumn evening. The oranges and ambers really embody the Halloweentime spirit!

Before heading back to Disneyland, we redeemed our Tower of Terror fastpasses. One thing I always notice now is the ceiling of the tower and how clean it is compared to the walls and everything else. A co-worker pointed this out when she rode for her first time last year and it has stuck with me ever since. She put it this way, “… if Walt had created this attraction, he would have paid attention to every detail — including the ceiling of the Tower’s lobby scene!” I couldn’t agree more.

While riding, I saw one of the coolest things I have ever seen on the ride. Usually I hate when peiople bring on things that glow or a sword that lights up or something like that, but the girl in front of my just had one of those glowing necklaces. It didn’t blink, it wasn’t too bright, it just glowed green. When the mirror scene happened, we all disappeared into the 5th dimension, her necklace remained seemingly floating in place! It looked more like we had all become ghosts and one of the invisible ghosts was wearing a glow-y necklace! It was really neat and I would love to try it with a glow-y hat and glasses!

We then headed back over to Disneyland and went straight to redeem our Ghost Galaxy fastpasses. The fastpass line went all the way out past the Captain EO queue! It was so bazaar but after about 15 minutes, we were boarded. It was a great ride and as Robert had predicted, the hand that follows you has been put into place and follows along perfectly!

Unfortunately we were unable to ride Haunted Mansion Holiday, Indy, and even Jungle Cruise due to the crowds, but we were able to walk right into Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room. How was I wrong for so many years about this incredible attraction? Unfortunately, there was no Maynard on duty for the evening but a terrific show none the less and the perfect cherry on top of our wonderful visit to the happiest place on earth!

October 12, 2011

Disneyland Trip Report: Mickey’s Halloween Party

Last Friday, we went to Mickey’s Halloween Party at the Disneyland Resort! It was my first time going to the event.

We got to the parks a little early, so we headed over to DCA. Walking around Buena Vista Street, we could peek behind the walls and see a bit of construction going on. The whole street is torn up and being worked on. I’m so excited!

Carthay Circle Theatre is coming closer to completion and it is looking great. It will be one of the best structures in the entire Resort! I also noticed that the cable car posts are now in place. All of this Buena Vista Street construction is getting me so excited. The amount of detail going into that part of the park is going to be wonderful. I can’t wait for it to be finished!

The first attraction we visited was the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. What a better way to start our Halloween visit? The ride was excellent. I did notice that someone wrote their name in the dust on the table in the lobby though. How dare that “Mike”!

We then made our way to Disneyland to prepare for Mickey’s Halloween Party! While it was still daylight, we decided to walk around the park and look at different Halloween decorations. We saw the many blow up Mickey Ghosts and Pumpkins and the changes of Big Thunder Trail. We wanted to go visit Big Thunder Ranch, but it was already closed. We did get to see the cast members round up the goats though! That was very fun to watch. They opened their cage and they all came racing out.

In Frontierland, they also had the Halloween Tree set up from Ray Bradbury’s book. That was really great. It is a big tree filled with pumpkins and orange lights. It is an excellent tribute to a great man: Ray Bradbury.

Once the Party started, we walked around the park to take a look at everything at night. The Haunted Mansion had great lighting for the event, the Rivers of America was filled with fog, and Piratepalooza was in full effect. The Rivers of America looked so good. It was so neat to see it filled with that eerie fog.

We decided at that point to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. There was no line, so we got the very last seat. It was such a fun ride! There weren’t any changes for the Halloween event, besides some bats on the outside of the mountain in a mine shaft. That was pretty neat.

After our runaway train ride, we walked up Big Thunder Trail and everything looked so good at night. The lighting and fog was really effective. In the old Nature’s Wonderland cave, they had an eerie light and fog along with sound effects. Every once in a while, lighting would flash and thunder would sound. It was great! It was really great listening to Big Thunder Mountain in the background. It felt like the ghost train of Nature’s Wonderland was making its way toward us.

At that point, we got some more candy in Big Thunder Ranch and looked around the area. They have a ton of expertly carved pumpkins in the area including a hitchhiking ghost pumpkin. That one was my favorite. Take a look below at some others:

We then walked into Fantasyland and visited Pinocchio’s Daring Journey. It was an excellent ride of my favorite Disney animated film.

After we got off of Pinocchio, we saw that there wasn’t a wait for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, my favorite Fantasyland Dark Ride. I drove the motorcar, but I crashed into a train and we were sent to Hell.

During Mickey’s Halloween Party, they have several stations set up to take pictures with your favorite Disney characters. We decided to walk over to the Villains section and we took pictures with Honest John from “Pinocchio”, the Queen of Hearts from “Alice in Wonderland”, and the Queen from “Snow White”. The villains really stayed in character and made it fun for the waiting crowd.

It was then time for the Halloween fireworks. While the fireworks themselves were some of the best I have ever seen, I’m not so crazy about the audio that goes with it. I’m not a huge fan of the updated versions of classic Disney songs, especially the pop version of “Grim Grinning Ghosts”. Also, the person doing the voice of Jack Skellington doesn’t do the best impression. Besides that, it was still fun to see those amazing fireworks and to see Zero flying over the castle. By the way, the back side of the Castle looked so neat. It kept changing colors and it had a huge spider web projected on it!

After the fireworks, we went on Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy. Since the fireworks had just ended, the line was pretty short. The ride was fun and the ghost that follows your car is back. That’s my favorite part of the ride and that ghost wasn’t there when I went on it a couple weeks ago. But now he’s back!

When we were traveling through Tomorrowland, we saw that they were doing a photo op with Stormtroopers. So we got in line and took pictures them. See the result below:

While walking through the hub of Disneyland, on our way to Frontierland, I heard someone talking very loudly. I looked over and there was a live scarecrow talking to guests. It was really great and a good way to keep people entertained while waiting for the parade or fireworks to begin.

We stopped at Piratepalooza, which was playing “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”, and looked around. It was a neat little dance party and they had some pretty elaborate pirate skeleton set ups. One skeleton was dressed like Captain Jack Sparrow. It was a nice amount of detail for a temporary set up.

We were in Frontierland to get in line to take pictures with Halloween versions of Mickey and Minnie. They were dressed up in their Halloween best and welcomed us to take pictures with them. See below:

After getting even more candy, it was then time for the Haunted Mansion Holiday! The ride was just as great as ever. Our doombuggy stopped in the ballroom scene, so I was able to get a good picture of the new Gingerbread house. As much as I love the Haunted Mansion Holiday, I miss the regular Mansion already. I think that the Haunted Mansion Holiday should just be there for November and December and not include the Halloween season. But, I believe I’m in the minority with that thinking.

Even a Gingerbread House Could Be Scary!

Since we were already in New Orleans Square, we thought it would be a perfect time to get pictures with Jack and Sally from “Nightmare Before Christmas”. Take a look at the photos below:

With that, our Halloween trip ended. As we walked through Main Street on our way out, I noticed that City Hall had a huge spider web projected on it, much like the Castle’s web. It looked really neat. The entire event was fun, but I don’t think it’s something that I would do every year. It wasn’t different enough from a regular visit to Disneyland at night. The big selling point is that you go trick or treating and get as much candy as you want. If you love candy and want to do some early trick or treating, this event is for you!

September 23, 2011

Halloweentime 2011 Merchandise Offerings at Disneyland

This past weekend, Halloweentime 2011 kicked off at the Disneyland Resort. This year they pulled out all the merchandising stops with something for everyone!

Plenty of new Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise around the park. Fuzzy hats, hoodies, restocked pook-a-loos, new figure ornaments, and many more!

A few new bags and candy containers featuring a Mickey flaming pumpkin with controllable flashing lights, reusable tote with the exclusive 2011 Halloween print, and the return of the Mickey-o-lantern! Last years super popular Ghost Mickey popcorn bucket is back as well as a smaller and super cute lantern bucket with flash light. There is also a generic popcorn bucket with Mickey and Friends in their Halloween best as well as a personal fave and must have, the New Orleans Square exclusive Jack Skellington coffin popcorn bucket (which is also available at the French Market as a yummy sandwhich combo)! Two themed travel mugs depicting Mickey and Friends in Halloween costumes and another NOS exclusive Boggie’s Boys with Madame Leota in the seance room.

Various prepackaged and fresh baked Halloween goods are scattered around the park. Pumpkin Fudge, Halloween rice crispie treats, ghost and pumpkin sugar cookies, lollipops, pumpkin muffins, Mickey Bat cookies, spiced apple cider, pumpkin spice latte and in NOS a Jack Skellington chocolate coffin cake to name a few.

Sprinkle Sugar Cookies in Collectible Tin

Mickey Bat Cookie and Halloween Sugar Cookie

This years threads showcase a few new shirts for the whole family as well as some nifty and spooky Disney witches hats, headbands and caps. Also added to the bunch, Ghost Galaxy t-shirts!

For the home, there are battery operated votive candles, 2011 Halloween print flag and place mat, Pumpkin Mickey votive candle holder, a few new statues from Jim Shore and Enesco as well as HMH lenticular framed Sally, bone wreath, and many more!

Halloweentime at Disneyland is here until October 31st!

Below is a photo gallery of some more items Disneyland has to offer during Halloweentime.